The recent find, in Gaza, of 125 Roman-era tombs, including two lead sarcophagi, has led Palestinians to claim this site as “proof” of the long presence of the “Palestinian people” in the land. And Reuters then reported this claim as fact. More on this farcical attempt to backdate the “Palestinian presence” in Gaza by two millennia can be found here: “Reuters Parrots Palestinian Historical Revisionism in Archaeology Report,” by Chaim Lax, HonestReporting, July 25, 2023:
In its brief report on a recent archaeological discovery in Gaza, Reuters not only reported the facts but also uncritically provided a platform for inane Palestinian historical revisionism.
Detailing the unearthing of 125 Roman-era tombs near a building site, including a rare find of two sarcophagi made from lead, both Reuters’ report and accompanying video also aired the statements of two Gaza-based authorities who hijacked this exciting archaeology news by unabashedly trying to connect this ancient discovery to the modern-day Palestinians.
Fadel Al-A’utul, of the prestigious French School of Biblical and Archaeological Research, claimed that this find “proves to the world about the existence of Palestinian culture and heritage.”
Likewise, Jamal Abu Reida, the General-Director of the Hamas-run Antiquities Ministry, asserted that:
The cemetery is important because it deepens Palestinian roots on this land and that it dates back to thousands of years and it refutes the Zionist allegations. It refutes Israeli claims that Palestine is a land without people and that its people are without land. The existence of this cemetery…signifies stability and ongoing habitation.
The existence of Roman-era tombs does not prove anything about the “Palestinian presence.” It only confirms all the readily available evidence that the Romans were in the Land of Israel as conquerors beginning in 63 B.C.
However, the fly in the ointment for both Al-A’utul and Abu Reida’s claims is that these tombs predate the Palestinians and are entirely unrelated to Gaza’s current inhabitants.
According to a 2014 historical survey in Haaretz, the Gaza of Roman times was inhabited by a diverse population of Jews, Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Persians and Bedouin.
Notice who’s missing?
The Palestinians didn’t reside in Roman Gaza because there weren’t any Palestinians yet.
The “Palestinian people” were invented in the 1960s, at the suggestion of the KGB, as a way to re-present the Arab gang-up on tiny Israel as, instead, a national liberation struggle of a tiny people, the “Palestinians,” to free themselves from their Jewish oppressors and to regain the land stolen from them by those same Jews.
The Palestinians claim to trace their heritage back to the Muslim Arab conquest of the region in 637 C.E., hundreds of years after these ancient tombs would have been sealed….
So far, the Palestinians have been claiming a direct line of descent from the Muslim Arabs who arrived from Arabia, conquered the area that the Romans had renamed as “Palestine” between 633 and 636 A.D., with Jerusalem holding out until 638 A.D and Caesarea until 640 A.D. There were no Muslim Arabs in “Palestine” any earlier; Islam itself dates, at the earliest, from the 630s. The Roman-era tombs would have been sealed long before, that is, before the Byzantine conquest in 313 A.D. resulted in the end of Roman rule. Yet the Palestinians are engaged in ludicrous back-dating, claiming that this new discovery of Roman-era tombs built hundreds of years before a single Muslim Arab was in the land, somehow is evidence of the Palestinian – Muslim, Arab — presence in the land during the last 2000 years.
There are 35,000 archeological sites all over Israel and the West Bank. They have long been open to study by Jewish and non-Jewish archeologists alike. At those sites, Jewish artifacts of every kind have been found, unearthed, catalogued, exhaustively studied: oil lamps, menorahs, pottery, utensils, coins, combs, and parchments written in Hebrew, the most famous of this last category being the Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered in 1947 in a cave at Qumran. No one has yet found any Muslim Arab artifacts dating before 636 A.D., and very few, save for weapons, after that date.
There was not a single Muslim, Arab or non-Arab, either in Palestine or, indeed, anywhere in the world, until the 630s A.D.
The Muslim Arabs arrived to conquer Palestine from the Byzantines, during a war that lasted from 633-638 A.D. The “Palestinian people,” however, did not exist, and would not be invented, for almost 1400 years after that date.
It was not Arabs, but the Soviet KGB that in the mid-1960s came up with the idea of creating a “Palestinian people.”
The area that constitutes today’s Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, has 35,000 archeological sites full of artifacts that have been conclusively identified as Jewish, including menorahs, oil lamps, pottery, coins (with Hebrew inscriptions),utensils, and texts written on parchment in ancient Hebrew, such as the Dead Sea scrolls, the first ones having been discovered by a Bedouin in a Qumran cave in 1947. Now all of the more than 100,000 fragments from various scrolls found subsequently to the first find, in 1947, are on display at the Shrine of the Book at the Israel Museum. Cisterns, ritual baths (mikvahs) and synagogues – all Jewish – continue to be discovered.
Every so often, a site is unearthed that contains a handful of weapons left by Muslim Arabs from various battles with the Byzantines in the seventh century, or later, with the Crusaders between 1099 and 1291, but no evidence of a Muslim Arab presence before 638 A.D. has ever been discovered, and even after, pitifully few Arab artifacts have been found. But this has not prevented the Muslim Arabs who now call themselves “the Palestinian people,” from insisting that they, and only they, have been in the area “for thousands of years.” Of course no one denies that after 638 A.D., Muslims did rule the area until 1099, when the Crusaders conquered what for them was “the Holy Land” and held it until 1087, when most of it was lost to the Muslims, though a small Crusader kingdom managed to hold on until 1291. Over many centuries, various Islamic rulers from outside Palestine, beginning with the Ayyubids, and then the Mamelukes, who ruled from Egypt, kept replacing one another until 1517, when the Ottomans conquered the territory and held it until 1918. It was then formally transferred by the League of Nations to the Mandate for Palestine, which was intended to lead to the creation of a Jewish state, extending “from the river to the sea.”
When one compares the vast amount of archeological, linguistic, and physical evidence of an uninterrupted Jewish presence in the land since 1700 B.C., and compares it to the pitiful handful of sites yielding evidence of an intermittent Muslim Arab presence beginning only in 640 A.D. – that is, more than two millennia later than the earliest Jewish presence – it is clear which side kicks the beam. Israel has been the land of the Jews — even in distant exile they longed to return to “Zion and Jerusalem” — for nearly 2500 years. The “Palestinian people” were invented little more than a half-century ago. How much of this nonsense about the “ancient Palestinian people” should we be expected to tolerate?
Linde B. says
Thank you for this excellent article, Mr. Hugh Fitzgerald. And let us not forget that the Jewish people who bought land in Israel (before and after the State of Israel became a recognized nation) gave that money to various people for their properties. The Jewish people did not steal the land from the Muslim people (or any others) who were occupying what the Jewish people bought from them. The concept that the Jews “stole” the land of Israel from previous occupants is a terrible lie. But it makes for good propaganda for the Palestinians and anyone else that hates the Jewish people.
GoldenLily says
“The Roman-era tombs would have been sealed long before, that is, before the Byzantine conquest in 313 A.D. resulted in the end of Roman rule.”
Just want to clarify the Byzantine empire WAS the Roman empire. People get so confused about this for some reason.
Linde B. says
To Golden Lily- The Roman Empire fell in 476 AD to the Germanic tribes, but the eastern part of the Roman Empire continued in Byzantium. And that empire spoke mostly Greek instead of Latin like they did in the Roman Empire. Also, the Byzantine empire embraced Christianity whereas the Roman Empire had their gods and goddesses. So, did the Byzantine empire evolve from the Roman one, or was it a new empire? 🤔
I think that I learned in high school it was a new empire because it was so different from the other one.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
I too regard the Byzantine empire as a separate empire. They may have borrowed some things from Rome, but once you change religion, culture (especially in that era, where legal frameworks were more theocratic than what they are today), then it is a new entity completely
Linde B. says
To Infidel- Thank you.
I appreciate your “critical” thinking. 😎
Arasu says
Also, from what I read there was no Byzantine empire before 395 AD, so perhaps clarification is needed from the author about this sentence.
https://www.nga.gov/features/byzantine/byzantine-empire-chronology-.html
somehistory says
the whole concept of mozlums and their “history” is based on lies….lies, lies and more lies.
From the beginning of islam…by whatever human was used to write the book of demon filth…every bit of it was based on the lies satan had started in Eden.
satan’s ‘god’s of moloch/molech, ba’al, dagan, etc. had all been vanquished by the True God of the Bible.
So, satan tried a new tactic….also a pack of demonic lies…of claiming islam was a belief in the God of the Bible, and included all of the men named from Adam onward, and that the Bible was a *corruption* of the Truth; and the Jews and later on, the Christians, had strayed from True worship.
Everything about islam…including where the mozlums lived “first” before others came along, is built on lies and nothing can change that. No new “findings” in the dirt of centuries ago, nothing, can make what they say true; it’s all lies; from the first to the last.
Linde B. says
To somehistory- Your comment of Aug. 1, at 1:05 pm is superbly truthful. I wish the US high school curriculum of “World History” would include what you wrote. When I was in high school in the late 1960’s I remember my World History teacher saying that “Islam is known as the religion of peace.”
This is what he was taught to say by the powers that be who decide what to include and what to omit about the curriculum. 🤔
somehistory says
Thank you, Linde B. I don’t believe I ever heard anything about islam when I attended school. Of course, I was ill a lot, and kept home a lot to take care of my younger siblings when my mom was ill. I read my books at home, but the teachers might have mentioned it verbally.
The things I do recall which involved mozlums, just showed them wearing the flowing garments and calling them Bedouins; never mentioning their religion.. they always seemed secretive and stealthy.
I’m afraid that in today’s climate of appeasement and fear, no one is going to tell the Truth in school…or even in the news.
Any person who doesn’t already know, must have a questioning mind and be wondering just “why” all of these things are going on around them and the world at large.
Sadly, most won’t question as they are too busy with other things. Much like Jesus said about the “days of Noah.”
Linde B. says
To somehistory- You had an interesting home schooling experience, no doubt.
But I am sorry to learn you and your mom were both ill, and for what seemed like more than a few days. Thank God it did not hold you back. 👸🏻
somehistory says
thank you, Linde B.
I quit school at 15 and didn’t graduate until I was an adult…and did it homeschooling my self with the help of a private school which kept my grades and gave me the diploma. then I went to an online u.
My mom was ill a lot, but lived some months into her 91st year.
I truly do “thank God.”
Linde B. says
To somehistory- WOW! Your story is amazing. In NYC when we want to give a compliment to a person, we sometimes say: “You are all that and a bag of chips too.”
I think that saying sums it up about you, somehistory. Thank you for sharing your story. What you went through helped make you smart and discerning.
somehistory says
Linde B,
thank you very much. i visited NYC once back in the 90’s. It’s funny that different cities have such different language…sayings and slang…from other cities and states.
I think I’ll be able to remember that compliment and perhaps I can use it for someone else.
Perhaps one day, we can meet in person and share our “stories.’
Oh, and my son is going to homeschool his daughter just as he was. it’s a great way to learn…the teacher really cares. 🙂
Linde B. says
To somehistory- I would love to meet you. And I wish your son the best in teaching his daughter. There’s a saying: “Ask for the moon, and you will get something. Ask for something and you will get nothing.” Some parents just ask their child to pass their tests so they can move on to the next grade. Other parents ask their child to study hard and get a 90 or better on the tests so they can be offered a scholarship. You see the difference!
somehistory says
to Linde B.,
My son was homeschooled until he went to an online u, was offered scholarships and then to Levin Law at the U of Florida. He graduated with honors. His wife was an elementary school teacher when they met. My granddaughter is way ahead of most kids her age…math, writing, spelling, science. She learns so quickly and remembers everything. I have no doubt they will keep on teacher her what she needs to know.
She already reasons things out. Yesterday, she taught me how to play a math game and then she won.
She wanted to know some things the other day, and I told her the a/c doesn’t work in my car and she said, ‘Maybe you could put a little fan in your car so you could be cool.” she’s a great kid…and so very beautiful.
Thank you for the ‘wishes.’
Linde B. says
To somehistory- Sounds like your granddaughter is smart like you. 👍🤗
somehistory says
Thank you, Linde B.
I believe she is smarter. She knows a lot more than I did at six years. :0
Bexarkat says
What we do know is that Pinocchio was in fact a Palestinian.
Linde B. says
To Bexarkat-Haha! But I could not believe that Pinocchio was anything but Italian!
࿗Infidel࿘ says
The Pali claim to the area would be solely based on the Umayyad conquests, but then again, there wasn’t even a separate “Palestine” province. “Palestine” was always a part of either Syria (under the Umayyads) or Egypt (under Saladin). Only thing: others can claim the area either b’cos they were there earlier – like the Jews, the Persians, the Egyptians and the Romans, or later, like the Crusaders, the Turks and finally again, the Jews. So what exactly is sacred about the Umayyad caliphate that should be restored, when that wasn’t done for it by the Abbasids, the Mongols, the Turks or anyone else? And don’t those Umayyad Arabs already have homes in not just Jordan, but Syria as well?
Linde B. says
To Infidel- Your point is well made, but I do not have an answer. Could it be that for the current Muslims in power within Gaza, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Iran and other countries that they are all trying to produce a ground-breaking earth shaking historical “fact” but it is not? And they are doing this because they are #1 in propaganda?
࿗Infidel࿘ says
somehistory below has the answer
somehistory says
mozlums want what is “theirs” and demand to have everything which belongs to anyone else.
It’s the nature of the beast. ‘steal, kill and destroy.”