Question: “If it’s Judea and Samaria, how did this land become know worldwide as Palestine? The word existed for hundreds of years even before the modern era [CE period]!”
The Answer: *The Palestinians are the Romans of today.* Allow me to explain: It was the foreigners, occupiers, the non-indigenous, who we know as the “Romans,” from up north, that forced the use of the name upon Judea-Samaria, the Jewish people’s ancestral land, *because* of militant Jewish Zionism (defense of our ancestral land!). The short history is this:
There was a Jewish leader so devoted to Judaism that he would lead the Jewish people to do to the Romans what the Maccabees did to the Greeks, and what the Irgun and Lehi did to the British occupiers of our Jewish ancestral land.
Simon ben Kosevah, aka Bar Kokhba, led a successful Jewish militarized revolt against the Roman empire in 132 CE, which led to three years of Jewish self-sovereignty upon our ancestral land *during* the Roman occupation – think present day PA and Hamas as Roman occupiers, and you’ll understand the Bar Kokhba independent nation of Israel.
In response to the Indigenous People of Judea-Samaria regaining self-sovereignty, the Roman empire brought its armies from other nations to re-conquest and make sovereign-less these pesky, unassimilating, rebellious Jews! Unlike the two attempts by Syria-Jordan-Egypt nations in 1948 CE and 1967 CE, the Romans did happen to actually successfully end the nascent reestablished Bar Kokhba Israel on Jewish ancestral land, Judea-Samaria, in 135 CE.
So, in response to Jewish indigenous resistance to keep our ancestral land Jewish, the Romans renamed for the non-Jewish world’s concern our ancestral land as “Palestine.” It was an effort to force the Jewish people to lose our association to our ancestral land through the next few generations. To this day, the Romans intent failed, for we Jews have always been present in Judea-Samaria, even while successively occupied by Colonizers that have followed the Roman example of land-grabbing.
The Romans got this name from the Greeks. The Greeks got this name from the Egyptians. The Egyptians got this name from the Indigenous Peoples of the Levant. It was our word for the nordic invaders that land-grabbed and occupied Gaza, in English known as the Philistines. The Egyptian, Assyrian, Arabian versions of this name is derived from the Hebrew.
Names do matter! פָלַשׁ “falash” literally means to “roll in” (occupy, invade, migrate, etc.). It indicates foreignness, non-indigenous to the land. It is the root for the word פְלִשְׁתִּי “Felishti” that means “inhabitant” within the area of our indigenous land that was occupied, which was Gaza. The Greek version of the word is from פְלֶשֶׁת “Feleshet” that identifies the land area that is occupied by the Felishti. Feleshet became Palaistinē in Greek and became Palestina in Latin and, then, became Palestine in English. It’s BCE cognates in Arabia and in Egypt are فلسطين Filasṭīn and Παλαιστίνη, Palaistinē, respectively.
So, Arabs who’ve been calling themselves “Palestinian” since the 1960’s are literally calling themselves non-indigenous to the Levant – foreigner, invader, occupier, migrater, someone who “rolled in.” “Palestinians” are *not* the indigenous people of Judea-Samaria, but they want Israel sovereignty gone so they can take our place.
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Question: “Jews are from Europe, and do not look like Middle Eastern indigenous. So, how can you claim the Jews are indigenous to the Middle East?”
The Answer: First, Africa and the Middle East and Europe are all ONE continental landmass. But, anti-Jewish racists like to pretend that Europe is as far away from the Middle East, as the “American” continent is from Europe. Second, the Levant is where the Jewish people’s ancestral land, Judea-Samaria, is located, and it is closer to Europe than Arabia. This is why most Jews – but not all Jews, most Jews – look like Iranians, Turks, and Spaniards. Third, there is no DNA clause or skincolor clause in Jewish halacha when determining who is a legitimate member of the Jewish community and who is not. Hence, why the Jewish people as a whole look like every people upon this planet – from Levantine to African to Arabian to Persian to European to Asian! Fourth, because most non-Jews who are not Indigenous Peoples lack a basic understanding of how Indigenous Peoples maintain their identity as a people, whether on their ancestral land or in Diasporas. For example, by Talmudic law, I am a legitimate member of the Indigenous Jewish people of Judea-Samaria, and I do not need to have “faith” in Judaism or believe in some kind of religious theology to be Jewish. Halacha, alone, determines Jewish indigeneity status! Fifth, Jewish status is based on family lineage or a legitimate Jewish community’s beit din ruling on the membership of an individual. Again, we’re back to halacha, and a Jewish community’s application of Jewish halacha. Sixth, there is NO getting around this, because the Jewish people are NOT a “faith” religion like Christianity and Islam! We are an Indigenous People, who are keeping our ethno-religion of ancient Judea-Samaria alive and thriving from l’dor v’dor. Seventh, I rest from all my explaining, because it felt good to end this question this way. 🙂 Eloah/Allah be blessed!
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Question: “Even if the Jews fought the British for Independence in the 1940’s, how does this change the fact that Zionism began in Europe in 1897?” (… A great question! …)
The Answer: European Zionism is only a *partial* fact. I’ll explain. Modern Zionism started in the Middle East in 1882 with the first mass exodus of Yemeni Jews into Judea-Samaria (only non-indigenous call it “Palestine”).
“Zionism” itself is an ethno-religious mandate for the Jewish people, ever since we became the Jewish people in Moab (think southern Jordan) in the 13th century BCE. It is a staple within our inherited ANE ancestral literatures. King David and other Jewish monarchs fought for Zionism against other nations. The Maccabees and Simon bar Kokhba both fought for Zionism, the former against the Greeks and the latter against the occupying Romans. The Irgun, Lehi, and Palmah freedom fighters fought for Zionism against the British and Arabs. Likewise, to this day the Israeli Defense Forces fight for Zionism against terrorists and violent political activists.
Modern צִיּוֹנוּת Zionism, “return to self-sovereignty” on Jewish ancestral land, began in 1882 with Arab persecution of اليهود اليمنيون Yemeni Jews. This persecution of ME Jews resulted in mass immigration by sea and on foot back to Judea-Samaria (“Palestine”), and this Zionism spread to Europe, where “political” Zionism was born in 1897 (aka, Herzl’s Zionism). Remember, it’s all the same continent, and all Jewish Diasporas – Middle East, Southwest Asia, North Africa, Aegean north, Europe – had underground Zionist groups.
Both Arabs/Muslims and Europeans/Christians together through their antisemitic violent acts towards Jews *forced* MENA Jews and European Jews (same continent!) to engage in this modern Zionism to reestablish Israel, successful “return to self-sovereignty” upon *our* ancestral land – free from the rule of colonizing religious occupiers.
With the return of enough Jews to Judea-Samaria, the hope of Jerusalem Jews and Judea-Samaria Jews for freedom from the rule of occupiers (Europeans, Arabs, and Turks) would finally become a reality! I don’t know if you know this or not, but when the British troops with their Egyptian army entered “Palestine” to occupy and rule it in 1918, they reported back to Europe that Zionism already exists in the land. This news was repeated in the New York Times in its 1918 publication on the British occupation and discoveries.
Sadly, the British kept giving more and more of our Jewish ancestral land to Arab benefactors, and playing duplicitous towards Jews. This led to the Jewish people of Judea-Samaria, women and men together, smuggling in weapons to freedom fight for our ancestral land against the British, and Arabs who sided with the British occupiers. We Jews chased the British out of our ancestral land, and declared our Independent Zion, again, upon it.
For this, Israel was attacked by five Arab nation armies the very next day. These Arab nations waged a 10 month siege to conquest all of Judea-Samaria for Arabs, thus causing the “nakba.” The Prime Minister of Syria admitted in his 1973 memoir that this was a grave Arab mistake. Now, because, Israel survived this war, the U.N. was now forced to recognize the nation-State of Israel.
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Question: “Do you believe that towards the end Days, God will send the Moshiach, and the entire world will worship the One God, religion will be One?”
The Answer: No, most Jews do not believe this. That kind of belief about the Moshiach is Christian and Muslim and their Yehudicanos. The reality of what TaNaKh says is a hope (a vision) for a Moshiach who will become leader of Israel, and who ends all violence (wars, racism) by non-Jews towards Jews (and, by doing so, the non-Jews end wars between each other).
NOWHERE does TaNaKH ever say that the world would be ruled by only one god of Elohim (“the children of El”), and that there will be only one religion after the arrival of the Jewish Moshiach. What our ANE literatures hope for (prophesizes) is that all nations, *regardless* of their religion, regardless of the god of the pantheon of gods that they choose to worship, they will bow before the Jewish YHWH god and acknowledge YHWH god as the high god, the SUPREME god, the most powerful god of *all* the gods of this world.
The Shema does not say “Listen, oh World…”. It says, “Listen, Israel, YHWH is *our* god, YHWH is One.”
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Question: “But, we are all the children of Abraham. So, I don’t understand why we can’t all get along?”
The Answer: BOTH, Europeans and Arabs appropriated our Jewish ancestors as theirs to justify colonizing the world for Allah/Christ – giving us Jews, an Indigenous People just trying to live life in peace, a BAD name everywhere in this world!
The Jewish people pay the price for the Christian/Muslim Colonizers’ successes and enrichment, and Colonizers get to deny that this has happened and is happening!
The Jewish stories about Avraham and Sarah are about the people of the Levant ONLY. The Indigenous People of the Levant were the Canāanites and landless non-migrating Bedouins. The Canāanites were becoming the Moabites, Judahites, and Edomites (Idumeans, Greek name for them). Of these three Canāanite people, the Avraham story is about Judah and our brother tribe Edom. Edom, by choice, chose to save themselves from northern Israel’s *assimilation into Assyrians* fate, by moving into Judea and becoming part of the Jewish people of Judea-Samaria.
During all this time, BOTH Arabs from down south and Europeans from up north were fully satisfied with *their* ancestors and their polytheistic ethno-religions. There was NO Christianity and Islam in the BCE period to tell Europeans and Arabs that our Jewish ancestors are actually their non-Jewish ancestors, and that Christians and Muslims should be occupying the Indigenous Jews of Judea-Samaria.
It is from the Sumerian turned Jewish story of Noah that, according to Torah, all peoples of the continent were born from. The lineage of Noah’s son is a Table of Nations upon the land. Arabs, Europeans, and Africans are included in this Noah’s descendants story, but all THREE are non-Jews, and do not have Jewish ancestors in their history.
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Question: “Zionizm began in the 1800’s in Europe. So, how can you claim that the Zionists who immigrated and took over Palestine are now the indigenous people?”
The Answer: Have you ever heard of the Maccabees and bar Kokhba? Zionism did *not* “begin” in the 1800’s in Europe. It was revitalized among European Jews in the 1800’s, and they immigrated over and joined the indigenous Jewish Zionists of the Middle East, North Africa, and Southwest Asia.
In contrast, the Romans of the Roman Empire were anti-Zionists! The European Christian Knights of the First Crusade were dedicated anti-Zionists! The Arabs who’ve been squatting on Jewish ancestral land (since the 1950’s) that call for a mythical “Right of Return” (equal number of Arabs and Jews on Jewish ancestral land, thus forcing the end of a Jewish sovereign nation-State) are anti-Zionists, as well!
The Zionists did *not* “take over” the “Palestine” area. That is racist European and Arab propaganda about Jews! Indigenous Jews are Zionists, and always have been Zionists upon Judea-Samaria – even while violently occupied by European and Arab Colonizers and briefly by the more benevolent Turks.
Zionism is simply our 3,000 year old Jewish word for Judea-Samaria, Jerusalem, and Jewish nationalism. Prior to the 1880’s, Judean-Samarian Jews, Jerusalem Jews, Yemeni Jews, Sephardi Jews, and a few Ashekenazi Jews were already cultivating acres and acres of our land, with the hope of – one day – being able to self rule upon our land again. Why? Because all that Europeans and Arabs want to do to Jews is to keep us segregated in ghettos, steal what we accomplish, and engage in blood libels against Jews when Europeans and Arabs are having a bad social day!
After WWI, when the British entered “Palestine” (only foreigners, non-indigenous, call Judea-Samaria “Palestine”) with their recruited and equipped (down to very Arab revolt flag) Egyptian army, they reported to Europe that they have discovered that Zionism already exists in “Palestine.” The New York Times in “America” (another foreigner’s name for a land) reported on their surprise discovery. They thought all Jews lived in Europe. Wrong, and *always* has been wrong!
During the British occupation of Judea-Samaria, the Mandatory Palestine period, we Jews were buying off rich Arabs, who live in places like Egypt, their deeds to the useless desert lands, and draining the malaria-filled swamps so the land can be cultivated. All this Zionism by Jews, the Indigenous People of the land, was bringing massive amounts of Arab migrants to our lands to settle down in. Meanwhile, as payment for being an ally of the British during WWI, the British gave the Arabian Hashemite family ruling control over all of what is known as Jordan today. A third of Jordan is * Jewish* ancestral land.
As we get closer to WWII, the British teased Arabs with nationalist ideas about the Judean-Samarian half of the Jewish ancestral land, kept allowing free Arab migration and settling into our Jewish ancestral land, and restricted Middle Eastern, North African, Southwest Asian and, especially, European Jewish immigration into “Palestine”. So, the Jewish people smuggled in weapons and formed guerilla underground army units to fight the British.
Throughout the 1930’s and 1940’s, the Jewish people of Judea-Samaria fought the British, outnumber 5,000 male and female freedom fighters to 100,000 trained male British troops. The British kept losing, and finally left. And the Jewish people, the Indigenous People of Judea-Samaria, the Zionists of the land since the 13th century BCE, reestablished Independence and self-sovereignty for the fourth time in our people’s history.
The very next day, the armies of Syria, Transjordan, Egypt, and two other support nation Arab armies waged a 10 month siege to conquest all of Judea-Samaria for the Arabs. It was the Arabs who created the “nakba,” not the Jews. Transjordan captured and occupied what they named the “West Bank” and Egypt captured and occupied Gaza, but they all lost against the Jews on the rest of our reestablished Jewish nation.
In 1964, the USSR supported the creation of a “Palestinian people” to fight with Israel for our ancestral Jewish land. Yasser Arafat, who was born in Egypt and joined the Muslim Brotherhood, found fighters in Syria, formed alliances in Jordan, and began his work of land squatting in the Jordan occupied area of Judea-Samaria to terrorize Israel. The Egyptian Brotherhood terrorists utilized Egypt occupied Gaza.
In 1967, the USSR fed Syria false intelligence, igniting the 1967 war between the same combatants of the 1948-1949 war. The Arabs lost again, and Israel *re-acquired* the land that Jordan and Egypt had stolen from us and occupied. We even offered for the 1948 bonafide war refugees the right of return into Israel. Near all rejected the offer. But, we did not kick out all Jordanian, Egyptian, and Lebanese citizens that were still land squatting upon our ancestral land. We really should have, but we didn’t!
Out of 5.7 million U.N registered “Palestinian” refugees, only 200,000 are actual connected 1948 war refugees who still need to be settled in Arab nations, and only 2 million are West Bank and Gaza born Arabs. The rest are citizens of other Arab nations. None are actual “refugees” by any standard of this term.
Arabs, you cannot be refugees of a land that you never fled from. And, Arabs, the Indigenous People cannot colonize their *own* land. That would be the Jews! Colonization requires the forceful taking of *other* peoples lands, that is not your ancestral land.
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Question: “I know a Jewish family who claim to be Marxists. How can they be Jewish, if they do not believe in God?”
The Answer: Jewish status is defined by Jewish halacha, not by personal beliefs. We are an indigenous people of Judea-Samaria with an ethno-religion that defines us as a people. With this said, most of the Jewish people do believe in a “God” of some sort, whether they are “secular” or “religious” in lifestyle.
So, maybe we should rephrase this question to: “Do Jews believe in God?” And, the answer to this is: Well, this depends!!!
First, which “God” are we referring to in this question? Please, provide the name of this “God.” Second, Jews believe in many gods, but only ONE “God” can be the “God” of Israel. And, then, there is the question of, “what this “God” is and how “he,” “she,” “it” interacts with this human world?” So, it’s complicated! Ask two Jews about “God,” and you’ll get three halachically defended beliefs.
For all Jews, YHWH god is “our” god, and *no other* god. This god exists, because our Torah stories say this god exists. We don’t need further proof. But, is this YHWH god a child god of high god El’s and Asherah’s mating? Is this YHWH god the high god El himself, otherwise known as the formless Creator god? Is YHWH god the embodiment of *Elohim*, meaning “the children of El (and Asherah),” collectively? Is YHWH god the formless but active in human affairs god of Maimonides? Or, is YHWH god the formless and utterly disinterested in its creation god of Spinoza and of Einstein? We Jews don’t actually know! Nor, is it important which god that Jews “believe” in, for it’s still Judaism (Jewish-people-ism).
Most Jews these days believe in Spinoza’s and Einstein’s understanding of YHWH god. Most of the rest of us Jews believe in Maimonides’s understanding of YHWH god. Then, there are Jews who don’t believe at all that YHWH god actually exists, but they keep reading and teaching Torah to their children (kol ha’kavod!).
So, some Jews are atheists and they still bless the Jewish people of Judea-Samaria, even as they live by the laws of the land that they live in. Quite a lot of Jews these days live a “secular” life most of the time, doubting that “God” established Jewish halacha, and get “religious” as needed and as desired. Then, we have the Torah Judaism (Jewish-people-ism), which ranges from non-Rabbinic halachic to the insularly Rabbinic halachic approach to *Jewish* living. All of these are authentic forms of Judaism, as established by the Indigenous Jewish people of Judea-Samaria – in our encounters with Torah, with YHWH god, and with non-Jewish cultures.
I did say that answering this question on “God” is complicated, yes?! Now, go study!!!
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Question: “How can you respect yourself as the “Chosen People” when you treat Palestinians as second class citizens, hasbarat?”
The Answer: Well, putting the ending insult aside,… Let’s address both parts to this question.
First, the “Palestinians” are not citizens of Israel. So, they are not “second class citizens,” rather Jordanian and Egyptian squatters upon Jewish ancestral land. They are not “refugees,” either! There is no such thing as eternal refugees through the generations. As well, since they do not want to be Israeli citizens (at all!), like their Israeli Arab brothers and sisters, they are free to return to their lands of origin at any time. Israel is not responsible for this Arab created nakba and subsequent occupation, that led to the 1964 PLO-KGB creation of a “Palestinian people,” invented to delegitimize Jewish Indigenous Right of self-sovereignty upon Jewish ancestral land.
Second, as yourself a non-Jew, rather than use the “chosen people” phrase to demonize us Jews, how about learning what this phrase actually means? Yes, no?! The Jewish people are a vassaled people to YHWH god, the Landowning deity of the Levant, and to Judea-Samaria, the land itself. We are the Indigenous People of Judea-Samaria, who must be stewards of the land in accordance with the halachot (Indigenous laws) of our deity and our people. We are “chosen” to maintain and preserve the Indigenous identity, ethno-religion, laws, language, and literatures of our Jewish people, and to pass this Indigenous knowledge and lifestyle onwards to our children, through our families l’dor v’dor (generation to generation). This is what it means to be a “chosen people” in our Jewish ancestral writings!
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Question: “I am a Muslim, and I don’t understand how a practicing Jew can be anti-Semitic. Isn’t this a contradiction in terms?! Doesn’t this prove that Zionism has nothing to do with the Jewish religion, and everything to do with a colonial settler project?”
The Answer: Good honest questions deserve good honest answers! And the answer, achi (my brother), is that Judaism is not a religion, like conquesting Islam and Christianity. Islam and Christianity are “faith” religions, based in a theology, that must proselytize in some way. If you reject the theology, then you reject the religion.
Judaism is the ethno-religion of Indigenous Judeans, the Jewish people of Judea-Samaria. Judaism is Judea-People-ism, and is based in halachot (indigenous Judean laws), which define our Indigenous identity as a people, our land rituals, our seasonal festivals, and our civil-ritual laws.
There is only two ways halachically (by Indigenous Judean laws) to be Jewish, by birth into a Jewish family or by ruling of a beit din (indigenous Judean community court of law). All Jews by birth and by beit din are expected to perpetuate the Jewish identity and way of life to ensure our Indigenous People’s survival for all generations.
But, here’s the halachically allowed challenge that we Indigenous Jews face – once a Jew, always a Jew. So, when a Jew by halacha internalizes anti-Jewish racism and sides with anti-Zionist Arab and European Colonizers, they are still Jewish by halacha – even though they are threatening our Indigenous People’s very survival with their internalized anti-Jewish racism.
Zionism, Jewish Indigenous nation sovereignty upon Judea-Samaria to fulfill our vassaled people’s covenant with the land’s god-King, YHWH, is the heart of Judaism, Judea-People-ism. This is why, if you hate Zionism, then you hate the Jewish people. Land and its Indigenous people are not seperable!
The risk that these anti-Zionist Jews take is that their children will leave our Indigenous Judean people and become one of the Arab and European Colonizers of Indigenous Peoples’ lands, or they will be complicit in another Shoah (worldwide attemped genocide) of our people.
I wish that I could help these colonized Jewish minds to see themselves clearly! But anti-Indigenous racism is a mental illness that very few humans recover from, sadly! So, as an Indigenous Jew, I reach out with our Indigenous Judean narrative, for the sake of those reading who have not succumbed to anti-Jewish racism yet.
Thank you for your questions, my friend. Very few people in this world are willing to listen to Indigenous Peoples!
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