Leon T. Hadar reviews Sand’s bestseller in Middle East Policy:
“Countering official Zionist historiography, Sand questions whether the Jewish People ever existed as a national group with a common origin in the Land of Israel/Palestine. He concludes that the Jews should be seen as a religious community comprising a mishmash of individuals and groups that had converted to the ancient monotheistic religion but do not have any historical right to establish an independent Jewish state in the Holy Land. In short, the Jewish People, according to Sand, are not really a “people” in the sense of having a common ethnic origin and national heritage. They certainly do not have a political claim over the territory that today constitutes Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, including Jerusalem.”
Read the full review here.
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Re: The Invention, Verso edition 2009, page 50 („in order to assert their national ethnos, which had never had much of an existence“).
The book is excellent and I reread it now again. Unfortunately, both the Serbs and the Croats maintained their ethnos for centuries either in their own medieval states or under foreign rule, often divided by the borders of other kingdoms or empires. I hope they can now rightly exercise their sovereignty.
If Sands main point is that Zionist historians introduced a mythical conception of the Jewish People as an ancient race, then Sand is in error as to the law that validates a claim to national territory. The Canadian Supreme Court decision in House of Delgamuukw et al v. British Columbia states that the historical narrative of an aboriginal people modifies the hearsay rule of evidence and is admissible at trial in support of a claim to territory. Supreme Court of Canada decisions are cited internationally. The implication is that, while historical narratives consist largely of mythological content, they are evidence of historic events (however imprecisely accounted for in mythology) in territory once occupied by a national group.
On the other hand, there are no historical references to Palestinians, no archaeological records of them and no narrative to which Palestinians can refer except self-serving contemporary fabrications.
As between Palestinians and Jews, the Jewish claim to territory is superior.
I wanted to say – leaving aside territorial claims – in Wittgenstein’s notion of meaning, talking about nation, what links different uses of ‘nation’ is a family resemblance – what nation means to Japanese isn’t exactly the same as what it means to English (and how many differences of conception there, too). Making an ethnic claim to root Jewish peoplehood seems abberant. The Biblical Ruth was a convert. The translator Onkelos was a convert. At the same time owning the family basis of peoplehood, Jews have a different universalism than Christians and Moslems. In theory anyway -I have felt the cold force of exclusion. And of course the different branches of Jewish peoplehood, a doubtless very messy historical assemblage.
The best part is when Sand explains why blue eyes are not heritable and how the Jews framed OJ.
Hrmpf
Palestinians you say dont exist, a last idiotic statment that is so out of tutch with reality, my freind, that it makes me wounder.
But I belive that is the “freinds of Israels” last and as usual stupid, shortminded and utterly out in the Dark regarding Arceology.
Israel never existed, it was created in 1948.
What ever historical driwel pimped after that is just that, driwel.
No facts just lies.
BTW any world map, pre 1947-48 there is NO Israel and I absolutly recomend you to se for your self.
AND what name is the teritory, in your Famous declaration, the sole reason for creating Israel, in 1917-18, what was the name of that teritory, again I recomend you to do your homework and se for your self.
I know the answer is Palestina, but you need to see for your self, so the Missconseptions is berried where it belong, 6 feet under.
The ONLY conection I am able to see, in historical perspective, in reasent mtDNA sub clans are the migration of learned scolars in Talmuic/Biblical teatchings. That migration begun in the years 700-800 when the Khazars converted to “jewishness” or whatever.
That is the only blodline there is between the Midle East and Sentral Khazarian teriotory. And their family tree is also incl. Khazarian Kurds(PKK), the reason for the Masacres on Armenians, not Turks, but Kurds.
But you did know that, dint you.
What more is it that you dont know, the 6 million myth, a myth that goes back to late 1800 and was regulary pimped althe way to when it got stuck, 1960-70.
Weird isnt it.
Am I a anti semitt or “jew” hater, no, my consens goes to the Palestinians, the victim in this genoside.
PS: blue eyes, is plobably slavic origin, sice the maiorety today is Russians and Polich and so on.
Original Semittics, like the Hebrew people(jews) are geneticly exactly the same, but not the present People.
Everything I have writen is out there, just open your mind, and your a.. wil follow.
Peace.
Michael Mann the only evidence you have provided here is that you are a lying moron.Everyone knows that Palestine existed until the jews stole it. Israel has never existed historically until the land was stolen from Palestine. If you want evidence of that it is all over the internet unlike your irrelevant Canadian law.
What SAND wrote is a foul insult to the real History. He found the best way to sell his trash!!!
Watcher465,
you might be good in English, but certainly not in history.
Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire until 1917. After, it fell under British rule until 1947-48.
Palestine did not ”belong” the Palestinians, there was no Arab or Palestinian state ruling Palestine before 1949 (when Jordan and Egypt occupied the West Bank and the Gaza Strip).
By the way, juridic decisions taken by the justice system of democratic countries, are very often used as legal precedents by tribunals of other countries.
Check on the internet, you’ll find many examples!
Mikael,
Until 1918 Palestine was part of Syria.
”Palestina” as you call it was not a political unit, it was merely a vague geographical region without any definite borders.
The reason the Zionist movement sought to establish a Jewish state in Palestine, is because this territory is the historic cradle of the Jewish civilisation.
Now it is true that another population was living there, but as I said, Palestine was not a country. It was just an Arab region among many others in the Middle East. There was no border between them. By the way, at the time, Arab nationalists wanted to created one united state that would encompass all these regions. Thus, the Jews were just asking for a tiny part of this Greater Arab Middle East (less than 1%). I can understand that for many people, it does not justify the creation of Israel, since you see it as a violation of Arab territorial integrity. But Palestine did not belong to the Arabs. They simply could not invoke the preservation of their territorial integrity to refuse the creation of Israel. The Turks could have done it when Palestine was part of their Empire, but the Arabs had no legal argument to oppose the creation of Israel.