Shlomo Sand's Lies Don't Go Away

Shlomo Sand has become the Great White Hope of the anti-Zionists. Sand, a Communist, claims that the Jews of today are not descended from ancient Jews but from just about anybody but the ancient Jews. He needs this to sustain the anti-Zionist effort to delegitimize Zionism, which Communists, like himself, have opposed since the days of Lenin and Stalin. After all, Zionism is a liberation movement of the Jewish people. If there was no Jewish people, then what was the reason for Zionism? Well, the Jewish religion has always viewed the Jews, often called Israel or People of Israel in the ancient writings, as an ethnic or national group as well as a religion. The Biblical books are in part a history of the people of Israel. Later, after the deportation by the Assyrians of most of the population of the Ten northern Tribes, the history of the remainder of the people, the Jews, originally the inhabitants of the Kingdom of Judah, later called Iudaei by the Romans. The Jewish prayers too consider the Jews --also called Israel-- as a people or nation. Hence, the belief in the existence of the Jewish people has existed for three thousand years at least, wherever the traditional prayers were recited and the Bible and other ancient Jewish literature was studied.

But anti-Zionists, who pretend to believe in national self-determination in principle, need the denial of a Jewish people, at least in modern times. At the same time, Sand, as a Communist or Communazi, needed to prove that there is no Jewish people today in order to justify not only his anti-Zionism but in order to vindicate Stalin. One of the scientific obstacles to arguing against the continuity of the ancient Jews with modern Jews is a series of some dozen to two dozen genetic studies that indicate such a continuity. Of course, no genetic scientist argues that the Jews are a pure race or that Arabs are a pure race and the like. What they can do is show the similarities in modal DNA for Jews from different geographic regions ranging from Morocco to Minsk, from Berlin to Baghdad, etc. Scientific genetic studies have shown this as well as Jewish DNA resemblances to Syrian and Lebanese Arabs, even to Palestinian Arabs, to Armenians, and --to a lesser extent-- to Kurds, Greeks, Italians and Turks [the modern Turks of Turkey are actually mainly descended from peoples living in Anatolia before the Turkish conquest, including Greeks, Armenians, Kurds, Jews, etc., as well as from Arab and Turkish nomad invaders]. So Sand and his cohorts have to get over the obstacle of scientific genetic research.

On the other hand, Arab Muslims do not need the pretext of "no genetic tie of ancient Jews to modern Jews" in order to hate the Jews of Israel. The Quran and early Muslim history and traditions [hadiths] give them plenty of excuses to hate today's Jews precisely because they are descended from or related to the Jews who opposed Muhammad in Medina, Khaybar, and elsewhere. The Hamas Charter quotes a medieval hadith in Article 7 [found in at least four different versions in the hadith literature] that calls on Muslims to slaughter all the Jews at Judgment Day. Traditional Muslim society always oppressed Jews, as well as Christians and other non-Muslims, as dhimmis. That is, Jews were non-Muslims in the Islamic state who were tolerated in a state of inferiority subject to all sorts of oppressive, exploitative, humiliating laws, the dhimma. One Muslim professor at an American university, Ismail Farouqi, told a public meeting at Temple University that the Muslims were tolerant toward Jews and not genocidal towards them, since, he explained, We could have killed you all at the time of Muhammad, if we had wanted to.

Shlomo Sand attacks [in his book, The Invention of the Jewish People] the genetics researchers who have shown that the modal DNA of Jewish groups --Ashkenazic, Sefardic, Mizrahi, Yemenite-- is close to each other and also close to Arabs and other Middle Eastern peoples such as Kurds and Armenians. He insinuates that these researchers were Israeli government agents assigned to invent the results that they obtained from genetic research. That is an ad hominem argument. He further falsifies his argument by only naming the Israeli researchers [and maybe some other Jewish researchers]. He did not mention the several non-Jewish genetics researchers [such as Arnaiz-Villena] who have obtained similar results about modal Jewish DNA. He cannot argue against genetics researchers in any real scientific way, since he has no competence in that field. But the genetics researchers get in the way of his Judeophobic, anti-Zionist claims, so he has to discredit them. That is, he argues ad hominem. But Sand too is open to ad hominem criticism and much more accurately than the Israeli genetics researchers. He cannot prove that the Israeli govt told those researchers what results to find. But it is well known that Sand was raised as a Communist, grew up in the Communist movement, and remained loyal to the general Communist outlook. As a Communist, Sand is echoing the argument of Stalin in 1913 that the Jews of his time were not a nation for several reasons, none of them genetic. These reasons were that the Jews didn't live in one state; they didn't have a common economic life; they didn't speak a common language; they didn't have a common psychological makeup or culture.* Well, the Swiss don't speak one language but they are still considered a nation. Anyhow, the State of Israel's very existence contradicts Stalin's arguments. But Sand as a Communist would like to prove Stalin correct, that is, that there is no Jewish people.

Now, Sand's whole argument is fake history and fake science. It is Judeophobic, anti-Zionist agitprop. In Europe, 100 years ago and before, Jews were considered non-Europeans, Orientals, Asiatics, swarthy aliens inferior to Nordics, etc. They were seen by the Judeophobes of the time as alien to Europe. This view was held by Kant, Hegel and Voltaire more than 200 years ago about Jews whose ancestors had long lived in Europe. Kant ironically called German Jews: "The Palestinians who live among us." What recent anti-Zionists have done is to transpose the place where Jews are alien from Europe to the Middle East, to the Land of Israel. Now, the Judeophobes say that the Jews are alien to the Middle East and really "Europeans," the most European, the Quintessential Europeans, the “true colonialists” while the colonialist oppressions of the Europeans are forgotten. It is the same argument, to wit, the Jews are alien. Only the place is different. The argument is old wine in a new bottle. The Jews are the ultimate, absolute Other.

Arguing against Sand's claim is the fact that conversion to Judaism was forbidden in the Roman Empire even before Christianity became the state religion of the Empire. The Roman legal writer Paulus [1st half of 3rd century CE] states this. Modestinus, another legal writer of the same period, wrote:

It was permitted only to the Jews to circumcise their sons, by a rescript of Divine Pius [= the emperor]
Circumcidere Iudaeis filios suos tantum rescripto Divi Pii permittitur
[M Stern, Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism, vol. III (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1984), p 65]

Paulus said that Roman citizens must not let themselves or their slaves be circumcised. Physicians performing circumcision were to be beheaded. After Christianity became the Roman Empire's state religion, more explicit prohibitions on conversion to Judaism prevailed in the Empire and --later-- in Christian-ruled lands up to the rise of the modern secular state in the 19th century.** Further, Sand makes much of the Khazars who lived in the northern Caucasus region between the Caspian and Black Seas. Not quite the center of Europe. But Sand claims the northern European Jews, called Ashkenazim, as descendants of Khazars. The Khazars or perhaps only their aristocracy or royal family converted to Judaism. But the Khazars disappeared from history after their defeat at the hands of the Kievan Russian state in the mid-10th century. Nothing solid and reliable is known about them after the defeat, just tenuous mentions of Khazars in Hungary, Constantinople and Alexandria, etc. Did the survivors flee east or west or south or north? Were there many survivors or did the Kievan Rus army wipe out most of the Khazar people? Did any survivors hold to Judaism? We bear in mind that in any case, it is probable that only the aristocracy converted to Judaism. There is no solid evidence for what happened to them and if any remained Jews. There is only speculation based on hints and tenuous mentions.

On the other hand, there is a lot of evidence about Jewish migrations to southern Europe and from southern Italy and Sicily to northern France and then to the Rhineland after Charlemagne allowed Jews to migrate into Germany in 815. The links of Jews in northern Europe [Ashkenazim] with Jews in Israel, Spain, Egypt and Babylonia in the Middle Ages are documented. Likewise, the migration of Jews eastwards in the later Middle Ages to Poland, the Lithuanian kingdom [inc. Belarus] and Ukraine is documented. One obvious argument against Sand is that the Jews in Eastern Europe spoke Yiddish among themselves. But most of Yiddish vocabulary is Germanic, based on the medieval Rhineland dialect, with some important words and personal names derived from Romance tongues, besides the large Hebrew-Aramaic component of Yiddish. The Romance elements include the common word bentshn meaning to bless, from the Italian bendicere. Romance names include Shprintseh [Speranza], Belle & Bella, Bunim [Bon Homme], etc. If the Eastern European Jews were really Khazars, as Sand claims, how did it happen that they were not speaking the Khazar tongue, a Turkic language?? Why were the Polish, Rumanian, Ukrainian, Belarusian Jews speaking Yiddish, a language based on a medieval Germanic [MHG] vocabulary with some key words of Romance origin?? If supposed Khazar migrants to the countries mentioned could not maintain their original Turkic language in the new, non-Khazar environment, then why didn't they adopt one of the Slavic languages spoken in those countries [or, in Romania, Romanian], instead of speaking Yiddish??

Next, let's consider the personal appearance of various known Ashkenazic Jews. Look up photos as young men of Albert Einstein, Ferdinand Lasalle, Karl Marx [born a Jew, although not raised as a Jew]. Look up photos of Zionist leaders such as Theodor Herzl, David Ben Gurion as a young man, Moshe Sharett [2nd prime minister of Israel; original family name: Shertok], Abba Ahimeir, etc. Do they look like Khazars?

Before I end, I will speak of personal experience. I am an Ashkenazic Jew. But I have been taken for an Arab by Arabs on several occasion. Once, while in the United States, an Arab who had just met me, asked me --before knowing my name-- in a friendly way, happy to be meeting someone that he thought was a fellow Arab: A'anta `arabi min al-`uruba? [rough translation: Are you an Arab of the true Arab essence?]. I have also been taken for an Italian and an Armenian several times, by Italians, Armenians, and others. Am I really a Khazar?

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Researchers on Jewish genetics include Bonne-Tamir, DM Behar, K Skorecki, MF Hammer, PP Majumder, A Nebel, D Filon & D Weiss, Arnaiz-Villena, SA Santachiara-Benerecetti, O Semino & G Passarino, AJ Redd & ET Wood, etc. The subject is important in medicine, such as in the field of organ transplants where genetic similarity is best, if not necessary, for the transplant to succeed. Of course, none of the various peoples mentioned above is a pure race in modern times. Here is the general genetic view today of Ashkenazic Jews:
Recent genetic studies, based on Y chromosome polymorphic markers, showed that Ashkenazi Jews are more closely related to other Jewish and Middle Eastern groups than to their host populations in Europe [here].
This study shows that 11.5% of Ashkenazi Jews present a DNA type that may indicate Khazar and/or other non-Jewish Eastern European ancestry. This percentage is not the dominant Ashkenazi Jewish DNA type.

On the Khazars, see Encyclopedia Judaica, "Khazars."

* JV Stalin, "Marxism and the National Question" [1913; see International Publishers edition in English (New York); also in B Franklin, ed., The Essential Stalin: Major Theoretical Writings, 1905-1952 (London 1973), pp 62-65]; Robert Wistrich discusses Stalin's argument in The Left against Zion [London 1979], p 13.

** Amnon Linder, Jews in the Legal Sources of the Middle Ages [Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities 1998].

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)

British Press Censors Historical Truth, Promotes Lies

UPDATE 12-25 & 27-2009 & 1-2 & 3-9-2010 at bottom

Anti-Zionism is the anti-imperialism of fools

In its smear campaign against Israel, much of the the British press --indeed of the British "quality" press-- both "leftist" like the Guardian and frankly business-oriented, pro-capitalist like The Financial Times, bash Israel with smears and lies. They promote falsifications of Jewish history as well as smears relating to current events, such as last winter's Israeli effort to stop Hamas rocket attacks on Israel's civilian population.

In this context, the FT censored significant historical facts in a book review. The FT asked one of its regular book reviewers, the respected historian Simon Schama, to review the book The Invention of the Jewish People, by Shlomo Sand. In this book, Sand, an Israeli Communist, seems to be trying to validate the claim of the former leader of his Communist movement, Stalin, that the Jews were not a nation in his time. Stalin wrote this in 1915, apparently to delegitimize Zionism. Since then, the Jews set up a state in 1948, obviously refuting Stalin. Neither Stalin nor Hitler nor the British Foreign Office had thought that a Jewish state should or could come into being. Of course, for hard-line Judeophobes, such as populate the Foreign Office, the problem then became how to destroy the Jewish State that had been established. Hence, a Communist's fanatical invention meant to confirm and update Stalin's claim of 1915 gets support in the capitalist United Kingdom. Without getting into Sand's book too deeply, suffice it to say that he claims that Ashkenazi Jews are descended from a medieval northern Caucasus or Turkic people called Khazars, whose ruling elite, at least, converted to Judaism but who disappeared after military defeat in the northern Caucasus-northern Black Sea region. Sand also claims that North African Jews are mainly descended from the Berbers of North Africa. Thus, modern Jews are not descended from ancient Jews, according to Sand, and thus have no historical right to return to the Land of Israel, nor does Israel have a right to exist as a state.

Arthur Koestler raised a similar argument about Ashkenazim being descended from Khazars about 30 years ago, although he was more tentative, less positive in his claims than Sand is today. Koestler got little scholarly support for his tentative argument. One strong critique was the demolition of his book by Edward Grossman. There were a lot of things wrong with Koestler's theory that were perceived 30 years ago. That did not deter Sand when he wrote his book a few years ago, although a whole new set of factual data refuting his and Koestler's theory had emerged since publication of Koestler's book. This data is the study of Jewish DNA. A number of researchers have found great genetic proximity among Ashkenazic, Sefardic, Oriental and Yemenite Jews. There is also proximity to various Arab groups as well as Armenians and Kurds. To a lesser extent, there is Jewish genetic proximity to Greeks, Turks and Italians. This scientific data effectively refutes Sand and Koestler's theory. But fanatics want to believe what suits their prejudices. So Sand dismisses and largely overlooks all of the DNA research by Professors Bonne-Tamir, Hammer and others. That very significant data does not fit the conclusion that Sand wants to reach. Of course, the DNA data was not available in Koestler's time, but now it is. Hence, Sand had less justification for publishing his crackpot theory than Koestler did. But that didn't stop Sand.

This has taken us far from censorship by the British press. The FT published, as said, a critical review of Sand's book, but the review seemed peculiar. Certain points that one would expect to be brought up in a critical review were not there. Then there is a passage in the review that very clearly seems to have been altered, tampered with, bowdlerized, censored, eviscerated. Schama outlined Roman anti-Jewish actions after defeat of the Bar Kokhba Revolt [131-135 CE]:

. . . there was also the mass extirpation of everything that constituted Jewish religion and culture; the renaming of Jerusalem as Aelia Capitolina, the obliteration of the Temple, the prohibition on rituals and prayers. Sand asserts, correctly, that an unknowable number of Jews remained in what the Romans called Palestina. [here]

This outline, as it stands, is mainly correct, but it is misleading on a crucial point as well as incomplete. Indeed, Rome, under Hadrian, the emperor of the time, renamed Jerusalem Aelia Capitolina, Aelia referred to Hadrian's clan or gens and Capitolina to a hill in the historic center of Rome where a Roman temple was located. However, in addition to Jerusalem, the Romans also renamed the whole country, which up to the defeat of Bar Kokhba was called Provincia Iudaea [IVDAEA], Province of Judea. The Romans did call the country Palaestina, but that name came only after defeat of the Bar Kokhba Revolt. According to most authorities [Michael Avi-Yonah, Felix Abel, Solomon Zeitlin, Mary Sherwood, inter alia, as I read them], the whole country, all of the Land of Israel, was called Judea by the Romans up to the aftermath of the Jews' defeat in 135 when it was renamed at the same time as Jerusalem, and made symbolically subordinate to Syria with the name Syria Palaestina. In this name, Palaestina is an adjective, not a noun, by the way.

Now, Simon Schama is a respected historian and I cannot imagine that he did not know that both Jerusalem and the Province of Judea were renamed by the Romans at the same time, and that Palestine was a name introduced by the Romans as a replacement meant to degrade and humiliate the Jews. The structure of the text that I have quoted also seems to support my surmise. It is likely that he wrote "the renaming of Jerusalem as Aelia Capitolina and of Judea as Palestina." Or perhaps he wrote: ". . . Jews remained in what the Romans thereafter called Palestina" or ". . . what the Romans henceforth [or from then on] called Palestina." After all, if he is writing about changing geographic names of political import, then why not also point out that the country too was renamed? Schama is aware of the name Judea for the country, since he uses it --or was allowed to use it-- elsewhere in the review. But that usage of the name does not indicate that it was the Roman official name for the country throughout the heyday of the empire up to Hadrian's difficult victory over the Jews led by Bar Kokhba.

I believe that burying the fact that the country was called Judea officially by the Romans is likely a policy in the British press. I say this from personal experience. Some years ago, a letter of mine was published in a prestigious British weekly, which I shall not name to protect my own identity. The letter was published in its entirety except for one sentence which pointed out that the official name of the country was Judea until Hadrian changed it upon defeating the Bar Kokhba Revolt. It seems that the British psychological warfare/cognitive warfare experts do not want their own people to know that the Land of Israel, all of it, not just the southern inland area, was called Judea by Rome at the height of the empire.

An omission from the review was any mention of the DNA evidence, which would seem to naturally come up in a critical review of Sand's book. However, I am less certain that Prof Schama had mentioned this in his review. But it is surprising that it is not there, unless the editors of the FT did not want it there.

Additional support for my belief that the review was tampered with, distorted, weakened deliberately by the FT editors is that they took the most unusual step of publishing a second review of the same book, a favorable review this time. Martin Kramer commented on the Financial Times' felt need to publish a second review of Shlomo Sand's tract:

The Financial Times decided one review of Shlomo Sand's 'The Invention of theJewish People' (reviewer, Simon Schama: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/b74fdfd2-cfe1-11de-a36d-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1J4C3P7CY) just wasn't good enough, and so runs another by Tony Judt, who knows even less about the subject than Sand. The result is entirely predictable: a rant against Israel in the thin disguise of a review.

Kramer's comment appeared on facebook [here].

This affair leads to the conclusion that the British press, daily and weekly, as well as many of the UK's supposed scholarly and scientific journals, are unreliable and politically guided and motivated where Israel is concerned and where Jewish history is concerned. It is no secret that the BBC is directed politically in regard to foreign affairs by the UK Foreign Office. The BBC long delayed reporting on the Holocaust as it was happening and then minimized its extent, thus failing to warn Jews and others in the Axis occupied countries who depended on the BBC for news. The BBC did this as part of a policy decided by the Ministry of Information [Orwell mocked it as the Ministry of Truth in his novel 1984] while the BBC's foreign news was directed by the Foreign Office. The British press, daily, weekly, scientific, professional, and scholarly has been mobilized, at least in large parts, to a Crusade of slander and demonization against the Jews and Israel, in which crucial facts are often omitted.

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Here are some useful links:

Here is a strong demolition of Koestler's book by Edward Grossman.
Here are posts on the Bar Kokhba Revolt and its aftermath, including the expulsion of Jews from the area of Jerusalem: here & here & here & here & here & here & here & here
Arab auxiliary troops fought for Rome in the earlier war against the Jews which resulted in destruction of the Temple in 70 CE [here]
On the Arch of Titus in Rome as a monument to the Roman destruction of the Temple [החורבן] here.
Coins issued by Rome to celebrate victory over the Jews [here]
Names of the Land of Israel before and after the Bar Kokhba Revolt: here
A fairly well preserved ancient Roman metallic military diploma showing Roman use of Judea [IVDAEA] as the name of the Land of Israel [here].

Here are print accounts by ancient sources on the Jewish revolts against Rome. Some of these ancient works may be available online but I do not have the links.
Ancient accounts of the Jewish revolt and its suppression by the Roman Empire:
Orosius, VII, 9:5 f.
Sulpicius Severus, II
Dio Cassius [or Cassius Dio], Roman History [Italian edition: Cassio Dione, Storia Romana], LXIII, 22; LXV, 8:1-3, 9:2; LXVI, 1:1-4, 4-7, 9:2, 12:1
Menahem Stern, Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism, vol. II (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences 1980), pp 64-67.
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UPDATE 12-25-2009 Martin Peretz, editor of the New Republic, frankly calls The Financial Times, a "viciously anti-Israel newspaper" [here]
12-27-2009 Link to article on Jewish DNA, plus speculations on possible 11.5% Khazar genetic heritage among Ashkenazim [here]. H/T to Martin Kramer [here].
UPDATE 1-2-2010 The BBC in English disregarded an important story about Iranian involvement in mass murder of Jews. However, the BBC in Spanish did cover the story, which was reported by the Spanish-speaking media in any case [here].
UPDATE 3-9-2010 Martin Goodman, a historian of the Jews in Roman times, takes on Sand's tract in the TLS and throws it in the trash bin of history [here]