A few words to all out anti-semitic friends
A few words to all out anti-semitic friends…
In all the territories of Israel there is not even one Arab that hasn’t got an Arab homeland therefore they are Arabs. They have invaded/infiltrated/trickled into Israel under encouragement of the Ottoman and British occupiers but they, under these circumstances, have not become the owners. Look at the world map my deluded friends. You will see that that the territory of the Arab states (22) is bigger then the entire continent of Europe, and that the territory of all the Muslem states (56) covers about a third of the Earth. A colossal amount of land, unlimited resources of oil and wealth. So it seems only right that the Jewish people have a tiny country of their own without having to share it with another Muslim nation, don’t you agree?
Let me tell you a few words about the Palestinian people, there is no such thing!
The Palestinians are a fiction with only one purpose-to destroy the state of Israel.
Let’s start with the name shall we?
The Romans that conquered Judea called it as part of the conquest “Provincia Palestina” – named for the Philistines who lived in the coastal cities of Israel. The Philistines were redheaded seafarers that came to Israel from EUROPE and disappeared from our territory 1600 years before the birth of Muhammad.
The Arabs from the Persian Gulf have no connection to the Philistines, neither genetic, nor cultural, historical or geographical. They are Arabs and not Philistines. So tell me, if the Romans would have called Judea “Provincia Germany” would the Arabs be Germans?
And now for Israel itself,
Choose any Historical record, any Historical map or any Historian accepted by the international academy to show us where Palestine is exactly, when there was a time in Human history when there was a country called Palestine, when there was a time when there was such a nation, the Palestinian nation?
Who are they? Where did they come from? And what is their connection to the land of Israel?
I cannot find a single detail in any place in the world including the Qur’an (in which Israel is called “The land of Israel, The land of the Israelite people.”) There is a Roman historical record, a Byzantine, an Ottoman historical record and a British historical record; there is no trace of the Palestinian people or a Palestinian nation.
Let us conclude then, that if any of you find any record of the Palestinian existence (that is not Palestinian propaganda that seems to create its own history to fit its needs), than we have something to begin with.
The Palestinians are a gathering of people from the Muslim world that hate each other almost…almost as they hate us.
That is practically the only thing that unites the Palestinians – the hate towards Zionists, that is a very poor basis upon which to erect a nation!
In 1948 the number of Arabs within the borders of Israel was identical to the number of Jews in the Arabic countries. The 20th century was a century of immigration upon the entire planet. All the Jews from the Arab countries immigrated to their homeland – Israel.
All the Arabs from Israel were supposed to immigrate back to their Arab homelands…
however they continued to infiltrate Israel in any possible manner you can imagine.
In fact there is already a Palestinian nation, it is Jordan!, however the nation that does not exist want 3 Palestines – Jordan, the Gaza strip and the West Bank and of course the Israeli Arabs who consider themselves Palestinians shall bring to Israel more and more Palestinian “Brothers” from all around the world until the Jews shall become a minority in their own country, sorry guys, doesn’t work for us!
So eventually all the Palestinians will have to turn back and leave to their Arab homelands, that will happen either by goodwill or by the sword of King David! During the years of the Jewish settlements you have adopted the Jewish legacy, that is – the holiness of Jerusalem and the right to return to Zion.
You have even build a Mosque on the centre of Mount Moria – The Holiest of Holy places of the Jews (a well known custom of the Muslims) however your Holy city is Mecca, not Jerusalem, and the only right the Palestinians have is to return to their Arab homelands.
In conclusion, I would ask you to refer to a cute little book full of humor called “A delightful journey in the Holy-Land” written by Samuel Longhorn (more commonly known as Mark Twain). Longhorn traveled in Israel in 1867, he did not see neither Palestinians, nor green pastures, nor Arab villages, nor bustling cities, nothing! He saw and described swamps, sickness, Malaria, unending desert and no civilization what so ever. “The land of tears”, that is how he called Israel. Everything that is here, this paradise called Israel is what the Zionists made it, no wonder the Arabs want it, it is the only fully modern country in the Middle-East…and if any Palestinians will sit now in their house which is connected to electricity and running water and type an enraged counter-post to mine it is because the Zionists made it possible for you to live on a different level than 99% of your brothers in the Arab world and you have expressed your gratitude by shelling us with rockets!
A Jewish-Israeli Citizen
The owner of this place.
Origin and Identity of the Arabs
In general, the term “Arab” in modern times is applied to a large group of different peoples that share in common the Arabic language, which for the overwhelming majority of them is not their original one but the tongue imposed to their forefathers by the Arabian conquerors.
Such a definition is ethnically unsuitable, in the same way as it would be inappropriate to call “Spaniards” to all Spanish-speaking peoples or “English” to all those non-British folks whose primary language is English. It is true that the Arab countries have not only language in common but also most cultural features as well, yet, this is the result of the colonization and subsequent annihilation of the original pre-Arabic culture.
Therefore, it is more correct to speak of them as “Arabized” peoples rather than Arabs.
From the ethnic viewpoint, the term “Arab” is roughly equivalent to “Arabian”, namely, in reference to the only people considered to be Arab since the beginning and identified as such by themselves and by their neighbors.
It happens frequently that the word Arab is misused on purpose for political strategy:
1) by applying this term as an ethnic definition to the Arabized peoples (mainly North-Africans), in order to increase the number of the Arab population, and
2) in a quite improper way, by calling “Arab” to ancient peoples that existed in the Middle East in order to claim historic rights and legitimate the Arab occupation.
So, it is necessary to reach a clear definition in two directions: which peoples are Arabs and which are not.
Concerning the origin, the most widespread myth is that Arabs are Ishmaelites, what in the case of all the Arabist peoples is not true at all, and regarding Arabians is only partially true.
The original Arab culture has been lost and the most reliable information we have about it comes from external sources, because Islamic revisionism has produced a legendary account in replacement of the scientific truth, and so one of the most fascinating cultures of the past is now missing.
The Arabian myths have been created in order to legitimate the “pre-existence” of Islam by ascribing fanciful tales allegedly happened in Arabia to Hebrew Patriarchs and Prophets.
Through these legends turned into “history”, Arabs claim an Avrahamic origin through Yishmael, who was only the forefather of some tribes that intermarried with many other peoples that were already settled in Arabia much earlier than him and within which the Ishmaelite lineage was largely assimilated. Therefore, the equation Arab = Ishmaelite is a myth, because Ishmael was not an Arab, nor the forefather of all Arabs; actually, his descent contributed to the formation of the peoples that came to be known as Arabs some centuries later.
Connected with the alleged Ishmaelite identification, the Semitic identity is taken for granted, yet, this is also a half-truth because the Arabian ethnicity and culture arose from an original Kushite stock that was subsequently assimilated by the Semitic tribes that came after them, and even the Ishmaelites were a mixed group with a strong Hamitic component, as we will see in this essay.
Definition of the term “Arab” in historic sources
The word Arab is of uncertain meaning; when and by whom this people (or these peoples) began to be called Arabs is unknown. The earliest sources where the term Arab appeared the first time are the Hebrew Scriptures of the post-exilic period, namely, during the rebuilding of the Temple under the Persian Empire (Nehemyah 2:19 – 5th century b.c.e.), and is applied in a vague manner probably to some Nabatean tribes.
In the same period, also the Greek historian Herodotus mentions the Arabs, apparently in reference to the Yemenite tribes. There are some earlier records, Akkadian and Assyrian sources that mention the “Aribi”, a tribe of the desert that may be connected with the Ishmaelites, but there is not any certainty that such term has even any relationship with the word Arab. Indeed, the term “Arabia” is Greek, as well as Egypt, Syria, Libya, etc. and its probable etymology may be of Semitic origin:
1) ‘arabah = steppe, wilderness;
2) ‘ereb = mixture of peoples.
Both terms are appropriate to them. Wherever Arabs have conquered, the lands became deserted; the Arabian peninsula itself was not so dry, and Yemen had an irrigation network that allowed the land to be fruitful before Northern Arabs invaded and subdued the Sabean kingdom. Spain and Sicily were fertile lands in Roman times; they became dry during the Arab occupation. Only Eretz Yisrael recovered fertility after hard work done by Jews - the pieces of land still occupied by Arabs remain arid.
The second term is also suitable to define Arabs, as they are indeed a mixture of different peoples. Arabs themselves recognize to come from two unrelated patriarchs: Qahtan (Southern Arabs) and Adnan (Northern Arabs), to be respectively identified with a Sabean and an Ishmaelite ancestor.
It seems that the name “Arabia” was applied to the whole peninsula only around the first century b.c.e., as defined by Diodorus of Sicily in his Bibliotheca Historica and by Strabo in his Geography, yet it is rather a geographic definition, not closely related with the actual ethnicity of the inhabitants, whom they declare to be of several kinds and call them by their own tribal names.
Ancient peoples of the Middle East
Arabs are the most recent of all Semitic peoples according to their appearance in history. In fact, it is not possible to speak about Arabs in ancient times, but only about their ancestors.
Most of the Middle East is now formed by conventionally called “Arab countries”, recently invented by the British and French rulers after having defeated and dismembered the Ottoman Empire. They created politic entities without any historic background and assigned some of them to the Arabs instead of the peoples that have legitimate right to those lands. That is the case of Egypt, Iraq and the Israeli territories given to the Arabs. They have as well divided the country that rightfully belongs to the Arabs into different states without any historical or cultural reason and over which they established the rulers. That is the case of Kuwayt, Qatar, Bahrayn, the United Arab Emirates and “Saudi” Arabia, names that are impossible to find in any historic record.
Since Arab nationalist and other biased movements claim an alleged historical right over the whole Middle East, they ascribe the Arab ethnicity to all Semitic and Hamitic peoples that existed in that region centuries before the first Arab was born. Consequently, it is helpful to present a brief historic account of the peoples that originally inhabited the Middle East in ancient times, and which of those peoples generated the Arabs.
In order to make this research more comprehensible, we can divide the Ancient Middle East into three main regions:
1) the “Fertile Crescent” and neighbouring lands, from the Zagros Mounts in the east to the Ararat in the north and the Mediterranean shores in the west (Mesopotamia, Ararat, Syria-Canaan);
2) Egypt;
3) the Arabian peninsula.
1) Mesopotamia, Ararat, Syria-Canaan:
This region was inhabited by Semitic and non-Semitic peoples.
·Sumerians, Subarians and Hurrians: these non-Semitic peoples cannot be identified nowadays with any defined ethnic entity, but evolved into several different peoples. Most of them were displaced by the Assyrians and emigrated, contributing to the formation of other peoples in India, Central Asia and Europe. Nevertheless, the Kurds are partially descendant of the Subarian/Hurrians, mixed with other elements, and therefore having right to claim a national home in the area – but their land was given to others that arrived many centuries after them: Turks and Arabs.
·Hittites and Canaanites: these peoples were originally non-Semitic but Mediterranean. While the Hittites dwelling in Anatolia built an empire and subsequently entered the Indo-European sphere, those that remained in Canaan were absorbed by the Canaanite tribes.
The Canaanites were culturally conquered by the Arameans, adopting their Semitic language and therefore are generally regarded as a Semitic people. They developed in two different areas: the “coastland Canaanites” are best known in history as Phoenicians, the “mountain Canaanites” were assimilated by the Israelites and disappeared as an identifiable people around the 8th century b.c.e. – when the Assyrians took the Hebrews into exile they did not make any difference because the Canaanites were already Israelites. Canaanites were NOT Arabs.
Today the ancient Canaanites are represented by two nations: the Phoenicians are Lebanese, while the Yevusites, Hivvites, Amorites and other mountain tribes are now Jews. Lebanon is erroneously considered an “Arab” country, since the Lebanese themselves do not agree with such classification. In the Lebanese constitution the term Arab is not mentioned, except in the article 11 that states that Arabic is the official language (as well as the Argentine constitution establishes that Spanish is the official language, but this does not mean that the inhabitants are to be considered Spaniards). Lebanon’s official name is “Lebanese Republic”, a western-style denomination, without the word “Arab” that is essential in the official designation of every Arab state .
·Philistines: the Philistines were not Semitic peoples, and unlike the Canaanites, they were not autochthonous but a confederation of invaders from the Aegean Sea and the Anatolian areas. They are known in history also as “Sea Peoples”. The Philistines are extinct and claims to alleged links with them are utterly false as they are historically impossible to establish. In any case, claiming a Philistine heritage is idle because it cannot legitimate any land in which they were foreign occupants and not native dwellers. Philistines were not Arabs, and the only feature in common between both peoples is that in Israel they should be regarded as invaders, Philistines from the sea and Arabs from the wilderness.
·Akkadians, Assyrians and Arameans: These are the only peoples in this region that were fully and originally Semitic. The term Akkadians refers to the early historic period of the peoples that later were identified as Hebrews in Canaan and Assyrians in Mesopotamia, while the Arameans constituted the western branch of the same stock. Assyrians eventually split into two branches, of which the southern is more commonly known as Chaldeans or Babylonians. These peoples were NOT Arabs.
The Assyrians became Christians in the first century c.e. and did never accept Islam, so they have been persecuted and the largest majority of them are still in exile, though there has been a permanent Assyrian presence in the area. They speak their own ancient language and their homeland is until now usurped by an Arab entity called Iraq. Consequently, since Assyrians still exist and are not Arabs, the Arab nationalists cannot ascribe an Arab identity to the ancient Semitic peoples of Mesopotamia.
The Arameans are the only of these peoples that have in some way been related to the original Arabs, as they have intermarried and mixed with the Nabatean tribes, becoming the present-day Syrians, that are the most Semitic of all Arabs. Therefore, even though the ancient Arameans cannot be regarded as Arabs, they are among the ancestors of the northernmost branch of the Arabs, namely, the Syrians.
2) Egypt:
The ancient Egyptians were a Hamitic people and even though they have been in some way involved with the origin of the Ishmaelite Arabs, they remained a distinguishable people that has not been assimilated by the Arab invaders. The Egyptians became Christians in the first centuries c.e., and their genuine descendants are the Copts, who are not Arabs. Even though at present they are a minority in their own homeland, the Arab majority is anyway the result of a foreign invasion performed in the Middle Ages, when the Arabs made of Egypt the outpost for the conquest of Africa.
3) Arabia:
The Arabian peninsula is undoubtedly the Arabs’ homeland, and the peoples that inhabited it in ancient times are to be regarded as the ancestors of the modern Arabs. Now, the query consists in establishing how much Semitic these peoples were and up to what amount the Ishmaelites have contributed to the formation of the Arab identity.
In the most ancient records the whole Arabia was commonly designed under the generic name of “Kush”, which was extended throughout the entire region comprised between Southern Mesopotamia in the north and the White Nile Basin in the south, that is, including both sides of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. Subsequently, there has been a clear distinction between Northern and Southern Arabia since early times, distinction that endured for centuries. The Arabs are the result of the progressive fusion of both entities developed over the original Kushite background.
·Southern Arabian peoples:
Seven Kushite peoples: Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Ra’mah, Sabtekha, Sheba and Dedan.
Twelve Semitic tribes (Yoqtanites): Almodad, Shelef, Hatzarmawt, Yerah, Hadoram, Uzal, Diqlah, Obal, Abima’el, Shaba, Hawilah and Yobab.
·Northern Arabian peoples:
Early Kushite population: Kûsh, Mušuri, Hawilah, Makkan.
Eight Semitic tribes (Midyanites/Lihyanites): Zimran, Yoqshan, Medan, Midyan, Yishbaq, Shuwah, Sheba and Dedan.
Twelve Ishmaelite tribes: Nebayot, Qedar, Adbe’el, Mibsam, Mishma, Dumah, Massa, Hadar, Teyma, Yetur, Nafish and Qedmah.
The characteristics of these peoples are exposed under the next title.
The Arabian Kush and the Ishmaelite Myth
Even though the name Kush is usually associated with Ethiopia because of the Greek translation of that name, Kushite peoples were in early times the inhabitants of the whole Arabia, Southern Mesopotamia, Elam and a branch of them reached India as well. Indeed, in ancient records the term Kush may have different meanings and often it can be understood only by the context, and it is possible to distinguish at least four different lands which in some periods were known as “Kush”: Sumer, the Horn of Africa, India and Arabia. The same happens with the term Havilah, that was a Kushite tribe -they should not be mistaken for the Semitic Havilah, that is identified with Khawlan in Yemen-. This people was originally settled in Northern Arabia, between Egypt and the Euphrates, and their land was later inhabited by Yishmaelites (Bereshyit 25:18) and Amalekites (Shmu’el I, 15:7). From their original land, different branches of the Kushite Havilah emigrated to Elam, India and Africa because of the Semitic expansion in the Middle East, making it difficult a precise identification of the land which the ancient documents call by such name.
The Assyrian records mention Kûsh and Mušuri in reference to the Northern Arabian peoples conquered by Asarhaddon, as a different event from his conquest of Egypt, and the same peoples are mentioned as tributaries by earlier Assyrian kings, who have not conquered Egypt. These names recall the Biblical brothers Kush and Mitzrayim, namely Ethiopia and Egypt, very closely associated in ancient times but obviously located in Africa. Therefore, we find both names also on the Arabian side of the Red Sea, which is attested by several Assyrian documents. For instance, in the black obelisk of Salmaneser III he mentions in detail the tribute received from different lands, and concerning Mušuri it consists in “camels having double humps” and other animals. Such kind of camel is Asian and not Egyptian, and what is more, Egyptians usually did not even employ the African kind (dromedary, with one hump). Later, other Assyrian kings like Tiglath-Pileser III and Ashurachiddin (Assarhaddon) received camels as part of the tributes paid by different kingdoms in Arabia and Persia, but not any camel is mentioned among the booty taken after the conquest of Egypt. Consequently, Salmaneser’s “Mušuri” is different from Egypt, yet having the same name. Another interesting detail is that Salmaneser does not mention any king of Mušuri, unlike he does regarding the other kingdoms, and it is unthinkable that the Assyrian king would have not been proud of mentioning the Pharaoh among his tributaries. Indeed, the Arabian Mušuri were a confederation of nomadic tribes without any organized state, and this is confirmed by the fact that later Tiglath-Pileser assigned an “Arubu” (Arab?) as governor over Mušuri, whose name was Idiba’ilu, name that may indicate his belonging to the Ishmaelite tribe of Adbe’el. The absence of monarchy in Mušuri by that time is confirmed by later Assyrian accounts attesting that the royal house of that country was founded as a vassal kingdom of Assyria during the reign of Assarhaddon. Sargon II mentions the king of Mušuri together with those of Aribi (a queen), Sheva, Khayappa, Tamudi and other kingdoms, all of them located in Arabia. It is remarkable that before the Assyrian rule, the sovereigns of these lands were mainly priestess-queens, a typical Ethiopian tradition that seems to have been replaced by the Assyrian-styled male monarchy.
The existence of Kush and Mušuri in Arabia are essential for the identity of the Ishmaelites and in some way also the Midyanites, as it will be shown afterwards.
Now let us consider the table of peoples and tribes of Arabia given above. This distribution is confirmed by the historic sources and show that the Arabs cannot be classified exclusively as Ishmaelites and not even as fully Semitic. Arabs resulted from a complex of tribes gathered into two groups: Southern and Northern Arabian. The ethnicity of these tribes is as follows:
·1) Southern Arabians were originally Kushitic (Ethiopic). The most ancient Sabeans were closely related with Nubians and Abyssinians dwelling on the opposite shores of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. Their country roughly coincides with modern Yemen, where the Kushitic Sabeans have left some hints that allow to identify them as tribes that created a sort of organized states or kingdoms, reported in ancient chronicles as Sabatan, whose capital was the city of Shabwah. They transferred some typical Ethiopic features to their Semitic successors, like the female-ruled monarchy, common to all ancient Arabia. These seven Hamitic tribes were partially displaced to the Horn of Africa and Meroë by the Semitic Sabeans (Yoqtanites) that came after them, but a large number intermarried and were assimilated into the new nationalities that emerged from the mixture of both groups. The identity of the twelve Yoqtanite tribes faded away with the formation of different kingdoms: Sheva, Ma’in, Awsan, Qataban, Hadhramawt and Himayar. The Sabean peoples did not keep history records for centuries, until they had relationships with Assyria, and the first mentions of them come from external accounts like the Hebrew Bible and the Assyrian Chronicles. Since the time when they began to document their own history, the Semitic influence appears evident because they are ruled by kings, not queens. This seems to be the result of a process from the early period in which the Kushitic culture was still dominant and of which the only account we have regards the Queen of Sheva, who is contended by Arabs and Ethiopians as their own queen. The female monarchy seems to have come to an end with the determinant Assyrian hegemony.
Ethnically, the Southern Arabians are roughly two thirds Semitic and one third Hamitic, and not Ishmaelites at all.
·2) Northern Arabians were called mainly after Avrahamic tribes, which apparently would grant them to be classified into the Semitic stock. Nevertheless, the Kushitic character is strongly remarkable since these lands were inhabited by Hamitic peoples (Kush, Havilah and Mušuri) long before the first Semites arrived in this territory and both groups intermarried. The process of Semitization was completed only under the Assyrian rule, around the 7th century b.c.e.
The origin of these Arabian tribes is connected with Avraham’s concubines, Hagar and Qeturah, from whom respectively originated the Ishmaelites (or Hagarites) and the Midyanites (actually one of these tribes, whose name was extended to the others). Avraham was an Akkadian that moved first into the land of Hurrians and then into Canaan. His wife Sarah was an Akkadian belonging to his own family, and this fully Semitic couple generated the Israelites and not any Arab people. Avraham traded also in Egypt and acquired for his wife an Egyptian servant, Hagar, with whom he fathered Yishmael. Besides them, Avraham took also another woman, Qeturah, whose origin is unknown and that is the mother of the Midyanite tribes. Consequently, Ishmael was a Semite only on his father’s side, but by his mother’s lineage he was Egyptian, and the sons of Qeturah were surely Semitic after their father Avraham, but we do not know where did their mother come from. Here we will consider first the ethnic features of the Midyanites before dealing with the origin and culture of the Ishmaelites.
·The Midyanites settled in the region of Mount Sinai (by the Gulf of Eylat, in Arabia, and not in the so-called Sinai peninsula). That land was already inhabited by non-Semitic peoples, namely, the Kûsh and Mušuri of the Assyrian records, and very likely Avraham’s children and successive generations married women from the local people, consequently it is correct to assume that the Midyanites were ethnically less Semitic than Hamitic. In fact, they followed the Kushite tradition of having many queens among their rulers: three successive Assyrian kings (Tiglat-Pileser III, Sargon II and Sennakherib) mention seven Midyanite queens: Zabibi, Shamsi, Te’elkhinu, Yati’ah, Tabu’wa, Yapa’a and Bashi. Such a characteristic is not found in any Semitic kingdom, in which the queen was just the king’s wife but very rarely the main ruler. In support of the Kushite character of Midyan, there are some ancient texts that link the land and people of Midyan with Kush, and also the Hebrew Scriptures suggest this connection: It is typical in Hebrew poetry to compose verses repeating the same concept twice but with different words, like the statement written in Havaqquq 3:7 “I saw the tents of Kushan under sorrow; the curtains of the land of Midyan trembled” – here the Prophet uses the names “Midyan” and “Kush” as synonymous. Such an identification of Northern Arabians with Kushites explains the controversy regarding the Kushite wife of Mosheh mentioned in Bemidbar 12:1; here the question emerges, whether she is to be identified with Tzipporah the Midyanite or not, and some interpreters like Rashi assert that this woman is indeed Tzipporah. If Midyan would have been so clearly distinguishable from Kush, such a controversy would not have arisen. The conclusion that she was not Tzipporah is understood by other elements and not by this ethnic definition. Furthermore, the Biblical land of Midyan is called Kûsh in Assyrian records.
·The Ishmaelites dwelled near the Midyanites, in the region described as follows: “from Havilah as far as Shur, which is east of Mitzrayim as you go towards Ashshur. He settled before the face of all his brothers” (Bereshyit 25:18); in other words, their territory extended from the coastland by the Persian Gulf next to Southern Mesopotamia [Havilah] up to the border of Midyan [Shur], which is east of Egypt, along the way that leads northwards; the Ishmaelites settled at the east (meaning of the statement “before the face”) of all their brothers [Midyanites and Hebrews]. This territory roughly coincides with the land called Mušuri in Assyrian accounts. In Bereshyit 21:21 is written “Yishmael dwelt in the wilderness of Paran, and his mother took a wife for him from the land of Mitzrayim”. We have already said that Ishmael himself was half Semite and half Egyptian, now we read that also his wife was an Egyptian, and that he settled in the desert area next to Midyan, which was inhabited by Hamitic peoples. How much Semitic may his twelve sons be, then? Only one fourth, and three fourths Egyptian. Of course, if these twelve sons would have founded their tribes within Assyria or Aram, after successive intermarriage they would have become more Semitic, but they settled in Kushite territory and assimilated the local peoples, and blended with their Midyanite brothers, who were like them a mixed breed. Therefore, Salmaneser’s mysterious “Egyptians” (Mušuri) that had no king and from whom he took some double-humpbacked camels as tribute were no other than the Ishmaelites. Establishing a documentary comparison, we find that the Biblical “Midyan and Yishmael” are equivalent to the “Kûsh and Mušuri” of the Assyrian records. It is natural that from the Hebrew viewpoint they were regarded as Semitic for Avraham’s sake, but for the Semitic Assyrians they were just Ethiopic/Egyptian tribes.
The Ishmaelites were associated with Midyanites since early times in such a way that both terms became interchangeable. Their territories were not sharply defined and it seems that only the Midyanites had organized kingdoms and were the leading branch during the first centuries. Progressively, the distinction between both groups vanished by mutual assimilation. Conquered by the Assyrians, the Ishmaelites were not relevant until the Persian period, when the tribe of Qedar assumed the hegemony over the Northern Arabian peoples, but the first true kingdom was founded by the Nabateans, that arose as the leading Ishmaelite tribe in Roman times. The Nabateans extended their dominion up to the present-day Syria under the rule of Queen Zaynab. In that period, they absorbed Semitic cultures like the Arameans and the Idumeans, and the Nabatean language is the oldest one that may be defined as “Arabic”, though many scholars disagree.
Taking account of the Hebrew Scriptures and other ancient records, it is possible to establish that the term “Arab” was originally applied to the Nabateans, that inhabited the wilderness region to the east of Israel, from Edom to Syria (not properly in the mainland of Arabia). Such an identification is confirmed by historians of Roman times like Strabo and Josephus, that used the terms Arab and Nabatean as synonymous. The Nabatean sovereigns were usually called “kings of the Arabs” and their realm was known as Arabia, so that when the Nabatean Kingdom was annexed to the Roman Empire it became the province of Arabia.
The name Nabatean is referred to Ishmael’s firstborn son Nebayot, founder of the tribe that prevailed over the northwestern branch of the Ishmaelites and evolved into an organized kingdom, while the southeastern ones kept their Bedouin life-style within the oases of Northern Arabia, of which the tribe of Qedar may be considered the most representative.
The region where the Nabateans settled favoured their development as a Semitic culture that progressively replaced their natural Kushitic character. Intermarriage with Arameans was common and determined the origin of the modern Syrians. In fact, there were no marriage restrictions neither for men nor for women among Nabateans to take foreign spouses, and it is likely that such a practice was even encouraged. Mutual assimilation with the local Semitic population was also decisive in the formation of the Arabic language, whose roots are clearly Aramaic. Unlike present-day Arabs, the Nabateans held women in high regard – a characteristic common to most of the pre-Islamic Arabian peoples. Women had property and heritage rights, and the Nabatean queens were honoured even more than the kings.
The Nabatean culture experienced a sudden transformation from the nomadic life style and camel breeders to city builders, and it is only since this change happened that the Nabateans have left records of their own culture. Before that time, only some samples of pottery were found, and however not older than the first century b.c.e.
In the Hebrew Scriptures, the Assyrian Chronicles and other ancient records the first peoples to be identified as Arabs were the Ishmaelite-Midyanite tribes and the same definition is never applied to the southern peoples, who are called by their ethnic name (Sabeans, Mineans, etc.), so how did it happen that the term Arabian was extended to the whole complex of inhabitants of the peninsula? Indeed, the relationships between the northern tribes and the Yemenite kingdoms were rather limited to commercial exchange, but never achieved a solid cultural and political unity in pre-Islamic times. Such a generalization of the term seems to come from Greek sources: being the Ishmaelites the immediate neighbours of the Persian Empire along the southern border from the Red Sea to the Persian Gulf, the whole land between both seas was called Arabia after them. In fact it was Herodotus who mentioned Arabians in reference to all the peoples dwelling in the peninsula. It is also well known that the Greeks were not accurate in their geographic and ethnic definitions, as we have many examples of Hellenic names that became widely used even though they are not exact – like Syria, by which the Greeks intended “Assyria”, mistaking both the people and the land. The different tribes of Arabia did not have any term of their own which would have been recognized by every tribe to identify themselves as “Arabian”; therefore, when the Arabic language took a definitive shape, the geographic names that were widely acknowledged as official denominations were the Greek ones. The term Arab was included into the vocabulary of the Southern languages long time after it was commonly used by the Northern Arabian tribes as self-definition, that means that the word was indeed a foreign term for the peoples settled in the Southern half of the peninsula. Paradoxically, modern Arabian ethnologists consider the Southern tribes as the original Arabs (but historically they never defined themselves as Arabs in ancient times, while the first tribes that have accepted such denomination appear to be the Ishmaelites). The Arab scholars distinguish Arabians as descending from two different stocks: the “original” Arabs (‘aribah), whose forefather was Qahtan -Yoqtan- and are the Yemenite group of tribes, and the “arabized” peoples of the north (musta’aribah), whose forefather is said to be Adnan, allegedly an Ishmaelite. Undoubtedly, there is a glaring contradiction in what the same Arab ethnologists declare, that the Ishmaelites are actually arabized and not the original Arabs, then they claim that all Arabs are Ishmaelites…
Arab myths concerning the Patriarchs
Historic and archaeologic evidences show that the ancient Arabian peoples did not leave any written testimony of themselves before they received the influence of Assyria, around the 8th-7th century b.c.e., and all what we know about them until then has been recorded by external sources and accounts of eyewitnesses. The peoples of Arabia had no records of their own genealogies, which have been artificially invented in Islamic times as well as the alleged pre-Islamic history without any real knowledge concerning location and period, besides the imaginary character of the events. There are many examples that show the inaccuracy of Islamic traditional concepts, based on hearsay from unreliable sources. Just to mention a couple of them, one is that the qur’an identifies Miryam the sister of Aharon with Miryam the mother of Yeshua as if she was the same person, when actually there are about 1400 years that separate the two Miryams; another is that in sura “al-qasas” (38), Haman is said to be Pharaoh’s vizier, mistaking both time and place, because actually Haman was a minister of the Persian king when there was no longer any Pharaoh in Egypt. The same sura asserts that Pharaoh intended to build a tower, a story based on Josephus’ account about Nimrod (Antiquities, I: 4). There are hundreds of resounding errors like these which are not to be listed here since it is not the intention of this essay to make any process to religious conceptions, but only to present the historic truth.
Concerning the two Arabian forefathers, we can say that Qahtan may be well identified with the Biblical Yoqtan, but Adnan seems to be rather legendary, and as allegedly is only one of Ishmaels’ descendants -not even one of his twelve sons- he cannot be the ancestor of all the Northern Arabians. The geographic distribution of the Ishmaelites indeed leave a vast “empty” space between them and the Yoqtanite peoples, namely, the whole Central Arabia. The southernmost Ishmaelite tribe was Teyma’, whose capital was located about 400 kilometres north from Yathrib (Medinah). Yet, Arab traditions assert that Ishmael was with his father Avraham in Mekka (that is more than 700 kilometres south of Teyma’), a claim that is utterly groundless, without the least hint of possibility to find any historic support. The only existing written record concerning the person of Ishmael is found in the Bible, witnessing that he dwelled in the region of Paran, north of Midyan. This account was written by Mosheh, who spent half of his life in the very land where Ishmael lived and had undoubtedly more accurate information than the Arab writers that invented the tales about Avraham and Ishmael more than 2000 years after Mosheh. The Scriptures as well describe Avraham’s movements in a very accurate way, from his departure from Ur haKashdim to Haran, then to Canaan, his journeys to Egypt and Gherar, his expedition to rescue his nephew, and every place where he sojourned – none of them is in Arabia. He kept attached to his Akkadian family settled in Northern Mesopotamia and not to any allegedly sacred place in Arabia. Having described all Avraham’s movements in detail, would Mosheh not mention a trip involving a distance over 1000 kilometres away from Canaan (and the same length for the way back)? And supposing, for the sake of argument, that Avraham actually travelled to Mekka, if Mosheh ignored such a journey it undoubtedly means that it was completely irrelevant, without any Divine purpose. The fact is that the name of Ishmael was unknown in Central Arabia in pre-Islamic times, and the Arabic form Isma’il, beginning with an aleph shows that it passed through the Greek and is not directly derived from the Semitic/Aramaic original name Yishmael, with an initial yod – the change of a consonant/semivowel into a vowel is explained only if a Semitic name has been translated into a western language and then from the western form into another Semitic tongue, which is the case of Hebrew into Greek and then into Arabic. Indeed, there is no mention of Avraham or Ishmael in any ancient Arabian inscription, neither Sabean nor Minean, nor Safaitic, nor Lihyanite, nor Thamudic and not even Nabatean. The Arabs got acquainted with the existence of Avraham and Ishmael only through the Jewish and Christian sources from which Islam drew its own scriptures. Therefore, according to overwhelming historic, archaeologic, scriptural and scientific evidence, neither Avraham nor Ishmael have ever been in Arabia from Midyan southwards.
Central Arabia was for many centuries left aside from the organized kingdoms of the South and also from the tribal states of the North, keeping its original Kushite population. It was regarded by both parts mainly as a passing-through territory for the caravan routes, which were not far away from the sea coast. The Yemenite kingdoms concentrated their population in their own cities and had no real interest in annexing the desert central region. The Sabeans were like the Phoenicians outstanding seafarers and used mainly the maritime routes; they traded with far away countries like India and established commercial settlements along the whole eastern coast of Africa – even to reach Mesopotamia and Israel they preferred the sea routes. The only important caravan way they employed was the “Incense Road” that connected Yemen with Midyan across the peninsula along the Red Sea coast.
On the other side, the Semitic empires of the Middle East, namely Assyrian and Babylonian, were not much concerned in conquering the Arabian tribes and only imposed tribute on them, eventually placed vassal kings of their choice in order to keep a sort of organized administration, but did not establish colonies. After the fall of Babylon, the Nabateans got in touch with the Persian and Greek cultures and sought to expand themselves towards the northwest. In this period, they absorbed some Semitic peoples whose kingdoms were ruined since long time like the Edomites, Moabites, Ammonites and some Aramean tribes, which contributed to the formation of the Arab identity. These Arabs are those that in Roman times settled in the central region, slowly and merging with the local Kushite inhabitants.
Map showing the distribution of the Northern and Southern Arabian peoples :
notice that Central Arabia was primarily a Kushite territory, in which both Northern and Southern Arabians converged in a later period
distribution of the Northern and Southern Arabian people
Unification and transformation
A great amount of historic documents concerning early Arabs have been destroyed in Islamic times in order to annihilate the memory of the original background from which Islam emerged and how did it change the cultural features of the Arabs – so, it is not a surprising factor that they did likewise with the peoples that they subdued.
Only strongly established cultures resisted and were not “arabized” (like Jews, Assyrians, Coptic Egyptians, Armenians, that never surrendered to Islam). Yet, we still have enough elements to reconstruct the facts concerning the pre-Islamic Arabian culture, and it is interesting that it was a female-centered and even a female-ruled society.
This characteristic regarded primarily the Central Arabian and also the Northern tribes, not properly the Southern Arabian culture. Therefore, in order to enable a better comprehensibility, in this chapter we will define with the term “Arabian” or “Arab” the peoples of the Northern and Central regions, and “Yemenite” those of the Southern kingdoms (the term Yemenite indeed indicates the right hand, meaning the south).
According to the Chronicles of King Ashurbanipal and preceding Assyrian records, the Arabians have been ruled mainly by queens since the dim and distant past, like their Kushite brothers in Africa. Notable Arabian sovereigns like Zabibi and her daughter/successor Shamsi not only were the queens but also the warrior leaders of their own armies which included a large number of women-fighters; even tough they were submitted by Assyrian kings as vassals, these queens were credited for their aptitude for leadership.
Subsequently, the King Assarhadon appointed an Assyrian princess over the Arabs according to their custom of having female rulers. It is indeed a very strange tradition for an allegedly Semitic people, but a typical feature among Kushites: on the African side of the Red Sea, kingdoms like Meroë and Ethiopia were traditionally ruled by queens. Also the Amazigh people under their warrior queen Kahena opposed a fierce resistance to the muslim invaders. Undoubtedly, the government system of pre-Islamic Arabians was not Semitic but Hamitic.
There are conclusive evidences that Arabians had a matrilineal succession, the husband entered the wife’s clan and lived in her home, and it was generally the woman who decided to divorce. Women were free to choose their partner, and often married younger men. It was also usual that clans had female names, and there are some hints that suggest that even polyandry was practised – a custom not found among Semites but within some peoples in India and other regions of Asia. Also their religion had the same character, as the worship of the goddesses, the “daughters of Allah” (name of a pre-Islamic moon-god) prevailed over that of the male idols. It is not the purpose of this essay to show the true origin of Islam, yet it is interesting how did it manage to reverse all the Arabians’ culture – it is not the sole event of this kind in history, just consider how Communism took the power over the deeply religious Russians, overturning many of their traditional values. The Islamic doctrines altered the genuine Kushitic nature of the Arabs and imposed the male tyranny, that includes women-beating and other aberrant humiliations like clitoridectomy – characters that do not help to qualify Islam as Semitic either.
The Islamic insistence on the rules that women must obey has not any ethnic connotation but is the result of a reaction against the freedom and power that Arabian women enjoyed when this religion was founded (by someone who experimented such a female “domination” in his own family). In fact, the Kushite cultural heritage lasted much longer in Central Arabia, the cradle of Islam, rather than in the Northern and Southern regions, where the Nabatean and Himyarite civilizations were in contact with the western world and had become quite cosmopolitan.
The Nabateans learnt literature, sciences and arts from their neighbours and were Hellenized up to a certain degree; most of them also converted to Judaism and Christianity. It was in Roman times that they reached their splendour and expanded their influence over Central Arabia; cities like Khaybar, Yathrib and Mekka became important Nabatean centres. Most of the Jews dwelling in Arabia in those times were indeed converted Nabateans, as well as the Christians that settled as south as Najran, in the Yemenite region. Paradoxically, a large number of true Ishmaelites were murdered by the Islamic hordes in the massacres of Jews at Khaybar and Medina.
The notions about Jewish and Christian traditions were actually the source from which Nabateans rediscovered their Ishmaelite origin, as the name of Ishmael was completely lost in their own tradition. The Arabic form of this name shows internal evidence that it was translated from Greek or perhaps Syriac. This remote connection with a Biblical figure was enhanced on purpose by the promoters of Islam in order to create themselves a prestigious ancestry, although without having actual proofs of the Ishmaelite descent of Nabateans.
As we have already said, the Arabians were primarily a Kushite people and that is what they were considered by their Semitic neighbours as well; Ishmael’s offspring developed as a Hamitic people for many generations.
In fact, the only ancestor they remembered was Adnan, whose origin is unknown and maybe legendary, or perhaps a Kushite to whom in Islamic times was ascribed Ishmaelite lineage. It was mainly in Roman times that the Nabateans absorbed some Semitic tribes (Edomites, Moabites, Ammonites and Aramean clans from Syria), that contributed to add an important Semitic element to their ethnicity, nevertheless, none of these Semites was originated from Ishmael!
Concerning the Yemenites, in early times they had been ruled by queens according to the Kushitic tradition. The Semitic Yoqtanites assimilated the original Hamitic tribes and adopted their female monarchy system. Since they did not leave any written account of their own history previous to the Assyrian period, the only available document regarding the Sabean monarchy before the 8th century b.c.e. is recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures, that reports the journey of the Queen of Sheva to Jerusalem. The description of the Queen illustrates the daring character of a typical Arabian female ruler; she presented herself to test the mighty King Shlomoh with hard questions and spoke to him openly. The Hebrew expression “she came to Shlomoh” used in the Bible in 1Kings 10:2 and 2Chronicles 9:1 conveys an interesting implication: that she had the explicit purpose of sexual relations with the King, who was not reluctant to accomplish her wishes, as it is written in following verses that “King Shlomoh gave to the Queen of Sheba all her desire, whatsoever she asked”, implying that he also satisfied her sexually. This event became the source of many legends suggesting that both sovereigns had a son that founded a Solomonic dynasty that ruled in Yemen (or Ethiopia). There are not reliable proofs that may credit such a possibility, except that about two centuries later the Sabeans had a Semitic-styled male monarchy, and one of the earliest kings mentioned was Yati’amar, which is a Hebrew name (Ithamar).
Since the 3rd century c.e. the Sabean Himyarite Kingdom was enjoying a cultural revival in which the historical Israelite presence played an essential role, so much that even the king Dhu Nuwas adopted Judaism (even though the ancient Sabean religion was still practised by most Yemenites). This new feature was not appreciated by the nominally Christian Ethiopia and the Eastern Roman Empire, that agreed in joining their efforts to overthrow the Himyarite Kingdom. The Yemenite economy was weakened because of the commercial boycott promoted by the rival states that subsequently moved war against the Himyarite Kingdom. Yemen fell under the Ethiopians, that occupied the country and settled their own dynasty in 525 c.e. Yet, the Ethiopian Axumite rule did not last long, the ambitions of Byzantium and Persia to take control over the region resulted in a victory for the Persians, that subjected the whole Southern Arabia around 570 c.e. until the Islamic invasion. The end of the independent Yemen paved the way for their unification with the Nabatean Arabs advancing from the north.
At this point we have got a general description of the ethnic composition of Arabia when the whole peninsula was unified and the Arabic language was defined.
Conclusion:
After a careful and accurate research about the origin and identity of the Arabs, we can distinguish the myths from the facts:
·Myths:
1) Arabs are Ishmaelites: this is not true for the overwhelming majority of them. There are not written records by which not even a single Arab is able prove a direct descent from Ishmael. The alleged genealogies have been invented in Islamic times after some Nabateans converted to Judaism or Christianity discovered the possible link that they had with Ishmael, a name that was completely lost in Arabia and was translated from Greek sources.
2) Arabs are Semites: This is a relative truth – the Arabic language is Semitic, because its sources are ancient Semitic tongues spoken by both Sabeans and Nabateans. Also Ghe’ez and Amharic, languages of the Ethiopians, are Semitic, nevertheless the Ethiopian people are Kushites, not Semites.
3) Arabic was spoken in ancient times: false, it is the most recent of all Semitic languages, and evolved from Nabatean, Sabean, Lihyanite, Safaitic, Thamudic and other tongues. There was not a single document written in Arabic until Roman times.
·Facts:
1) Arabs are primarily Hamitic, with a relevant Semitic contribution.
2) Ancient Nabateans were mainly Kushitic. Although their forefather was Ishmael, he and his offspring married within the Kushite inhabitants of Northern Arabia, and were regarded as “Mušuri” (Egyptians) by the Assyrians, who did not recognize Arabs as a Semitic people.
3) Ancient Yemenites (Sabeans, Mineans and others) were of mixed Semitic/Hamitic stock.
4) The pre-Islamic Arabs had a Kushitic culture; they were mainly ruled by queens like the Nubians, Ethiopians and other Hamitic nations, and had a female-centred society.
5) Islam has reversed the original culture into a male-ruled society, yet not adopting a Semitic style but just imposing a system based on applying the opposite patterns to the previous social rules and customs.
Ancient Arabians had a great culture, that might have evolved into a modern civilization and a developed society like other peoples of the Middle East as the Jews or the Armenians, but their original culture was destroyed and their history was replaced by legends…
The True Identity of the So-called Palestinians
Concerning the Origin of Peoples
In this essay I would like to present the true origin and identity of the Arab people commonly known as “Palestinians”, and the widespread myths surrounding them. This research is intended to be completely neutral and objective, based on historic and archaeological evidences as well as other documents, including Arab sources, and quoting statements by authoritative Islamic personalities.
There are some modern myths -or more exactly, lies- that we can hear everyday through the mass-media as if they were true, of course, hiding the actual truth. For example, whenever the Temple Mount or Jerusalem are mentioned, it is usually remarked that is “the third holy place for Muslims”, but why it is never said that is the FIRST Holy Place for Jews? It sounds like an utterly biased information!
In order to make this essay better comprehensible, it will be presented in two units:
·1) Myths and facts concerning the origin and identity of the so-called Palestinians;
·2) Myths and facts regarding Jerusalem and the Land of Israel.
I – Origin and identity of the so-called Palestinians
Palestinians are the newest of all the peoples on the face of the Earth, and began to exist in a single day by a kind of supernatural phenomenon that is unique in the whole history of mankind, as it is witnessed by Walid Shoebat, a former PLO terrorist that acknowledged the lie he was fighting for and the truth he was fighting against:
“Why is it that on June 4th 1967 I was a Jordanian and overnight I became a Palestinian?”
“We did not particularly mind Jordanian rule. The teaching of the destruction of Israel was a definite part of the curriculum, but we considered ourselves Jordanian until the Jews returned to Jerusalem. Then all of the sudden we were Palestinians – they removed the star from the Jordanian flag and all at once we had a Palestinian flag”.
“When I finally realized the lies and myths I was taught, it is my duty as a righteous person to speak out”.
This declaration by a true “Palestinian” should have some significance for a sincerely neutral observer. Indeed, there is no such a thing like a Palestinian people, or a Palestinian culture, or a Palestinian language, or a Palestinian history. There has never been any Palestinian state, neither any Palestinian archaeological find nor coinage. The present-day “Palestinians” are an Arab people, with Arab culture, Arabic language and Arab history. They have their own Arab states from where they came into the Land of Israel about one century ago to contrast the Jewish immigration. That is the historical truth. They were Jordanians (another recent British invention, as there has never been any people known as “Jordanians”), and after the Six-Day War in which Israel utterly defeated the coalition of nine Arab states and took legitimate possession of Judea and Samaria, the Arab dwellers in those regions underwent a kind of anthropological miracle and discovered that they were Palestinians – something they did not know the day before. Of course, these people having a new identity had to build themselves a history, namely, had to steal some others’ history, and the only way that the victims of the theft would not complain is if those victims do no longer exist. Therefore, the Palestinian leaders claimed two contradictory lineages from ancient peoples that inhabited in the Land of Israel: the Canaanites and the Philistines. Let us consider both of them before going on with the Palestinian issue.
The Canaanites:
The Canaanites are historically acknowledged as the first inhabitants of the Land of Israel, before the Hebrews settled there. Indeed, the correct geographic name of the Land of Israel is Canaan, not “Palestine” (a Roman invention, as we will see later). They were composed by different tribes, that may be distinguished in two main groups: the Northern or Coastland Canaanites and the Southern or Mountain Canaanites.
·The Northern Canaanites settled along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea from the southeastern side of the Gulf of Iskenderun to the proximities of the Gulf of Hayfa. Their main cities were Tzur, Tzidon, Gebal (Byblos), Arvad, Ugarit, and are better known in history by their Greek name Phoenicians, but they called themselves “Kana’ana” or “Kinachnu”. They did not found any unified kingdom but were organized in self-ruled cities, and were not a warlike people but rather skilful traders, seafarers and builders. Their language was adopted from their Semitic neighbors, the Arameans, and was closely related to Hebrew (not to Arabic!). Phoenicians and Israelites did not need interpreters to understand each other. They followed the same destiny of ancient Israel and fell under Assyrian rule, then Babylonian, Persian, Macedonian, Seleucian and Roman. Throughout their history the Phoenicians intermarried with different peoples that dwelled in their land, mainly Greeks and Armenians. During the Islamic expansion they were Arabized, yet, never completely assimilated, and their present-day state is Lebanon, erroneously regarded as an “Arab” country, a label that the Lebanese people reject. Unlike the Arab states, Lebanon has a western democratic-style official name, “Lebanese Republic”, without the essential adjective “Arab” that is required in the denominations of every Arab state. The only mention of the term Arabic in the Lebanese constitution refers to the official language of the state, which does not mean that the Lebanese people are Arabs in the same way as the official language of the United States is English but this does not qualify the Americans as British.
The so-called Palestinians are not Lebanese (although some of them came from Syrian-occupied Lebanon), therefore they are not Phoenicians (Northern Canaanites). Actually, in Lebanon they are “refugees” and are not identified with the local people.
·The Southern Canaanites dwelled in the mountain region from the Golan southwards, on both sides of the Yarden and along the Mediterranean coast from the Gulf of Hayfa to Yafo, that is the Biblical Canaan. They were composed by various tribes of different stocks: besides the proper Canaanites (Phoenicians), there were Amorites, Hittites and Hurrian peoples like the Yevusites, Hivvites and Horites, all of them assimilated into the Aramean-Canaanite context. They never constituted an unified, organized state but kept within the tribal alliance system.
When the first Hebrews arrived in Canaan they shared the land but did not intermarry, as it was an interdiction for Avraham’s family to marry the Canaanites. Nevertheless, eleven of the twelve sons of Yakov married Canaanite women (the other son married an Egyptian), and since then, the Tribes of Israel began to mix with the local inhabitants. After the Exodus, when the Israelites conquered the Land, there were some wars between them and the Canaanites throughout the period of the Sofetim (Judges), and were definitively subdued by King David. By that time, most Canaanites were married to Israelites, others voluntarily accepted Torah becoming Israelites, others joined up in the Israelite or Judahite army. Actually, the Canaanites are seldom mentioned during the Kings’ period, usually in reference to their heathen customs introduced among the Israelites, but no longer as a distinguishable people, because they were indeed assimilated into the Israelite nation. When the Assyrians overran the Kingdom of Israel, they did not leave any Canaanite aside, as they had all become Israelites by that time. The same happened when the Babylonians overthrew the Kingdom of Judah.
Therefore, the only people that can trace back a lineage to the ancient Canaanites are the Jews, not the Palestinians, as Canaanites did not exist any longer after the 8th century b.c.e. and they were not annihilated but assimilated into the Jewish people.
Conclusion: the Palestinians cannot claim any descent from the ancient Canaanites – if so, why not to pretend also the Syrian “occupied territories”, namely, Lebanon? Why do they not speak the language of the ancient Canaanites, that was Hebrew? Because they are NOT Canaanites at all!
The Philistines:
It is from the term “Philistines” that the name “Palestinians” has been taken. Actually, the ancient Philistines and modern Palestinians have something in common: both are invaders from other lands! That is precisely the meaning of their name, that is not an ethnic denomination but an adjective applied to them: Peleshet, from the verb “pelesh”, “dividers”, “penetrators” or “invaders”. The Philistines were a confederation of non-Semitic peoples coming from Crete, the Aegean Islands and Asia Minor, also known as “Sea Peoples”. The main tribes were Tzekelesh, Shardana, Akhaiusha, Danauna, Tzakara, Masa or Meshwesh, Lukki, Dardana, Tursha, Keshesh or Karkisha, Labu and Irven. The original homeland of the group that ruled the Philistine federation, namely the “Pelesati”, was the island of Crete. When the Minoic civilization collapsed, also the Minoic culture disappeared from Crete, as invaders from Greece took control of the island. These ancient Cretans arrived in Southern Canaan and were known as “Pelestim and Keretim” by Hebrews and Canaanites (that became allied to fight the invaders). Their first settlement seem to have been Gaza, whose original name was “Minoah”, a clear reference to the fallen Minoic kingdom. They also invaded Egypt and were defeated by Pharaoh Ramose III in the 12th century b.c.e. The Philistines were organized in city-states, being the most important the Pentapolis: Gaza, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Gath and Ekron, and their territory was close to the Mediterranean coast, a little longer and broader than the present-day “Gaza Strip” – not the whole Judah, they never reached Hevron, Jerusalem or Yericho!
Those Sea Peoples that invaded Egypt were expelled towards other Mediterranean lands and did not evolve into any Arab people, but disappeared as distinguishable groups in Roman times. Those dwelling in Canaan were defeated by King David and reduced to insignificance, the best warriors among them were chosen as David’s bodyguard. The remaining Philistines still dwelling in Gaza were subdued by Sargon II of Assyria and after that time, they disappeared definitively from history. They are no longer mentioned since the return of the Jewish exiles from Babylon.
Conclusion: there is not one single person in the world who may be able to prove Philistine lineage, yet, if Palestinians insist, they have to recognize themselves as invaders in Israel, and then they must ask Greece to return them back the Isle of Crete! The Philistines are extinct and claims to alleged links with them are utterly false as they are historically impossible to establish. In any case, claiming a Philistine heritage is idle because it cannot legitimate any land in which they were foreign occupants and not native dwellers. Philistines were not Arabs, and the only feature in common between both peoples is that in Israel they should be regarded as invaders, Philistines from the sea and Arabs from the wilderness. They do not want Jerusalem because it is their city, which is not and never has been, they simply want to take her from the Jews, to whom she has belonged for three thousand years. The Philistines wanted to take from Israelites the Holy Ark of the Covenant, modern so-called Palestinians want to take from them the Holy City of the Covenant.
The Palestinians: No, they are not any ancient people, but claim to be. They were born in a single day, after a war that lasted six days in 1967 c.e. If they were true Canaanites, they would speak Hebrew and demand from Syria to give them back their occupied homeland in Lebanon, but they are not. If they were Philistines, they would claim back the Isle of Crete from Greece and would recognize that they have nothing to do with the Land of Israel, and would ask excuses to Israel for having stolen the Ark of the Covenant.
The land called “Palestine”
In the 2nd century c.e., the last attempt of the Jews to achieve independence from the Roman Empire ended with the well-known event of Masada, that is historically documented and universally recognized as the fact that determined the Jewish Diaspora in a definitive way. The Land where these things happened was until then the province known as Judæa , and there is no mention of any place called “Palestine” before that time. The Roman emperor Hadrian was utterly upset with the Jewish Nation and wanted to erase the name of Israel and Judah from the face of the Earth, so that there would be no memory of the country that belonged to that rebel people. He decided to replace the denomination of that Roman province and resorted to ancient history in order to find a name that might appear appropriate, and found that an extinct people that was unknown in Roman times, called “Philistines”, was once dwelling in that area and were enemies of the Israelites. Therefore, according to Latin spelling, he invented the new name: “Palæstina”, a name that would be also hateful for the Jews as it reminded them their old foes. He did so with the explicit purpose of effacing any trace of Jewish history. Ancient Romans, as well as modern Palestinians, have fulfilled the Hebrew Scriptures Prophecy that declares: “They lay crafty plans against Your People… they say: ‘come, let us wipe them out as a nation; let the name of Israel be remembered no more’.” – Tehilim 83:3-4 (Psalm 83:3-4). They failed, as Israel is still alive. Any honest person would recognize that there is no mention of the name Palestina in history before the Romans renamed the province of Judea, that such name does not occur in any ancient document, is not written in the Bible, neither in the Hebrew Scriptures nor in the Christian Testament, not even in Assyrian, Persian, Macedonian, Ptolemaic, Seleucian or other Greek sources, and that not any “Palestinian” people has ever been mentioned, not even by the Romans that invented the term. If “Palestinians” allegedly are the historic inhabitants of the Holy Land, why did they not fight for independence from Roman occupation as Jews did? How is it possible that not a single Palestinian leader heading for a revolt against the Roman invaders is mentioned in any historic record? Why there is not any Palestinian rebel group mentioned, as for example the Jewish Zealots? Why every historic document mentions the Jews as the native inhabitants, and the Greeks, Romans and others as foreigners dwelling in Judea, but not any Palestinian people, neither as native nor as foreigner? What is more, there is no reference to any Palestinian people in the qur’an (koran), although muslims claim that their prophet was once in Jerusalem (an event that is not mentioned in the koran either). It appears evident that he did not meet any Palestinian in his whole life, nor his successors did either. Caliph Salahuddin al-Ayyub (Saladin), knew the Jews and kindly invited them to settle in Jerusalem, that he recognized as their Homeland, but he did not know any Palestinian… To claim that Palestinians are the original people of Eretz Yisrael is not only against secular history but also against Islamic history!
The name “Falastin” that Arabs today use for “Palestine” is not an Arabic name, but adopted and adapted from the Latin Palæstina . How can an Arab people have a western name instead of one in their own language? Because the use of the term “Palestinian” for an Arab group is only a modern political creation without any historic or ethnic grounds, and did not indicate any people before 1967. An Arab writer and journalist declared:
“There has never been a land known as Palestine governed by Palestinians. Palestinians are Arabs, indistinguishable from Jordanians (another recent invention), Syrians, Iraqis, etc. Keep in mind that the Arabs control 99.9 percent of the Middle East lands. Israel represents one-tenth of one percent of the landmass. But that’s too much for the Arabs. They want it all. And that is ultimately what the fighting in Israel is about today… No matter how many land concessions the Israelis make, it will never be enough”.
- Joseph Farah, “Myths of the Middle East” -
Let us hear what other Arabs have said:
“There is no such country as Palestine. ‘Palestine’ is a term the Zionists invented. There is no Palestine in the Bible. Our country was for centuries part of Syria. ‘Palestine’ is alien to us. It is the Zionists who introduced it”.
- Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi, Syrian Arab leader to British Peel Commission, 1937 -
“There is no such thing as Palestine in history, absolutely not”.
- Professor Philip Hitti, Arab historian, 1946 -
“It is common knowledge that Palestine is nothing but Southern Syria”.
– Representant of Saudi Arabia at the United Nations, 1956 -
Concerning the Holy Land, the chairman of the Syrian Delegation at the Paris Peace Conference in February 1919 stated:
“The only Arab domination since the Conquest in 635 c.e. hardly lasted, as such, 22 years”.
The preceding declarations by Arab politicians have been done before 1967, as they had not the slightest knowledge of the existence of any Palestinian people. How and when did they change their mind and decided that such people existed? When the State of Israel was reborn in 1948 c.e., the “Palestinians” did not exist yet, the Arabs had still not discovered that “ancient” people. They were too busy with the purpose of annihilating the new Sovereign State and did not intend to create any Palestinian entity, but only to distribute the land among the already existing Arab states. They were defeated. They attempted again to destroy Israel in 1967, and were humiliated in only six days, in which they lost the lands that they had usurped in 1948. In those 19 years of Arab occupation of Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip, neither Jordan nor Egypt suggested to create a “Palestinian” state, since the still non-existing Palestinians would have never claimed their alleged right to have their own state… Paradoxically, during the British Mandate, it was not any Arab group but the Jews that were known as “Palestinians”!
What other Arabs declared after the Six-Day War:
“There are no differences between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. We are all part of one nation. It is only for political reasons that we carefully underline our Palestinian identity… yes, the existence of a separate Palestinian identity serves only tactical purposes. The founding of a Palestinian state is a new tool in the continuing battle against Israel”.
- Zuhair Muhsin, military commander of the PLO and member of the PLO Executive Council -
“You do not represent Palestine as much as we do. Never forget this one point: There is no such thing as a Palestinian people, there is no Palestinian entity, there is only Syria. You are an integral part of the Syrian people, Palestine is an integral part of Syria. Therefore it is we, the Syrian authorities, who are the true representatives of the Palestinian people”.
- Syrian dictator Hafez Assad to the PLO leader Yassir Arafat -
“As I lived in Palestine, everyone I knew could trace their heritage back to the original country their great grandparents came from. Everyone knew their origin was not from the Canaanites, but ironically, this is the kind of stuff our education in the Middle East included. The fact is that today’s Palestinians are immigrants from the surrounding nations! I grew up well knowing the history and origins of today’s Palestinians as being from Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Christians from Greece, muslim Sherkas from Russia, muslims from Bosnia, and the Jordanians next door. My grandfather, who was a dignitary in Bethlehem, almost lost his life by Abdul Qader Al-Husseni (the leader of the Palestinian revolution) after being accused of selling land to Jews. He used to tell us that his village Beit Sahur (The Shepherds Fields) in Bethlehem County was empty before his father settled in the area with six other families. The town has now grown to 30,000 inhabitants”.
– Walid Shoebat, an “ex-Palestinian” Arab -
How long do “Palestinians” live in “Palestine”?
According to the United Nations weird standards, any person that spent TWO YEARS (!!!) in “Palestine” before 1948, with or without proof, is a “Palestinian”, as well as all the descendants of that person. Indeed, the PLO leaders eagerly demand the “right” of all Palestinians to come back to the land that they occupied before June 1967 c.e., but utterly reject to return back to the land where they lived only 50 years before, namely, in 1917 c.e. Why? Because if they agree to do so, they have to settle back in Iraq, Syria, Arabia, Libya, Egypt… and only a handful Arabs would remain in Israel (by Israel is intended the whole Land between the Yarden River and the Mediterranean Sea, plus the Golan region). It is thoroughly documented that the first inhabitants of Eretz Yisrael after some centuries were the Jewish pioneers, and not the Arabs so-called Palestinians. Some eyewitnesses have written their memories about the Land before the Jewish immigration:
“There is not a solitary village throughout its whole extent (valley of Jezreel, Galilea); not for thirty miles in either direction… One may ride ten miles hereabouts and not see ten human beings. For the sort of solitude to make one dreary, come to Galilee… Nazareth is forlorn… Jericho lies a mouldering ruin… Bethlehem and Bethany, in their poverty and humiliation… untenanted by any living creature… A desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds… a silent, mournful expanse… a desolation… We never saw a human being on the whole route… Hardly a tree or shrub anywhere. Even the olive tree and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil had almost deserted the country… Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes… desolate and unlovely…”.
- Mark Twain, “The Innocents Abroad”, 1867 -
Where had the Palestinians been hidden that Mark Twain did not see them? Where was that “ancient” people in the mid XIX century c.e.? Of course, modern biased Arab politicians try to discredit Mark Twain and insult and blame him of racism. Yet, it seems that there were other people that did not achieve in recognizing a single Palestinian in those times and earlier:
“In 1590 a ‘simple English visitor’ to Jerusalem wrote: ‘Nothing there is to bescene but a little of the old walls, which is yet remayning and all the rest is grasse, mosse and weedes much like to a piece of rank or moist grounde’.”.
- Gunner Edward Webbe, Palestine Exploration Fund,
Quarterly Statement, p. 86; de Haas, History, p. 338 -
“The land in Palestine is lacking in people to till its fertile soil”.
– British archaeologist Thomas Shaw, mid-1700s -
“Palestine is a ruined and desolate land”.
- Count Constantine François Volney, XVIII century French author and historian -
“The Arabs themselves cannot be considered but temporary residents. They pitched their tents in its grazing fields or built their places of refuge in its ruined cities. They created nothing in it. Since they were strangers to the land, they never became its masters. The desert wind that brought them hither could one day carry them away without their leaving behind them any sign of their passage through it”.
- Comments by Christians concerning the Arabs in Palestine in the 1800s -
“Then we entered the hill district, and our path lay through the clattering bed of an ancient stream, whose brawling waters have rolled away into the past, along with the fierce and turbulent race who once inhabited these savage hills. There may have been cultivation here two thousand years ago. The mountains, or huge stony mounds environing this rough path, have level ridges all the way up to their summits; on these parallel ledges there is still some verdure and soil: when water flowed here, and the country was thronged with that extraordinary population, which, according to the Sacred Histories, was crowded into the region, these mountain steps may have been gardens and vineyards, such as we see now thriving along the hills of the Rhine. Now the district is quite deserted, and you ride among what seem to be so many petrified waterfalls. We saw no animals moving among the stony brakes; scarcely even a dozen little birds in the whole course of the ride”.
- William Thackeray in “From Jaffa To Jerusalem”, 1844 -
“The country is in a considerable degree empty of inhabitants and therefore its greatest need is of a body of population”.
- James Finn, British Consul in 1857 -
“There are many proofs, such as ancient ruins, broken aqueducts, and remains of old roads, which show that it has not always been so desolate as it seems now. In the portion of the plain between Mount Carmel and Jaffa one sees but rarely a village or other sights of human life. There are some rude mills here which are turned by the stream. A ride of half an hour more brought us to the ruins of the ancient city of Cæsarea, once a city of two hundred thousand inhabitants, and the Roman capital of Palestine, but now entirely deserted. As the sun was setting we gazed upon the desolate harbor, once filled with ships, and looked over the sea in vain for a single sail. In this once crowded mart, filled with the din of traffic, there was the silence of the desert. After our dinner we gathered in our tent as usual to talk over the incidents of the day, or the history of the locality. Yet it was sad, as I laid upon my couch at night, to listen to the moaning of the waves and to think of the desolation around us”.
- B. W. Johnson, in “Young Folks in Bible Lands”: Chapter IV, 1892 -
“The area was underpopulated and remained economically stagnant until the arrival of the first Zionist pioneers in the 1880′s, who came to rebuild the Jewish land. The country had remained “The Holy Land” in the religious and historic consciousness of mankind, which associated it with the Bible and the history of the Jewish people. Jewish development of the country also attracted large numbers of other immigrants – both Jewish and Arab. The road leading from Gaza to the north was only a summer track suitable for transport by camels and carts… Houses were all of mud. No windows were anywhere to be seen… The plows used were of wood… The yields were very poor… The sanitary conditions in the village [Yabna] were horrible… Schools did not exist… The rate of infant mortality was very high… The western part, toward the sea, was almost a desert… The villages in this area were few and thinly populated. Many ruins of villages were scattered over the area, as owing to the prevalence of malaria, many villages were deserted by their inhabitants”.
- The report of the British Royal Commission, 1913 -
The list of travellers and pilgrims throughout the XVI to the XIX centuries c.e. that give a similar description of the Holy Land is quite longer, including Alphonse de Lamartine, Sir George Gawler, Sir George Adam Smith, Siebald Rieter, priest Michael Nuad, Martin Kabatnik, Arnold Van Harff, Johann Tucker, Felix Fabri, Edward Robinson and others. All of them found the land almost empty, except for Jewish communities in Jerusalem, Shechem, Hevron, Haifa, Safed, Irsuf, Cæsarea, Gaza, Ramleh, Acre, Sidon, Tzur, El Arish, and some towns in Galilee: Ein Zeitim, Pekiin, Biria, Kfar Alma, Kfar Hanania, Kfar Kana and Kfar Yassif. Even Napoleon I Bonaparte, having seen the need that the Holy Land would be populated, had in mind to enable a mass return of Jews from Europe to settle in the country that he recognized as theirs’ – evidently, he did not see any “Palestinian” claiming historical rights over the Holy Land, whose few inhabitants were mainly Jews.
Besides them, many Arab sources confirm the fact that the Holy Land was still Jewish by population and culture in spite of the Diaspora:
·In 985 c.e. the Arab writer Muqaddasi complained that in Jerusalem the large majority of the population were Jewish, and said that “the mosque is empty of worshippers…” .
·Ibn Khaldun, one of the most creditable Arab historians, in 1377 c.e. wrote:
“Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel extended over 1400 years… It was the Jews who implanted the culture and customs of the permanent settlement”.
After 300 years of Arab rule in the Holy Land, Ibn Khaldun attested that Jewish culture and traditions were still dominant. By that time there was still no evidence of “Palestinian” roots or culture .
·The historian James Parker wrote: “During the first century after the Arab conquest [670-740 c.e.], the caliph and governors of Syria and the [Holy] Land ruled entirely over Christian and Jewish subjects. Apart from the Bedouin in the earliest days, the only Arabs west of the Jordan were the garrisons”.
Even though the Arabs ruled the Land from 640 c.e. to 1099 c.e., they never became the majority of the population. Most of the inhabitants were Christians (Assyrian and Armenian) and Jews.
If the historic documents, comments written by eyewitnesses and declarations by the most authoritative Arab scholars are still not enough, let us quote the most important source for muslim Arabs:
“And thereafter We [Allah] said to the Children of Israel: ‘Dwell securely in the Promised Land. And when the last warning will come to pass, we will gather you together in a mingled crowd’.”.
- Qur’an 17:104 -
Any sincere muslim must recognize the Land they call “Palestine” as the Jewish Homeland, according to the book considered by muslims to be the most sacred word and Allah’s ultimate revelation.
Permanent Jewish presence in the Holy Land
Whenever the issue concerning the Jewish population in Israel is discussed, the idea that Jews are “returning back” to their Homeland after almost two millennia of exile is taken for granted. It is true that such is the case for the largest number of Jews, but not for all of them. It is not correct to say that the whole Jewish nation has been in exile. The long exile, known as Diaspora, is a documented fact that proves the legitimacy of the Jewish claim to the Land of Israel, and was the consequence of the Jewish Wars of independence from the Roman Empire. If “Palestinians” allegedly are the historic inhabitants of the Holy Land, why did they not fight for independence from Roman occupation as Jews did? How is it possible that not a single Palestinian leader heading for a revolt against the Roman invaders is mentioned in any historic record? Why there is not any Palestinian rebel group mentioned, as for example the Jewish Zealots? Why every historic document mentions the Jews as the native inhabitants, and the Greeks, Romans and others as foreigners dwelling in Judea, but not any Palestinian people, neither as native nor as foreigner? After the last Jewish War in the 2nd century c.e., the Roman emperor Hadrian sacked Jerusalem in 135 c.e. and changed her name into Ælia Capitolina, and the name of Judæa into Palæstina, in order to erase the Jewish identity from the face of the Earth. Most of the Jews were expelled from their own land by the Romans, a fact that determined the beginning of the great Diaspora. Nevertheless, small groups of Jews remained in the province then renamed “Palestine”, and their descendants dwelled in their own country continuously throughout generations until the Zionist pioneers started on the mass return in the XIX century. Therefore, the Jewish claim to the Land of Israel is justified not only by an old Biblical Promise, but also by a permanent presence of Jews as the only autochthonous ethnic community existing in the Holy Land. Along the centuries and under different dominations, the “Palestinian” Jews did never submit to assimilation but conserved their spiritual and cultural identity, as well as their links with other Jewish communities in the Middle East. The continuous flow of Mizrachim (Oriental) and Sephardim (Mediterranean) Jews to the Holy Land contributed to support the existence of the Jewish population in the area. This enduring Jewish presence in the so-called Palestine preceded many centuries the arrival of the first Arab conqueror.
Even though Jerusalem has been off-limits to Jews in different periods (since Romans banned all Jews to enter the City), many of them settled in the immediate proximities and in other towns and villages of the Holy Land. A Jewish community was established at Mount Zion. The Roman and subsequent Byzantine rule were oppressive; Jews were prevented from praying at the Kotel, where the Holy Temple once existed. The Sassanid Persians took control over Jerusalem in 614 c.e. allied with the local Jews, but five years later the City fell again under Byzantine control, although it was an ephemeral rule because in 638 c.e. Jerusalem was captured by the caliph Omar. That was the first time that an Arab leader set foot in the Holy City, inhabited by non-Arab peoples (Jews, Assyrians, Armenians, Greeks and other Christian communities). After centuries of Roman-Byzantine oppression, the Jews welcomed the Arab conquerors with the hope that their conditions would improve. The Arabs found a strong Jewish identity in Jerusalem and the surrounding land; Jews were living in every district of the country and on both sides of the Jordan. Indeed, the “Palestinians” that were historically dwelling in the Holy Land were no other than the Jews! Towns like Ramallah, Yericho and Gaza were almost purely Jewish by that time. The Arabs, not having a name of their own for this region, adopted the Latin name “Palæstina”, that they translated into Arabic as “Falastin”.
The first Arab immigrants that settled in the so-called Palestine – or, according to the modern UN conception, the first “Palestinian refugees” – were actually Jewish Arabs, namely Nabateans that adopted Judaism. Before the rise of Islam, flourishing centres like Khaybar and Yathrib (renamed Madinah) were mainly Jewish Nabatean cities. Whenever there was a famine in the land, people would go to Khaybar; the Jews always had fruit, and their springs yielded a plentiful supply of water. Once the muslim hordes conquered the Arabian peninsula, all that richness was ruined; the muslims perpetrated massacres against the Jews and replaced them with masses of ignorant fellahin submitted to the new religion. The survivors had to escape and took refuge in the Holy Land, mainly in Yericho and Dera’a, on both shores of the Jordan.
The Arab caliphs (Umayyad, Abbasid and Fatimid) controlled the Holy Land until 1071 c.e., when Jerusalem was captured by the Seldjuq Turks, and after that time, it was never again under Arab rule. During all that period, Arabs hardly established any permanent social structure of their own, but rather governed over the native non-Arab Christian and Jewish population. Any honest observer would notice that the Arabs ruled over the Holy Land three centuries less than they did over Spain!
In 1099 c.e., the European Crusaders conquered the so-called Palestine and established a kingdom that was politically independent, but never developed a national identity; it was just a military outpost of Christian Europe. The Crusaders were ruthless and tried by all means to remove any expression of Jewish culture, but all their efforts ended without success. In 1187 c.e., Jews actively participated with Salah-ud-Din Al’Ayyub (Saladin) against the Crusaders in the conquest of Jerusalem. Saladin, who was the greatest muslim conqueror, was not an Arab but a Kurd. The Crusaders took Jerusalem back from 1229 to 1244 c.e., when the City was captured by the Khwarezmians. A period of chaos and Mongol invasions followed until 1291c.e., when the Mameluks completed the conquest of almost the whole Middle East and settled their capital in Cairo, Egypt. The Mameluks were originally Central Asian and Caucasian mercenaries employed by the Arab caliphs; a medley of peoples whose main contingent was composed by Kumans, a Turkic tribe also known as Kipchak, related to the Seldjuqs, Kimaks and other groups. They were characterized by their ambiguous behaviour, as Kuman mercenaries were often contemporarily serving two enemy armies. The Mameluk soldiers did not miss the right moment to seize power for themselves, and even after their rule was overthrown, they were still employed as warriors by the Ottoman sultans and at last by Napoleon Bonaparte.
In 1517 c.e., Jerusalem and the whole Holy Land were conquered by the Ottoman Turks and remained under their rule during four centuries, until 1917 c.e., when the British captured Jerusalem and established the “Mandate of Palestine”. It was the end of the Ottoman Empire, that owned all the present-day Arab countries until then. Indeed, since the fall of the Abbasid caliphate in 945 c.e., no Arab political entity existed in the Middle East for almost a millennium!
By the beginning of the XX century c.e., the population of Judea and Samaria – the improperly called “West Bank” – was less than 100,000 inhabitants, of which the majority were Jews. Gaza had no more than 80,000 “native” inhabitants in 1951, at the end of Israel’s Independence War against the whole Arab world. Gaza was occupied by Arabs: How is it possible that in only 50 years it has increased from 80,000 to more than one million people? Are all those Arabs of Gaza so skilful as to procreate children in a supernatural way? Mass immigration is the ONLY plausible explanation for such a demographic increase. The Arab occupation between 1948 and 1967 was an advantageous opportunity for Arab leaders to promote mass immigration of so-called “Palestinians” (a mishmash of Arab immigrants) into Judea, Samaria and Gaza from every Arab country, mainly Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan. In fact, since 1950 until the Six-Day War, under Jordanian rule, more than 250 Arab settlements have been founded in Judea and Samaria. The recent construction of the Arab houses is quite evident by the materials used for building: concrete and cinderblock. The Israeli government admits to have allowed over 240,000 workers to enter Judea and Samaria through the border with Jordan since the Oslo Conference – only to have them stay in those territories as Arab settlers. The actual numbers are probably higher. If hundreds of thousands of Middle Eastern migrant workers are flooding into the Judea, Samaria and Gaza, why should Israel be required to provide them jobs? In fact the reverse, by supporting their economy while these people refuse to accept Israeli or Jordanian citizenship, Israel is only attracting more migrant workers. Saudi Arabia in a single year expelled over 1,000,000 stateless migrant workers. Lest anyone think that these are all “Palestinians”, taking account of the definition of “Palestinian” according to the United Nations: all those Arabs that spent TWO YEARS in “Palestine” before 1948, and their descendants – with or without proof or documentation -. This definition was specifically designed to include immigrant Arab settlers (not Jewish settlers!).
The British perfidy
The restoration of the desolate and deserted Land began in the latter half of the XIX century with the arrival of the first Jewish pioneers. Their labours created newer and better conditions and opportunities, which in turn attracted migrants from many parts of the Middle East, mainly Arabs but also Circassians, Kurds and others. The Balfour Declaration of 1917, confirmed by the League of Nations, committed the British government (that took control of the Holy Land after having defeated the Ottoman Turks) to the principle that “His Majesty’s government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a Jewish National Home, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object”. It was specified both that this area be open to “Jewish settlement” and that the rights of all inhabitants already in the country be preserved and protected. The “Mandate of Palestine” ‒as it was called the British-occupied land‒ originally included all of present-day Jordan, as well as the whole of Israel, and the so-called “territories” between them (?) ‒actually, the Jordan river and the Dead Sea are the only “territory” between Israel and the Hashemite Kingdom‒.
However, the political and economic interests of Great Britain in Arabia turned soon into a blatant anti-Jewish policy. The British rule progressively limited Jewish immigration. In 1939 the admission of Jews to enter the Holy Land was put to an end. In the moment in which Jews from Europe had the greatest need of refuge, the British denied them to reach the Land that was their only hope of deliverance from the atrocious Shoah. Yes, the British government is not less guilty than Nazi Germany for the Shoah! At the same time, the British allowed and even encouraged massive illegal immigration into the lands west of the Jordan river from Arab countries. Then, all the lands of the Mandate of Palestine east of the Jordan river were given to the Arabs and the puppet-kingdom of “Trans-Jordan” was created, name that was then changed into “Jordan” after the Arabs occupied the western side in 1948. There was no traditional or historic Arab name for this land, so it was called after the river that marked its western border (which was later included, until June 1967). By this political act, that violated the conditions of the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate, the British stole more than 75 % out of the Jewish National Home. No Jew has ever been permitted to reside in the east of the Jordan river. Less than 25 % then remained of Mandate of Palestine, and even in this remnant, the British violated the Balfour and Mandate requirements for a “Jewish National Home” and for “Jewish settlement”. They progressively restricted where Jews could buy land, where they could live, build, farm or work. After the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel was finally able to settle some small part of those lands from which the Jews had been banned by the British. Successive British governments regularly condemned Jewish settlement as “illegal”. Actually, it was the British who had acted illegally in banning Jews from these parts of the Jewish National Home! To conclude in shame, when the it was held the UN voting to approve the creation of the State of Israel in November 29, 1947, the United Kingdom ABSTAINED. Israel was recognized by the USSR, the Communist Countries, the USA and Philippines. When the British had to leave the Holy Land, they left their weapons in Arab hands ‒ while Jews were prohibited to have any kind of weapon and had to keep them in secret in order to defend themselves from the imminent attack by the Arabs, in which the British would appear as “disengaged” and free from any responsibility…
“Palestinian «Refugees»”?
Another of the big lies that are being passed off as truth by politics and mass media is the “Palestinian refugees” issue: the allegedly “native” population that were “evicted” by the Israelis. Actually, in 1948 the Arab so-called refugees were encouraged to leave Israel by Arab leaders, who promised to purge the Land of Jews. Almost 70 % of them left without having ever seen a single Israeli soldier.
On the other side, nothing is said about the Jewish refugees that were forced to flee from Arab lands due to Arab brutality, persecution and pogroms. As soon as the State of Israel was founded, hundreds of thousands of Jews were expelled from every Arab country, mainly Yemen, Iraq and Egypt. The Mizrachim, also known as Babylonian Jews, were living in present-day Iraq since the Babylonian exile in the 6th century b.c.e., the Teymanim or Yemenite Jews were settled in the Sabean Kingdoms long before Roman times. Arabs have expelled them from the lands where those Jews were living for many centuries! The number of Arab so-called refugees that left Israel in 1948 is estimated to be around 630,000, while the Jewish refugees that were forced out from Arab lands is estimated to be some more than that… Nevertheless, the UN has never demanded from Arab states to receive the Jews that were settled there for many generations and to restore their property and to provide them employment. Meanwhile, the so-called Palestinian “refugees” were intentionally not absorbed or integrated into the Arab countries to which they fled, despite the vast Arab territory (Israel’s extension is less than 1% of the territory of all Arab lands). Out of the 100,000,000 refugees since World War II, the so-called Palestinians are the only refugee group in the world that has never been absorbed or integrated into their own peoples’ lands. On the contrary, Jewish refugees were completely absorbed into Israel.
The truth is that the Arab League keeps the Palestinian refugees issue as a political weapon against Israel, with which they continue to fool the United Nations and propagate their perfidious policy. The proofs of such intention are given by Arab sources themselves: At a refugee conference in Homs, Syria, the Arab leaders declared that «any discussion aimed at a solution of the Palestine problem which will not based on ensuring the refugees’ right to annihilate Israel will be regarded as desecration of the Arab people and an act of treason». In 1958, former director of UNRWA Ralph Galloway declared angrily while in Jordan that «the Arab states do not want to solve the refugee problem. They want to keep it as an open sore, as an affront to the United Nations, and as a weapon against Israel. Arab leaders do not give a damn whether Arab refugees live or die». King Hussein, the sole Arab leader that directed integration of the Arabs, in 1960 stated: «Since 1948 Arab leaders have approached the Palestine problem in an irresponsible manner…. They have used the Palestine people for selfish political purposes. This is ridiculous and, I could say, even criminal».
Between 1948 and 1967, the Arab flow into the Israeli territories occupied by them (Judea, Samaria and Gaza) was intensified. The UNRWA reported in 1951-52 that «200,000 Arab “refugees” were languishing in Gaza, along with 80,000 original residents who barely made a living before the refugees arrived», notwithstanding, a project to accommodate 10,000 families in the Sinai area (then under Egyptian control) was suspended. How is that the Gaza Strip, having around 80,000 allegedly native residents and twice and half that number of immigrants is only fifty years later overpopulated, with about one and half million of “native people dwelling there since ancestral times”?
The Arab states are acting a downright discrimination policy against Palestinians, preventing them with all means to achieve any sort of integration in the Arab countries (the same ones from where the Palestinians’ grandparents emigrated to the Holy Land). Iraq and Syria were the most appropriate lands for resettlement of the so-called Palestinian refugees. Between 1948 and 1951, more than 120,000 Jews left Iraq to settle in Israel, leaving all of their goods and homes behind them. Most of them were businessmen and artisans, and many were wealthy. Their departure created a large gap in Iraq’s economy; in some fields, such as transport, banking and wholesale trades, it reached serious proportions, and there was also a dearth of white collar workers and professional men. Salah Jabr, former dictator of Iraq recognized that «the emigration of 120,000 Jews from Iraq to Israel is beneficial to Iraq and to the Palestinian Arabs because it makes possible the entry into Iraq of a similar number of Arab refugees and their occupation of the Jewish houses there». Nevertheless, Palestinians in Iraq have been “allowed to live in the country but not to assume Iraqi nationality”, despite the fact that the country needs manpower and “is encouraging Arab nationals to work and live there by granting them citizenship, with the exception of Palestinians”.
Syria was also almost a desert in the early fifties and a very suitable land to give home to the “refugees”, not only those already dwelling in Syria but also those in Lebanon and Jordan. In 1949 a newspaper editorial from Damascus stated that «Syria needs not only 100,000 refugees, but five million to work the lands and make them fruitful». Indeed, two years later the Syrian government officially requested that half a million Egyptian agricultural workers be permitted to emigrate to Syria in order to help develop Syrian land which would be transferred to them as their property. The responsible Egyptian authorities have rejected this request on the grounds that Egyptian agriculture is in need of labour as well. Syria was offering land rent free to anyone willing to settle there. It even announced a committee to study would-be settlers’ applications. In fact, Syrian authorities began the experiment by moving 25,000 of the refugees in Syria into areas of potential development in the northern parts of the country, but the rigid Arab League position against permanent resettlement prevailed. Palestinians in Syria are still regarded as “refugees” and discriminated as such. The situation in all the remaining Arab states is the same: even though the great majority of the so-called Palestinian refugees has now left the camps for a better life as immigrant workers, they are being denied citizenship in the Arab countries to which they had moved. Regardless of their good behaviour and the many years they are living there, they are still discriminated and denied full integration in society. They must be kept as “refugees” forever, until they may occupy the Land of Israel once that Jews have been expelled or annihilated, that is the ultimate aim of the Arab League policy. Of curse, they would never achieve in doing so, as every time that the Arabs attacked Israel, the Arabs have undergone a shameful defeat.
The current myth is that these Arabs were long established in “Palestine”, until the Jews came and “displaced” them. The fact is, that recent Arab immigration into the Land of Israel displaced the Jews. That the massive increase in Arab population was very recent is attested by the ruling of the United Nations: That any Arab who had lived in the Holy Land for two years and then left in 1948 qualifies as a “Palestinian refugee”.
II – Myths and facts about Jerusalem and Temple Mount
(from “Myths of the Middle East”)
One of the most popular lies that has become universally accepted as if it was an indisputable truth is the myth about Jerusalem being the third sacred place to Islam. It is quite rare to hear the honest truth, that Jerusalem is the First and Only Holiest place to Judaism! As a matter of fact, Jerusalem is not mentioned at all in the koran, and Muhammad has never been there (perhaps he did not even know about the existence of Jerusalem!). The tale about his dream flight has been related with Jerusalem in a very recent time for political strategy purposes.
1) The Islamic claim to the Temple Mount is very recent – Jerusalem’s role as “The Third Holiest Site in Islam” in mainstream Islamic writings does not precede the 1930s. It was created by the grand mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini.
Most of the problems surrounding Jerusalem can be traced to two areas of dispute: the political area that asks Jerusalem to be the capital of both Israel and the hypothetic Palestine; the other and most contentious problem is the holiness of Temple Mount to both Judaism and Islam.
The role Jerusalem has in the Hebrew Holy Scriptures is well known and not open to debate; however, there are varying opinions on the holiness of Jerusalem, specifically Temple Mount to Islam.
Many if not most opinions that counter Islam’s claim point out the Jerusalem is not mentioned in the qur’an and did not occupy any special role in Islam until recent political exigencies transformed Jerusalem into Islam’s “third holy site”. This falsehood was created by the grand mufti, Haj Amin al-Husseini. The mufti knew that nationalist slogans alone would not succeed in uniting the masses against arriving Jewish refugees; he therefore turned the struggle into a religious conflict. He addressed the masses clearly, calling for a holy war. Since the moment when he was appointed to the position of mufti, Haj Amin worked vigorously to raise Jerusalem’s status as an Islamic holy centre.
2) The Islamic claim to Jerusalem is false – There were no mosques in Jerusalem in 632 c.e. at the death of Muhammad… Jerusalem was [then] a Christian-occupied city
‒by Dr. Manfred R. Lehmann, writer for the Algemeiner Journal. Excerpts of the article originally published in the Algemeiner Journal, August 19, 1994‒
The muslim “claim” to Jerusalem is allegedly based on what is written in the koran, which although does not mention Jerusalem even once, nevertheless talks of the “furthest mosque” (in Sura 17:1): «Glory be unto Allah who did take his servant for a journey at night from the sacred mosque to the furthest mosque». But is there any foundation to the muslim argument that this “furthest mosque” (al-masujidi al-aqsa) refers to what is today called the Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem? The answer is, NO!
In the days of Muhammad, who died in 632 of the Common Era, Jerusalem was a Christian-occupied city within the Byzantine Empire. Jerusalem was captured by caliph Omar only in 638 c.e., six years after Muhammad’s death. Throughout all this time there were only churches in Jerusalem, and a church stood on the Temple Mount, called the Church of Saint Mary of Justinian, built in the Byzantine architectural style. The Aqsa mosque was built 20 years after the Dome of the Rock, which was built in 691-692 by caliph Abd el-Malik. The name “Omar mosque” is therefore false. In or around 711, about 80 years after Muhammad died, Malik’s son, Abd el-Wahd ‒who ruled in 705-715‒ reconstructed the Christian-Byzantine Church of St. Mary and converted it into a mosque. He left the structure as it was, a typical Byzantine “basilica” structure with a row of pillars on either side of the rectangular “ship” in the centre. All he added was an onion-like dome on top of the building to make it look like a mosque. He then named it El-Aqsa, so it would sound like the one mentioned in the koran.
Consequently, it is crystal clear that Muhammad could never have had this mosque in mind when he wrote the koran (if he did so), since it did not exist for another three generations after his death. Rather, as many scholars long ago established, it is logical that Muhammad intended the mosque in Mecca as the “sacred mosque”, and the mosque in Medina as the “furthest mosque”. So much for the muslim claim based on the Aqsa mosque.
With this understood, it is no wonder that Muhammad issued a strict prohibition against facing Jerusalem in prayer, a practice that had been tolerated only for some months in order to lure Jews to convert to Islam. When that effort failed, Muhammad put an abrupt stop to it on February 624. Jerusalem simply never held any sanctity for the muslims themselves, but only for the Jews in their domain.
3) The present Arabic name of Jerusalem is “Al-Quds”… but “Al-Quds” is an abbreviation for “The Jewish Temple”!
‒by Rabbi Joseph Katz‒
The Arabic name for Jerusalem is “Al-QuDS” (The Holy), which is abbreviation for another Arabic name used for Jerusalem until the last century, “Bayt al-MaQDeS” (The Holy House), since the 10th century c.e. The name “Bayt al-MaQDeS” is a translation of the Hebrew “Beyt ha-MiKDaSH”, which means “House of Holiness”, “Temple”. But Islam has no Temple, only the Jews did. Thus the Arabic name for Jerusalem makes no reference to Muhammad’s alleged trip to Heaven, but rather refers to the Jewish Temple!
In fact, it can be seen that significant Islamic interest in the Temple Mount does not precede the Six-Day War in 1967.
The greatest lie ever told about Jerusalem
‒by Emanuel A. Winston, a Middle East analyst & commentator; January 7, 2001‒
The 13th century Arab biographer Yakut noted: «Mecca is holy to muslims; Jerusalem is holy to the Jews».
The terrorist PLO leader Yassir Arafat and the Arabs claimed the Holy Jewish Temple Mount and Jerusalem based upon one extraordinarily huge lie told over and over again. Here then is a brief history of the religious war against the Jewish people, the Jewish State of Israel and her 3000 year old Eternal Capital, Jerusalem. Would be conquerors invariably issue false claims to provide justification for their march to conquest. The more recent call to “Jihad” against the Jews of Israel was first called in 1947 after the U.N. partition in a “fatwa” (religious ruling) by the Saudis ‒ supposedly to save the Al-Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount from the Jews. Thus, Yassir Arafat, with the full support of the Arab nations, later claimed the Jewish Temple Mount as the third holiest site for Islam – including all of Jerusalem. Therefore, as in the past, this claim has its root in a classic religious war – in addition to other spurious reasons offered.
This myth of Jerusalem as Islam’s third holiest city based upon the mythical ascension of Muhammad from Al-Aqsa to Heaven has grown exponentially in the recent telling since 1967. When you tell a Big Lie and repeat it often, it achieves credibility and legs of its own. In Islam, telling a lie to infidels for the sake of enlarging your own believers’ faith or defeating the infidel is acceptable, even desirable.
History and revisionism
These facts of recorded history have been obliterated by the recent false claims made in the name of radical Islamic fundamentalism supported by the silence of scholars unwilling to face a “fatwa” of assassination, the world media, with full access to Biblical scholars and historical files, have instead accepted the Great Lie. They carry it forward without question and with a certain perverse enthusiasm, having refused to use the Bible (Torah) as a resource ‒ the most accurate historic record of contemporary events of ancient times. They also have neglected to publicize the historic documents that attest the Jewish ownership of Jerusalem, including Arab sources.
The history of Jerusalem and the site of the Jewish Holy Temple, constructed in 956 b.c.e. by King Solomon, son of King David, is fully described with minute detail in the Torah. The First Temple was later destroyed by the Babylonian King Nebukhadnetzar in 586 b.c.e.
The Second Temple was rebuilt by order of Koresh (Cyrus), the King of Persia, who also paid for its reconstruction and ordered the return of the Jews exiled in Babylon. The Second Temple was completed and consecrated in 515 b.c.e.
After the Jews revolted against Roman rule, the Romans under Titus destroyed and burned the Second Temple beginning on the 9th of Av (Tisha B’Av), 70 c.e. This event is illustrated in the carvings on the Arch of Titus in Rome, depicting Titus’ triumphal march through Rome, parading the Holy Temple vessels, including the great Menorah. Despite Arafat’s claim that there was no Jewish Temple, the Romans memorialized their capture of the Jews and their Temple in 70 c.e. by carving it in stone!
Before the days of Muhammad, “Christian” conquerors had occupied Jerusalem (within the Byzantine Empire). Bringing one’s religion into battle demonstrated that both their armies and their religion were superior to those of their victims when they won. So, they usually built their holy places on top of their victims’ holy places, which they did on the Temple Mount, to absorb the strength of their conquered adversaries and to convert them to their religion. Even under the threat of the sword, the Jews refused to convert and allow their lineage to be absorbed, which would in effect, transfer G§d’s Covenant.
Muhammad died in 632 c.e. Jerusalem was subsequently captured from the Romans by caliph Omar, six years after Muhammad’s death. There was a struggle over who would assume Muhammad’s role as leader of the new religion of Islam which he had envisioned.
So, another conqueror (the muslims) had superseded the European invaders and their mosque was proof of their superiority in battle and religion. But, it was much more. It was also to be a mighty symbol in the struggle for leadership of the growing movement of Islam. Since Mecca was already the location of Muhammad’s power with its own priest cult, if a claimant wanted to redirect that power to himself as the new leader of Islam, he would also need an uncontested and new base of religious power. He could not make war on Mecca and expect to be accepted as Muhammad’s rightful heir.
Jerusalem, despite Muhammad’s rejection, was still looked upon in the then Arab world as a powerful symbol where the ancient Jews had placed their faith. The Jews considered Jerusalem the centre of the world and the earthly dwelling place of HaShem, the One G§d. It was not surprising that the Arabs and other nations wanted to own and control this source of power.
ערבים פלסטינים – כמה עובדות
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Quran, Zion, Zionist, בית המקדש היהודי, דת האיסלם, המנדט הבריטי, הר הבית, ירושלים, מוחמד, מולדת, פולשים, פלישתים, פלסטין, פלסטינה, פלסטינים, ציונות, ציוניםהשם “פלסטינה” הוא שם אנגלי-לטיני המבוסס על שם העם הקדום “פלישתים” שפירושו בעברית “פולשים”. הפלישתים הגיעו לארץ מאיי הים התיכון ליד יון לפני כ-4000 שנה. עם זה נכחד כולו לפני יותר מ-2000 שנה ואין לו שום קשר לערבים. לפני 1917, במשך 400 שנות השלטון הטורקי בארץ, לא נקראה הארץ בשם “פלסטינה”. כשכבשו האנגלים את הארץ מידי הטורקים , בחרו האנגלים לחדש את השם העתיק “פלסטינה”. תושבי הארץ מעולם לא נקראו “פלסטינים”, גם לא בתקופת האנגלים. בתום 30 שנות פלישה, אחרי 1948, הכירו הפולשים הערבים בעובדת היותם פולשים לאדמה לא להם, והמציאו לעצמם שם חדש באנגלית: “פלסטינים”. חשוב להדגיש שהמונח “פלסטינים” לתיאור התושבים המקומיים לא הומצא עד אחרי הקמת מדינת ישראל. לקבוצת ערבים זו שהתחילה לקרוא לעצמה “העם הפלסטיני” אחרי 1948, אין שם מקורי בשפתם הערבית. האם יש איזה עם בעולם שאין לו שם בשפתו המקורית? לערבים שפלשו לשטח ארץ ישראל אין שם קבוצתי בשפה הערבית כיון שאינם, ומעולם לא היו, קבוצה אחידה או עם.
היסטורית, עם ערבי “פלסטיני” מעולם לא היה קיים. עובדה היא שהערבים הקוראים לעצמם כיום באנגלית “פלסטינים”, אפילו לא יודעים איך קוראים להם בערבית. אפילו מנהיגים והיסטוריונים ערבים מודים שעם “פלסטיני” מעולם לא היה קיים. לדוגמא:
◆ בשנת 1937, הצהיר המנהיג הערבי עיוני ביי עבדול חאדי בפני ועדת פיל: “אין ארץ בשם ‘פלסטין’ – ‘פלסטין’ היא מושג שהומצא בידי הציונים, והוא זר לנו”.
◆ בשנת 1946 הצהיר פיליפ היטי, פרופסור ערבי להיסטוריה של המזרח התיכון באוניברסיטת פרינסטון, לפני ועדת חקירה אנגלו-אמריקאית: “ידוע לכל כי אין בהיסטוריה דבר כזה ‘פלסטין’.”
◆ זאהיר מוחסיין, מנהיג בארגון לשחרור פלסטין (אש”פ), אמר בראיון לעיתון הגרמני “טראו” במרץ 1977: “העם הפלסטיני אינו קיים; יצירתה של מדינה פלסטינית אינו אלא אמצעי להמשך מאבקנו נגד מדינת ישראל”.
הערבים, הטוענים כי ארץ הקודש היא מולדתם, פלשו לארץ אחרי שנת 1918 ממדינות ערב השכנות, בעיקר מירדן, סוריה, לבנון, כוויית, ערב הסעודית, ועירק. אף אחת ממדינות אלו לא התקיימה כיישות מדינית לפני 1913; הן לא היו אלא אוסף בלתי מאורגן של שבטים, שהטילו חיתתם האחד על השני בנסותם לכבוש שטחים זה מזה. מהגרים אלו הביאו עימם לארץ הקודש את ה”תרבות” העתיקה של הפחדת השכן במטרה לגזול את אדמתו. רבים מהם היו פושעים או מנודים, שלא יכלו למצוא תעסוקה בארצותיהם ולכן חיפשו את מזלם במקום אחר. השלטון הבריטי הסכים לקלוט חלק מהם ככוח עבודה זול והרשה להם להתיישב בשטחים יהודיים נטושים. אפילו יאסר ערפאת, מנהיג אש”פ, שקרא לעצמו “פליט פלסטיני” אך דבר ערבית בניב מצרי, לא היה יליד הארץ אלא נולד בקהיר שבמצרים בשנת 1929. הוא שירת בצבא המצרי, למד באוניברסיטת קהיר וחי בה עד 1956, אז עבר לערב הסעודית. בשנת 1958, יחד עם חבריו מערב הסעודית, ייסד בכוויית את ארגון הטרור פתח, שקדם לאש”פ.
התעמולה של הערבים המכנים עצמם “פלסטינים” דורשת בעקביות הכרה של ישראל ושל שאר העולם בזכויות שהיו להם “לפני 1948″, כלומר: לפני כ-60 שנה. משום מה, הם אינם מוכנים להוסיף עוד 60 שנה למניין זכויותיהם “ההיסטוריות” על ארץ ישראל, ולא בכדי: הם יודעים היטב, כי אם יעשו כן הם עלולים לשלוח את עצמם חזרה לארצות מוצאם – ירדן, סוריה, מצרים, לבנון, כוויית, ערב הסעודית, ועירק. לפני שנים, תוך כדי משא ומתן עם אלה הקוראים לעצמם “פלסטינים”, העלה מתווך ישראלי את ההצעה לתקן את תביעתם לזכויות “לפני 1948″, לזכויות “לפני 1917″. ה”פלסטינים” התנגדו בחריפות להצעה זו; עתה אנו יודעים מדוע.
אם יש עדיין מישהו שמאמין כי אומה ערבית “פלסטינית” התקיימה לפני סיום המנדט הבריטי והקמתה של מדינת ישראל, יואיל נא בטובו להשיב מתי נוסדה, ועל ידי מי? מה היה השם שלה בערבית? מי היה ראש-ממשלה או נשיא “פלסטיני” לפני ערפאת? מה היתה שיטת הממשל שלה? מה היו גבולותיה? אילו מדינות הכירו בה ומתי? באיזה ספריה או מוזיאון ניתן למצוא את ספרותה, מטבעותיה, או יצירות האמנות שלה? התשובה לכל השאלות האלה היא אפס מוחלט. כמו שאמר זאהיר מוחסיין: “העם הפלסטיני אינו קיים”.
יש ערבים הרואים עצמם כצאצאי אברהם, האב הקדום של האומה היהודית. כמה אירוני הדבר, שאלמלא למד מוחמד היטב את התנ”ך, לא היו הערבים יודעים כלל על קיומו של אברהם. מוחמד יסד את הדת המוסלמית במאה השביעית לספירה בערב הסעודית. הוא למד את התנ”ך כדי לרכוש כלים שיסייעו לו במאמציו לשכנע את היהודים לעבור לדת החדשה שיסד. משסרבו לעשות כן, כתב את הקוראן כתחליף לתנ”ך ומילא אותו בגרסאותיו הדמיוניות לארועים התנ”כיים. הוא העז אפילו לשנות את יום המנוחה האלוהי, השבת. מכיוון שיום ראשון אומץ כבר בידי הנוצרים כיום המנוחה שלהם, בחר עבור המוסלמים את היום האחר הקרוב ביותר לשבת – יום שישי. מוחמד מעולם לא ביקר בירושלים או בארץ הקודש, ונזהר שלא להזכיר אותן בקוראן אפילו פעם אחת. לעומת זאת, מכה ומדינה, הערים היחידות הקדושות לאיסלאם, מוזכרות בו מאות פעמים.
בית המקדש היהודי עמד על הר הבית בירושלים זמן רב לפני שהאיסלאם, או כל דת אחרת הקיימת כיום בעולם, נוסדו. גם כאשר מייסדי הנצרות הילכו ברחובות ירושלים העתיקה, לא היו בה מסגדים או כנסיות אלא בית המקדש היהודי בלבד. האדמה שעליה נבנה בית המקדש בירושלים נקנתה בעבור העם היהודי על-ידי המלך דוד בשנת 850 לפני הספירה בקירוב. עדות המכירה, כמו גם שמו של המוכר וסכום הרכישה, תועדו בתנ”ך (שמואל ב’ פרק כ”ד; דברי הימים א’, פרקים כ”א-כ”ב).
המוסלמים ה”פלסטינים” טוענים כיום לבעלות על הר הבית בירושלים, האתר בו שכן בית המקדש היהודי. הם טוענים כי זה “המקום הקדוש” שלהם. אך, האם יודע העולם לאן פונים המוסלמים בירושלים בשעת תפילתם? – אפילו במסגדיהם, ואפילו במסגד “אל אקצה” הבנוי בקצה הר הבית עצמו? הם פונים למכה, גבם להר הבית, ובכורעם בתפילה לכיוון מכה הם מראים את ישבניהם להר הבית. כיצד מתיישב הדבר עם טענתם כי זהו “מקום קדוש”? עובדה היא, כי ירושלים והר הבית אינם מוזכרים בקוראן אפילו פעם אחת, בעוד מכה ומדינה, הערים היחידות הקדושות לאיסלאם, מוזכרות בו מאות פעמים.
האם יכול מוסלמי כלשהו בעולם להביא הוכחה לקשר שבין האיסלאם לירושלים מלבד חלומו של מוחמד? קשה להאמין, אך המקור היחיד לטענת האיסלאם לבעלות על ירושלים ועל הר הבית נמצא בקוראן בתיאור חלומו של מוחמד על “מקום רחוק” בלתי ידוע. ואולי “מקום רחוק” זה אינו אלא הבית הלבן שבוושינגטון?
המקור הטוב ביותר להבנת המנטליות הערבית-מוסלמית של עיוות ההיסטוריה למטרות פוליטיות נמצא בדברי מוחמד עצמו בקוראן: “מלחמה היא רמאות והטעייה”.
הבעיה האמיתית בפניה ניצבים הערבים ה”פלסטינים” כיום איננה העדר “מולדת”. שורש הבעיה, וכן התסכול הנובע ממנה, נעוצים בעובדה שהמדינות שמהן יצאו אינן מסכימות לקבלם בחזרה. זו הסיבה לכך שכה רבים מהם חיים עד היום ללא זכויות אזרחיות בסיסיות במחנות הפליטים שבמדינות ערב השכנות לישראל. בתסכולם ובייאושם הם חשים כי תקוותם היחידה, שהיא גם הברירה היחידה העומדת בפניהם, היא לנסות ולגנוב מדינה לעצמם. רבים מכלי הרכב והציוד החקלאי ברשות הפלסטינית נגנבו משכניהם הישראלים. בתקופה מסוימת, שיעור גנבות הרכב בישראל היה הגבוה בעולם, ורובם של כלי הרכב הגנובים נמצאו בערים ובכפרים שבשטחי הרשות הפלסטינית. הם הצליחו לפלוש לאדמה לא להם ולהחזיק בה; הם הצליחו לגנוב כל כך הרבה כלי רכב; אם כך, מדוע לא לנסות ולגנוב מדינה שלמה?
יש רק פתרון אפשרי אחד לשאיפתם של ה”פלסטינים” למולדת, הפתרון היחיד שיכול למלא את תביעתם לזכות השיבה למולדתם. הואיל והם עצמם מגדירים כיום כ”צדק” את השיבה למקום בו חיו פחות מ-30 שנה, הרי, מתוך אותה הגדרה, שיבתם למקום בו חיו לפני כן מאות או אלפי שנים תהיה צדק כפול ומכופל. הבה נסייע להם בתביעתם הצודקת, הבה נסייע להם לחזור למקומות בהם חיו מרצונם החופשי במשך מאות או אלפי שנים – ירדן, סוריה, מצרים, לבנון, כוויית, ערב הסעודית, ועירק
טוקבק יהודי לתגובה של גולשת ערביה- חזק
צריך לשנן את התשובה החכמה של דרורה, ולהפיץ אותה לכולם בכל דרך!!!!!!
הכתבה “ליברמן, אנחנו עוד נדרוך עליך ” ותגובתה של ערבייה ישראלית בשם
סמר לכתבה זו הביאו את הגולשת דרורה להגיב
זה מה שסמר(הערבייה מחיפה) כתבה:
אנחנו לא ערביי ישראל…אנחנו פלסטינים אזרחי מדינת ישראל. והאזרחות שלנו היא דבר טכני הכולל דרכון ותעודת זהות ישראלים שאנחנו מציגים עפ”י בקשת המוסדות המבקשים. ל-נ-ו יש לאום ולפיו אנחנו פלסטינים ערבים. אנחנו לא ערביי המדינה הזו, ואנחנו לא מסכימים להיות מיוחסים לה כלל וכלל. א-ת-ם חסרי לאום. ל-כ-ם יש דת שקוראים לה יהדות!!ואתם משתייכים לה, ותו לא!!! היצירה היחידה שלכם היא השפה העברית. מלבדה, אין דבר אחד שהצלחתם ליצר תוך ה-58 שנים ששהיתם פה ככובשים על אדמתו של עם אחר!!.אתם פשוט עם בלי תרבות, ובלי שום עבר שמצדיק התגאות בו. אתם פשוט פרטים שנאספתם מהגלות, הגעתם בחוצפה, כדי לממש את זכותכם להגשמה עצמית, על חשבונה של הזכות הזו של עם אחר. את השלום נוסח רבין רצחתם לנצח! אז .תתביישו לכם, כי לנו כבר אין מה לדבר איתכם. ואני נמנעת פה מכל הכללה גורפת. לי יש חברים יהודים שהם כמו אחים שלי, ואני מוקירה אותם מאד, אבל ישנם עמים שכדי להתקיים שוללים את קיומו של עם אחר.
וזו תגובתה של דרורה:
270. תשובה ל 84 -סמר מחיפה
סמר מחיפה,
אין במדינת ישראל או בשטחי ארץ ישראל אף לא ערבי אחד שאין לו ארץ מולדת ערבית (ועל כן אתם ערבים ).
פלשתם / זלגתם / חדרתם – לארץ ישראל בחסות, עידוד וגיבוי הכובש העותמני והכובש הבריטי אך לא הפכתם עקב כך לבעלים או ריבונים .
פתחי את מפת העולם, ערביה מישראל. תגלי ששטח המדינות הערביות (22) גדול משטחה של יבשת אירופה, ושטחן של כל המדינות המוסלמיות (56) מכסה כשליש מכדור הארץ. שטח אדיר שאין לתארו. משאבים של נפט ועושר לאין חקר .
אז על פניו נראה שזה ממש בסדר שלעם היהודי תהיה מדינה אחת קטנטונת משלו, מבלי שיהיה עליו להתחלק בה עם עוד עם ערבי מוסלמי, לא ?
ובואי ואומר לך כמה מילים על ה”עם ” הפלסטיני. אתם אינכם עם. אתם פיקציה מוסלמית שמטרתה אחת ויחידה – לכבוש את ארץ ישראל.
נתחיל עם השם שלכם :
הרומים שכבשו את ישראל קראו לה כחלק מאקט הכיבוש ‘פרוביניקה פלשתינה’ – על שם הפלישתים שישבו בערי החוף הישראליות .
הפלישתים היו יורדי ים אדומי שיער שהגיעו לחופי ישראל _מ_א_י_ר_ו_פ_ה_ ונעלמו מאזורנו כ-1600 שנה לפני הולדת מוחמד .
אין לערבים שמקורם בחצי האי ערב כל קשר לפלישתים – לא גנטי, לא דתי, לא תרבותי, לא היסטורי ולא גיאוגרפי. אתם ערבים ולא פלישתים. באותה מידה יכלו הרומים לקרוא לישראל פרוביניקה שוויצריה. האם זה היה הופך אתכם לשוויצרים ?
ואשר לארץ ישראל, סמר מחיפה .
תבחרי כל תיעוד היסטורי, כל מפה היסטורית, כל היסטוריון מקובל ע”י האקדמיה הבינלאומית שיראה לנו איפה פלסטין, מתי הייתה אי פעם בהיסטוריה האנושית מדינה או ארץ שנקראה פלסטין, מתי היה אי פעם בהיסטוריה האנושית “עם” שקראו לו העם הפלסטיני, מי אתם, מאין באתם ומה הקשר שלכם לשטחי ארץ ישראל. לא מצליחה למצוא אף לא פרט אחד בשום מקום בעולם, כולל לא אצל חוקרים מוסלמים וערבים (כולל הקוראן שבו ארץ ישראל נקראת ‘ארץ ישראל, ארצו של עם ישראל’) שיאשש את טיעונייך .
יש תיעוד בריטי מתקופת המנדט הבריטי, תיעוד תורכי מהתקופה העותמנית, תיעוד של כל הכיבושים שהיו על ארץ ישראל – אין זכר לא לעם פלסטיני ולא למדינה פלסטינית .
ובכן, בואי נסכם שאם תמצאי כל תיעוד שהוא (שאינו חלק מהתעמולה הפלסטינית המשנה עובדות היסטוריות בדיעבד) – להיותכם וקיומכם בארץ ישראל – כבר יש לנו משהו להתחיל ממנו .
אתם צביר מקרי של פלגים ופלנגות מרחבי העולם המוסלמי, השונאים זה את זה כמעט . . . כמעט כמו שאתם שונאים אותנו .
זה למעשה הדבר היחידי המאחד אתכם – השנאה לציונים. זה בסיס עלוב ביותר לכונן על גבו עם !
ב-1948 היה מספר הערבים שישבו בארץ ישראל זהה למספר היהודים שישבו בארצות ערב .
המאה העשרים הייתה מאה של הגירה וחילופי אוכלוסין על פני כדור הארץ כולו .
כל היהודים מארצות ערב היגרו למולדתם ישראל. כל הערבים מישראל היו אמורים להגר חזרה לארצות מולדתם הערביות ..
לא רק שלא עשיתם כך – המשכתם להסתנן ולחדור לשטח ישראל בכל צורה מתוחכמת שאפשר להעלות על הדעת, ושמדיניותה הרופסת של מדינת ישראל אפשרה לכם .
למעשה יש לכם היום מדינה פלסטינית, היא ירדן. אבל אתם רוצים לעצמכם שלוש פלסטין – ירדן , “פלסטין החדשה” שתקום ברצועת עזה והגדה, וכמובן שערביי ישראל המזהים עצמם כפלסטינים ימשיכו להתגורר בישראל ויביאו אליהם עוד ועוד “אחים” פלסטינים מרחבי העולם. כך שבעוד עשור או שניים יהיו היהודים מיעוט בארצם וגם ישראל תהפוך לפלסטין. לא מתאים לנו .
ולכן זה מה שבסופו של דבר יקרה, גם אם השמאל שלנו מפזר אשליות הממלאות את לבכם תקווה גדולה: יהיה עליכם לחזור לארצות מולדתכם. זה יקרה או בטוב או בחרב .
במשך השנים (עם ההתיישבות הציונית) אימצתם לעצמכם את האתוס היהודי, כלומר – קדושת ירושלים וזכות השיבה לציון. אמנם בניתם מסגד במרכז קודש הקודשים היהודי (מנהג מוסלמי נפוץ בעולמנו), אך עירכם הקדושה היא מכה ולא ירושלים וזכות שיבה יש לכם רק למולדתכם הערבית ולא לציון .
לסיכום, אפנה אותך לספר חביב ומלא הומור. שמו “מסע תענוגות בארץ הקודש” והוא נכתב ע” י סופר בשם סמואל לונגהורן (הידוע בכינויו מרק טווין) ב -1867. הוא סייר בישראל לאורכה ולרוחבה .
הוא לא ראה כאן לא פלסטינים, לא בוסתנים מוריקים, לא כפרים ערביים, לא ערים שוקקות. כלום. הוא ראה ומתאר עזובה, ביצות, כולרע, קדחת, חולות . “ארץ הבכא”, כך הוא כינה את ארץ ישראל .
כל מה שיש כאן, גן העדן הזה הנקרא ישראל – בנה הגניוס היהודי .
אין פלא שאת ואחייך חומדים אותו !
ואם את יושבת בביתך המחובר לחשמל ומקלידה תשובה במחשב , זה כי הציונים סידרו כאן מדינה המאפשרת לך לחיות ברמה שונה לחלוטין משל 99% מאחיותייך במדינות ערב .
אזרחית יהודיה ישראלית,
בעלת המקום.
אגב התגובה לקוחה מהכתבה הנ”ל:
http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3326629,00.html
In Palestine as of Right and Not on Sufferance…
“When it is asked what is meant by the development of the Jewish National
Home in Palestine, it may be answered that it is not the imposition of a Jewish
nationality upon the inhabitants of Palestine as a whole, but the further
development of the existing Jewish community, with the assistance of Jews in
other parts of the world, in order that it may become a centre in which the
Jewish people as a whole may take, on grounds of religion and race, an interest
and a pride. But in order that this community should have the best prospect of
free development and provide a full opportunity for the Jewish people to display
its capacities, it is essential that it should know that it is in Palestine as of right
and not on sufferance.”
Winston Churchill
British Secretary of State for the Colonies
June 1922
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