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Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Over a Millenium of Having Our Promised Land: Israel and Judea

by Nadene Goldfoot
The first king of Israel was King Saul in the 11th century BCE. He was the son of Kish of the tribe of Benjamin. King David was his successor. King Solomon was David's son. Samaria was its capital founded in 880 BCE by King Omri. There were others. We lost Judea in 135 CE to the Romans. We had had two states, and then the Romans renamed the whole area Palestine to wipe out our Jewish presence. That's 1,235 years of having our own country. No wonder we mourn every year for Jerusalem. That was a long time. The United States is only 234 years old.

In 1948 our newly reborn Israel came into being through the United Nations. It had been chopped up and we have accepted half of land that was to be Israel. After many short wars we came into land that was at one time ours anyway only to find that peace talks commencing once again are talking about taking Judea and Samaria away from us to be made into a Palestine.

There has never been a country of Palestine. It was the land that had been ours laid desolate after Romans attacked in 135 CE. They cleverly renamed it Palestine to erase our Jewish presence. Before 1948 "Palestine" was administered by Britain but made up of Jews and Arabs. The British accepted this position when the Ottoman Empire fell after WWI. Administering is not the same as having your own soverign country such as Israel is now.

In about 1938 Mimi Padrow and her husband immigrated here from Palestine. They were Palestinians, and they were Jewish from Tel Aviv. Mimi's family had a hotel there. Their son, Ben, was born here and became a professor at Portland State in Speech. He also was the editor of the Jewish Review. They were our neighbors in Ladd's Addition.

Moshe Dann of Israel in his essay, O, Palestine! points out that Palestinianism was defined first in 1964 in the PLO covenant, when Jordan occupied Judea and Samaria. They referred to it as "West Bank" to distinguish it from the East Bank of the Jordan River and when Egypt held the Gaza Strip. From there we find Arabs living there clamoring for their own state. They haven't been waiting for 2,000 years to regain a land they had once owned. it's a new idea because we are there. Dann points out that the world has bought into it, and now we find that "Palestinianism" is the greatest obstacle to peace. We're in a neighborhood that doesn't welcome us and wants us out. Arabs see the land as exclusively Arab homeland. it's a big problem.

September 2nd is the start of peace talks with Netanyahu and Abbas with many other Arab leaders invited to the meeting. Egypt's Mubarak, and Jordan's Abdullah will be there. They have signed a peace agreement with Israel. The first problem they will encounter is the recognition of the Palestinians of Israel. Without that, there can be no peace. Hamas in Gaza has said over and over that they never will. With four people just slaughtered in Hebron (Judea Samaria area near Kiryot Arba) . I see Hamas influencing events there among the Fatah people. It's going to be a sticky proposition.

Note: Joshua's conquest happened in 1320 BCE. He took over from Moses who died at the age of 120 years. Moses didn't make it into Canaan, but Joshua took over and did. Moses was the founder of the Jewish religion and father of monotheism.

 
Reference O, Palestine! by Moshe Dann http://www.americanthinker.com/ 2010/09/
Israeli Concessions-A Zero Sum Game by Victor Sharpe http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/
Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

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