Khaleej Times

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayad has made a formal complaint to the Canadian government regarding the intention of Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum to collaborate with the Israel Antiquities Authority to Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayad has made a formal complaint to the Canadian government regarding the intention of Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum to collaborate with the Israel Antiquities Authority to host “Dead Sea Scrolls: Words that Changed the World” from June 27 to January 3, 2010

Palestinian Archaeological Department Director-General Hamdan Taha explains, “The exhibition would entail exhibiting or displaying artifacts removed from the Palestinian territories... I think it is important that Canadian institutions would be responsible and act in accordance with Canada’s obligations.”

Maxim and other men’s magazines. The Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition is part of Israel’s effort to re-brand itself. According to The Economist , American Jewish groups and Israeli diplomats are trying to create the perception of Israel as “hip, cool, cultured, fun and creative.” The campaign has included placing sexually suggestive advertisements inand other men’s magazines.

Harvard Professor Stephen Walt suggests in his Harvard Professor Stephen Walt suggests in his Foreign Policy blog that the re-branding effort is foredoomed to failure: “Restoring Israel’s image in the West isn’t a matter of spin or PR or ‘re-branding;’ it’s a matter of abandoning the policies that have cost it the sympathy it once enjoyed. It’s really just about that simple.”

The archaeological component of the propaganda campaign, however, uses subliminal suggestion to bypass such political arguments. A top Israeli re-branding advocate argues, “[Let’s] get to that first stage when people associate Israel with science and music and archaeology...Then we’ll take it from there.”

country after absence of 2000 years is preposterous, Israel’s theft of Palestine from the native population is popularly legitimised through the claim that today’s Jews descend from inhabitants of Greco-Roman Judea. In Facts on the Ground Columbia Professor Nadia Abu Al Haj writes, “In the context of Israel and Palestine, archaeology emerged as a central scientific discipline because of the manner in which colonial settlement was configured in a language of, and a belief in, Jewish national return.” Even though asserting ownership to acountry after absence of 2000 years is preposterous, Israel’s theft of Palestine from the native population is popularly legitimised through the claim that today’s Jews descend from inhabitants of Greco-Roman Judea.

Times Reporters Ethan Bonner and Isabel Kershner in “ According to New YorkReporters Ethan Bonner and Isabel Kershner in “ Parks Fortify Israel’s Claim to Jerusalem ,” “[There] is a battle for historical legitimacy. As part of the effort, archaeologists are finding indisputable evidence of ancient Jewish life here.”

This claim is nonsense.

There is no single founder population for modern Jewry any more than there is a single founder population for modern Christians or modern Muslims. Late ancient and early medieval texts describe an ethnically diverse collection of communities associated with proselytizing pre-Rabbinic Judaism.

In English to use îd bin Yûsuf al-Fayyûmi) and his colleagues. In English to use the word Jew is anachronistic before the 10th century when medieval Rabbinic Judaism crystallised thanks to the efforts of Saadyah Gaon (Sa‘d bin Ysuf al-Fayymi) and his colleagues.

With the revolutionary codification of Rabbinic law these communities became part of a vast trade network that spanned the Christian and Muslim world and that extended into China and began to exchange members on a large scale. The main population-exporting region seems to have been l ocated in territories near the Black Sea

Sand admits, “[The] chances that the Palestinians are descendants of the ancient Judaic people are much greater than the chances that you or I [meaning Israeli Jews] are its descendents.”

Zionists are almost pitiable, for they are so ashamed of their own history that they have usurped one belonging to another people. When the Israeli government sends the Dead Sea Scrolls to Canada, by its own law Canada must turn them over to their rightful owners — the Palestinian people.

Karin Friedemann is a Boston-based writer on Middle East affairs and US politics. She is Director of the Division on Muslim Civil Rights and Liberties for the National Association of Muslim American Women. Joachim Martillo contributed to this article.

In Israel Steals Palestinian Heritage, History Karin Friedemann addresses the primary Zionist lie of modern Jewish descent from the Judaic populations that lived in the Hasmonean and Herodian kingdoms and ethnarchies of the Greco-Roman period. Zionist rebranding efforts have presented pro-Palestinian activists and sympathizers with an opportunity to undermine a key founding idea of the State of Israel Below is the hyperlinked version of Karin'sarticle. I will update this blog entry to explain how to help.Karin Friedemann (LETTER FROM AMERICA)25 May 2009