‘PRESENT DAY ISRAEL IS FORMED on concepts of ruthless violence and conquest as laid down in the Book of Joshua in their Bible, which tells how they were ordered to: cross the Jordan, you and all this people, into the land that I am giving to them, to the Israelites. Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you, as I promised to Moses.
‘It actually starts in the Book of Genesis, when God made a covenant with Abram, saying: To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt as far as the great river the Euphrates. The land of the Kenites, Kenizites, Kadmonites; the Chitties, Perizites, Refaim; the Emorites, Canaanites, Gigashites and Yevusites.’
‘That’s a big piece of real estate!’
‘God also said: And I will give to you and to your descendants after you, the land of your temporary residence, all the land of Canaan as an eternal possession and I will be a God to them.’
‘Unfortunately when they arrived it was already occupied.’
‘That’s right, it belonged to the Canaanites.’
‘So they conquered it.’
‘In a nutshell, yes, Solomon and David ruled over Canaan and were therefore the founders of Israel.’
‘The legacy of Solomon?’
‘Yes, what a legacy!’
‘What is the definition of conquer?’
‘To take possession of a land or territory by force of arms.’
‘Force?’
‘Yes.’
‘Not very democratic.’
‘No, it had not yet been invented, and those times were definitely anything but democratic.’
‘So who were the descendants of Abraham?’
‘The children of Abraham?’
‘Yes.’
‘Now things get complicated.’
‘The Bible says he had two sons Ishmael and Isaac. Muslims believe that Abraham offered Ishmael for sacrifice. Jews and Christians believe that he offered Isaac. Now the Muslims believe that they are the descendants of Ishmael the son of Abraham, therefore Palestine belongs equally to them.’
‘So going back to the conquest of the Canaanites.’
‘Okay, In the Books of Joshua and Judges, the story of the Israelites settlement in the land of Canaan is told. Joshua describes the arrival of the Israelites into the Promised Land and the battles fought for control of its main cities. Then it tells of how it was divided among the tribes of Israel. In fact this was a long series of battles with victories and defeats that probably lasted for a very long period of time.’
‘So they fought a long series of wars of conquest?’
‘According to the Bible, the answer is yes, historically it is more complicate. In any case the Israelites took over.’
‘And all the other peoples were killed or became Jews?’
‘No, some were no doubt assimilated, but most of those peoples continued to exist as the Bible constantly reminds us. That region was if fact a patchwork of warring tribes and kingdoms until late Roman times.’
‘In short Israel put down all the other tribes and groups.’
‘Yes.’
‘Always fighting with their neighbours.’
‘Yes, territory has always been the main cause of wars.’
‘Their methods were always violent.’
‘Not more than the others.’
‘Others?’
‘Romans, Greeks, Arabs to name a few. They certainly weren’t the own in their methods of conquest. If we jump a thousand years into the future from the time of Herod, the Crusaders were blood thirsty conquerors.’
‘They came to free Jerusalem.’
‘They were out for loot and plunder. A good example is the rape and pillage of Constantinople in 1204, which was certainly no reference lesson, especially when they were supposed to be there to free it.’
‘Free it?’
‘From Alexius, a tyrant. They savagely sacked and pillaged Constantinople in a reign of terror and horror that lasted for three days, killing, raping, burning, stealing and destroying ancient Roman and Greek works. In spite of their holy oaths and the threats of excommunication, they ruthlessly violated the city's holy sanctuaries, defiling all and even a prostitute was set up on the Patriarchal throne. When Pope Innocent III heard of the conduct of his pilgrims, he was filled with shame and strongly rebuked them saying: ‘The Latins have given an example only of iniquity and of works of darkness.’ Anyway the Eastern Empire was divided up between the victors and the Latin Empire formed.’
‘So your saying that the Jew’s leitmotif was that it was theirs, given by God, compared to the Crusader’s who were clearly there for conquest, veiled by the idea of freeing Jerusalem.’
‘Yes, an example is seen amongst the Crusaders were the Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon.’
‘The Templars,’ interjected O’Connelly fresh from his visit to Rhodes, ‘one of the most austere of orders, who if fact transformed their gains in fortunes and eventually became bankers.’
‘Yes, and if you look around the shadow of the Crusaders still hangs over the Levant. In Syria there is the extraordinary Castle, the Crack de Chevalier, then there is Acre in Israel, Rhodes and Cyprus. People in the West have forgotten the ravages wreaked by the Crusaders, which have remained fixed in the memories of the peoples of the Levant, who still fear that one day the Crusaders would return and they had reason to believe it. Any invader from the West was to be feared especially if there was a religious connotation to his arrival, and whether they were Christians or Jews was of little importance.’
‘The Muslims weren’t any different when they swept out of their own homelands, conquering Egypt and North Africa and colonising southern Europe…Spain and Sicily.’
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Another Theory
The Legacy of Solomon Page 80