Palestinians Fear Mention of Ancient ”Israel” as they are Battered by Modern Israel……
“Maizie Williams said she was asked by the Palestinian organisers not to sing the group's 1978 hit, a song originally written in 1970 by the Jamaican reggae group, The Melodians. The song's chorus quotes from the Book of Psalms and refers to the exiled Jewish people's yearning to return to the land of Israel. Palestinians often question the Jewish historical connection to the Holy Land….. Organisers said they asked for the song to be skipped, deeming it "inappropriate" for performance at the Palestinian International Festival which has been running this week…….”
Once I asked a Palestinian colleague: 'what nationality was Jesus?' She replied without hesitation: 'he was Palestinian'.
That was true in a ‘geographic” sense, but her answer also indicated a dilemma in the Arab world about Jews ancient and modern. While recognizing that most of the “kings” and Prophets of ancient Palestine were Jewish (David, Solomon, etc), the Quran says so, there has always been a reluctance, nay opposition, to recognizing that a “Jewish” entity did exist. This should not necessarily have modern political implications: after all, the Canaanites were there before Moses sold the Jews of Egypt on his new development scheme in the desert. Long before Charlton Heston and Cecil B. DeMille (whose historical epic were all banned in the Arab world, and probably still are, along with Cleopatra and Lawrence of Arabia).
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mhg
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