Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 10:00:22 -0500 From: pimann@pobox.com ("Dan Sullivan") Subject: Re: [libs4peace] RE: Under siege: what it's like living in Israel To: bobhunt@erols.com Cc: libs4peace@yahoogroups.com Reply-To: pimann@pobox.com On 18 Apr 2002,, bobhunt@erols.com wrote: > I have never doubted Scott before. > Is there any reason to start? One reason is that bias in the story is self-evident in places. He talks about Arabs displacing Jews who "who might have developed the empty lands of Palestine," but in fact didn't. As displace means force from a place, one cannot displace people who were not there. Even those Arabs who had migrated there only shortly before the European invasion were the ones who had been displaced. He makes the point that ancient Palestinian immigrants from Greece 3,300 years ago were not Semitics, but ignores the fact that, after 3,300 years of living among and inter-marrying with Arabs, they are semitic now, and especially compared to EuropeanJews, who are not semitic at all, and have no more ancestral roots in Israel than Irish Catholics. He plays the holocaust card in a way that obscures the fact that among the leaders of Israel are people who had formed military alliances with Hitler, advancing zionism even at the expense or European Jewry. Yitshak Shamir, for example, has acknowledged that his own terrorist group, known as the Stern Gang, got arms from Hitler to fight British and Arabs, and had even proposed a formal alliance with Hitler. Rudolf Kaztner, knowing of the extermination camps, had counselled hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews to cooperate with Hitler, in exchange for which he was allowed to take about 1,600 wealthy Jews with him to Palestine. And so, while there is nothing obviously false in Scott's history, it is clearly constructed to play on emotions and support conclusions that do not hold up to further scrutiny. > On Wed, 17 Apr 2002 20:30:07 -0700, "Scott Jordan" > wrote: > > Further: > > http://www.tzemach.org/fyi/docs/nopal.htm > > What Does "Palestine" Mean? > > It has never been the name of a nation or state. It is a geographical > term, used to designate the region at those times in history when there > is no nation or state there. > > The word itself derives from "Peleshet", a name that appears frequently > in the Bible and has come into English as "Philistine". The name began > to be used in the Thirteenth Century BCE, for a wave of migrant "Sea > Peoples" who came from the area of the Aegean Sea and the Greek Islands > and settled on the southern coast of the land of Canaan. There they > established five independent city-states (including Gaza) on a narrow > strip of land known as Philistia. The Greeks and Romans called it > "Palastina". > > The Philistines were not Arabs, they were not Semites. They had no > connection, ethnic, linguistic or historical with Arabia or Arabs. The > name "Falastin" that Arabs today use for "Palestine" is not an Arabic > name. It is the Arab pronunciation of the Greco-Roman "Palastina" > derived from the Peleshet. > > How Did the Land of Israel Become "Palestine"? > > In the First Century CE, the Romans crushed the independent kingdom of > Judea. After the failed rebellion of Bar Kokhba in the Second Century > CE, the Roman Emperor Hadrian determined to wipe out the identity of > Israel-Judah-Judea. Therefore, he took the name Palastina and imposed it > on all the Land of Israel. At the same time, he changed the name of > Jerusalem to Aelia Capitolina. > > The Romans killed many Jews and sold many more in slavery. Some of those > who survived still alive and free left the devastated country, but there > was never a complete abandonment of the Land. There was never a time > when there were not Jews and Jewish communities, though the size and > conditions of those communities fluctuated greatly. > > The History of Palestine > > Thousands of years before the Romans invented "Palastina" the land had > been known as "Canaan". The Canaanites had many tiny city-states, each > one at times independent and at times a vassal of an Egyptian or Hittite > king. The Canaanites never united into a state. > > After the Exodus from Egypt - probably in the Thirteenth Century BCE but > perhaps earlier - the Children of Israel settled in the land of Canaan. > There they formed first a tribal confederation, and then the Biblical > kingdoms of Israel and Judah, and the post-Biblical kingdom of Judea. > > From the beginning of history to this day, Israe-Judah-Judea has the > only united, independent, sovereign nation-state that ever existed in > "Palestine" west of the Jordan River. (In Biblical times, Ammon, Moab > and Edom as well as Israel had land east of the Jordan, but they > disappeared in antiquity and no other nation took their place until the > British invented Trans-Jordan in the 1920s.) > > After the Roman conquest of Judea, "Palastina" became a province of the > pagan Roman Empire and then of the Christian Byzantine Empire, and ver > briefly of the Zoroastrian Persian Empire. In 638 CE, an Arab-Muslim > Caliph took Palastina away from the Byzantine Empire and made it part of > an Arab-Muslim Empire. The Arabs, who had no name of their own for this > region, adopted the Greco-Roman name Palastina, that they pronounced > "Falastin". > > In that period, much of the mixed population of Palastina converted to > Islam and adopted the Arabic language. They were subjects of a distant > Caliph who ruled them from his capital, that was first in Damascus and > later in Baghdad. They did not become a nation or an independent state, > or develop a distinct society or culture. > > In 1099, Christian Crusaders from Europe conquered Palestina-Falastin. > After 1099, it was never again under Arab rule. The Christian Crusader > kingdom was politically independent, but never developed a national > identity. It remained a military outpost of Christian Europe, and lasted > less than 100 years. Thereafter, Palestine was joined to Syria as a > subject province first ofthe Mameluks, ethnically mixed slave-warriors > whose center was in Egypt, and then of the Ottoman Turks, whose capital > was in Istanbul. > > During the First World War, the British took Palestine from the Ottoman > Turks. At the end of the war, the Ottoman Empire collapsed and among its > subject provinces "Palestine" was assigned to the British, to govern > temporarily as a mandate from the League of Nations. > > ..... > > Who Is A Palestinian? > > During the period of the Mandate, t was the Jewish population that was > known as "Palestinians" including those who served in the British Army > in World War II. > > British policy was to curtail their numbers and progressively limit > Jewish immigration. By 1939, the White Paper virtually put an end to > admission of Jews to Palestine. This policy was imposed the most > stringently at the very time this Home was most desperately needed - > after the rise of Nazi power in Europe. Jews who might have developed > the empty lands of Palestine and left progeny there, instead died in the > gas chambers of Europe or in the seas they were trying to cross to the > Promised Land. > > At the same time that the British slammed the gates on Jews, they > permitted or ignored massive illegal immigration into Western Palestine > from Arab countries Jordan, Syria, Egypt, North Africa. In 1939, Winston > Churchill noted that "So far from being persecuted, the Arabs have > crowded into the country and multiplied . . . ." Exact population > statistics may be problematic, but it seems that by 1947 the number of > Arabs west of the Jordan River was approximately triple of what it had > been in 1900. > > 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 Palestine "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 Palestine for two > years and then left in 1948 qualifies as a "Palestinian refugees". > > Casual use of population statistics for Jews and Arabs in Palestine > rarely consider how the proportions came to be. One factor was the > British policy of keeping out Jews while bringing in Arabs. Another > factor was the violence used to kill or drive out Jews even where they > had been long established. > > > > > If you continue to vote for the same policies, you will continue to get the same consequences because of those policies. > > > > > To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: > libs4peace-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com > > > > Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ > > > > Dan Sullivan ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Buy Stock for $4 and no minimums. FREE Money 2002. http://us.click.yahoo.com/k6cvND/n97DAA/ySSFAA/nJ9qlB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> If you continue to vote for the same policies, you will continue to get the same consequences because of those policies. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: libs4peace-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com