Palestinians are an “invented” people, Newt Gingrich?

Newt Gingrich in Iowa in 2011

Newton Leroy (surname McPherson at birth, his father was Newton Searles McPherson but the parents divorced within days) Gingrich (born June 17, 1943) was raised a Lutheran, but converted to the Baptist faith while at Tulane.  Newt received an MA (1968) and a PhD (1971) from Tulane University in European history.  His dissertation was entitled “Belgian Education Policy in the Congo: 1945–1960”.  He never studied neither Middle Eastern nor Arab history but in 2011 proclaimed that he is knowledgeable about Palestine and the Ottoman Empire.  

In 1970, Gingrich joined the history department at West Georgia College (now University of West Georgia; today it is ranked 16^th out of 48 universities in Georgia) as an assistant professor.  Four years later Gingrich moved to the geography department and was instrumental in establishing an interdisciplinary environmental studies program. He was denied tenure and left the third-rank college in 1978.

Callista and Newt discuss debt of up to $500,000 owed Tiffany's (AP Photo)

With a penchant for luxury jets and expensive jewelry (bought at Tiffany’s in New York City where he owed more than six figures without any interest charge), he demands that he be treated and toasted as if royalty, regardless if it

Newt Gingrich home in McLean, VA (2011)

is giving a speech at a small college or on the campaign trail (on public disclosure forms, politicians must only give an approximate figure on what is owned or owed).  Gingrich is known for excessive demands such as luxury hotel accommodations plus two bathrooms in any hotel suite.  At the same time Gingrich likes to style himself a friend of the Middle Class tracing his roots back to his childhood.  His five bedroom, 4.5 bath house was worth $995,000 in 2000 and is 5,206 square feet that he finds to be painfully small on a cul-de-sac in McLean, Virginia and today is marked down to the price of $1.275 million.

Gingrich and current wife (Callista) say they live frugally but buy jewelry at Tiffany's

Nearly a puritan in proclamations Gingrich is a vocal critic against sexual infidelity. While in Congress, the Georgia Republican led the charge against President Bill Clinton for the Lewinsky scandal, while at the same time keeping a mistress, Congressional staffer Callista Bisek, secret from his colleagues.  He demands objectivity of others, but at the same time taught a politically motivated course and took public money. 

While arguing against health care Newt took millions of dollars from the health care industry.  He has been on the side of the large insurance companies and faults those who do not have health coverage as being parasites for not buying health coverage, while Michele Bachmann told an Iowa audience that those without health insurance can rely on charity.

Golda Meir, socialist and Zionist, with troops

Running for President of the USA, On December 9, 2011, in an interview with The Jewish Channel, Gingrich was quick to disparage Arabs and Palestinians—calling Palestinians an “invented people” (read here and here)  as if trying to channel  former USA citizen and socialist-Zionist Golden Meir, who left her home in Michigan 1921 for a British mandate it acquired following World War I and was a onetime Prime Minister of Israel, declared in ignorance in 1969 that there had never been a Palestinian state, but was addressing the current post-war era, as Meir had no knowledge of ancient history or of the land that included Jews, Muslims and Christians, with the land the people living on the land identified as “Palestinian.”  This can be seen in Elliott Abrams, who was President George W. Bush’s top Mideast advisor, dismissal of Gingrich’s statement as out of touch with reality.  “There was no Jordan or Syria or Iraq, either, so perhaps he would say they are all invented people as well and also have no right to statehood. Whatever was true then, Palestinian nationalism has grown since 1948, and whether we like it or not, it exists.”  Meir moved to an unchartered place that the UN ultimately styled Israel (which was historically known as Palaestina, and is in Roman records as late as 135 CE (in the age of Julius Cesar it was known by various names including Canaan, Judea, Sumeria, and by latter-day Jews “a pagan land” as it did not embrace the agriculture or warrior gods of the Hebrews)—and both are wrong. 

 

GOP House Whip embraces PLO leader Yassar Arafat 1993 (Huffington Post photo)

While former House Speaker Newt Gingrich on December 9, 2011, claimed that Palestinians were an invention, in 1993, standing in front of Representative Nick Rahall (D-WV), embraced Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) leader Yasser Arafat.  Gingrich has claimed, furthermore, that the Palestinians are “Arabs” (as if they originated in Arabia) since they were a part of the Ottoman Empire.  They were never Arabs when the nation first began over 15,000 years ago.  However, many became Muslim by force (it was known as the Eastern Roman Empire and was far more civilized than Rome) although Palestines have Jews, Christians of various denominations and sects, and other religions.  It was a geographical area that belonged to the Roman Empire, having as its capital the Greek Imperial City of Constantinople (today’s Istanbul).  The majority were Greek and Christian at the time of the conquest who merged into the Ottoman Empire but did not renounce their Christian faith.

According to the Torah and Hebrew Old Testament, the “first people” (by modern mistranslation a man and a woman) lived in Gan Eden (Genesis 3:3)—which is geographically located in Iraq.  The Jews claimed them as their ancestors. From there the record is weak, with the “sons” who had sex with their sisters (Genesis 4:19ff) moving to other lands and taking them by conquest (Genesis 5-6, 10-11).  Genesis 12:1 and 13:1 speaks of “Abram” going out of Egypt—which would match the records of the Hyksos (a Greek word: Ὑκσώς; in Egyptian it is heqa khasewet) who had Apiru/Abiru/Habiru (or Hebrews) as retainers.  The retainers were also known as Kassites or Amorites and identified as being Arabs.  Many now think that these people were minor functionary Hyksos (known as Midianites and as Palestinians; read here and here).  They were similar to the shepherd kings in Arabia: الملوك الرعاة who records also style as mercenaries working for the pharaoh. 

Mercenaries have always excisted, and were made up of two groups of people: those seeking adventure and wealth, and the very poor who had no alternative.  They included Celtic who were joined by Greek (664-250 BCE) adventurers and vagabonds.  The Greeks required payment, although Egypt was not at this time a monetary society. Special gold staters seem to have been struck to maintain their services, and this led to coinage and currency. Copts and Ethiopians joined them.

Native Egyptian pyramid workers in ancient Egypt (none were slaves)

The Jews were never slaves in Egypt.  There is no record of such enslavement found anywhere in Egypt: in or on any tomb or pyramid, in any scroll or other document.  Those farmers and workers who built the pyramids were paid, given housing, food, and medical attention.  Large limestone blocks were pulled along using wooden rollers. Nearly all the workers were Egyptians, with many being full-time paid employees, while others rotated seasonally when work was available.  The whip was not applied.  

If Jews had been slaves, the Egyptians (who were meticulous record-keepers) would have noted that, and written beside each name the value of the slave.  Such records do not exist.  The fact that such an allegation of Jews being slaves appears only in the Bible and basically in the Book of Exodus (the word pyramid does not appear anywhere in the Bible; it comes from Herodotus): and none of that book is historical (Ide, Arthur Frederick (1992). Moses: making of myth & law : the influence of Egyptian sex, religion, and law on the writing of the Torah / with an introduction by Decherd Turner.  Las Colinas, TX, USA: Monument Press).  It is political posturing and has no resemblance to reality.  It is popular propaganda: a practice that was widespread. 

The Hyksos and Palestinians (Palestinians can be traced from the Stone Age to prerecorded epochs: 500,000 to 14,000 BCE) were a settled and affluent society.  In the Mesolithic Period (15,000 – 9,500 BCE), they were known as the Natufian.  The Natufian Palestinians built fortified cities far grander and more secure than other people built their towns.  Many of these urban areas were constructed near Jericho (which was another Palestinian stronghold). 

Walls of Jericho (8500 BCE - 2011 CE)

Jericho’s walls held for millennium until they were shaken by a massive earthquake as was first suggested by John Garstang, who confessed in his introduction that he had labored to prove the story of Joshua in the Bible–but could not prove the legend of heralding angels with trumpet blasts (Garstang, John and Garstang, JBE (John Bergès Eustace) (1940). The Story of Jericho. London, UK: Hodder & Stoughton).  Those who recorded its destruction used a metaphor, as the Garstangs later acknowledge, that some of the mud-brick walls of Jericho fell due to an earthquake that sounded like “trumpet blasts”: a common expression for seismic upheavals and the sounds earthquakes make.  Other walls surrounding Jericho are still standing.

Using a metaphor to describe the fury and shaking, sound and swiftness of the earthquake was in keeping with the genre of the time. There is no record (pictorial or otherwise) of any army marching around it, for Jericho was believed protected to be protected by the gods of Mesopotamia.

As early as the 10 millennium B.C.E., Palestinians engaged in plant and animal domestication that sprung forth from the transition of shepherding to agriculture.  It would highlight the ‘Neolithic Revolution’ (9000 – 4500 BCE) and the antecedents for the name began to emerge.

The ancient Palestinians were known as the al-Natoofieh.  They occupied caves north of Jerusalem, and had a long history as a civilized state. 

The al-Natoofieh established the City of Jericho (Tell es-Sultan).  It was (and is) the oldest continuously inhabited city in existence, being founded in 8000 BCE.  It flourished for one thousand years.   

Hyksos introduce war chariots and horses into Egypt

Palestine civilization was more advanced beyond that of the Hyksos and Apiru (who may have been the same nation) when the people moved toward greater unity, education, and inventing various arts from 8000-4500 BCE, going from food collectors to food producers (especially barley and wheat; the mythology of Enoch attributed early man’s knowledge of plant domestication to the fallen angel Semjaza out of which would come the invention of The Devil).  The Book of Enoch mentions Sarara and Galbanum (spices listed in Exodus 30:34), and suggests that the people were not depending solely on hunting or herding as was the lot of the early Habiru/Apiru (Hebrews) who had not yet invaded their lands with the open intent to steal it.  Enoch and his people were Sumerians, not Jews, and had an advanced culture that rivaled most other civilizations.  They gave to the world such myths as giants, fallen angels, and even extra-terrestrial beings coming to earth.

Palestine carried on trade with foreign nations, as seen in the pottery found in Egypt and elsewhere that matches that of Palestine.  It shows the close connection between Palestine and Egypt and it would be out of Egypt (especially during the reign of Pharaoh Seti I) that the later Hyksos and Apiru would come.

By 7200 BCE, Palestine was invaded by exiles from the North: by Aryans from India, to unsettled Greeks and people from what would become present-day Turkey.  Farms began to develop, with the average size farm being ten acres.

Palestinian artifacts in Chalcolithic Age 4500-3500 BCE

The Chalcolithic Period (4500 – 3300 BCE), also known as the Copper Stone Age, was relatively peaceful.  This can be noted in the paucity of fortresses built and the allowance of older walls to crumble. The arts flourished as seen in more sophisticated pottery production and ornamentation, heralding the beginning of Nimrod’s empire (Genesis 10:10) that was a beacon for intellectual dialogue, the advance of science but the diminution of religion leading many cult leaders seeing the multiculturalism of the empire as a threat, with plots to overthrow it and reestablish theocracies thereby enriching the sacerdotalists’ coffers.

Ancient ruins of Beersheba

An alphabet and writing was introduced and caught on quickly (Genesis 10:10, 11:2, 14:2).  Jewelry, using copper and ivory (discovered in and around Beersheba) became popular for both genders—as sex was an act of worship and joy and not reserved merely for procreation—distressing the a Hyksos and Apiru who argued that a woman’s purpose was to produce future soldiers for conquest, and misogynism entered into ontology and theologies. Flint anvils were fashioned along with ovens, various tools, and the introduction of roads that made Palestine the crossroads between East and West, appeared. Foundations for homes were laid out; architecture began in earnest, while the

Zarethan (advanced Palestinian city)

Hyksos and Habiru were still living in tents. In the biblical city of Zarethan (Joshua 3:16; I Kings 4:12, 7:46; II Chronicles 4:17) archaeologists have found evidence of an olive oil production facility, strengthening the theory that Palestine was engaged in large-scale production for foreign trade since it most likely made more oil than the immediate community could consume.  That there was foreign trade is evidenced by the numerous tokens of currency from other civilizations found in the region.  Furthermore, within the facility a sunken room was found providing an area to cool liquids, such as wine and olive oil, for storage.  The Hyksos remained in Egypt until c. 1550 BCE, when the boy-pharaoh Ahmos ejected the invaders in battle.  As one foot-soldier wrote:

Pharaoh Ahmos and the defeat of the Hyksos

“Let me speak to you and tell you the honors I received. How I was decorated with gold. During the siege of Avaris, the king noticed me fighting bravely on foot, and promoted me. We took Avaris. I carried off four people there. A man and three women and his majesty let me keep them as slaves.”

Hyksos art

Ahmos pushed the Hyksos out of Southern Egypt, but died before reclaiming all of ancient Egypt.  The Hyksos would remain in the North for a while until they would be turned out by the Egyptians (most likely the root of the myth of Moses and the Exodus). Neither the Habiru nor the Hyksos had similar, and none of this would appear in what would become Israel until the final millennium BCE.  Their art was more pastoral than their neighbors, although they were a war-like people because of their need to eat and work was not easily obtained for a “foreign” nation of shepherds, concentrating on familial scenes, especially that of women carrying children. Archaeological evidence proves that when Abram arrived in a heterogeneous Palestine that was neither backwards nor unsettled, but was a highly developed civilization engaged in international commerce (Paton, Lewis Bayles (1901). The early history of Syria and Palestine. New York, NY, USA: Charles Scribners’ Sons [reissued in 1902, 1909, and 2007).  Abram was the barbarian who invaded and destroyed what he saw, with his apologists distorting (and destroying) records to make the man from Ur appear as a holy and knowledgeable sage.  The Palestinians had already invented writing, kept written historical and economic records, and led to the introduction of education.  From 3200 to 2000 BCE, the Palestinians built fortifications to keep out the less civilized tribes, including the Hyksos including Habiru/Apiru and their mercenaries who ultimately entered around 1900 BCE, destroying most of the advanced civilizations, communities and people.  

During the third millennium BCE, The Ammonites, Canaanites, Yabousians and Phoenicians moved into Palestine in the third millennium BCE. The Canaanites, who built more than 200 towns in the second millennium BCE, settled on the plains of Palestine and the Ammonites settled in the mountains. The Yabousians settled in and around the area that would become Jerusalem and built the city of Jerusalem naming it “Yabous” then “Hierosolyma”. The Phoenicians settled on the north coast of Palestine and in Lebanon, but all considered themselves Palestinians, identified with the Palestinian people and armed against the saber-rattling of the Habiru who were known as blood-thirsty assassins and thieves.

The Hyksos and Habiru

Habiru shown in the tombs of Amarna (Egypt)

The Hyksos were famous for introducing the horse and chariot and modern burial customs including burying the horse with its owner and became a part of the shepherd kings who ultimately would rule over Arabia: الفلسطينيون ‎, al-‘Arab al-Filasṭīniyyūn but were not Arab by definition but were mixed Semitic-Asiatics with their foreign (non-indigenous) traits found at Tell el-Dab’a whose chief deity was the Egyptian storm and desert god Seth—who legend claims was the third son of an early goddess fashioned from bone. From this came the legend detailed by Josephus Flavius, Adversus Apion, 1.73, who wrote: It was also reported that the priest, who ordained their polity and their laws, was by birth of Heliopolis, and his name Osarsiph, from Osyris, who was the god of Heliopolis; but that when he was gone over to these people, his name was changed, and he was called Moses.

Turk/Arab racism in North Africa (Black Obelisk 4)

Once out of Egypt, Abram and his “nephew” Lot began a war to oust the original inhabitants (cf. Genesis 14:14f) of what would become Israel—the Canaanites who are recognized as the heirs of Canaan (who was cursed by Noah but without reason as it was Ham who “saw” his father naked, the grandson is not even mentioned as being in the tent; this follows the scenario of Oedipus and his incestuous relationship with his mother by whom they spawned Electra), son of Ham.  This was because the gods of Abram were violent, warmongering and hate-filled, eager for human sacrifice (cf. Genesis 22:2, 9, cp. John 3:16 as the gods demanded that mortals to fear them: Genesis 22:12b). Lot would later go to Zoar (Genesis 19:39), and after being expelled from that city-state went into the mountains with his daughters.  Once in a cave (reminiscent of the cave where Mithras was born of a virgin mother (who was given the title of “Mother of God“) on December 25, and some scrolls claim that Jesus was born, according to Justin Martyr (Dialogue with Trypho, LXX and LXXVIII citing Isaiah 33:16 as the source for the Mirthras nativity–but there is no such reference in Isaiah, and Justin Martyr is neither credible nor reliable and is not a confirmed Christian in the orthodox definition and should be used with care and caution), Origen, Contra Celsum 1.2, and the Protoevangelium 18, while in the Jerusalem Talmud (Ber. ii. 3) it is written that Jesus was born in a “royal castle” that was an euphemism for a cave as both were made out of rock or stone) his two daughters made him drunk and then had sex with him (Genesis 19:34-36), in keeping the debauchery of the earlier crucified saviour Bacchus.  Both females conceived, adding bastardy (illegitimacy) to incest.

The constant attack upon the Palestinians and their compatriots the Phoenicians continued for generations, as is found to be common in the Old Testament: from Joshua to “the people of Moses” and so forth (Genesis 50:30 sq, cp. Joshua 7). The Biblical Jews (there is little historical evidence for a people of that name at that time) continued to war for the plains “that the gods [Elohim] gave” them (Moses uses the plural adjective with the plural noun elohim: “hath heard the voice of the living gods [elohim hayyim]”; cp. Genesis 1:26 as it is followed by a plural verb; for an interesting discussion read here)—a tribal god(s) who was/were married, allegedly, to the goddess of the Canaanites: Asherah (Astarte).  The argument that Joshua wrestled the lands away from the Palestinians because his gods The stories of Joshua and “the people of Moses” (Genesis 50:30 sq, cp. Joshua 7) follow the same pattern: war for the plains “that the gods [Elohim] gave” them (Moses uses the plural adjective with the plural noun elohim: “hath heard the voice of the living gods [elohim hayyim]”; cp. Genesis 1:26; the plural noun is followed by a plural verb; for an interesting discussion read more here; the story of Moses and the Torah that he allegedly wrote is filled with numerous errors, the most basic being his authorship as he not only writes, in the third person singular, of his death but also his burial: Deuteronomy 34) were determined to give the Jews a “homeland” is filled with errors: it is justified based on land taken by war 3,300 years ago and lost by war 2600 years ago. By that logic, Americans

Palestinian protester dies of his wounds while throwing stones at an Israeli military vehicle that lobbed a tear-gas canister direct at him and hit him in the face (10 Dec 2011 al-Jazeera

should give the southwest territory back to the Mexicans and the rest to the nation back to the Indians. The Jews get a “homeland” only because of a UN decree and the force of arms by Great Britain, the USA, and others repentant for their lethargy in attacking the NAZIs and the genocide of Hitler’s government: the German holocaust—antecedent to the Israeli holocaust of the Palestinians today.

Mustafa Tamimi dies after being directly hit in the face by Israeli military shooting cannisters of tear-gas 2011

About 1000 BCE, Palestine was divided into two parts: Samaria and Judea.  Division of Palestine did not stop then, nor today.

Palestine existed before Zionists arrived (photo 1870 by Michael Maslan)

On November 12, 1917, the government of Great Britain issued the Balfour Declaration promising to build a Jewish state that had not existed for more than a millennia: a declaration Great Britain had no right to make since the land was already owned by Palestinians.  To enforce its illegal designs, Great Britain invaded Palestine in December 1917 under the guise of destroying the Ottoman Empire.  Sir Herbert Louis 1st Viscount Samuel, a declared Zionist who was openly opposed to any recognition of Palestinian legitimacy (Ingrams, Doreen (1972). Palestine Papers. New York, NY, USA: G. Braziller, p. 106), was sent as Britain’s first High Commissioner to Palestine, and began the systematic persecution and suppression of the Palestinian people.  In April 1920, in the small Italian town of San Remo, Britain and France divide the Middle East into mandates while the American ambassador read his newspaper in the garden (Cohen, Michael Joseph (1987). Origins and Evolution of the Arab-Zionist Conflict.  Berkeley, CA, USA: University of California Press, p. 64 and footnote).  This was buttressed the corrupt League of Nations in 1922 that used greater force against the Palestinians while ignoring the rise of Adolf Hitler in the 1930s and 1940s.

It is impossible to prove anything in one book by citing the book itself, yet that is what Gingrich and Israeli apologists do—using the bibles of their faith that were written not as historical records by records of faith and instruction.  What is known is that there are no external contemporary records in ancient Egypt, Sumeria, or Babylon that note a Jewish presence in Palestine when the descendants of Jacob moved in on the land in open warfare.  The Arabs adopted much from the Torah and the Old and New Testaments to create the Qur’an/Koran (Abraham is mentioned more times than Muhammad), but religious plagiarism is common throughout the world.  It is from the tale of Abram and his two sons (Isaac, the youngest, born to Sara (a shortened version of the Egyptian Ummu-sarra), wife of Abram; and, Ishmael (إسماعيل‎), born to Abraham’s concubine (cf. Koran 2:62; 37:102-111; the problem that exists is that many Christians take the Bible as fact, when the same Bible says it is not all fact: Jeremiah 8:8 RSV:  How can you say, We are wise, we have the law of the LORD, when scribes with their lying pens have falsified it? ) and slave Hagar [a name that means flight or cast out) that enmity broke out among their descendants: Muslims who cite Ishmael as the father of the Arab race (Greenspahn, Frederick E. “Ishmael” in Lindsay Jones, ed (2005). Encyclopedia of Religion (2nd ed). New York, NY, USA: MacMillan Reference Books. p. 4551-4552; cp. McAuliffe, Jane Dammen, ed (2005). Encyclopedia of the Qur’an.  Leiden, Netherlands: E. J. Brill Academic Publishers. Ishmael is far older than Isaac in ancient Semitic literature and folklore, and most likely was incorporated into the Abrahamic legends) and Jews who cite Isaac as the father of Jews.  The battle has lasted since Ishmael was cast out into the wilderness because of the jealous of Sara (Genesis 21:8-21). The son whom Abram intended to kill is not named in the Torah, but Muslims claim it was not Isaac but Ishmael who accompanied him into the mountains to be sacrificed to a vengeful god who would sacrifice his own son.

Related links:

The Bible Unearthed  Archeological evidence shows no Jewish control of Palestine.
The Israeli-Palestinian Struggle An well-researched, contemporary historical account (Seattle Times).