Friday, April 23, 2010

Palestinian Arabs Descended From Philistines? Canaanites? Few Of Them Are Even Related To The Original Arab Invaders!

One of the issues surrounding the topic of Israeli settlements is the persistent impression that there was a stable, strong community of Palestinian Arabs that awaited Jews who were fleeing the Holocaust.

Actually, there have been Jewish communities there from the time of the Roman conquest, and Jews have been immigrating to Israel for centuries.

Likewise, there has been no solid, thriving Palestinian Arab community--just waiting to be displaced by Zionist Jews--In a post a few days ago, Zionists Kicked Palestinian Arabs Out Of Palestine? Why Do You Think Arabs Came In The First Place?, I wrote about how the Arab Palestinian population is not a permanent fixture in Israel--rather in 1948 many of the Arabs were recent immigrants who came to then-Palestine to take advantage of the improvements made by Jewish immigrants.

Another accusation made against the Israeli settlements is an offshoot of the previous idea that Palestinian Arabs in fact have strong ties to the land--strong, in fact, than Jews--by virtue of the fact that they are descendants of the Biblical Philistines and Canaanites, and at the very least their roots go back to the Arab invaders of then-Palestine in the 7th century.


One of the sources I quoted in Zionists Kicked Palestinian Arabs Out Of Palestine? Why Do You Think Arabs Came In The First Place?, is "Whose Palestine?" by Erich and Rael Jean Isaac. In their article they also examines the roots of the Palestinian Arabs themselves. They address the claim that Palestinian Arabs have a long lineage going back to the Philistines or original Canaanites.

Not so, write Erich and Rael Jean Isaac:
The Gilmours expand upon the PLO chestnut that the Arabs of Palestine are the true "immemorial" inhabitants of the land. They write: "Their ancestors are the Canaanites and Philistines who, unlike the Jews, were never deported. They remained in Palestine . . . and their descendants formed, and still form, the core of the indigenous population." But not only are the Palestinian Arabs not descendants of Canaanites, it is highly doubtful that more than a very few are even descended from those who settled the country as part of the Arab invasion of the 7th century. For over a thousand years following the Arab conquest, Palestine underwent a series of devastating invasions, followed by massacres of the existing population: Seljuk Turks and Fatimid reconquerors were followed by Crusaders who were followed by waves of Mongol tribes who were followed in turn by Tartars, Mamelukes, Turks, and incessant Bedouin raiders.

In the course of the 18th and 19th centuries Palestine was essentially repopulated by foreigners, some coming from great distances. Egyptians arrived in a number of waves, with an especially large one from 1832 to 1840. Sudanese pioneered successfully in the swampy marshlands. Entire tribes of Bedouin from as far away as Libya settled on the coastal plain. Abandoned villages in the Galilee were resettled by Lebanese Christians. Coastal towns attracted Armenians, Syrians, Turks. The French expansion in North Africa resulted in waves of refugees coming to Palestine; many of the followers of the Algerian resistance leader Abd el Kader went to the Galilee, where they founded a number of villages (Samakh, Deishum). Russian expansion into the Caucasus led to the emigration of many of its Muslim peoples (Circassians and Georgians) who were welcomed by the Ottoman empire; many of these made their way to Palestine, where they founded their own villages. Similarly, the Austrian advance into the Balkans led to the emigration of Bosnian Muslims to Palestine. Turkomans from Russian Central Asia and Kurds complete this roster of "Canaanites." Ironically, the only surviving "Canaanite" culture is that of the Jews, who everywhere still pray, and in Israel also speak, in a Canaanite language. [emphasis added]
Israelis will go head-to-head with Palestinian Arabs on roots to the land anytime.

9 comments:

  1. Zionist websites never stop regurgitating the same lies and myths, especially the myth of the "Phillistines" taking advantage of the ambiguity of the etymology of "Palestine" to weave the lies that would justify their ill version of history.

    The Phillistines never existed, and thare has been no people that called themselves the Phillistines. Even Herodotus himself never mentioned neither Jews nor the so called "Phillistines" upon his visit to Syria/Palestina.

    Palestine was named by the Romans after the Arabian deity Baal, hence Palli-Stan. Greeks called him Veles, later arabized to Felestin. Syria was named as well by the Romans after Baal's wife Ashyra/عشيرة.

    Arabs called Palestine Canaan, which comes from the arabic root ك ن ع، and means the Netherland, on the other hand Syria was called Eram, which means the highland.

    Palestine even before Islam was was a thriving Arab society. And after Islam, Palestinians have contributed enormously to the Arabo-Islamic civilization. Al Imam Al Shafei, the founder of the biggest Sunni school of jurisdiction was born in Gaza in 850. Another example is Hasan Al Yakoby or Hasan the Palestinian/حسن الفلسطيني the jerusalemite of the 12th century.

    The Palestinians were the only Arab Volk that has not been colonized in contrary to surrounding nations.

    Jews chose the wrong place to establish their state. God has not promised them nothing here, otherwise he would've made their stay here easy, and he would've wiped us out like 70 years ago. עם פלשטין חי

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  2. In respect to Canaanite. Well according to Rainey and Ruhlen, Hebrew and Aramaic are classified srperately from Arabic, Canaanite and Ugaritic. The latter 3 languages, besides sharing the same grammar, lexicon and structure, with Arabic being the rawest and the most advanced with its unique and innovative root systems; they share the verb to be KN which is absent in both Hebrew and Aramaic, making Hebrew distant from Canaanite and Arabic, which corresponds well to its well known origin Egypt.

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  3. Semar, your post seemed so informative that I was impressed. I couldn't help but check out the information you posted and found interesting things:
    1. I searched for Arabian Deities or even god , but could not find any called Baal. What I did find is that many deities which were worshiped by the followers of the Canaanite religion were refereed. I also found that tBaal, is a North-West Semitic title and honorific meaning "master" or "lord"[1] that is used for various gods who were patrons of cities in the Levant and Asia Minor, cognate to Akkadian Bēlu. I also found that in Hebrew it means "master". No Arabian mentioning. sorry.
    2. Pali-Stan- I could not find anything under this term so I had to break it down into two. What I found was that Stan is a suffix, originally an independent noun, but evolving into a suffix by virtue of appearing frequently as the last part in nominal compounds, is of Indo-Iranian and ultimately Indo-European origin: It is cognate with Sanskrit sthā́na (Devanagari: स्थान) – pronounced [st̪ʰaːna] – meaning "situated" or "the act of standing", from which many further meanings derive, including "place, location", [1] and ultimately descends from Proto-Indo-Iranian *sthāna- none of which are of Arabian or Canaanite origin.
    Pali (also Pāḷi) is a Middle Indo-Aryan language that is in the Prakrit language group[citation needed] and was indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. It is a dead language that is widely studied because it is the language of many of the earliest extant Buddhist scriptures . Could not find an Roman or Italian references. The closest I got was in Greek :(Greek > Latin: recurrence, repetitious; back, backward, again; returning, repeating).

    Sorry but all this information makes your claim incoherent- Pali- Stan which means lets say land of repetition or lets romanticize it so it fits the agenda [ which so far seems Arabian] and call it the land of the returning. How did a Roman look at a Canaanite god and conclude that?

    Veles - Either a greek city who's name was Vylosa in Ancient Greek. Or Veles (Cyrillic: Велес; Polish: Weles; Czech: Veles; Old Russian and Old Church Slavonic: Велесъ) also known as Volos (Russian: Волос) (listed as a Christian saint in Old Russian texts) is a major Slavic supernatural force of earth, waters and the underworld, associated with dragons, cattle, magic, musicians, wealth and trickery.
    So which will it be? Slavic descendant or maybe the Greek wanted to remember this city in the land they occupied? sorry. This doesn't make sense.
    Moreover, I think that in the Arab spoken language "p" is often pronounced as an "F", which explains why Felestin is how it will pronounced in Arabic. Its a bit strange if that was the original name given to the place by Arabs...if the letter doesn't exist in their tongue why would they call it this way? unless it was conquered by Arabians in 500+ Arabian rule of the region?

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  4. 3) this should have actually called point one if I was going by the order of things. But I actually took it as it was written and now that I have found several mismatches I decided to check for my self. This is what I found about the mentioning of Philistines : They are mentioned in the bible more than 500 times. You might not consider the bible as a valid source, but what's interesting is that their capitol city is called Gaza and it exists in the same location as Gaza does today. According to Joshua 13:3 and 1 Samuel 6:17, the land of the Philistines (or Allophyloi), called Philistia, was a Pentapolis in south-western Levant comprised the five city-states of Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron and Gath, from Wadi Gaza in the south to the Yarqon River in the north, but with no fixed border to the east.Thier Land was called "Pleshet" [ which means invading in Hebrew].The "Peleset" appear in four different texts from the time of the New Kingdom.[26] in Egypy [between the 16th century BC and the 11th century BC,] Two of these, the inscriptions at Medinet Habu and the Rhetorical Stela at Deir al-Medinah, are dated to the time of the reign of Ramses III (1186–1155 BC).Another was composed in the period immediately following the death of Ramses III (Papyrus Harris I).[26] The fourth, the Onomasticon of Amenope, is dated to some time between the end of the 12th or early 11th century BC.
    So it seems there is a mentioning. I did not look for the mentioning of Jews in the land For obvious reason. I will add here that in DNA research it was found that Jews and Arabs share the same genetic origins, whilst different to those who originated lets say in Europe. - Just as a side note ;)
    4) It is not possible to define who named the country Canaan. In the bible [ again a source that can questioned) it is the name of one of Noa's Sons. In the Hebrew language the root-verb כנע (kana') means to be humbled, subdued, brought down or into subjection . So its impossible to judge.what seems likely is that there were various tribe living in the area all of which had a meaning attached to the name. We cannot prove who coined the term.
    5) Could not find that Palestine was a thriving arab society. I did find, however, that before the Arabs conquered the land Throughout the Roman period, Gaza was a prosperous city and received grants and attention from several emperors.[15] A 500-member senate governed Gaza, and a diverse variety of Philistines, Greeks, Romans, Canaanites, Phoenicians, Jews, Egyptians, Persians, and Bedouin populated the city. There is a mentioning of a very reach history of Arabians inhabiting the Arabian Peninsula dating back to about 10,000 to 20,000 years ago. With Mecaa and Medina [ in Sudia Arabia being the main cities]. The names of the ancient Arabians suit those that are mentioned in the bible.

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  5. 6) The Muslim history in the region of Palestine began in the 630s during the great Muslim conquests. In 635 CE Gaza was quickly besieged and captured by the Rashidun army under general 'Amr ibn al-'As following the Battle of Ajnadayn between the Byzantine Empire and the Rashidun Caliphate in central Palestine. Believed to be the site where Muhammad's great grandfather Hashim ibn Abd Manaf was buried, the city was not destroyed by the victorious Rashidun army despite the stiff and lengthy resistance. The arrival of the Muslim Arabs brought drastic changes to Gaza; at first some of her churches were transformed into mosques, including the present Great Mosque of Gaza (the oldest in the city), a large segment of the population swiftly adopted Islam, Arabic became the official language. only more than 100 years later was Al Imam Al Shafei born.

    I could not find Hasan the Palestinian, but the meaning of Hasan Al Yakoby is hassan of Jacon [ I believe Jacob would be a one of the Jewish father whose name was changed according to the bible to Israel ?].
    7) Arab and Islamic Colonization/Imperialism project began with Palestine and Syria.The Ottoman Empire colonized Palestine and so did the Brits. Perhaps you are referring to the Sykes–Picot Agreement, in which the Anglo- French excised territorial allocations ? or perhaps the The Balfour Declaration and the contradictory assurances which were being given to Palestinians in private at the same time as they were being given to the Israelis? both being allocated land? [ same as their brothers and cousins did in the previous agreement?]
    8) Jews seem to have as much of a connection to the land as Arabs do. I don't believe in god, as far as I am concerned its an archaic method to help establish social structure and on the negative side used to assume power. I do believe though, that both Arabs/Palestinians and Jews have a strong connection to their land and I also believe they share the same ancestral parents. So basically it's an heirs dispute. and its ugly on both sides, and not very familial.
    9) All the languages you mentioned are classified as Semitic languages: The Semitic languages are a language FAMILY originating in the Near East . The Semitic languages are notable for their nonconcatenative morphology. That is, word roots are not themselves syllables or words, but instead are isolated sets of consonants (usually three, making a so-called triliteral root). Words are composed out of roots not so much by adding prefixes or suffixes, but rather by filling in the vowels between the root consonants (although prefixes and suffixes are often added as well).If you wish to drill down a little then:
    The Canaanite languages are a subfamily of the Semitic languages, which were spoken by the ancient peoples of the Canaan region, the Canaanites(including the Israelites and Phoenicians), Amorites, Ammonites, Moabites and Edomites. All of them seem to have become extinct as native languages by the early 1st millennium CE (although it is uncertain how long Punic survived), although distinct forms of Hebrew remained in continuous literary and religious use among Jews and Samaritans. This family of languages has the distinction of being the first group of languages to use an alphabet, derived from the Proto-Canaanite alphabet, to record their writings.

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    1. Your information is incredibly precise. thank you

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  6. ...7 years later. And the conflict goes on and has turned into an all out genocide fuelled by the US, Canada and Saudi Arabia.

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  8. Re: "Jews chose the wrong place to establish their state. God has not promised them nothing here, otherwise he would've made their stay here easy ..." There are so many things wrong with Samer's comment. The Old Testament is quite clear that the LORD's covenant with the Jews was conditional. Deuteronomy 11 is just one example. Israel would dwell in peace and safety if they remained faithful. Because of disobedience, Israel was taken captive by Assyria, and Judah by Babylon. Ezra and Nehemiah led a return of the captives after Persia conquered Babylon because the LORD promised Abraham that his seed would always inhabit the land. The Abrahamic Covenant is everlasting (Genesis 17:8).

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