B'tselem: Apartheid Israel is strangling Gaza
Question:
I didn’t write the article but the writer is not mixing up a thing. The Philistines were not Arabs. The "Palestinians" are an invention of Arab terrorism and expansionism and imperialism as Honigman notes. Deborah Nyob Mar 13 2002, 2:49 pm show options Newsgroups: soc.culture.israel, talk.politics.mideast, soc.culture.palestine Reply to Author | Forward | Print | Individual Message | Show original | Report Abuse When ‘Palestine’ meant ‘Israel’ May 16, 2001 By Joseph Farah NEW YORK — Yasser Arafat and other Arab leaders have been trying to establish a link between modern-day "Palestinian" Arabs and the ancient people known as the Philistines. But a scholarly examination of the name "Palestine" suggests there is no connection and that use of the term has always been reserved for the land of the Jews. Written By David Jacobson in the May-June issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, the article entitled "When Palestine Meant Israel," shows firstly there is a discrepancy between Greek and Latin references to Palestine and the geographical land associated with the Philistines. Jacobson says the Philistines arrived on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean from Greece or Cyprus by way of Egypt in about the 13th century B.C. The land of the Philistines is clearly delineated in the Bible — a small area along the Mediterranean coast south of what is today Tel Aviv including the towns of Gaza, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Gath and Ekron. Meanwhile, the ancient literature referring to Palestine referred to a much bigger area — all the land between Egypt and Phoenicia. Furthermore, Jacobson explains, no more was ever heard from the Philistines after the late seventh century B.C., when the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar, invaded the land and carried some of them into captivity — much as he did with the Jews 20 years later. "What happened to the Philistines afterward is a mystery," writes Jacobson. "They seem to have lost their ethnic identity, for the Philistines, as we know them, simply disappear from the historical record." That was nearly 800 years before Christ. The Philistines disappeared. They were never heard from again. Yet, Yasser Arafat is attempting to represent this extinct people 2,800 years later. There is even more evidence in Jacobson’s article that Latin and Greek texts referring to Palestine were actually referring to another name for Israel — the land of the Jews. Herodotus said the people of Palestine were circumcised. The Philistines were not, but the Jews of Israel were. Aristotle refers to the Dead Sea being in Palestine. The land of the Philistines was a long trek over the hills and through the wilderness of Judea from the Dead Sea. The Greek writer Polemo, in writing about the Exodus of the children of Israel from Egypt, mentions that a portion of the Egyptian army was expelled from Egypt and established itself in the country called "Palestinian Syria." Later writers — from Rome and Greece alike — make no distinction between the name Palestine and the land of the Jews. They were clearly not referring to the land of the Philistines. Will any of this evidence make any difference in the Middle East political equation today? Not likely. Because the modern conflict between Jews and Arabs has little or nothing to do with the illusive cause of Palestine. That has always been merely an excuse for the perpetual state of war that has existed between Jews and many Arabs since 1967. The issue of Palestine was rarely ever heard or addressed before then. Suddenly, Jerusalem, too, has emerged as the third-holiest site of all Islam. How convenient. One wonders why Muslims seemingly avoided it like the plague when it was under the control of the Islamic Ottoman Empire for so many years. The Jews have always flocked to Jerusalem — even when to do so meant certain persecution. In 1854, according to a report in the New York Tribune, Jews constituted two-thirds of the population of that holy city. The source for that statistic? A journalist on assignment in the Middle East that year for the Tribune. His name was Karl Marx. Yes, that Karl Marx. Those population statistics remained through the early part of the 20th century, according to the Encyclopedia Brittanica and the Baedaker travel guide published in 1906. By the way, none of those sources mentions any Philistines. There wasn’t a Philistine in sight — nor had there been for nearly three millennia. But that won’t stop Arafat’s charade. In fact, for a tyrant like him, the best subjects are the invisible ones, the silent ones, those with whom he will never disagree. Joseph Farah is editor and chief executive officer of WorldNetDaily.com and writes a daily column. — – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – youre really mixing up "Arab Nationalism" (which was influenced by the example of Ataturk and European national movements and admitedly had its flaws) with the sovereign rights of the Palestinians or "Philistines". Its notable that the Kurds of Turkey are of no great concern to American "regime changers" wringing their hands over the "subjugated peoples of the world". Maybe this has something to do with the helpful military strategic part Turkey plays for the US? There would not still be Berber speakers and Coptic Christians in North Africa and Egypt if right from the start, they had been treated as pariahs. The state of Israel has (I would suggest)a great deal to do with the lack of Jewish input in modern Alexandria (also a lot of them would have chosen freely to convert over the centuries to Islam, just as many ancient Jewish families in Palestine would have chosen along with their fellow Palestinians, to convert…not so much out of direct compulsion, but for the same reason people have assimilated in many cultures over the centuries). The modern growing "Islamic-chauvinistic" attitude sadly on display as a growing problem for the West as much as ethnic and religious minority groups, is more a reaction to the meddling with coups and guerrilla training in Afghanistan, of the non Arab non Muslim superpowers since the eighties, and the backing of Israel’s criminal Why create just one new Mideast state when you can have a few? By Gerald A. Honigman March 25, 2005 Well, the day has finally arrived. I now find myself in agreement with the Secretary General of the Arab League. Recently, at the end of the Arab League Summit, Amr Mussa declared that peace could not arrive until there was withdrawal from occupied territories, the creation of another state, and the return of refugees. He’s basically correct. So what if he got a few details mixed up. Native Copts in Egypt — millions of them– had their country overrun by conquering, settling, and subjugating Arabs. To this day, they never know when the next murder will occur, the next church will be burned down, and have learned that to survive they must consent to the forced Arabization process. Their leaders have even written that for Israel to "get along," then it too must consent to a variation of this. Pretty pathetic… Uncle Butros instead of Uncle Tom … but the same breed, if you know what I mean. Just imagine the worldwide outcry if Israel did this to Israeli Arabs. Copts fleeing their native land to escape this treatment are not even safe. Recently, Muslim Arabs brutally murdered a Copt who dared to disagree with them here in the States. The majority Berber population of North Africa saw its lands overrun as well over the past centuries by conquering, settling, and subjugating Arab hordes creating Arab empires. Imperialism is evidently only nasty when non-Arabs so indulge. Berbers who dared to insist on keeping their own pre-Arab language and culture have been murdered for trying to do so. A look on any number of websites dealing with Berbers in these regards will be revealing indeed. In 1968, Ismet Cherif Vanly wrote The Syrian Mein Kampf Against The Kurds (Amsterdam). A Kurdish nationalist, he described the murderous and brutal Arabization policies Syrian settling, conquering, and occupying Arabs employed against Kurds who predated them in the land by thousands of years. Settling, conquering, and occupying Iraqi Arabs did likewise to Mesopotamia’s ancient native Kurds (the Hurrians, Guti, Kassites, and Medes of old), Assyrians, and other non-Arab peoples as well –Jews included. Literally millions of native African Blacks have been butchered, maimed, enslaved, turned into refugees (all of this still going on today), seen their lands forcibly Arabized, and such. And not just in the Sudan. Half of Israel’s almost six million Jews originated in the "Arab"/Muslim World. They too predated the Arabs in many of those lands that they were forced to flee as refugees, leaving far more property and valuables behind than Arabs who fled in the opposite direction after the latter’s brethren invaded a reborn Israel in 1948. Alexandria Egypt’s famous Jewish community was prominent centuries before Jesus. The Jews of Iraq had been there at least since the days of the Babylonian Captivity and Nebuchadnezzar. The Jews of Yemen were on the Arabian Peninsula before Muhammad was born, and the latter Prophet of Islam fled Mecca to Medina, a Jewish date palm oasis on that peninsula where the Jews were still prominent when Muhammad sought refuge there during the Hijra. When they would not convert to his new faith (based largely on their own) nor accept his religio-political leadership, he butchered and
… read more »
Response:
youre really mixing up "Arab Nationalism" (which was influenced by the example of Ataturk and European national movements and admitedly had its flaws) with the sovereign rights of the Palestinians or "Philistines". Its notable that the Kurds of Turkey are of no great concern to American "regime changers" wringing their hands over the "subjugated peoples of the world". Maybe this has something to do with the helpful military strategic part Turkey plays for the US? There would not still be Berber speakers and Coptic Christians in North Africa and Egypt if right from the start, they had been treated as pariahs. The state of Israel has (I would suggest)a great deal to do with the lack of Jewish input in modern Alexandria (also a lot of them would have chosen freely to convert over the centuries to Islam, just as many ancient Jewish families in Palestine would have chosen along with their fellow Palestinians, to convert…not so much out of direct compulsion, but for the same reason people have assimilated in many cultures over the centuries). The modern growing "Islamic-chauvinistic" attitude sadly on display as a growing problem for the West as much as ethnic and religious minority groups, is more a reaction to the meddling with coups and guerrilla training in Afghanistan, of the non Arab non Muslim superpowers since the eighties, and the backing of Israel’s criminal
Why create just one new Mideast state when you can have a few? By Gerald A. Honigman March 25, 2005 Well, the day has finally arrived. I now find myself in agreement with the Secretary General of the Arab League. Recently, at the end of the Arab League Summit, Amr Mussa declared that peace could not arrive until there was withdrawal from occupied territories, the creation of another state, and the return of refugees. He’s basically correct. So what if he got a few details mixed up. Native Copts in Egypt — millions of them– had their country overrun by conquering, settling, and subjugating Arabs. To this day, they never know when the next murder will occur, the next church will be burned down, and have learned that to survive they must consent to the forced Arabization process. Their leaders have even written that for Israel to "get along," then it too must consent to a variation of this. Pretty pathetic… Uncle Butros instead of Uncle Tom … but the same breed, if you know what I mean. Just imagine the worldwide outcry if Israel did this to Israeli Arabs. Copts fleeing their native land to escape this treatment are not even safe. Recently, Muslim Arabs brutally murdered a Copt who dared to disagree with them here in the States. The majority Berber population of North Africa saw its lands overrun as well over the past centuries by conquering, settling, and subjugating Arab hordes creating Arab empires. Imperialism is evidently only nasty when non-Arabs so indulge. Berbers who dared to insist on keeping their own pre-Arab language and culture have been murdered for trying to do so. A look on any number of websites dealing with Berbers in these regards will be revealing indeed. In 1968, Ismet Cherif Vanly wrote The Syrian Mein Kampf Against The Kurds (Amsterdam). A Kurdish nationalist, he described the murderous and brutal Arabization policies Syrian settling, conquering, and occupying Arabs employed against Kurds who predated them in the land by thousands of years. Settling, conquering, and occupying Iraqi Arabs did likewise to Mesopotamia’s ancient native Kurds (the Hurrians, Guti, Kassites, and Medes of old), Assyrians, and other non-Arab peoples as well –Jews included. Literally millions of native African Blacks have been butchered, maimed, enslaved, turned into refugees (all of this still going on today), seen their lands forcibly Arabized, and such. And not just in the Sudan. Half of Israel’s almost six million Jews originated in the "Arab"/Muslim World. They too predated the Arabs in many of those lands that they were forced to flee as refugees, leaving far more property and valuables behind than Arabs who fled in the opposite direction after the latter’s brethren invaded a reborn Israel in 1948. Alexandria Egypt’s famous Jewish community was prominent centuries before Jesus. The Jews of Iraq had been there at least since the days of the Babylonian Captivity and Nebuchadnezzar. The Jews of Yemen were on the Arabian Peninsula before Muhammad was born, and the latter Prophet of Islam fled Mecca to Medina, a Jewish date palm oasis on that peninsula where the Jews were still prominent when Muhammad sought refuge there during the Hijra. When they would not convert to his new faith (based largely on their own) nor accept his religio-political leadership, he butchered and enslaved them. Jews also took part in the resistance against the Arab imperial invasions of North Africa in the 7th century C.E. So, considering Amr Mussa’s above demands… It’s time that the Africans of southern Sudan gain independence from the Arabs who have butchered, subjugated, and enslaved them over the centuries–long before the hypocrites in the United Nations only recently first started to mutter anything at all about this. It’s time for thirty million truly stateless people — the Kurds — to finally get their sole state. They were promised one after World War I but saw it sacrificed on the altar of British petro-politics and Arab nationalism. An Arab Iraq was pieced together in its stead. Trusting Arabs — whether Shi’a or Sunni — is probably not a wise decision (regardless of what Foggy Bottom says)–given the track records of Arabs of any stripe towards these people. While Arabs — with almost two dozen states already, including one carved out of almost 80% of the original 1920 borders of "Palestine" and today called Jordan — have an American-sponsored roadmap to help create yet another for themselves, somehow those same folks demanding justice for Arabs seem deaf, dumb, and blind regarding Kurds. And it’s time for the subjugation of North Africa’s huge Berber populations to come to an end and for those folks to be able to decide if they want to remain forcibly tied to Arabs or not. If not, then why should they not get territory to create a Berber State if Arabs can get to have yet a second one carved out for themselves in "Palestine?" You see, Mr. Musa, justice should not be exclusively for Arabs. Unfortunately, for the Copts, not too much to offer here.? So many more will become refugees. And the above Arabs’ victims’ list is by no means complete. Just ask native Christian, Semitic but pre-Arab Lebanese–as just one other example. The hypocrisy of the conquering, racist, and subjugating Arab League is nauseating enough. That the latter, however, is widely supported in its demands on Israel by much of the rest of the world should be appalling to anyone with any semblance of fair play. I thought Dubya knew better. Unfortunately, despite his comments last April to the contrary, it now looks like I was wrong … a cruel April Fool’s joke, indeed, played on Mr. Sharon and his tiny, vulnerable country as well. Despite all of the international pressure on it to consent to becoming a reincarnated 1938 Czechoslovakia, ready to sacrifice itself for another "peace for all time," Israel must now muster the strength to do what it must do. The only appropriate response of Israel to all of this should be to counter offer-the Arab League peace for peace — not consent to slowly being eroded piece-by-piece — via the Arabs’ openly admitted "Trojan Horse" destruction in stages plans. And it must free itself from the belief that it must allow Arabs to determine the rules of the road if widespread violence erupts again. Abbas’ folks have said that they would support quiet only as long as Israel continues to cave in to all of their demands. And they’re the "moderates." Millions upon millions of non-Arabs became refugees because of the Arabs. Many of these people fled to America, Great Britain, Germany, and elsewhere. They’re not returning to those "Arab" lands. Likewise, Arabs will have to take care of their own refugees–created in a war that they started and far fewer in number — in the same manner. The occupied territories Amr Musa speaks of are disputed lands — not purely "Arab." Jews had as much or more rights to be on those lands as Arabs had. Much has been written about this, UN Resolution 242 indirectly addressed this, and leading experts such as Eugene Rostow, William O’Brien, Arthur Goldberg, Lord Caradon, and others have been quite vocal on these matters as well. Jews have a word describing demands such as those made by Amr Musa. It’s called chutzpah. If members of the Arab League wish to create a new Middle Eastern state, then Israeli and world leaders must insist that justice should begin closer to home. Views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
Categories: Amsterdam Travel Guide | 
No Comments »
)) , then fly. www.basiqair.com www.easyjet.com Book early for cheap fares! Sjoerd