LETTER: No evidence to support myths around Israel
Palestinian Jews converted first to Christianity and later to Islam, which ironically gives present-day Palestinian Muslims a far more genuine claim to the Holy Land than either Christians or Jews
That all three Abrahamic faiths — Judaism, Christianity and Islam — have historical and emotional connections to the “Holy Land” is indisputable. Chris Eden’s arguments are absurd (“Chris Thurman errs in assessment of Israel,” May 26). Chapter one of the book of Genesis describes how God created the heavens and the earth in six days, and rested on the seventh. Does Eden really believe in this year of 2021 that the world was created in only six days? Or does he really believe that Eve had a conversation with the serpent in the Garden of Eden?
Likewise, Abraham, Moses and King David are allegorical myths. Modern Israeli historians have also demolished the myths that Jews were forcibly exiled by the Romans following the destruction of the Temple in AD 70. There is no evidence to support that myth.
That Jesus Christ was a Palestinian Jew is however, historically indisputable. Palestinian Jews converted first to Christianity and later to Islam, which ironically gives present-day Palestinian Muslims a far more genuine claim to the Holy Land than either Christians or Jews. Modern DNA testing confirms that the overwhelming majority of Israeli Ashkenazi (European) Jewish settlers have no genetic connections to the Palestinians of 2,000 years ago. Their Khazar ancestors became Jews by conversion during the 9th and 10th centuries AD.
Eden obviously even believes in modern-day myths around Israel’s independence in 1948. It is now well documented how the British collaborated with Ben Gurion to expel Palestinians from cities such as Haifa and more than 500 villages, and to confiscate their properties. The British then also controlled Jordan, and led the Jordanian army to occupy and annex the so-called West Bank as part of Jordan.
Only 6% of the land in Palestine was owned by Jews in 1947. Why then should Palestinians have agreed to the British partition proposal to give away 55% of their land to European Jewish settlers? It is said that the British invented apartheid in Ireland and exported it to SA, but “perfected” it in Palestine. Apartheid didn’t work in either Ireland or SA — what makes Eden think apartheid will work in Palestine? Trump’s “deal of the century” has already come unglued.
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