Is the Jewish claim to Palestine valid?

The occupation of Palestine by the Jews hinges on the assumption of their historic connection with the land.

Is this true?

The truth is that the connection to Palestine of even those Jews who can genuinely claim to have Hebrew forebears is tenuous at best because never, at any time, did the Hebrews occupy the whole of Palestine.

In 3000 BC the earliest known inhabitants of the area were the Canaanites, some 1800 years before the first Hebrews.

In about 1730 BC Hebrew tribes came from Ur, having been sold into bondage and they only moved out of Egypt and into Palestine about 1000 BC. The Egyptians called them "Hebrews" which meant "wanderers". At this time the Hebrews settled in mainly unoccupied regions and had neither a kingdom nor a central government.

In 721 BC the kingdom of Israel was destroyed by the Assyrians and the people were carried into bondage. The kingdom became extinct and in its place were four Assyrian provinces.

In 587 BC the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and carried the Jews into captivity. This marked the end of Jewish rule in Palestine, but not the end of Jewish presence.

In 538 BC the Babylonians lost Palestine to the Persians and allowed the Jews to return.

In 332 BC Alexander the Great took Palestine from the Persians and a century and a half later the Greeks were confronted with the revolt of the Maccabees.

In 164 BC Judas Maccabee liberated Jerusalem. An event the Jews celebrate in the festival of Hanukka.

But Jewish independence in Jerusalem and some other parts of Palestine did not last. In 124 BC Jerusalem was besieged by the King of Syria. The siege was raised only after the payment of tribute.

Then in 63 BC the Romans captured Palestine and it became, as Judea, a province of the Roman Empire. The Jews revolted against the Romans in AD 66 to 70 and again in AD 132 to 135. In the first revolt Jerusalem was destroyed by Titus. In the second most of the Jews still in Palestine were killed or dispersed to the far corners of the Roman Empire.

In 135 AD Hadrian built a new city of Jerusalem, which he named Aelia Capitolina, and none of the very few Jews who remained in Palestine were allowed to live in it.

Therefore, the Jewish connection with the area as a people lasted little more than six hundred years and ended approximately 2,000 years ago.

In 1846 "Sir" Moses Montefiore made what appears to be a reconnaissance trip to Palestine at the behest of "Lord" Rothschild and reported that the Jewish population of Palestine at that time was around 9,000. These people presumably were residents of long-standing and could justly be called Palestinians.

Are all Jews Semitic?

To that question the answer is "no". In other words they are not by any means all descendants of the Hebrews.

Many are descendants of Jews by conversion in the many lands where they were citizens. Conversions that took place long after the first Jewish presence in Palestine was all but extinguished.

The great majority of Russian, Polish, German and Baltic Jews, (providers at the turn of the nineteenth century, of what can be termed political Zionism's hard-core) descend from the Khazars, a Tartar people of Southern Russia, who were converted in a body to Judaism at the time of Charlemagne (around 740 AD.)

The Khazars were a semi-nomadic Turko-Finnish people who settled between the Volga and the Don. When Khazaria fell to the Mongols in the 13th century, its population of Jewish-convert Khazars moved north-west to become the progenitors of the Ashkenazim Jews. These Khazar Jews greatly outnumbered the racially Hebraic Jews who had reached Europe by other routes and at other periods of history. Therefore the majority of Eastern European Jews were not Semitic and, as most western European Jews came from eastern Europe, they are not Semitic either.

This makes their occupation of Palestine invalid on both counts.

It also explains why there has been such emphasis on the use of the term "anti-Semitic" rather than "anti-Jewish", with the obvious intention of inferring that the Jews are Semites. Correctly "anti-Semitic" can only be used to describe the activities of the Jews against the Arabs, who are a Semitic people and whose uninterrupted presence in the Middle East goes back for millenia.

Undoubtedly casting doubt on the genetics of the Ashkenazim Jews is a sensitive point for Israel. The 2007 film "Borat" of Baron Cohen made an attempt at a spoof - laughter is always a good method of shuffling out of a tricky situation.

In May 9 2007 an article by Steven Plaut"The Khazar Myth and the new Anti-Semitism" appeared on the Jewish Press web site, where the author goes to some length but limited success to disprove the claim that the Ashkenazim Jews are descendants of the Khazars, the Turkic tribe who lived in southern Russia between the Black and Caspian Seas and converted en bloc to Judaism. They are dismissed by him with the words "they were an archaic group of people in central Asia who disappeared a millenium ago". He apparently deems it politic to ignore the Karaim Jews who still live in that area and are some of the descendants of that conversion.

The book of Exodus specifies that the male descendants of Aaron (the brother of Moses) should constitute the priesthood - the Kohabim - "for all time".

In 1997 the world was amazed to learn that the old Bible story had found new and very specific scientific support, the haplotype common to 42% of Ashkenazi levi'im was found to have the same genetic marker, the origins of which appear to derive from Central Asia not from the Middle East. Where did that Central Asian haplotype come from? It looks as though the Khazar Jews created their own native class of levi'im.

An attempt to back away from the lack of Semitic blood with the claim that the Jews are not racist (tell that to the Palestinians)with the statement that anyone who is a genuine convert is welcomed is equally questionable. What then of the increasing division in Israel between those with only one Jewish parent and the true full-blooded Jew? Gentile women who marry a Jew are required to "convert" in order that any children of the marriage will be regarded as Jews.Why are the Ethiopian Jews side-tracked? Their conversion to Judaism is so ancient that they know nothing of the Talmud?

The Jewish claim to Palestine viewed from any aspect is not only shaky but would be laughable if it hadn't caused so much misery to the legitimate occupants of the country. It would be equally justifiable (and equally ridiculous) for the descendants of the Celts, i.e. the Irish, the Scots and the Welsh to transport themselves lock-stock-and-barrel to the area of La Tene and Halstatt in Europe, from which their ancestors originally came.