Yesterday's Three-Thousand Year Old Lie

This appeared on my screen:

Palestinian village continuously inhabited for 3,000 about to be destroyed by Israel

October 14, 2013

The Israeli High Court is set to rule on the forced expulsion of all of the residents of the village of Khirbat Zanuta, southwest of Hebron in the southern West Bank on Monday.

Where is Khirbet Zanuta?

I learn that

Khirbet Zanuta is a Palestinian village in the Hebron Governorate in the southern West Bank, located 20 kilometers south of Hebron. Nearby localities include ad-Dhahiriya to the northwest, Khirbet Shweika to the northwest and the Israeli settlements of Teneh Omarim to the west and Shim'a to the east. The village is adjacent to the Green Line.

And how many people in that 3,000-year old village?

According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), Khirbet Zanuta had a population of 60 in the 2007 census, an increase from 1997 when six residents were recorded...In 2012 the number of families registered at Zanuta was 27.

In 3,000 years, that's it?  Less than a hundred, I approximate?
 
How large is the village?

The total land area is approximately 12,000 dunams, of which roughly 3,000 are cultivated, mostly with field crops. Much of the remaining land area is considered "open spaces," while one dunam is classified as built-up areas.

Built-up area is ... one dunam?  That's a quarter of an acre?  That's one house.

Odd.  Maybe this is an answer:

Zanuta was a cave settlement of local peoples

That's a lot of cultivated agriculture land for that amount of people, too.

Let's go back to that 3,000-year old claim:

Pottery shards at Zanuta indicate continuous settlement since the Iron Age, and archeologist Avi Ofer has proposed an identification of the site with Dana in the fifth group of Judean cities in the south Hebron hills

Joshua 15: 48-49

And in the hill-country: Shamir, and Jattir, and Socoh; 49 and Dannah, and Kiriath-sannah--the same is Debir; 

Ah, so "Palestinian" doesn't mean a nationality or ethnicity but is simply a term of geography.  After all this, those "Judean cities" were not Arab or Muslim but Jewish. Judah; son of Jacob.  You know, the tribe.

A three-thousand year lie.  From yesterday.

Another "Palestinianism inventivity" fabrication.

________________


UPDATE


a.  Maybe the Khirbeh is akin to an "outpost"?

b.  Seems Amira Hass copied the headline or is that plagiarism?
^

Is There An Arab Intellectual?

As found at EOZ, from a Jordanian newspaper Ad Dostour:

Dr. Fadel al-Rubaie denied any relationship of any kind between the Torah and Palestine, stressing that the names, places and events that came in the Torah are Yemeni names and locations, and some still exist even today.

He denies strongly that Joshua Ben-Nun had crossed the Jordan River to Jericho, and inscriptions and figures available indicate that Joshua Ben-Nun actually traveled to the land of Yemen. This was all said in a lecture given by Dr. Rubaie on Tuesday evening in the Jordanian Writers Association Forum moderated by Dr.. Hisham Ghassib...He stressed that Jerusalem is not Jerusalem, and Jews have no trace in the Palestinian territories, and if there is a housing in Palestine from the Jews it is from the sons of the Arab tribes that migrated from Arabian Peninsula...Israel went to revive the Hebrew language, originally a Yemeni dialect.

The lecture included a heavy presence of intellectuals and other interested members.

After you've stopped laughing, think about this:

is there truly an Arab intellectual?

Remember my inventivity theory?

No, not  theory of inventive problem solving developed by the Soviet inventor and science fiction author Genrich Altshuller and known as TRIZ, the Russian abbreviation. He set out three primary findings of his research.

The first is that problems and solutions are repeated across industries and sciences, the second that patterns of technical evolution are also repeated across industries and sciences, and the third and final primary finding is that the innovations used scientific effects outside the field in which they were developed. In the application of TRIZ all these findings are applied to create and to improve products, services, and systems.

No, mine is different.

I state:

I use the term "inventivity" to note the Arab propensity to create an artificial nationalist conceptualization of themselves and the term "disinventivity" I employ to characterize the Arab habit of fictionalizing and denying any historical Jewish presence in the Land of Israel either by simple non-recognition or by 'adopting' sites, locations and events as "Palestinian", which I also call Palestinianism.

So, there you have it.

^

More Palestinian Inventivity

Found at PMW:

[Rachel Corrie's Family's lawyer, Hussein] Abu Hussein recounted how he once addressed an Israeli judge in court during a case regarding land rights:

"We Palestinians have Canaanite and Phoenician roots which are an integral part of our history, and you [Israelis] are new, you are new occupiers. And there is no proof, in spite of all the digs you have done in Palestine by Zionist archeologists, who until today have not found one proof of their connection to this homeland."

PA TV (Fatah), July 2, 2012

 

 

 

This is the evil face of incitement, of negativism and of what I have termed the inventivity model of nationalism.

 

^

My Inventivity Model Extended

As you know, I have been promoting the "Inventivity Model of Palestinianism" - Inventivity is the foundation necessity of Palestinianism - whereby, to be concsie, the Arabs of territories of the former Mandate for Palestine, in claiming a unique and special nationalism, do so by inventing a history of themselves which either is made up or denies negative aspects of their doings.  Moreover, they deprecate and deny any Jewish attachment and history to the Land of Israel.

I have now seen Alex Joffe's article on the fabricating of Pal. history and comment it.  In it, he writes, for example

...Stating nonsense to suit one’s purpose is only one of three obvious Palestinian rhetorical strategies. Lying, knowingly distorting the truth, is another...The third Palestinian approach is to propagandize through the lens of pure ideology, specifically Islam...

and this

Why then should Abbas make such an incredible fabrication? And why lie in such a ludicrous and extravagant fashion? Part of the answer is that for Abbas, as it was for PLO leader Yasser Arafat before him, there is a reflex that simply and absolutely cannot accept the antiquity of Jews... Denials regarding the Jewish historical connection to the Land of Israel generally and categorical denials that Jews constitute a nation are all frequently heard from Palestinian leaders, intellectuals, and others...Palestinian efforts to minimize or expunge Jews from history go back several decades but have intensified in recent years...

He adds

...Palestinian political statements regarding their Neolithic origins and continuity, which can be regarded in historical, rhetorical, and philosophical terms as completely fictional, might be understood as simply innovative shorthand communications to an in-group...Together with lies and ideological speech fictional nonsense helps shape Palestinian culture, beliefs, and political behavior. To say that this is at odds with objective reality as recovered by science is to miss the point. To some unknowable but large degree, this is Palestinian reality. What from the outside appears to be disjointed and nonsensical bits in reality are seamless parts of a larger Palestinian whole, beliefs about the history, the world, culture, and the self. The question then becomes the relationship of that reality to others. And here the matter of media as a conduit and interpreter becomes paramount.

Read it all.

^

Sand (Shlomo) in Our Zionist Faces

I preliminarily treated Shlomo Sand's new book with its second-tier assault on Jewish nationalism here.  Elder of Ziyon also had a whack.  But to disprove the Sand thesis, or one of his theses, as highlighted over at +972, which is about a "fantasized homeland", supposedly, which is

the concept of a place which is under Jewish sovereignty, and yearning for such a place. “Eretz Israel” is, originally, a Talmudic concept – not a biblical one – which delineates it as a territory that imposes extra religious obligations on Jews living in it, which Jews living outside of it are unburdened of

The concept of a land, of borders, of tribal division are all in the Bible.  For example, read Yigal Levin's article or that of Amos Frisch to see how deeply embedded in the Jewish people's consciousness and nationalist ethos was the concept of a "land" besides the various multitude of mitzvot intricately connected with the "land" (see here; and here).

But I will not confront this issue but rather give you my reactions to a few matters I caught in the first few pages of his book to illustrate how problematic it is.

a.  the book is dedicated to the residents of Sheikh Munis who were "uprooted long ago from the place I now live and work".  The village is located where Tel Aviv Universty now is.  In other words, Sand polarizes the Land of Ishmael to the Land of Israel even before we get to page one.

b.  he trivalizes and mocks on p. 15 his ancestors who came to the Land of Israel, specifically his paternal great-grandfather who moved from Lodz.

c.  in a footnote on p. 13, he correctly describes the Kotel Maaravi (Western Wall) as not being a wall of the Temple but errs when he writes that is was an "urban wall".  The Kotel was inside Jerusalem, not it's exterior.  If anything, it was exteriro to the Temple.

d. on page 14, describing the classic photograph of the three paratroopers at the Kotel (Sand himself says he participated in the conquest of Jerusalem in 1967 (fighting at Radar Hill and doing guard duty at the former Intercontinental Hotel (now the Seven Arches, more on that below), he notes that the middle one, the "Ashkenazi", is helmetless, "just like he was in a church"(!).

e.  on the bottom of p. 14, he writes that the Intercontinental was constructed "next to the old Jewish cemetery" at the top of Mount of Olives.  Not even ancient.  But he doesn't inform us until 15 lines later that the location of the hotel was a bit more of a problem.  And what he wrote about this is: "there was a rumored bandied about the old gravestones being used for building the hotel or at least the stones leading up to it".

Talk about fantasizing.  He is simply protecting his love for Arab nationalism.  Even if in 1967 he thought it was a "rumour", he could have corrected our impressions.  Tens of thousands of graves were desecrated, stones did become paveways, latrine covers, etc.  He couldn't provide the facts?  Even now?

f.  on page 16 he informs us of how he witnessed the beating of an elderly Arab taken in for investigation in Jericho while he was based there later on.  According to him, the man died as a rsult of beating.  Sand's reaction?  He vomited and returned to his post.  Nothing more.  He was afraid and "completely lost his senses", is his excuse.  But he wonders of the body was tossed near where the Children of Israel crosed the Jordan.

In other words, even his own failings as a human being are some how dumped on Jewish history, as if nothing is his responsibility but he has his myth about the Jewish pople and their/our history to relieve him of any obligation, personal or community.

He goes further.  The murder of the Arab is due to too much power which then corrupts but more - it evolved from a feeling of overlordship, first over people and then over land.   And, of course, you have the subtext of the book: to have feelings of ownership, sovereignty over something which is not real - like land - , a myth, is evil.

Poor Pivate Shlomo Sand.  Because he couldn't prevent, it seems, a murder due to the base desire of his fellow soldiers to steal, for after all, the Arab was rich, we know must suffer two books, the first denying there is a Jewish People and the second, that there is a Land of Israel.

g.  on top of page 18, he corrupts Jewish history, or continues his crusade to pervert it, by describing pre-1948 Zionism as the situation whereby a man jumps from a burning building and lands on a pedestrain.  The damage was unavoidable but also unintended.  Jews returning over 1800 centuries is reduced to a ... myth.  A sand in your eyes myth.

further down the page, Israel's critical security situation between 1948-1967, the Arab fedayeen and then the PLO, is glossed over when he writes quite plainly:

"since 1948, there resided in the deep mental level of the Israeli consciousness a sort of discontent with its narrow waist and Israel's very small area".  That resentment broke out, Sand suggests, in 1956, as if all of a sudden, due to some psychological crippling - and not Arab terror and a desire for a "second round", i.e., Israel's eradication - of an Israeli self-fault.

Just six observations up to page 16 (and the book begins on page 10) and you can see where this is going.

Sand in our Zionist face.

Oh, and while someone may have thrown some white powder at Sand:

The history professor said it was possible that his new book, " The Invention of the Land of Israel: From Holy Land to Homeland," might have been what caused someone to send him the letter. "Four years ago, when I published my previous book, 'The Invention of the Jewish People,' there were fewer crazy people than there are today," Sand told Haaretz.

which I surely condemn (my suggestion: either don't buy the book or don't attend his courses or picket them or conduct a sit-in), that doesn't does excuse the 'poison powder' that Sand has been sending us, and assisting the Arab disinventivity assault.


UPDATE (k/t=SPlaut)

Shlomo Sand, the pseudo-historian Stalinist from Tel Aviv University, claims he witnessed murder of a Palestinian and did nothing about it. http://www.australiansforpalestine.net/63729 (see web page for full interview)

Excerpt:

One night in September 1967 he witnessed soldiers abusing an elderly Palestinian man who had been arrested with a large amount of dollars in his possession...

You were armed - why didn't you intervene? You could have fired in the air, summoned help.

"I lost my senses completely. I was afraid to intervene. The fact that I did not try to do anything to stop them depressed me for years and resonates within me to this day. That is why I write about in the book, because I still have guilt feelings. I am ashamed that I did not do anything. When I got back from reserve duty in Jericho, I went to see MK Meir Wilner [head of the Israel Communist Party]* and told him about it...

Why are you invoking this now?

"Like everyone, I too am a bit of a war criminal. That is part of my life. Some time after that reserve service in Jericho I became a daily activist in  Matzpen (the Maoist organization - SP) and distributed leaflets and sprayed slogans on walls at night and got beaten up. I was a member of the political fringe. I am not a victim, but my psychological distress started then, at the age of 20. The years in Matzpen gave me a great deal, and the political activity was a type of healing. I later left the organization heartbroken, and in despair sank into drugs. My partner and my best friend got into heroin. Maybe because I am Polish I did not follow them, and instead of heroin I took matriculation exams and entered university. The best friend committed suicide. Others left the country."

____________________________

UPDATE

The Invention of the Land of Israel: From Holy Land to Homeland
by Shlomo Sand
Translated by Geremy Forman

Hardback, 304 pages, November 2012, $29.95 / £16.99 / $31.50CAN

Groundbreaking new work...What is a homeland, and when does it become a national territory? Why have so many people been willing to die for them throughout the twentieth century? What is the essence of the Promised Land?

Following the acclaimed and controversial Invention of the Jewish People, Shlomo Sand examines the mysterious sacred land that has become the site of the longest running national struggle of the twentieth-century. The Invention of the Land of Israel deconstructs the age-old legends surrounding the Holy Land and the prejudices that continue to suffocate it.

Sand's account dissects the concept of 'historical right' and tracks the invention of the modern geopolitical concept of the 'Land of Israel' by nineteenth cntury Evangelical Protestants and Jewish Zionists. This invention, he argues, not only facilitated the colonization of the Middle East and the establishment of the State of Israel, it is also what is threatening Israel's existence today.

- - -

POSTED IN СЕМИНАР 2012

What is a homeland, and when does a homeland become a national territory? Have homelands always existed, or are they products of relatively recent historical developments? How are their borders determined, and why have so many peoples been historically unwilling to cede even one inch of them? And perhaps most importantly, why have so many people been willing to die for them throughout the twentieth century? Close to 200 homelands have come into existence around the globe over the past two centuries, and others are still bound to emerge. What does the future hold for these territories?

This line of thinking raises many questions about the homeland of the Jewish people. Did the Bible or the Talmud prescribe a concept of homeland that was consistent with the modern day usage of the term? What is the essence of the Promised Land? Is it a land that is sacred to the three Western monotheistic religions, or is it the land of origin of world Jewry? Did devout Jewish followers of the Talmud truly aspire to emigrate there over a period of 2,000 years, and, if so, why do they not wish to live there today? And what about the country’s indigenous population, whom the concept of the Jewish homeland has transformed into civic sub-tenants in their own country? Do they have a right to continue living there, or is their stay only temporary? What are their chances of achieving self-sovereignty in their own homeland?

After critically examining the myth of the eternal existence of the Jewish people, Shlomo Sand turns his attention to the mysterious sacred land that has emerged as the territorial bone of contention in the longest running national struggle of the twentieth century. His new book, The Invention of the Land of Israel, deconstructs the age-old legends surrounding the Holy Land and the prejudices that continue to suffocate it. Sand’s account examines the fundamental meaning of the concept of ‘historical right’ and traces the ‘invention’ of the modern geopolitical concept of the ‘Land of Israel’ by nineteenth century Evangelical Protestants and Jewish Zionists. This national invention is not only what facilitated the colonization of the Middle East and the establishment of the State of Israel; it is also what is threatening the existence of the Jewish state today.

^

More Pal. Disinventivity

Rabbi Chaim Richman points out another Arab disinventivity, this one backwards:

Comparing "Nakba Day" to the destruction of the Holy Temple is the brainchild of a mindset which is beyond mere manipulation and cynicism…[but]...El Sana and his associates can’t seem to make up their minds.

On the one hand they constantly decry the “Judaization” of Jerusalem, denying that there ever was a Holy Temple or any Jewish connection to the city that was never a capital for any people on the face of the earth other than the Jews; the city mentioned in the Bible over 700 times, and not one time in the Koran. But now, as it suits them, they compare their self-inflicted loss of that which they never possessed with the destruction of that which they deny ever existed.

So according to MK El Sana, it turns out that there really was a Holy Temple? That means that there really was a Jewish Jerusalem 2,000 + years ago.*

That means that there really is a historical, religious, national, moral, and ethical raison d’être for Israel to reclaim Jerusalem and re-Judaize it. This is great news, and just in time to celebrate Jerusalem Day this Sunday, May 20th, the 45th anniversary of the liberation of Jerusalem and its unification by the forces of the IDF.

*
From PMW:

Mahmoud Abbas: Jerusalem only has Islamic and Christian history, Israel's "Judaization" is stealing Jerusalem's "cultural, human, and Islamic-Christian religious history"
Mahmoud Abbas' advisor:  Israel is creating "artificial heritage with a Jewish spirit at the expense of its [Jerusalem's] true and authentic [identity] as an Arab, Islamic and Christian city"

They really can't make up their minds.

They invent their nationalism and disinvent the Jewish nationalism, Zionism.

_______________

P.S.
From Al Arabiya via MEMRI (k/t=EoZ):

Following are excerpts from an interview with former PA Mufti Sheik Ikrima Sabri, which aired on Al-Arabiya TV on May 11, 2012:

Interviewer: Do you agree that in Jerusalem, there are places that are holy to the Muslims, the Jews and the Christians?

Ikrima Sabri: No, not to the Jews. I didn't say to the Jews. Omar Ibn Al-Khattab didn't find any synagogues of the Jews. There weren't any.

Interviewer: So in your opinion, today there are no places whatsoever in Jerusalem that are holy to the Jews?

Ikrima Sabri: No, none. They build new synagogues, but there are no archaeological remains [pertaining to the Jews]. For many years, they have been digging for archaeological remains, but they haven't found anything. How can we acknowledge something when they themselves admit that they have found nothing?


^

More Disinventivity

Reported

Sheikh Raed Salah, the leader of the Islamic movement in the Palestinian territories occupied in 1948 [i.e., Israel]...During an exclusive interview with the PIC on Saturday, Sheikh Salah asserted that the occupation is trying hard to judaize Jerusalem and build the alleged temple...

"Alleged"?

Maybe he is an alleged sheikh?

And to think the Romans went to all that trouble and built an arch showing them removing appurtenances from the alleged Temple they destroyed.


^

Hamas Confirms My Inventivity Palestinianism Model

MEMRI caught it (k/t=EOZ).

In a televised address on Al-Hekma TV last week, Hamas Minister of the Interior and of National Security Fathi Hammad [said]:-

"Every Palestinian, in Gaza and throughout Palestine, can prove his Arab roots - whether from Saudi Arabia, from Yemen, or anywhere. We have blood ties."  More than that, Hammad stated that the true regional background of most "Palestinians" is not in "Palestine."
"Brothers, half of the Palestinians are Egyptians and the other half are Saudis," exclaimed the Hamas minister

My inventivity model justified. ^

A Matter of Political Theory Retardation

I have found a progressive in the process of retardation.

No, not mental retardation. A cross between intellectual and anthropological retardation. First, a spin-off of neoteny:

...J.B.S. Haldane [states that] a "major evolutionary trend in human beings" is "greater prolongation of childhood and retardation of maturity."

Or, to use a metaphor closer to our subject - which is the ability of a progressive to completely and even purposely misinterpret an issue all the while providing seemingly logical reasons that are cognitivitely misconstruing the problem and therefore the solution - there are those who suffer from a second type of retardation factor, one similar to what's know as the Rf, or, the Retardation factor (a slower rate, basically) in chemistry whereby

for a particular chemical species [it] is the ratio of solution velocity and species velocity or in other words the ratio between the rate of groundwater movement and rate of contaminant movement.

The progressive is Dahlia Scheindlin. In Israel, she works for local and international organizations dealing with Israeli-Palestinian conflict issues, peacemaking, democracy, religious identity and internal social issues in Israeli society. She is writing her doctoral dissertation in comparative politics at Tel Aviv University. The focus of her research is unrecognized (de facto) states. She is an adjunct lecturer at the Department of Politics and Government at Ben Gurion University.

To her mind, for example. what was important about the flotilla effort two years ago was the need to deconstruct the myths Israel had propogated. And just recently she's discovered two observations:

...First, the understanding that Israel is committing terrible deeds that are destroying itself and its neighbors, has penetrated among you, my American Jewish friends, family and colleagues, who now speak of this more openly and bluntly than in the past...My second observation is that because of your fear – not of the goyim or the anti-Semites, but of yourselves! – you are keeping a low public profile.

Now she's into apologetica, on behalf of another mythmaker - Mahmoud Abbas.

Over at 972+ Mag, she has penned a Response to Abbas.

As we all know today, that speech of his at the Doha Jerusalem Conference (and here is an analysis) has all but sunk Abbas, especially among the liberal Jewish cult (Peace Now-J Street-Beinart-et al.).  It has also generated an intra-Islamic dispute with
Minister of Waqf (Islamic endowments) and Religious Affairs Mahmoud al-Habbash having to stress that visiting Jerusalem is a religious duty in Islam, while needing to describe a fatwa issued byt the head of the international union of Muslim scholars Sheikh Yousef al-Qaradawi Qaradawi's as "bizarre."

...al-Habbash stressed that the Prophet was speaking while the city was under the control of the Roman Empire...Al-Habbash added: "When Muslims and Christians visit Jerusalem, they are actually challenging the Israeli policies aimed at isolating the holy city. Such visits represent material and moral support to the Jerusalemites who insist on remaining in Jerusalem so that they will not feel they were left alone to defend the Arab and Islamic identity of Jerusalem and its Islamic and Christian holy places."

Note that Jews and Judaism have no place in the future "Palestine".

And to return to Scheindlin, first off she employs condescension:

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ speech at the International Conference on Jerusalem in Doha on Saturday set off the most proverbial alarm bells in Israel...

and then pooh-poohs it all:

Abbas’ general theme seemed to be raising awareness of the grave injustices perpetrated on the Palestinian population of East Jerusalem, such as Israel’s attempt to build walls to keep them in or out, Judaize the eastern part, and use archeological/historical research to justify the Jewish claim to the city.

then mocks:

On cue, Prime Minister Netanyahu called the speech “lies” and “severe incitement.”

And what really upsets here is a Yediot Ahronot piece

The headline read: “Abu Mazen: Israel wants to establish the Temple on the ruins of al-Aqsa.” This sounds like unnecessary religious incitement [there is "necessary incitement"].

And then asks for understanding for her positions:

I am not sympathetic to claims that there is no Jewish connection to Jerusalem, that the Temple is a fiction and by implication, that Jerusalem belongs only to Muslims and Christians. Leaving the Jewish heritage out of his UN speech was one thing [???]; actively denying the Jewish spiritual connection is another.

And then she twists Abbas upside-down:

...It’s time to stop this absurd belief that ancient historical facts are at issue. Peoplehood, the weight of history, emotional bonds to a cultural, spiritual and yes, religious axis mundi are at issue and I believe passionately in the need for Jews to accept those aspects of Palestinian life.

In other words, all this 'crap' of 'narrative' is good because it supports and props up "Palestinianism". It's another contribution to inventivity and even if she has to now swallow the Zionsit narrative, so be it:

Let’s cast off the notion of a conflict between Israelis and Palestinians already, which I sometimes feel is a brilliant decoy of the far right. The truth is, we have long been in a conflict between extremists and moderates, between hateful and compassionates, between exclusivists and inclusivists. A genuine liberal universalist approach must accept that even those who believe in universal rights have a national, religious, cultural and spiritual identity they cherish.

This is progressivism?

^

What A (Jonah) Whale-Out-of-Water Story

Notified of

Verification of the Existence of Life at Ashdod at the Time of Jonah the Prophet

The foundation of a large fortress that was situated there during the First Temple period was exposed in an excavation the Israel Antiquities Authority...In a trial archaeological excavation the Israel Antiquities...remains of massive walls more than 1 m wide were found that are dated to the late eighth century and early seventh century BCE.

In the estimation of the excavation director, Dmitri Egorov, of the Israel Antiquities Authority, these walls constituted the base of a large building from the First Temple period, the time when Jonah the prophet was active..Based on the finds the remains are probably an extensive foundation of a structure that was used as a stronghold or fortress that dates to the time of the First Temple.

According to Sa'ar Ganor, the Ashkelon District Archaeologist of the Israel Antiquities Authority, “Giv'at Yonah, which rises c. 50 m above sea level, is the highest hill in Ashdod, whence one can look out to sea, to Tel Mor – located in the Nahal Lachish estuary which was probably an ancient anchorage, and to Tel Ashdod. Due to its strategic location, it is not surprising to find there remains of a fortress that overlooked the region in the First Temple period”. Ganor adds, “There are two possibilities regarding who inhabited the fortress at that time: one possibility is that it was controlled by the Assyrians who were the regional rulers in the Iron Age. Another possibility is that Josiah, king of Judah, occupied the fort at the time, who we know conquered territory from the Assyrians and controlled Ashdod-Yam in the seventh century BCE”.

So, you are the "invented people" in this region?

Jews or the "Palestinian Arabs"?

^

"Palestinian Reverse Inventivity" - Example: Jerusalem

In my "Inventivity Model of 'Palestinianism'", I noted its uniqueness in that not only does this nationalism invent itself but also seeks to use invented theories, examples and cases to eradicate Jewish nationalism.

For example here: Am I Not a Human (7): The Suffering of Jerusalem and Holy Sites under the Israeli Occupation

which claims

The book...documents the suffering of the holy city, holy in Islam, Christianity and Judaism, and its population under the Israeli Occupation; in addition to the Occupation's infringements on other Muslim and Christian holy sites in Palestine generally.

The book presents a historic and legal background on the issue of Jerusalem, since its occupation...that prove the illegality and de-legitimacy of the Occupation.

The book also considers the Israeli infringements on Al-Aqsa Mosque, including excavations beneath and near the Mosque that threaten its infrastructure, the breakings into the Mosque, the expropriation of its areas and of neighbouring homes and neighborhoods, and the continuous attempts of the occupation to transform it into an open site for Jews and tourists, thus depriving its religious sanctity to Muslims.

Additionally, the book describes the Israeli Occupation's practices in the issue of Judaizing Jerusalem and imposing a Jewish façade on the city instead of its currently Muslim-Christian dominant Arab identity; and works in constructing a parallel "holy" Jewish city in the project named "Jerusalem first".

Jerusalem has had a Jewish population majority since the late 1850s - that's 130 years already, before 'Palestinianism' was invented:

According to the Prussian consul, the population in 1845 was 16,410, with 7,120 Jews, 5,000 Muslims, 3,390 Christians, 800 Turkish soldiers and 100 Europeans.[102 - Jerusalem: Illustrated History Atlas Martin Gilbert, Macmillan Publishing, New York, 1978, p. 37] .  Another source.

^

Inventivity Goes Presidential

For the record:

...the reason that there's not peace between the Palestinians and Israel is because there is in the leadership of the Palestinian people are Hamas and others who think like Hamas who have as their intent the elimination of Israel.

And whether it's in schoolbooks that teach how to kill Jews, or whether it's in the political discourse that is spoken either from Fatah or from Hamas, there is a belief that the Jewish people do not have a right to have a Jewish state.

There are some people who say should we have a two state solution, and the Israelis would be happy to have a two state solution. It's the Palestinians who don't want a two state solution, they want to eliminate the state of Israel.

And I believe America must say the best way to have peace in the Middle East is not for us to vacillate and appease, but it is to say we stand with our friend Israel.

We are committed to a Jewish state in israel. We will not have an inch of difference between ourselves and our ally Israel.

This president went before the United Nations and castigated Israel for building settlements. He said nothing about thousands of rockets being rained in on Israel from the Gaza Strip.

This president threw (applause) … I think he threw Israel under the bus with regards to defining the 67 borders as the starting point of negotiations.

I think he disrespected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Bibi Netanyahu.

I think he has time and time again shown distance from Israel and that has created in my view a greater sense of aggression on the part of the Palestinians.

Mitt Romney, asked about how he felt
when asked by an American Arab who claimed to have been born in "Palestine" how he would bring about peace in the Middle East adding, "As a Palestinian American Republican, I'm here to tell you, we do exist."

_______________

As for Newt Gingrich at that same debate:

Palestinians are

technically an invention of the late 1970s, prior to that they were Arabs...[they] must also acknowledge Israel's existence if they want to prosper...If I do become president, I will sign an executive order directing the State Department to move the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem to send the signal we're with Israel...

and this, too:

There were 11 rockets fired into Israel in November. Now, imagine in Duvall County (in Florida) that 11 rockets hit from your neighbor. How many of you would be for a peace process and how many of you would say, you know, that looks like an act of war?" Gingrich asked the audience...They can achieve [peace] any morning they are prepared to say, 'Israel has a right to exist, we give up the right to return, and we recognize that we're going to live side-by-side, now let's work together to create mutual prosperity,'

and here:

Newt Gingrich is defending himself after a questioner at the GOP presidential debate criticized him for calling Palestinians an invented people.

A questioner of Palestinian descent asked Gingrich how he could say Palestinians are “invented.”

Gingrich answered by reiterating his stance, saying that Palestinians were, in fact, invented in the 1970s. He says before that they were simply identified as Arabs.

USA Today mentioned none of this btw, while their blog noted:

"We are committed to a Jewish state in Israel," Romney says. "This president said nothing about the rockets rained on Israel from the Gaza Strip" and says Obama "time and time again has shown distance from Israel."

Gingrich now is defending his previous comment that the Palestinians are an "invented" people. He says they are "technically an invention" and "prior to that they were Arabs."

"Israel has a right to exist," he says, adding that Obama is undermining the peace process. He calls for the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, not Tel Aviv.

====

and I left these comments at the Washington Post story:

yisraelmedad wrote:

12:22 PM

The Arabs of the former territories of the Palestine Mandate are an example, the prime example, of the Inventivity Model of Nationalism (see: http://myrightword.blogspot.com/2011/12/model-for-... The League of Nations in 1922, and all major diplomatic discussions, decisions and conferences in the previous decade, recognized Arab rights to freedom from the Ottoman Empire everywhere in the Middle East - except the land which was defined as where the Jewish people had an historical connection, Eretz-Yisrael, and which was, as they decided, to become the reconstituted Jewish national home. And since currently the Palestinian Authority heads insist on disallowing Jews even to reside in the state they wish to create, it is obvious that their "nationalism" is not only invented but its prime purpose is to eradicate all physical, cultural, spiritual, etc. aspects of Jewish nationalism. They do that through ideology ("Zionism is post-colonuialism"); boycotts) they do that by destorying archaeological remains (Temple Mount); they do that by appealing to UNESCO to recognize "Muslim religious/historical sites" in place of Jewish ones (Hebron's Patriarchs Cave; Rachel's Tomb)

yisraelmedad wrote:

12:29 PM

...and "Palestinianism", since the 1920 riots in Jerusalem, refuses to negotiate but rather engages consistently in terror directly primarily at civilians in order to simply kill Jews. There is no concept of "territorial compromise", nor "coexistence" in their vocabulary, neither in Hamas and, with all the incitement broadcast, instructed and distributed in print, over the air and over the web, by the Palestinian Authority, not in Fatah for all this seeks to further deepen all that hostility and animosity, and so raise yet another generation trained to hate, not seek peace.

^

Further on My Inventivity Model

As I have written:

Inventivity is the foundation necessity of Palestinianism

And now this, by Robert Reilly:

...Their whole purpose as an invented people is as a weapon against Israel.

In other words, the wishes of the Palestinians are not now, nor have they ever been, paramount. Had they been assimilated in the surrounding Arab countries, they would be politically useless. Their 'rights' are a veneer to keep them in refugee camps, the continuing existence of which is testimony to the Arab refusal to accept the legitimacy of any postwar order or, ultimately, the legitimacy of Israel itself (only Jordan and Egypt have diplomatically recognized its existence).

While this may help explain why the Palestinians were invented, it does not elucidate the source of Arab intransigence in refusing to reach an accommodation with Israel short of the restoration of all that was lost in the repeated attempts to destroy it. In fact, even that restoration may not be enough. Anyone familiar with Al Manar (Palestinian) TV and the general propaganda against Israel throughout the Middle East might reasonably ask if there are any conditions under which the Arab world would allow Israel to continue to exist, other than by the strength of its own arms.

And if not, why not?

...[orgainziations] repeatedly make clear that the real problem is the very existence of Israel. But why is this a problem, and is its nature political or religious and theological? If it is the former, a negotiated settlement may be possible. If it is the latter, this is highly unlikely, if not impossible. Which is it? The answers to these questions must be sought in the heart of Islamic revelation in the Quran.

Islam says nothing about states, only peoples, and these it defines through religion. How does Islam regard Judaism? In Surah 5, Allah says that He established a Covenant with the Jews and gave them His revelation. The Jews possessed the Holy Land by virtue of this Covenant. But then the Quran cites the offence for which the Jews are forever cursed: "they changed my words". * The Jews changed God's words; they changed His revelation. One can only appreciate how great and unforgivable this offence is by grasping the orthodox Muslim understanding that the Quran has co-existed eternally with God, in heaven, in Arabic, exactly as it exists today. Within this understanding of the Quran, the enormity of the Jewish offence becomes clear as a blasphemous act of colossal pride, for which they lost their right to the Holy Land.

Therefore, the Jewish claim to, and exercise of, sovereignty over the Holy Land and, indeed, sovereignty over some Muslims there, on the basis of Surah 5, is an incalculable offense and, for many Muslims, simply unacceptable. This is what drives the animus against Israel's very existence. Until someone comes up with a new interpretation of Surah 5 that is widely accepted in the Muslim world, it is hard to have a great deal of hope for the sort of peace in the Middle East that we see in Europe.

If Jewish sovereignty in Israel is incompatible with the Quran, the rest becomes clear. Then one sees why, when Gaza was given the chance for self-rule, it was not used to display Palestinian capacity and desire for the rule of law and democratic constitutional government, but was turned into a weapons platform against Israel.

It is why, at the 2000 Camp David summit, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat turned down Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak's offer of more than 95% of the West Bank and all of Gaza, with a capital in East Jerusalem, without even bothering to make a counter offer. By proffering a Palestinian state and substantial reparations, Israel was interested in ending the conflict. Arafat was interested in using the conflict to end Israel. Little has changed since then, including the recent Palestinian attempt to declare a state unilaterally.

...This would include...comprehending the purposes for which the invention was made.

(k/t=DS)

____________

*
See here, starting at verse 7:

(5:7) Remember Allah's favour upon you and His covenant which He made with you when you said: 'We have heard and we obey.' So do fear Allah. Allah has full knowledge even of that which is hidden in the breasts of people.  (5:11) Believers! Remember Allah's favour upon you. When a certain people decided to stretch their hands against you, He restrained their hands from you. [*30] Do fear Allah. Men of faith should put their trust in Allah alone. 5:12) Surely Allah took a covenant with the Children of Israel, and We raised up from them twelve of their leaders, and Allah said: 'Behold, I am with you; if you establish Prayer and pay Zakah and believe in My Prophets and help them, and lend Allah a good loan,  I will certainly efface from you your evil deeds, and will surely cause you to enter the Gardens beneath which rivers flow. Whosoever of you disbelieves thereafter has indeed gone astray from the right way. (5:13) Then, for their breach of the covenant We cast them away from Our mercy and caused their hearts to harden. (And now they are in such a state that) they pervert the words from their context and thus distort their meaning, and have forgotten a good portion of the teaching they were imparted, and regarding all except a few of them you continue to learn that they committed acts of treachery. Pardon them, then, and overlook their deeds. Surely Allah loves those who do good deeds.

[*30.] This alludes to the incident reported by Ibn 'Abbas when a group of Jews invited the Prophet (peace be on him) and a number of his close Companions to dinner. They had in fact hatched a plot to pounce upon the guests and thus undermine the very foundation of Islam. But by the grace of God the Prophet (peace be on him) came to know of the plot at the eleventh hour and did not go. Since the following section is addressed to the Children of Israel, this incident is alluded to here in order to mark the transition to a new subject.
The discourse which begins here has two purposes. The first is to warn the Muslims against following the ways of their predecessors, the People of the Book. The Muslims are told, therefore, that the Israelites and the followers of Jesus had made a covenant with God in the past, in the manner that the Muslims had recently done so. The Muslims should, therefore, take heed lest they also break their covenant and fall a prey to error and misguidance as their predecessors had done.
The second is to sensitize the Jews and Christians to the errors they have committed and invite them to the true religion.

^

Second Temple Hebrew Inscriptions

You know what "Hebrew inscriptions" means, yes?

Jews.

Israelites.

Hebrews.

Not Arabs.

So, here's a new book by Jan Dušek on the subject:

Aramaic and Hebrew Inscriptions from Mt. Gerizim and Samaria between Antiochus III and Antiochus IV Epiphanes


And the theme of the book

stands on the intersection of epigraphy and historical research: the Aramaic and Hebrew inscriptions discovered in the vicinity of the Yahwistic sanctuary on Mt. Gerizim and their historical background. The study addresses the evidence from three perspectives: the paleography and dating of the inscriptions; the identity of the community who carved them and its institutions; and, finally, the larger historical and political context in which the inscriptions were produced.

And the best part:

This book is particularly useful for historians of Palestine in the Second Temple period, for biblical scholars, and for those dealing with Aramaic and Hebrew paleography and epigraphy.

By the way, Mt. Gerizim, you of course know, is at Shchem, aka Nablus.

Are you Pals. (and their supporters) still trying to engage in "identity theft" and "inventivity nationalism"?

From the Table of contents

I. Scripts of the inscriptions from Mt. Gerizim
1. Temple-city on Mt. Gerizim; 2. Scripts used on Mt. Gerizim;...6. Spelling with dalet or zayin;...9. Paleo-Hebrew fragments
II. Identity
1. Samaria in the Hellenistic period; 2. Identity of worshippers of Yahweh in Samaria; 3. Religious institutions in Hellenistic Samaria; 4. Texts used by the Samarian Yahwists: Pentateuch; 5. Samarian Yahwists as foreigners in the Jewish society; 6. Date and circumstances of the exclusion: the case of Sidonians in Shechem;...
III. Southern Levant between Antiochus III and Antiochus IV Epiphanes
...2. Chronology of Josephus in Ant. 12.129-236; 3. Seleucid and Ptolemaic kings in Ant. 12.129-236; 4. The dotal agreement (Ant. 12.154-155); 5. The Tobiads; 6. High-priests in Jerusalem

^

In 54 Seconds: Understanding "Palestinianism"

Here is one of the most concise and stunning statements - it's from 1936 when the "Arab Revolt" was declared - that explain the Arab-Israel conflict, its background, its complexity, its own internal contradictory and mendacious framework in which the Arabs enwrap it:

(and watch how many takes are required for another, later statement from 1939)

Let's fisk it, also concisely and briefly.

a) "replacement" (13-15 secs.)

Zionists never sought to replace Arabs with Jews but simply to bring Jews home.  As have been proven by today's reality, millions of persons could live in this country and so all the Arab claims then were just to keep the Jews out.  And the Arabs would still be in the country if they hadn't adopted the path of violence and terror from the start.

b) "principles" (16-18 secs.)

While the Arabs promoted a claim of 'self-determination' and 'democracy', they would not permit the Jews to practice the same and predicated their hostility and violence on a nationlist paradigm I term inventivity which denies Jews those rights when Jews possessed primacy as regards history, culture, religion and other aspects over and in this land.  Moreover, almost 60 nations, all the civilized world in the post-World War I period, decided in the League of Nations that Jews would be granted the political rights in Palestine while non-Jews would be granted their rights in other areas of the Middle East and in Palestine only civil and religious rights.  And that was only fair and just.

c) "Balfour Declaration abhorred" (19-25)

Well, that's true but the Arabs themselves, through their allegiance with Great Britain, their correspondence with MacMahon, their negotiations with Lawrence, etc., were doing exactly what the Zionists were doing.  They fought in the desert and the Jews fought in Palestine.  No difference.  The British, faced with two options, elected to give Palestine to the Jews and backtracked out by awarding, in 1921, TransJordan to one of three brothers, Abdullah, while the other brother, Feisal, first was King of Syria and then King of Iraq (and who was sympathetice to Zionist aims, to an extent).  Ali, the thrid brother, was for a very short time King of Saudi Arabia. We Jews abhorred that act of diplomatic treachery.

d) "forgot" (34 sec)

The British did no such thing.  Besides the truncatation of the Jewish National Home by suspending their Mandate provisions to TransJordan, they suggest an Arab Agency, parity proposals, failed to provide adequate security for Jews against Arab violence and later, sought to partition, again and again, the rest of the territory that was to become the Jewish National Home.

e) "stoppage of immigration" (44-46 secs.)

Not only was that demand of a halt to Jewish immigration totally immoral at the time when Hitler had been in power three years, and illegal, but in flies in the face of the 1800-year history of the Land of Israel which always received its returning Jews.

f) "essential change in government policy" (50-53 secs.)

The British were always changing their policies to the detriment of the Jews and jin 1939, with the St. James Conference and the White Paper, completely reneged on the Balfour Declaration and League of Nations commitments.

There you are.  In less than one minute almost all the basic points you need to understand why Arabs are wrong.  And in insight into the perversion of their thinking.


P.S.

I am fairly sure that spokesman is Jamal el-Husseini and if so - On Jamal.

^

That New Find: No Inventive History

I mentioned it yesterday and here are the details from Israel Hayom:

The Israel Antiquities Authority on Sunday presented a rare clay seal that appears to be linked to religious rituals that took place at the Second Temple 2,000 years ago. The coin-sized seal found underground near the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City bears two Aramaic words meaning "pure for God."

Credit

Archaeologist Ronny Reich of Haifa University said on Sunday that this was the first discovery of such a seal from the period and a unique artifact from the Temple practice. He said the seal was likely used by Temple officials assigning an object for ritual use — oil, perhaps, or an animal intended for sacrifice. Materials used by Temple priests had to be ritually pure.

Reich added that the seal dates from between the 1st century B.C. to 70 A.D., when Roman forces destroyed the Temple.

While the purifying process has been documented extensively, it was never been fully proven until now. The seal impression clearly attests to the special purity measures that worshipers subscribed to in and around the Temple and the great lengths they went to in order to prepare themselves for the privilege of entry to the Temple area.

Jews. In Jerusalem. At the Temple.

What will the Arabs say?

"Invented history"?

___________

UPDATE

One thing that puzzles me about the recently discovered seal from Jerusalem is its Aramaic inscription. The seal reads דכא ליה (‘pure to Yah[weh]‘), and evidently has some sort of ritual significance...The one thing that surprises me about this, however, is
that the inscription is clearly in Aramaic, not Hebrew. This would be highly unusual for a priestly item. Deutsch offers an alternative theory that the seal was a token used in the monetary exchange for a libation offered in the temple. The use of Aramaic in this case would make more sense, as a lay person was involved in the exchange. However, the phrase ‘pure for Yaw(weh)’ seems a little peripheral to the exchange itself.  I want to propose a slightly different understanding of this little seal.

We know that the moneychangers in the Jerusalem temple exchanged ordinary coins with Tyrian silver coins. These Tyrian coins were noted for the purity of their silver. While most silver coins in the Roman Empire were only 80% silver, the Tyrian coins were approximately 94% silver—the highest purity level of all coins. They were, therefore, deemed as fit for monetary exchanges in the temple, as well as the
collection of the famous half-shekel temple tax...The Tyrian coins were minted in Tyre for over a century, until the Romans closed the Tyrian mint in c. 18 BC—just after Herod’s renovation of the Jerusalem temple began...
Since all monetary purchases in the temple were made in Tyrian silver, it seems reasonable that there was some kind of system in place to guarantee that pilgrims were using the correct currency exchanged at the temple. The recently discovered seal from the Old City of Jerusalem may have served this purpose. A pilgrim would come to
Jerusalem with whatever coins they had, and would go to an officially sanctioned moneychanger in or near the temple complex. They would hand over their coins, receive Tyrian silver in exchange, as well as a token (the seal) guaranteeing the purity of the silver they were receiving...the token was written in Aramaic so that a lay person (a pilgrim) might understand that they had received pure currency that was officially endorsed by the temple authorities. The pilgrim would then take these Tyrian silver coins, along with the accompanying token, and use them to make purchases, such as sacrificial animals or libations, within the temple itself.

GEORGE ATHAS
Director of Postgraduate Studies,
Moore Theological College (moore.edu.au)
Sydney, Australia
^