According to the Palestinian ministry, the Israeli tourism office in Rome has published touristic literature stating that “Israel, thanks to a wide range of unique sites such as the old port of Jaffa, and Nazareth, Jerusalem and Tiberias, Bethlehem, Capernaum, Masada, the Dead Sea, Fort Herod and caves near Qumran …” Four of the sites mentioned lie in the Palestinian territories, but Israel is advertising them as part of Israel in an attempt to attract Christian pilgrims from Italy.
Okay, of this list, which four "lie in the Palestinian territories"?
Jaffa
Nazareth
Jerusalem
Tiberias
Bethlehem
Capernaum
Masada
Dead Sea
Fort Herod
Qumran
Bethlehem. Herodian.
I guess "east Jerusalem" would be included.
But I can't figure out the rest.
Israel had most of the western shore of the Dead Sea, the Qurmran site as well as Masada.
Ah, Daoud makes it clear for us:-
While Palestinian diplomatic and public efforts have focused on Israeli attempts to misrepresent Bethlehem, the announcement by the Israeli tourism office in Italy also names other sites that are clearly part of Palestine. The location of Masada, the Herodian castle and the Qumran caves are all part of the West Bank. These locations constitute what Palestinians hope will become their independent state as part of the universally accepted two-state solution.
This, I would term, is "Palestinian territorial aggrandizement" or, if you wish, "irredentism". It is also part of the mechanism of Palestinianism - the denial of Jewish national ethos and history.
It also indicates that the 1967 lines do not mean a thing because Masada was always within 1967 Israel. As was Qumran. I would think that at this rate, Tel Aviv is "part of the West Bank".
As we always suspected and as I always said in my debates with Daoud, "Palestinians" seek Israel's disappearance and that is the true meaning behind the "stages" policy.
Two-state equals one state: Palestine.
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I hope that everyone who gas been in Israel has seen the excellent Herod exhibition at the Israel Museum. It includes a map of the territories that he ruled, including the Hawran and Trakhon east of the Golan, now in Syria. These territories were given to Herod's kingdom of Judea by his friend, the Roman emperor Augustus. Herod's Judea included the Golan, Bashan, Hawran, Trakhon, Galilee, Samaria, the coastal plain, the northern Negev and most of the area east of the Jordan river and close to that river, as well Judah [that is, Judea in the narrow sense]. Btw, I also recently saw an exhibit in Rome devoted to Augustus. I must say that the Herod exhibit here is by far superior to the one in Rome, which inter alia failed to mention that Augustus was a friend of Herod. The show's timeline also missed at least one important date for Rome in Augustus' lifetime, Pompey's conquest of Judea and most of the East.
Now about Herod's identity. The terms "palestine" and "palestinian" were not much used in his time and it is certainly anachronistic to describe his as such. However, his mother was a Nabatean Arab and his father an Edomite by descent. Nevertheless, Herod was a Jew, since his father had converted to Judaism and Jews reckoned Jewishness through the father in those days. The whole Edomite/Idumaean people converted in the Hasmonean period.
Herod's kingdom was called Judea by Greeks and Romans. Check out Plutarch for instance.
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