What a fizzer Trump's speech on the US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital was!
Completely ignoring what international law has to say on the matter (Israel is a "belligerent occupant"), Trump essentially said little more than that since Israel has occupied (he didn't use the 'o' word of course) East Jerusalem since 1967, far from having a problem with that, we recognise the fact. IOW: occupiers rule, OK?
As for what we'd been led to believe by the Guardian - that he would, in part, "base his decision on ancient history," the only mention of that came with a reference to Jerusalem as "the capital the Jewish people established in ancient times."
Not, of course, that what "the Jewish people" did or didn't do "in ancient times," has anything to do with the current status of East Jerusalem. Still, I was sort of hoping for a spot of light relief if Trump had gone down that path. Had he done so he would presumably have alluded to 'the Jerusalem of Kings David and Solomon.'
Only, of course, to be contradicted by the archaeological record. In the words of Israel's foremost archaeologist, Israel Finkelstein:
"But is the ridge south of the Temple Mount the location of the actual City of King David? This is one of the most excavated spots on the face of the earth, but so far fieldwork has not yielded any monuments from the 10th century BCE, the time of King David. Recent claims by an archaeologist working at the site regarding the supposed discovery of the palace of King David and the city-wall built by King Solomon are based on literal, simplistic readings of the biblical text and are not supported by archaeological facts." (In the eye of Jerusalem's archaeological storm - the City of David, beyond the politics and propaganda, Israel Finkelstein, forward.com, 26/4/11)
PS (8/12/17): The following nonsense appeared in The Australian of 7 November: "Archeological [sic] evidence objectively demonstrates the connection of Jerusalem to the Jewish people for more than 3000 years. Antiquities don't lie, relics don't have political agendas. Yet while the science of climate change is embraced as gospel by the UN, the scientific proof og ancient Jewish habitation of Jerusalem is not." (History backs Jerusalem as Israel's capital, Kate Ashmor)
Showing posts with label Ancient Palestine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ancient Palestine. Show all posts
Thursday, December 7, 2017
Tuesday, April 19, 2016
Gutless Wonder
"... Mr Turnbull used a key speech in... Shanghai to... call on the Communist leadership to grant greater freedoms and develop a stronger rule of law... " (PM urges new commitment to rule of law, Mark Kenny/Philip Wen, Sydney Morning Herald, 15/4/16)
What a fearless crusader for human rights is M'Lord Turnbull! Imagine saying that to the Chinese in China!
But would he say the same to the Israelis in Israel? Just imagine:
'Mr Turnbull used a key speech in... Tel Aviv to call on the Zionist leadership to grant greater freedoms to Palestinians and develop a stronger rule of law in the occupied West Bank...'
After all, as a recent Haaretz editorial stated:
"When the prime minister, defense minister, education minister and justice minister are all working against the highest court of the land, it shows Israel is not ruled by law, certainly not when it comes to what happens beyond the Green Line." (Israeli ministers vs the rule of law, 29/7/15)
No, it's impossible to imagine M'Lord Turnbull coming within cooee of such a call.
I'm afraid his Message from the Prime Minister: Passover 2016 is about as close as he'll ever get to the subject:
"The enduring example of the Israelites' deliverance from slavery resonates down through the ages, and with all who seek freedom from oppression." (jwire.com.au)
What a fearless crusader for human rights is M'Lord Turnbull! Imagine saying that to the Chinese in China!
But would he say the same to the Israelis in Israel? Just imagine:
'Mr Turnbull used a key speech in... Tel Aviv to call on the Zionist leadership to grant greater freedoms to Palestinians and develop a stronger rule of law in the occupied West Bank...'
After all, as a recent Haaretz editorial stated:
"When the prime minister, defense minister, education minister and justice minister are all working against the highest court of the land, it shows Israel is not ruled by law, certainly not when it comes to what happens beyond the Green Line." (Israeli ministers vs the rule of law, 29/7/15)
No, it's impossible to imagine M'Lord Turnbull coming within cooee of such a call.
I'm afraid his Message from the Prime Minister: Passover 2016 is about as close as he'll ever get to the subject:
"The enduring example of the Israelites' deliverance from slavery resonates down through the ages, and with all who seek freedom from oppression." (jwire.com.au)
Tuesday, December 30, 2014
The Exodus Master Narrative 2
Getting to the bottom of the narrative:
"The Exodus is arguably the most famous of all of the Biblical tales, yet there is no real evidence that it ever actually happened. At least, not the way that the Bible says it did. This is not to say that archaeologists have not looked. Many have tried to find some evidence, any evidence to grab onto. Nothing tangible has ever been found. At the very least, one would expect that a large group of people wandering around the desert for 40 years would have left some kind of material evidence. If they did, we haven't found it.
"In contrast, archaeologists have discovered ephemeral hunter-gatherer sites in the Sinai from the Neolithic period. One could expect that signs of the wandering Israelites would be found as well, if there were any. So if the Exodus that Jews tell every year on Passover didn't happen, at least as told, where did this story come from? One possibility is that it's a fable made up by ancient scribes and priests to give hope to a conquered and exiled people, scattered and thrown to the winds by the Assyrian and Babylonian empires. Another is that there really are kernels of truth hidden deep in the tale.
"Some suggest that there are clues to actual historical narratives in these texts. Regarding the birth of Moses, for instance, one possibility is that the Israelite storytellers adopted the traditional tale of King Sargon the Great of Mesopotamia, whose reign dates back to the 22nd and 23rd centuries BCE. It is said that he was laid in a basket and set in the river as a baby...
"The most logical possibility is that the Exodus tale is actually an ancient memory of the Egyptians overthrowing and expelling the ancient Semitic rulers of the Nile Delta - known as the Hyksos. This theory was initially proposed by Egyptologist Prof. Donald Redford in a 1987 paper entitled 'An Egyptian Perspective on the Exodus narrative.' This theory makes sense to anyone following the more than 40-year old excavations at Tel El Dab'a by Prof. Manfred Bietak. The wealth of knowledge obtained from that site has been incredible. Most importantly it uncovered an enormous amount of physical evidence of a Semitic people called the Hyksos, or 'Rulers of Foreign Lands', by the Egyptians. Though their origin remains mysterious, it is known that the Hyksos arrived in Egypt from Canaan and lived among the Egyptians for some time, at least from the 12th Dynasty, before their ultimate rise to power. They reigned over Lower Egypt from the 15th to the 17th Dynasty (1630-1523 BCE). The Hyksos' connection to Canaan or the Levant is proven by a wealth of archaeological, textual and artistic remains found throughout Egypt, most notably in the ancient city of Avaris, known to archaeologists as Tel El Dab'a. These people left a strong mark on the Egyptians, most readily seen in the adoption of a Levantine goddess who was absorbed into the goddess Hathor. The Hyksos were defeated and expelled from Egypt by the 18th Dynasty pharaoh Ahmose... It is unlikely that all the Hyksos were physically kicked out of Egypt. It makes more sense that some remained and were subjugated, possibly becoming a lower class and that a memory of that event would have been passed down in oral tradition." (From The Exodus: Jewish history, or ancient Semitic memory? Julia Fridman, Haaretz, 10/4/14)
Not that the above will mean anything to the punters flocking to Hollywood's latest Old Testament promotion. They'll most likely come away with Lipski's Israel-affirming 'Exodus master story', already lodged deep in their grey matter, reinforced.
As one Israeli commentator has speculated: maybe Director Ridley Scott had Moses say, "on the other side of the Red Sea... headed toward Canaan 'we will be perceived as invaders when we get to Canaan'" because he didn't want to be seen "as if I'm a hundred percent pro-Israeli in my film." (Ridley Scott trades out God for nature's fury in scientific 'Exodus', Jordan Hoffman, timesofisrael.com, 9/12/14)
Now that's what I call letting the cat out of the bag.
"The Exodus is arguably the most famous of all of the Biblical tales, yet there is no real evidence that it ever actually happened. At least, not the way that the Bible says it did. This is not to say that archaeologists have not looked. Many have tried to find some evidence, any evidence to grab onto. Nothing tangible has ever been found. At the very least, one would expect that a large group of people wandering around the desert for 40 years would have left some kind of material evidence. If they did, we haven't found it.
"In contrast, archaeologists have discovered ephemeral hunter-gatherer sites in the Sinai from the Neolithic period. One could expect that signs of the wandering Israelites would be found as well, if there were any. So if the Exodus that Jews tell every year on Passover didn't happen, at least as told, where did this story come from? One possibility is that it's a fable made up by ancient scribes and priests to give hope to a conquered and exiled people, scattered and thrown to the winds by the Assyrian and Babylonian empires. Another is that there really are kernels of truth hidden deep in the tale.
"Some suggest that there are clues to actual historical narratives in these texts. Regarding the birth of Moses, for instance, one possibility is that the Israelite storytellers adopted the traditional tale of King Sargon the Great of Mesopotamia, whose reign dates back to the 22nd and 23rd centuries BCE. It is said that he was laid in a basket and set in the river as a baby...
"The most logical possibility is that the Exodus tale is actually an ancient memory of the Egyptians overthrowing and expelling the ancient Semitic rulers of the Nile Delta - known as the Hyksos. This theory was initially proposed by Egyptologist Prof. Donald Redford in a 1987 paper entitled 'An Egyptian Perspective on the Exodus narrative.' This theory makes sense to anyone following the more than 40-year old excavations at Tel El Dab'a by Prof. Manfred Bietak. The wealth of knowledge obtained from that site has been incredible. Most importantly it uncovered an enormous amount of physical evidence of a Semitic people called the Hyksos, or 'Rulers of Foreign Lands', by the Egyptians. Though their origin remains mysterious, it is known that the Hyksos arrived in Egypt from Canaan and lived among the Egyptians for some time, at least from the 12th Dynasty, before their ultimate rise to power. They reigned over Lower Egypt from the 15th to the 17th Dynasty (1630-1523 BCE). The Hyksos' connection to Canaan or the Levant is proven by a wealth of archaeological, textual and artistic remains found throughout Egypt, most notably in the ancient city of Avaris, known to archaeologists as Tel El Dab'a. These people left a strong mark on the Egyptians, most readily seen in the adoption of a Levantine goddess who was absorbed into the goddess Hathor. The Hyksos were defeated and expelled from Egypt by the 18th Dynasty pharaoh Ahmose... It is unlikely that all the Hyksos were physically kicked out of Egypt. It makes more sense that some remained and were subjugated, possibly becoming a lower class and that a memory of that event would have been passed down in oral tradition." (From The Exodus: Jewish history, or ancient Semitic memory? Julia Fridman, Haaretz, 10/4/14)
Not that the above will mean anything to the punters flocking to Hollywood's latest Old Testament promotion. They'll most likely come away with Lipski's Israel-affirming 'Exodus master story', already lodged deep in their grey matter, reinforced.
As one Israeli commentator has speculated: maybe Director Ridley Scott had Moses say, "on the other side of the Red Sea... headed toward Canaan 'we will be perceived as invaders when we get to Canaan'" because he didn't want to be seen "as if I'm a hundred percent pro-Israeli in my film." (Ridley Scott trades out God for nature's fury in scientific 'Exodus', Jordan Hoffman, timesofisrael.com, 9/12/14)
Now that's what I call letting the cat out of the bag.
Monday, December 29, 2014
The Exodus Master Narrative 1
Egypt has reportedly banned the latest sword-and-sandal extravaganza Exodus: Gods & Kings because "it asserts historical falsehoods and spreads a 'Zionist view'." (Egypt bans 'Exodus: Gods & Kings' movie, Rick Gladstone, New York Times/Sydney Morning Herald, 27/12/14)
News of same will, I imagine, be greeted by smirks on the part of those who see Hollywood productions as nothing more than entertainment.
They, of course, will have no idea that the biblical Exodus (with its fable of liberation from slavery in Egypt, 40-year wandering in the Sinai desert, and final entry into the 'Promised Land') is an integral part of the Zionist master-narrative drummed into the heads of every Jewish-Israeli schoolchild (and promoted as well in Jewish, and, I suspect, Christian, schools around the world). As Israeli scholar and educationist Nurit Peled-Elhanan points out:
"The Zionist narrative inculcated in Israeli schools relates a continuous struggle of the Jews against non-Jewish conquerors, usurpers of the land and persecutors. In their recent history school book, Naveh et al. 2009 reproduce this narrative of continuity as follows: 'The holidays and memorial days of Israel were molded as a continuous struggle of the Jewish people for its very existence, according to the familiar pattern of the Jews as few and good, struggling against the Goyim (non-Jews) who are numerous and bad. In Hanuka - the Makabbim against the ancient Greek, on Adar 11th - Trumpeldor and the defenders of Tel-Hai (1904) [sic: 1920] against a gang of Arab 'plunderers', in Purim - The Jew Mordechai and his niece - Queen Esther - against wicked Haman, in Passover - Moses and the children of Israel are struggling to free themselves from slavery against Pharoe and the Egyptians, on Holocaust Day - the rebels of the Warsaw Ghetto against the Nazi Germans, on memorial day and Independence Day - the combatants of 1948 against the armies of the Arab states in their masses, and on 33 Ba'Omer - the [ancient] Jewish fundamentalists against the Romans. All these contexts are mixed together to create an artificial defining narrative, which construes the collective memory of the Jewish citizens of Israel'." (Palestine in Israeli School Books: Ideology & Propaganda in Education, 2012, p 7)
In fact, so seriously do Israel firsters take the historicity of the biblical Exodus narrative (a matter to which I shall return to in my next post) that we even have Australian Zionist and Pratt Foundation CEO Sam Lipski arguing that the "Exodus master story" (his words) be given precedence over what he calls the "Holocaust master story" (his words) in Australia's national curriculum. (See my 12/4/10 post Sam Lipski's National Curriculum.)
To be continued...
News of same will, I imagine, be greeted by smirks on the part of those who see Hollywood productions as nothing more than entertainment.
They, of course, will have no idea that the biblical Exodus (with its fable of liberation from slavery in Egypt, 40-year wandering in the Sinai desert, and final entry into the 'Promised Land') is an integral part of the Zionist master-narrative drummed into the heads of every Jewish-Israeli schoolchild (and promoted as well in Jewish, and, I suspect, Christian, schools around the world). As Israeli scholar and educationist Nurit Peled-Elhanan points out:
"The Zionist narrative inculcated in Israeli schools relates a continuous struggle of the Jews against non-Jewish conquerors, usurpers of the land and persecutors. In their recent history school book, Naveh et al. 2009 reproduce this narrative of continuity as follows: 'The holidays and memorial days of Israel were molded as a continuous struggle of the Jewish people for its very existence, according to the familiar pattern of the Jews as few and good, struggling against the Goyim (non-Jews) who are numerous and bad. In Hanuka - the Makabbim against the ancient Greek, on Adar 11th - Trumpeldor and the defenders of Tel-Hai (1904) [sic: 1920] against a gang of Arab 'plunderers', in Purim - The Jew Mordechai and his niece - Queen Esther - against wicked Haman, in Passover - Moses and the children of Israel are struggling to free themselves from slavery against Pharoe and the Egyptians, on Holocaust Day - the rebels of the Warsaw Ghetto against the Nazi Germans, on memorial day and Independence Day - the combatants of 1948 against the armies of the Arab states in their masses, and on 33 Ba'Omer - the [ancient] Jewish fundamentalists against the Romans. All these contexts are mixed together to create an artificial defining narrative, which construes the collective memory of the Jewish citizens of Israel'." (Palestine in Israeli School Books: Ideology & Propaganda in Education, 2012, p 7)
In fact, so seriously do Israel firsters take the historicity of the biblical Exodus narrative (a matter to which I shall return to in my next post) that we even have Australian Zionist and Pratt Foundation CEO Sam Lipski arguing that the "Exodus master story" (his words) be given precedence over what he calls the "Holocaust master story" (his words) in Australia's national curriculum. (See my 12/4/10 post Sam Lipski's National Curriculum.)
To be continued...
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Brainwashed
"To me, Pesach is the greatest Jewish festival because the story is so good. We sit around the Seder table and relate, over and over, our escape from Egypt... As a boy I felt fraught during the Passover service because it seemed that even as we celebrated a narrow escape from one disaster, we were preparing for the next. A Jew has either to be ignorant of his history or mad to suppose that what has happened before won't happen again." - British novelist Howard Jacobson condemning UK miniseries The Promise in Ludicrous, brainwashed prejudice, The Australian Jewish News/The Independent, 2/12/11
Yes, great story, Howard. No doubt about it. However, there's just one little problem:
"There is no evidence for Israel in Egypt. There is no evidence for the Exodus. There is no evidence for the Conquest even." - Israeli archaeologist Amihai Mazar, winner of the 2009 Israel Prize for Israeli archaeology, on Radio National's Late Night Live, 12/9/11.
Go figure, Howard.
Yes, great story, Howard. No doubt about it. However, there's just one little problem:
"There is no evidence for Israel in Egypt. There is no evidence for the Exodus. There is no evidence for the Conquest even." - Israeli archaeologist Amihai Mazar, winner of the 2009 Israel Prize for Israeli archaeology, on Radio National's Late Night Live, 12/9/11.
Go figure, Howard.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Holy Crap
"Nothing incenses me or provokes me like watching tourist promotions for the enemy state of Israel. I scream inwardly: The stones are not yours. The flowers are not yours. The beaches are not yours. The clouds are not yours. The blue of the sky is not yours. All will return to their owners. Then everything will be more beautiful and splendid." (The Angry Arab, angryarab.blogspot.com, 6/7/11)
I know how he feels.
The Sun-Herald this week carried a double page promo on the stolen land in its travel supplement written by staff journalist Andrew Taylor, who, according to an appended disclosure, "travelled with assistance from Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs."
A holy bunch of hedonists is clearly part and parcel of the Israeli foreign ministry's post-Mavi Marmara massacre PR strategy of recruiting foreign journalists and other useful fools in a concerted effort to airbrush the apartheid state (See my post of 30/11/10 Once a Sow's Ear).
Some gems:
"But visitors expecting to be manhandled at military checkpoints, harangued by religious nutbags or caught in crossfire will be in for a surprise. Israel is not merely a country-sized firing range but rather an ethnically diverse, vibrant land where cultural and late-night pursuits often take priority over piety and politics."
So Taylor didn't know that checkpoints were reserved for occupied Palestinians? Or that there's no such thing as crossfire because it's actually the Israelis who are doing all the shooting? Oh, really? But then, given the abysmal knowledge deficit of most of our ms media scribblers and babblers, quite possibly not. Anyway, to invoke the 'o' word would only cruel the sales-pitch and defeat the whole purpose of the exercise, so forget I ever mentioned it. Still, seeing I have, don't those late-night pursuits take on a whole new meaning?
"Jerusalem's first pleasant surprise is the steep hills carpeted in pines and cypresses that guard the western approaches to King David's city. Thanks to the determination of Jewish settlers in the 1950s to 'make the desert bloom', this side of Jerusalem resembles the alpine scenery of central Europe."
Amazing, isn't it? Despite King David being little more than a character in the Bible, with no real archaeological substance to back him or his alleged empire up, the Zionist narrative nonetheless mandates that he be the defining moment of the city's history - a little like referring to London as Emperor Claudius' city. Taylor's deliberate focus on a mere historical (if even that) blip, to the exclusion of 14 centuries of almost uninterrupted Muslim rule and presence in the city, is yet another example of what religious scholar Keith W. Whitelam calls the "retrojection of the modern state of Israel into the Iron Age."* But expecting anything other than Zionist cliches here is to forget that we're dealing with PR, not genuine travel writing. And to confirm just that, what does Taylor do in the very next sentence but trot out the tired old saw about heroic Jewish pioneers 'making the desert bloom'.**
[*The Invention of Ancient Israel: The Silencing of Palestinian History, 1996; See also Top Israeli archaeologists contest Jewish ties to Jerusalem, The Palestine Information Center, 10/8/11; ** See my 25/11/08 post Sir Bob Wows JNFaithful at Galah Dinner.]
In addition to the nonsense about King David's city, notice how the iconic 14-century old Haram ash-Sharif, with its golden Dome of the Rock (mislabelled Dome of the Mount!) and accompanying mosque, without which Jerusalem would be virtually unrecognisible, play second fiddle to a structure that had disappeared from history in Roman times:
"Above the Wailing Wall is Temple Mount, home to al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Mount [sic], with its iconic golden roof."
And check out the Israeli foreign ministry-approved tour guide/minder, Oded:
"A different guide, also named Oded, tells me that a bullet hole inside al-Aqsa marks the spot where King Abdullah I of Jordan was shot in 1951 for daring to suggest the Arabic [sic] world should negotiate with Israel."
Bet you say that to all the hack journos, Oded.
The message from Oded and his transmission belt, Taylor, of course, is that the 'Arabs' are always the clockwork violence-prone intransigents in this conflict.
While Taylor manages to swallow this familiar Zionist insinuation without gagging, the historical record, as Avi Shlaim's definitive study, The Politics of Partition: King Abdullah, the Zionists, & Palestine 1921-1951 (1988/1998) shows, will have none of it:
"In the last weeks of his life Abdullah was a lonely and disappointed man. Three weeks before his death he invited an American officer of the Palestine Conciliation Commission named Hamilton Fisher to his palace in Amman... After discussing certain specific aspects of Jordanian-Israeli relations, Abdullah asked Fisher to stay and talk to him about what he called 'a most personal and confidential problem which is breaking my heart'. This problem was that of peace with Israel. 'I am an old man', said Abdullah. 'I know that my power is limited; I know that I am hated by my own son... I also know that my own people distrust me because of my peace efforts. But despite all that, I know that I could get peace settled if only I had some encouragement and could get any reasonable concessions from Israel'...
"He said his own people distrusted him because they suspected him of wanting to make peace without any concession by Israel. He emphasised that this was an obstacle which he could not overcome. Please understand, he said, that despite the Arab League I would have the support of my own people and the tacit support at least of the British if I could justify peace by pointing to concessions made by the Jews. But without any concessions from them, I am defeated before I even start...
"[I]t would be erroneous to conclude that King Abdullah was assassinated just because of his contacts with the Israelis and because of his well known desire to make peace with them. The real background to the murder was the long standing rivalry between Abdullah and the Husaynis. It is true that his opponents were opposed to his settlement with Israel, but this was not their sole reason for instigating his murder. Nor was the assassination part of a broad Palestinian bid to capture power in Jordan or to reverse Jordanian foreign policy. The conspirators did not propose to renew the war against Israel. Some of them were moved by the dream of an independent, resurgent Arab Palestine, and by the fear of further Jewish advances at the cost of the Palestinian Arabs which the British-controlled Arab Legion might be either unable or unwilling to prevent. It was significant that all the conspirators were Palestinian Arabs who belonged to the mufti's camp. But although all the signs seem to point to the shadowey figure of the mufti, no evidence was discovered of his direct complicity in the murder." (pp 415-418) And what was Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion's reaction to the assassination of Abdullah? A peace offensive? Not on your nelly. He proposed to the Brits that they take over Jordan, while Israel grabbed the rest of Palestine and the Sinai all the way to the Suez Canal, a proposal in which they showed little interest at the time.
Moving on, have you ever seen a more dreadful metaphor than this?:
"If Jerusalem is a little Marie Osmond, Tel Aviv is definitely the Stevie Nicks of Israel."
Ah, but here's something of value:
"There's certainly no sign of the boorishness that led English writer A.A. Gill, in his latest book, Here & There, to label Israel as home to the rudest people."
Isn't it amazing what you can report when you don't have "assistance from Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs"?
Finally, it's not only Palestinian stones, flowers, beaches, clouds and sky which Israel has ripped off, it's also the food:
"Food is serious business in the Middle East. Israel's claim to be the home of hummus is hotly contested by neighbouring Lebanon..."
I know how he feels.
The Sun-Herald this week carried a double page promo on the stolen land in its travel supplement written by staff journalist Andrew Taylor, who, according to an appended disclosure, "travelled with assistance from Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs."
A holy bunch of hedonists is clearly part and parcel of the Israeli foreign ministry's post-Mavi Marmara massacre PR strategy of recruiting foreign journalists and other useful fools in a concerted effort to airbrush the apartheid state (See my post of 30/11/10 Once a Sow's Ear).
Some gems:
"But visitors expecting to be manhandled at military checkpoints, harangued by religious nutbags or caught in crossfire will be in for a surprise. Israel is not merely a country-sized firing range but rather an ethnically diverse, vibrant land where cultural and late-night pursuits often take priority over piety and politics."
So Taylor didn't know that checkpoints were reserved for occupied Palestinians? Or that there's no such thing as crossfire because it's actually the Israelis who are doing all the shooting? Oh, really? But then, given the abysmal knowledge deficit of most of our ms media scribblers and babblers, quite possibly not. Anyway, to invoke the 'o' word would only cruel the sales-pitch and defeat the whole purpose of the exercise, so forget I ever mentioned it. Still, seeing I have, don't those late-night pursuits take on a whole new meaning?
"Jerusalem's first pleasant surprise is the steep hills carpeted in pines and cypresses that guard the western approaches to King David's city. Thanks to the determination of Jewish settlers in the 1950s to 'make the desert bloom', this side of Jerusalem resembles the alpine scenery of central Europe."
Amazing, isn't it? Despite King David being little more than a character in the Bible, with no real archaeological substance to back him or his alleged empire up, the Zionist narrative nonetheless mandates that he be the defining moment of the city's history - a little like referring to London as Emperor Claudius' city. Taylor's deliberate focus on a mere historical (if even that) blip, to the exclusion of 14 centuries of almost uninterrupted Muslim rule and presence in the city, is yet another example of what religious scholar Keith W. Whitelam calls the "retrojection of the modern state of Israel into the Iron Age."* But expecting anything other than Zionist cliches here is to forget that we're dealing with PR, not genuine travel writing. And to confirm just that, what does Taylor do in the very next sentence but trot out the tired old saw about heroic Jewish pioneers 'making the desert bloom'.**
[*The Invention of Ancient Israel: The Silencing of Palestinian History, 1996; See also Top Israeli archaeologists contest Jewish ties to Jerusalem, The Palestine Information Center, 10/8/11; ** See my 25/11/08 post Sir Bob Wows JNFaithful at Galah Dinner.]
In addition to the nonsense about King David's city, notice how the iconic 14-century old Haram ash-Sharif, with its golden Dome of the Rock (mislabelled Dome of the Mount!) and accompanying mosque, without which Jerusalem would be virtually unrecognisible, play second fiddle to a structure that had disappeared from history in Roman times:
"Above the Wailing Wall is Temple Mount, home to al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Mount [sic], with its iconic golden roof."
And check out the Israeli foreign ministry-approved tour guide/minder, Oded:
"A different guide, also named Oded, tells me that a bullet hole inside al-Aqsa marks the spot where King Abdullah I of Jordan was shot in 1951 for daring to suggest the Arabic [sic] world should negotiate with Israel."
Bet you say that to all the hack journos, Oded.
The message from Oded and his transmission belt, Taylor, of course, is that the 'Arabs' are always the clockwork violence-prone intransigents in this conflict.
While Taylor manages to swallow this familiar Zionist insinuation without gagging, the historical record, as Avi Shlaim's definitive study, The Politics of Partition: King Abdullah, the Zionists, & Palestine 1921-1951 (1988/1998) shows, will have none of it:
"In the last weeks of his life Abdullah was a lonely and disappointed man. Three weeks before his death he invited an American officer of the Palestine Conciliation Commission named Hamilton Fisher to his palace in Amman... After discussing certain specific aspects of Jordanian-Israeli relations, Abdullah asked Fisher to stay and talk to him about what he called 'a most personal and confidential problem which is breaking my heart'. This problem was that of peace with Israel. 'I am an old man', said Abdullah. 'I know that my power is limited; I know that I am hated by my own son... I also know that my own people distrust me because of my peace efforts. But despite all that, I know that I could get peace settled if only I had some encouragement and could get any reasonable concessions from Israel'...
"He said his own people distrusted him because they suspected him of wanting to make peace without any concession by Israel. He emphasised that this was an obstacle which he could not overcome. Please understand, he said, that despite the Arab League I would have the support of my own people and the tacit support at least of the British if I could justify peace by pointing to concessions made by the Jews. But without any concessions from them, I am defeated before I even start...
"[I]t would be erroneous to conclude that King Abdullah was assassinated just because of his contacts with the Israelis and because of his well known desire to make peace with them. The real background to the murder was the long standing rivalry between Abdullah and the Husaynis. It is true that his opponents were opposed to his settlement with Israel, but this was not their sole reason for instigating his murder. Nor was the assassination part of a broad Palestinian bid to capture power in Jordan or to reverse Jordanian foreign policy. The conspirators did not propose to renew the war against Israel. Some of them were moved by the dream of an independent, resurgent Arab Palestine, and by the fear of further Jewish advances at the cost of the Palestinian Arabs which the British-controlled Arab Legion might be either unable or unwilling to prevent. It was significant that all the conspirators were Palestinian Arabs who belonged to the mufti's camp. But although all the signs seem to point to the shadowey figure of the mufti, no evidence was discovered of his direct complicity in the murder." (pp 415-418) And what was Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion's reaction to the assassination of Abdullah? A peace offensive? Not on your nelly. He proposed to the Brits that they take over Jordan, while Israel grabbed the rest of Palestine and the Sinai all the way to the Suez Canal, a proposal in which they showed little interest at the time.
Moving on, have you ever seen a more dreadful metaphor than this?:
"If Jerusalem is a little Marie Osmond, Tel Aviv is definitely the Stevie Nicks of Israel."
Ah, but here's something of value:
"There's certainly no sign of the boorishness that led English writer A.A. Gill, in his latest book, Here & There, to label Israel as home to the rudest people."
Isn't it amazing what you can report when you don't have "assistance from Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs"?
Finally, it's not only Palestinian stones, flowers, beaches, clouds and sky which Israel has ripped off, it's also the food:
"Food is serious business in the Middle East. Israel's claim to be the home of hummus is hotly contested by neighbouring Lebanon..."
Thursday, July 14, 2011
But Who Pulled the Plug?
Note how the Washington Post frames the following report:
"At the remains of an ancient metropolis in southern Israel, archaeologists are piecing together the history of a people remembered chiefly as the bad guys of the Hebrew Bible. The city of Gath... is helping scholars paint a more nuanced portrait of the Philistines, who appear in the biblical story as the perennial enemies of the Israelites. Close to 3 millennia ago, Gath was on the frontier between the Philistines, who occupied the Mediterranean coastal plain, and the Israelites, who controlled the inland hills. The city's most famous resident, according to the Book of Samuel, was Goliath - the giant warrior improbably felled by the young shepherd David and his sling. The Philistines 'are the ultimate other, almost, in the biblical story', said Aren Maeir of Bar-Ilan University, the achaeologist in charge of the excavation." (At site in Israel, archaeologists seek to sketch the lives of Goliath's countrymen, AP, 8/7/11)
No surprises, really. Israelites, front and centre. Philistines, mere bit players in their triumphal march through history.
Just as the Zionist master narrative dominates Palestine's modern history, so too, in the Israelites and their imagined Israel - the blind obsession of biblical studies - it dominates Palestine's ancient past.
This mutilation of ancient Palestine on the procrustean bed of biblical studies is the subject of an absolute must-read study, Keith W. Whitelam's The Invention of Ancient Israel: The Silencing of Palestinian History (1996):
"The situation in antiquity as presented by biblical scholarship is remarkably similar to the modern period leading up to the foundation of the modern state of Israel. Scholarship seems to mirror the late 19th century Zionist slogan for Palestine: 'a land without people, for a people without land'. What we have in biblical scholarship from its inception to the present day is the presentation of a land, 'Palestine', without inhabitants, or at the most simply temporary, ephemeral inhabitants, awaiting a people without a land. This has been reinforced by a reading of the biblical traditions and archaeological findings, interpreted on the basis of a prior understanding of a reading of the Bible, which helps to confirm this understanding. The foundation of the modern state has dominated scholarship to such an extent that the retrojection of the nation state into antiquity has provided the vital continuity which helps to justify and legitimize both. The effect has been to deny any continuity or legitimacy to Palestinian history. If there were no Palestinians in antiquity then there could not be a Palestinian history. The notion of continuity is reinforced by the assumption that European civilization, the pinnacle of human achievement, has its roots in this Judeo-Christian tradition. Europe has retrojected the nation state into antiquity in order to discover its own roots while at the same time giving birth to the Zionist movement which has established a 'civilized' state in the alien Orient thereby helping to confirm this continuity in culture and civilization. The irony of this situation is that for the past there is a Palestine but no Palestinians, yet for the present there are Palestinians but no Palestine. The politics of scholarship is brought home by the remark of Menachem Begin in 1969: 'If this is Palestine and not the land of Israel, then you are conquerors and not tillers of the land. You are invaders. If this is Palestine, then it belongs to a people who lived here before you came'. In the scholarship of the past and in the reality of the present, Palestine has become 'the land of Israel' and the history of Israel is the only legitimate subject of study. All else is subsumed in providing background and understanding for the history of ancient Israel which has continuity with the present state and provides the roots and impulse of European civilization." (p 58)
So what actually happened to the ancient Philistines of Gath and other cities?
Of their fate, the Washington Post can speak plainly, albeit exclusively reliant on the Bible:
"The razing of Gath at that time appears to have been the work of the Aramean king Hazael in 830 BC, an incident mentioned in the Book of Kings... In 604 BC, Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon invaded and put the Philistines' cities to the sword. There is no remnant of them after that." (At site in Israel...)
Curiously, however, when it comes to more modern times - 1948 to be exact - the Post gets terribly tongue-tied:
"Crusaders arriving from Europe in 1099 built a fortress on the remains of Gath, and later the site became home to an Arab village, Tel el-Safi, which emptied during the war surrounding Israel's creation in 1948. Today Gath is a national park." (ibid)
The inhabitants of ancient Gath were put to the sword and their city razed, but, wonder of wonders, little Tel el-Safi just... emptied.
Ah, but who pulled the plug?
Here's Israeli historian Benny Morris:
"Operation An-Far was unleashed on the night of 8-9 July... The area covered by [Shimon] Avidan's order [to take the large village of Tel as-Safi and... 'to destroy, to kill and to expel refugees encamped in the area, in order to prevent enemy infiltration from the east to this important position'] was overrun during 8-11 July, with most of the village fleeing before the IDF columns reached each village [in the area]. Tel as-Safi was captured in the early morning hours of 9 July. Laying down a barrage of mortar and machine-gun fire, the 51st Battalion approached from the north and west. After taking the tel itself, the IDF fired on the houses down the slope 'increasing the mass flight, which was accompanied by screams of fear...'" (The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, 2004, p 437)
What the Post should have said was that the people of Tel el-Safi were put to the sword and their village, like hundreds of others at the time, razed.
"At the remains of an ancient metropolis in southern Israel, archaeologists are piecing together the history of a people remembered chiefly as the bad guys of the Hebrew Bible. The city of Gath... is helping scholars paint a more nuanced portrait of the Philistines, who appear in the biblical story as the perennial enemies of the Israelites. Close to 3 millennia ago, Gath was on the frontier between the Philistines, who occupied the Mediterranean coastal plain, and the Israelites, who controlled the inland hills. The city's most famous resident, according to the Book of Samuel, was Goliath - the giant warrior improbably felled by the young shepherd David and his sling. The Philistines 'are the ultimate other, almost, in the biblical story', said Aren Maeir of Bar-Ilan University, the achaeologist in charge of the excavation." (At site in Israel, archaeologists seek to sketch the lives of Goliath's countrymen, AP, 8/7/11)
No surprises, really. Israelites, front and centre. Philistines, mere bit players in their triumphal march through history.
Just as the Zionist master narrative dominates Palestine's modern history, so too, in the Israelites and their imagined Israel - the blind obsession of biblical studies - it dominates Palestine's ancient past.
This mutilation of ancient Palestine on the procrustean bed of biblical studies is the subject of an absolute must-read study, Keith W. Whitelam's The Invention of Ancient Israel: The Silencing of Palestinian History (1996):
"The situation in antiquity as presented by biblical scholarship is remarkably similar to the modern period leading up to the foundation of the modern state of Israel. Scholarship seems to mirror the late 19th century Zionist slogan for Palestine: 'a land without people, for a people without land'. What we have in biblical scholarship from its inception to the present day is the presentation of a land, 'Palestine', without inhabitants, or at the most simply temporary, ephemeral inhabitants, awaiting a people without a land. This has been reinforced by a reading of the biblical traditions and archaeological findings, interpreted on the basis of a prior understanding of a reading of the Bible, which helps to confirm this understanding. The foundation of the modern state has dominated scholarship to such an extent that the retrojection of the nation state into antiquity has provided the vital continuity which helps to justify and legitimize both. The effect has been to deny any continuity or legitimacy to Palestinian history. If there were no Palestinians in antiquity then there could not be a Palestinian history. The notion of continuity is reinforced by the assumption that European civilization, the pinnacle of human achievement, has its roots in this Judeo-Christian tradition. Europe has retrojected the nation state into antiquity in order to discover its own roots while at the same time giving birth to the Zionist movement which has established a 'civilized' state in the alien Orient thereby helping to confirm this continuity in culture and civilization. The irony of this situation is that for the past there is a Palestine but no Palestinians, yet for the present there are Palestinians but no Palestine. The politics of scholarship is brought home by the remark of Menachem Begin in 1969: 'If this is Palestine and not the land of Israel, then you are conquerors and not tillers of the land. You are invaders. If this is Palestine, then it belongs to a people who lived here before you came'. In the scholarship of the past and in the reality of the present, Palestine has become 'the land of Israel' and the history of Israel is the only legitimate subject of study. All else is subsumed in providing background and understanding for the history of ancient Israel which has continuity with the present state and provides the roots and impulse of European civilization." (p 58)
So what actually happened to the ancient Philistines of Gath and other cities?
Of their fate, the Washington Post can speak plainly, albeit exclusively reliant on the Bible:
"The razing of Gath at that time appears to have been the work of the Aramean king Hazael in 830 BC, an incident mentioned in the Book of Kings... In 604 BC, Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon invaded and put the Philistines' cities to the sword. There is no remnant of them after that." (At site in Israel...)
Curiously, however, when it comes to more modern times - 1948 to be exact - the Post gets terribly tongue-tied:
"Crusaders arriving from Europe in 1099 built a fortress on the remains of Gath, and later the site became home to an Arab village, Tel el-Safi, which emptied during the war surrounding Israel's creation in 1948. Today Gath is a national park." (ibid)
The inhabitants of ancient Gath were put to the sword and their city razed, but, wonder of wonders, little Tel el-Safi just... emptied.
Ah, but who pulled the plug?
Here's Israeli historian Benny Morris:
"Operation An-Far was unleashed on the night of 8-9 July... The area covered by [Shimon] Avidan's order [to take the large village of Tel as-Safi and... 'to destroy, to kill and to expel refugees encamped in the area, in order to prevent enemy infiltration from the east to this important position'] was overrun during 8-11 July, with most of the village fleeing before the IDF columns reached each village [in the area]. Tel as-Safi was captured in the early morning hours of 9 July. Laying down a barrage of mortar and machine-gun fire, the 51st Battalion approached from the north and west. After taking the tel itself, the IDF fired on the houses down the slope 'increasing the mass flight, which was accompanied by screams of fear...'" (The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, 2004, p 437)
What the Post should have said was that the people of Tel el-Safi were put to the sword and their village, like hundreds of others at the time, razed.
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