History, since its very inception, has been a means of beating your political opponents over the head. This morning Richard Cohen in the Washington Post writes the no doubt intentionally incendiary:
The greatest mistake Israel could make at the moment is to forget that Israel itself is a mistake. It is an honest mistake, a well-intentioned mistake, a mistake for which no one is culpable, but the idea of creating a nation of European Jews in an area of Arab Muslims (and some Christians) has produced a century of warfare and terrorism of the sort we are seeing now. Israel fights Hezbollah in the north and Hamas in the south, but its most formidable enemy is history itself.
Carl of Israel Matzav fires back with a refutation of Cohen’s history:
If that sounds like an overly blunt characterization of what Cohen wrote in this morning’s Washington Post, it’s not. Cohen’s article reflects a total ignorance of Jewish history, and of the Jewish connection to the land of Israel dating back to biblical times, which is inexcusable even for an assimilated Jew (which I assume Cohen to be). In fact, even Christians should be offended by Cohen’s writing them out of the history of the Holy Land. Cohen adopts the Arab narrative of the last century of history lock, stock and barrel, without even considering that it might be false. Note, I said Arab and not ‘Palestinian,’ because the ‘Palestinians’ by their own admission are a fiction created by that Arab narrative.
Both column and post are a melange of facts, hearsay, folklore, and fiction.
Example: Cohen neglects the continuous, documented Jewish presence in the country. He also discounts the Jews who were expelled from Arab lands who, with their descendants, are currently included in the Israeli population.
Do I doubt that there was a native Arab Muslim population there? Of course not. But Israel is not just “European Jewsâ€.
Example: Carl’s derivation of the word Philistine
The name Philistines in Hebrew is plishtim, which comes from the Hebrew verb polshim (foreign invaders).
There is no compelling evidence for this derivation. The Hebrew word plishtim appears to be cognate with Egyptian peleset or palusata, and Akkadian palastu and was in all likelihood derived from the people’s name for themselves. There’s been some conjecture that it was vaguely related to Greek pelagos, the sea, or possibly, polloi, people.
I’d be very interest in seeing the actual source for the claim that Hadrian named the area “Palestine†as a deliberate political move. Is it in Josephus? I doubt it—it doesn’t sound like him.
The ancient history of the Near East is a minor hobby with me (I’m mostly interested in the late Neolithic). 1,000 years ago, 2,000 years ago, 3,000 years ago,—as far back as anyone can determine—the entire eastern Mediterranean has been a mish-mosh of speakers of Indo-European languages (presumably Philistine), North Semitic languages (Hebrew), South Semitic languages (Arabic), Hamitic languages (Egyptian), and languages of no known linguistic affinity (Elamite). There were also speakers of West Semitic languages e.g. Phoenician or Punic. It was supplanted by Arabic around the 7th century CE.
Significant numbers of speakers of South Semitic languages (Arabs) appeared in the area in Classical antiquity—long before the birth of Mohammed.
My point is not an attempt to establish anybody’s legitimate claim on the land. Exactly the opposite. All of the parties have a claim.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I hate people making arguments about contemporary politics based on history. Particularly selective, ambiguous, or outright phony history.
The political discussions between the parties needs to take a day-forward approach, cognizant of the historic context, but not allowing that context to determine the resolution.
UPDATE: I want to credit Carl for his quoting Sam Clemens’s descriptions of Palestine in the 19th century. From what I’ve seen they’re pretty typical of Western travellers’ reactions. I know that a Muslim scholar has put together a study of the travel reports from Arab travellers in the 18th and 19th centuries. To the best of my knowledge it’s only available in Arabic. I’d love to get a hold of a translation.
ANOTHER UPDATE: As I suspected the attribution of the term “Palestine” to the Emperor Hadrian is completely bogus. Herodotus uses the term in his Histories, Book 3, Chapter 5.  That takes us back to the 5th century BCE.
Yet, “History,” itself is selective, ambiguous, and sometimes outright phony. So then what?
And from what I’ve seen, people’s vision of history is often informed by decisions they’ve already made about how to see the world, rather than vice versa. It’s as if most of us feel certain ways due to what we’ve been taught by life, and when we grow up and have big vocabularies, we know we need bigger words and more of them—to support those things we feel. This, too, is human nature. And it doesn’t bother me a bit.
Yes, Nezua
The modern image of History (oxymoronic, yes) is that History is simply an assemblage of facts woven together by narrative. Historians know that History is colored, shaped and ultimately skewed by the person writing the narrative, which is why we have biographies of the same figures by many different sources.
I think that Dave ennunciates the clear view, here; that history must be used to inform us, but that it can also be manipulated for the sake of agenda and in the service of sometimes questionable claims (forgive me, Dave, if I am mischaracterizing your words).
That’s what I strive for, Dan. In my view on the one hand there is the territory and on the other there is the map. The map can never conform completely to the territory. There are lots of reasons for this: lack of information, error, change, simple imprecision as the result of the difference in scale. That isn’t to say that some maps aren’t better than others and those differences can themselves be quantified and explored. It is the obligation of the mapmaker to see to it that the map represents the territory within the limits of the medium and to the extent that it is within his or her powers to do so.
Dave,
That’s the best formulation of History I have ever read.