Learn about the history of the Palestinian struggle for freedom, equality and justice by exploring major events in the history of their oppression on this day of the year.
9 December
ISRAELI PM RESTARTS BIBLE STUDY CLASSES
On this day in 2011, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the re-establishment of a regular Bible study group at his official residence in Jerusalem. He claimed the Bible “is our mandate for our country". He was emulating Ben Gurion, the first Prime Minister of Israel, who also set up Bible study classes to find an ideological “justification” for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine and the establishment of a “Jewish State”. As non-religious Zionists quip, “There is no God but he gave us the land.”
9 ديسمبر
في مثل هذا اليوم من عام 2011 ، أعلن رئيس الوزراء الإسرائيلي بنيامين نتنياهو عن إعادة إنشاء مجموعة منتظمة لدراسة الكتاب المقدس في مقر إقامته الرسمي في القدس. لقد ادعى أن الكتاب المقدس "هو ولايتنا لبلدنا ". كان نتنياهو يقلد بن غوريون ، أول رئيس وزراء لإسرائيل ، الذي أنشأ أيضًا دروسًا في دراسة الكتاب المقدس لإيجاد "تبرير" أيديولوجي للتطهير العرقي لفلسطين وإنشاء دولة يهودية . يسخر الصهاينة غير المتدينيين، "لا يوجد إله لكنه أعطانا الأرض"
The Invention of the Land of Israel by Shlomo Sand – review. Sand explores how the 'Land of Israel' was invented, and debunks popular nationalist mythology.
The "Land of Israel" is barely mentioned in the Old Testament: the more common expression is the Land of Canaan. When it is mentioned, it does not include Jerusalem, Hebron, or Bethlehem. Biblical "Israel" is only northern Israel (Samaria) and there never was a united kingdom including both ancient Judea and Samaria.
Even had such a kingdom ever existed and been promised by God to the Jews, it is hardly a clinching argument for claiming statehood after more than 2,000 years. Besides, the biblical account makes it quite clear (insofar as such accounts are ever clear) that the Jews, led by Moses and then by Joshua, were colonisers themselves and were commanded by God to exterminate "anything that breathes". "Completely destroy them – the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites – as the Lord your God has commanded you." Imagine if the Amorites came back and claimed their ancient land. If they did, this is what Deuteronomy 20 has to say: "Put to the sword all the men ... As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else ... you may take these as plunder for yourselves."
...The uncertainty as to what exactly constitutes the "Land of Israel" endures to this day. There is an internationally recognised state of Israel with clearly defined boundaries (the Green Line of 1967, itself the result of the enlargement following the 1948 war) and then there is the "Land of Israel" whose boundaries depend on who is talking: for some, it includes the whole of the West Bank, for others it extends to Jordan. It could be worse: God promised Abraham and his descendants "this land, from the river of Egypt unto the Euphrates", which would include also bits of Turkey, Syria and Iraq.
In traditional Judaism there is no injunction to "return" to the "land of Israel". The ritual "next year in Jerusalem" that is part of the Passover Seder prayer was never a call to action, or to reconstitute a state.
11-minute video: Shlomo Sand on the Zionist concept of " The Jewish people". His book "The Invention of the Jewish People" was a best seller in Israel