The following is a historical-political tale based on authentic photographs. Every month we will present here a different tale like this one. Our goal is to educate our community about the history of the Land of Israel, a history that has meaningful political implications.
Shekhem (Nablus) in 1909
This photograph of Nablus in 1909 can be analyzed from a demographic-political and from a historical perspective. Nablus is the corrupt form of Roman “Neapolis” – the new Roman suburb of the Israeli city of Shekhem, were Roman veteran legionnaires built their homes in the first Century. Shekhem is one of the very oldest cities in the Land of Israel, like Hebron, with a tradition that goes back to period of the Patriarchs. Like Hebron, Shekhem remained a holy city for the Jewish people for more than 3400 years. The oldest known altar in the Land, dating back to the 14th Century BCE has been recently excavated on a nearby hillside — on the historic Mount Grizim.
Any demographer looking at this photo will tell you that this Arab village has less than 2000 residents. In 1909 this included Arabs and Samaritan Jews. Today Nablus is the most populated Arab city in Judea and Samaria. The number of residents in Nablus today is estimated at 200,000+ (not including residents in neighboring refugee camps). How could the population of this city increase a hundred fold in less than one hundred years without a tremendous influx of immigrants? This photo strongly suggests, therefore, that the majority of Arabs in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip are recent immigrants like the majority of Israeli Jews. In fact, those Arabs immigrated because of economic opportunities opened by the highly productive Jewish immigration. The Arab claim about the antiquity of the whole Arab population in Samaria is, therefore, exagerated at best. On the other hand, Shekhem has been the permanent residence of the most ancient Jewish community in the Land of Israel.
At least since 700 BC Shekhem has been the residence and holy city of the Samaritans who lived there continuously for 2700 years, until they were “encouraged to leave” after 1948. This expulsion occurred many years before there were any Jewish “settlements” in Samaria. Below is a photo of the Samaritans elders in 1934, during the Passover sacrifice.
Passover sacrifice by the Samaritans in 1934
The people in this photo are NOT Arabs, they are members of an ancient Jewish sect, remnants of the Northern Kingdom of ancient Israel who lived in Shekhem continuously for more than 2700 years. Since the seventh Century CE they have been persecuted by Muslim Arabs while preserving their Jewish religion and culture. The holy language of the Samaritans is Hebrew and their oldest Torah book (which includes the Book of Joshua) is said to be more than 3000 years old (see photo).
Secterian and mainstream Jews continued to lived in the Land of Israel since they lost political independence following the Great Revolt in 70 CE and the destruction of the Second Temple. Since that faithful day, over close to two thousand years, Jews produced in the Land of Israel the most important literary works of Judaism, including the Mishnah, the Talmud, the Midrashim, the Kabbalistic Zohar, and the Shulkhan Arukh, plus many hundreds of other books of religious and philosophical significance. The creation of these essential books of Judaism are objective testimony to flurishing Jewish life in their homeland at a time when the country was occupied by numerous foreign invaders. Those include the Arabs in the seventh Century, the Crusaders, the Kurds, the Albanians (Mameluks), the Turks, the French (under Napoleon) for a brief period, and finally the British. The Jewish people never conceded their position as the true owners of their homeland since the establishment of the Jewish nation 3300 years ago.
The Arab claim, supported by some socialists in Europe and the US, that the Israelis are Western colonialists, like the Europeans in South Africa, is therefore absolutely incorrect. If one truely condemns occupation, the Arab occupation in the seventh Century and the Jordanian occupation in 1948, are just two of many occupations of the Jewish homeland since Jews lost their political independence two thousand years ago.
Coming back to the Samaritans, they were custodians of the Tomb of Joseph the Patriarch, the forefather of the Northern Israelite tribes, who according to the Torah was buried in Shekhem. A certain site near Shekhem is the traditional tomb of Joseph the Patriarch. The Midrash and other ancient texts mention the site, as did the early Church historian Eusebius of Caesarea, who visited it nearly 1,700 years ago. Arab geographers, medieval Jewish pilgrims, Samaritan historians and 19th-century British cartographers provide consistent confirmation of the site's location and verification as the true tomb of the Patriarch Joseph.
It makes little difference, however, whether this particular site is precisely the historical site of Joseph's tomb - the current site has been declared as holy by Jewish tradition. The Jewish holiness of this tomb, based on the Torah, is definitely more legitimate than the Islamic holiness of the al-Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount (built on the ruins of a Byzantine church on the site of the demolished ancient Jewish Temple) based on a late tradition that was never mentioned in the Koran.
This Jewish holy site was included in the 1992 Oslo accords in the list of Jewish holy sites that will remain under Israeli jurisdiction until the “final settlement” is reached, when free access to all holy sites was to be guaranteed . On October 7, 2000, just after the 2000 Intifada started, an incited Arab mob attacked this Jewish holy site. Relying on the PLO Oslo commitment, and in order to avoid bloodshed, Prime Minister Barak ordered withdrawal of the Israeli Border Police unit stationed in the tomb. This was done following a formal commitment of the Palestinian Authority (PA) to guard the integrity of this Jewish holy site.
However, the PA pledge was brazenly violated about two hours after the Israeli evacuation, when a Palestinian Arab mob entered the Tomb compound and began systematically destroying everything in sight, including the synagogue and the yeshiva. The furniture and books that were left behind were burned by the mob. The Palestinian police stood by despite their committment to guard the Tomb. Within hours, Joseph's Tomb was reduced to a smoldering heap of rubble. Within two days, as an Associated Press dispatch reported, "the dome of the tomb was painted green and bulldozers were seen clearing the surrounding area," as the Arabs sought to transform the biblical Joseph's resting place into a Moslem holy site, presumably to prove the superiority of Islam over the religions of the infidels.
Ehud Barak seemed not to be aware of the fact that the Muslims consider agreements with infidels essentially as non-binding. The PA seems also to disregard international law that requires respect of the neutrality and maintenance of the integrity of holy sites of all religions by the authority that has jurisdiction over them. Also international law is seemingly non-binding. Like the Taliban, who blatantly destroyed historical Buddhist statutes in Afghanistan, the PA seems to considered itself not bound also by international law (it is however upheld when Arab propaganda criticizes Israel of violations).
The pictures below show the Arab mobe "conquering" the site immediately following the withdrawal of the Israeli police, burning it down and then painting its dome with green paint.
Israel's withdrawal from the site was later understood as a grave strategic error. It marked the first time that the IDF had withdrawn under fire, surrendering territory to Palestinian Arab violence. Coming barely a week after the start of the al-Aqsa Intifada, the retreat from Joseph's Tomb sent a signal to the PLO that violence would force Israel to capitulate.
The strategic error of withdrawing from Joseph's Tomb is unlikely to be repeated. When fire bombings and gunfire resumed at Rachel’s Tomb outside Bethlehem in 2002, the Israeli cabinet decided to include the site, by then fortified with barbed wire and concrete structures, within the boundaries the security zone around Jerusalem.
Here are a few web links to addtional information and opinions on the Joseph's tomb story:
IDF account of the events at the tomb: http://www.idf.il/english/news/joseph_tomb_8oct00.stm
