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THE “PEACE PROCESS”, “PALESTINE IS JORDAN” & DISCOVERY OF A JEWISH TEMPLE IN ANCIENT EGYPT

We welcome your comments to this and any other CIJR publication. Please address your response to:  Ber Lazarus, Publications Chairman, Canadian Institute for Jewish Research, PO Box 175, Station  H, Montreal QC H3G 2K7 – Tel: (514) 486-5544 – Fax:(514) 486-8284; E-mail:  ber@isranet.wpsitie.com

 

 

 Download a pdf version of today's Daily Briefing.

 

It’s Time for Truth About the Two-State Solution: Evelyn Gordon, Jerusalem Post, June 24, 2013—If it weren’t for one flaw, I’d agree completely with Daniel Gordis' column in this paper last Friday. He’s right that the endless debate over the peace process has sucked all the air out of the international Jewish conversation “for far too long,” leaving no room for crucial topics like “why the Jews need a state and the values on which it ought to be based.”

 

The Return of the Jordan Option: Geoffrey Aronson, Al-Monitor, May 8, 2013—A recent visitor to Amman reports some senior Jordanians declaring openly that “there never was a place called Palestine. There is no such thing as Palestine, only Jordan.” Such sentiments, while still a minority view, mark a sea change in the long-standing Jordanian deference to the PLO on developments west of the Jordan River.

 

Was There a Jewish Temple in Ancient Egypt?: Stephen Gabriel Rosenberg, Jerusalem Post, July 1, 2013—Just a hundred years ago, they were searching for it desperately. German, French and Italian archaeological expeditions were mounted to comb the lower stretches of Elephantine Island in the Nile River, in southern Egypt, but without success. They had been activated by the publication in 1911, two years earlier, of papyrus documents from the area that contained personal stories of members of a Jewish military colony in the area from the 5th century BCE. According to the document, there had been a temple in their midst of the colony.

 

On Topic Links

 

It’s Time to Change the Israel ConversationDaniel Gordis, Jerusalem Post, June 20, 2013

'Even If You Give Up All the Land,  It Won't Solve the Problems in the Mideast': Dror Eydar, Israel Hayom, June 28, 2013

Is Netanyahu Planning a Unilateral Move?: David M. Weinberg, Israel Hayom, June 28, 2013

John Kerry’s Bid for Mideast Peace Is Doomed: Jeffrey Goldberg, Bloomberg, July 1, 2013

Ancient Mosaic Depicting Samson Uncovered in a Galilee Synagogue: Rachel Avraham, Jewish Press, July 4th, 2013

 

IT’S TIME FOR TRUTH ABOUT THE TWO-STATE SOLUTION

Evelyn Gordon

Jerusalem Post, June 24, 2013

 

If it weren’t for one flaw, I’d agree completely with Daniel Gordis' column in this paper last Friday. He’s right that the endless debate over the peace process has sucked all the air out of the international Jewish conversation “for far too long,” leaving no room for crucial topics like “why the Jews need a state and the values on which it ought to be based.” He’s right that we can’t afford to keep ignoring these issues. And he’s right that the impossibility of an Israeli-Palestinian deal in the foreseeable future creates space to finally start addressing them. Indeed, that’s precisely what happened in the last Israeli election, which, for the first time in decades, revolved around domestic issues – i.e., what kind of state Israel should be – rather than the peace process.

 

Yet these important arguments are undercut by the flaw hidden in one seemingly innocuous statement: “Reasonable minds can differ as to whether saying publicly that the two-state solution is dead is healthy for Israel’s standing in the international community.”

 

Actually, where Gordis stands on that question seems pretty clear: Just last July, he signed an open letter urging Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu not to adopt the Levy Report, lest it “place the two-state solution and the prestige of Israel as a democratic member of the international community, in peril”; he then wrote an op-ed in Haaretz explaining his objections in more detail. Yet all the Levy Report said is what every Israeli government has said for decades: that the West Bank isn’t “occupied Palestinian territory,” but disputed territory to which Israel has a valid claim – which in no way negates Israel’s ability or willingness to cede part or all of it for peace. If Gordis views even that as too dangerous to say publicly lest it paint Israel as a peace rejectionist, I can’t imagine him not objecting to a blunt public statement that “the two-state solution is dead."

 

And therein lies the flaw. For if prominent Israelis, and especially Israeli leaders, aren’t willing to say this publicly and repeatedly, the “peace process” will keep right on monopolizing the conversation, and we’ll never have time and space for those other topics that Gordis rightly considers vital.

 

First, this is because nobody can be more Catholic than the pope: Neither American Jews nor world leaders can declare the two-state solution dead as long as Israeli leaders insist ad nauseam that it’s achievable. Moreover, the benefits of peace as envisioned by the optimists are enormous: no more terror, an economic boom, reduced defense spending that frees up funds for other purposes, unassailable international legitimacy instead of creeping delegitimization. Most Israelis by now consider this “peace dividend” a mirage: 83% think even withdrawing to the 1967 lines and dividing Jerusalem wouldn’t end the conflict, meaning that terror, high defense spending, the economic hindrance of being in a “war zone” and delegitimization of Israel’s efforts to defend itself would all continue. But people who still believe a deal is possible generally also believe it really would produce those benefits.

 

Thus as long as Israeli leaders encourage the fallacy that an agreement is possible, overseas Jews will naturally think this should take precedence over the issues Gordis rightly wants to discuss. For unless you think Israel would forfeit its heart by ceding its historic heartland – which two-state enthusiasts don’t – then whatever kind of state you want Israel to be, the above-mentioned benefits would make it easier to achieve.

 

The biggest problem, however, is that Israeli leaders don’t just say peace is possible; whether out of genuine belief or merely to prove their peacemaking bona fides, they also repeatedly declare it essential for Israel’s very survival: “If the day comes when the two-state solution collapses … the State of Israel is finished” (former prime minister Ehud Olmert); “it's impossible to survive in the long run without a political settlement” (Netanyahu); without a Palestinian state, “Israel will not be the Jewish nation-state” (Justice Minister Tzipi Livni).

 

When Israel’s own leaders – to whom Israelis routinely demand that Diaspora Jews defer on vital security issues – deem a two-state solution the most vital security issue of all, necessary for Israel’s very survival, how can overseas Jews be expected to care about anything else? If Israel truly will expire without a two-state solution, then there’s no point in discussing either why we need it or what kind of state it should be; all such questions are irrelevant until we first ensure its survival by implementing such a solution.

 

Thus if the conversation is ever to change, Israelis must first explain to the world why the two-state solution is indeed dead, and why Israel can nevertheless survive and even thrive without it, just as it has for the past 65 years. In fact, explaining this is absolutely vital – because Israel can’t survive and thrive without peace unless we invest in building a state capable of doing so, and that entails a lot of very hard work. We have to reform our economy and education system, promote our case overseas, foster social solidarity, better integrate our minorities, and much, much more. Yet none of this can happen if Israel continues wasting vast amounts of political time and energy on the peace process – which it must keep doing as long as world leaders and overseas Jewry keep insisting on it. And they will keep insisting until Israeli leaders persuade them of what most Israelis already know: that it’s a lost cause.

 

It may be the world isn’t yet ready to hear this from the very top (even assuming Netanyahu were capable of saying it, which I doubt). But it never will be ready unless other Israelis start laying the groundwork. Thus even if more diplomatic phrasing might be preferable, second-tier politicians like Economy and Trade Minister Naftali Bennett and Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon are performing an essential service by stating this truth. The more Israelis are willing to join them in saying this publicly, the more likely overseas Jews are to finally start believing it. And only then will we be able to have the conversation Gordis (and I) so badly want to have.

 

Contents

 

 

THE RETURN OF THE JORDAN OPTION

Geoffrey Aronson

Al-Monitor, May 8, 2013

A recent visitor to Amman reports some senior Jordanians declaring openly that “there never was a place called Palestine. There is no such thing as Palestine, only Jordan.” Such sentiments, while still a minority view, mark a sea change in the long-standing Jordanian deference to the PLO on developments west of the Jordan River. According to one Palestinian, such views are being encouraged by some voices in Fatah, who fear Hamas' baton more than Amman's reluctant embrace, and who no doubt believe, as many veterans in Fatah do, that all it will take to turn Jordan into Palestine is a Palestinian decision to do so.

 “Jordan is Palestine” is the mirror image of  “Palestine is Jordan." Jordanians identified with the latter are not contemplating a confederal agreement between respective Jordanian and and Palestinian states, but rather the restoration of Jordan's uncontested place in Jerusalem and the West Bank on the eve of the June 1967 war. The ruler of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is not to be envied. History and geography have played a cruel trick on the leader of this unlikely country. He is squeezed between more powerful and often warring parties, presiding over a population of subjects thrown together by war and circumstance.

To its credit, Jordan has succeeded more often than it has failed to construct a popular and workable, if fragile sense of national identity shared by disparate Palestinian and Transjordanian communities during the last nine decades. However, the self-immolation of Syria, Fatah’s failure to end Israel's occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the uncertain promise of the Arab Spring are posing new and unprecedented challenges for King Abdullah II, whose head lies ever uneasy on the royal throne.  

The feasting on the corpse that was once Syria poses the most immediate challenge to Jordan, and it was at the heart of recent discussions during the King's recent visit to Washington in the last week of April. But Jordan's cascading problem managing the fallout from Syria complements the more essential challenge that has always been uppermost in the mind of Jordan's political elite as well as its growing Islamic opposition. This challenge, of course, relates to the Palestinian dimension of Jordan's national identity, and the King's ability to manage this without his Hashemite or Transjordanian identity suffering as a consequence.

It is against Jordan's basic nature to make precipitous moves in any direction, yet a dynamic trend favouring a “New Look” in Jordan's Palestine policy — one that is viewed sympathetically in both Jerusalem and Washington — is hard to ignore. For many years now Jordan has been confronting a most unwelcome strategic environment to its west, across the Jordan River. Fatah has failed to end Israel's occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the growing power of Hamas as a political factor has proceeded in tandem.

 

Fatah is no friend of Jordan, where memories of Black September remain etched in the consciousness of the Jordanian elite. But Jordan long ago was forced by its own failures and by circumstances beyond its control to make its peace with the PLO, not only as the recognized representative of the Palestinian people — at least those residing east of the Jordan River —- but also as a strategic buffer against Israeli, American and Islamic/Arab claims against Amman. The PLO, notably after King Hussein's 1988 disengagement from the West Bank, became Jordan’s insurance policy against the imposition of a solution at Jordan's expense to Palestine's problems in West Bank and Gaza Strip.

 

To Jordan's dismay, it is being forced to realize that Fatah and the PLO it embodies cannot perform this task. This conclusion has been debated from time to time in recent years. The barometer of these discussions is Amman's on-again, off-again dance with Khaled Meshaal and Hamas, most notably the 2009 thaw in relations engineered by Gen. Mohammad Dhahabi, who was at the time head of Jordan's General Intelligence Department. If Fatah cannot be a Palestinian shield protecting Jordanian interests in a quiescent West Bank, it is argued, then perhaps Hamas should be given a go.

The other option, and the one today at the center of Jordan's agenda, suggests a fundamental rethinking of Jordan's exit from the West Bank that began with King Hussein's failure in 1972 to reach an agreement on Israeli withdrawal with Moshe Dayan and that gained momentum with the Arab League decision to recognize the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people in 1974.  Like Jordan's unenthusiastic turn in Hamas' direction, this option reflects Jordan's despair at Fatah's failure and is a hedge against Fatah’s capitulation to Israel in a deal that would endanger Jordan's interest in preventing an influx of Palestinians eastward across the Jordan River.

One example of this trend is the “historic,” if precipitous, agreement between King Abdullah and PLO head Mahmoud Abbas in March confirming the Jordanian king’s stewardship of the holy places in Jerusalem. "In this historic agreement, Abbas reiterated that the king is the custodian of holy sites in Jerusalem and that he has the right to exert all legal efforts to preserve them, especially Al-Aqsa mosque," the palace said in a statement. Abbas said that the agreement confirmed "Jordan's role since the era of the late King Hussein" and that it consolidated agreements established decades ago.

Abbas' signature marks the first formal Palestinian recognition of Jordan's central role in Jerusalem and it complements the understanding detailed in Jordan’s treaty with Israel in 1994. The treaty notes that “Israel respects the present special role of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in Muslim Holy shrines in Jerusalem. When negotiations on the permanent status will take place, Israel will give high priority to the Jordanian historic role in these shrines.”

Abbas' interest in formalizing Jordan’s role is a function of Palestinian weakness and stands in ironic contrast to the nominal, and apparently symbolic boost for sovereignty won at the UN last November. The understanding on Jerusalem reflects the PLO's interest in Amman as a diplomatic safe harbour, protecting against both Hamas and Israel, and Amman's readiness to reaffirm its interest in Jerusalem at the PLO's (and Hamas') expense.

These interests are not inconsistent with the evolving diplomatic strategy being pursued by US Secretary of State John Kerry. For more than a year, Amman has been a key way station of Washington's diplomacy, much to the dismay of some in Egypt who preside over long-stalled reconciliation efforts. But unlike President Mohammad Morsi, King Abdullah is interested in being identified with any American effort. Even if opposed to the ideas Kerry is now circulating, Jordan has rarely viewed itself as in a position to reject US efforts.

“Palestine is Jordan” has long been the rallying cry of Israel's right wing. It is now finding an uncertain echo in Jordan.

Contents

 

 

WAS THERE A JEWISH TEMPLE IN ANCIENT EGYPT?

Stephen Gabriel Rosenberg

Jerusalem Post, July 1, 2013

 

Just a hundred years ago, they were searching for it desperately. German, French and Italian archaeological expeditions were mounted to comb the lower stretches of Elephantine Island in the Nile River, in southern Egypt, but without success. They had been activated by the publication in 1911, two years earlier, of papyrus documents from the area that contained personal stories of members of a Jewish military colony in the area from the 5th century BCE. According to the document, there had been a temple in their midst of the colony. But where, exactly? Was it real or a myth ? Where was the colony, exactly, and why was it there at all? With the advent of World War I in 1914, the search was called off. It resumed after 1918, but again without success.

 

The papyrus scrolls were specific. The Jewish colonists lived in peace with their Egyptian neighbors, and they kept the Jewish laws. In fact, the Persian Emperor Darius II had commanded them to keep the Passover feast of unleavened bread in 418 BCE and not to drink beer for seven days after Nissan 14, according to one of the papyri. The area at the time was under Persian control; it had been captured by Cambyses in 525 BCE, and the Jewish colony was under Persian jurisdiction.

 

They occupied a whole row of mud-brick houses, some of them married Egyptian wives, some did not, and altogether they lived their lives in peace and quiet. Why were they there? They were a military unit serving there to guard Egypt’s southern border. They were on Elephantine Island, opposite Aswan on the mainland, and it was here, at the first cataract of the Nile, that Egypt had always had to defend itself against infiltrators from the south, where the poorer nations were desperate to enter and enjoy the riches of their wealthy neighbors.

 

But why were the Hebrews doing this job? The Persians were also keen to guard the border and they trusted the Jews, who had come to Egypt as refugees and were not allowed to work or to own land as citizens, but could serve as mercenaries, and that is what they did. There was a whole colony of them, they built their houses and it seems set them around a small temple, at least according to the papyri.

 

There was no record of this Jewish colony in the history books, nothing in the works of Jewish historian Josephus Flavius, and nothing in the Talmud or any official Jewish records, nothing at all except in the papyri that had been found in 1893. So the world was desperate to see if they were correct. Had there really been a Jewish temple in Egypt in the 5th century BCE? IN 1893 the American adventurer C.E. Wilbour acquired a hoard of documents from the locals on Elephantine Island. He could not read the Aramaic texts, so he stored them in a sealed metal trunk, which passed to his daughter on his death in 1896. She eventually passed them on to the Brooklyn Art Museum in 1947. However, other papyri on the subject had come into the hands of British and German scholars in 1901 and 1903, and were quickly translated and published by the Germans in 1911.

 

Among other details, the documents described a shrine standing in an open courtyard with an altar on which animal sacrifices were offered. It had stood before the conquest of Egypt (in 525 BCE.) by the Persians and Cambyses had spared it, although destroying other temples. It remained standing until about 400 BCE, when the Persians were driven out by the Egyptians. (It had been destroyed at one time by the priests of Khnum, who had an adjoining temple, but it was rebuilt again a few years later, on the orders of the Persian governor. The priests of Khnum were powerful because Khnum was the ramheaded god who was presumed to govern the rise and fall of the Nile from this spot, at the first cataract).

 

This was the story and the European expeditions were desperate to find the temple, but after WWI they lost interest and it was not till 1967 that another expedition was mounted. This was not to search for the temple, but to record all the pagan temples that had been built at this important site in southern Egypt. They recorded many Egyptian temples of various periods but, after many years, also found what they called “the Aramaic village.” This was a series of mud-brick houses, in ruins, that were lined up along two sides of a central site with a fine plaster surface, and a small building paved in fine tiles.

 

Luckily, Hebrew University professor Bezalel Porten had published his plan of the Jewish colony houses, based on the papyrus documents, and the German team recognized that what they had found were the Jewish houses around the temple site, all as Porten had predicted from the documents.

 

The temple itself was small, in fact only half of it remained, but it had a fine tile floor in two layers, indicating that the first had been destroyed and then replaced. It stood in a courtyard of fine plasterwork, while the houses only had crude mud floors. So this was the temple, and the papyri were true.

 

The final discovery was only made in 1997, but it indicated a small Jewish temple in southern Egypt, built to serve a Jewish colony that acted as garrison to defend the southern approach to the rich country of Egypt. The Jews had acted as mercenaries to the Persian colonizers, so when the latter were ousted by the Egyptians in about 400 BCE, the Jews were in danger, and might even have been considered traitors. So what happened to them? There is no record in the documents. Hopefully they were not murdered, but more probably they assimilated and lived on with their Egyptian counterparts.

 

There is however the other possibility: that they escaped. If they escaped, they could not have gone north, back to their homeland – that would have meant a 1,000-kilometer trek through enemy territory. Rather, they most probably would have gone south and may even have got as far as Ethiopia. Perhaps they settled there and showed themselves to be good Jews, keeping Passover and other mitzvot, and thus converting some of their Ethiopian neighbors to the true religion. Who knows?

 

The author is a Senior Fellow at the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem.

Contents

It’s Time to Change the Israel Conversation: Daniel Gordis, Jerusalem Post, June 20, 2013—Naftali Bennett, not long ago the election season’s “candidate to watch” and today the economy and trade minister, declared the two-state solution at a “dead end” this week, and said, memorably, that “never in Jewish history have so many people talked so much and expended so much energy on something so futile.”

'Even If You Give Up All the Land,  It Won't Solve the Problems in the Mideast': Dror Eydar, Israel Hayom, June 28, 2013 —An interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, author of "Infidel". "From the perspective of the Arab leaders, reaching a two-state solution is to betray God. If you want peace and not merely a process, you must make peace with the people. The negotiators themselves are of no importance."

 

Is Netanyahu Planning a Unilateral Move?: David M. Weinberg, Israel Hayom, June 28, 2013—Israel's negotiating position would be weakened, not strengthened, by such unilateral moves; and this plan would lead us away from peace, not closer to peace. Unilateral Israeli action to redraw the map of settlement in Judea and Samaria will only encourage Palestinian maximalism.

 

John Kerry’s Bid for Mideast Peace Is Doomed: Jeffrey Goldberg, Bloomberg, July 1, 2013—It’s a testament to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s grit, determination and self-assurance that he refuses to give up in his quest to bring Israelis and Palestinians back to the negotiating table. But I wish that he would, during the long slog toward renewed talks, ask himself one question: Why didn’t his predecessor, Hillary Clinton, apply herself to the problem in the same manner?

 

Ancient Mosaic Depicting Samson Uncovered in a Galilee Synagogue: Rachel Avraham, Jewish Press, July 4th, 2013—Excavations in a late Roman era synagogue at Huqoq in Israel’s eastern lower Galilee have uncovered a new mosaic depicting the biblical hero and judge, Samson. Jodi Magness of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who has been conducting archaeological excavations at Huqoq since 2011, notes that while scenes from the Bible are not uncommon in ancient synagogues, mosaics featuring Samson are. 

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