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The Rock of Our Existence
By: Uri Avnery
Gush Shalom
3 January 2015

http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1420212779/

Opening speech at the Kinneret College conference on the connection between
Archeology and Ideology.[*]

FIRST OF ALL, let me thank you for inviting me to address this important
conference. I am neither a professor nor a doctor. Indeed, the highest academic
title I ever achieved was SEC (Seventh Elementary Class).
But like many members of my generation, from early youth I took a profound
interest in archeology.

I shall try to explain why.

WHEN ASKING themselves about my connection with archeology, some of you will
think about Moshe Dayan.

After the June 1967 war, Dayan was a national – even international – idol. He
was also known for his obsession with archeology. My magazine, `Haolam Hazeh`,
investigated his activities and found that they were highly destructive. He
started digging alone and collecting artifacts all over the country. Since the
primary aim of archeology is not simply to discover artifacts but also to date
them, and thus to put together a picture of the consecutive history of the site,
Dayan`s uncontrolled digging created havoc. The fact that he used army resources
only worsened matters.

Then we discovered that not only did Dayan expropriate the artifacts which he
found (which by law belonged to the state) and stock them at his home, but he
had also become an international dealer, getting rich by selling articles `from
the personal collection of Moshe Dayan`.

Publishing these facts and speaking about them in the Knesset bestowed on me a
singular distinction. At the time, a public opinion institute identified every
year the `most hated person` in Israel. That year, I attained that honor.
HOWEVER, THE important question does not concern Dayan`s morals but a much more
profound matter: Why were Dayan and so many of us at the time concerned with
archeology, a science considered by many people as a rather dreary business?

It held for us a profound fascination.

That Zionist generation was the first one born in the country (though I myself
was born in Germany). For their parents, Palestine was an abstract homeland, a
land they had dreamed about in the synagogues of Poland and Ukraine. For their
native-born sons and daughters it was a natural homeland.

They were yearning for roots. They trekked to every corner, spent nights around
a campfire, came to know every hill and valley.

For them, the Talmud and all the religious texts were a bore. The Talmud and
other scriptures had sustained the Jews in the Diaspora for centuries, but
evoked no interest here. The new generation embraced the Hebrew Bible with
unbounded enthusiasm, not as a religious book (almost all of us were atheists)
but as an unequalled masterpiece of Hebrew literature. Since they were also the
first generation for whom the rejuvenated Hebrew was their mother tongue, they
fell in love with the lively, concrete Biblical Hebrew language. The much more
sophisticated, abstract language of the Talmud and other later books repelled
them.

The Biblical events had taken place in the country they knew. The Biblical
battles had been fought in the valleys they knew, the kings had been crowned and
buried in the localities they knew intimately.

They had looked at night at the stars of Megiddo, where the Egyptians had fought
the first recorded battle in history (and where, according to the Christian New
Testament, the last battle – the battle of Armageddon – will take place). They
stood on Mount Carmel, where the prophet Elias had slaughtered the priests of
Baal. They had visited Hebron, where Abraham had been buried by his two sons,
Ishmael and Isaac, fathers of the Arabs and the Jews.

THIS PASSIONATE attachment to the country was by no means preordained. Indeed,
Palestine played no role in the birth of modern political Zionism.
As I have mentioned before, the founding father, Theodor Herzl, did not think
about Palestine when he invented what became known as Zionism. He hated
Palestine and its climate. Especially he hated Jerusalem, which to him was a
foul and dirty town.

In the first draft of his idea, which was addressed to the Rothschild family,
the land of his dream was Patagonia, in Argentina. There, in recent times, a
genocide had taken place, and the land was almost empty.

It was only the sentiments of the Jewish masses in Eastern Europe that compelled
Herzl to redirect his efforts towards Palestine. In his founding book, Der
Judenstaat (`the Jewish State`), the relevant chapter is less than a page long
and entitled `Palestine or Argentina`. The Arab population is not mentioned at
all.

ONCE THE Zionist movement directed its thoughts towards Palestine, the ancient
history of this country became a hot issue.
The Zionist claim to Palestine was solely based on the Biblical history of the
Exodus, the conquest of Canaan, the kingdoms of Saul, David and Solomon and the
events of those times. Since almost all the founding fathers were avowed
atheists, they could hardly base themselves on the “fact” the God had personally
promised the land to the seed of Abraham.

So, with the coming of the Zionists to Palestine, a frantic archeological search
started. The country was combed for real, scientific proof that the Biblical
story was not just a bunch of myths, but real honest-to-God history. (Pun
intended.) Christian Zionists came even earlier.

There started a veritable attack on archeological sites. The upper layers of
Ottoman and Mamelukes, Arabs and Crusaders, Byzantines and Romans and Greeks and
Persians were uncovered and removed in order to lay bare the ancient layer of
the Children of Israel and to prove the Bible right.

Huge efforts were made. David Ben-Gurion, a self-appointed Biblical scholar, led
the effort. The Chief of Staff of the army, Yigael Yadin, the son of an
archeologist, and himself a professional archeologist, searched ancient sites to
prove that the Conquest of Canaan really happened. Alas, no proof.

When remnants of the bones of Bar Kochba`s fighters were discovered in Judean
desert caves, they were buried on Ben-Gurion`s orders in a big military
ceremony. The uncontested fact that Bar Kochba had caused perhaps the greatest
catastrophe in Jewish history was glossed over.
AND THE result?

Incredible as it sounds, four generations of devoted archeologists, with a
burning conviction and huge resources, did produce exactly:
Nothing.

From the beginning of the effort to this very day, not a single piece of
evidence of the ancient history was found. Not a single indication that the
exodus from Egypt, the basis of Jewish history, ever happened. Nor of the 40
years of wandering in the desert. No evidence of the conquest of Canaan, as
described at length in the Book of Joshua. The mighty King David, whose kingdom
extended - according to the Bible - from the Sinai peninsula to the north of
Syria, did not leave a trace. (Lately an inscription with the name David was
discovered, but with no indication that this David was a king.)

Israel appears for the first time in sound archeological findings in Assyrian
inscriptions, which describe a coalition of local kingdoms which tried to stop
the Assyrian advance into Syria. Among others, King Ahab of Israel is mentioned
as the chief of a considerable military contingent. Ahab, who ruled today`s
Samaria (in the north of the occupied West Bank) from 871 BC until 852 BC was
not beloved by God, though the Bible describes him as a war hero. He marks the
beginning of the entry of Israel into proven history.

ALL THESE are negative pieces of evidence suggesting that the early Biblical
story is invented. Since practically no trace whatsoever of the early Biblical
story has been found, does this prove that it is all fiction?
Perhaps not. But real proof does exist.

Egyptology is a scientific discipline that is separate from Palestinian
archeology. But Egyptology proves conclusively that the Biblical history until
King Ahab is indeed fiction.

Up to now, many tens of thousands of Egyptian documents have been deciphered,
and the work is still going on. After the Hyksos from Asia invaded Egypt in 1730
BC, the Pharaohs of Egypt took very great pains to watch the happenings in
Palestine and Syria. Year after year, Egyptian spies, traders and soldiers
reported in great detail on events in every town of Canaan. Not a single item
has been found, telling of anything remotely resembling Biblical events. (A
single mention of `Israel` on an Egyptian stele is believed to refer to a small
territory in the south of Palestine.)

Even if one would like to believe that the Bible only exaggerates real events,
the fact is that not even a tiny mention of the exodus, the conquest of Canaan
or King David has been found.
They just did not happen.

IS THIS important? Yes and no.

The Bible is not real history. It is a monumental religious and literary
document, that has inspired untold millions throughout the centuries. It has
formed the minds of many generation of Jews, Christians and Muslims.
But history is something else. History tells us what really happened. Archeology
is a tool of history, an invaluable tool for the understanding of what took
place.

These are two different disciplines, and never the twain shall meet. For the
religious, the Bible is a matter of belief. For non-believers, the Hebrew Bible
is a great work of art, perhaps the greatest of all. Archeology is something
entirely different: a matter of sober, proven facts.
Israeli schools teach the Bible as real history. This means that Israeli
children learn only its chapters, true or fictitious. When I once complained
about this in a Knesset speech, demanding that the full history of the country
throughout the ages be taught, including the chapters of the Crusades and the
Mamelukes, the then minister of education started to call me `the Mameluke`.
I still believe that every child in this country, Israeli and Palestinian,
should learn its full history, from the earliest days to this day, with all its
layers. It is the basis of peace, the real Rock Of Our Existence.

[*] Full title of the Kinneret College conference: `The Rock of our Existence –
the connection between Archeology and Ideology`

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