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Israel, Judah and Samaria were simply Canaanite States that arose out of indigenous Canaanite culture and not from the invasion of a mythical people called the Hebrews. Israel was a small Canaanite State that briefly achieved a golden age, reaching its' height of power and glory in the reign of King Ahab and Queen Jezebel. The House of David never ruled in Israel it ruled over the Canaanite State of Judah. Finklestein is convinced that the House of David did exist. David and Solomon were probably tribal chiefs in the hill country that became the Kingdom of Judah Jerusalem was the Capital of Judah not of Israel. In the time of David and Solomon, Jerusalem was an unimportant very small town with no great Temple. The major cult centers were farther to the north in the cities of Israel. In fact the great cities of Canaan that were previously attributed to the Solomon were built by Israeli Kings like Ahab. It was under King Josiah that the Bible was finally written and something resembling modern Judaism begins to take shape in the 7th and 8th centuries BC. It is political document that is designed to glorify the Josiah and to connect him falsely with the golden era when the state of Israel briefly rose up as a powerful and advanced civilized center. The Bible is essentially a work of propaganda weaving, historical fragments, and myths of various Canaanite peoples into a powerful justification for Josiah's rule and expansionist policies. I personally draw a positive conclusion from this research. As an American-Jew, I have long struggled with the contradictions and problems of Zionism and the unjust policies of the State of Israel towards Palestinians. For those brave enough to seize this research in the right spirit, there is a solution in it for the problems of the Middle East. Simply stated, European Jews, Middle Eastern Jews, and Palestinians are brothers and sisters and share a common Canaanite ancestry. There were a small number of voices amongst the early Zionists who were against the creation of a separate Jewish state in the region. They lost out to the bigger faction lead David Ben-Gurion, who suffered from the disease of European colonialism. Ben-Gurion and those in his camp saw the natives of the region as an obstacle to be eliminated. I believe Jews around the world need to take pride not in Israel as a modern colonialist State but in the entire region Palestine as the homeland of Canaanite and Israelite culture that we are descended from. European Jews are simply Europeanized Canaanites, Palestinians, whether Muslim, Christian or Jewish were simple Arabacized Canaanites. Even modern genetic research is proving that we come from the same ancestry. Think of Irish-Americans or Italian-Americans returning to their ancestral homelands to experience the culture and the people. They do not think they have the right to conquer the land and dispossess those who stayed behind. Rather they go back to reconnect with their cultural roots from those who are part of the living culture. Because of Zionism, Jews lost the chance to return to Palestine and re-connect with the Palestinians who are the people that have carried forward the culture of ancient Canaan. Viewed in that light, I see the fight against Zionism as being as much my fight as the Palestinians fight. It is the Zionists who created a rift between family, where there should have been friendship and cooperation. It is modern Zionism that disconnected
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me from my roots not connected me. It is that movement that even stole the spiritual base of Judaism and associated for the first time in two thousand years with aggression, and oppression of others. Whatever flaws my European ancestors had, they were not the ones starting wars and building colonial empires, as was the Christian majority in Europe. It is the Zionists who through their acts of ethnic cleansing and ongoing violence have made enemies out of people who share a common ancestry with me. The disease of European Colonialist thinking prevented them from seeing how much the Palestinians had to share with us of the ancient cultures and common heritage. Those who came from Europe may have had the advantage of European technology, but the Palestinians had something far more valuable that the Zionists treated with contempt and discarded. My hope though, is that a new vision of the common ancestry of Jews and Palestinians can be shared and spread and used to defeat the discredited legacy of Zionism. The ancient Canaanites had a great culture. From their culture springs Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Their culture as expressed by the Canaanite civilizations of Judah and Israel exerts more influence on great portions of humanity than does that of far greater military powers and empires of the ancient world. Where the myths and religions of other ancient civilizations of the Middle East are no longer believed or practiced by many people, The religious heritage of Judah is practiced in the form of Christianity, Islam and Judaism by something approaching two billion people on every inhabited continent. When we can recognize and accept our profound common heritage, perhaps we can begin to overcome the suffering and warfare of the twentieth century and move towards lasting peace and justice in the Middle East. ___ Larry Saltzman is an American Jew who believes that the meaning of the Holocaust is that "never again" means that no people on the planet should be persecuted. He is deeply involved in organic gardening and has an orchard of some 60 fruit trees. He had been opposed to the Israeli occupation for some time, but when he learned of the wanton destruction of orchards and farmland by Israeli troops in the Palestinian Territories this past year, he decided to become active. He has a B.A. in Anthropology from UCLA but works as a computer programmer. http://www.middleeastwire.com
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