Israel/Palestine
Related: About this forumIndigenous in Jerusalem
The discovery of Hezekiah’s royal seal impression in the Ophel excavations “vividly brings to life the Biblical narratives about King Hezekiah, and the activity conducted during his lifetime in Jerusalem’s Royal Quarter,” says the Hebrew University.
It’s much more than that! The unearthing and deciphering of the 2,700-year-old bulla in excavations by the Temple Mount is proof-positive of the Jewish people’s deep roots in Jerusalem. It is reaffirmation of entrenched Jewish rights in Jerusalem. This is doubly important at a time when some academics and archeologists deny the veracity of the Biblical narrative of ancient Israel, and many Palestinians assert that the Jewish people have no history and no national rights in Jerusalem.
Consider: Everybody from UNESCO, to the Palestinians, to the hard Left, and Biblically- skeptical archeologists at Tel Aviv University, have objected to the two-decade-long excavations of the Ophel and Jerusalem’s City of David, the lower slope of the Temple Mount. Through great adversity and persistence, Prof. Eilat Mazar and her Israel Antiquities Authority and Hebrew University colleagues have unearthed some of the earliest known artifacts in the city, dating as far back as the 12th and 11th centuries BCE. These include evidence supporting the historicity of the biblical kings David and Solomon, founders of the Judean dynasty.
...And now, the bulla bearing the name of King Hezekiah (727–698 BCE) – a discovery that was made six years ago but only interpreted recently and announced this past week. It is the first time that a seal impression of an Israelite or Judean king has ever come to light in a scientific archeological excavation in Israel. This is “the closest that we can get to something that was most likely held by King Hezekiah himself,” says Mazar.
The bulla was discovered in a refuse dump adjacent to a government or royal building that was apparently constructed in the 10th century BCE – the time of King Solomon! Mazar’s latest discovery reminds us of other important archeological finds that highlight Jewish rootedness in the Land of Israel.
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Indigenous-in-Jerusalem-436266
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ForgoTheConsequence
(4,868 posts)"The Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies advances a realist, conservative and Zionist agenda in the search for security and peace for Israel."
"BESA is traditionally regarded as a mostly right-wing organization that usually espouses pro-military views. In 2009, Inbar's paper "The Rise and Fall of the 'Two States for Two Peoples' Paradigm" said the best solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict would be to repartition the country with Egypt governing Gaza, Jordan governing the West Bank, and Israel withdrawing from isolated settlements."
Why do you even post on this message-board?
shira
(30,109 posts)ForgoTheConsequence
(4,868 posts)Might as well post Bill Kristol articles too.
shira
(30,109 posts)....with Jews being indigenous to Israel.
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)
6chars
(3,967 posts)but acceptable here, of course.
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)6chars
(3,967 posts)But the way you try to give a phony explanation that will fool people who don't know the real story is par for the course. Is your hate for Israel, er, concern for the Palestinians, so consuming you actually wish to erase Jewish history?
btw, do you happen to be an anthropologist?
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)Perhaps if you feing swooning it might add to the effect?
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)I don't have a doctorate, if that's what you ask, but then I suppose you do not either. And I brought up the Navajo for a good reason.
The Navajo are the southernmost example of a linguistic / cultural / ethnic grouping of Native Americans, the Na-Dene. Most of the people in this group live in Alaska and northwest Canada, with some smaller groups south on the pacific BC, Washington, and Oregon coasts. The Navajo's ancestors migrated south at some point in history, down the great plains corridor from central Alaska and Canada, into their current territory in the US southwest. Like all Native American ethnic groups, the Na-Dene grouping can trace its ancestry to Eurasia, in central-Eastern Siberia. However, the Na-Dene are more recent arrivals to the Americas than most other native American groups. And in the process of securing their traditional territory, the Navajo were notably warlike, and they may be a primary reason for the destruction and merger of several older Southwestern nations and cultures.
No one would argue that the Navajo are indigenous to Alaska, or to the Baikal region of Siberia, where we find their closest non-American genetic and linguistic relatives, the Ket. This doesn't mean they don't have history in those regions. it doesn't erase that at all (as evidenced by the fact I'm even talking about it, the history clearly persists - maybe not a vivid history, but a present one.) It simply means that they can't (and don't) point to these places and say "oh by the way, our ancestors lived there a long time ago, so that's ours."
I'm not denying Jewish history in the southern Levant at all. That'd be dumb as shit, it's obviously there. I'm saying that the majority of modern Jews are simply no more indigenous to the southern Levant than the Navajo are indigenous to Krasnoyarsk Krai or I am indigenous to Slovakia, where my Celtic ancestors stole their first cow. There are of course Jews who are indigenous to the southern Levant - but the majority of Israelis are not those Jews.
The real kicker is that most of the people that I see claiming that hteir bleach-headed Olim-bro buddy from Sarasota, FL is "indigenous' are inevitably people who will claim that Palestinians are anything but. Tell me, what do you think of palestinian ingideneity in the south Levant?
6chars
(3,967 posts)For shame.
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)6chars
(3,967 posts)You are educating me on a subject of no relevance to Israel - Navajo pre-history, while ignoring a subject you have little understanding of or concern for - Jewish history.
The fact that you make the analogy you do indicates a failing of some sort, and I cannot know whether it has to do with intellect or animus or what.
When people such as yourself come up with what they think are original arguments, and people like me who are knowledgeable have heard the same arguments for decades, it becomes tiresome. Every one of you thinks that you have found a way to tell Jews who they are and what their history means. No thanks.
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)You can't just claim something for yourself, no matter how badly you want it. And the overwhelming majority oif Jews in Israel simply are not indigenous to the Levant. They are immigrants to that parcel of the earth, mostly from Europe.
6chars
(3,967 posts)thanks for demonstrating your knowledge.
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)The bulk of Israeli Jews are, in fact, descended from people migrating or fleeing from Europe between the 1880's and 1950's.
These migrations were followed by a migration of Jews from the other regions of the Middle East and Maghreb, as well as populations from Ethiopia and India.
Currently most migrants to Israel are coming from Russia and the United States both of which might as well be counted as "European."
These immigrants are added to the Sephardi immigrants who fled southern Europe during the 15th and 16th centuries and found a home in the Ottoman empire.
Those people were added to the populations that had come from other migrations, invasions, and conquests, from Assyria to the Mongols and Turks.
All of those people are immigrants to the southern Levant. They came from somewhere else, and settled there. Immigrants simply are not indigenous to the place where they settle.
That's not to say there are no people indigenous to Israel, mind. There are in fact two distinct, fairly broad groups of people indigenous to the territory. That is, they are directly traceable to that ancient population you're talking about, and have maintained a continuous presence in the territory through history.
The larger, more politically important group are the Levantines. They are reflected in both Palestinian and Israeli populations, though most are Palestinians. For the most part, this group assimilated into the prevailing cultures and religions of their conquerors, though a small minority maintained their Judaism (including Samaritanism) through all that time - though even they still assimilated in most other aspects. The second, less politically important group are the Bedouin, who extend well beyond just the southern Levant, but certainly have a constant, historically recorded presence there.
Some Israeli Jews and most Palestinians are indigenous to the territory. All are not, of either group.
Not sure why this is such a terrible realization for you.
The majority of Israeli Jews are Mizrahi.[17] The exact proportion of Mizrahi and Sephardic Jewish populations in Israel is unknown (since it is not included in the census); some estimates place Jews of Mizrahi origin at up to 61% of the Israeli Jewish population,[56] with hundreds of thousands more having mixed Ashkenazi heritage due to cross-cultural intermarriage.
Today over 2,500,000 Mizrahi Jews,[57] and Sephardic Jews live in Israel with the majority of them being descendants of the 680,000 Jews who fled Arab countries (<2,500,000), due to expulsions, and antisemitism, with smaller numbers having immigrated from the Islamic Republics of the Former Soviet Union (c.250,000), India (70,000), Iran (200,000–250,000), Turkey (80,000). Before the immigration of over 1,000,000 Russian mainly Ashkenazi Jews to Israel after to collapse of the Soviet Union, 70% of Israeli Jews were Sephardic or Mizrahi Jews.[58]
I have noticed that many of those who wish to delegitimize Israel like to say that it is "European colonists." That is an idea in the delegitimizers heads that helps them believe what they want to believe. As Wikipedia explains, a large portion of Jews in Israel are there as a result of the Arab anti-Jewish Nakba. To say Israel is "mostly European" shows willful ignorance in order to promote a false narrative.
Of course currently most migrants to Israel are coming from US and Russia (and France). The Muslim countries have already kicked out all their Jews and Europe killed theirs.
You also seem to be ignorant of Jewish history, and the presence of the Jewish people in the land of Israel prior to the Roman destruction - well documented and evidenced, and their forced travels, well documented and evidenced, and their continual retaining of connection to this land. People who say "Jews, of all the peoples of the world, have no home and should have no home" are not nice to Jews.
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)Though the point stands:
They came from somewhere else, to the southern Levant. They are immigrants, and thus are not indigenous. A small minority of this group are, as Mizrahi includes those Levantine Jews I mentioned, but the most are still immigrants and the descendants of immigrants.
Immigrants are not indigenous. These terms are antonyms.
I suppose it's a good thing I'm saying nothing of the sort, huh?
As for the roman history. I hope you're not claiming that every, or even a majority of jews were expelled by the Romans, are you?
shira
(30,109 posts)Displacement doesn't remove indigenous status. That status is lost due to assimilation.
For some reason you're ignoring the most widely accepted definition of indigenous status.....
Indigenous communities, peoples, and nations are those that, having a historical continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies that developed on their territories, consider themselves distinct from other sectors of the societies now prevailing in those territories, or parts of them. They form at present non-dominant sectors of society and are determined to preserve, develop, and transmit to future generations their ancestral territories, and their ethnic identity, as the basis of their continued existence as peoples, in accordance with their own cultural patterns, social institutions and legal systems.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_peoples#United_Nations
Those who claim to be part Jewish due to ancestry but who do not identify in any real way with Jews or Judaism are not indigenous.
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)Do you argue that Native Americans who have assimilated to Euro-American culture are no longer "indigenous"? Those people who have lost their ancestor's language, who have adopted Christianity, wear blue jeans and drive toyotas?
And a follow-up...
Does that make Euro-American Jeans-wearing pickup-driving Christians the indigenous population of North America? Immigrants are apparently indigenous now, and Euro-American Christians have clearly not assimilated into the society they immigrated into...
shira
(30,109 posts)People meeting that definition are indigenous.
I can't help it if you have a problem with that.
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)Since you're altering and re-imagining this definition as suits your needs, I need to know if those alterations and re-imagining is applied equally to all people.
shira
(30,109 posts)Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)Do you JUST apply your imaginative version of it to this one very particular situation in the southern levant, and only to the ethnic group there that your personally favor?
shira
(30,109 posts)FTR, I'm not applying a double standard at all.
I'd like to know exactly - be very clear - why you think I am.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)The international community has developed an understanding of the term based
on the following fundamental criterion of self-identification:
x Self-identification as Indigenous Peoples at the individual level and
acceptance as a member by the community;
x Historical continuity with pre-colonial and/or pre-settler societies;
x Strong link to territories and surrounding natural resources;
x Distinct social, economic, or political systems;
x Distinct language, culture, and knowledge;
x Status as a non-dominant social group;
x Resolve to maintain and reproduce ancestral environments and systems as
distinctive peoples and communities.
These criteria are brought together in a definition formulated by José Martínez
Cobo in his 1983 rHSRUW ³Study of the Problem of Discrimination Against
Indigenous Populations´
http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/edumat/hreduseries/TB7/Chapter%202%20P7-P14.pdf
There is failure here on couple of levels as in Israel and Jerusalem Jews are the dominate population cultire and society,
shira
(30,109 posts)They weren't dominant until after 1948. So?
leftynyc
(26,060 posts)The MAJORITY of Israeli Jews are not from Europe. Your lying about this just shines a light on where YOU are coming from.
Don't expect the apologists to understand it or accept it.
Their game is justification by whatever means....
leftynyc
(26,060 posts)that is involved in those who try and delegitimize Israel's Jewish ties to the land. Is that what you mean?
GitRDun
(1,846 posts)Who cares who was there hundreds of years ago?
All should live in peace.
Using historical ancestry to justify apartheid or anti-Jewish policies is just plain wrong.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)Ashkenazis have quite a few genetic relationships to Europe: that they are a heterogeneous group.
King_David
(14,851 posts)shira
(30,109 posts)Indigenous status also includes a shared history, culture, language, & traditions - which Jews also have.
The Palestinians cannot claim anything like that.
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)Would you argue that native Americans who have assimilated to euro-American culture are no longer indigenous?
shira
(30,109 posts)I'm glad you now know that.
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)Are Native Americans who embrace Euro-American culture no longer indigenous? It's an important question, and you ought to have an answer for it
6chars
(3,967 posts)The silly Navajo analogy would get an F on a freshman term paper. There are so many, er, theories about the Jewish people, and so few Jewish people, there is no time to respond tp them all. The obsession some have with delegitimizing Israel can be unhealthy.
King_David
(14,851 posts)Even IP topic , all has to do with the Jewish people.
And it's not new ... It predates Israel.
Docreed2003
(16,858 posts)From two thousand years ago, supports the current Jewish state in Isreal?? I'm not discounting the OP, it's an amazing archeologic find, but there is a history to that land in the two thousand years since and Palestine was a sovereign nation at one time.
leftynyc
(26,060 posts)I could post pages and pages of articles that try and say Jews are not indigenous to the area and that it's only the Palestinians that belong on that land. We could start with a recent UNESCO vote that tried to make the Western Wall part of the Al Asqa mosque compound because it obviously has no Jewish history. Would you like me to embarrass the supporters of the Palestinian position that way?
Mosby
(16,297 posts)Jews have lived in Israel, Judea and Samaria continuously for more than three thousand years. Expulsions, conquests, exiles and genocides have kept the Jewish population in their homelands lower than expected but Jews never gave up their right to live in their own country and never will.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)In order to play an injured party.
shira
(30,109 posts)You know, the Ron Unz funded paleocon website?
Can't wait to see what that vile rat's nest has to say about Jews being Khazars and shit.
King_David
(14,851 posts)R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)are saying what republicans believe but don't day out loud.
Nice try though.
shira
(30,109 posts)....and advocates so long as they hate Israel.
Everyone who knows anything knows that neither Mondoweiss or any anti-Zionists for that matter can name even one liberal or progressive Palestinian leader or advocate of BDS, right-of-return, etc... who is liberal or progressive and who they support. Why? Because they're all to the right of Bibi Netanyahu.
Full stop.
Need Proof? Okay...
None advocate for the rights of Palestinian gays, women, and children or for Palestinian gun control, Palestinian environmental laws, Palestinian labor unions, Palestinian unrestricted free speech, etc... and all tacitly support Hamas terror against innocent Israelis - from little babies to the elderly. A Jew building an addition on his house in Jerusalem upsets them more than a terror attack killing dozens of innocents.
So the next time you bring up this silly rightwing nonsense, you should remember this. Or someone here might have to remind you.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)Well, that pretty much rules out thehasbara screamers, right?
shira
(30,109 posts)Proving there are such people as liberal and progressive BDS antizionists.
Otherwise you'll prove the point. Every last one is to the right of Bibi.
Can you name even one? I'm sure you cannot.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)Why would you believe that anybody would fall for your BS litmus tests?
Sweet indigenous dreams, shira.
shira
(30,109 posts)In fact, all its adherents are to the right of Netanyahu.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)And apparently getting more terrified by the day.
Good!
BDS.
You have hasbara'd poorly.
shira
(30,109 posts)R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)But please feel free to look as silly as you want.
BDS.
shira
(30,109 posts)None of its leaders are to the left of Netanyahu.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)
King_David
(14,851 posts)shira
(30,109 posts)King_David
(14,851 posts)When that is diametrically opposite to and Democratic Party principle or position ?
Why's that ?
6chars
(3,967 posts)still living in their parents' basements
leftynyc
(26,060 posts)Trying to deflect from historical, scientific evidence of Jewish ties to the temple mount by whining about it coming from an author you don't like. Are you denying the story? Think they made up the evidence? Just what is your complaint about?
ForgoTheConsequence
(4,868 posts)Letter to My American Jewish Brothers about Obama
Obama’s mix of embarrassed self-doubt and strategic weariness makes the world a very, very unruly place for Israel.
Understand: Israelis see America as a great and ennobling world power. We want America to bounce back. And Mitt Romney believes – he really believes! – that America is exceptional. He believes that it is a force for good in the world, and that America must lead. We feel that Romney’s refreshing prism on America’s just leadership would be his greatest gift to the White House, to Israel, and to the world.
You ought to be honestly asking yourselves why our perceptions of Obama are so different from yours. And this ought to figure into your vote calculations next week.
http://davidmweinberg.com/2012/11/02/letter-to-my-american-jewish-brothers-about-obama/
leftynyc
(26,060 posts)without one word about the scientific discovery of Jewish ties to the land - NOT ONE WORD except for more whining about the author of the story. Just who is it you think you're kidding with this?
King_David
(14,851 posts)Or is traditionally white supremacist led and advanced. Remember the crap Khazar garbage?
And here he has the chutzpah to question why this is posted on a Democratic Party supporting website which would never ever agree with the OTT and frankly antisemitic shit posted here attempting to delink the Jews from the land of Israel.
I'm actually ashamed to be posting in the same forum where such right wing extremists theories are espoused.
leftynyc
(26,060 posts)they feel pushing the same crap that the white power clowns have been doing for decades. Do they stop to think about that part of their claims? Are they embarrassed by them?
Little Tich
(6,171 posts)Palestinians have the same ancestral homeland and share ancestry since prehistoric times.
However, "Biblical archaeology" is pseudo science, and is connected to archaeology in the same way astrology is connected to astronomy. The OP is nonsense by default.
6chars
(3,967 posts)I am not sure you are giving biblical archaeology a fair shake.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_archaeology
Little Tich
(6,171 posts)In that sense, actually only a few peoples are indigenous. According to Wikipedia the UN definition of indigenous peoples is:
"Indigenous communities, peoples, and nations are those that, having a historical continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies that developed on their territories, consider themselves distinct from other sectors of the societies now prevailing in those territories, or parts of them. They form at present non-dominant sectors of society and are determined to preserve, develop, and transmit to future generations their ancestral territories, and their ethnic identity, as the basis of their continued existence as peoples, in accordance with their own cultural patterns, social institutions and legal systems."
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_peoples
My beef with "Biblical archaeology" is a longstanding one, and I think it's a form of pseudo science that has caused a lot of damage. The Bible is simply not historically accurate.
shira
(30,109 posts)shira
(30,109 posts)leftynyc
(26,060 posts)about the author of the piece as if that discounts the science of the discovery. Great piece, Shira - I don't give a fuck who wrote it.
shira
(30,109 posts)Last edited Tue Dec 8, 2015, 07:03 AM - Edit history (1)
Defining opponents as not belonging rather than attempting to win them over rationally. Those who resort to seeing their opponents as the "other" outside of the "good community" are impervious to facts, reason and logic.
Little Tich
(6,171 posts)Jews and Samaritans are indeed on the Wikipedia list of indigenous peoples. While I don't really agree with that, because it significantly lowers the bar for which peoples are indigenous or not, it raises another question - why aren't the Palestinians on that list? If anything, they're more indigenous than most Jews...
shira
(30,109 posts)Look at that definition again and try applying it to most Palestinians.
It cannot be done.
Jews, however, match the definition.
Little Tich
(6,171 posts)In a way, Bedouins aren't, but they could be indigenous too, if the definition of indigenous is used loosely.
I would personally say that Jews and Palestinians share few characteristics with the Yanomami people or the Australian Aborigines, but I did take another look at that list of indigenous peoples (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_indigenous_peoples) and it's meaningless. I've personally never heard of the "Gutnish" people, and I don't think the people living on Gotland have either.
shira
(30,109 posts)Look at the definition's criteria for indigenous status. The Palestinians aren't a match.
In fact, just a century ago Palestinians were considered to be Jews.
Little Tich
(6,171 posts)You seem to be unaware that Palestine has been continuously occupied since prehistoric times, and that the notion that Palestinians are Jordanians or descended from Arabs has been discredited as revisionist rubbish. You also seem to think that only Jews were considered Palestinians a hundred years ago, that's complete rubbish too - everyone living in Palestine were Palestinians in those days.
shira
(30,109 posts)Indigenous status is more than just bloodlines. You were given the common, most accepted definition and you reject it out of hand when it comes to Palestinians and call anyone a revisionist who accepts that definition.
Think about that definition and then apply it to both the Samaritans and Palestinians of today. Who fits the bill better?
leftynyc
(26,060 posts)anything but whine about the author of the piece, I'll post numerous other links so they can't pretend SCIENCE is a right wing conspiracy:
http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/03/middleeast/king-hezekiah-royal-seal/
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/biblical-king-hezekiah-royal-seal-unearthed-in-jerusalem/
http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-sites-places/jerusalem/king-hezekiah-in-the-bible-royal-seal-of-hezekiah-comes-to-light/
http://www.livescience.com/52969-biblical-king-royal-seal-unearthed.html
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/12/151202132519.htm
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/12/jerusalem-king-hezekiah/418431/
http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/archaeology/.premium-1.689594
So what are the whiners going to bitch about now?
shira
(30,109 posts)leftynyc
(26,060 posts)MORE Jewish relics there is because they're forbidden to dig.
COLGATE4
(14,732 posts)is the fear that they'll find more Jewish relics!
leftynyc
(26,060 posts)That was a mistake by the Israelis.
Little Tich
(6,171 posts)Finding the seal proves the existence of at least one King of Judah.
leftynyc
(26,060 posts)When we're talking about an opinion piece, THEN it's appropriate to see who wrote it - must know their biases and history. But this is a scientific discovery - it's not up to debate. Sorry, but I find complaining about who wrote the report up petty and small.
Little Tich
(6,171 posts)I like archaeology in general, and Time Team is one of my favourite shows. The find is interesting, but the OP is complete rubbish.
leftynyc
(26,060 posts)to have a problem with Jewish history. I don't.
