Denying the Jewish Past

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Jerusalem as the center of the map of the world

No one can realistically be expected to know everything about the Palestinian Arab/Israeli conflict, yet there are recurring canards that one should be prepared to address with some level of knowledge.

In order to delegitimize the Jewish state, Arabs often deny the Jewish historical connection to the land, especially the city of Jerusalem.

Denying the Historical Connection of Jews to the Land of Israel

One example involves Dennis Ross, the chief US Middle East peace negotiator from 1988 to 2001. In his book The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East, Ross relates how Yasser Arafat, former chairman of the (Palestinian Authority) PA, claimed that in all the archeological excavations conducted during 34 years near the Western Wall, they “found not a single stone that the Temple of Solomon was there, because historically the Temple was not in Palestine [at all]. They found only remnants of a shrine of the Roman Herod.”

At the 2000 Camp David summit, Yasser Arafat alleged that “Solomon’s Temple was not in Jerusalem, but Nablus.” Ross understood that in making this outrageous charge, Arafat “was challenging the core of Jewish faith, and seeking to deny Israel any claim in the old City.” This absurd assertion and Arafat’s history of incitement and involvement in the murder of Israelis should have signaled that the US was once again being duped and played as a fool. Yet Ross and President Bill Clinton ignored Arafat’s rantings, because an agreement was their ultimate goal.

According to Yael Yehoshua writing in MEMRI, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), Arafat’s successor, also impugns Israel’s “claim that 2000 years ago they had a temple. I challenge that this is so.”

Itamar Marcus, founder and director of Palestinian Media Watch, quotes Dr. Hassan Khader, founder of the Al Quds Encyclopedia on PA TV, who claimed, “The first connection of the Jews to this site [the Western Wall] began in the 16th Century…The Jewish connection to this site is a recent connection, not ancient…like the roots of the Islamic connection…The Jewish connection to this site is a fabricated connection, a coincidental connection.”

The Jerusalem Post reported that Sheik Raed Salah, who directs the northern faction of the Islamic Movement in Israel, also denied the Temple ever existed, insisting that, “the claims of the Jews are big lies, and they have no right to any speck of dust here.”

 In addition, some members of the Arab academic community have gone so far as to deny Israel’s legitimacy by portraying the Jewish state as a product of colonialism and that Jews have a tenuous claim to the land at best.

Employing Archeology

Among those espousing of this view is Nadia Abu El-Haj, a professor of anthropology at Barnard College. She argues that Israeli archeologists use their profession to prove Israel’s right to establish a Jewish national homeland in a land where Jews never lived.

 In her book Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society, she contends that “There never was an actual metropole [mother city] for Jewish settlers in Palestine…the projects of settlement and of nation-building developed at one and the same time on a single colonial terrain.” In the process, the Israelis have “erased other geographies. Most centrally, it effaced Arab/Palestinian claims to and presences within the very same place.”

Establishing the Historic Jewish Presence

William G. Dever, an American archaeologist and biblical scholar, said archeologists have been using the evidence found in archeological excavations as an additional method to authenticate Israel’s claim to a Jewish presence in the land from the time of Joshua bin-Nun (1354 BCE-1244 BCE) to the Arab conquest in the 7th century .

The archeological evidence is significant.

Samaria

The Armstrong Institute of Biblical Archaeology (Aiba) describes the extensive excavations of Samaria by Harvard University, the British Academy, the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem, the Palestine Exploration Fund and The Hebrew University.

Samaria, founded by the Israelite king Omri during the mid-to-late ninth century BCE, served as Israel’s capital for roughly 200 years. Writing in Aiba, Seth Malone said, “Understanding ancient Samaria is crucial to understanding biblical history. As the capital of the north, Samaria was more than just a city, it was a symbol for the kingdom of Israel.”

Excavations, which began more than a 100 years ago, indicate proof of significant infrastructure, sophisticated fortifications, and royal palaces. Malone concludes that “The archaeological findings at Samaria paint a detailed picture of what the ancient city was like, highlighting the luxurious lifestyle of the monarchs and the cosmopolitan nature of its society.”

The centrality of Jerusalem

Attempts to deny the Jewish connection to Jerusalem are part of this unrelenting war against Israel.

 Shalom Paul, a professor of Bible at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and chair of the Dead Sea Scrolls Foundation, and Dever said that beginning in 2004, Israeli archeologists examined the ruins the Waqf deposited in the Kidron Valley, Slightly northeast of the Old City of Jerusalem. Among the rubble, they found remnants from the late period of the kings of Judea (8th and 7th centuries BCE) including a seal of impression in ancient Hebrew script of the last days of the First Temple.

In an article in Abia, Christopher Eames reports on an excavation where coinage produced by the Jewish people in rebellion against Roman rule was found at the City of David National Park’s sifting project. “Nothing says ‘revolt’ and ‘self-determination’ like the creation of one’s own coins,” he said. .At times, the Roman coinage “was decorated with religious Jewish symbols and ancient Hebrew script, the type used.”

He adds that “one coin is labeled ‘Year Two’ (of the Revolt)—unsurprising, as most of the Revolt coins found are from this year (67–68 C.E).” But this one is different.

“This is a rare find,” said Dr. Robert Kool, head of the Israel Antiquities Authority’s coin department. “Out of many thousands of coins discovered to date in archeological excavations, only about 30 coins are made of silver, from the period of the Great Revolt (66–70 C.E.).”

Kool explained that “since the temple was the prime treasury of silver in Israel, we can say with caution that this coin is, apparently, one of the only items we hold today that originated on the temple itself.”

One side of the coin displays the image of a cup and the ancient Hebrew text “Israel Shekel, Year Two;” the other face has the words “Holy Jerusalem” and a depiction of pomegranates. (Other revolt coins typically read “For the Freedom of Zion;” Year Four coins, in a sign of desperation due to the besieged capital, read “For the Redemption of Zion.”)

Palestinian Media Watch founder Itamar Marcus says the main target of denying the Jewish people’s connection to Jerusalem is supposedly the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which Israel allegedly schemes to demolish to build the Jewish Temple. Palestinian Authority political and religious leaders, officials and academics refer to the Temple as Al-Haikal Al-Maz’oom, the “alleged Temple.”

The question of the centrality of Jerusalem to the Jewish people is irrefutable from many sources. Historian Rivkah Duker Fishman examined the works of Greek and Roman authors of classical antiquity from nearly 20 diverse sources dating from the third century BCE to the third century CE, roughly six centuries.

Fishman found that the authors of these historic works unanimously agreed that Jerusalem was Jewish since it was “founded by Jews, its inhabitants were Jews and that the Temple, located in Jerusalem, was the center of the Jewish religion.”

Even though some of these authors like Manetho, Apion, Tacitus and Juvenal held clearly negative views about Jews and Judaism, they were completely in accord about the Jewish identity of Jerusalem.

After its destruction in 70 CE, the memory of the Temple persisted in the retrospective histories by Tacitus and by Cassius Dio.”

 Archeology in Perspective

Shalom Paul and William G. Dever place the role of archeology in perspective. They assert that it is essential to understand that the connection between archeology and the Bible is frequently misconstrued. “The most dangerous error” is to assume that the role of archeology is “to prove the Bible.”

 Faith in the Bible is founded on history, but fundamentally “biblical faith is beyond history: it is a way of viewing the result of God’s action in history which interprets events through the ‘eyes of the faith.’” With regard to the Land of Israel, the Bible’s “claim is not that Israel took the Land, but that God gave the Land to Israel.”

This declaration is not open for investigation since this is a matter of faith which archeology cannot prove or disprove. Archeology increases our ability to study the Bible in the context of contemporaneous events, and becomes a valuable tool to understand the life of the Jews who lived in the land of Israel.

Inadvertently Acknowledging Jewish Connection

Even when the Palestinian Arabs unintentionally concede the Jewish connection to the Land of Israel, this contradiction is hardly, if ever, exposed in the media declares Itamar Marcus. When a Judean Shekel coin from the year 66 CE, the first year of the Jewish rebellion against Rome, for example, was sold in auction in March 2012, the PA daily claimed the Hebrew coin to be an “ancient Palestinian coin” and part of the “Palestinian cultural tradition.” As a result, the PA  categorically admitted the Jewish people’s historical presence in the land of Israel by citing the Jewish revolt against the Romans.