Philistines

Now that the turkey, stuffing and pumpkin pie are mostly either history or leftovers, some food for thought into the weekend.

There never has been, in the entire history of this area, an independent sovereign state called Palestine. The Philistines themselves were a remnant from Caphtor [fn] known as Caphtorim, Cherethites or Casluhim (descended from Egypt, son of Ham) who invaded the coastal strip of Gaza, killed the Avvim living there and settled in their stead [fn]. Therefore the neighboring peoples called them “plishtim,” which means “invaders.” They lived in the region from Gaza to Ekron, from Lachish to Ziklak, calling it “Philistia.” Philistia extended along the short coastal strip from today's Raphla to Joppa/Jaffa, into the northen region of the Negev toward Beer-Sheva. This was the largest area of all of “Philistia/Palestine” the “plishtim/invaders/Philistines/ Palestinians” ever held. By the time of the Roman Empire, they had long ceased to be a distinct national entity, having been destroyed and assimilated into other peoples.

The Byzantines, Christian heirs of the Roman Empire, then ruled until the Arabs entered Palestine in 633 C.E. From 637 to 1071 C.E. all of Palestine was under the domination of Islam, ruled over not by local Arabs, but by the fiat of remote Caliphs, who either resided in Baghdad or Damascus. It is this era of the Arab's "glorious" past that they wish to restore and to which they refer when speaking of their intrinsic rights to this region, claiming that Palestine was given to them by Allah as a result of the "Jihad" in the 7th century, although even then no sovereign Palestinian nation had been created by them. Their dominion over this territory, which is to be the meeting place of all Moslem believers on the Day of Resurrection (this claim lies at the root of the recent Islamic fundamentalist involvement with PLO terrorist activities), lasted but a short period, while that of Jewish sovereignty endured over a 1,000 years.

& HAPPY CHANUKAH!