May 4, 2006 Our story begins about 5,000 years ago on a hill 55 miles inland from the eastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea. The Jebusites, a tribe of the Canaanites, have chosen it to be the site of new place of worship in honour of Shalem, the Canaanite God of Dusk. The original name of this place of worship survives because it was inscribed on stone tablets found in Ebla, Syria, c. 3000 BCE; on Egyptian statues, c. 2,500 BCE; and on shards of ceramic Egyptian Execration Texts dating to the XII Dynasty, c. 1900 BCE. It reads: “Urushalem,” a Canaanite word comprising the prefix “Uru” (“founded by”) and “Shalem.”* We know this place today as Jerusalem—“Founded by Shalem,” a Canaanite God. About 1,200 years later, according to legend, a man named Abraham left the Sumerian city of Ur, in what is now Occupied Iraq, and immigrated to Canaan. A further 600-odd years later c.1184 BCE, a people called the Hebrews invaded Canaan, which the Greeks called Phoenicia. Even by Biblical accounts, which must be taken with several grains of salt, these Hebrews acted like marauding savages, as in this account of the sack of Jericho: “They utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword.… And they burnt the city with fire, and all that was therein: only the silver, and the gold, and the vessels of brass and of iron, they put into the treasury of the house of the LORD.”† Hebrew domination of Canaan began with the reign of three kings: Saul, r. 1112–1072 BCE; David, r. 1072–1032 BCE; and Solomon, r. 1032–992 BCE. This account is almost certainly folkloric, since the odds of three kings each ruling for exactly 40 years is statistically implausible, and 40 is a recurring apocryphal number. David is credited with uniting the 12 tribes of Israel and establishing Urushalem as the political and religious capital of a United Israel after he brought the Ark of the Covenant with him from Hebron, David’s capital for seven years. United Israel deteriorated toward the end of Solomon’s reign, and under his son Rehoboam it split into the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Judea. The Assyrians conquered Israel in 722 BCE, and the Babylonians conquered Judea in 597 BCE. Thus endeth the reign of the Jews. This thumbnail sojourn into ancient history is meant to show three simple truths: • Jerusalem was founded by Canaanites.
Against this history we have the pseudo-history of Zionism, in which Jews are made out to be the only legitimate inhabitants of Jerusalem. Shem and Ever, two sons of Noah are said to be the city’s founders, even though their existence is purely mythical. Moreover, the myth that the Land of Canaan was a private land grant between the Hebrews and their god has overshadowed the real history of the region and given rise to unspeakable, unprovoked violence against Arabs—first in the form of Crusades, and then in the form of Israel. For some inexplicable reason, Jews and Christians have gone berserk because Muslims ruled Jerusalem, even though under Muslim rule people of all faiths were allowed to worship freely. Even in this allegedly enlightened age, the fallacy of Jerusalem as a Jewish city and the legitimacy of “Israel” colours our attitudes toward the region. We defer to Jewish points of view, and assume the worst about Muslims, as if the myths were true and the archaeological evidence for Urushalem did not exist. Covering up the Canaanite origin of Jerusalem is a major duty of Zionist propagandists, because it is the Achilles Heel of Zionist dogma and anti-Arab demonology. Here in Canada, The Lobby has been doing its part to uphold this official fiction. B’nai Brith argued in Federal Court on behalf of a Jew, Eliyahu Veffer, who wanted his passport to state that he was born not in Jerusalem, but in Jerusalem, Israel. That the case should have gone to court at all is appalling since Veffer had no case. First, as I have shown numerous times, Jerusalem was never meant to be part of “Israel.” Zionists stole huge swaths of Palestine and dispossessed 350,000 Arabs between the time the illegal and unratified Partition Plan was passed on Nov. 29, 1947, and the state of “Israel” was proclaimed on May 15, 1948. Included in this theft was West Jerusalem and the dispossession of 60,000 Arabs into East Jerusalem and the West Bank. After the 1967 War, which Israel provoked so it could seize more land, East Jerusalem came under Israeli Occupation, which is unarguably illegal under international law. In short, Zionist control over Jerusalem is utterly illegitimate, and the court could have thrown the case out. The good news is that it ruled correctly. Problem is, The Lobby is whinging about discrimination and fabricating sophistries about the court infringing Veffer’s religious freedom. This is non sequitur of biblical proportions—how does a word in a passport affect one’s freedom to practice religion?! Then, B’nai Brith screech owl David Matas comes up with this precious morsel of disinformation: “Eliyahu Veffer is effectively being denied his birthright by the restrictive policy now in place. I will be consulting with the Veffer family to determine the next course of action.”§ Er, what restrictive policy would that be? What “birthright” is he talking about? If birthrights so concerns Matas, a lawyer the Jewish community’s self-proclaimed foremost human rights agency, why does he not champion the cause of non-Jews who have been denied their birthright by Zionist invaders. In 1997, Hanna Kawas, a Canadian citizen born in Bethlehem, petitioned the former Liberal government to have his passport state his place of birth as “Bethlehem, Palestine.” The government essentially ignored his request and offered boilerplate stonewalling excuses that it could not. Unlike the Veffer case, which had no merit, Kawas had three key pieces of evidence to back his claim: • When he was born on June, 2, 1948, Bethlehem was part of Palestine; If Bethlehem in 1948 was recognized as Palestinian in 1987 how could it lose that designation in 1997? Well, under the influence of The Lobby, Canada is rewriting history. Just as Zionists supplanted the truth of Jerusalem with ethnocentric religious fictions, Canada willfully disregarded the historical record to deny a Palestinian his birthright. Just as the Jews have denied the Canaanite origin of Urushalem, the world has to deny the existence of Palestine.
The Occupation of Ottawa can only get worse now that Stephen Harper and his God Squad are running things. In my March 16 column, I showed how Harper co-ordinated his anti-Hamas stand with three members of The Lobby. Now, it appears all the Lobby has to do is call ol’ Stevie to get action. In commenting on the court’s rejection of Veffer, B’nai Brith’s Executive Vice President and chief berserker Frank Dimant stated: “Whatever the legal interpretation in today’s decision, it is discriminatory as a matter of policy. [Huh?]…We will certainly be communicating with the new Government to advance our views and hopefully this will obviate the need for an appeal.” Clearly, Dimant wants Harper to ignore the law and prop up the fiction of Jewish Jerusalem, but why would Harper do such a thing unless he had more than one allegience? In fact, judging from the press release, it seems as if B’nai Brith expects Harper to do as it says, as if he were a dog trained to obey on command. To nobody’s surprise, I’m sure, one of Harper’s head-table guests for his address last month to the Empire Club was none other than Dimant himself. Hmm. Makes you wonder who’s really making policy, doesn’t it? I wish I could have been there to see Harper perform: “Arf! Israel friend! Hamas terrorist! Arf!” (pant! pant!) Good dog! Sources: |
