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Re: question
Dear Philip,
I already suggested to Niels Lemche (it may have been privately) that we
use a name like cis-Jordanian aborigines or cis-Jordanians to refer to
the pre-Israelite inhabitants of Eretz Yisrael. That is certainly
politically neutral. Although I don't personally like the use of
Palestine as a geographical designation, there is little that can be done
about that. Keeping with this we can even speak of the LB etc. residents
of Palestine. My objection is to Palestinian as a designation of these
people since this is politcally explosive and exacerbates all of the
scholarly problems in the name Palestine itself. Let us remember that
Yasser Arafat recently referred to Jesus as a Palestinian. No one would
think that he meant to say that Jesus lived in Palestine. THat fact was
trivial. What Arafat meant was to remove Jesus from his Jewish context
and at the same time remove the Jews from Palestine. We should not
forget that in current Arab historiography the Jewish presence is
considered an aberration and of no permanence. There were, so these
propagandists would have it, Palestinians (ARabs) in the land from the
beginning of time. They were conquered for a short time by barbarian
Habiru (i.e. Israelites and Jews) and the invaders eventually were
expelled. THis may sound simplistic but it is indeed what Arab
propogandists present as history. The current debate about the origins
of Israel will easily enter this propoganda (just as the Habiru,
supposedly a group only scholars should know about) and the use of
Palestinians as a designation of the aborigines will be misused. So let
us not misuse it!
AVigdor Hurowitz
Ben Gurion University of the Negev,
Beer Sheva, Israel
On Mon, 15 Apr 1996, Philip Davies wrote:
> >DEar Thomas,
> >My argument is not with Keith Whitelam whom I don't know and whom I can't
> >judge, but with the term Palestinian to refer to the pre-Israelite
> >residents of the Land of Israel. It is unscholarly, and in the current
> >political environment it resonates loudly as anti-ZIonist= anti Semitic
> >and should be withdrawn from scholarly parlance.
>
> So this debate continues. IN which case, if we are to remove anti-Zionist
> language, can we also remove Zionist language and have something politcally
> neutral, please?
>
> Philip R Davies
> Department of Biblical Studies
> University of Sheffield
> Sheffield S10 2UJ
> England
>
> Tel (0)114-282-4877
> Fax (0)114-255-2094
>
>