Early history of the region
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Before the
Jews first invaded around 1800 B.C., the land of Canaan was
occupied by Canaanites "Between 3000 and 1100 B.C., Canaanite civilization covered what is today Israel, the West Bank, Lebanon and much of Syria and Jordan...Those who remained in the Jerusalem hills after the Romans expelled the Jews (in the second century A.D.), were a potpourri: farmers and vineyard growers, pagans and converts to Christianity, descendants of the Arabs, Persians, Samaritans, Greeks and old Canaanite tribes." Marcia Kunstel and Joseph Albright "Their Promised Land"
And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword The Jews, under Joshua, invaded Palestine over three thousand years ago and conquered the inhabitants of the land. It was no virgin territory ready to be betrothed. "They conquered thirty-one kingdoms in all" (Joshua 12:24). Twelve united tribes of Israel against each divided village state. They knocked over the Hittites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, the Jesubites and others. They destroyed them utterly and the inhabitants came for more. And again they destroyed them utterly, and yet the inhabitants were there. "And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword." (Joshua 6:21)
The
present-day Palestinians' ancestral heritage "But all these, different peoples who had come to Canaan, were additions, sprigs grafted onto the parent tree...And that parent tree was Canaanite...The Arab invaders of the 7th century A.D. converted the natives to Islam. The Moslems settled down as residents and intermarried with the natives, with the result that all are now so completely Arabized that we cannot tell where the Canaanites leave off and the Arabs begin." Illene Beatty "Arab and Jew in the Land of Canaan"
The
Jewish kingdoms were only one of many periods in ancient Palestine "The extended kingdoms of David and Solomon, on which the Zionists base their territorial demands, endured for only about 73 years...Then it fell apart...Even if we allow independence to the entire life of the ancient Jewish kingdoms, from David's conquest of Canaan in 1000 B.C. to the wiping out of Judah in 586 B.C., we arrive at only a 414 year Jewish rule." Illene Beatty"Arab and Jew in the Land of Canaan"
How
long has Palestine been a specifically Arab country? "Palestine became a predominately Arab and Islamic country by the end of the seventh century. Almost immediately thereafter its boundaries and its characteristics, including its name in Arabic, Filastin, became known to the entire Islamic world, as much for its fertility and beauty as for its religious significance...In 1516, Palestine became a province of the Ottoman Empire, but this made it no less fertile, no less Arab or Islamic... ...Sixty percent of the population was in agriculture; the balance was divided between townspeople and a relatively small nomadic group. All these people believed themselves to belong in a land called Palestine, despite their feelings that they were also members of a large Arab nation... ...Despite the steady arrival in Palestine of Jewish colonists after 1882, it is important to realize that not until the few weeks immediately preceding the establishment of Israel in the spring of 1948 was there ever anything other than a huge Arab majority. For example, the Jewish population in 1931 was 174,606 against a total of 1,033,314." Edward Said "The Question of Palestine"
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Index | Prologue |
Early history |
Zionism | The Jewish National
Fund | Anti
Semitism or Anti Zionism |
| Holy
deed | Mr Balfour |
United States of America |
United Nations |
Declaration
of Statehood |
| The
Expulsion of 1948 | Occupation
of 1967 | Jerusalem
| The Temple
| Terrorism |
Yad Vashem |
|
Human
Rights |
Human Wrongs |
Torture |
General
Considerations |
Conclusion |