Palestinians Deny A Jewish Past In the Land of Israel

The Palestinians continue to deny the 3500-year presence of Jews in the Land of Israel. They were especially busy doing so during the Ramadan that was recently concluded. More on their campaign to deny the Jews their history can be found here: “Top PA officials deny Jewish history,” by Itamar Marcus, Palestinian Media Watch,  April 10, 2023:

Central to the Palestinian false narrative is its constant denial of Jewish history in the Land of Israel, despite the abundance of archeological evidence, including Hebrew coins and ancient texts that confirm Israel’s history.

The rejection of any and all Jewish history in Israel is reinforced repeatedly by top PA officials.  Many statements made by top PA officials and institutions right before the Islamic month of Ramadan, were intended to add fuel to the PA’s ever-burning incitement that the Al-Aqsa Mosque and all its plazas are “purely Islamic” and “belong only to Muslims,” and are in danger of defilement and destruction by Jews.

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The Palestinian Arabs are determined to deny everything that links Jews to the Land of Israel. They ignore evidence of the extensive finds in thousands of archeological digs, all over Israel, carried out by Jews and non-Jews alike. There are 2000 archeological sites in Jerusalem alone, and 20,000 such sites across Israel. Archeologists have unearthed Jewish artifacts of every kind: pottery and pottery shards, oil lamps, menorahs, coins, utensils, knives, plates, keys for doors, tools, textiles, and official seals. None of that matters to the history-denying, or history-appropriating, Palestinians, determined to ignore or deny or efface any hint or mention of the Jewish presence in the land.

Israeli archeologists have lovingly studied, and preserved for exhibition in the Shrine of the Book at Israel Museum, the Dead Sea Scrolls, dating from the 3rd century B.C. to the first century A.D., the first scrolls having been discovered by a Bedouin in one of the Qumran Caves in 1947. Many more fragments of such scrolls have subsequently been discovered in the Qumran Caves; by now there are tens of thousands of such fragments, written in three different languages: Hebrew (including some texts in Paleo-Hebrew), Aramaic, and Greek. All of these fragments are more mute testimony to the Jewish presence in the land. They mean nothing to the Palestinians, who ignore them. They ignore, too, the artifacts belonging to the Jewish warriors at Masada, including the swords with which they are believed to have killed themselves, rather than be taken by the Roman soldiers who had besieged them for many months, and were about to arrive on the high plateau.

The Palestinians deny the significance of the fifteen letters discovered in 1960 at what became known as the Cave of Letters, in the Judean desert. These letters between Bar-Kochba, the leader of a revolt against the Romans, and his subordinates, were written in Hebrew and Aramaic, with two in Greek. As with the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Palestinians ignore these finds, and hope to convince the world to ignore them as well.

Then there are the 150,000 Jewish graves, most marked by tombstones with Hebrew inscriptions, to be found at the Mount of Olives cemetery, which has been in continuous use since 3000 B.C. It’s hard ignore or hide 150,000 Jewish graves with Hebrew inscriptions, but the Palestinians have proven equal to the task. The Jordanians have dealt with that Jewish cemetery in a different way. Between 1949 and 1967, the Jordanians uprooted 30,000 Jewish tombstones; some they ground up for gravel to be used at building sites, and others they used to line the floors of Jordanian army latrines.

What of all the ancient synagogues that have been unearthed in Israel? Not a word about them from the Palestinians. In July 2012, a monumental synagogue building dating to the Late Roman period (ca. 4th-5th centuries C.E.) was discovered in archaeological excavations at Huqoq in Israel’s Galilee. During continued excavations, well-preserved mosaics featuring biblical scenes, elephants, donkeys and the Biblical character Samson were exposed at the synagogue. Indeed, that synagogue was spectacular for its size and mosaics, but there are hundreds of ancient synagogues, some equally spectacular, dating back to both the First and Second Temple periods, have been found and unearthed, and lovingly studied, in Israel. But this is Jewish history. For the Muslim Arabs, none of it counts. None of it really happened. If they refuse to believe such sites exist, it’s because they know that they, the Palestinians, are the only legitimate claimants to this land “from the river to the sea.” All other stories about “a Jewish presence” in that same area are a Zionist fabrication. The rejection of any and all Jewish history in Israel is reinforced repeatedly by top Palestinian Authority (PA) officials.