Friday, January 02, 2009

[palestine] just the facts please 3


It's next to impossible to get a clear picture of the region loosely referred to as Canaan. I've just been reading one, two, three, four and five sources and am no clearer now than before.

The essential problem is that almost all sources set out initially to be unbiased but then twist the narrative as it goes on, concluding that the land belongs to this people or that people and that they've proved it.

There's little doubt that Israel occupied ancient Canaan but I can't see this as any different to the Romans or Anglo-Saxons occupying Britain. The most realistic statement is that there are quite a few tribes or sub-groupings attached to different regions and the hegemony of one or other is a fact of life.

Whites dominate Australia, the dark skinned tribe dominates Italy ... so what? Realpolitik. Given this, I'd like to ask the Arabs in the middle-east two questions:

1. Do a people exist whom the world could refer to as Jews or of Jewish origin? Just that - do they exist?

2. If they indeed exist, then where is their traditional home, if you will not concede it is in Palestine? In other words, if your claim is correct that the Jews do not descend from Canaan, whence do they descend?

Then we come into another area - the people who develop the region. The Jews have obviously turned the area into a fertile land, where once it was a barren home of nomadic groups and people eking out a living. Jerusalem has been associated with Jews millennia earlier than with Muslims, so who can lay claim to it?

18 comments:

  1. You know my thoughts on the subject, James, and I agree with everything you have said. The Jewish people want to live in peace in Israel. Hamas wants to destroy the state of Israel. The Israeli government has no other option but to do what it is doing now.

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  2. Many years ago one of my seminary professors, Walter Brueggemann, wrote a small book entitled The Land about Canaan or whatever one wants to call that territory. He pointed out that the ancient Hebrews saw the land as a gift—a sign of the covenant between themselves and YHWH, their God. More importantly, the Rev. Dr. Brueggemann suggested that “the land” is somehow holy, which is something history may confirm since the adherents of three major religions have been fighting over it for at least 1400 years.

    Personally, I rather prefer the observation of Golda Meir: Moses dragged us for 40 years through the desert to bring us to the one place in the Middle East where there was no oil.

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  3. I think the Arabs would agree that the Jews exist as a 'people' but as for their homeland are saying - not in my back yard.

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  4. I reckon it's six of one and half a dozen of another. The Jews did without doubt kick the Arabs out of their home land at the end of WWII.

    But they certainly ain't going to up sticks now and move on. So somehow the two aggrieved parties need to find a way to move forward from their differences to a peaceful future.

    But this of course is an unlikely outcome as they both totally detest each other.

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  5. I am astounded the position you and some of your readers take.
    The Zionists have killed and subjugated the Palestinians since The British stuck their nose in and carved up the Middle East.

    Considering the Jews were the most persecuted people on the planet, you'd think that there would have been more humanity shown their fellow man.
    They are very well funded,condoned and enabled terrorists-nothing more-nothing less!
    Explain their land encroachments,their blockades, their strong- armed tactics to prevent medicines and foods from reaching the needy Palenstinians, the bombing of their homes, killing of their children!
    Explain why Arafat was not permitted medical treatment for so long!A head of state in his own country!And when he was permitted to fly to France for treatment, he boarded the plane waving to assure his people, only to depart on a stretcher-comatose.

    The Hamas set off a *sparkler* and that justifies the rocket attacks?
    The Jews, and I am not antisemitic,need to be disempowered and denounced not enabled and funded by the West.

    They are NOT the victims !And this stance is a disgrace!

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  6. To suggest that the Zionists are justified in any of this, is as repugnant as blaming the Iraqi people for their own massacre at the hands of Bush and Blair!

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  7. Darwen: It was the British invasion , and I don't mean the Beatles, who are responsible for this mess.

    The Arab culture got along fine until the West has gone in there, and continue to do so, to deliberately stir things up.

    The Jews need to be put in their place once and for all and compassion shown for the true victims of this!

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  8. James,
    You had to have known the response you'd get from me. I sat on my hands for as long as I could. :)

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  9. The Jews need to be put in their place once and for all and compassion shown for the true victims of this!

    And how do you propose they be "put in their place", Uber? :)

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  10. It's not "from whence", it's "whence", which is another way of saying "from where".

    Apart from that, excellent point, but this is not really a topic for rational debate. I would consider myself capable of rational thought and am, on balance, supportive of the continuing existence of the Israel and respect her right to defend herself.

    Others see it in terms of "Zionist oppressor vs Islamic freedom fighter" and there is no reason to assume that a rational debate will break out any time in the next three thousand years or so.

    Best just leave them to it.

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  11. Stick a vertical pole at the centre of the Dome of the Rock, and measure the shadow of the sunrise on midsummer day morning sunrise.
    Scribe the line into the rock.

    Repeat the exercise for midwinter morning sunrise.

    measure the angle between the 2 lines.

    It is exactly 60 degrees.

    The Star of David is made up of 2 equilateral triangles, which have an internal angle of 60 degrees.

    The land was not a gift from any "God", it was a requirement to fulfill certain geometrical theories of the belief systems of those Proto-Semitic peoples.

    Balance, conformity, etc, etc figured mightily in their systems, and had done for thousands of years.

    This knowledge was a debased version, a surviving only partially correct version of a high culture/science that had been lost, except in isolated areas/systems, eons ago.

    Seminary profs, in the main, talk arrant nonsense, from a benighted, myopic knowledge.

    Enough for now!

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  12. Well, James recognition of their crimes against the Palestinians for a start! A abrupt halt of all funding, second and a measure of denouncment by the West, and sanctions imposed by the U. N would be a start.
    Then we hire a land surveyor to go back to pre Britain intrusion, taking the boundaries back to their original points.:)

    The West then needs to keep their fat noses,politics and WMD
    out of the entire Middle East, which did not have all this feuding, until the West had agendas to stir it.

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  13. Well, James recognition of their crimes against the Palestinians for a start! A abrupt halt of all funding, second and a measure of denouncment by the West, and sanctions imposed by the U. N would be a start.
    Then we hire a land surveyor to go back to pre Britain intrusion, taking the boundaries back to their original points.:)

    The West then needs to keep their fat noses,politics and WMD
    out of the entire Middle East, which did not have all this feuding, until the West had agendas to stir it.

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  14. I bet you'd like to lob a rocket my way, wouldn't you James? :)

    When a man slices another with a machete, you can't blame the other for laying in wait with his flick knife!

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  15. All of which doesn't answer the question, Uber:

    Do the Jews have a right to exist and if so, then where is their homeland? :)

    There is the central issue and all the rest revolves around that.

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  16. Uber, if you can be bothered with history, and not propaganda, you may find more crimes perpetrated against the "Palestinians" by

    a) their own leaders
    b) other Arab states.

    Your name is perfect.

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  17. James,
    Of course the Jews have a right to 'exist'. The problem is the increased, and encroached upon, territory they want to exist in and the strong -armed tactics they are using to achieve those goals.

    Anon-YOU go read history.What I am saying is not propaganda but fact.
    You're blind and anonymous,not to mention clearly deluded if you think I am going to be mortally wounded by your lil' dig.Of course 'Ubermouth'suits me, it's why I chose that screen name.Much like how anonymous suits you.

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  18. Here's part of Anon's reply and he knows why I had to do it this way:

    "Uber.
    My statement stands, both in relation to the palestinians, and to your mouth."

    That's not unfair to include though I make no statement on it one way or the other.

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Comments need a moniker of your choosing before or after ... no moniker, not posted, sorry.