Fatah official: King David and Solomon’s Temple never existed in “Arab-Canaanite Palestine”
Op-ed by member of the Fatah Revolutionary Council, Bakr Abu-Bakr:
Headline: “When Netanyahu distorts history at the UN”
“It could be that most people didn’t notice Netanyahu’s claim, from the podium of the UN a few days ago, that Jerusalem’s history belongs to the Israelis, or Shimon Peres’ [claim] while commenting on the Iranian president’s address that what [Ahmadi]nejad said contradicts history and the bond between Israelis and what they call ‘The Land of Israel’.
Netanyahu said – and he wasn’t telling the truth – that ‘3,000 years ago King David ruled our land and its eternal capital Jerusalem’. He added that he would say this to anyone who might claim that the Jewish state has no historical roots in the region, and that it will soon disappear. He said this and kept repeating the Hebrew phrase ‘Am Yisrael chai!’ (i.e., The people of Israel lives!)
If we ignore his irritating tone, his well-known disregard of the Palestinians, his joking style, and his threats, [it seems] that his concentrating on history was part of an effort to create a fabricated history recognized by no one other than Talumdists and their followers, or those who give credence to fables that according to Jewish, and not our, archaeologists, are included in the Bible.
Let me give a more detailed report on the real truth about Jewish presence in Canaanite-Arab Palestine. If this [Jewish] presence is really ancient, why is there no scientific confirmation of their kingdoms or rule during the time of Prophets David or Solomon and their fellow [rulers] as they describe them? [The existence of] two prophet-kings is a fact we accept, as it is noted in the Quran, but archaeologists strongly disagree as to the place where, and time when, they lived. Their presence in Jerusalem or Palestine, as described in the Bible, doesn’t correspond time-wise. In addition, there are archaeologists who indicate that this kingdom was located outside Palestine, as we shall try to understand below.
The problem with Palestinian-Canaanite history in our land stems from the fact that it is contaminated by Biblical traditions (Arabic: Isra'iliyat i.e., material from Jewish sources that was included in early Islamic literature). Since Arab and Muslim historians could not account for [early] historical developments, they turned to the stories in the Bible and Talmud, and the Hebrew tradition became our tradition, and attained strange sanctity.
The famous Israeli archaeologist Israel Finkelstein, known among Jews as the top expert on antiquities, told the English language Jerusalem Post in 2011(PMW could not find the Israel Finkelstein quote in the 2011 archives of the Jerusalem Post -Ed.) that in spite of the many years of excavation on Palestinian and Jerusalem lands, Jewish archaeologists ‘found no historical or archaeological evidence that support any part of the stories that appear in the Bible, including the story of the Exodus, wandering in Sinai, or Joshua Bin Nun’s military victories in Canaan.’
As far as Solomon’s alleged Temple is concerned, the Israeli archaeologist himself confirmed that ‘there is no archaeological evidence that proves that it actually existed.’ In another conversation, he added that much of Jewish archaeological theory is “mythological and propagandistic.”
It makes sense that he would say that there is no evidence of the existence of a first Temple, since in his book The Bible Unearthed he claims that ‘there is no support for any material findings of a monumental building like that attributed to Solomon.’
When discussing the invention of an ‘ancient Israel’ and its rule in the past, famed archaeologist Keith Whitlam who authored an important book called The Invention of Ancient Israel, said that the historical description of ancient ‘Israel’ as it appears in much of the Hebrew Bible is nothing but fiction. Also, on Nov. 11, 1999 the Israeli newspaper Haaretz published what was said by Israeli archaeologist Ze’ev Herzog that ‘after seventy years of intensive digging on Palestinian land, archaeologists reached a frightening conclusion: There was absolutely nothing. Stories of the Patriarchs (i.e., Abraham, Isaac, Jacob) are no more than fables. We never went down to Egypt, we never came back from there. We didn’t conquer Palestine, and there is no hint of David’s or Solomon’s empire.’
Let’s go back to the longstanding argument between written history and stones, i.e., archaeology. The winner is not something forged by historical texts, but things that Allah allowed the stones to tell. Therefore, Netanyahu’s tradition and his claims that come hand in hand with a great deal of knowledge or terrible ignorance, or even intentional distortion, are untrue.”
Headline: “When Netanyahu distorts history at the UN”
“It could be that most people didn’t notice Netanyahu’s claim, from the podium of the UN a few days ago, that Jerusalem’s history belongs to the Israelis, or Shimon Peres’ [claim] while commenting on the Iranian president’s address that what [Ahmadi]nejad said contradicts history and the bond between Israelis and what they call ‘The Land of Israel’.
Netanyahu said – and he wasn’t telling the truth – that ‘3,000 years ago King David ruled our land and its eternal capital Jerusalem’. He added that he would say this to anyone who might claim that the Jewish state has no historical roots in the region, and that it will soon disappear. He said this and kept repeating the Hebrew phrase ‘Am Yisrael chai!’ (i.e., The people of Israel lives!)
If we ignore his irritating tone, his well-known disregard of the Palestinians, his joking style, and his threats, [it seems] that his concentrating on history was part of an effort to create a fabricated history recognized by no one other than Talumdists and their followers, or those who give credence to fables that according to Jewish, and not our, archaeologists, are included in the Bible.
Let me give a more detailed report on the real truth about Jewish presence in Canaanite-Arab Palestine. If this [Jewish] presence is really ancient, why is there no scientific confirmation of their kingdoms or rule during the time of Prophets David or Solomon and their fellow [rulers] as they describe them? [The existence of] two prophet-kings is a fact we accept, as it is noted in the Quran, but archaeologists strongly disagree as to the place where, and time when, they lived. Their presence in Jerusalem or Palestine, as described in the Bible, doesn’t correspond time-wise. In addition, there are archaeologists who indicate that this kingdom was located outside Palestine, as we shall try to understand below.
The problem with Palestinian-Canaanite history in our land stems from the fact that it is contaminated by Biblical traditions (Arabic: Isra'iliyat i.e., material from Jewish sources that was included in early Islamic literature). Since Arab and Muslim historians could not account for [early] historical developments, they turned to the stories in the Bible and Talmud, and the Hebrew tradition became our tradition, and attained strange sanctity.
The famous Israeli archaeologist Israel Finkelstein, known among Jews as the top expert on antiquities, told the English language Jerusalem Post in 2011(PMW could not find the Israel Finkelstein quote in the 2011 archives of the Jerusalem Post -Ed.) that in spite of the many years of excavation on Palestinian and Jerusalem lands, Jewish archaeologists ‘found no historical or archaeological evidence that support any part of the stories that appear in the Bible, including the story of the Exodus, wandering in Sinai, or Joshua Bin Nun’s military victories in Canaan.’
As far as Solomon’s alleged Temple is concerned, the Israeli archaeologist himself confirmed that ‘there is no archaeological evidence that proves that it actually existed.’ In another conversation, he added that much of Jewish archaeological theory is “mythological and propagandistic.”
It makes sense that he would say that there is no evidence of the existence of a first Temple, since in his book The Bible Unearthed he claims that ‘there is no support for any material findings of a monumental building like that attributed to Solomon.’
When discussing the invention of an ‘ancient Israel’ and its rule in the past, famed archaeologist Keith Whitlam who authored an important book called The Invention of Ancient Israel, said that the historical description of ancient ‘Israel’ as it appears in much of the Hebrew Bible is nothing but fiction. Also, on Nov. 11, 1999 the Israeli newspaper Haaretz published what was said by Israeli archaeologist Ze’ev Herzog that ‘after seventy years of intensive digging on Palestinian land, archaeologists reached a frightening conclusion: There was absolutely nothing. Stories of the Patriarchs (i.e., Abraham, Isaac, Jacob) are no more than fables. We never went down to Egypt, we never came back from there. We didn’t conquer Palestine, and there is no hint of David’s or Solomon’s empire.’
Let’s go back to the longstanding argument between written history and stones, i.e., archaeology. The winner is not something forged by historical texts, but things that Allah allowed the stones to tell. Therefore, Netanyahu’s tradition and his claims that come hand in hand with a great deal of knowledge or terrible ignorance, or even intentional distortion, are untrue.”