Some History

[Wayne]

This may be long but is a shortened rundown of events so I’ve probably left a lot out. I use archaeological sources rather than Biblical and it is my own research from many sources.
I include some history of the Crusades due to their significance and to get some military history into the topic ;-) I hope you find it interesting.

Please note that any conclusions are mine and therefore I accept I could be wrong.


The "Holy Land" was originally occupied by the Philistines who are thought to have emigrated from Greece in around 1300BC and was called Filistria which is the name it continued to be known as until recently. The Arab name for these people was and still is Filisteens or in modern English Palestinians. Prior to 1300BC the Holy Land was occupied by mostly nomadic small tribes. By 1000BC Greece seems to have had several Jewish city states. In 961BC the Israelites, who as has been shown by DNA research share the same Greek ancestry as the Palestinians, invaded the country that they called the "Land of Canaan" and eventually conquered it.

The Palestinians and Jews both lived continuously in Palestine under subsequent occupations while retaining their cultural identity to the present day.

Jewish occupation lasted for a few hundred years until Assyria invaded, although the Israelites retained some small city states. Babylon then invaded in 586 BC at which time the Jews were driven out although they returned and again set up several small states.

In 333BC Alexander the Great conquered the region and it is thought this was when some Jews were dispersed into Egypt as both refugees and slaves. A large number of Jews remained in the region. In 165BC there was a Jewish revolt and the creation of the last Jewish state that lasted until the Romans invaded 102 years later in 63BC. In 70AD the Jews were forced to leave after an unsuccessful revolt against the Romans.
In 118AD the Romans allowed the Jews to return and resettle but they revolted again 15 years later and were again banished or sold into slavery. Roman rule ended in 638AD when the Arab Muslims took control (Muhammad, the founder of Islam, died in 632AD). By 750AD the lands of Islam, under Arab leadership, stretched from Spain in the west across North Africa and most of the modern Middle East into Central Asia and northern India.

The Muslims allowed the Jews to return and practice their religion without interference and most settled in the Southern Spanish province of Andalusia under the rule of the Moors. The Moors treated the Jewish population very well and much of the defence of Muslim Spain was left in the hands of Jewish armies. This religious tolerance was possibly driven by socio-economic reasons. This period was seen as a golden age for Jewish culture and many from the Middle East and Europe immigrated to Spain.

The Christian Spanish and Portuguese however considered the Jews as traitors for collaborating with the Moors. After the defeat of the Moors in 1492 the Spanish (King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella) gave the Jews the option of either immigrating to the Netherlands (then under Spanish rule), converting to Christianity or being executed. Many pretended to convert to Christianity while many also fled to other parts of the Muslim empire. Today a stew of Pork and Clams is still popular in Spain and Portugal. This dish was originally introduced as a test to determine if a Jewish conversion was genuine.

The Spanish Jews are called Sephardic Jews that today speak a medieval Andalusian dialect with Hebrew inclusions. Anti Semitism in Western Europe probably originated as a result of this period of suppression as there is little evidence of it earlier.

Elsewhere the Arab and Turkish Muslims remained in power until WW1 as the Ottoman Empire (except for the Crusader occupation of 1099 - 1187).

In 1094 or 1095, Alexios I Komnenos, the Byzantine emperor, sent an envoy to the pope, Urban II, and asked for aid from the west against the Seljuk Turks who had captured some of his outlying provinces. The Turks were a tribe from Mongolia who invaded and settled the country we call Turkey, they also settled in Southern Russia and the Ukraine, which is very significant for Jewish history, unlike the Sephardic Jews, the Turks are not of Arab ancestry. At the council of Clermont Urban addressed a crowd and urged all to go to the aid of the Greeks and at the same time recover Palestine from the rule of the Muslims.

Jews and Muslims as well as Christians lived together in peace in the Middle East at this time and the Jews fought alongside the Muslims against the crusaders (the Christians usually fled before the crusaders arrived). The crusades were to end Muslim control of "Christian" sacred sites, another aim of the crusades was to end the constant warring in Europe by giving the armies a common cause.

Urban told everyone that the Muslims were robbing and torturing Christian pilgrims journeying to the holy land which was a lie to get public support for the Crusades.

The speech that Urban gave as written down by a witness:

Quote:
"

"Although, O sons of God, you have promised more firmly than ever to keep the peace among yourselves and to preserve the rights of the church, there remains still an important work for you to do. Freshly quickened by the divine correction, you must apply the strength of your righteousness to another matter which concerns you as well as God. For your brethren who live in the east are in urgent need of your help, and you must hasten to give them the aid which has often been promised them. For, as the most of you have heard, the Turks and Arabs have attacked them and have conquered the territory of Romania [the Greek empire] as far west as the shore of the Mediterranean and the Hellespont, which is called the Arm of St. George. They have occupied more and more of the lands of those Christians, and have overcome them in seven battles. They have killed and captured many, and have destroyed the churches and devastated the empire. If you permit them to continue thus for awhile with impurity, the faithful of God will be much more widely attacked by them. On this account I, or rather the Lord, beseech you as Christ's heralds to publish this everywhere and to persuade all people of whatever rank, foot-soldiers and knights, poor and rich, to carry aid promptly to those Christians and to destroy that vile race from the lands of our friends. I say this to those who are present, it meant also for those who are absent. Moreover, Christ commands it.
"All who die by the way, whether by land or by sea, or in battle against the pagans, shall have immediate remission of sins. This I grant them through the power of God with which I am invested. O what a disgrace if such a despised and base race, which worships demons, should conquer a people which has the faith of omnipotent God and is made glorious with the name of Christ! With what reproaches will the Lord overwhelm us if you do not aid those who, with us, profess the Christian religion! Let those who have been accustomed unjustly to wage private warfare against the faithful now go against the infidels and end with victory this war which should have been begun long ago. Let those who for a long time, have been robbers, now become knights. Let those who have been fighting against their brothers and relatives now fight in a proper way against the barbarians. Let those who have been serving as mercenaries for small pay now obtain the eternal reward. Let those who have been wearing themselves out in both body and soul now work for a double honour. Behold! on this side will be the sorrowful and poor, on that, the rich; on this side, the enemies of the Lord, on that, his friends. Let those who go not put off the journey, but rent their lands and collect money for their expenses; and as soon as winter is over and spring comes, let hem eagerly set out on the way with God as their guide."

Pope Urban wanted the Crusade to consist of only soldiers controlled by the church but tens of thousands of peasants including their women and children joined and the Crusaders were unable to control them. The "peoples" Crusade killed thousands of Jews along the way and eventually reached Constantinople where Komnenos (Comeno) asked them to wait for the main armies. The peasants however were living off the land by pillaging the Byzantine farms and killing whoever got in their way so Comeno ferried them across the Bosphoros where possibly 40,000 were killed by the Turks on arrival.
The official armies, four from France under the command of Robert, Hugh, Godfrey and Raymond and one from Italy under Bohemond reached Byzantium in 1096 with the overall commander being Bishop Adh魡r of Le Puy.

Nicaea was the first city to fall to the Crusaders and the Byzantine army after a two month siege. Comeno gave the Crusader armies all the cities food and wealth but refused permission to rape the women or kill the civilians and this caused a lot of ill feeling and trouble later on.

The armies split into two and continued. The armies ran out of food and water which weakened them considerably so to obtain supplies, Christian Armenia which was surrounded by Muslim states was conquered.

Antioch was then besieged but the Crusaders ran out of food and many starved to death. Around this time the remaining peoples army (around 3,000) had joined them. They refused to starve and resorted to cannibalism eventually digging up the cemeteries to get food. The Turks were disgusted and offered the Crusaders peace if they stopped the "Tafurs" (a Flemish word meaning "rabble" that the Crusaders used for the peoples army) desecrating the dead but the Crusaders said they had no control over them.
After 9 months a Christian who had converted to Islam and controlled one of the gates let them into the city and the crusaders and Tafurs killed those Muslims and Jews unable to flee.

Now that the crusaders held the city they were worse off as they could not retreat and a superior Turkish army was coming to liberate the city. Alex Comeno, the Byzantine emperor was also rushing to help the crusaders but Baron Itienne and Guilherme de Grandsmesnil together with all their troops deserted and took refuge with Comeno. The barons told Comeno that the Crusade was over and the rest of the Crusaders were probably dead. Therefore, it would be better for Comeno to stay in a safe position so he returned to Constantinople.

The Christians in Antioch, not knowing what the deserters had done, believed that Comeno had abandoned them. Only a miracle could save “God's Army''. The soldiers refused to execute any order and only got out of their living quarters when Bohemond set fire to them. Though scared they had no choice but to fight and defend the city. But, an unusual event saved them. And it was something that all historians (including Muslims) believe to be a miracle regardless of their different beliefs.

His name was Peter Barthelemy and he was a servant. He had such a bad reputation that even his friends considered him immoral. He said that he had been visited by Saint Andrew and Jesus in his dreams.

Jesus and Saint Andrew ordered Peter to tell the Crusaders that their immoral relationship with pagan women brought God's anger. Nevertheless, God was ready to forgive their sins by sending a sign of his pardon. God revealed the location of the Holy Spear, which had been used against Jesus during the Crucifixion. According to Peter's dreams, the spear was buried under the Church of Antioch. It was known that the “authentic” spear was in Constantinople, however, the Crusaders' state of mind provoked the appearance of other phenomena as well to support Peter. So many soldiers had visions that the barons allowed Peter to look for the spear under the Saint Jacques' Church.

All Peter found was a short rusty piece of iron but when Peter came out of the hole with the "spear'", everybody fell to their knees and cried. The crusaders believed Peter had planted the "spear" but knew the effect it would have on the men so the bishop of Puy had to, against his will, admit the possibility of having found the real spear. Desperate men became warriors, ready to kill a much better and more numerous enemy. The Crusaders then decided to leave a few troops to defend the city and attack in the field despite the likelihood of defeat. The Turks made the mistake of letting them prepare formations in the battlefield because they wanted to kill them all in one battle rather than various skirmishes. The Crusaders apparently fought like madmen and the Turks were totally defeated.

Bohemond stayed to rule Antioch while Raymond took his troops to Jeruselem.
Jeruselem was fortified and garrisoned by more Arab and African troops than there were Crusaders and there was also an Egyptian army on the way. The Christians living in the city had been expelled and the surrounding country burned.

Again the soldiers had visions where God told them they would succeed if they attacked so they did but this time it was a total disaster. This didn't deter the Crusaders though and miracles, visions and signs were common every day.
Six days later the crusaders found that one of the walls was undefended and entered the city.

Everyone found was killed. Some of the Muslims barricaded inside the al Aksa Mosque were promised freedom if they opened the doors. When the doors opened they were all killed. The Jews likewise barricaded themselves inside their main Synagogue but it was burned down with all inside.
Some were spared so that they could be used as slaves to cart the dead out of the city and the cities ruler and his bodyguard who had taken refuge in the tower of David were given safe conduct after negotiating surrender.

The Crusaders now controlled the Holy lands.

The second crusade began after the Muslims recaptured the Holy Land. By the end of the crusade the Christians had recaptured all the lost land but then Saladin launched a Jihad.

Saladin was a Kurd not an Arab or a Turk.


Saladin recaptured Jerusalem in 1187, prompting the Christians to launch a Third Crusade led by King Richard “the Lion-Hearted” of England. The Christians won some battles in the Third Crusade but Saladin was able to hold Jerusalem for the Muslims. The two warriors agreed to a truce that allowed the Muslims control the Holy Lands, but Christians were free to visit their shrines.

The Crusades were a turning point for Western Europe (this was the end of the "Dark Ages"). The returning soldiers told stories of the lands they visited and people became interested in other cultures for the first time. The Crusaders discovered spices that allowed food to last longer and taste better. The women in Europe found they liked the fabrics from the East and this got trade really moving.

The next two centuries led to advances in technology and the arts we know as the Renaissance.

There was however a dark side. Middle European anti Semitism had it’s roots in the Crusades. The periodic slaughter of European Jews usually coincided with the Crusaders leaving or returning.

Jewish moneylenders financed many of the Crusader campaigns. The pretext of Jewish responsibility for the death of Jesus was a convenient excuse to avoid repaying these loans and the general public persecuted the Jews as they came to believe the Crusader excuses. There was also the matter of the Jews in the Middle East siding with the Muslims.

From then up to the nineteenth century anti Semitism was usually based on Jewish financial practices, supposed counterfeiting or the infamous blood libel.

Eastern and to an extent middle European anti Semitism has it’s roots with the Turks who had immigrated from Mongolia and settled in Southern Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and the Ukraine forming a kingdom called Khazaria although some archaeologists believe the Turks may have been indigenous to the region. The Kharzacs had two distinct castes, the upper class who largely had blond or red hair, blue eyes and pale skin and the working class who had very dark features. It’s possible the upper class had the same roots as the Rus (Russians) who became an empire after the city of Kiev invited the Vikings (who had blond hair and fair skin) to settle and rule them. Over time these visual class differences disappeared. In the early 8th century the Arabs defeated Khazaria and converted the population to Islam but occupation was not practical and the Arabs withdrew.

In the mid 8th century Khazaria imported thousands of Rabbi’s to convert the entire population to Judaism. At first it was only the upper classes who converted but by the mid 10th century the whole of Khazaria was Jewish. This was either commercial as Khazaria was in the middle of the trade routes between Europe, Middle East and Asia and the conversion allowed trade with both Christian and Muslim ruled countries, political in order to remain neutral as it bordered both Christian and Muslim empires, it may have been an expression of their newly gained independence from Muslim rule or a combination. Interestingly the ruler of Khazaria at this time was a woman named Barsbek, bek being a title indicating responsibility for administration and the military. The Khagan who was only the spiritual head was usually regarded as the king by other empires. The two positions were merged in the 10th century during the rule of King Joseph.

Khazaria also considered itself the protector of the worlds Jews and kept in touch with the Jews in all the countries they settled in. They were known to retaliate on their behalf if any other countries Jews were persecuted. Religious tolerance was a part of life and no attempts were made to prevent other religions from converting Kharzacs but they were rarely successful. Some important Sephardic Jews from Spain are known to have immigrated to Khazaria.

Khazaria fought several wars against invading Arabs and probably prevented Arab conquests of Russia. However orthodox Russia saw Khazaria as its enemy because it was the most powerful European kingdom with the largest army and the Kharzacs were persecuted in Russia as a result.

Khazaria was invaded and defeated by Genghis Khan in the 13th century and the population spread West as refugees. They ended up settling in countries such as Germany, Hungary, Poland and Italy among others. The Kharzac Jews were only a minority among the Jews in these countries so quickly lost their identity but those who reached Spain kept their Kharzac ethnic identities for at least 200 years or more.

The Ashkenazi at the time of the defeat of Khazaria made up 3% of the worlds Jews but today comprise 80%. Zionist author Arthur Koestler published that all Ashkenazi have Kharzac ancestry. However, according to DNA studies some 40% of Ashkenazi are of Middle Eastern origin and the rest Eastern European although it is believed they are strongly influenced by Kharzac roots. Ironically many consider linking Kharzac roots with the Ashkenazi as anti Semitic because critics use it to say they are not included in God’s promise of Israel to the Jews although the Bible specifically includes converts. Unfortunately anti Zionists use the Kharzac claim for their own ends which makes it hard to investigate without being accused of anti Semitism.

Ashkenazi speak Yiddish, which is a medieval German dialect with many Turk and Hebrew words. It is hard to understand the German origin until you realise that the Turks who settled Khazaria took very few women with them so intermarried with the women from Germanic tribes to the West.
The Jews who remained in the Middle East spoke Aramaic while European groups spoke Greek.

Post WW1 German anti Semitism was based mostly on the common belief that the Rothschild banking empire and through them “international Jewry” had financed the war against Germany and were involved in the treaty of Versailles. This resentment was exploited by Hitler to divert attention from the problems facing the German people and provide someone to blame while furthering his own agenda. Of course the Holocaust is anti Semitism at it's worst that but to cover it requires a topic of it's own.

Post WW2 anti Semitism is harder to pin down. While opportunism and politics accounts for much anti Semitism there seems to be few serious cases of racially motivated anti Semitism. For example many of the attacks on Synagogues and cemeteries prevalent in the decades after WW2 have been found to have been organised by Zionist groups to encourage Jews to immigrate to “safety” in Israel.

While it is undeniable that anti Semitism is still with us, it may not be as widespread as it appears, as any criticism of Israel is considered Anti Semitic even when not racially motivated. Muslim anti Semitism is probably related to the plight of the Palestinians as the Muslims and Arabs lived in peace together until the State of Israel was created.

[Ron Goldstein]

Post WW2 anti Semitism is harder to pin down. While opportunism and politics accounts for much anti Semitism there seems to be few serious cases of racially motivated anti Semitism. For example many of the attacks on Synagogues and cemeteries prevalent in the decades after WW2 have been found to have been organised by Zionist groups to encourage Jews to immigrate to “safety” in Israel.

Dear Wayne

I have briefly waded through your seven page "history" and will certainly come back to it later for a more thorough study.
I have, at this stage anyway, just two points to raise.

1. Would you care to give chapter and verse for your claim that "many of the attacks on Synagogues and cemeteries prevalent in the decades after WW2 have been found to have been organised by Zionist groups to encourage Jews to immigrate to “safety” in Israel."

2. With respect to "While it is undeniable that anti Semitism is still with us, it may not be as widespread as it appears", are you aware of the report published by CST (Community Security Trust) in October 2006 which states that 402 separate antisemitic incidents were recorded in the first eight months of 2006?
The same CST report says " Also of concern is the fact that incidents this year have been more widespread than usual".

[Wayne]

1. Would you care to give chapter and verse for your claim that "many of the attacks on Synagogues and cemeteries prevalent in the decades after WW2 have been found to have been organised by Zionist groups to encourage Jews to immigrate to "safety" in Israel."

I'll have to check to find the sources for that and get back to you.

I came apon this when researching the Middle East. From what I remember there were a lot of such attacks in the early years of Israel, some by individuals and some by Mossad so i just "lumped" them together under "Zionist groups" due to not having the sources at hand. I used that particular term to differentiate from the general Jewish population.

2. With respect to "While it is undeniable that anti Semitism is still with us, it may not be as widespread as it appears", are you aware of the report published by CST (Community Security Trust) in October 2006 which states that 402 separate antisemitic incidents were recorded in the first eight months of 2006?
The same CST report says " Also of concern is the fact that incidents this year have been more widespread than usual".

To me anti Semitic means racial or religious motivated attacks. Please correct me if I'm wrong on this.

I read a great many newspapers and many of the claims of anti Semitism I see are not racial or religious attacks but politically motivated.
Obviously i have excluded the current situation in the Middle East as it is an ongoing conflict.

Racial and religious persecution is extremely rare in my country and I have no personal experience to compare what happens in other countries so my view may be influenced by this. Those 402 incidents although bad enough are not a great many albeit I have no idea how serious the individual attacks are. I was under the impression that such attacks were more prevalent in the past.

Please feel free to correct (or criticise) me on points I get wrong as history is a hobby for me and if I've overlooked better sources of information I'm only too happy to revise my viewpoints.

Cheers Ron

[Ron Goldstein]

Wayne

“I have no personal experience to compare what happens in other countries so my view may be influenced by this”

Consider yourself fortunate........

You might care to have a look at a photo of my wife and I taken in 2002.
http://grumpsnmoans.blogspot.com/

The occasion was our visiting a London Jewish cemetery shortly after a series of anti-Semitic attacks when many gravestones were smashed and daubed with swastikas.

You might also like to see CST’s official report on anti-Semitism for the year 2005
http://www.thecst.org.uk/

I write as a British veteran who was one of five brothers who saw service in WW2, one of whom was killed in action.

Yes… I can truly say that I have personal experience of these matters

[PeterG]

Originally Posted by Wayne

The "Holy Land" was originally occupied by the Philistines who are thought to have emigrated from Greece in around 1300BC and was called Filistria which is the name it continued to be known as until recently. The Arab name for these people was and still is Filisteens or in modern English Palestinians. Prior to 1300BC the Holy Land was occupied by mostly nomadic small tribes. By 1000BC Greece seems to have had several Jewish city states. In 961BC the Israelites, who as has been shown by DNA research share the same Greek ancestry as the Palestinians, invaded the country that they called the "Land of Canaan" and eventually conquered it.

Wayne, this is so completely wrong and confused that it really is difficult to know where to begin. First let me comment on this

The "Holy Land" was originally occupied by the Philistines who are thought to have emigrated from Greece in around 1300BC and was called Filistria which is the name it continued to be known as until recently.

The Philistines are fairly late comers to the scene. I shall explain when and whence they came in a moment, but before they appeared on the scene the land was settled by the Phoenicians (a people referred to in the Bible as Canaanites); their land extended along the east Mediterranean coast from modern Syria to south Lebanon and Galilee. The Phoenicians were divided into several city-kingdoms, fiercely independent and often at war with each other as was usually the case from mid Neolithic to the Early Iron ages. The Phoenicians are said by Herodotus to have migrated from the Persian Gulf 3,200 years before his time (he was writing in the 5th century BC). Whatever the basis of this tradition it takes the existence of the Phoenicians in the area back to the 3rd millennium BC when their presence in Lebanon is well attested archaeologically. The port of Biblos, for example, was well known in Early Dynastic Egypt. They only came into contact with the Greeks after the Persian Wars.

As to the Philistines these were a prominent tribe of what the Egyptians called the peoples of the sea (in effect organised pirates comparable, millennia later, to the Vikings and their raids on northern Europe). This was a chaotic period in the Aegean following the fall of the great civilisations of Mycenaea and Hittite Anatolia. Mervyn Popham (University of Oxford) says

The years around 1200 BC witnessed a dramatic and profound change in the political map of the east Mediterranean. In Greece the Mycenaean palaces were destroyed, while further afield the two great powers, Egypt and the Hittites, came under severe external attack which led to the rapid decline of Egyptian control and the extinction of the Hittite capital of Bogaz Kuy. Intermediate states in Syria, Palestine, and Cyprus were attacked, and destruction throughout the region was widespread and devastating. The century which followed is one of confusion: in many areas there was emigration and a regrouping of the population, with some regions being left virtually desolate: in other places we find the settlement of 'alien' peoples ...

It is in this turbulent period that we first hear of 'the peoples of the sea' and of the Philistines. It is also the period when there was a diaspora of the peoples of mainland Aegean as the Greeks, then still barbarians, poured in from the north giving rise eventually, in later ages, to the great Greek Civilisation. To call the Philistines 'Greek' is a misleading anachronistic error.

So who were the Philistines? The plain fact is that we do not know, here is how the current world's foremost experts put it

What happened? Why did the old world disappear? Scholars who have worked on this problem have been convinced that a major cause was the invasions of a mysterious and violent group named Sea Peoples, migrants who came by land and sea from the west and devastated everything that stood in their way. The Ugartic and Egyptian records of the early twelfth century BCE marauders. A text found in the ruins of the port city of Ugarit provides dramatic testimony for the situation around 1185 BCE. Sent by Ammurapi, the last king of Ugarit, to the king of Alashiya (Cyprus) it frantically describes how "enemy boats have arrived, the enemy has set fire to the cities and wrought havoc. My troops are in Hittite country, my boats in Lycia, and the country left to its own devices". Likewise a letter of the same period from the great king of Hatti to the prefect of Ugarit expresses anxiety about the presence of a group of Sea People called Shiqalaya, "who live on boats".

Ten years later it was all over in the north. Hatti, Alashiya, and Ugarit lay in ruins. But Egypt was still a formidable power, determined to make a desperate defence. The monumental inscriptions of Ramses III at the temple of Medinet Habu in Upper Egypt recount [that] "... No land could stand before their arms. ... Their confederation was the Philistines [my italics], Tjeker, Shekelesh, Denyen, and Weshesh lands united. ..."

The most striking feature of these people, vividly depicted in a relief in the mortuary temple of Pharaoh Ramses III, is that they wore horned helmets and other strange feathered headdresses and had long-boats. They were heavily defeated by Ramses III in 1194 BC. Following this defeat the remnants of the Philistines, mentioned as the chief tribe of 'the peoples of the sea', settled in the SW plain of Canaan. They are called Pelishtim in the Bible, which wrongly identifies them as of Hamitic stock (Genesis X.14). The sacred texts also wrongly places them in Canaan anachronistically in Patriarch times, i.e., in the Bronze Age.

Needless to say, there were no Philistines in Canaan in either the Middle or Late Bronze Ages. Both Egyptian texts and archaeology have proved beyond doubt that they settled on the southern coast of Palestine in the twelfth century BCE. (See 'The Bible Unearthed' by Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman, page 324

As for this:

Originally Posted by Wayne

The "Holy Land" was originally occupied by the Philistines ... and was called Filistria which is the name it continued to be known as until recently.

I have a fairly comprehensive collection of books on archaeology, pre-history, and ancient history but I can find no mention of Filistria. I have also made a Google and an Academic Resources search on the Internet, but can find no mention of it. Can you give me your source? There were eventually two kingdoms in the land known to the ancients as Canaa, in the north there was the Kingdom of Israel and in the south, centred around Jerusalem, there was the Kingdom of Judah. Modern Palestinians are of Arab ethnicity of a much later date, they are mainly Muslim, but with a minority of Christians and Druze.

You assert that

Prior to 1300BC the Holy Land was occupied by mostly nomadic small tribes. By 1000BC Greece seems to have had several Jewish city states.

This is not so, oil production and pottery, evidence of settled agricultural communities antedate 1300 BC. The Bronze Age, from the 3rd millennium BC, was characterised by fully developed urban life. In the lowlands, large cities, accommodating several thousand people developed. The material culture was that of a highly organised sedentary people. Then in late 3rd millennium this system collapsed. What followed for a few centuries possibly to the early 2nd millennium was a different culture, pastoral nomadic. But this was followed in the Middle Bronze Age (early 2nd Millennium BC) by renewed sedentary urban development.

I do not understand in your reference to 'several Jewish states' whether you mean Jewish states in the Aegean or in Canaa, but either case is wrong.

You say that

The Palestinians and Jews both lived continuously in Palestine under subsequent occupations while retaining their cultural identity to the present day.

I'm afraid this is completely anachronistic.

However, this is getting far too long so I shall continue when I have more time to consider the rest.

The following books may be of interest, first I would recommend The Bible Unearthed - Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of its Sacred Texts by Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman (The Free Press, 2001). As you will no doubt see at once, these are Jewish authors. But I would ask you not to jump to the conclusion that they must be biased. They are two of the world's foremost archaeologists. Professor Israel Finkelstein is the director of the Sonia and Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University. Professor Silberman is the director of historical interpretation for the Ename Center for Public Archaeology and Heritage presentation in Belgium. Both are internationally highly respected scholars and, judging by their books, non-practising Jews.

I would also recommend The rise and Fall of Jewish Nationalism - Jewish and Christian Ethnicity in Ancient Palestine by Professor D. Mendels (Doubleday, 1992). This covers the period 200 BC to 135 AD.

Also useful is The Oxford Illustrated Prehistory of Europe edited by Barry Cunliffe (Oxford, 1994). Barry Cunliffe is Professor of European Archaeology at the University of Oxford.

Peter

[PeterG]

Originally Posted by Wayne

Jewish occupation lasted for a few hundred years until Assyria invaded, although the Israelites retained some small city states. Babylon then invaded in 586 BC at which time the Jews were driven out although they returned and again set up several small states.

There was no Jewish 'occupation'. The people that became the Jews were indigenous to the location. Their own great sagas describe them as being held captive in Egypt and then escaping to to 'the Promised Land' and conquering it, but these are powerful myths written in the 7th century BC which form the underlying basis of the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim religions.

I am an atheist and I will not venture into religious beliefs, which I respect. However, despite what the Bible says, of the two kingdoms, the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah, all the archaeological evidence strongly indicates that the northern Kingdom of Israel was both the more powerful and the more splendid of the two. At the zenith of Israel, Jerusalem was little more than a village. The whole period and situation is best understood as a power struggle between two civilisations, the Egyptian and the Assyrian empire with Syria-Palestine caught in the middle. By the eleventh century BC the Philistines, who had previously settled along the southern coast, consolidated the power of their cities.

The Phoenicians successors of the coastal Canaanite occupied the maritime ports of the north.Both these powers (Egypt and Assyria) sought to extract tribute from the city-states and a refusal by any petty king not to pay tribute was regarded as rebellion and mercilessly punished as an example. Near the end of the tenth century BC, the pharaoh Shishak (known as Sheshonq in Egyptian inscriptions), the founder of the Egyptian Twenty-Second Dynasty, launched an aggressive raid northward. This Egyptian invasion is mentioned in the Bible, from a distinctly Judahite perspective, in a passage that offers tthe earliest correlation between external historical records and biblical texts. First we have a priestly admonition blaming what occurred on the sins of the people resulting in the wrath of the Lord

[The Kingdom of] Judah did what was evil in the sight of the LORD; they provoked him to jealousy with their sins that they committed, more than all that their ancestors had done. For they built for themselves high places, pillars, and sacred poles on every high hill and under every green tree. I Kings: 22-23

This reference to high places is a constant priestly complaint and they constantly urged their destruction. In fact, they were altars built on hilltops from time immemorial in honour of all the gods by the poor rural population. In the 4th century AD we find the same complaints being made by the Christian city priests of the Roman Empire against the ancient religious practises of the surrounding rural population, one of the derivations of the word 'pagan' from Latin paganus, meaning a rustic villager.

And then comes the 'divine' punishment

In the fifth year of King Rehobam [of Judah]. King Shishak of Egypt came up against Jerusalem; he took away the treasures of the house of the LORD and the treasures of the king's house; he took away everything. I Kings: 14 25-26

Yet now we know that Jerusalem was hardly the only or even the most important target.

A triumphal inscription commissioned by Sheshonq for the walls of the great temple of Karnak in upper Egypt lists about one-hundred fifty towns and villages devastated in the operation. They are located in the south, through the central hill country, and across the Jezeel valley and the coastal plain.

The once-great Canaanite cities of Rehov, Beth-shean, Taanach, and Megiddo are listed as targets of the Egyptian forces ... Thick layers of conflagration and collapse uncovered in these and other major sites in the north provide dramatic evidence for the sudden and total demise of this late Canaanite system in the late tenth century BCE. ... But Shishak's campaign did not result in lasting Egyptian control of Canaan. When the dust had settled, it was clear that the strike in the highlands was only glancing ... Yet the blow struck at the revived Canaanite cities ... was terminal. This had enormous implications, since the destruction of the last vestiges of the Canaanite city-state system opened a window of opportunity for the people of the northern highlands [i.e., the Kingdom of Israel]

But as the power of Egypt wained, that of Assyria grew, with catastrophic results for the northern Kingdom of Israel. In the long run the Assyrians were no longer content with tribute; and, with the accession of the aggressive Assyrian king, Shalmaneser V, they sought to take the rich land of Israel for themselves. Disaster came with Hoshea, the last king of Israel.

Hoshea proclaimed himself to be a loyal vassal and offered Shalmaneser tribute, but he secretly sought an alliance with Egypt for an open revolt. This was a desperate decision, for the kingdom of Israel had already been weakened by the incursion of Hazael, the king of Aram-Damascus in the mid-ninth century BC. He was able to push into Israel because Assyrian kings were preoccupied with disorders in other parts of their empire. Damascus may have been able to overcome Israel but it was no match for the armies of the Mesopotamian super-power of the time, and Damascus had to pay massive tribute to Assyria. The alliance with Egypt resulted in the crushing of Israel in 720 BC and the carrying off into Assyria of part of the population. Only the Kingdom of Judah now survived.

But the Assyrian empire passed away too, like all empires do, and Egypt became the beneficiary of Assyrian weakness. The retreat from their former possessions and from the former northern kingdom of Israel appears to have been peaceful.

It is even possible that Egypt and Assyria reached some sort of understanding, according to which Egypt inherited the Assyrian provinces to the west of the Euphrates in exchange for commitment to provide Assyria with military support. In any case, the five-centuries-long dream to reestablish their Canaanite empire was fulfilled. The Egyptians regained control of agricultural wealth and international routes of trade in the rich lowlands.

Yet as in the time of the great conquering pharaohs of the New Kingdom, the relative isolated inhabitants of the highlands - now organised as the Kingdom of Judah - were relatively unimportant to the Egyptians. And so, at least in the beginning, they were largely left to themselves. ... The withdrawal of the Assyrians from the northern regions of the land of Israel created a situation that must have seemed in [the kingdom of] Judahite eyes, like a long expected miracle. A century of Assyrian domination had come to an end; Egypt was interested mainly in the coast; and the wicked northern kingdom of Israel was no more. Finally it seemed possible for Judah to expand to the north, take over the territories of the vanquished northern kingdom in the highlands, centralise the Israeli cult and establish a great, Pan-Israelite state.

But instead of this the following years brought disaster. Josiah, king of Judah, started well enough, by expanding north. But in 616 BC Pharaoh Necho II headed a military expedition to help the crumbling Assyrian empire fight the Babylonians, and a fateful event occurred and Josiah's life was unexpectedly cut short. What exactly happened is not known, The Bible gives two conflicting accounts. The second book of Kings describes the event in laconic almost telegraphic terms[quote]In his days Pharaoh Neco king of Egypt went up to the king of Assyria to the river Euphrates. King Josiah went to meet him; but when king Neco met him at Megiddo, he killed him. (2 Kings 28:29). The second book of Chronicles (2 Chronicles 35: 20-24) has him dying in battle with Necho. many biblical scholars give credence to the battle story but secular scholars and archaeologists deem this far-fetched. Until 630 BC Judah was under Assyrian domination and it is inconceivable that Assyria would have allowed Judah to develop a strong enough force to challenge Egypt. Nadav Naadman has offered a different explanation. Necho would have summoned Josiah, as was customary, to renew his oath of loyalty, but for reasons we do not know, Necho had him executed.

Then there was further calamity. After the death of Josiah the great reform movement crumbled. There were four more kings of Judah, all sons of Josiah. But the Babylonian noose around Jerusalem tightened. In 597 BC the kingdom of Judah fell. This is well documented by the Babylonian chronicle:

in the seventh year, the month of Kislev, the king of Akkad mustered his troops, marched to Hatti-land, and encamped against the City of Judah and on the second day of the month of Adar he seized the city and captured the king. He appointed there a king of his own choice and taking heavy tribute brought it back into Babylon.

With the Babylonian forces rampaging through the countryside, the outlying cities of Judah fell one by one. The last act of the tragedy took place about a month later.

The archaeological finds convey only the last horrible moments of violence. Signs of a great conflagration have been traced almost everywhere within the city walls. Arrowheads found in the houses and near the northern fortifications attest to the intensity of the last battle of Jerusalem. The private houses, which were set alight and collapsed, burying all that was in them, created the charred heaps of rubble that stood as a testament to the thoroughness of Jerusalem's destruction by the Babylonians for the next century and a half.

But all the evidence indicates that even if the highest figure is taken for the Babylonian deportation, twenty thousand, it was at most barely a quarter of the total population, the remainder ...

continued their way of life much as before. Mizpah, north of Jerusalem, was one of several towns that remained. The ruins of the temple were also frequented, and some sort of cultic activity continued there. ... Intensive excavations throughout Jerusalem have shown that the city was indeed systematically destroyed by the Babylonians ... Yet there is evidence of continued occupation both to the north and to the south of Jerusalem. Some measure of self-government seems to have continued at Mizpah on the plateau of Benjamin, about eight miles to the north of Jerusalem. ... Both text and archaeology contradict the idea that between the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE Judah was in total ruin and uninhabited.

None of this had anything to do with antisemitism, of course. A concept which ancient peoples would have had difficulty in comprehending. It was normal in ancient times for an enemy to be utterly destroyed and the population enslaved.

Two books that I would mention here are An Introduction to the History of Israel and Judah and Introduction to the Old Testament, both by J. Alberto Soggin. Both these are specialist scholarly books, none-the-less they are never dull and are not all that difficult to read.

The quotes above, other than from the Bible, are from Finkelstein and Silberman, op cit.

Peter

[Wayne]

Ron:
Thanks for the links.
Last night I had a look at a few sites. The ADL site was reasonable and was the best I found but not as detailed as the one you just provided.
I pointed out that I didn't include incidents related to the current conflict and many of these are included in the annual figures. The ADL site mentions that the rate had been falling for 10 years but have only increased since the Iraq debacle. That being said the incidents are largely much worse than I expected and I'm embarrassed that supposedly civilised people can do such things. The jewish people suffered enough in WW2 without having to put up with such behaviour today. I know I was taught nothing about WW2 when I went to school but I was surrounded by people who lived it. Perhaps the school system needs to take a more active role in changing these attitudes.

When i wrote that piece I was thinking more along the lines of many of todays claims of anti Semitism being for critism of Israels political policies which I feel don't meet the definition rather than on racial/religious grounds which obviously do.

Peter:
You have given me some leads for further research. I actually didn't research Israel specifically but got my data from mentions in other works such as when I looked into the fall of Troy, Crusades etc.

Your mention of the People of the Sea (PotS) posits that the Palestinians were a leading group but I was of the belief the People of the Sea invaded Palestine, the PotS never settled any of the lands they invaded as far as I know.
These people seem to be an alliance of city states from further north. The writings of Plato and Critias point to them possibly being the city of Troy and her allies. In fact it has been suggested that the PotS attacks on Greece and Egypt might have been the reason the Greeks attacked Troy rather than because Paris stole Helen as recounted in Homer. Also the Hittites mention that the cities of Asiya, Ahiya, Assuwa and Ahhiyawa (this one may be Troy) who fit the descriptions given of the PotS were to the west of them on the coast of Anotolia.

You also say the Jews were indiginous to the middle East but DNA studies have shown that both Jews and Palestinians have the same ancestry linking back to Greece although i haven't looked into this myself.

Whatever the case may be we know little of the history of the time and there is probably room for many theories until undeniable evidence is unearthed.

Anyway the points you mention will give me something to do.

[PeterG]

Wayne

Many thanks for wading through my long replies to you. You have raised the following points:

Originally Posted by Wayne

1. Your mention of the People of the Sea (PotS) posits that the Palestinians were a leading group but I was of the belief the People of the Sea invaded Palestine, the PotS never settled any of the lands they invaded as far as I know.

2. These people seem to be an alliance of city states from further north. The writings of Plato and Critias point to them possibly being the city of Troy and her allies. In fact it has been suggested that the PotS attacks on Greece and Egypt might have been the reason the Greeks attacked Troy rather than because Paris stole Helen as recounted in Homer. ...

3. You also say the Jews were indiginous to the middle East but DNA studies have shown that both Jews and Palestinians have the same ancestry linking back to Greece although i haven't looked into this myself.

4. Whatever the case may be we know little of the history of the time and there is probably room for many theories until undeniable evidence is unearthed.

I shall try to move on swiftly. Taking your last point first:

4. The events we are discussing took place before there was any alphabetical writing, hieratic Egyptian was used around 3000 BC for administration purposes, but demotic writing which emerged from it did not develop until the 7th century BC. Thus all that has survived is archaeological evidence and the carved stone victory stele and trophies of Pharaohs and kings.

Prior to the 7th century BC all we have, for the period 4000 to 1000 BC, are the Egyptian hieroglyphs and Sumerian cuneiform dedications. During that long period there were only sagas handed down orally through the generations by priests and bards. It is possible that the Greeks adopted the primitive Phoenician alphabet as early as 1000 BC but the more likely date is the 9th century BC when Greek inscriptions begin to appear.

The Homeric sagas were committed to writing in the 8th century BC depicting events which are said to have occurred 400 years before. The legendary siege of Troy is said to have occurred from 1192 to 1183 BC, some 800 years before the speculations of Plato. The biblical texts were first written down in the 7th century BC, there were two oral traditions, that of the 'wicked' kingdom of Israel ('wicked' that is, in the eyes of the kingdom of Judah) and that of the kingdom of Judah. It was after the fall of Israel and the triumph of Judah that the two texts were merged. It is the reason we have two accounts of the Creation in Genesis, and other duplications.

All religions have myths in one form or another. Myth is a narrative literary genre and it would be easy to say that that is the opposite of history. But it would be wrong to say that myth, therefore, belongs to the world of fantasy and even more wrong to say that it belongs to the world of fable. It belongs to the world of cult. Thus the Bible is a great treasure; it is what the Jews came to believe in implicitly from the 7th century BC, what the Christians have believed from around 100 AD, and it is what much of the Koran is based on.

The Exodus from Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea, the wandering in the desert for 40 years are venerable myths. We now know however that Egypt had a permanent military presence in Canaan, that is beyond the eastern shore of the Red sea, to protect the valuable trade routes at the alleged time of the Exodus.

Point 2.The story of Troy is mythical. For the origin and settlement of the Peoples of the Sea see here Sea Peoples - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It is wrong to think of the Pharisees invading in a planned way or formed alliances. There were great migratory pressures comparable to the Barbarian invasions into the 5th century Roman Empire. They seem to have struck terror much like the Vandals and Huns did in later generations.

Point 3. It may sound paradoxical, but there were few Greeks in Greece at the time. Put less paradoxically, Greek-speakers arrived in the Peloponnese at the beginning of the period that corresponds to approximately the early Minoan III culture in Crete, i.e., around 2200 BC. Pylos was sacked and burned c.1200 BC; Mycenae itself fell around 1100 BC. There then followed three centuries of chaos, known as the Greek Dark Age with no city-states.

At the end of my last post I said this

Two books that I would mention here are An Introduction to the History of Israel and Judah and Introduction to the Old Testament, both by J. Alberto Soggin. Both these are specialist scholarly books, none-the-less they are never dull and are not all that difficult to read.

In case you are wondering how an 'introduction' can be a scholarly work, I should explain that in this sense introduction itself is a scholarly term. The term, from the Greek eisagoge, Latin introductio, was first used, as far as we know, by the Antiochene monk Hadrian, who died around 440 AD. Nowadays, it is used to denote that science which studies the biblical literature from a historical-critical perspective. It is part of the current terminology of the faculties of theology and the arts.

Peter

[PeterG]

Wayne

Some further points:

1. In 333BC Alexander the Great conquered the region and it is thought this was when some Jews were dispersed into Egypt as both refugees and slaves. A large number of Jews remained in the region. In 165BC there was a Jewish revolt and the creation of the last Jewish state that lasted until the Romans invaded 102 years later in 63BC. In 70AD the Jews were forced to leave after an unsuccessful revolt against the Romans. In 118AD the Romans allowed the Jews to return and resettle but they revolted again 15 years later and were again banished or sold into slavery.

The region fell to Alexander following the Battle of Issus in 333 BC, Darius III, the Persian emperor, was completely defeated. Darius offered to give up all Asia west of the Euphrates (this included Palestine) but Alexander demanded unconditional surrender. All Phoenicia, except Tyre, submitted after Isus and, by a difficult siege of seven months Tyre was reduced. It was Tyre he conquered, the rest of the region had already submitted peacefully. The Jewish revolt of 168-165 BC was against the Seleucid empire. The Jews achieved religious freedom in 164 and eventually succeeded in liberating Jerusalem.

The Romans didn't 'invade'. Judea was a client kingdom of Syria, which was defeated by Pompeii in 63 BC. He reorganised Syria during into four provinces, but he left the client kingdoms including Judea as clients of Rome. He took Jerusalem in 64 BC and appointed the Maccabean high-priest Hyrcanus and a civilian adviser, Antipater.

The final revolt in Judea took place from 66 to 70 AD. It resulted from misgovernment by a series of Roman procurators. When the governor of Syria failed to suppress it, Vespasian (later, Roman emperor 69-79) was sent as special legate with three legions. He slowly reduced the country, took prisoner the later pro-Roman Jewish historian Josephus, and laid siege to Jerusalem in 69. After a heroic and bitter struggle Jerusalem fell on 7 September 70 to the emperor's son Titus, commemorated on the Arch of Titus at Rome. The Temple was destroyed, the Sanhedrin (Jewish national council) and high-priesthood abolished and a legion under a senatorial legate was quartered in Jerusalem.

These were power politics and there was no anti-semitism in Rome at that time, in fact the finest account we have of these events is that by Josephus written in Rome. For the Jews, however, it was an utter tragedy. There was a further revolt in 117 which the emperor Trajan repressed with great severity.

Complete disaster came in in 132 AD (132-135) when the Jews revolted again upon the founding of a Roman colony, Aelia Capitolina, in Jerusalem and the dedication of a temple to Jupiter Capitolinus on the site of the temple. The suppression of the revolt all but depopulated Judea and thereafter Jews could enter Jerusalem but once a year. This completed the denationalisation of the Jews begun by Vespasian. Until 1919 the Jews of the Dispersion (Diaspora), scattered among other peoples.

2. Roman rule ended in 638AD when the Arab Muslims took control (Muhammad, the founder of Islam, died in 632AD). By 750AD the lands of Islam, under Arab leadership, stretched from Spain in the west across North Africa and most of the modern Middle East into Central Asia and northern India.

You say that 'Roman rule ended [in Palestine] in 638 AD'. But the Roman Empire ended on 4 September 476 AD. By 638 the Roman Empire had long been swept away and we are into the early Middle Ages. I think you must mean Byzantium, the eastern portion of the empire based on Constantinople. The Arabs took Jerusalem in 637.

3. The Muslims allowed the Jews to return and practice their religion without interference and most settled in the Southern Spanish province of Andalusia under the rule of the Moors. The Moors treated the Jewish population very well and much of the defence of Muslim Spain was left in the hands of Jewish armies. This religious tolerance was possibly driven by socio-economic reasons. This period was seen as a golden age for Jewish culture and many from the Middle East and Europe immigrated to Spain.

Things were not quite so rosy. Because of Jewish and Christian holy scriptures, both Jews and Christians were regarded as 'people of the book' and allowed to practice their religions. This in turn had the effect of preventing the prosecution of Christians regarded as heretics by their fellow Christians. But non-Muslims could only practice their religions on payment of tribute. They also had a poll tax and a property tax imposed upon them. The precise amount is not known, but is deemed to have been considerable. We know, for instance, that as early as the second 'Rightly Guided Caliphs', Caliph Umar (634-644 AD), a province in Iraq alone paid 120 million dirhams (12 million dinars) a year. There was also a vast amount taken in loot. I see little evidence of this being a golden age in Jewish culture.

Throughout history, there have been instances of Muslim persecution. Examples include the razing of the entire Jewish quarter in the Andalusian city of Granada in 1066. In North Africa, there were cases of violence against Jews in the Middle Ages, and in other Arab lands including Egypt, Syria, and Yemen. There were also cases of forced conversion. In 1148 in Al-Andalus (Muslim-held Spain) most Jews were forced to accept the Islamic faith. Their property was confiscated and many were sold into slavery. Some Jewish educational institutions were closed, and synagogues destroyed.

4. The Christian Spanish and Portuguese however considered the Jews as traitors for collaborating with the Moors. After the defeat of the Moors in 1492 the Spanish (King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella) gave the Jews the option of either immigrating to the Netherlands (then under Spanish rule), converting to Christianity or being executed. Many pretended to convert to Christianity while many also fled to other parts of the Muslim empire. ... The Spanish Jews are called Sephardic Jews that today speak a medieval Andalusian dialect with Hebrew inclusions. Anti Semitism in Western Europe probably originated as a result of this period of suppression as there is little evidence of it earlier.

Anti-Semitism was rampant in Europe long long before 1492. This is from the Wikipedia:

The trials which the Jews endured from time to time in the different kingdoms of the Christian West were only indications of the catastrophe which broke over them at the time of the Crusades. A wild, unrestrained throng, for which the crusade was only an excuse to indulge its rapacity, fell upon the peaceful Jews and sacrificed them to its fanaticism. In the First Crusade (1096) flourishing communities on the Rhine and the Danube were utterly destroyed. In the Second Crusade (1147) the Jews in France suffered especially. Philip Augustus [king of France] treated them with exceptional severity. In his days the Third Crusade took place (1188); and the preparations for it proved to be momentous for the English Jews. After unspeakable trials, Jews were banished from England in 1290; and 365 years passed before they were allowed to settle again in the British Isles (see History of the Jews in England). The Jews were also subjected to attacks by the Shepherds' Crusades of 1251 and 1320.

The rest of the article can be read here Jews in the Middle Ages - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Peter