Jews Do Not ‘Occupy’ Their Own Homeland

[shira]

This has nothing to do with the bible.
This is about historical fact & indigenous rights.

The Roman historian Tacitus wrote about the Jews. In 109 CE. About Jerusalem. About the Jewish Temple, that existed. About Judaea. He was not Jewish. He wasn’t “biblical.” He was an external source of testimony...

...As Rivkah Fishman-Duker has written:

For ancient Greek and Roman pagan authors, Jerusalem definitely was a Jewish city. This article draws on references to Jerusalem from nearly twenty different sources, dating from the third century BCE to the third century CE, which are included in the late Professor Menahem Stern’s comprehensive anthology, Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism. An examination of these texts indicates the unanimous agreement that Jerusalem was Jewish by virtue of the fact that its inhabitants were Jews, it was founded by Jews and the Temple, located in Jerusalem, was the center of the Jewish religion. In these sources, Jerusalem appears in several contexts: foundation narratives, descriptions of and links to the Temple, historical events, usually relating to invasions and captures of the city, physical descriptions, and the derogatory use of the term “Solyma” by Roman writers after its destruction by Titus in 70 CE. It is noteworthy that despite the negative views of Jews and Judaism expressed by authors such as Manetho, Apion, Tacitus and Juvenal, the Jewish identity of Jerusalem is always clear and never a subject of dispute. These ancient texts, therefore, disprove recent attempts by Muslims and others to deny the historic connection of the Jewish people to Jerusalem and the location of the Temple in Jerusalem through fabrications and lies.

It truly is quite clear. Genuine actual history has Jerusalem as the capital city of the Jews in their homeland called Judaea and within which stood a Temple surrounded by a wall and no mosque. Arabs were their neighbors in another country. And the Romans were a foreign occupier who occupied Jewish land.

Jews do not occupy Judaea. Jews are not occupiers of their own homeland.

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/jews-do-not-occupy-their-own-homeland/

[Jason1961]

1. Times of Israel?

Well if the Times of Israel says it I guess it's time to rid "their" lands of the Palestinians

[elias7]

3. Nice Trumpian pivot

That's what the article is about. Ridding their lands of Palestinians.

[shira]

4. It's about indigenous rights. UNESCO just denied Jewish indigenous rights.

The article has nothing to do with denying Palestinian rights, only confirming Jews have rights and are not occupiers, colonists, or thieves when it's their land after all.

[shira]

26. Some are, sure. And? n/t

[shira]

32. There was a lot of Arab immigration into Palestine. Ever heard of Robert Kennedy?

Kennedy wrote:

The Jews point with pride to the fact that over 500,000 Arabs in the 12 years between 1932 and 1944, came into Palestine to take advantage of living conditions existing in no other Arab state.

Winston Churchill wrote:

... So far from being persecuted, the Arabs have crowded into the country and multiplied till their population has increased more than even all world Jewry could lift up the Jewish population.

[shira]

38. William Ziff's 1937 Rape of Palestine shows mass immigration during British occupation....

Way to ignore Bobby Kennedy and Winston Churchill, BTW, as if they have zero credibility.

And realize that you're the one here whose favorite historian (Illan Pappe) is an admitted liar and revisionist.

https://www.amazon.com/Rape-Palestine-William-B-Ziff/dp/1578988802

Rape of Palestine, 1937. Ziff.

The book, originally written in 1937, gives strong support to the point that the Arab population of Palestine tripled during the British stewardship and that most of the 1948 refugees were recent immigrants themselves.

Ziff's thesis is that the British sought to strangle the 'Jewish national Home' under the weight of British regulations and Arab terrorism. Ziff supports the thesis well.

The thrust of Ziff's book is on British policy in Palestine during the mandate period, but what is especially interesting today are his comments on the migration of Arabs and the squelching of Jewish immigration by the British. ...

"Ziff elaborates on Jewish efforts, both from within and from abroad, to create more jobs for those Jews emigrating to Palestine as well as those already living there. These efforts spurred significant economic growth and consequently accomplished the goal of providing employment. However, British policy resulted in a stream into Palestine of illegal Arab immigrants who filled these jobs in lieu of the barred Jews. (All of the above-mentioned modern authors also address the influx of Arabs lured by the booming economy.)....

UNRWA's definition of Palestinian refugees only backs up Ziff's book:

Anyone whose normal place of residence was in Mandate Palestine during the period from
1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948 and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the
1948 Arab-Israeli war qualifies as a Palestine refugee, as defined by UNRWA, and is eligible for
UNRWA registration

To be considered Palestinian, one only had to live there for less than 2 years. That was due to mass immigration.

[aranthus]

49. What a total load.

Maybe you believe this (or not), but either way, this is just full of it.

[aranthus]

57. Like Ilan Pappe?

You don't have solid evidence. You have evidence that supports your pre-conceived notions and you deny or ignore every piece of contrary evidence. And spare me your preaching about being anti-discrimination. Your entire position is founded on anti-Jewish discrimination.

[aranthus]

63. What would be the point?

Any evidence that I might present, you will either dismiss or ignore. What is at issue here is your bias and selective choices of evidence, and that has been firmly established.

[shira]

51. But you were willingly fooled by Illan Pappe, an admitted revisionist & liar.

He was your favorite pseudo-historian at one time! He's probably still your favorite propagandist.

It's probably because I don't have any preconceived notions of how things must be

That's hilarious.

[shira]

59. You acknowledged he was discredited with an "oops". Did u "forget"?

http://metamorphosis.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1134&pid=131427

We also debated the false claims of a Tantura massacre, for which Pappe defended Teddy Katz' lies about Nazi style executions that never happened. You admitted yourself there was no evidence of a massacre, only that you had some gut feeling or that war crimes had been committed....but definitely no evidence of a massacre.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1134&pid=112861

You're the one here into revisionist fake history.

[shira]

65. Pappe defended Katz's lies about Nazi style executions proven to be a hoax....

A hoax based on video testimony that didn't exist.

Oops?

And once again, you gloss over the fact that Pappe admits he's a liar & propagandist. Did you think I'd forget to bring up Pappe's own admissions against his fraudulent pseudo-scholarship?

Teddy Katz admitted there was no massacre:

I wish to clarify that, after checking and re-checking the evidence, it is clear to me now, beyond any doubt, that there is no basis whatsoever for the allegation that the Alexandroni Brigade, or any other fighting unit of the Jewish forces, committed killings of people in Tantura after the village surrendered. Furthermore, I wish to say that the things I have written must have been misunderstood [by the press] as I had never intended to tell a tale of a massacre in Tantura. . . . I accept as truth [only] the testimonies of those among the Alexandroni people who denied categorically the massacre, and I disassociate myself from any conclusion which can be derived from my thesis that could point to the occurrence of a massacre or the killing of defenseless or unarmed people.

What's that you say? Couldn't find the entire quote on Wikipedia?
Or you felt that you could pull a fast one here & be extremely selective?

Here's Morris:

According to Morris, it is telling that "no residents went on record in 1948 or any time before the 1990s to claim there had been a massacre."[52][67]

Oops?

[shira]

60. You've learned what? You're still a fan of the discredited admitted revisionist Pappe.

It's impossible to move on with you so long as you remain incapable of distinguishing between fact & fiction.

Seriously, it's a complete joke that you still find Pappe credible.

This is like debating crackpots who live on 911 revisionism, Rothschild Lizards ruling the world, Jews are Khazars, Holocaust denial....

[shira]

61. So you believe Winston Churchill & Bobby Kennedy deliberately lied, right?

Last edited Thu Nov 3, 2016, 10:01 AM - Edit history (3)

Why? What would be their motive? Churchill's quote is from 1939 while Kennedy's is 1 month before the 1948 war, before any refugee problem. What's the motive?

Also, the Arab population growth rate within what is considered Israel was far higher than the growth rate elsewhere, indicating mass migration (illegal, unaccounted for).

By contrast, throughout the Mandatory period, Arab immigration was unrestricted. In 1930, the Hope Simpson Commission, sent from London to investigate the 1929 Arab riots, said the British practice of ignoring the uncontrolled illegal Arab immigration from Egypt, Transjordan and Syria had the effect of displacing the prospective Jewish immigrants. 8

The British Governor of the Sinai from 1922–36 observed: “This illegal immigration was not only going on from the Sinai, but also from Transjordan and Syria, and it is very difficult to make a case out for the misery of the Arabs if at the same time their compatriots from adjoining states could not be kept from going in to share that misery.” 9

The Peel Commission reported in 1937 that the “shortfall of land is . . . ​due less to the amount of land acquired by Jews than to the increase in the Arab population.” 10

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths3/MFmandate.html#2

[bitterross]

76. Dom't Worry. I think most of got the point of your post.

When I heard about the UNESCO thing I was pretty shocked. I didn't know there was any real doubt that the Jewish people lived in Jerusalem and that anyone would even consider the possibility the Western Wall is not an historically Jewish place.

I wish I knew history of religions better and understood all the events that led up to the Mosque being there. I am now motivated to go research more about all this.

Thank you for that.

[jonno99]

2. Very interesting & informative. Thanks for posting. nt

[DetlefK]

5. If it's the jewish homeland, why do the Palestinians live there?

Can't they just go back to their own homeland?

[shira]

6. Why can't it be the homeland of 2 peoples? Why are just Jews seen as thieves....

...occupiers, and colonists?

[jonno99]

8. ^^^ THIS! x1000^^^ nt

[procon]

18. Maybe because they took up those positions with such alacrity, yeah?

Hard to ignore which side wields the power and makes the rules. One of the perks of conquest is creating your own history, although it doesn't always work as desired.

[DetlefK]

20. Two peoples, one homeland, but they are not the same.

The Jews want to get rid of the foreigners living on "their" homeland.
The Palestinians want to get rid of the Jews living on "their" homeland.

The Jews are seen as occupiers because the palestinian community has grown organically in Judea and Palestine. The nation Israel did not grow organically there but was a planned and executed project with a dedicated purpose. For all the historical continuity from ancient times to the present, there is no political continuity on the side of the Jews from ancient times to the present, because the kingdom Israel hasn't existed as an independent entity for centuries. That's why their claim seems so dubious.

[sabbat hunter]

21. There is no

political continuity for Palestinians either. There never has been an independent state of Palestine. It was a providence of other countries. No political continuity there either.


And there have been Jews living in Israel since ancient times.

[DetlefK]

23. I know that, but Shira asked about perception.

The point is, the Jews demand political acceptance of Israel because of historical continuity. But that's the wrong approach. You can't use continuity as an argument, because there's a hole in your reasoning because you don't have political continuity.

Israel should have simply done it in the pragmatic way of other old countries: The system defines the facts on the ground and the facts on the ground define the system. An interplay of theory and practice. Of constitution and might-makes-right.
But Israel was and is defined via an ideological goal ("safe haven for Jews&quot : The system Israel defines itself only via theory. Sure, the definition of Israel influences the facts on the ground, but can the facts on the ground influence the definition of Israel?

That's where I see the problem: The nation Israel lacks the cultural and political flexibility to respond to cultural and political changes. No matter how impractical and inopportune it may become, it is not allowed to change the definition of Israel.

When Israel was founded, the path it would go down was already set. The problem how Jews and Muslims can coexist (be it together or segregated or whatever) should have been tackled right from the start. Instead it was postponed over and over again, thinking that a solution would eventually come by one day. And now it has become unsolvable. Too much hatred has festered for too long.

[shira]

40. If the Jews want to get rid of the Arabs, they're doing a terrible job.

The Arab population has risen exponentially since 1948 in Israel while there are no Jews allowed in the Palestinian terrorities, where they'd be killed almost immediately for practicing their faith.

The Jews are seen as occupiers because the palestinian community has grown organically in Judea and Palestine. The nation Israel did not grow organically there but was a planned and executed project with a dedicated purpose. For all the historical continuity from ancient times to the present, there is no political continuity on the side of the Jews from ancient times to the present, because the kingdom Israel hasn't existed as an independent entity for centuries. That's why their claim seems so dubious.

The Jewish community was either murdered or expelled from the Palestinian territories by forces allied to the Nazis & that's why Jews returning there are considered thieves & colonists?

[pennylane100]

7. Well, I guess we will all have to leave

this country except the original inhabitants if this is the standard by which we legitimize citizens. That would include anyone whose ancestors arrived after the Ice Age.

[shira]

12. Where do you see an argument for anyone leaving?

This is about indigenous Jewish rights to the land.

Or are you against indigenous rights?

[pennylane100]

15. There are already people who have lived for generations on the land. Most of them are not jewish.

They would seem more indigenous than those who declared it a Jewish homeland in 1947 (ish). Israel has no legitimate claim to the West Bank, Garza and all the other places they have removed the prior occupants. Does that even bother you.

[shira]

27. People could live generations on some land but not be indigenous.

Look up the definition.

Israel has no legitimate claim to the West Bank, Garza and all the other places they have removed the prior occupants. Does that even bother you.

So you're arguing Jews are occupiers, colonists, and thieves when they're indigenous to the land.

It doesn't bother me that Jews live in their historic, cultural homeland. Why should that bother you?

[malchickiwick]

9. Does every ethnicity/nationality have a claim to the land where they lived 2,000-odd years ago?

Because if that is the case, the world map is going to need a massive makeover.

[shira]

11. We're talking indigenous rights. Jews are indigenous there according...

...to every definition of the term.

Are you against indigenous rights?

[malchickiwick]

14. Not at all. Do you advocate acknowledging those rights only selectively? n/t

[shira]

28. No, I don't but I wonder why so many on this thread....

...have a problem with Jewish indigenous rights, bending over backwards to argue the OP is denying Palestinian rights when it does no such thing.

[malchickiwick]

33. Don't the Palestinians also have indigenous rights? Palestinians = Philistines,

according to historians.

[shira]

37. No one is arguing they don't, only that the Jews aren't thieves, colonists, occupiers. N/T

[CanadaexPat]

10. My Cannanite forbears disagree.

[shira]

13. Can you prove you're in any way Canaanite?

Do you have any idea what their culture, history, traditions, religion, and language were?

[pennylane100]

16. So now all non jews must provide pedigrees?

[shira]

29. You claimed to be Canaanite. Problem is you don't know a thing...

....about being Canaanite, so how do you back that up? I can claim to be anything I want too.

[pennylane100]

34. Try to keep up with the conversation,

That was not me claiming to be Canaanite.

You would have to leave all your biases behind to be anyone but who you are. You have every right to promote your feelings about Isreal or the Jewish faith. However you do not make a very good case when trying to explain the brutal events in the Middle East as being so one sided, thus you loose any credibility.

[sabbat hunter]

52. Seems like youare

claiming to be Canaanite, or be descended from them. Reply line of your post

"My Cannanite forbears disagree"

[pennylane100]

53. Again, that wwas not ny poat

[sabbat hunter]

22. Jews probably

descended from Cannanites, formed the Jewish religion, etc.

[aranthus]

43. Almost certainly.

One way to understand that is to follow the language families. Canaanite languages are a branch of the Northwest Semitic language group (the other branch is Aramaic). Hebrew is considered a Canaanite language. Arabic, on the other hand, is from an entirely different branch of the Semitic Language family. And as far as I know, there are no Canaanite words in Palestinian Arabic. So, if you believe, as I do, that cultural lineage is what counts, then the Israelis are the descendants of the Canaanites, and the Palestinians aren't, even though some Palestinian Arabs may have Canaanite genetic links. It has nothing to do with race. It also isn't an attempt to deny that the Palestinians are also indigenous to the area. They are. Both peoples are. It's just that Palestinians and their supporters (including on this thread) deny to Jews what they demand for themselves.

[sabbat hunter]

44. I don't think you can go by language

alone. The majority of the local populace adopted the language of the conquering country, in this case Arabic. Just like many adopted Greek and Latin before that. By the time the Turks came along, the language was very firmly entrenched, plus Arabic was used for praying (mainly in Islam, but also in local Christian sects) so the populace did not adopt Turkish.

Just look how Latin in most of southern and western Europe evolved into the Romance languages.

[aranthus]

50. True, you can't go by language alone,

but it is a very good indicator. Language is how culture is communicated, and culture shapes language. The case of Latin actually proves my point. Even though other cultures have been layered over the top to create French, Spanish, Italian, etc., the Latin root remains after more than a thousand years. Likewise, you don't have to look that deep into modern Jewish culture to find ancient Hebrew elements, such as the marriage ceremony. Yiddish and Ladino both have elements of Hebrew in them. My point is that Jewishness maintains substantial elements of ancient Hebrew (Canaanite) culture). Does Palestinianism?

[shira]

67. If you're worried about discrimination then you should oppose racist efforts to deny Jews' rights...

The recent UNESCO decision, BDS efforts to equate Jews with Khazars, colonists & thieves, & Jews being occupiers of their own land...

Are you really, really worried about discrimination? Because if you are, it's really hard to tell. Your positions here demonstrate daily that your POV on I/P is entirely dependent on anti-Jewish discrimination.

[shira]

68. As to everyone living in their ancestral homeland, Palestinians in Gaza, W.Bank, Jordan....

....are already living in their ancestral homeland. But that's not enough for you, as you're opposed to Israel's very existence.

At best, you favor a Palestinian majority within Israel that would relegate Jews to a miserable, near-extinct status equivalent to Jews, Christians, and Yazidis throughout the mideast.

This isn't about human rights to you, so be honest.

[shira]

74. Jews aren't allowed in Jordan which was part of Palestine...

Compensation should be paid for those who lost their property.

[aranthus]

69. We've had this discussion before.

I want to commend shira for already pointing out the bad faith of your position, so I don't have to cover that. However, to add to it, I will point out that what shira and I are arguing is not that Jews have the stronger claim so, therefore, Palestinians have no rights at all. And you know that. What we are pointing out is that the Palestinian position (and yours) is built on denying that the Jews have any rights at all. That's why Palestinians have made false claims that they are the descendants of the Canaanites. There may be some slight genetic link in some Palestinians, but it's cultural identity that counts, and there is precious little of Canaanite culture in Palestinian culture. But their point is not to establish that they have a right to a state because they are descendants of the Canaanites. It is to deny that the Jews don't have any rights because of the false claim that the Palestinians are descended from the Canaanites, and the even more false claim that the Jews are not descended from the Canaanites. And you just eat it up.

The issue is not ethnicity. It is national identity. The Jews and Palestinians are two separate nations. Do you accept that? Do you understand why that is of crucial significance? Because I've explained it to you before, and I really don't see the need to go over the same territory again with a denier.

[aranthus]

72. No, I'm an anti-racist.

Deciding who gets to have a country based on genetics is racism. Genetics doesn't matter. And had you actually read my post (which you are smart enough to have done), you would have read very clearly that I don't think it's genetics that counts. Culture counts. The ideas and values by which people live count. The fact that the Palestinians (and you) are bringing all this up to deny Jewish rights is what counts. And if you were intellectually honest, you would have responded to that instead of ignoring it and casting about labels that make no sense in the context of the discussion. But you didn't.

[shira]

75. For argument's sake, let's say the claims are identical b/w the 2 peoples...

Jews aren't currently allowed to live in Jordan, east of the Jordan River which was part of the Palestine Mandate & Jewish homeland.

There's been discrimination against Jews living beyond the Jordan River ever since the Trans-Jordan Partition back in the early 1920's.

Do you have a problem with that discrimination?

[aranthus]

77. Leaving aside the utter foolishness of your position

you don't have to believe in the superiority of any culture over another to advocate for separate states for separate peoples. All you need is the understanding that culture is important. And I think that anyone who is not somehow divorced from humanity gets that. That's why it simply doesn't matter whether they have equal rights to the area. By that standard, the Jews have equal rights to parts of Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. And of course you're wrong that what you call "equal rights" won't discriminate against Jews. Because it discriminates against the right of the Jewish people to have a state where their culture predominates.

[shira]

79. But Tich, you ethnically discriminate all the time, not wanting Jews in the W.Bank....

Jordan hasn't allowed Jews there in nearly 100 years.

You say you support 1-state & ethnic equality, but there's no evidence of that when it comes to the rights of Jews in their indigenous lands.

[shira]

83. Well they do, but that's off the table b/c as Jews they're not allowed to live there....

Here's one map proposed by Zionists in 1919 & pretty much what Balfour proposed....




That land extends into parts of what is now Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, and Saudi Arabia. You know, where Jews had lived for thousands of years, throughout the mideast.

No.Jews.Allowed.

Now tell me how you're against discrimination again....?

[aranthus]

80. See, you think that having a country is discrimnation.

Unless that country is some homogenous valueless automaton. That isn't the way the world works. That isn't the way that people live.

You don't know jack about America if you think that it has no dominant culture. That isn't racist. It's the way people live. The Jews are entitled to a Jewish state just as much as America is entitled to be an American state, as France is entitled to be a French state, etc. No democratic country would think my ideas were racist, because they don't have anything to do with race. ON the other hand, there are very good reasons to not take you seriously. We're done. Have a nice day.

[shira]

84. She wasn't aware Jews just might want to live over the Jordan River...

...and that Jews have a problem being the only people on the planet banned from living in or owning property in Jordan. As if, gee I don't mind at all that I as a Jew am barred from living in and owning property in what was always land Jews lived on for thousands of years.

FFS...

[aranthus]

85. Ideologically addled. n/t

[msongs]

17. the history of the israelites make it very clear how they came to "own" judea nt

[Leontius]

19. Just like countless other people they conquerored it.

I tell you what, you give us all a date where you want all borders and country's to exist from now until the human species becomes extinct. Can you do that can you solve all of the problems of the world and provide your justice to all of mankind or is your outrage selective, do you just feel for some of history's losers ?

[shira]

42. +1000. n/t

[shira]

30. It's a response to UNESCO's obvious racism. There's nothing racist....

....in proving how Jews are indigenous to their historic, ancestral and cultural homeland. Palestinians are being denied nothing in this article.

I find it fascinating how you don't see the most blatantly obvious racism in the UNESCO vote while pretending the OP is somehow an attack on Palestinians.

I suppose that both the author of the OP and the person who posted it have a definite problem defining Palestinians as indigenous to Palestine.

Wrong, as indicated in a response to one of your posts above.

Besides, the area called "Judea"

That's what it was called for 3000 years except from 1949-67. Seems you're now into denying Jewish history. Why do you feel this need to deny?

but the OP isn't promoting equal rights - it's promoting rights for one ethnic group over another.

Where? Prove that please. Or take it back.

As a non-racist I'm firmly opposed to the arguments in the OP.

You're opposed to Jews proving they're indigenous to the land. Unreal.

Non-racists would have a problem with Mondoweiss' Jews = Khazar theories, wouldn't they?

[shira]

39. LoL. You see what you want to see, still denying UNESCO's blatant racism.

I still think it's fascinating that you make up your opponents' racism while denying the most obvious blatant type.

It's why no one can take you seriously.

*** Tell you what, I'll start taking you more seriously once you admit UNESCO's recent racism WRT their denial of Jewish history. Can you do it?

And do you know where the term "Palestine" originated? Why was Israel named Palestine? What is the origin of the term?

[shira]

41. Do u think it's racist to view Jews as colonists or thieves & not indigenous?

Are Jews occupiers of their own land?

Yes or No?

I'm not asking about Israel, just Jews.