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Isreal: no ancient right to Jerusalem?

headscratcher4

Philosopher
headscratcher4
Joined
Apr 14, 2002
Messages
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There was an interesting article in today’s NYTimes about an archeological dig in East Jerusalem. It was interesting from an archeological standpoint because it was exploring the foundations of a presumed public building at a place where none had heretofore been found, and dated to the Davidic period. It was also interesting because the cite has added some fuel to the mid-east conflict because the dig has been funded by a rich American supporter of Israel and a right-wing religious foundation interested in staking historical claims to East Jerusalem by showing that there was a Jewish Kingdom/Empire centered there in biblical times.

Interesting, historically, but my question is so what?

Many ancient cities were founded by cultures and civilizations that no longer control that city or area, what does its past have to do with its future?

Are today’s Israelis the same people who lived there three thousand years ago? Do they practice the same religion, or merely a variant on it, and in discussions about the future of Israel and the Middle East, so what? If you take the bible out of it --- which you must – what is the claim? What has it to do with the people who live there today, both Israeli and Arab?

Do Greeks have a claim on Syracuse and Izmir because they were cities founded by Greeks? Should Germans get East Prussia back? What about American Indians and New York City? Or doesn’t the tide of history revise all claims? Isn’t the fact of occupation and war-victory sufficient on its own?

I guess what I am wondering is this: whatever claims Israel wants to make on Jerusalem as a capital must be based on security and right of modern conquest, rather than based on some obscure claim about the right descending from peoples who lived in that place three thousand years ago.

Thoughts?
 
Personally, I don't think it really matters.

Israel/Palestine/Canaan is the homeland of the Jewish people.
It is also the homeland of the Palestinian people.
It is also the homeland of Christianity.

I don't see why people see it so necessary to try and "debunk" one or another group's claims to the land. The fact that Palestine--and Jerusalen--is holy to several different peoples is hardly disputable.
 
headscratcher4 said:

whatever claims Israel wants to make on Jerusalem as a capital must be based on security and right of modern conquest, rather than based on some obscure claim about the right descending from peoples who lived in that place three thousand years ago.
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Well duh.
 
In most other situations an ancient historic link by a people to a piece of land is such a ridiculous justification for colonization of a land already occupied that it is never even brought up. If the Bretons of France start claiming land in the Wales and setting up colonies can we expect the UK government to wish them well?

The difference here seems to be that part of the Jewish culture involved the veneration of ancient stories that took place in Israel. That fact coupled with the mistreatment of Jews in Europe and European ideas about the morality of colonization led to the Zionist idea.

My suspicion is that the Paslestinians that lived in the area before the influx of European Jews were more closely related to the Jews of biblical times than the European Jews who immigrated as part of the Zionist movement. Assuming this is true what does that say about the morality of justifying the Zionist movement based on ancient ancestry?
 
davefoc said:
In most other situations an ancient historic link by a people to a piece of land is such a ridiculous justification for colonization of a land already occupied that it is never even brought up. If the Bretons of France start claiming land in the Wales and setting up colonies can we expect the UK government to wish them well?

The difference here seems to be that part of the Jewish culture involved the veneration of ancient stories that took place in Israel. That fact coupled with the mistreatment of Jews in Europe and European ideas about the morality of colonization led to the Zionist idea.

My suspicion is that the Paslestinians that lived in the area before the influx of European Jews were more closely related to the Jews of biblical times than the European Jews who immigrated as part of the Zionist movement. Assuming this is true what does that say about the morality of justifying the Zionist movement based on ancient ancestry?
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I also think that Bretons, to use your example, would not be basing their claim to their ancient lands on an alleged "gift" of god...I guess my point is that by bringing god into it , it screws up the ability to deal with the real situation on the ground..."the land is ours not so much because we are here and took it by force (arguably legitimately as part of a war where Israel was the attacked party) but because god gave it to us thousands of years ago and it is a gift that can not be revoked...."

If it is a gift from god, it seems to me there can be little accomodation other than there is no way to settle the situation...other than to approve of expelling people who have lived there for hundreds if not over a thousand years. In short, let's take god out of the equation...
 
Great question. I grew up thinking America was the new Jerusalem and I bought into all of that Manifest Destiny crap.

I think a sense of national purpose is very powerful. The notion that the Jews inhabited this land from way back is significant to that purpose and seems to be the secular side of the equation.

The fact is that historically conquest is all that mattered. War is but the blender and relocator of nations and peoples. If it were not so then I'm afraid America would have to give America back to the people who where here when Columbus landed.
 
RandFan said:
Great question. I grew up thinking America was the new Jerusalem and I bought into all of that Manifest Destiny crap.

I think a sense of national purpose is very powerful. The notion that the Jews inhabited this land from way back is significant to that purpose and seems to be the secular side of the equation.

The fact is that historically conquest is all that mattered. War is but the blender and relocator of nations and peoples. If it were not so then I'm afraid America would have to give America back to the people who where here when Columbus landed.
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As a student of American Indian history and culture, these questions always interest me.

One major distinction in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as has been pointed out, is that the claim to the the original claim to the land is based on a promise from God. The extremists on both sides use this to justify a policy that either does not allow the others existence on the land or marginalizes their existence.

Personally, in recent years, I have become convinced that neither culture can have shared use of the land and removing Palestinians Jordan or Jews to Europe (or whereever), is not a viable solution. Therefore, partition seems like the only solution for a while until the extremists are a smaller percent of the population on both sides.
 
headscratcher4 said:
In short, let's take god out of the equation...
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Who put god into the equation? Did the archeological dig that is the basis of this thread involve the digging up of some parchment document that has god's signature on it?
 
One of the objectives of the foundation funding the dig is to prove the accuracy of biblical accounts of ancient Israel. The theory being, I believe, that if the bible is an accurate historical document in so far as the fact of history, than the biblical assertion by religious jews that Jerusalem and the land of Isreal is a gift from god (or part of the Jewish people's covenant with god) must also be accurate.

The historical debate revolves around the question of the status of Jerusalem at the time the dig is investigating. Some archeologists have argued that the Bible is over-blown and that the Davidic kingdom, to the extent it reflects a real state, was much smaller and more animistic than one finds in the bible. The more religiously minded, apparently, believe that the Davidic kingdom was more of a regional power/empire as portrayed in the bible -- and that reflected its favor with god.

The dig involves the foundation of a rather large (by the period) "public" building. It is asserted that it is a palace of the Davidic era, and that its size, etc. indicates a more "imperial" Israel as opposed to a small desert kingdom. A larger, more imperial historic ancient Israel, ergo, is in keeping with biblical accounts of the period, ergo, god gave the land to Isreal 9see the bible), ergo modern Israel as a successor state has a god-given right to the entire land of historic Israel (so, I assume, the logic goes).

Take god out of the equation, the fact of Israel's modern existence, that it was attacked in the 67' war and took East Jerusalem as part of its counter-offensive against the attack should, historically, be sufficient for a claim of ownership....god, isn't any more necessary to the claim of spoils of war, if you will, than Russians holding on to German art treasures and re-drawing the map of Poleland.

However, it seems to me, that when you bring god into it...and it always seems to be that way in the Middle East...than you lose the ability to negotiate and resolve outstanding issues. How do you back down and give away something god has given you without being damned?
 
Jerusalem was founded by the Jebusites, who were conquered by the ancient Hebrews in the time of Joshua. By David's time, the Jebusites had been wiped out and their city named the new Hebrew capital.

The problem with history is that there's always something that happened previously. You could make a case for an ancient claim to Jerusalem, just as someone else could point out that such claim is based on conquest and genocide. It's best to leave the past buried when it comes to modern politics, and concentrate on today's issues rather than conduct a post mortem. If history teaches anything, it's that nobody has completely clean hands.
 
An interesting development.
Biblical Pool Uncovered in Jerusalem - August 9, 2005 - Los Angeles Times

Workers repairing a sewage pipe in the Old City of Jerusalem have discovered the biblical Pool of Siloam, a freshwater reservoir that was a major gathering place for ancient Jews making religious pilgrimages to the city and the reputed site where Jesus cured a man blind from birth, according to the Gospel of John.

Religious law required ancient Jews to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem at least once a year, said archeologist Ronny Reich of the University of Haifa, who excavated the pool. "Jesus was just another pilgrim coming to Jerusalem," he said. "It would be natural to find him there."

When ancient workmen were plastering the steps before facing them with stones, they either accidentally or deliberately buried four coins in the plaster. All four are coins of Alexander Jannaeus, a Jewish king who ruled Jerusalem from 103 to 76 BC. That provides the earliest date at which the pool could have been constructed.
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RandFan said:
Great question. I grew up thinking America was the new Jerusalem and I bought into all of that Manifest Destiny crap.

I think a sense of national purpose is very powerful. The notion that the Jews inhabited this land from way back is significant to that purpose and seems to be the secular side of the equation.

The fact is that historically conquest is all that mattered. War is but the blender and relocator of nations and peoples. If it were not so then I'm afraid America would have to give America back to the people who where here when Columbus landed.
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What to do when you find you've displaced people in your history, but relatively innocent people live there now? Unfortunately I worry that to say "oh well, other people live there now" encourages land-grabbing. "Here, let me eat this cookie while we fight over how to divide it."
 
gnome said:
What to do when you find you've displaced people in your history, but relatively innocent people live there now? Unfortunately I worry that to say "oh well, other people live there now" encourages land-grabbing. "Here, let me eat this cookie while we fight over how to divide it."
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I think you create a great many ethical dilemmas when you confuse the rights of an individual with the rights of an ethnic group.

For example, if you believe that white people had less right to live on the American continents than the natives who were the descendents of the first people who moved there 40,000 years previously, then you’re adopting a fundamentally racist point of view that wouldn’t fly if you wanted to apply it in, for example, France or Germany.

As the world population grows larger and technology requires greater cooperation amongst different peoples, we’re going to find that we can no longer respect genetic differences as valid reasons to maintain separate identities and that cooperation and mutual respect will be required from all.
 
Are today’s Israelis the same people who lived there three thousand years ago?
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If you mean the Israeli Jews, the answer is yes... the Jewish religion is essentially unchanged by ritual and belief since the times of the Bible. You say -- discard the Bible as a basis for claim to the land? Impossible. You would have better luck saying the moon must be made to disappear.
Each Torah scroll extant today is an exact duplicate of all that came before, as written by special scribes who have to insure their handwritten efforts are precise to the letter. "To the LETTER" is not an overstatement.
A single mistake is sufficient to void an entire section and it must be buried in a Geniza and another started anew. This Torah is the basis for Judaism, and that is not something which only the 'fanatics' believe in.

All four are coins of Alexander Jannaeus, a Jewish king who ruled Jerusalem from 103 to 76 BC. That provides the earliest date at which the pool could have been constructed.
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I sure hope the coins didn't have the date inscribed "BC"
 
quote:
Originally posted by webfusion
If you mean the Israeli Jews, the answer is yes... the Jewish religion is essentially unchanged by ritual and belief since the times of the Bible..


I'm not quite sure what you mean by this. I was under the impression that Judaism underwent some pretty big changes around the 0 BC and of course the old testament dates to around 600 BC. I am under the impression that there is little evidence as to the nature of Judaism 400 years earlier unless you believe that the oral traditions accurately passed down the bible to the time when it began to be written down.

As to the question as to whether today's Israelis are the same people who lived there 3000 years ago my guess would be that the Palestinians are more closely related to these folks than most of the Israeli Jews who .have a lot of European genes floating around in them. It seems that those who use ancient history to justify the setting up of a Jewish state have decided that the ancestors of those biblical Jews who converted to Islam or Christianity lost some of their rights to that land.

To some degree this reminds me of the situation when the Jews who were returning from Babylon gave the Jews who had stayed a hard time.
 
under the sea

A_U_P suggests an exploration of California in two thousand years hence --- I think you'll need some serious underwater diving gear for that.

martires-liftingx.jpg
 
Roman conquest

I was under the impression that Judaism underwent some pretty big changes around the 0 BC
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Yep.
Some changes.
A jew went up to Golgotha dragging his own cross.
Seige of Masada.
Destruction of the Temple.

This coming weekend Jews recall events of that time:
Tishe b'Av

  • On August 13-14 we will be observing Tishe B'Av, the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av. This annual day of mourning recalls the destruction of both the First and Second Temple in Jerusalem both of which occurred on the 9th day of Av many centuries apart from each other (586 BCE and 70 CE). On this very same Hebrew calendar date the Crusades of Pope Urban II began in 1095, King Edward I signed a document compelling all Jews to leave England in 1290, King Ferdinand of Spain forced all Jews to leave his country in 1492 and World War I began in 1914 - all these events took place on Tishe B'Av.

    It is traditional for Jews to fast and read the biblical book of Lamentations on Tishe B'Av. This is to recall the suffering of the Jewish people at the hands of anti-Semites who hate Jews for who they are; not just what they might have done or not done.
 
webfusion,
Thank you for your response. My comment was based on a misunderstanding by me. I thought the changes were greater than they apparently were to the practice of Judaism at this time. Apparently, at least based on some limited reading, modern Judaism still follows traditions established by the Pharisees and the only change in line with what I was thinking was the removal of the Temple as a necessary element of worship after its destruction.

I didn't realize that there was a tradition that the first and second temples were destroyed on the same day in the Jewish calendar. Do you think that this tradition is probably true?

Apparently some scholars believe that Judaism did become monotheistic sometime in the sixth or seventh century BC. Based on this, your statement that Judaism remains basically unchanged since biblical times would be right if . biblical times refers to the time when the bilble was written down. But if biblical times refers davidic or earlier times then it seems it might not be quite right.
 
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