Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, July 22, 2013

King David's palace unearthed?

The media has had a lot of articles in the past couple of days about a major find that, some say, would have been one of King David's palaces in Khirbet Qeiyafa.

What's the actual evidence?

From Israel Antiquities Authority:

Two royal public buildings, the likes of which have not previously been found in the Kingdom of Judah of the tenth century BCE, were uncovered this past year by researchers of the Hebrew University and the Israel Antiquities Authority at Khirbet Qeiyafa – a fortified city in Judah dating to the time of King David and identified with the biblical city of Shaarayim.

One of the buildings is identified by the researchers, Professor Yossi Garfinkel of the Hebrew University and Saar Ganor of the Israel Antiquities Authority, as David’s palace, and the other structure served as an enormous royal storeroom.

Today (Thursday) the excavation, which was conducted over the past seven years, is drawing to a close. According to Professor Yossi Garfinkel and Sa'ar Ganor, “Khirbet Qeiyafa is the best example exposed to date of a fortified city from the time of King David. The southern part of a large palace that extended across an area of c. 1,000 sq m was revealed at the top of the city. The wall enclosing the palace is c. 30 m long and an impressive entrance is fixed it through which one descended to the southern gate of the city, opposite the Valley of Elah. Around the palace’s perimeter were rooms in which various installations were found – evidence of a metal industry, special pottery vessels and fragments of alabaster vessels that were imported from Egypt. The palace is located in the center of the site and controls all of the houses lower than it in the city. From here one has an excellent vantage looking out into the distance, from as far as the Mediterranean Sea in the west to the Hebron Mountains and Jerusalem in the east. This is an ideal location from which to send messages by means of fire signals. Unfortunately, much of this palace was destroyed c. 1,400 years later when a fortified farmhouse was built there in the Byzantine period”.

A pillared building c. 15 m long by 6 m wide was exposed in the north of the city, which was used as an administrative storeroom. According to the researchers, “It was in this building the kingdom stored taxes it received in the form of agricultural produce collected from the residents of the different villages in the Judean Shephelah. Hundreds of large store jars were found at the site whose handles were stamped with an official seal as was customary in the Kingdom of Judah for centuries”.

The palace and storerooms are evidence of state sponsored construction and an administrative organization during King David’s reign. “This is unequivocal evidence of a kingdom’s existence, which knew to establish administrative centers at strategic points”, the archaeologists say. “To date no palaces have been found that can clearly be ascribed to the early tenth century BCE as we can do now. Khirbet Qeiyafa was probably destroyed in one of the battles that were fought against the Philistines circa 980 BCE. The palace that is now being revealed and the fortified city that was uncovered in recent years are another tier in understanding the beginning of the Kingdom of Judah”.

AP adds:

Garfinkel said his team found cultic objects typically used by Judeans, the subjects of King David, and saw no trace of pig remains. Pork is forbidden under Jewish dietary laws. Clues like these, he said, were "unequivocal evidence" that David and his descendants had ruled at the site.

Critics said the site could have belonged to other kingdoms of the area. The consensus among most scholars is that no definitive physical proof of the existence of King David has been found.

Garfinkel believes King David lived permanently in Jerusalem in a yet-undiscovered site, only visiting Khirbet Qeiyafa or other palaces for short periods. He said the site's placement on a hill indicates that the ruler sought a secure site on high ground during a violent era of frequent conflicts between city-states.

"The time of David was the first time that a large portion of this area was united by one monarch," Garfinkel said. "It was not a peaceful era."

The archaeologists seem to have dated the structure quite precisely to the time of David's reign, which was from 1002–970 BCE, or shortly thereafter. They identified the seals in the storerooms as being from Judah. There is no evidence of non-kosher animal bones. (We know the Philistines raised and ate pig meat; there is disagreement among scholars whether Canaanites ate pork as well. They apparently ate donkey at times.) Also, there is evidence of some Hebrew writings at the site.

Definitively calling this "David's palace" seems a little premature to me, but Khirbet Qeiyafa seems to be very good proof of the early Judean kingdom.

"Khaybar" antisemitic miniseries available on US DISH TV (UPDATE x2 - No it's not)

Dish-TV, a US-based satellite TV service, offers the Dubai Satellite Channel:

This channel is showing the antisemitic miniseries, "Khaybar."

So incitement against Jews is not only available in the Arab world - which is bad enough - but also in the US, as well as Europe.

Not that "human rights organizations" care about the rights of Jews, as they have continuously refused to comment on this show.

Atlas Shrugs has information on how to complain to Dish-TV. So far they are simply saying that they are not responsible for the programming they play.

(h/t youandme2 and MEMRI)

UPDATE: This appears to be the proper online FCC form to complain. (h/t Dave4321)

UPDATE 2: It looks like Dish dropped Dubai Satellite Channel in May, before the series. MEMRI corrected it. (h/t Bob)

Felesteen, a Hamas newspaper, reports that the deputy head of the "political bureau" of Hamas, Mousa Abu Marzouk, is accusing Egypt of wanting to exercise sovereignty over the Gaza Strip as it had before 1967.

Reports from Gaza indicate that this morning, for the third time this month, Egyptian helicopters hovered over the sector, apparently during Egyptian army operations to destroy smuggling tunnels.

Israel has not interfered with Egyptian aircraft over Gaza.

Marzouk says that the helicopters show that Egypt wants to re-assert its rule over Gaza. This is, of course, nonsense - no one wants Gaza. Gazans would leave en masse if a single Arab country would welcome them as equal citizens. But that vaunted Arab hospitality and support for their Palestinian brethren only goes so far. (Even when Egypt controlled Gaza, they kept it as a sort of prison for all Palestinians who ended up in Egypt.)

Marzouk also reiterated that Hamas has no desire to attack Egypt, and that all the news reports about Hamas members being arrested or killed along with Sinai jihadists are lies.

7/22 Links Part 1: Great Expectations, PA Spokesmen Deny Talks, EU Finally Labels Hezbollah Terrorists

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: Great expectations

Why should Israelis who have already paid the ultimate price be forced to undergo such an indignity? Has Abbas done anything constructive, such as prepare his people for painful concessions necessary to reach an agreement with Israel, to deserve such a gesture? Previous prisoner releases have failed to soften Palestinian stands. Most likely they have achieved the opposite, since Palestinians have learned it is possible to exact concessions from Israel without reciprocating.
Despite the dangers ahead, a comprehensive agreement between the sides is the only way to prevent the creation of a bi-national state between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, and ensure that Israel remains both Jewish and democratic. It is also the only way for the Palestinians to achieve their national aspirations - one reached through dialogue, mutual concessions and goodwill, and not aggression and threats.
We offer full support to Kerry’s initiative and hope that a just agreement with the Palestinians will result in peace and security for both sides.

Both Abbas’s spokesmen say no deal yet to restart talks

Contradicting Secretary of State John Kerry, spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh said in a statement late Sunday that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas agreed to send a delegate to Washington merely to continue lower-level preliminary talks with an Israeli counterpart about the terms for negotiations.
A second Abbas spokesman, Yasser Abed Rabbo, had made similar comments earlier Sunday. Abu Rudeineh and Abed Rabbo are the only Palestinian officials authorized to speak on the matter.

Israel, PA Accept Martin Indyk as Mediator in Negotiations

Indyk criticized President Barack Obama's Middle East policy in 2009. He said that Obama and U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell have failed in the Middle East.
“It’s clear that things are not going as he planned,” Indyk said at an Omaha, Nebraska forum. He explained that President Obama counted on the support of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, who rebuffed the overtures for even a minor compromise regarding the 2002 Saudi initiative.
Indyk also failed the president and Mitchell for focusing on trying to freeze building for Jews in Judea and Samaria. The former ambassador said that they violated a basic rule in negotiations in the Middle East: don’t get bogged down in details.
“George Mitchell didn’t hear that sucking sound,” Indyk added.

Analysis: ‘Wanting it more than the parties themselves’
What if the type of Palestinian state that Netanyahu is willing to give is not the type of state Abbas can accept?

At 78-years-old, is he going to want to be the one to go down in Palestinian history as the leader to have closed the door on all the maximalist Palestinian aspirations, including the right of refugees and their descendants to return to pre-1967 Israel? And do his people – and Hamas is a big part of his people – want him to do so? Kerry is forcing the issue, dragging the sides back to the table kicking and screaming. For this he has already won many plaudits. But is what is good for Kerry and America’s standing in the region, necessarily good for Israel and the Palestinians?

Analysis: Arab world pessimistic on renewed peace talks

The Arab world – which is divided on almost any element including Shi’ites and Sunnis, radical and conservative Muslims, various states and tribes – appear to unite in their pessimistic outlook of the planned, US-moderated peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. Yet some Arab newspapers, instead of focusing on this issue, have focused their commentary on other conflicts in the region.

Arab League Blames Israel Before Talks Even Start

Sabih added that the Arab League was monitoring Israel's stance so the talks were not simply "negotiations for the sake of negotiations, going round in a vicious circle".
"This could be the last chance to revive the stalled peace process," he noted.

Keeping BBC audience’s eyes on the ‘settlements’ ball

Some might say that “further complicated” is a bit of an understatement. The fact that the PA is not in control of part of the territory it will be negotiating about, and upon which it hopes to establish a state, is clearly a huge issue, as is the fact that the PA president’s legitimate mandate to sign anything on behalf of the Palestinian people expired years ago. Another glaring problem is that the PA clearly cannot claim to be able to give security guarantees on behalf of the range of terrorist organisations including Hamas, the PFLP, the DFLP and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad which are openly hostile to negotiations.

Indy’s political editor misrepresents David Ward’s vile Holocaust remarks

As the quote clearly indicates, Ward was castigating Jews as Jews for, a mere few years after liberation from the death camps in 1945, evidently not learning the correct moral lessons and thus beginning immediately to inflict atrocities on Palestinians.
Jews, ‘of all people’, an exasperated Ward was in effect exclaiming, had visited upon the Palestinians a level of cruelty and violence which arguably evoke the crimes committed against their co-religionists in the death camps throughout Europe – a “they of all people” argument which Howard Jacobson aptly characterized as leaving the Jewish people doubly damned: to the Holocaust itself and to elevated moral scrutiny as a result of it.

EU agrees to place Hezbollah military wing on terror list

Britain has sought to persuade the EU to put the Shiite Muslim group's military wing on the bloc's terrorism list since May, citing evidence that it was behind a bus bombing in Bulgaria last year which killed five Israelis and their driver.
Israel's Justice Minister welcomed the decision, saying "after years of deliberations and going back and forth on the matter, the argument that Hezbollah was a political movement and their attempt to whitewash their terrorist activity has failed."

PA Children Call for 'Liberation' of Palestine'

The video, which was recently recorded at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, is a good example of the radical Islamic education given to children in the PA.
The video shows a boy about 12 years of age, standing next to two children aged 8-9. The 12-year-old received the honor of giving the sermon to the thousands of Muslim worshipers who were in attendance that day. He is seen wearing a Hizb ut-Tahrir scarf, and huge banners praising the establishment of an Islamic Caliphate can be viewed in the background.
The PA child attacks in his sermon the idea of a democratic regime, calls on Islamic nations to stand up to their values, and urges Muslim armies not to be negligent in their duty to free the Al-Aqsa Mosque while ignoring the positions of the United States.

Netanyahu: Morsi ouster shows weakness of Islamist movements

In rare remarks on Egypt's government crisis, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has suggested that the fall of the president, Mohamed Morsi, demonstrates the weaknesses of political Islamist movements.
"I believe that over the long haul these radical Islamic regimes are going to fail because they don't offer the adequate enfranchisement that you need to develop a country economically, politically and culturally," Netanyahu told the German weekly Welt am Sonntag.
He said he thought radical Islamism was wholly unsuited to dealing with a global economic and information revolution, and "goes right back to medievalism against the whole thrust of modernity, so over time it's bound to fail."

Syria accused of gassing Palestinian refugee camp

The National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces said Sunday that the Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus had been gassed by regime forces amid heavy fighting.
According to Israel Radio, at least 22 people were killed in the Sunday attack, the majority from inhalation of toxic gases, according to Palestinian sources cited in the report.

Red Crescent to make ‘halal’ drugs with Turkish blood

Akar told daily Hurriyet that the move could both eliminate dependence on drugs imports, as well as providing Muslim Turks with assurances that their medicine complies with their religious codes.
"For instance, if we are buying medicine from Britain, it is made out of the blood and plasma of the blood of the people of that country. We have different dietary habits from those countries. Being a Muslim nation, we do not eat pork. We don’t eat some of problematic foods, but these exist in the medicine that we import,” he said.

PA minister admits any agreement with Israel would be a scam

From Palestinian Media Watch:

PA Minister of Religious Affairs, Mahmoud Al-Habbash::
"We hate war. We don't want war. We don't want bloodshed, not for ourselves, nor for others. We want peace. We say this because our culture is founded on this, and because our religion is based on this. Yes, we want peace, but not any peace. We want a peace based on justice, therefore the Palestinian leadership and the PLO have not missed any opportunity for peace...

The Palestinian leadership's sense of responsibility towards its nation made it take political steps about 20 years ago (i.e., signing the Oslo Accords). Despite the controversy, despite much criticism and much opposition by some, it brought us to where we are today: We have a [Palestinian] Authority and the world recognizes the [Palestinian] state.

All this never would have happened through Hamas' impulsive adventure, but only through the wisdom of the leadership, conscious action, consideration, and walking the right path, which leads to achievement, exactly like the Prophet [Muhammad] did in the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah, even though some opposed it...

The hearts of the Prophet's companions burned with anger and fury. The Prophet said: 'I'm the Messenger of Allah and I will not disobey Him.' This is not disobedience, it is politics. This is crisis management, situation management, conflict management...

Allah called this treaty a clear victory...

Omar ibn Al-Khattab said: 'Messenger of Allah, is this a victory? Is this logical? Is this victory? We are giving up and going back, and not entering Mecca. Is that a victory?' The Prophet said: 'Yes, it is a victory.'

In less than two years, the Prophet returned and based on this treaty, he conquered Mecca. This is the example, this is the model."
[Official Palestinian Authority TV, July 19, 2013]

As PMW notes:

The Hudaybiyyah peace treaty was a 10-year truce that Muhammad, Islam's Prophet, made with the Quraish Tribe of Mecca. However, two years into the truce, Muhammad attacked and conquered Mecca. The PA Minister of Religious Affairs stressed in his Friday sermon that Muhammad’s agreeing to the Hudaybiyyah treaty was not "disobedience" to Allah, but was "politics" and "crisis management." The minister emphasized that in spite of the peace treaty, two years later Muhammad "conquered Mecca." He ended his comparison by expressing the view that the Hudaybiyyah agreement is not just past history, but that "this is the example and this is the model."

Since the signing of the Oslo Accords, there have been senior PA officials who have presented the peace process with Israel as a deceptive tactic that both facilitated the PA's five-year terror campaign against Israel (the Intifada), and which will weaken Israel through territorial compromise that will eventually lead to Israel's destruction.

Abbas threatens: "If we don't get what we want, all options are open"

Imagine the outcry that would follow if Bibi Netanyahu said that if the planned peace talks don't go well, "all options are on the table." It would be perceived as a threat - perhaps to annex the territories, perhaps to unilaterally annex parts, perhaps to occupy Area A. Either way, it would make headlines, confirming the idea of Israeli belligerency and intransigence.

Netanyahu never said that. But Mahmoud Abbas did.

Palestine Press Agency quotes Abbas as saying that if there is no progress in the peace talks, "all options are open."

A violent intifada?

Whatever he is threatening, it is clear that Abbas isn't serious about an agreement, because he also said that any agreement would be subject to a popular referendum before the PLO would move forward. given that the PA hasn't been able to hold real elections for about a decade now, this pretty much means that Abbas can hold out for whatever he demands because he knows that he can always blame the "people" he rules for any deals he doesn't want to sign.

ABC-Australia parrots a lie: "There are no birds in Gaza"

On Australian TV, there was an interview with Moira Kelly, a woman who is building a garden in Gaza, who makes the incredible claim that there are no birds in the sector (4:08):

Kelly: "And there are no birds in Gaza."
Hostess: "No birds at all."
Kelly: "There's no birds. This is a phenomenal little statistic in Gaza you don't realize."
Hostess: "Will the plants bring birds?"
Landscape designer Andrew Laidlaw: "Well, we hope they will...hopefully it will be a beginning."

The interview, when posted on the ABC website, is headlined "Peace garden to bring birds back to Gaza."

But as AIJAC shows, the claim that there are no birds at all in Gaza, this "phenomenal little statistic," is a ridiculousand easily disproven lie:

It is hard to imagine how ABC news staff could have not caught Kelly's blatant exaggeration and even felt free to put the ABC's imprimatur on the claim by including it in the story summary. Yet even the most cursory investigation would have confirmed that the Gaza Strip, like its neighbour Israel, is literally teeming with avian life.

Type "birds in Gaza Strip" into Google and the very second response you get, in terms of relevance (the first being a Wikipedia article) is a bird checklist by the World Bird Database which lists 171 species of birds in the Gaza Strip.

The third most relevant response is a scholarly paper from 2011 by Dr. Abdel Fattah N. Abd Rabou from the Department of Biology at the Islamic University of Gaza.

The paper, "Notes on Some Palestinian Bird Fauna Existing in the Zoological Gardens of the Gaza Strip" focuses mainly on birds in captivity in the Strip. However, the paper also includes a survey of the natural bird life in the area.

Writes Dr. Abd Rabou:

The Gaza Strip, which is located at the southern portion of the Palestine coast along the Mediterranean Sea, is blessed with a considerable number of bird fauna including terrestrial and aquatic forms. Dense concentration of birds occurs over the Gaza Strip during spring and autumn migration seasons [5, 6]. It is worth mentioning that wetlands, including the wetland ecosystem of Wadi Gaza, are considered as very productive ecosystems, having rich bird fauna. They provide bird fauna with all necessary requirements such as shelter, protection, food and breeding, resting and roosting places ... etc [7-13].

Here is a photo of Gaza birds taken last year:

Somehow this photographer managed to find several of the nonexistent birds.

AIJAC continues:

ABC goofed by giving Kelly a license to exaggerate claims about conditions in Gaza as a fundraising and propaganda tool. Even before the construction of this park, Gaza most certainly did, and continues to have, trees, bird life as well as green spaces (even some lavish ones, like the Dolphin Water Park and Resort which opened in April, compensating for another one which Hamas destroyed in 2010).

Kelly and the ABC effectively conspired to distort the reality on the ground in the interests of manufacturing sympathy for a doubtlessly worthwhile project. But when Australia's public broadcaster uncritically promotes such storytelling, it is acting counter to the principles of ethical journalism, and its own charter.

While this incident is, of course, peripheral to the more substantive issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, for ABC's journalists and editors to "parrot" the bizarre notion that Gaza is devoid of birdlife without anyone along the way bothering to exercise the most basic level of fact-checking is indeed troubling.

It raises the question of what other fact-checking, if any, is employed by the ABC regarding news items originating in Palestinian controlled areas on more important subjects.

By the way, in Moira Kelly's website, we can read:

The delegation had also been invited to meet with Yasser Arafat, the late Palestinian leader and Chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation and his team in his compound. Moira was one of the last Australians to have met with him before his death and found him to be a misunderstood man of great faith and great compassion, and above all, passionate about his people.

In other words, some people will believe anything as long as they really, really want to.

Nasrallah makes his case against EU blacklisting Hezbollah; insists Israel wants to invade Lebanon (update)

Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah made a little-noticed speech Friday night in which he not only asserted that Hezbollah is protecting Lebanon against Israel's unending expansionism, but also that the EU cannot separate Hizballah's "military wing" from the good people of Lebanon itself. This was a clear attempt to counter the possibility that the EU might declare Hezballah's military wing ("resistance") to be a terror organization today.

Sayyed Nasrallah wondered if someone believed that Lebanon was no longer exposed to Israel threats, stressing that if someone believed so, this would be a "misfortune", as Israel's greediness has no end.

His eminence reassured that whoever tried to break or isolate the resistance has failed in achieving that, because this resistance is not an organization or a party, but a public determination which is ready for sacrifices.

"The noble people in this country have invested in the resistance with their most precious and loved ones, with their children and blood, hence, this resistance is not a faction that you can siege or isolate," he added.

Hezbollah Secretary General stated that the resistance is capable of overcoming all the difficulties, as the enemy is reviewing all its plans and calculations after what happened in the last couple of months.

He indicated that "in any coming war, the enemy's eye will be on Galilee before Beirut… and from now on, no one can assault Lebanon without paying a price."

Sayyed Nasrallah considered that what the resistance has been exposed to was the result of its victories against the Zionist entity.

"The resistance, which triumphed in 1982, 2000, and 2006, was able to destroy the 'New Middle East' project. Hence, it was natural to be targeted. In addition to the military confrontation with the enemy, we were being targeted on the military, security, cultural, and social levels," he added, pointing out that "when the resistance does not get targeted, this means it is ineffective and the enemy does not fear it."

The Lebanese are increasingly sick of Hizballah in light of its dragging the nation into the Syrian mess, and this speech exposes far more about Nasrallahs' fears than about Israel's, by not even addressing Syria and acting like just another Arab despot - by blaming Israel for all problems.

One consequence of the recent upheavals in the Arab world is that the people are no longer buying it. Nasrallah won't be taken down by Israel, but by the Lebanese people he is pretending are on his side.

UPDATE: Despite these efforts, the EU is declaring Hizballah's "military wing" to be a terrorist group.

"Now or never" - for 40 years

The Telegraph's headline says "Now or never for a two-state solution."

Now, where have I heard that before?

1970: Rogers plan for 90 day truce between Israel and Egypt "the realization by the Soviet Union, the Arabs and the Israelis that the moment is very much one of 'now or never.'"
1978: "Mideast peace could be now or never"
1995: "If both sides really want a breakthrough - it's now or never . . " (Warren Christopher heading to Mideast)
1998: "Peace provess: It's now or never" (Thomas Friedman, NYT)
2000: Mubarak says Mideast peace must come "now or never"
2002: "Arafat needs to know: 'It's now or never'"
2007: "For them it's now or never. If they fail in Annapolis they will not find another break through in the Middle Eastern peace process."
2010: "Palestinian says it's now or never for two states"
2011: "Peace Now, or Never" (Ehud Olmert op-ed in NYT)

And some wisdom from Menachem Begin in 1979:

"I do not adopt the theory of 'now or never,'", Begin said. "we shall have to negotiate again, and I don't see any tragedy in it."

OIC head says Israel is the only beneficiary from Muslim problems

The always entertaining Iranian FARS news reports:

Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu underlined that continued instability and bloodshed in the region, particularly in the Muslim states, only serves the interests of the Zionists.

“The situation of Islamic world is highly worrying and no Muslim country in the region benefits from it. It is only the Zionist regime of Israel that benefits from it,” Ihsanoglu stressed in a meeting with Iran's Ambassador to the OIC Hamid Reza Dehqani on Saturday.

He stopped short of saying that Israel instigates all Muslim problems, but FARS fills in the blanks:

In relevant remarks in August 2012, Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei in a meeting with Indonesian Vice-President Boediono in Tehran warned of the plots hatched by certain powers to stir religious and sectarian strife in Muslim nations.

During the meeting held on the sidelines of the 16th heads-of-state summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) here in Tehran at the time, the Supreme Leader cautioned against the dangerous attempts made to sow discord and stir clashes between different religious sects in the Muslim nations, specially between the Shiite and Sunni Muslims, and said, "These actions are carried out through the support of certain powers and by means of their hirelings, whose instances can be seen in Afghanistan and Pakistan now."