Today, 7.33 million Israelis, including 2 million Israeli Arabs, go to the polls. The result is expected to be a stalemate, with a big possibility of a second election.

Perhaps it’s a good time to think about the history of Israel. I had a good question on the current episode of the WHERE POLITICS MEETS HISTORY podcast,which questioned why my podcast partner, Tessa Dunlop, appears to trot out the nonsense that Israel is some sort of colonial construction of the 20th Century imposed on Arab lands.

In reality, we have historical texts dating between 600BC and 250BC that describe the Kingdom of Israel and its borders. What’s more the most common word in the Dead Sea Scrolls is Israel.

The Book of Numbers, Chapter 34 verses 1-12 describe the North, South, East and West borders:

  1. North: from the coast to “Mount Hor” (a different one from Aaron’s burial place) and Lebo-hamath, in what is now Lebanon or Syria.

  2. South: from the southern tip of the Dead Sea (”salt sea”), through the wilderness of Zin and Kadesh-barnea, to the “river of Egypt” (usually identified as Wadi el-Arish) and the Mediterranean.

  3. East: down to the Sea of Galilee (”Chinnereth”), then along the Jordan to the Dead Sea.

  4. West: the Mediterranean (”the great sea”).

Here is what that looks like…

 

 

 

Of course, Israel did have wars back then, especially with the Philistines, who were Aegean invaders that settled in a place called Gaza. Then the Assyrians and Babylonians came and slowly disintegrated the Kingdom of Israel. Around 150BC, the Hasomonean dynasty set up an independent Jewish kingdom but it all fell to the Romans who then decided to rename Judea and the entire area “Syria Palestinia” which they got from the Greeks who conflated Philistine and Palestine as names interchangeable.

Why is this important. Because the fact is “Palestine” is a completely fabricated place defined by the Greeks based on when they invaded the Kingdom of Israel and then it was appropriated and enforced by the Romans on the area.

The idea that Israel is some colonial fabrication of the 20th century is, frankly, absolute bollocks.

The Free Palestine brigade talk as if Jews had somehow been imposed on the area in 1948 because it suits their anti-colonialist narrative. It is of course wholly wrong. And the worst thing about it is, they know it. The deliberate lies and not just wickedly mendacious, but directly lead to a subliminal promotion of anti-semitism.