Re: Chronology in occupation of Eretz Israel
Yanke (yanke@nytimes.com)
Fri, 20 Sep 1996 11:01:41 -0400
In T-F V2 #73, Joseph Ceaser aks for help in sorting out the
chronology of settlement of Eretz Yisrael, particularly in light of the
Palestinian claim to their homeland.
To put at least this past century in perspective, I would suggest
three items:
First, there are no "Palestinians". The term is adapted from the
old Biblical "P'lishtim", rendered as "Philistines", which via Latinization
in the time of the Roman conquest became "Palestinia". The name was
specifically intended by the Romans to replace and eradicate the
long-standing name "Judea" from the land of Israel at the same time that
they sent a majority of the Jews into exile. So for a start we're dealing
with a manufactured name and concept, a specifically anti-Jewish one at that.
Second, the latter-day Arabs who now claim to be Palestinians have
no historical cohesion or national identity. They originate from Iraq,
Egypt, Arabia, and many other Arab countries. They began arriving in what
was then the Ottoman Sultanate of Palestine in the first years of the 20th
century, attracted by the Jewish aliya that brought farming and jobs to the
region. As a British (non-Jewish) chronicler of those times wrote, "only
itinerant tribes of nomads" lived there, who moreover have "no spirit of
nationalism". (Prof. Sir William Dosson) This was written in 1888! A mere
few years later, the religious aliya gets under way (Chov'vai Tzion),
followed thereafter by the secular aliya. The Arabs discover that there is
employment to be had, and begin migrating to Palestine from all parts of the
Arab world. Ironically, the one common denominator among these Arab groups
is that the Jews provide them work.
The notion that the PLO somehow perpetuates a long-standing
nationalist movement among ethnic Palestinians is therefore absurd, because:
1) This is no ethnic entity of 'Palestinian', either culturally,
linguistically, or historically, since they only arrived in Israel about 90
years ago and originated in many disparate places.
2) There is no continuity of Arab settlement in Israel from ancient
times, and certainly no attempt at nationhood, as attested to by many
travelers over the past 200 years, both Jewish and non-Jewish.
Third, by contrast, there is an unbroken chain of Jewish settlement
in Israel since our return from the Babylonian captivity ca. 370 BCE. This
includes of course the second Temple (352 BCE - 68 CE), the authoring of the
Jerusalem Talmud (ca. 250 CE), the work of the Masoretes (8th-9th Cent.),
communities during the time of the Rishonim, as attested to first-hand by
the Ramban (Nachmanides, ca. 1250), the growth of the Safed scholarly
schools after the expulsion from Spain (1492) including Reb Yosef Karo, and
increasing settlement since then.
"For the land is Mine", says G-d, (Lev. 25:23). Apparently He has
willed that we be given the land of Israel, to live there in continuous
settlement.
Yanke Shulman