Ah, well, that’s more or less the problem in a nutshell right there, innit? The Old Testament is, at best, a rather unreliable source for history. While biblical archaeology has confirmed some of its claims (names of rulers, geographical locations, that sort of thing), it has also cast severe doubt on some of the most crucial events depicted in the OT, eg. the Egyptian captivity, the unification of the North and South Kingdom, the siege of Jericho, etc.

(I’m not an archaeologist, mind, and won’t pretend I know anything about the history of the region until, say, about two and a half millenia ago.)

I would suggest that there is a part of the online left which is so viciously anti-Israel that moderates have been intimidated into silence.

We need an antonym for “Occam’s Razor.”

Oswalds’s Algorithm or sumpin’

o

That’s the only phrase I’ve ever seen with the literary grace and dexterity to sum up the couchbound wingers’ fetishistic attachment to distant warfare. Kudos.

Best I remember from by Xtian days it was, according to the Bible, the “Canaanites”, many tribes who in aggregate I believe would be proto-Phoenecians. Which in turn means that the Lebanese have probably the oldest claim there. The Philistines, whom David famously conquered and Samson famously crushed, were a Canaanite group culturally related to those up north (Phoenicianites).

But then when Yahweh “re-gave” Canaan to the Jews after the Egyptian captivity, some people had filled up the empty spaces. One such group was the Amelekites, whom Yahweh gave Yeshua permission to mass-murder. And so he did to the last man woman and child, which is why pieces of abominable shit like Rabbi Kahani ressurected the term and applied it to the Palis.

Ahh, but I can hear the wingnuts now: just as the Phoenicians/Philistines sacrificed babies to Ba’al, and therefore desrved divine slaughter, so too do the Muslims who sacrifice their babies to Allah in the form of suicide bombers! Never mind that for the first example, Yahweh had also asked for human sacrifice (allowing Abraham to spare Isaac at the last momemnt) and never mind in the latetr example that Israel drafts their children in part to “defend” occupied territory and murder rock-throwing children on the other side who don’t like being conquered.

Who was there first? I mean, at the start, thousands of years ago, who was on the land that is now called Lebanon, Israel and Syria (roughly) first, the forebears of the Palestinians or the Israelis? My fuzzy knowledge leans towards “the Israelites came from further east and moved to the sea after the Palestinians”. The reason I ask is because I think that’s the basic question, who was there first? I realize that no pat “Pilgrims landed in 1620….” neat and tidy narrative is possible, with that area being a major trade crossroads and all, but any insight that anyone can provide would be really appreciated. Thanks.

I don’t know where this meme came from, but right-wingers are peddling it and even some in the media are buying, and I think it’s a load of crap. I’m not into the “Let’s not talk about this because it helps the enemy” school of blogging, but I am into the “Let’s not talk about this because it’s not really true” approach.

He would certainly be in a gulag by now..He knows 1984 by heart.

The crazy lefties don’t have to outnumber the reasonable moderates, which would imply that a lot of people find some merit in the crazy lefty worldview, and we know they don’t because on those occasions where they’re not forcing straight people to get gay married and declaring that all sex is rape and discriminating against whitey, they’re really a small bunch of political dead-enders, and America is seeing through their extremist positions.

Indeed, all that is required for the crazy lefties to intimidate the reasonable moderates is for the crazy lefties to, simply put, engage in a form of rhetorical terrorism. Of course, since it works, not only are the lefties terrorists, but the moderates are appeasers, and it’s only the far right that’s virtuous at all.

That’s probably why we’re always oppressing them with our tiny, tiny numbers and our marginalized views.

Yeah, I have this idea for a sketch called “Cooking for Misha”, where you see him on a standard TV kitchen set, and he pulls out all the ingredients for some dish, then proceeds to smash them all together with a hammer, the only tool he has or ever uses.