I never really paid attention to this before but is it possible that Slash Dot is becoming a breeding ground for anti-semitism. There was another anti-zionist ( another one ) post today, blaming Mdinat Yisrael for terrorism, that is unique.
Basically, “Palestine” was the Roman corruption of the Hebrew word “Plishtim” (“פלשתים”), from “לפלש”, “to invade”. The Plishtim, who appear throughout Tanach, from Avraham onward, were not really one people; rather, they were the term by which locals (Canaanites and Israelites alike) referred to the non-indigenous, warlike peoples who colonized and terrorized the Coastal Plain for a thousand years - “The Invaders”.
Biblical archaeologists love to cite the “Philistines” as proof that the Torah was written by men, because whoever wrote it, conveniently used whichever enemy was contemporaneous to him, and simply applied that label back through time, so that Avraham, Moshe, Shimshon and the Nevi’im all battled this omnipresent Philistine nation. Using that line of reasoning, it is highly unlikely in real history that the same enemy (Philistines) would have terrorized Israel for a millennium.
The proper reading of it, though, is that the locals (Canaanites and Israelites) referred to these strangers as “The Invaders”, much like we refer to border-jumpers in California or Texas as “illegal aliens”. They may be mostly Mexicans nowadays, but they might also be former Soviets, Cubans, or any other folks illegally gaining entry into the U.S. This interpretation of Plishtim allows that the “Philistines” were really not one continuous nation at all, but rather a succession of invading peoples with little or no connection to one another – which, of course, makes a lot of sense, and does not contradict Tanach.
After the Romans destroyed Judea in 3826, they Romanized “P’lishtia” into “Palestina”. Later, Arafat (yemach sh’mo) and the A-rabs resurrected the word because of the Roman connection to wiping out the Jewish presence, but “Arabicized” it to “f’lishtia”, because they cannot pronounce the “P”. They now claim the Land as theirs, while simultaneously trumpeting themselves as, etymologically speaking, “the invaders”. They are right – they are the invaders. What morons.
(By the way, the Ethopian Jews used to be called “Falashas” in Amharic by the locals. Reversed roles, same idea.)
Just the same, the A-rabs deny the Jewish historical presence in places like Nablus, yet in reality, that city, formerly Shechem, was also renamed by the Romans, to “Naples”, and the A-rabs corrupted that one to “Nablus” because, again, they can’t pronounce the “P” and have no clue where their words come from.
Not too long ago I found a good website which explains this all very well, but I do not remember it now.
In the meantime, check out this article that I found, written by a Japanese woman:
Link to this: 15:14 0 comments
I recieved this message on
יב תמוז 5765
Link to this: 15:07 0 commentsDear Friends thought this might interest you. All the best!
Sent: Monday, July 18, 2005 12:11 PM To: Undisclosed-Recipient:; Subject: oprah
Anyway, as we all know, Oprah is all wise about all things. And she shares her wisdom in her magazine each month, telling us how to live and what matters and what's right and who and what to care about.
In the current issue of her magazine, Oprah has a story that truly shows how delusional she is.
It's the story of Yusra Abdu, an 18-year-old Palestinian. "A wonderfully frivolous teenager," "a happy girl with an optimistic smile."
Oh, by the way, Yusra Abdu wanted to be a suicide bomber.
According to the article in Oprah, she was a girl with "velvety skin" who did it all for love. And, of course, because the Jews made her do it.
Indeed, the article's headline is "Love and Terror," and the introductory paragraph refers to Yusra as "one of the youngest casualties of an unending conflict."
Catch that word "casualty?" Yes, according to Oprah, this young woman, who the article says has an "overfull closet of clothes, whose doors are layered with posters of handsome Arab stars," is a casualty. Why? Because she's now serving a 15-month sentence in an Israeli jail. Why? Because she was planning to murder Jews, not that the article would ever use the word murder.
Only in the strange world of the Palestinians, and evidently Oprah, is someone who is setting out to kill innocent people, actually the victim in the whole thing.
That she evidently fell in love with Hani Akad, the top man in the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine in the city of Nablus, as they were planning her mission, makes her all the more the victim, according to Oprah. Oh by the way, Akad, an explosions expert responsible for many suicide bombings and on Israel's most wanted list of terrorists, is referred to by Oprah as a "charismatic young rebel."
And that indeed is the tone of the entire article with every Israeli military operation "bloody" and every Palestinian a victim.
Take this one very representative paragraph. "The Israeli crackdown since 2000 has been overwhelming. Entire cities at times have been sealed off interminably; infrastructure such as electricity grids and roads routinely interrupted or destroyed ... Israel justifies these maneuvers by saying they were necessary to reduce the number of suicide bombings, which spiked in 2002 and have declined dramatically since."
Unbelievable. It doesn't note that the reason they have declined is not because the Palestinians have stopped trying, but because Israel has been forced to take the measures it has. Much worse, however, not once in this whole long article is it mentioned that more than 1,500 Israelis were murdered in almost daily terrorist attacks in the last couple of years. And if you want to talk about young victims of this unending conflict, how about the 10-month-old Israeli girl killed while sitting in her stroller and all the other Israeli victims of suicide bombings, young and old, including pregnant women and children eating ice cream cones.
No, to Oprah, the victims are the suicide bombers, not those who have been killed by them.
Not once does the article raise the question of what kind of society not only breeds but venerates suicide bombing, nor whether suicide bombing can ever be justified as a means of political __expression.
And while the article says the Israelis and Palestinians are equally to blame for the failure of the Camp David peace talks in 2000, even though President Clinton has said the failure was all Arafat's, somehow only Israel is to blame for the Intifada that followed.
I could go on and on showing how unbelievably skewed this article is, and remember I am one who believes the media is generally very fair to Israel.
When Opra decides to venture into the Middle East situation among her articles on "the non-diet diet" and "surf, sand and cellulite," it's to paint the picture of an innocent young Palestinian teenage girl who is in jail just because those big bad Jews got all nuts about her wanting, just like her master terrorist boyfriend, to blow up as many Jews as possible.
