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[kattey]

How long have the Palestinians occupied this neighborhood?  A painting from 1839 shows no building outside the walls of the Old City.  There are Jewish tombs underneath this land, some of which may be thousands of years old.  I'm sure the Palestinians didn't know this when they built their houses.  What is historic about this neighborhood to the Muslims?  The tombs beneath make it historic to the Jews.

Because of the never-ending war and the inability of Palestinian leaders to make peace, I think the people of Silwan should relocate.  Simply put, if anyone can't live peacefully with the Jews they should move.

This land was made holy by God and the Jews who founded it.  God gave a huge amount of land to the descendents of Hagar and Ishmael--they weren't left out.  The history is related in the Torah. The Jews had lived in Israel and Jerusalem almost 2000 years before the birth of Mohammed.  It is where Judaism and later, Christianity, was founded (Islam was founded in Arabia).  The Roman Empire stole this land from the Jews in 135 CE and forced them out in the Diaspora.  It is now the Holy Land for one billion Jews and Christians.  The Palestinians could easily share this land if they were a people of peace.  If and until that time comes, they should go.

One thing more.  The Jews have contributed greatly to humankind with their religion, as well as medicine, science, literature, in practically every academic area one can think of.  Quit picking on them.

[pyshnov]

Jews were not the founders of settlements in the land of Palestine. They did, then, the same thing as they do now - they migrated there, occupied the land and killed the people. So, if anyone wants to look at what was there thousands of years ago (as kattey does), one can find only a horror story. Almost entire Old Testament speaks about conquering and killing. Well, you can have Jewish Faith, but when you start acting it out, i.e. conquering land and killing people, only God can help you to escape a holocaust. Arabs will get the bombs; the history will be repeated.

I was there, in Jerusalem, lived in Jerusalem for 4 1/2 years as a "Soviet Jew" "returning" to Israel to join relatives (no my relatives existed there, it was all a fiction). I am against turning Jewish people into a cult terrorising the entire world.

kattey, those Jews, who you said:

have contributed greatly to humankind with their religion, as well as medicine, science, literature, in practically every academic area one can think of.

are turning in their graves. Who do you think they were? Cultists? No, they regularly did reject Jewish identity, as it required narrow-mindedness. Spinosa, Heine, none of The Great was a great Jew; let's finally make it clear. Apparently, Jewish family traditions are capable of making their children good thinkers, but that should not be used to justify genocidal Jewish cult, right?

[kattey]

The ancient history of the people of the eastern coast of the Mediterranean tells of various cultures moving in, each having to battle for its space.  The Jews' close neighbors back then were the Philistines living in Gaza along with the Canaanites and Phoenicians living along the coast.  All these cultures battled each other and had to contend with attacks from Babylonians, Assyrians, Egyptians, etc.  The Phoenicians founded Carthage and traded and battled with people all over the Mediterranean.  They had colonies in many places, Sicily for one.  In fact, the Punic Wars were fought by them.  Why did the Jews survive to modernity and not the Phoenicians.  So violence isn't a Jewish issue here.

I have not lived in Israel--it seems you had some bad times there.  I'm not trying to turn them into an elitest cult.  Century after century they have been kicked around and abused, accused of terrible things which were not true.  They are finally back in their ancient homeland.  The place is humming.  I want the good decent Palestinians to get a fair shake.  I want the terrorist extremist elements of  Muslims to get out, not just in Israel but anywhere in the world they are terrorizing people.  No one should have to put up with barbarians who are stuck in the 7th century.

The Jews I know have not rejected their religion.

[hollow_man]

What a disaster.

Kattey, do some research on Jebusite Jerusalem.

pyshnov, this comment:

Jewish identity ... require narrow-mindedness. Spinosa, Heine, none of The Great was a great Jew; let's finally make it clear.

... is the most moronic comment I've ever read on these boards. Which is saying something.

[tvusrfch]

1. "expel Palestinians from their ancestral home": most Palestinians' ancestral homes are not in Israel or the West Bank. see http://www.zionism-israel.com/ezine/Jewish_Origins.htm
"Some ... are descendants of Africans, and particularly of African slaves. Some ...were brought by the Turks in the late 19th century to repopulate Palestine....Among modern Palestinian Arab leaders, Izzedin al Qassam was Syrian, for example, and Fawzi al Qauqji was Lebanese
2. "Israel occupied East Jerusalem during the Six-Day War four decades ago": the naive reader may understand that Israel started a war in 1967 with a Palestinian entity, since the author forgets to state that E. Jerusalem was previously occupied and annexed by Jordan, and was never an independent Palestinian entity, nor was such an entity claimed by Palestinians from Jordan.
3. The author makes no reference to Israel's inaction, for political reasons, against violations of archaeological laws and principles by the Waqf (The Muslim administrative body responsible for the Temple Mount in Jerusalem), which, while "renovating" parts of the Mount, carelessly destroyed priceless relics there. see: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6967457.stm

[mountain_ivy]

kattey sounds like a troll to me.

[isaacbarr]

Very little is said about immigration of Arab nomads to the Holy Land. According to Bartlett, Keller and others the population of the Holy Land in 1850 was about 150,000. Most were located in old Jerusalem, Tiberias, Safad and Joppa. In Jerusalem they describe that a third of the population was Christian, a third Jewish and a third "Ottomans" a combination of Turkish and local Muslim Arabs. Pictures by Firth from 1876, early photographs, show that there was no population of "locals" at the out skirts of Jerusalem. When Jews joined the Jewish population in the Holy Land an industrial revolution happened. Now there are jobs on land the Jews bought from Syrian and Egyptian land lords. The article of Bronner and Gordon is based on telephone calls, hardly what we call scientific or academic. It is a sloppy article that ignores facts and comes to support a dogma. I agree with our UK colleagues that Israeli academics should be boycotted, but I suggest to limit the boycott to those who change academic research into a political mission such as Gordon, Pappe and others. Politics have no place in academia.   

[kattey]

The Jebusites were Canaanites, according to one source.  The Jews were incensed that Canaanites sacrificed their children in Jerusalem, in the Hinnom Valley, which means hell.  I found a site that says it was the Jews who sacrificed their children there, not Canaanites--sure is easy to tell online lies.  When Abraham was ordered by God to sacrifice Isaac, he was stopped and told it was only a test.  I think that's where God told Abraham the Jews do not sacrifice children.

Genesis says Arabs were present in Israel at its inception.  God and Abraham left a legacy for them through Hagar and Ishmael.  It is the Jews who made Israel burst forth with the green and trees and beauty it has now.  Surely God shines His countenance down upon them.

Not to be picky but the feminine of troll is trill.  Why boycott the Jews?  The West has spoken, and it is firmly on the side of the Israelites.  The Arabs think if they keep harping,   
they will get the Holy Land of the Jews and Christians?  Why not swap some land in Mecca if they want it so bad?

[hollow_man]

The Jebusites were Canaanites, according to one source. The Jews were incensed that Canaanites sacrificed their children in Jerusalem, in the Hinnom Valley, which means hell.

No -- first of all, gey' hinnom means "Valley of Hinnom" in Hebrew. (The etymology of hinnom is uncertain.) In later Greek, it was transliterated as Gehenna, which (again, in later tradition) became a name for hell/eternal punishment.

The earliest attestations of Hebrew are in the tenth century, a couple of centuries after the supposed "conquest of the land." Parts of those conquest traditions may have been transmitted orally, and they probably do preserve some historical memory, but they are not historical accounts as we know it.

Is this reference to child sacrifice supposed to provide a rationale for modern Israeli control of Palestine?

I found a site that says it was the Jews who sacrificed their children there, not Canaanites--sure is easy to tell online lies.  When Abraham was ordered by God to sacrifice Isaac, he was stopped and told it was only a test.  I think that's where God told Abraham the Jews do not sacrifice children.

There are numerous references to child sacrifice from various places in the ancient Near East and Mediterranean -- including Israel. For a very good summary of these issues, see The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son, by Jon D. Levenson. It will probably make you feel better to know that he's a conservative Jew. He also teaches at Harvard.

Biblical references to Israelite child sacrifice for your edification: 2 Kgs 16:3 (Ahaz); 17:17 (the northern kingdom); 21:6 (Manasseh); Judg 11:29–40 (Jepthah); Ezek 20:25–26.

There is certainly a debate about this practice within the Hebrew Bible, and I suspect it was outlawed relatively early on. But let's not be ignorant about it.

[kattey]

I will check your references. 

The reference to child sacrifice was also to point out that some Muslims are still doing it today.  When Iraq was battling Iran, Iraq planted a mine field where the Iranis had to go.  The Iranis took their young boys, 3, 4, 5, 6 years old, turned it into a game and sent them out to see which kids could get blown up first.  Wheeeee!

Then there was a Hamas leader 5 years back who was afraid to answer the telephone, afraid it might blow up.  He had his grandsons answering the phone...  Not to mention Arafat's small boys army being trained to attack Jews.  When word got out, he denied it and took all the posters down that were glorifying it.

As an American commander said in Iraq:  The war will end when the people love their children more than they love war.

[hollow_man]

kattey, you're just a propagandist. I've already given too much time to this thread, and I certainly am not going to give any more.

[kattey]

I didn't realize there was such a mass of writings on human sacrifice.  It seems everybody did it in the very early times of history.  I have not discovered the date when the Jews abolished human sacrifice.  Does anyone know?

I have sources for what I post.  My belief is that Israel is the land of the ancient Jews who returned to revive their ancient homeland and holy sites and save themselves from extinction.  It's also the birthplace of Christianity and the source for the religious beliefs of the Jews and Christians.  I believe Israel should deal only with the ancestors of the original Muslim occupants, not every Arab who came to live there in the past 60 years.

[thenewyorker]

kattey, the whole reason you joined the CHE was to start this thread? Reading your posts makes me feel like I was punched in the stomach.

[pyshnov]

kattey:

I have not discovered the date when the Jews abolished human sacrifice.

No wonder. They never did. Now, it's the never interrupted festival of human sacrifice for the Cult of Israel.

[hollow_man]

kattey:

I have not discovered the date when the Jews abolished human sacrifice.

No wonder. They never did. Now, it's the never interrupted festival of human sacrifice for the Cult of Israel.

I reported this inflammatory post to the mods, who decided to take no action(!)

This is shameful, and I will have nothing more to say about it.