The case for Israel

[danbar]

Tamerlane and others.

I agree perfectly that if this claim is honored by the world community, then all of the descendants of the European colonizers are on shaky ground, from Islas Malvinas (The Falkland Islands) to australia and New Zealand, and from Canada to Patagonia, via C. America.

But why do the Kossovars or the Serbs, depending which side one takes, the Tibetans, the Arabs in Khuzestan, Iran, the Kurds in Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran, the Hungarians in Romania, Yugoslavia and Slovakia, the Native Indians in N., S. and C. America, the Maoris in N.Z., the Aborigines in Australia, and the Jews, need to worry about it, especially when the worry is on their own expenses?

They need not to worry, first b/c it’s a very widespread phenomenon, as one can see from the above list, and so it’s of an interest that equals that of the ones affected negatively by those national aspirations, and maybe surpasses it. Second, b/c this is what they want, what they deserve by right, and what common sense and basic decency and justice calls for.

Most importantly, the colonizers descendants do not have the basis for any claim for the land on which they sit, but that of the might of arms, accompanied by deceipt or outright stealing.

So why should one who cares for justice and reparations to the disenfranchised, worry about possible destabilization of the global state of affairs? Corrected, it would only lead to stabilization and satisfaction of needs long sought for of so many.

Not one bit do I worry about what will be if such needs are addressed and satisfied.

[Lust4Life]

@danbar

.

Most importantly, the colonizers descendants do not have the basis for any claim for the land on which they sit, but that of the might of arms, accompanied by deceipt or outright stealing.

.

You can be so hurtful when you want to be,we paid for Manhatten.
And before anyone says we paid peanuts for something now worth billions,if we hadn’t of settled there would it still be worth Billions or would it have remained a marshy ,wooded island?
But yes we mostly were better fighters then the locals most places we went.

Oh I’m for Israel by the way but dont go for the “we lived there milleniums ago argument”,if a nations civilised I’m for it if it isn’t I’m not.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

@danbar

Diogenes the Cynic said:

I answer:

I admit, head held high, that I didn’t read the book. But I’m willing to bet my last dollar in an ultimate act of defiant arrogance that he is a revisionist, not so much unlike so many in the academia nowadays, days defined by “This is what I think. Don’t agree? Your problem. Now try to disprove it.”

I don’t have a problem with what you think but I accept your confession that your opionion is uninformed

Why would his book be better than those of others, so many of them, saying otherwise, and why would you choose to base your stand on his, when there are so many proponents of the opposite side?

What other books say otherwise? What are you talking about? Cite for any serious archaeologists who support the historicity of the Biblical claims refuted by Finkelstein and others. The Bible Unearthed represents some fairly mainstream conclusions and Finkelstein isn’t even as radical a miminalist as some are (he believes there was a historical David, for instance).

Really, why did you bring HIS theory? To disprove the Jewish Right of Claim, of course, which may be not of malicious intent, but just to show that this is not a justified case.

I didn’t bring Finkelstein and Silberman into the thread, I just challened you on your admittedly uninformed dismissal of it. Having said that, the book would actually support your historical case, not hurt it. The evidence that the Israelites were an indigeonous people is marginally better for any historical claim on the land than that they came in as conquerors and stole it.

I’m not saying that he is to be rejected outright, but why would you expect me to adopt a stand that is so off-beat, while the mainstream, much more propounded, is there to ponder on and to guide me also?

The Bible Unearthed IS the mainstream. Maximalism is the crackpot view.

I gave it a little thought and I decided that it is just a piece of revisionism

And you did so without any knowledge of the evidence or the state of academic opinion on the subject.

[Bryan_Ekers]

Y’know, I’m willing to bet somebody tried to wade through all this historical bushwah and decided naked force had the benefit of being much more direct and easy.

[BrainGlutton]

@danbar

is nothing else but just that, revisionist ideas and suppositions and assumptions, things that always call for gymnastics of the brain and distortions of the mind and reality that can hardly be justified, but in their own contorted logic, crowned with the author’s self-satisfaction while sticking his tongue to the mainstream and smiling broadly and foolishly at the amazed world.

So you’ve read it, have you? And you base your judgment on . . . ?

If you haven’t the time, try this: A review of its theses, applied to the history of the Israeli-Palestinian situation. Much briefer.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

@BrainGlutton

So you’ve read it, have you? And you base your judgment on . . . ?

He admitted that he hasn’t read it.

[danbar]

Diogenes, revisionism is just that, revising the mainstream, or the accepted, wisdom, so why the need to read it to decide if someone is a revisionist? I think that this is a rather fair statement. If I were to critique it, I’d need to read it, but otherwise? He is swiming against the current, so by all accounts, he’s a revisionist.
Now fact is that most everyone says there WAS a Kingdom of David and he says otherwise, frex, or that Jerusalem was there, but they say yes, but it was a tiny village, and so on.
Lack of evidence, to which they concede and bring as support, is not equal w lack of proof. This is basics in science. It surprises me that they take such a grandstand.
They themselves feel that it goes against the grain, so they engage in some apologetics to defend a stand that is, well, revisionist. This bk is NOT the mainstream , it swims against it.
BTW, did YOU read the book?

Lust4Life, your pun was nice, but you understand very well the pt I make, so… B
BTW, the Jews bought many, many parcels of land in Israel in the initial phases of the resettlement. And they didn’t buy it w beads and mirrors.

[BrainGlutton]

@danbar

Now, the Arabs are just that, Arabs, descendants of Ishma’el. Maybe they are Canaanites, maybe not, there’s not anything to support such a thesis.

They are. Although the land of Canaan/Palestine has had a very bloody history and been conquered many times, there is no record in all its history of the entire land being substantially depopulated by any event, or invaded by newcomers who substantially exterminated or displaced the native population as the white Americans did the Indians. (The Book of Joshua does recount something of the kind but it’s almost certainly a false narrative.) Rather, the invaders were eventually assimilated to the general population and bloodlines mixed. Anyone whose family has been living there 100 years almost certainly has had some ancestors living there since Old Testament times. It may be, in fact, that any given Palestinian has more Jewish blood in his veins than any given Israeli. (You don’t think King David’s subjects were pale, do you?)

[Alessan]

@BrainGlutton

They are. Although the land of Canaan/Palestine has had a very bloody history and been conquered many times, there is no record in all its history of the entire land being substantially depopulated by any event, or invaded by newcomers who substantially exterminated or displaced the native population as the white Americans did the Indians.

That’s not entirely true. The Bar Kokhcva Revolt (132-136 CE) led to the near depopulation of Judaea - the Romans counted 580,000 dead (and they were good at record keeping), the Jews counted more; many of the survivors were transported or sold into slavery. The Romans could be very, very brutal when they wanted to, and Bar Kochva had given them one of the fiercest fights they’d even seen.

The land may not have been completely depopulated, but there’s no reason to believe it didn’t lose over 90% of its inhabitants.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

@danbar

Diogenes, revisionism is just that, revising the mainstream, or the accepted, wisdom, so why the need to read it to decide if someone is a revisionist? I think that this is a rather fair statement. If I were to critique it, I’d need to read it, but otherwise? He is swiming against the current, so by all accounts, he’s a revisionist.

He’s not “revising” anything. What he says, for the most part, IS the mainstream. You say he’s “swimming against the current,” when in fact, he’s swimming WITH it. It’s the historist apologists who are out of the mainstream.

Now fact is that most everyone says there WAS a Kingdom of David and he says otherwise, frex

No, he doesn’t. Finkelstein thinks there was a King David, just that his kingdom wasn’t as big as the Bible says it is.

or that Jerusalem was there, but they say yes, but it was a tiny village, and so on.

The evidence is pretty indisputable that it was a small village at the alleged time of David.

Lack of evidence, to which they concede and bring as support, is not equal w lack of proof. This is basics in science. It surprises me that they take such a grandstand.

I don’t understand what you’re trying to argue here, but if you want to assert that a Biblical claim is true, you ar the one with the burden of proof. In many cases, the evdinec doesn’t back you up.

They themselves feel that it goes against the grain, so they engage in some apologetics to defend a stand that is, well, revisionist. This bk is NOT the mainstream , it swims against it.

Once again, you have things backwards. You do not appear to be educated as to what constitutes the “mainstream” in ANE archaeology and what does not.

BTW, did YOU read the book?

Several times, as well as their follow up, David and Solomon.

[Two_and_a_Half_Inches_of_Fun]

@Diogenes the Cynic

\

The Bible Unearthed IS the mainstream.

Is it? I thought Finklestein’s views on tenth century Jerusalem are outside the mainstream.

http://www.azure.org.il/magazine/magazine.asp?id=352

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

@Two and a Half Inches of Fun

Is it? I thought Finklestein’s views on tenth century Jerusalem are outside the mainstream.

Azure - Ideas for the Jewish Nation

You thought wrong.

ETA, you linked to a pro-Israeli, political site, not to source with any actual knowledge of the subject matter.

[danbar]

OK, let’s see. So we have a debate which is going on raging for quite a while regarding the Jewish history. How many times some theory and accepted wisodm has been refuted only to be resurected by some new facts? Again, lack of evidence is no lack of proof.
Do you really believe that someone sat down and wrote a short story about some miracles of some nomad people? Apparently you do. I do not, and I’m in good company, it seems. All comes to him who waits, and I wait. In good company.

But, all in all, I am surprised by the overall positive perception that I find here re the case for the Jewish claim for Israel.
If only to read that self-determination is a right for everyone, it was worthwhile to make the thread. Of course, it works vice-versa, too, for the Pals also, but I keep to my stand that the Jews have the receipts, while they are the occupiers knowing full well that a time will come when the Jewish Nation will come to claim its house again.
The returning Jews came to join the few that were in Israel at the time of the end of the 19th cent. This, after periods of blooming local Jewish population, fluctuating lows and highs during the 2k yrs of exile. All this time, Jews came to Israel in small and big numbers to settle and to die there and so to be buried in their sacred land.

I see no need anymore to bring the whole document that I mentioned in my initial post. I made my pt and I’m content w the reactions, in general.

It was good to talk to you, guys,

danbar
PS - I love the fresh message that Obama brings, I can see thru it all, but I’m for McCain. Conservatism uber alles, even if it’s a wee weak. Pro-life, anti immigrant-invasion of this land (though Cain did some things that infuriate me w this, but he’ll come to the fold, just you wait), conservative supreme court, defending US interests in any way possible in this post-cold-war cruel world, is music to my ears. If it beats the Islamo Fascism, chief among them Iran, I’m all for it. Oh, and of course, pro-Israel, the only true US ally, a strong and determined, dedicated one. The Brits will desert US one sec after the ratification of the EU constitution. When you vote, remember, even Hillary et Obama said that they will not bring back the kids so quickly. And voting against making English king like they did? The ultimate abomination. And how could I forget the Wright connection? Now that’s disgusting, insulting, and if one needs a reason for NOT voting for Obama, here it is.

[The_Flying_Dutchman]

@Lust4Life

You can be so hurtful when you want to be,we paid for Manhatten.

Are you Dutch ?

We paid for Manhattan, traded it the British for the natural resources of Suriname and you Americans stole it from Britain by armed robbery.

[Two_and_a_Half_Inches_of_Fun]

@Diogenes the Cynic

You thought wrong.

So the generally held view is that urbanization began in Israel in the 9th century BCE (as Finkelstein claims) and not the 10th?

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

@Two and a Half Inches of Fun

So the generally held view is that urbanization began in Israel in the 9th century BCE (as Finkelstein claims) and not the 10th?

8th Century, actually (they say some of the Davidic legend was composed in the 9th Century but the real urbanization and the so-called First Temple Period" began in the 8th century BCE.)

[Two_and_a_Half_Inches_of_Fun]

@Diogenes the Cynic

8th Century, actually (they say some of the Davidic legend was composed in the 9th Century but the real urbanization and the so-called First Temple Period" began in the 8th century BCE.)

Thanks.

[The_Flying_Dutchman]

@Tamerlane

A few, not most. Even most Mizrahi Jews came from outside the region - as late as 1900 Palestinian Jews amounted to ~ .06% of the total Jewish world population.

I have no idea how the extraneous population of Jews is relevant to this discussion. When the Irish who comprised 11% of the population of Great Britain in 1900 carved out a state of their own, the number of foreign Irish as defined by matrilineal descent (to compare apples to apples), wasn’t an argument against Irish independance.

In 1900 there were 78,000 Jews in the area now called Israel and they comprised 12% of that population.

Just to add a little weight for the justification for a Jewish state.

[Captain_Amazing]

@Diogenes the Cynic

Cite for any serious archaeologists who support the historicity of the Biblical claims refuted by Finkelstein and others.

Kenneth Kitchen? I don’t think it’s really fair to call maximalism a “crackpot view”. Velikovsky had a crackpot view. Maximalism is mainstream and has a reputable history. It’s probably wrong, but a theory can be wrong without being crackpot.

[Lust4Life]

@The Flying Dutchman

Are you Dutch ?

We paid for Manhattan, traded it the British for the natural resources of Suriname and you Americans stole it from Britain by armed robbery.

I’m a Brit AND the Yanks stole Oregon from us by stealth,oh yes we noticed.