Almost Heaven
Well-Known Member
by Lawrence A. Franklin
September 26, 2019 at 4:00 am
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14909/jerusalem-jewish-history
As has been true with previous archaeological discoveries in Israel, however, this one is unlikely to put a dent in the long-term international campaign to delegitimize the Jewish state by rewriting and distorting its history, even by renaming the Jewish sites Rachel's Tomb near Bethlehem to "Bilal ibn Rabah mosque" (it was never a mosque) and Hebron's Tomb of the Patriarchs the Ibrahimi Mosque.
This international campaign of delegitimization, moreover, far predates the establishment of the modern Jewish state.
The ancient Romans tried to strip the area of it Jewish identity to make it more Roman by renaming Judea "Syria Palaestina."
Later, Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan, the fifth caliph of the Umayyad dynasty of Syria -- who ruled during the late 7th century -- employed the tactic of delegitimizing both Judaism and Christianity by constructing the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, atop the biblical spot where Abraham was prepared to sacrifice his son, Isaac -- also the site of the twice-destroyed Jewish Temples. The famous Western Wall, a retaining structure of the Temple Mount, is all that remains of their existence.
In contemporary times, a version of this tactic of revisionist history was attempted by the late PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, who -- during the US-brokered Palestinian-Israeli peace talks at Camp David in 2000 -- tried to assert that the first and second Jewish temples were not erected in Jerusalem, but rather miles away in Nablus.
That episode followed a staggering report, three years earlier, by the Palestinian Ministry of Information, according to which no archaeological excavations in Jerusalem had supposedly ever unearthed Jewish artifacts.
According to extensive research by Palestinian Media Watch, however:
Nonetheless, extensive documentation from antiquity and countless archaeological finds continue to confirm both Judaism's ties to Jerusalem and the Jewish people's millennia-old presence in the land of Israel.
Foremost among the findings that provide proof of ancient writings about the Jews and Jerusalem -- apart from the Bible, much of which is magnificently displayed by the new excavation of the City of David – are the written histories by Josephus Flavius (37-100 AD), The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides, and the famous Dead Sea Scrolls. There are also extraordinary excavations by the Israeli archaeologist Dr. Eilat Mazor, who in 2012 unearthed a Solomon-era wall and other related sites. This followed and preceded many other discoveries, such as a wide street filled remnants of shops and tunnels, as noted in the New Testament, that runs near the Western Wall.
Where Palestinian propaganda is concerned, however, none of the above appears to matter. During the very week in early September that the City of David Foundation revealed the ancient Hebrew seal found near the Western Wall, Dr. Ghassan Weshah, the head of the History and Archaeology Department at the Islamic University of Gaza, told the Gaza news service Felesteen:
September 26, 2019 at 4:00 am
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14909/jerusalem-jewish-history
As has been true with previous archaeological discoveries in Israel, however, this one is unlikely to put a dent in the long-term international campaign to delegitimize the Jewish state by rewriting and distorting its history, even by renaming the Jewish sites Rachel's Tomb near Bethlehem to "Bilal ibn Rabah mosque" (it was never a mosque) and Hebron's Tomb of the Patriarchs the Ibrahimi Mosque.
This international campaign of delegitimization, moreover, far predates the establishment of the modern Jewish state.
The ancient Romans tried to strip the area of it Jewish identity to make it more Roman by renaming Judea "Syria Palaestina."
Later, Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan, the fifth caliph of the Umayyad dynasty of Syria -- who ruled during the late 7th century -- employed the tactic of delegitimizing both Judaism and Christianity by constructing the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, atop the biblical spot where Abraham was prepared to sacrifice his son, Isaac -- also the site of the twice-destroyed Jewish Temples. The famous Western Wall, a retaining structure of the Temple Mount, is all that remains of their existence.
In contemporary times, a version of this tactic of revisionist history was attempted by the late PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, who -- during the US-brokered Palestinian-Israeli peace talks at Camp David in 2000 -- tried to assert that the first and second Jewish temples were not erected in Jerusalem, but rather miles away in Nablus.
That episode followed a staggering report, three years earlier, by the Palestinian Ministry of Information, according to which no archaeological excavations in Jerusalem had supposedly ever unearthed Jewish artifacts.
According to extensive research by Palestinian Media Watch, however:
The cumulative effect of this concerted effort has been both counter-factual and unfortunate. Already in 2006, the World Heritage Site Committee of the United Nations Economic, Social, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) passed a resolution referring to the Temple Mount -- the holiest site in Judaism -- solely by its Arabic, Islamic name, al-Haram al-Sharif.
Nonetheless, extensive documentation from antiquity and countless archaeological finds continue to confirm both Judaism's ties to Jerusalem and the Jewish people's millennia-old presence in the land of Israel.
Foremost among the findings that provide proof of ancient writings about the Jews and Jerusalem -- apart from the Bible, much of which is magnificently displayed by the new excavation of the City of David – are the written histories by Josephus Flavius (37-100 AD), The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides, and the famous Dead Sea Scrolls. There are also extraordinary excavations by the Israeli archaeologist Dr. Eilat Mazor, who in 2012 unearthed a Solomon-era wall and other related sites. This followed and preceded many other discoveries, such as a wide street filled remnants of shops and tunnels, as noted in the New Testament, that runs near the Western Wall.
Where Palestinian propaganda is concerned, however, none of the above appears to matter. During the very week in early September that the City of David Foundation revealed the ancient Hebrew seal found near the Western Wall, Dr. Ghassan Weshah, the head of the History and Archaeology Department at the Islamic University of Gaza, told the Gaza news service Felesteen:
If statements such as Weshah's were not taken seriously by members of the international community, they would be dismissed as the propaganda tools they are by the reams of irrefutable scientific evidence to the contrary. It is thus incumbent on all honest academics to be vigilant and determined about setting the record straight.
