Arafat got the ball rolling.
In a 1997 online article on Azure, Yoram Hazony describes a 1996 festival staged by Arafat's Ministry of Culture, in honor of Ba'al:
Arab youths dressed in robes bearing ancient Canaanite figures brandished torches as they danced about the town square, packed with officials of the PLO’s administration and security services...On the stone stage in the middle of the square, a dramatic passion was acted out, with the Ba’al, god of the heavens and fertility in the pantheon of the ancient Canaanites, heroically struggling against Mut, god of the underworld...the narrator took the opportunity to pour praise on the loyal Palestinian-Canaanite nations, the Amorites, Girgashites, Jebusites and Perizzites, which had fought at his side in the battle against the Hebrew invaders from across the Jordan.And Arafat kept the ball rolling. On March 30, 2000, Arafat declared during a 'Land Day' speech:
Our forefathers, the Canaanites and Jebusites, built the cities and planted the land; they built the monumental city of Bir Salim [Jerusalem]…
The previous year, his advisor and minister for Jerusalem affairs, Faisal Husseini, said in an interview with New York Times Magazine:
I am a Palestinian. I am a descendant of the Jebusites, the ones who came before King David. This [Jerusalem] was one of the most important Jebusite cities in the area…. Yes, it’s true. We are the descendants of Jebusites.
Similar claims by Abbas and Saeb Erekat are not new.
The Middle East Forum finds efforts of this falsification in 1978 in the Palestinian encyclopedia (Al-Mawsu'at Al-Filastinniya),
which declared, "The Palestinians [to be] the descendants of the Jebusites, who are of Arab origin," and described Jerusalem as "an Arab city because its first builders were the Canaanite Jebusites, whose descendants are the Palestinians."The entry continued, "Ever since the destruction of the Temple, the link with Jews and Christians has been severed. Muslims alone have a right to the Temple."
No Palestinian claim is too absurd to be made -- after all, who in the West ever calls them out on such things. Here is Dr. Hayel Sanduqa on PA TV, on June 2, 2011, claiming that a famous Psalm was actually first said by a Crusader:
[The Israelis] have acted to change Jerusalem's character. Even the expression (Psalm 137:5) “If I forget thee, oh Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill. May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth.” This statement said by the Frankish (Crusader) ruler of Acre shortly before he left – was borrowed by the Zionist movement, which falsified it in the name of Zionism.
Is the problem really that the West is unwilling to call out the Palestinian Arabs on their falsification of history, or is the problem really much bigger -- is the West actually complicit in this falsification?
UNESCO
Erasing Jewish history seems to be a UNESCO specialty.
In 2011, Elder of Ziyon pointed out how UNESCO identified the Rambam (Maimonides) as Maimouna Ibn Moussa, effectively claiming that the revered Jewish philosopher, legal scholar and leader of the Jewish community during the 12th century was a Muslim.
Other attempts by UNESCO to erase Jewish ties to their land just up to 2011 alone include:
o November 7, 1974: voted “to withhold assistance from Israel in the fields of education, science and culture because of Israel’s persistent alteration of the historic features of Jerusalem.”o November 20, 1974: voted to exclude Israel from its European regional group -- until 1978, after the US withheld $40 million in payments from the organization in protest.o 1989: claimed “Israel’s occupation of Jerusalem” was destroying the holy city by “acts of interference, destruction and transformation”
o 1990: attacked the “irreversible” changes to Jerusalem's architectural heritage resulting from Israeli “occupation”o 1993: then-UNESCO director-general Frederico Mayor boycotted an international conference on science in Jerusalem
o 1995: When the UN celebrated its 50th anniversary, UNESCO refused to mention the Shoah in its World War II resolutiono 1996: organized a symposium on Jerusalem at the body’s Paris headquarters without inviting any Jewish or Israeli groupso 1998: a delegation visiting Jerusalem refused to meet with Israeli officials.o 2001: UNESCO promoted the “Cairo Declaration Document for Jerusalem Antiquities Preservation,” accusing Israel of destroying Islamic antiquities on the Temple Mount and in Jerusalem’s Old Cityo 2002: During the Second Intifada, condemned Israel for “the destruction and damage caused to the cultural heritage in the Palestinian territories” as “a crime against the common cultural heritage of humanity.”
o 2009: designated Jerusalem as a “capital of Arab culture”
o 2010: declared Rachel’s Tomb and Hebron’s Cave of the Patriarchs as “Muslim mosques.”
o 2011: called on Israel to stop all archaeological works in the Old City of Jerusalem
In the past, UNESCO also has also called for “financial sanctions against Israel” and passed hundreds of resolutions criticizing Israel’s activities in Judea and Samaria
According to the UN Watch Database:
Between 2009 and 2021, UNESCO adopted 82 resolutions against Israel; 9 on Crimea; 4 on Iraq; 2 on Syria; and none on Iran, Sudan, North Korea, or any other country in the world...UNESCO repeatedly denies the ancient Jewish heritage and culture of the holy cities Jerusalem and Hebron – which it has declared a World Heritage site of “Palestine.”
The Supreme Muslim Council in 1925
But when it comes to denying Israel's right to Jerusalem and its Jewish history, everyone wants to get in on the act -- which is ironic, considering how in 1925, the Supreme Muslim Council published A Brief Guide to Al-Haram Al-Sharif, which in addition to permitting non-Muslims to visit, explicitly recognizes the history of Solomon's Temple as being "beyond dispute" as the location where the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque stand today -- and quotes from the Book of Samuel to make its point. The guide goes on to mention in passing that in 637 Caliph Omar "occupied Jerusalem."
The Mosque of Omar, 16 miles southwest of Jerusalem, has an inscription dating back to the 9th or 10th century CE that refers to the Dome of the Rock as “the rock of the Bayt al-Maqdis” -- literally "the rock of The Holy Temple."
Things have changed.
The BBC
Things have changed in the media as well. CAMERA UK has pointed out that while at one point the BBC recognized the Jewish historical ties by referring to The Temple Mount...
...in 2014, after the PLO warned international reporters not to use the term Temple Mount, the media obliged and perpetuates the Palestinian Arab narrative, the BBC among them. Last month, when Itamar Ben-Gvir visited the Temple Mount, the BBC reported:
The hilltop site is the most sacred place in Judaism and the third holiest in Islam. It is known to Jews as the Temple Mount, site of two Biblical temples, and to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif, the site of Muhammad's ascent to Heaven. The entire compound is considered to be al-Aqsa Mosque by Muslims. [emphasis added]
The BBC includes a graphic that helpfully emphasizes the point:
By perpetuating this distortion, the BBC is aiding the Palestinian Arabs who undercut Jewish rights and Jewish history by increasing the number of mosques on the Temple Mount from 1 to 5 while deliberately destroying archaeological evidence of the ancient Jewish ties to the area.
Helping the Palestinian cause is the EU.
The EU
Back in December, a document came to light describing the EU's plan to help the Palestinians by undercutting the Oslo Accords and help Palestinian Arabs gain a foothold in Area C of Judea and Samaria.
The six-page document calls for mapping the territory in order to prove Palestinian rights to the land and monitoring Israeli archaeological activity, as ancient Jewish ties reinforce Israeli claims.The article quotes Shlomo Ne’eman, head of the Gush Etzion Council and the Yesha Council who decries how "the allies of the State of Israel, the European governments, are actively working to change the borders of our country." This is just taking the attempt to arbitrarily refer to Tel Aviv as the capital of Israel and taking it to a whole new level.
The document also recommends strengthening Palestinian infrastructure in Area C and supporting Palestinians with legal aid.
Meanwhile, Wikipedia is doing its share to falsify history.
Wikipedia
An article on Wikipedia on Iran–Jordan relations, traces those relations back for "most of Jordanian history" -- in this case back to the Persians:
The article on Jordan itself tells you that "the oldest known evidence of hominid habitation in Jordan dates back at least 200,000 years."
You have to check out the Wikipedia article on Iraq-Jordan relations to get the straightforward history starting in the 20th century:
And now the Biden Administration has decided to play along with the Palestinian Arabs.
The Biden Administration
According to a press release from the Manhattan DA's office:
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg, Jr., today announced the repatriation of an ivory cosmetic spoon dating back to approximately 800-700 B.C.E to the Palestinian Authority, marking the first time a cultural object has been returned to the Palestinian people from the United States...
“We are proud to join our law enforcement and government partners in this moment. It is impossible to put a value on the cultural and historical significance of looted antiquities and I thank our talented team of attorneys and investigators who are continuing their incredible work of returning these objects to where they rightfully belong,” said District Attorney Bragg. [emphasisd added]
Rightfully belong?
As Johanna Markind pointed out at Legal Insurrection:
American law calls for repatriation of certain artifacts to Indian tribes, if “the requesting Indian tribe or Native Hawaiian organization can show that the object was owned or controlled by the Indian tribe or Native Hawaiian organization.” That is, the Smithsonian would return a qualified Cheyenne artifact to the Cheyenne tribe. It would not return a Cheyenne artifact to, say, the Pawnee.
According to the law, then, the artifact should have been returned to Israel. But that would have been a problem. After all, the spoon was originally looted from Hebron, so returning it to Israel would amount to admitting the Jewish ties to that area.
So instead, we are treated to an onslaught of government officials publically supporting the Palestinian Arabs in fabricating an imaginary history:
o Ivan J. Arvelo, a special agent in charge of US Homeland Security Investigations in New York, described the transfer of the spoon to the PA as a "historic repatriation”
o George Noll, head of the US Office of Palestinian Affairs, described the spoon as “an example of Palestinian cultural patrimony.”
o DHS official, Jeff Brannigan, claimed that, “This repatriation is representative of HSI’s commitment to ensuring the storied heritages of peoples around the world through the preservation and protection of cultural artifacts.”
o He graduated from Syracuse University’s law school in the top half of his class.But this time, the media is unlikely to call him out on this fake history.
o He received 3 undergraduate degrees.
o He attended law school on a full academic scholarship
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