Inventing a History for a "palestinian people" that never existed in history

David Bukay describes and explains the PLO/PA strategy of erasing the Jews, erasing Israel, from the history of the Land of Israel and replacing them with a concocted "palestinian history."

Bukay writes:
"Rewriting the history of the Land of Israel by erasing Jewish history and replacing it with a fabricated Palestinian history is a central goal of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and something that the early generations of Palestinian leaders, including the notorious Hajj Amin Husseini, who led the Palestinian Arabs to their 1948 defeat, dared not do. This fictitious history, which ignores all historical documentation and established historical methods, is based on systematic distortions of both ancient and modern history with the aim of denying Israel's right to exist. . . ."

Click on link for rest of article:
Founding National Myths

I comment on some of the points that Bukay makes:

1-- The PLO/PA claims that the Canaanites were Arabs. This lie is also found in certain anti-Zionist British writers active years before the rise of the State of Israel in 1948. In fact, far from speaking Arabic, the Canaanites spoke a language extremely close to Hebrew. Indeed, linguists sometimes consider Hebrew as a Canaanite dialect. Otherwise, linguists say that Hebrew belongs to the Canaanite family of languages. The Prophet Isaiah calls the language spoken by the Jews to be Canaanite [Isa. 19:18]. Josephus Flavius says that the Jews speak a Phoenician tongue [Against Apion]. But the Phoenicians were of course Canaanites too, not Arabs. Besides Hebrew and Phoenician, the Canaanite family of languages encompassed Ammonite, Moabite, and Edomite. Our post here shows some of the linguistic similarities between Hebrew and Ammonite and Moabite.

2- Bukay refers to verses in the Quran that agree with Jewish/Israelite rightful ownership of the Land of Israel, called Holy Land and other names in the Quran. See here.

3- Jund Filastin which Bukay mentions was the name of a military district set up by the Arab conquerors in the seventh century. Its borders were about the same as those of Palaestina Prima, a Late Roman subdivision of the country which encompassed, roughly speaking, the south of the country, up to about the middle of Samaria and on the coast reaching up to near Haifa. Jund Filastin did not include the Galilee or the Golan Heights or northern Samaria which the Romans had, grosso modo, called Palaestina Secunda whereas the Arabs included those areas within Jund Urdunn, the Jordan military district.

4- On the Arab denial of Jewish history also see the manic efforts of Nadia Abu el-Haj here & here. When I visited the old Shim`on haTsadiq Quarter in Jerusalem, I ran into the leader of an Arab protest there, a Mr Hijazi, who likewise denied the Jewish history of that area of Jerusalem. The name Hijazi by the way refers to the Hijaz, the northwestern region of Arabia where Mecca and Medina are located. This indicates that Mr Hijazi's forefathers were migrants to the Land of Israel.

5- The ancient Jews did not call the Land of Israel "palestine," nor did the Romans call it that. The Romans called the whole country Judea [IVDAEA] until the Jewish defeat in the Bar Kokhba war in 135 CE, whereas the Jews called the country the Land of Israel. The Emperor Hadrian introduced "palestine" as the new name for the land of the defeated Jews. More exactly Hadrian called the land "Syria Palaestina" [= palestinian Syria; Palaestina is an adjective] as if it were to be considered from then on a mere section of Syria. Even after the Romans under Hadrian had officially changed the name of the country, the Jews continued to call it the Land of Israel.

6- The Arab historian and sociologist Ibn Khaldun confirms that the Land of Israel was Jewish and ruled by Jews. See here.

The Tomb of Simon the Just [Shimon haTsadiq] in Jerusalem, a focus of Jewish pilgrimage for centuries

The enemies of Israel and the Jewish people are now working feverishly in high gear. Among other things, they falsify, even deny, Jewish history. The fanatical hatred of our enemies goes so far as to deny that Jews were ever a nation or ever in the Land of Israel or that modern Jews have any ancestral connection with ancient Jews. One of the current denials perpetrated by Arabs who deny the Jewish history of Jerusalem is the denial of Jewish holy places and Jewish residence in various place before 1947-48, when Jews were driven out of their homes in what became Judenrein "East Jerusalem" under Arab rule.

When the controversy over Jewish-owned real estate in the old Shim`on haTsadiq Quarter of Jerusalem erupted [here] in mid-summer of 2009, I visited the area and interviewed the spokesman for a group of Arabs belonging to a family, some of whom had been evicted from a house there for refusing to pay rent to the Jewish owners, the Sefardic Community Council. A group from this family were sitting outside a house where some of them had been living before being evicted. Other family members lived elsewhere in the city.

This spokesman, al-Hijazi by name, as he told me, changed his story several times as I showed that I had information about the history of the site. When I said that Jews said that the Tomb of Simon the Just [Shim`on haTsadiq שמעון הצדוק ] was on the site, he claimed that Simon's tomb was really in Jish Village in the north, that is, in the Galilee. Jish Village כפר ג'יש was called in ancient times by the Hebrew name Gush Halav גוש חלב, distorted by the Arab pronunciation of Jish, with the second word, Halav, left out. The spokesman's name al-Hijazi indicates a family origin in the Hijaz, northwestern Arabia, where Mecca and Medina are located.

As we spoke, we were both sitting about 100-150 feet away and slightly downhill from the location of the Tomb --which always has some visitors/pilgrims around-- although our view of the tomb, located in a cave, was obscured by Arab houses built on the Shimon haTsadiq plot [about 18 dunams = 4 1/2 acres]. Arab houses were built on the plot about 1955 at the initiative of the Jordanian custodian of enemy property. That is, Jewish-owned property under Jordanian control between 1948 and 1967 was considered enemy property by Jordan. Furthermore, Jordan did not allow Jews to visit Jewish holy places under Jordanian control in that period, in violation of the Israel-Transjordan armistice accord of 1949. [Transjordan changed its name to Jordan circa 1950]

The houses built by Arabs circa 1955 are on a flood plain, that of the upper Qidron creek [Nahal Qidron or Kidron נחל קדרון] which is usually dry. When I responded to al-Hijazi that there was an old synagogue uphill [it is on a cliff over Simon's Tomb] with an old Hebrew inscription on it [see here], he claimed that the area had been a quarry before 1948. This was a ridiculous claim, although there is an adjacent plot where ground had been dug out for construction purposes. I believe that that plot was dug out only after 1967. When I said to al-Hijazi [we spoke Hebrew]: The Jews say that Jews lived here before 1948,
he answered: Not true [לא נכון]!!

So much for the credibility of Arab witnesses. I must say that al-Hijazi had the trimmed short beard typical of Hamas believers and most likely supported Hamas rather than Fatah.

What is most outrageous is that in much or most of the media coverage of the controversy over the Shim`on haTsadiq Quarter, it is never mentioned that Simon's Tomb was a focus of Jewish pilgrimage for centuries, especially on the Lag b`Omer holiday, like the tomb of Shim`on bar Yohai in the Galilee at Meron, which attracts much much larger crowds on Lag b`Omer. Here are three illustrated, illuminated tables of Jewish holy places in the Land of Israel that show that it was considered a Jewish holy place and a focus of pilgrimage centuries ago. These illustrated, illuminated tables were exhibited by the Israel Museum in a show in Winter-Summer 1996, two years before 1998 when Jews came back to live in some of the old Jewish homes from which Jews had been driven in December 1947 [one family stayed until the 8th to the 10th of January 1948. Their date of flight is uncertain to a surviving family member]. These tables show the long-standing Jewish reverence for this tomb.

The illustration above shows the Tomb of Shim`on haTsadiq in the lower right corner. Unfortunately, the original document suffered a crease going through the letter shin [ש ] of the name Shimon [שמעון]. The picture shows the tomb or tomb marker [ ציון] inside a cave, which is correct. The table was published in 1659 [click on photo to enlarge].

In this illustration, the tomb of Shim`on haTsadiq [here the name's two parts are in reverse order: צדיק שמעון ] appears at the left middle of the table, just below the depiction of the Western Wall כותל מערבי [Wailing Wall] and between the names of the Sanhedrin tombs [here: שבעים סנהדרין ] and Kalba Savu`a [ כלבא שבוע ], a former name for what is now called the Tombs of the Kings, a Jewish holy and historical site under French government control under the name Tombeau des Rois. The location of the tomb's name on the table shows that it was in Jerusalem, along with the other sites mentioned just above and adjacent to Shim`on haTsadiq on the table. The table dates to the Hebrew year TAQPAH [ תקפ''ה ]. That is, 1824-1825 on the Gregorian calendar. The table is drawn with watercolor and ink on paper and was made in the Land of Israel.

On this table, the name Shimon haTsadiq appears on the left side on the second tier from the bottom. This table is dated to 1829-1830 [the year on the Hebrew calendar תק''ץ]. It too was produced in the Land of Israel and is watercolor and ink on paper.

The attack on Jewish history in general and Jewish history in the Land of Israel in particular is common in English-speaking countries, especially Britain and the United States, it seems to me. See my post on the Financial Times out of London [here]. The FT, a pro-capitalism, pro-free market newspaper, was trying to promote the asinine and wildly dishonest book of Shlomo Sand, a Communist on the faculty of the University of Tel Aviv. Sand claims that the Jewish people was "invented" in the 19th century. Nadia Abu el-Hadj, a degree-holding "anthropologist" ["palestinian" Arab by her background] appointed to the Columbia University faculty in New York, despite many objections, denies aspects of the history of Second Temple Times [here & here]. The assault is happening now. Among other venues of attack, Arab nationalists, Islamists, anti-national Israelis, American and other Western apologists for Arab terrorism have seized on the issue of the Shimon haTsadiq neighborhood in Jerusalem.

This endeavor to eliminate Jewish history is obviously an obstacle to peace.

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source of illustrations:
Rachel Sarfati, ed., Offerings from Jerusalem: Portrayals of Holy Places by Jewish Artists
(Jerusalem: The Israel Museum 2002)

Semi-Official German Spokesman Wants to Promote the Nazi-like Hamas; His Office Is Near the Nazi Mufti's Former Property

UPDATING 8-21-2009 PHOTOS ADDED&8-2-2011

Anti-Zionism is the anti-imperialism of fools

The Shimon haTsadiq area of Jerusalem has been much in the news lately. Here is a German connection to the neighborhood besides the link to Hitler's Arab helper, Haj Amin el-Husseini.

Very close to the Tomb of Simon the Just, an ancient Jewish sage, and the former Shepherd's Hotel, a plot of real estate formerly owned by Haj Amin el-Husseini, who belonged to a wealthy Jerusalem Arab family that enjoyed a privileged status in the Ottoman imperial governing class, we can find, if we go off Mt Scopus Road downhill towards the Nahal Qidron [the Qidron seasonal watercourse], theJerusalem offices of the German-government-linked Friedrich Ebert Stiftung [foundation]. The Germans conduct business in a large mansion, not noticed from the road, which is on about the same level as the tiny homes in the old Jewish quarter of Shimon haTsadiq, named after Simon the Just, above and adjacent to his presumed tomb, which is in a cave below a cliff further down the hillside towards the Qidron. While Transjordan, later called Jordan, ruled this part of Jerusalem, Jews could not pray at Simon's Tomb which had for centuries been a focus of Jewish pilgrimage, especially on the holiday of Lag b'Omer in the spring. According to the 1949 Rhodes armistice agreement, Jews were supposed to have access to Jewish holy places under Jordanian [in 1949, this was still Transjordanian] control. In fact, Jews did not have access to any of the Jewish holy places under Jordanian control, neither in Hebron, nor in Bethlehem, nor in Jerusalem. However, as far as Arabs and Western powers are concerned, agreements with Jews do not have to be honored. As President Obama has demonstrated by arrogantly denying even the existence of the agreement on settlement building between the United States, represented by President Bush, and Israel, represented by PM Sharon.

The Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, named after a German socialist leader of the 1920s, is German-government connected and partly funded by it. It takes a very pro-Arab line in the conflict with Israel. Meanwhile, the Germans deploy another foundation, the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, which is more or less pro-Israel and cooperates with such Israeli bodies as the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs which publishes studies of current issues in and relating to Israel, usually quite reliable. So the Germans quite cleverly play on both sides of the street, both sides of the conflict. The Ebert Stiftung is very pro-Arab while the Adenauer Stiftung, named after the first non-Nazi leader of West Germany [the Federal Republic] after WW2 and the Holocaust, is somewhat pro-Israel. Perhaps the Adenauer operatives would be more pro-Israel if good manners and bon ton in the EU allowed that.

This is a directional sign pointing to the Ebert Stiftung offices up the street and to the right side of the street [on the downhill slope]. The building in the background behind the trees was once the residence of the wealthy Nashashibi Arab family. Opposite, that is behind the back of the photographer, is the Jewish quarter named after Simon the Just, Shim`on haTsadiq שמעון הצדיק. Photos of that quarter will appear in another blogpost. This street location is where the convoy of doctors and nurses going to Hadassah Hospital was ambushed in April 1948. More than 70 Jewish medical staff were massacred here on that occasion. British troops at the scene refused to intervene to stop the slaughter.

The Ebert Stiftung not only supports the PLO and its Palestinian Authority offshoot but has now come out for Hamas. Hamas openly calls for the mass murder of Jews, which Hitler never did. Hitler only supplied reasons for mass murdering Jews, leaving it to his listeners' imaginations to take the next logical step, although Hitler did warn/threaten on a couple of occasions that another world war in Europe would lead to the extermination of the Jews. He was of course also blaming the future war on the Jews, the main victims of that war, while exculpating Germany and himself. Just as the New York Times and other mouthpieces for American policy do today. As to Friedrich Ebert, he, like Hitler, called himself a socialist. Hitler's party was the National Socialist German Workers Party [National Sozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter Partei], while Ebert was a social democrat. Ebert's party's name was not quite as impressive as was Hitler's party name. Hitler's party was not only socialist but a party of the workers, maybe like those British and Canadian trade unions that have called for boycotting Israel. Anyhow, what was wrong with the German National Socialists? They were socialists, weren't they?

This is the entrance gate to the Ebert foundation offices. Steps going down to the building where the offices are located. The photo faces south.

Michael Bröning (director of the East Jerusalem office of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung) is eager to bring the Hamas, Arab National Socialists from the point of view of their chosen enemy, the Jews, and their blood thirst regarding the Jews, into the "peace process." Like peace of course, the word socialist can have many meanings, one thing and its opposite. Bröning

cites the group’s [Hamas'] recent downplaying of the relevance of its own charter as a telltale sign that Hamas is turning around or even “growing up.” To be sure, the rhetoric of Hamas leaders has visibly changed in public statements. But in focusing on these statements alone, Bröning misses the real point: Hamas’s words have changed, but their actions have not. Hamas cannot be judged on the basis of its choice of vocabulary alone. Neither the relevance of each and every part of the Hamas charter (which Hamas leaders have expressly refused to revoke or update) nor the public statements of its leaders deserve as much weight as what the group actually does in judging whether or not it has truly evolved. The approach of solely examining what the group says, rather than what the group does—the approach upon which Bröning has relied—dangerously disregards Hamas’s actions on the ground.
[Matthew Levitt, in a critique of Bröning here]

This makes sense, especially since Bröning does not quote the bloodthirsty passages from the Hamas Charter in his own article on the website of the old tribune of the US foreign policy establishment, Foreign Affairs. He talks about the charter but does not quote it. Rather coy of Bröning, n'est-ce pas? Does he feel he must hide something

The Charter blames the Jews and Israel for various 20th century wars and other ills, much in the spirit of the Judeophobic forgery/plagiarism, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Indeed, the charter refers explicitly and approvingly to the Protocols. This alone places Hamas in the Judeophobic camp of the German National Socialists whose rhetoric was similar. Hamas goes further however. Article 7 of the Charter quotes a medieval Muslim hadith to the effect that, at Judgement Day, the Muslims will kill the Jews, who will hide behind rocks and trees. The rocks and trees in turn will call out. O Muslim, a Jew is hiding behind me. Come kill him.

This is clear incitement to murder Jews en masse. The German Nazis never were so explicit in public. Here we have a group that is more explicit, franker, more candid than the Nazis. They say it openly and they practice the principle when they can, as often as they can. And they express disappointment when they do not succeed. Of course, some may say that the mass murder of Jews is only for Judgement Day. But as Matthew Levitt says, this approach "disregards Hamas’s actions on the ground." They have murdered Jews en masse in the past, albeit in relatively small numbers compared to the Sunni Muslim slaughter of Shi`i Muslims in Iraq. But the small numbers were due to military conditions on the ground in Israel that have limited Hamas' numerical success. Nevertheless, the slaughter of hundreds at a time, as in Iraq, of thousands in a day as in Nazi German death camps, remains the Hamas' gold standard, as it were, its true avowed and unabashed goal.

May we compare Hamas to another Sunni Muslim ally of Germany? The Ottoman Empire massacred an estimated 1 1/2 million Armenians during WW One [1914-1918] and probably about one-half million from 1880 up to WW One [1914]. This is the most fitting comparison or benchmark for measuring Hamas' true aims, immoral capacities, and proclivities. During the Armenian Genocide [1914-1918], the Ottoman state, in which Palestinian Arabs held high posts, was supported --in the genocide too-- by the German Empire [the Second Reich] and by the Germanic Austrian Habsburg Empire. Even if the history were not as it is, should the Jews have to "coexist" [even if possible] with a body that openly declares that mass murder of Jews is its religious and political objective, in accord with medieval Muslim prejudices, passions and hates???

To be sure, Bröning makes light of the Charter. Well, then there is the constant hate agitation and indoctrination performed by Hamas in Gaza's Hamas-run schools, mosques, "university," TV, radio, press, etc. As to the Charter, Bröning pretends that it no longer has meaning for Hamas. Perhaps just as German politicians in 1933 argued that Mein Kampf and all the National Socialist prejudices, hates, and passions, no longer had meaning for Hitler and his followers. Avoiding mention of the Charter's call to genocide, Bröning writes that those who reject Hamas participation in the "peace process":

bolster their argument by referring to the Hamas charter, the group's 1988 founding manifesto, which outlines a militant doctrine aimed at "liberating the land of Palestine" by force and invokes such anti-Semitic tracts as "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion."
However, such critics fail to grasp the transformation currently taking place within Hamas. Today, the charter has ceased to play a significant role in the group's ideology. As early as 1990, Hamas began to distance itself from the document, which has since fallen into neglect. Although Hamas has not officially renounced the charter, no references to it can be found in any of the group's recent statements. Moreover, Hamas leaders, such as Mahmoud Ahmad al-Ramahi, the secretary-general of the Palestinian Legislative Council, have recently begun downplaying the charter's relevance by clarifying that "it should not be confused with the Holy Koran."

Maybe al-Ramahi is a true moderate. Or maybe he and other Hamas leaders are downplaying or concealing their bloody goals of conquest and mass murder, like Hitler. Maybe Comrade Bröning --we can call him Comrade since he is a social democrat-- is being coy. He calls Hamas' doctrine "militant," not terrorist, mass murderous, genocidal. Is Bröning being naive? Is he ignorant? Did Article 7 escape his attention? Hence, Bröning misrepresents even what the Charter says and stands for. This is aside from the issue of whether the Charter no longer guides Hamas' action.
Maybe Bröning does not know that the Nazis did not merely look on passively as the French fought over policy towards Hitler's territorial demands. They actively cultivated the French public in order to lull it into complacency, just as the Hamas in the future might issue a reassuring declaration to the Jews of Israel. For the purpose of lulling the French, Nazi Germany initiated the Franco-German Declaration of Friendship of 6 December 1938, two months after the disastrous Munich Conference. The war began less than a year later at the culmination of the pre-World War 2 "peace process."

The Hamas is more frankly genocidal than Hitler and his Nazis ever were. And now, Western politicians and policymakers and diplomats, like Bröning, want to wash up the Hamas' filthy face and make it presentable in decent Western company. But there is no reason for Jews to believe in the decency of "decent Western company" given the EU record of succoring Arab genocidists, even those who murder their Christian brothers in the Arab domain. We ought to also bear in mind Western behavior in the pre-WW2, pre-Holocaust period. Can we now deny or refuse to believe that Western Europe is coming back to its old self as far as Jews are concerned?
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Michael Bröning's article here.
Hamas Charter here.
Analysis of the Hamas Charter here.
Matthew Levitt's analysis of Bröning's piece here.

On the Franco-German Friendship Declaration of 6 December 1938, see:Wolfgang Geiger, "La Declaration Franco-Allemande du 6 decembre 1938; Un Evenement sous estime," Les Temps Modernes (Aout-Octobre 1999).
8-2-2011 NGO Monitor on German govt funding for the Ebert Stiftung [here]