Thursday, November 22, 2007

Grace, Wanna Come on Up to Shiloh?

USINFO Special Correspondent (aka a State Department journalist), Grace Bradley, filed this report on the security situation in Shchem (שכם), that's Nablus for all you Latin-cum-Arabic lovers(*).

It claims:-

Security Returns to the West Bank Town of Nablus
New elite security forces crack down on petty crime


Maybe I can get her to visit with us in Shiloh?


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(*) The Romans, who conquered the Land of Israel, laid it waste and expelled its native Jewish population, renamed the Biblical city of Shchem as Neapolis (= New City) and since Arab speakers cannot properly prounounce a P (i.e., "Palestine" is Filastin in Arabic), it came out Nablus.

Here:

Flavia Neapolis ("new city of the emperor Flavius") was founded in the year 72 by the emperor Vespasian 2 km west of the site of the Biblical city of Shechem. In the 5th and 6th centuries, the emperor Zeno built a church on the summit of Mount Gerizim in response to a revolt, but the church (called Maria Theotokos) was destroyed after the Arab conquest of the city in 636. The city became Nablus, the Arabic pronunciation of Neapolis.

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