BY ED FELIEN
If you believe the Bible is the word of God. And if you believe God spoke to the Jews, then you also believe:
Deuteronomy 7: 6 For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God: the LORD thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth.
Deuteronomy 20: 16 But of the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth :17 But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee:
Joshua 24: 13 And I have given you a land for which ye did not labour, and cities which ye built not, and ye dwell in them; of the vineyards and oliveyards which ye planted not do ye eat.
Ezekial 9: 6 Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women:
Numbers 31: 17 Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. :18 But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.
Numbers 33: 52 Then ye shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their pictures, and destroy all their molten images, and quite pluck down all their high places :53 And ye shall dispossess the inhabitants of the land, and dwell therein: for I have given you the land to possess it.
Deuteronomy 7: 2 And when the LORD thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them:
And if you read your Bible, then you know the Jews fought almost continually with the Phillistines. The Phillistines lived in what is now Gaza, so the current struggle between Israel and Gaza goes back 3000 years. It is an interesting irony that the Phillistines complained then about the Jews digging tunnels into their land with the intent to destroy them:
1 Samuel 14:11 And both of them discovered themselves unto the garrison of the Philistines: and the Philistines said, Behold, the Hebrews come forth out of the holes where they had hid themselves.
David fought the Phillistines and felled the mighty Goliath with a slingshot, and Palestinian children throw stones at Israeli soldiers. And Sampson, the great champion of Israel, was seduced by the Philistine, Delilah, and made blind, but still he had strength enough to crash the temple of the Philistines, and Palestinian children commit desperate acts against an Israeli military to try to break the bonds of their captivity.
History, it seems, repeats itself.
Depending on the Bible for historical analysis is something only religious fundamentalists normally do, and we all know how scholarly their analysis is. Furthermore, the Canaanite theory/ideology of Palestinian origins is far from proven archeologically or historically. In fact, Arab scholars have trashed it soundly. In 2003, Zakariyya Muhammad wrote:
“I have to say that this ideology is based
on an illusion. While it might be useful
as paraphernalia for artistic creativity,
it is a losing ideology when used to
manage our conflict with the Zionist
movement. For ‘Canaanism’ concedes
a priori the central thesis of Zionism.
Namely that we have been engaged
in a perennial conflict with Zionism
– and hence with the Jewish presence
in Palestine – since the Kingdom
of Solomon and before. Those who
adopt Canaanism are actually seeking
a Palestinian presence that precedes
the claims of [Jewish nationalism]. If
Israel goes back one thousand years
before Christ, then we go back much
earlier than the ancient Hebrews…thus
in one stroke Canaanism cancels the
assumption that Zionism is a European movement, propelled by modern
European contingencies…”
A little more history and a little less biblical ideology please.