Letters to the Editor

Letters from a Lebanese Muslim who obviously suffers from the Phoenician Complex. Such persons believe that history and heritage begin in the 7th century and Islam. They foolishly equate Arab with Islam and cannot comprehend that culture has its roots deep into the past. Unlike the Muslims of Egypt who are proud of their Pharaonic heritage or the Muslims of Tunis who are proud of their Phoenician heritage, this person is a typical example of many Lebanese Muslims (and some equally nit-wit Christians) who cannot think beyond their fanatic, primitive, bullnecked mind set that cannot grow and accept new ideas. Read for yourselves the insane message he wrote to me that ignores the facts about the pan-Arab LIE

From: ahmad abouali <2aabouali@gmail.com>, Ahmad Abouali <aabouali@sympatico.ca>
Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2010 21:02:13 -0400
To: "S. George Khalaf"

you people are pathetic, you are a disgrace to the Arab Lebanon.

No matter what you do, say, fabricate, or make believe lies, Lebanon and its people are Arabs and we speak Arabic.

So, wake up and smell the homos ya hibel

Ahmad

From: <NADERB565@aol.com>
Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2005 21:06:03 EST
To: Salim Khalaf
Subject: Get Help

I think you need help. I am 100% Lebanese and I disagree with most of what you say. First my race is ARAB,my religion is ISLAM, my country is LEBANON. Most Lebanese are ARAB except about 25-30% which are Armenian, French etc. (mostly Christians ). The sad truth is we are all Arab but the Lebanese Christians are so sick and in denial that they would rather be anything but ARAB because they don't want anything to do with Islam .Lebanese are ARAB . Get over it your just in denial because you have an evil dark hart that does not want to see the light.The diff. between you and I is I'm proud of my Arabic culture and I am proud to be Arabic like all my Arab brothers from other mid-eastern countries .I can be Arab and love my Lebanese heratige and country.Read the Quran and join the rest of us Arab and Lebanese, you need love.GET OVER IT.... Lebanon = ARAB + ISLAM.

---Counter response of affirmation from another reader---

From: Willy
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 18:20:40 -0800 (PST)
To: Salim Khalaf
Subject: reply to the zealout and fanatic naderb. re: get help.

Obviously NADERB is not a student of history. Lebanon’s history and heritage didn't start in 640-670 A.D. with the Islamic conquests. Lebanon did exist before and managed to do very well, thank you very much. I’m not going to repeat the history going back 10,000 years from the 7th century A.D. but the inhabitants of present day Lebanon were the Canaanites and the Phoenicians. For timetables and dates read this web site, but let's pick it up around 33 A.D. with the crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ. From that date on, Christianity was gaining ground in the whole Levant, Anatolia and parts of Europe. The overwhelming religion early on was pagan. All until 325 A.D. when the roman emperor Constantine converted to Christianity and with him so did the Roman Empire. Christianity became the official religion of the empire and paganism was rejected. So you can see that from 33 A.D. to whenever Islam conquered the Lebanese coast, let's say 660 A.D., Lebanon was inhabited by pagans first off, and gradually Christians.

You said that the Christians constitute 25% of the Lebanese and that they are mostly French and Armenian??? Where the hell do you get your statistics? Armenians now constitute 3-4% of the Lebanese. They used to number around 300,000 but now that number is cut in half. Do your math, moron, 150,000 out of 4 million is 3.80%. As for the French, I have no earthly clue as what you're talking about. Reliable sources now estimate Lebanese Christians at 40% of the population. The major Christian sect is the Maronite sect. You never mentioned Maronites in your stupid comments. The Maronites started coming to Lebanon from Antioch and northern Syria stating in the late 4th century A.D. that's about 300 years before Islam.

You want an Islamic Lebanon. I want a multi-confessional Lebanon where all religions are respected and honored yet should be separate from the state and rule of law. All Lebanese, of any confession, should be equal under justice and the rule of law. Apparently you associate more with non-Lebanese Muslems than you do with non-Moslem Lebanese. That’s fine. If you feel that way, get the hell out of Lebanon you traitor. It is people like you who instigated the civil war and sold their souls to foreigners in Lebanon.

What has Arabism brought to Lebanon? Let’s see. First the PLO ravaged our country that brought about an Israeli invasion. Then our brotherly Arab neighbors occupied us and spilled the blood of not only Christians and their leaders, but also Lebanese Moslems and their leaders. Have you forgotten Kamal Jumblatt (Druze), Salim Laouzi (great journalist who dared to tell the truth, Sunni), the mufti of the republic, sheikh Hassan Khaled (Sunni), and of course, Mr. Lebanon himself, Rafik Hariri (Sunni)? The Arab cause has cost Lebanon a lot. The Arabs came from Arabia. Maybe you did, but the majority of the Lebanese and especially the Christians and Druze didn't. You are confusing Arabism with Islam. It is very possible that a Lebanese Moslem can NOT be an Arab. If the great country of Egypt prides itself in its pharaonic heritage, are you going to call it anti-Muslim and anti-Arab??

You are a fanatic and a hater. You probably should be in Iraq blowing your self up.

willy

Letter from an Arab, whose sex remains to be determined, Jouanna, possibly a woman or a coward hiding behind a woman's name. Notice how s../it pokes fun of May Murr and then turns around says that May is an Arab, while claiming to defend Arabs. There is no more decency in the world and a lot of people continue to try to force their opinions on everybody else, confirming that they themselves are nitwits.

From: <jouanna@bigpond.com>
Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2007 1:09:23 +1100
To: Salim Khalaf
Subject: Lebanon-Phoenicia

Dear Sir,

Let me tell you that you guys are weired and have serious paranoia, get over it already.... you speak Arabic, write Arabic and your beloved country Lebanon is full of Arabs.

Please pass my comments to that spasticated women May Murr , I had a look at her fat head and guess what....she is typical Arab. Before she or any one else quote the Holy Q’uran Pl get you facts right.

Arabs are here to stay and the reason your stupid Aramaic is gone because it was useless to begin with , if it had any potential the language would have stuck around.... or maybe because the Phoenician that used it were that desperate to get rif of it that they abondeb the Holy language.... Yeh I think that what happened

I’m Lebanese and proud of being and Arab and belonging to the Arabic Nation, for your info….the desert people as you call them are now the people with money and respect and have consideration of the West ….the West that you and your people as trying hard to be recognized by them as “ PHOENICIAN”….what ever

Ok ...bye bye Lebo role

Letter of affirmation from a gentleman from The Congo that agrees with the author of this site that the Punic, Hannibal and North Africans were not sub-Saharan contrary to popular belief among some African Americans who falsely accuse the author of this site of racism and forging lies about the Phoenicians of that region.

From: said kakese dibinga <skdibinga@yahoo.com>
Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2006 17:55:22 -0800 (PST)
To: "S. George Khalaf" Salim Khalaf
Subject: Re: Phoenician.org, very thorough...

Salim,

I'm from the Democratic Republic of The Congo.

I really appreciate your dedication to your culture and sharing your knowledge with masses...

I read the segment where the comment was made about African-American scholars tend to change the ethnic make-up of the North Africans like Hannibal.

I laughed because it reminds me of a presentation that I do that displays heroes from the African continent. When I presented it in Sacramento, California, I showed the slide containing Hannibal's bust and another image. Later on a man said that he was disturbed. That he was taught that Hannibal was black, that he was dark-skinned. I said to him, that Kings and Queens series portrait of Hannibal isn't correct. We talked for awhile and I explained to him that people from America assume everyone on the African continent looks like Denzal Washington. Most people in America, should they meet a Berber, a Tunisian, Algerian, or Moroccan out of ignorance may think they're meeting a person from Mexico. I suggested that they go to North Africa and see the variety of people that are there.

Keep doing what you are doing it is much needed.

Talk to you later,

Said Kakese wa Dibinga
http://www.onceuponatimeinthecongo.blogspot.com/

Letter from an anti-Semite who does not know the difference between Semite and Israeli, not that being anti-Israeli is justifiable. It is obvious, the person is either a boy or a moron, on the other hand, he could be a red-neck who uses computers. The letter is posted to show the kind of abuse I get from ignoramii and racists. These types are nothing more than pathetic idiots.

From: brian smith <briansmith4331@msn.com>
Date: Wed, 26 Oct 2005 02:46:39 +0100
To: Salim Khalaf
Subject: wonderment

How was it that the semites claim they invented everything mathmatics, written word , mythology, ships, langueage, and many many more firsts and yet be losers.

Parasitic! comes to mind, a typical yarn teller; very American in what I read! hollywood bullshite.

I had a fasnaction with the Sea peoples but your Bulshite has stopped it

As an onlooker Israel is doomed. However much the Yanks help.

I suggest buy a ticket.
Brian Smith

Letter from an obviously Hellenistic Supremacist who believes that the Greeks were exclusively the only thinkers and masters of knowledge in the ancient world. Of course, today, we know the Greeks did not monopolize knowledge while they rubbed shoulders with the other thinkers of the ancient world, though no one can dispute their great contribution to knowledge. However, SOME Greeks of today, such as the persons who wrote these letters, are idiots obsessed with a superiority complex that rings Nazism and ignores all literature and archaeology that contradicts them.

From: <theeye123@hotmail.com>
Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2005 22:54:00 +0000
To: Salim Khalaf
Subject: Phoenicia.org (READ WHAT THIS HELLENISTIC "NAZIS" CONTINUES TO BELIEVE)

I recently discovered your website www.Phoenicia.org. I would like to add to it with my own commentary:

It appears, that through reading your articles, one of two conclusions can be drawn (I will not go into detail with them, as I believe that you most definitely know what I am talking about):

1. You are a misinformed, uneducated, and misled individual, who through misfortune happen to come up with these ideas and sell them as truth, when in fact they are distorted to the point of historical grotesqueness.

2. You hold a hidden agenda, and carefully, with cold calculation, attempt to falsify history in aims to discredit those who truly deserve recognition.

In any case, it is people of your kind that, exercising the HELLENIC ideal of freedom, slow, stop, and in some cases reverse the wheel of civilization. Your childlike lack of rational and reason, coupled with either intent or ignorance serve to distort, and outright falsify history, not only causing damage to the world alike, but to your self, and self destruction is a sign of madness. Although you will never sway in your efforts to continue on the path you are currently on, time will ultimately, as it has in the past, reveal and destroy such janissaries as yourself.

(The scum bag coward and idiotic Hellinistic Nazi did not dare to sign his or her message)

Here is another

From: "Papapavlos.Thanasis" <Thanasis.Papapavlos@IGT.com>
Date: Mon, 4 Jun 2007 10:13:41 +0900
To: Salim Khalaf
Conversation: Alphabet Subject: Alphabet (READ WHAT THIS BASTARDIZED TURKISH GREEK CONTINUES TO BELIEVE)

Dear Sir, Are you serious with what you write for the alphabet? The origins of it are clearly Greek and only Greek. Cannot be from Chanaan or Phoenicia , areas that gave no civilization and nothing to the world. You do not have to show something except your bible’s sad and bad stories. Even the word alphabet is 100% Greek. Αλφάβητο – Alpha beta. Stop saying lies to the people that reads your page, and try to be honest.

Thanasis

Here is one of many from this guy in Lambrakis Press:

From: <sstakis@in.gr> IP Address: 194.63.247.138
Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2007 17:34:13 +0300
To: Salim Khalaf
Subject: DEAR BASTARDS OF PHOENICIA..........

Note: The IP address (194.63.247.138) shows that the sender is from:

SStakis
Lambrakis Press Organization S.A. (Nektarios Hatjipapas)
Michalakopoulou 80
Athens 102 37
Greece
http://www.dolnet.gr/ or http://www.dol.gr/

hello again,

I just want to tell you to fuck off because your lies are very big.
Learn history first and then write your fuckin' site.

MALAKA !!! A MALAKA !!!!

sstakis@in.gr

Letter from an obviously Fundamentalist "Christian" (or "Jew") who has no shame and literally believes in the racist rubbish that is in the Bible. The Pharisee, hypocrite has the audacity of signing his message "Brother in Humanity."

From: ammano jacko <ammanno_jacko@yahoo.com>
Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 07:13:09 -0700 (PDT)
To: Salim Khalaf
Subject: To son of canaan bin Ham the Phonecian

To son of canaan bin Ham the Phonecian;

The bible say Genesis 9:29
"Canaan is cursed. He will be servant of servants to his brothers.‰ ....He Noah„Blessed be Yahweh, the God of Shem. Let Canaan be his servant."

Question to be Asked

How come you are proud so much about your cursed Phoenician Canaanites ancestors

As this phonecian bible stated?

Thank you
Brother in Humanity

Ammanno

From: Gregory Tzvi Ticker
Sent: November 14, 2003 7:00 PM
To: S. George Khalaf
Subject: General Impression of Your Site

"As I said in the beginning all these facts are common knowledge and only ideologically biased or totally illiterate person could argue against it in principle. I accept that there is always a possibility to argue about some particular details or interpretations of the facts, but from general tenor of your statements I understood that you are dealing mostly with people for whom your views look like sacrilege and heresy to be cursed outright."

Your website offer general information known to any more or less serious student of ancient Near East. It is well proven fact that Phoenicians (the term by itself is the Greek one) are a Semitic people, representing the north branch of Canaanites. Nobody in his sober mind is arguing, except of most insane pan-Arabist, that the Phoenicians are Arabs, and as well we Jews never considered Phoenicians and Canaanites to be Israelites, except those ones who had chosen to convert to Judaism.

It is totally accepted and non-arguable fact that Phoenicians created one of the most advanced civilisations of their time, and that Greek, Latin, Arabic, and Aramaic alphabets, and alphabets derived from thereof are developed from the Phoenician one. From what we know from Tanah, ancient Greek sources, and archaeological excavations religious believes and practices of the Phoenicians are common with other Semitic peoples such as Ammorites, Aramaean, Assyrian, Akkadians.

Like all the ancient societies that were dependent on agriculture and helpless before wrath of Lord, or Forces of Nature, if you like, the Phoenicians practised Fertility Cults. Such features of this Cult as Temple Prostitution and Orgies, as a celebration of revival of fertility of the soil and livestock, are well documented. Not only in the Tanah, where it is considered filth and abomination, but by various Greek and Latin authors who, in this matter, considered these rites quite normal, and having analogy in theirs Cult of the Olympic gods. The same is true about human sacrifices. The subject is strongly argued by some historians, but the practice is so widely common for all primitive religions, that we can assume that authors of Tanah probably exaggerated frequency and scale of these sacrifices. The fact of human sacrifices to propitiate Ba’al-Marduk in the extreme cases hardly can be dismissed as a slander. For reasons that could not be discussed in this letter, because of complexity of the subject it deserve voluminous academic monographs.

The Phoenicians were unable to create any lasting political entity. Phoenicia was a cluster of city-states squabbling with each other and making alliances with outside powers against each other, for example, Tzidon (Sidon) and lesser cities actively helped Alexander against Tira (Tyre). The exception is Carthage and her Empire, but to consider Carthage to be a part of Phoenicia is a far-stretching assumption, akin to merging US and England into fictitious Anglo-Saxon entity. Having religious cults similar to their Semitic and non-Semitic neighbours, being people of trade and crafts at home all over Mediterranean the Phoenicians never developed sense of self-identity and separateness from other people unlike Jews, who were on very good terms with Phoenicians until the advent of Christianity.

Nationalistic aspirations of the Phoenicians, Egyptians, and Syrian Aramaeans took form in the shape of Heresies centred on the Nature of Christ. The Monothelitic concept of Maronites is a rare example of attempted compromise. Because of the Emperors of Byzantium’s par excellence stand for uniformity of the Church, on the side of Chalchedonians, it meant the political and religious domination of Greek speaking Byzantium over non-Greek provinces. Due to this bitterness, even hatred, the Arab Conquest was considered a lesser evil than the domination of the Byzantium.

The fiscal burden imposed by Arab masters was easier, than one of the Emperors and all natives without regard of their religious affiliation as well as Jews, who were put on equal footing being second-class citizens. Arabs being small group of relatively primitive nomads in short time conquered an enormous Empire. Wisely they had chosen to use local elites to run business of the government under supervision of the Arab masters. Conversion to Islam opened the way of transformation from a privileged but second-class citizen into a member of the ruling class. On the other side for many not so sophisticated in theological finery Islam looked as simpler and more logical form of monotheism. Mass conversion to Islam occurred everywhere. Heresies, and underlying political and nationalistic aspirations weakened the Church and the feeling of belonging to the “Ecumenical Christian Communion.” Examples are numerous in the Balkans, North Africa, and Near East. With Islam went Arabic. In some cases Islamisation didn't mean Arabization, for example in India, Persian Empire, among different Turkic people, on the Balkans. The reason for this was either strong, old, vibrant, and because of this unsusceptible to assimilation culture like in India and Persian Empire, or civilisation totally different from Arabic like in case of Turkic nomads.

In both these cases Islam is a religion, but national self-identification is not Arabic. This is not the case of the North Africa and Egypt, Mesopotamia, Phoenicia. Vast majority of Lebanese, Iraqis, Egyptians and inhabitants of the North Africa ethnically are not Arabs, but with small exception of Christian Copts, Maronites, Syrian Jacobites and Syriac Orthodox they had chosen self-identify themselves as Arabs for at least a Millennia. Even Christians in Arab countries frequently were and are ambivalent about their ethnical identity. Sincerely or otherwise out of political expediency they identified themselves as “Christian Arabs.” Very much similar as our so-called reformed Jews identified themselves as Germans, Frenchmen, Austrians, etc. of Mosaic Faith. Recently, the collapse of Pan-Arabism caused resurgence of attempts to create non-Arabic identity among some intellectuals in Middle-Eastern countries. Will they be successful? Who knows? I personally doubt. Scientifically they are right, but without any living original cultural tradition, without language to call their own they hardly can expect to achieve anything. In any chance Copts tried the same experiment and approximately at the same time as Zionists, result is not impressive. As I said in the beginning all these facts are common knowledge and only ideologically biased or totally illiterate person could argue against it in principle. I accept that there is always a possibility to argue about some particular details or interpretations of the facts, but from general tenor of your statements I understood that you are dealing mostly with people for whom your views look like sacrilege and heresy to be cursed outright.

Yours Truly,
Gregory Tzvi Ticker

Our beautiful Lebanese language, is a rebuttal for the claim which appears in the text highlighted in blue from the Linguistics page of this site (see below)

"Although the written language and the language of communication (radio, TV, public speaking) basically represent a common Classical Arabic (fu), only local dialects are spoken in everyday life. The dialects differ from the written language approximately as much as Italian differs from Latin." Quoted from this site, the Linguistics page entitled: Semitic Languages (and the Phoenician language)

Actually Salim, Professor Wheeler Thackston of Harvard pushes your analogy (of Latin and Italian) a bit further and argues that "the languages the 'Arabs' grow up speaking at home, are as different from each other and from Arabic itself, as Latin is different from English." A seemingly preposterous claim, but oh so true.

And this banalized and internalized bad habit of denigrating a language, by calling it a dialect, a colloquial, a vulgar, a 3ammiyye, a Lahje, is just a political ruse and a gross oversimplification.

I believe that complacence is the first step towards complete national and cultural abdication! If we can't counter this sophistry, this travesty, that Lebanese is an Arabic dialect, then how can we possibly refute the equally preposterous claims of Arabists and Syrianists who boast about Lebanon being an Arab country, or a component (QUTR) of the Arab World (whatever that is), or a Syrian Province (whatever Syria is.)

Our Identity problem stems not from the fact that we lack a collective national consciousness, or shared memories, or a corporate myth of origin!!! NO! Our problem comes from the fact that we have compunctions, guilt, and apprehensions, about saying the truth about our national, cultural, and linguistic specificity (perhaps for fear of being mocked or ridiculed.) But also perhaps our opportunist Phoenicianist Mercantilistic impulses force us into this suicidal self-negationism. We want to flatter, please, soothe, alleviate, and mitigate the fears, misgivings, and anxieties of our Arab neighbors (who, due to their psycho-cultural inferiority, cannot tolerate the presence of non-Arabs in their midst.) So in order to appease them (so that we may later, perhaps, be able to sell them something) we simply tell them "you're right!" "We don't exist!" "We don't have a specific culture!" "We don't even have a distinct language!" "Lebanon if part of Arabistan!" "Ahlan Wa Sahlan," "Bayti Baytak," "W, Walaww? Ma fii far2 baynetna! Ne7na 3arab bi baYdna!!!!" Right???

Well! WRONG!

And I am writing this, dear Salim, to say just that. Dead Wrong!!
And it is high time we began telling the Truth, without apologies, without reservations, without cover-ups, without concealment, and without sugar coatings. It is high time we began LOOKING after NUMBER ONE: LEBANON!
The Arabs never consulted with us; they never asked for our permission or our opinion before they hijacked and expropriated our culture and our language, and claimed them as their own! Why then should we feel guilty about exulting in our uniquely Lebanese history, culture, and language?

We shouldn't have any illusions about this issue! Before any political points can be scored towards the physical and political emancipation of Lebanon; and before we can accomplish the territorial liberation of Lebanon and restore its political sovereignty, we must overcome the occupation, the perversion, and the erosion of the "spirit" and the "conscience" of Lebanon!! We must overcome the mutism and the deception of the Lebanese themselves who (willingly or unwillingly) have been cowed into muddling our identity and stultifying our specificity and deconstructing our unique cultural personality.. and dismissing our language as some sort of a dialect of Arabic.

Our language is not a dialect! It is a 7000 year old Lebanese spontaneous generation.

Isn't it funny how no Frenchman worth his salt would dare call his/her language a "Latin Dialect", or a "Latin Colloquial", or a "Vulgar Latin"??? although from a linguistic standpoint one can make the argument that the French, the Italians, the Portuguese, the Spaniards, the Romanians, and yes the "Anglophones" are all speaking a "Latin dialect", an evolved Latin perhaps, a Latin that is deformed by 2000 years of exile from its birthplace (Latium), but Latin nonetheless, yes? Yet, none of these proud Frenchmen, Spaniards, Italians, etc.. would dream of denigrating their native languages by stamping them with a devaluative label. Us Lebanese, on the other hand, go out of our way to bend over backwards for the Arabs and debase our noble, ancient, hallowed Lebanese language by calling it an Arabic dialect.
Well! It's not!!!! We don't speak anyone's dialect. We speak Lebanese; a self-contained, self-generated, sui generis, spontaneous outcome of a uniquely Lebanese experience. And I will use an inverted version of Prof. Thackston's argument to submit to you, Salim, that this (our) Lebanese vernacular is a Phoenician dialect, not an Arabic dialect. It is an evolved Phoenician, a Phoenician deformed, distorted, enriched by 5000 years of history, intercourse, contact, and cross-fertilization with the languages of the universe, but it remained Phoenician nonetheless. Some of our lexicon might have Arabic, French, Latin, Greek etc.. provenance or influence (any language, in order for it to remain a living language must be elastic, malleable, and open to influence, innovation, and neologisms), but our prosody, our phonology, our syntax, our metaphores and similes are all Phoenician; Zamat b-riisho, ra7 yto22, ruu7 ballit l-ba7r, ejo ekhwtak, dashsherneh, shaba2o kaff... all of these common Lebanese expressions are par excellence Phoenician, not vulgar or colloquial or dialectal Arabic. Run of the mill Semitists and Arabists who know nothing about Phoenician and other pre-Arabic languages, notice lexical similarities between "Arabic" and other semitic languages, so they oversimplify and call everything Arabic (but with different accents. Even illustrious Arabist, Edmond Rabbath, was foolish enough to argue in the late 1970s that even Hebrew was an Arabic Dialect.) Travesties and delusions of this sort would have us (on the credulous popular level) believe that common Lebanese expressions (such as Beyt, Kaff, Diin, 2iid, 3ayn, Mayy, cha77uu, dashshar, lakhbat, tghalbat, darkab, sharshar, Kharbash, Zamat, Za7at, Sharkhat, la3was, baakh, ba7wash, lawwash, latash, shammar, farfat, fashar, Shabat, fajam, etc..) are all Arabic, when in reality they are all Lebanese. They may have entered Arabic over the Arabs' many hundreds of years of contact with our culture; they may have been adopted, internalized, and Arabized by a parched desert idiom (lacking in many ways the prestige, the wealth, and the sophistication of the Phoenician idiom), but they remain Lebanese-Phoenician.

I am not denying the obvious kinship between Lebanese and Arabic here. Nor am I denying the fact that we (the Lebanese) are hospitable and respectful of other peoples' languages. But wielding the languages of the world does not mean that we must abdicate our own National Character and our National Language, and refrain from observing (indeed enforcing) the boundaries of kinship and the protocols of association between our Lebanese Language (which, again, is a Spontaneous Lebanese Generation, and the Outcome of a Unique Lebanese Experience) and the other languages we've hosted, fertilized, and assimilated through the centuries (including Arabic.)

Genetic kinships between neighboring languages are not uncommon, but genetic kinship is not tantamount to speaking the same language either. A Frenchman from the Southwest, a Spaniard from the Northeast, and an Italian from the Northwest who are attuned to each other's languages can theoretically understand each other. Does that mean that they speak the same language, or that one's language is a dialectal form of another's? Absolutely not! By the same token, our language is Lebanese! It plays second fiddle to no other language, and it is a dialect of no other language but itself. It is sui generis, and it requires no labels extrinsic to its nature in order to define it. If we are attuned to other people's languages, that doesn't mean that we all speak the same language.

Salim, I thank you for this wonderful site; un veritable travail de geant, et d'une exquise erudition. Merci.

Franck-

Site Editor's note: The full contact of the writer of this message is maintained in confidence since I've not received permission to publish this information.

The Phoenicians Reached Gibraltar Earlier Than Originally Thought (2,000 BC to 1,500 BC)

From: william serfaty
Date: Sat, 24 May 2003 11:15:46 +0100 (BST)
To: Salim Khalaf
Subject: Hot News from Gibraltar, Cal-pe

Dear George,

Many years ago, five I think, when we were first in touch, and when I speculated in my thesis that Phoenician traders must have reached the Western Mediterranean much before the accepted date held to by Archaeologists based on found evidence (c.800BC). I based my speculation of 1800BC on the premise that if the physical foundation of the stones of a large city like Cadiz is dated at 1100 or 800BC by Phoenicians then the presence of sailors trading along the coast from Phoenicia must have been much earlier.

I am delighted to tell you that last week a multiple ritual burial was found at Bray's Cave in Gibraltar by Archaeologists from the Gibraltar Museum in which has appeared one amber necklace bead from the Eastern Mediterranean. The preliminary dating for this burial is 2000BC to 1500 BC! The burial consists of 5 people. Three of them are in an unusual position, in that their three skulls are place on top of each other, which is why the Gibraltar Museum is describing this as a "Ritual Burial". The presence of the amber bead indicates either that these people are your ancestors and mine (from Zaraphat?) or that they had traded the bead with passing traders by land or sea.

I will be compiling some information on the finds to you to add to phoenicia.org if you wish as well as to add to my article there, but do not know the time-scale in which I can obtain scientifically written information for this, since thousands of fragments have been taken to the Gibraltar Museum and are being cleaned and analysed at present.

In the meantime you are free to add this information as a news item in Phoenicia.org, with safeguards given the small amount of information we have at present.

Kindest Regards
William

(Gibraltar, the Pillars of the Phoenicians)
IMPORTANT Please reply to mailto:wiseco@gibnynex.gi

Ethnic origin of the Lebanese, information about the Marada and education

Writer's identity is anonymous -- confidentially maintained by the author

I know that Lebanese are not sure whether they are Phoenicians, Arabs or something else... And that is why any web site such as yours is of great importance. It will help provide answers and enlighten many in our beloved land. Hopefully one can still find hungry minds?

One might attribute this to the simple fact that on average their general education is poor. It is true that we are educated but the influence of Islamic studies on our curriculum is obvious while other equally important areas of studies are completed shielded or vaguely exposed. I agree with you there is no reason to be scared nor sacrifice our proud heritage in order to appease God knows who.

Even though the Christian church in Lebanon is doing a great service by keeping us close and united, however it is also doing us a great disservice when pushing their own agenda. I have a feeling that the church is not concerned with the Phoenician historical importance, of course that is not in their interest to do so. BUT my advise to them is that they must always remember that without the Lebanese Christians these churches cannot command one single Christian soul elsewhere.

Most Christian Lebanese know more about reciting church songs (and in most cases like parrot) rather than what is the meaning of the word Canaan. Several of us have no clue what the difference between Semite and Semitic is and worth we are not willing to look it up. The big tragedy lies in the fact that the our leaders are not even paying any attention and are still gravely neglecting the most important part of a human and that is the mind. Hellas most these leaders hardly can read themselves......

Without a well polished mind how can a nation flourish, grow and thrive as a nation among other nations, a nation thriving for the amelioration of all mankind until the day when all nations come under one flag. It will be a great tragedy to mankind that the peoples who gave mankind so much will seize to produce and share their soul and mind.

The Internet is sadly only used by most youngsters in Lebanon to play games, music, etc... Very rarely it is used for educational, research knowledgeable studies etc.

For instance take your web site, you have 75 pages of messages from people who where impressed enough to write. However looking at all of them I hardly noticed any from Lebanon. That is a very bad sign, especially that we are just coming out of a bloody civil war, our fundamental existence in the region is at great stake, and yet all third fail to arise interest in such fundamental issues as our history. Worth and more dangerous is the economical challenge we are facing at the moment.

Again many of us try hard to appease and get "shihadit houssin slouk" from westerners rather then confronting the challenges facing us economical, educational, political, military, security etc...

When one is studying Old Civilizations, I cannot understand why the history of Civilization should start with the Sumerian and not with the Semitic. In my opinion it should start with the name of all Semitic tribes and how they started migrating up north and occupying the land of Mesopotamia, inhabited by some small nomads people that one might call Sumerians, and the Levant. I think the Sumerian are being given more attention than they deserve and that is all because there are certain believes that they were non-Semitics and most probably Indo-European.

The Greeks did not call the area of Mesopotamia, Samaria, as they did when they recognised the Phoenicians. It was so called by historian.

Finally I think you must dedicate and pay more attention to the MARADA, who sought sanctuary in the mountains of Mt. Lebanon, for the simple fact that they were not Islamised or became Jews, one cannot but wonders why and who are they??????????

History of the Scots as it relates to the Phoenicians, Romans, Angles, Saxon and Germanic tribes and Norsemen.

Writer's identity is anonymous -- confidentially maintained by the author

Thanks Salim for replying and it is interesting to read that the villagers near Hadrians Wall can be traced as akin to Northern Syrians for there is another link between UK Celts and Syria/Scythia.

From what I understand the Saxons when invading Britain attempted to enter the area we call today the Lothians. This was the breadbasket of the Britons and from what I understand the Saxons were pushed out to Lindisfarne when the Picts, Scots and Britons united to defeat them in battle. This is supposed to be the birth of the Saltire as a national emblem and it also leads to the acceptance of Christianity by the Picts and the birth of Alba, which leads eventually to Scotland. The Saxons at this time were heathen and the Scots were the race to convert them.

The whole basis of the brigand/thief reference to "Scotti" resides in such wonderful and accurate historians as Bede who also put forward the Scots were the produce or bastards of the Irish and the Picts. The Scots women being given to Pictish men and based on the late Roman writers who refer to the Scots and the Picts as attacking and harassing their northern borders of the empire.

I believe that is a biased and untrue foundation of the Scots and earliest writings indicate that the Scots named themselves after a Queen or noblewoman. Indeed the lands were called Scota Major and Scota Minor and you would surely expect Scotti Major and Minor. The term Eriguena as indicating an Ireland stems from after the fall of Rome, (and the Germanisation of Europe in many ways), perhaps coming from Ire meaning North and all earlier references are to Scota.

The main problem with the Gaul argument when looking at the Scots falls apart as the Gauls had developed the use of P and the Scots had not. I believe that the Britons were the peoples who populated the areas we now call Northumbria, Lothians, Lanarkshire, Strathclyde and Cumbria and Welsh may be a remnant of this. Welsh was spoken in Edinburgh as recently as 120 years ago and more recent in outlying areas. Again we see the use of P which would tie welsh speakers in with the Gauls. Galashiels, one of the areas that spoke Welsh until the last century, is not far removed from Galatia and shows Gaullic roots granted. However, these peoples were only Scots from the time of MacAlpin and the eventual subjugation of Northumbria and Cumbria back into Scots hands only to be given to the Normans via suzerainty in the time of David I.

Columbanus wasn't the founder of monastery orders but he did introduce them to Germany, Austria, Northern Italy, Flanders etc so I stand corrected on that. He also was the first to establish their independence as he founded monasteries without diocese (Cardinal) or Papal permission. From what I understand the Norse attacks begin after the unification of the Britons, Picts and Scots and the beginning of "Scotland" which was known as Alba and I do not see where they come in when talking about Scots other than the raids and blackmail they introduced. The Scots had even resorted to paying the Norse to leave but they wouldn't until the battle of Troon where the Norwegians were defeated and the Scots repudiated Norwegian claims to our territory. The Norse were then confined to outlying areas such as Wick, Orkneys, etc but there was eventually intermarriage and in the time of Bruce, the Lord of the Isles returned the Isles back to the Scots and the Jarls of Orkney, Man and Shetlands did the same.

I really believe that the Anglo-Saxon myth must be put to rest. Where is this great Anglo-Saxon nation whilst all these developments took place? There isn't one.

The reality is the Norse raids in many ways affected the Angles and the Saxons more than the Scots for the Norse ruled these peoples in the period immediately before the Norman invasion and we only suffered this in outlying areas such as Hebrides, Orkneys etc.

As for the degeneration in the British Isles of Roman language and knowledge, I would suggest that that was never open to the Scots as such and yet we still managed to enlighten Western Europe. The reason behind that happened by keeping literature alive thanks to saint Padraig or in the Germanic sense Patrick and Columba, Columbanus, etc.

I would also say that when referring to Scots and Welsh we should admit in the case of the Welsh certainly that we are not referring to their name and are indeed using "Anglo-Norman" terms. What does Cymri mean? The degeneration of Britain begins with the onslaught of Germanic tribes and not "Norse" as it is the Germanics who take us into a dark age which reinforces my view that the Latin words in Welsh angle is not a valid point. The Germanic tribes had encountered Rome and Roman practices before the Britons had and if they had been Romanised then would the dark ages have occurred?

The tale of Arthur is interesting, as the only "historical" Arthur is Edinburgh based. He was a war chieftain of the Britons and he chased the Saxons from Dunedin. The extinct volcano in my bonnie city is named after him and has been as long as anyone knows. Dunedin was the capital of the Britons or Pruetani, I believe. Troyes museum has a letter from Dunedin telling the tale so I believe.

I have heard much of the terms Scottish yet the correct term is Scots. I am Scots is correct. I am Scottish is not. I am guilty of this, too, from time to time, but it is incorrect to say Scottish.

The argument for England being called Anglo-Keltic is weak, as K is a modern addition to Scots and Celtic would be more correct unless we are all Greeks! I would say that England is a Saxon-Celtic nation as most of the Angles settled in what is now called lowland Scotland, Edinburgh, East Lothian etc contributing mostly to what we call lowland Scots. With the very use of "Keltic" your "learned" friend has shown a fatal flaw in his perception of Scots and Quisling was what sprung to mind when I read the Scotti one as the idiot obviously fails to see that Scotti cannot possibly be a Scots or Irish Gaelic word. Despite numerous searches of the little Latin available in my memory I cannot find the term Scotti meaning thief. Perhaps Quisling is strong but who needs UK historians when ignorance like that is peddled!

Unfortunately after the history we have received from the UK we are all confused as to who we are but perhaps the best line to take is we are all human and God's own!

I also understand that Saxon villages and Roman villas sat side by side but again this has nothing to do with the Dalriada/Scots nor the make up of these islands. A look at the telephone directory of any city north of Derby will show as many macs as Glasgow or Edinburgh and the names of towns such as Caerlyle or Carlisle will show again the make-up of these people. Add to that the massive emigration of Scots/Irish to "England" and we see that the concept of "Anglo-Saxon" is a myth. In Birmingham and London the two main cities south of Manchester we have Scots/Irish as the largest ethnic groups and considering 250 years of this emigration to England has taken place I really doubt that England is Anglo-Saxon and Britain or the UK is most certainly not.

To say 10 years ago that South Africa was an "Aryan" nation would have brought considerable outrage and I fail to see how "Anglo-Saxon" Britain is treated differently.

It fails to accept that this is not some "Aryan" nation whose roots lie in Germany...

The truth is a person in deepest Berkshire is more "Keltic" than any "Celt" and should be looked as more than Anglo-Saxon which is a total denial of their roots. The Scots and those now called Irish bear little if any resemblance to these Gaullic Belgae of Southern England and certainly not the Germanics in terms of religion, language and cultural flags such as music. Again what the UK fails to explain is how the Scots play music in a pentatonic scale. Again showing links with Egypt and India the only two other cultures to play in this scale. The Scots/Irish refused to accept European music and similar to the Egyptians refused to change this approach. How does this tie in with the "Kelti" and the Germanic tribes of Europe? The truth is that UK history will not seek to address these points, as it no doubt feels that it will encourage nationalism in the so-called Celtic fringe. I think it is too late for that and their very politic in history will be the motivation behind a drive for independence. Scots do already smell a rat and the "Anglophiles" who like to imagine that Britain is an entity and UK history is authentic and politic free will really is known as Quislings to their culture.

I find it amazing that the Scots are constantly derided. Padraig was Scots, Columba was Scots, Johannus Scotus was Scots. Are we seriously suggesting the men who did more to keep the progress started by the Phoenicians amongst others alive were all thieves? Johannus the thief? Padraig the thief? The Anglophiles will not stop and see that all they are doing is constantly stating their case for Scots ignorance for they do not want to accept the inevitable truth of history. There is no great Anglo-Saxon Germanic Britain and there never will be. Jim Davidson their archetypal Cockney, the epitome of Englishness has a Scots mother and father. The mayor of London Ken Livingstone is the same. Michael Portillo has a Scottish mother/Spanish father and he is supposed to be the face of English nationalism! The list is endless and has been for a long time for the Anglo-Saxons have never been successful at ruling themselves!

Seriously there are a lot of questions to be answered regarding the Scots and the use of Irish and Irish monks is part of this denial of Scots contribution. The interesting thing for me was the lack of P in the Semitic/Phoenician alphabet and the use of laryngeal vowels or glottal stops another feature of Gaelic and Scots pronunciation certainly amongst the working class.

You have to remember that the Scots rebelled against the usage of QE II or Queen Elizabeth the Second as her royal title for she was our first Queen Elizabeth and the insignias had to be changed in Scotland due to a bombing campaign. Scots consider this family as theirs for the British had to go outside these isles when crowning William of Orange and the Hanover kings and the reason this could go ahead was because both kings were married to Stuarts. They come into the British Royal Family when a Stuart marries a daughter of Robert the Bruce who could claim the crown because his mother was Lennox and she in turn was related to Appin and back it goes to the Dalriada kings and beyond.

There were some Saxon women who married Scots kings such as Margaret the wife of Malcolm Canmore who was an extremely popular woman in her time but there are no other links for her line and with it the last of the real Aethelings is dead. There were other marriages from this line that produced and it is through these that the Queen can claim relation to Aethrelred but if she was honest she would confess she would find it easier to get to Lennox, Appin and other "Celtic" nobles.

I think that perhaps we see too much Anglicising and Romanising and not enough realising in the UK.

PS. I was not serious when I suggested you remove the anglophiliac stuff. I wouldn't dare to impose myself on a friend like this but I hope you let your English friends know that this Jock ain't buying it!

PPS. Does your friends know the Scots/Irish brought the Harp to Britain. I never knew that the Gauls played the harp and I am sure they were not pentatonic in Europe. Where do the pentatonic, lack of P, and the lack of Romanisation come from?

PPPS. The UK monarchy has a long tradition of seeking New Jerusalem and this contrasted with the European thought, which was along the Athens/Rome line. This Semitic/Phoenician link is best exemplified by the UK aping the Spartan model and it is only in the last 60 years that Athens has become popular in both the British and American intelligentsia. The British aped the Phoenicians in using a large navy and establishing coastal bases where there was trade opportunities and using only a small professional army to back this up. The ideology was if an inferior society required cutlery and pottery for example we would offer these and in return take their gold or other assets. Does it sound familiar Salim? Remember England until Elizabeth I was a pirate state. There was no church recognition of England and therefore it was an early "criminal state". It is only after the union that England thrives as a state and traders for we brought the Baltic trade and some of the most fertile land in the whole of Europe not to mention a sound basis in Presbyterianism and with it the recognition of universal progress. The most magnificent ships at the time of Elizabeth are not English, Spanish or Portuguese. No they are recognised as the Scots and perhaps the Templar fleet coming here had something to do with this. The largest ships in terms of cannon, sails and size were Scots and in this period that was the mark of strength.

The type of excuses we hear to maintain this Anglo-Saxon history of Britain fails to amaze me. They have suggested Romans left Egyptian faience beads found in burial cairns in Scotland. The lack of P is because we were a truly barbarian tribe. So that make the Phoenicians barbaric then... The pentatonic scale is because this shows we were a primitive people yet this ignores that pentatonic societies do it for a specific reason. The lists go on. Phoenician and Egyptian designed gold displaying jaguars and elephants found buried in old kings burial tombs are put down as Roman gifts (which must be a first!) and this is said from a culture than insists that we were barbarians.

I still await a good answer on these questions and the fact we were the greatest mathematicians of the last 1600 years. In addition, the Phoenician type writing and the use of Phoenician like names such as Tyre and Barra and the laryngeal vowels lack of P. The fact that the declaration of independence or declaration of Arbroath -- the foundation of the modern independent state according to American historians, I believe -- stresses our links with Egypt and Scythia akin to Johannus Scotus and earlier Roman writers with it's references to Moses and Methuselah and insistence on leaving Egypt and settling in Scythia for a long time and then founding a kingdom in Spain and finally coming to Scotland.

I know that it is too much to say they were Phoenician or Egyptian for that matter but I do not think we originate in these isles. The Milesians from whom the Scots claim descent and which most historians accept signified a real historical series of events namely the Scots invading Ireland as it is known today were supposed to have came from the land of the dead which is associated with Spain and this is again asserted in the Arbroath letter. Have I already told you that we claim to have had a kingdom surrounded by savages and the Catalans who still call a ship Barca are our kin? The only peoples I know that had a kingdom surrounded by savages was the Carthaginians and what separates the Scots from the Celts who invaded Spain is again the lack of P and the lack of spears in burial. Thanks for reading my latest epic and if you want to put anything up run it past me as I am known to get excited on this matter and sometimes heart rules head! I hope everything is going well for you and that life is looking after you.

...son...he is fascinated by the Phoenicians as I relay the tale of Hannibal to him. Thanks for this Salim, as I want him to embrace the roots of his culture, which, I believe, should steer him away from the Romano-Greco ignorance. There is far more to life than Athens and Rome and they seem to forget Hellenism was in many ways the peak of the Phoenician influence on Greece as you have so well shown. Write back soon and let me know what you wish to use and as long as it is not a rant from me I am proud you feel that my thoughts are of value.

Dear friend,

I happened upon this article which may be of interest to you.

Best wishes and kindest regards,
Gebran Abboud

Subject: Remains of undersea ancient city discovered off Tyre

TYRE, Lebanon, March 31, 2001 (AFP) - The remains of a 4,000-year-old city, Yarmuta, have been found off the shores of southern Lebanon, proving the gradual receding of the eastern coast of the Mediterranean.

Historian Yussef Hurani and the president of the syndicate of Lebanese professional divers, Mohamad Sarji, announced this week the discovery of the city of Yarmuta off the coast of Zahrani, north of the ancient city of Tyre.

The remains of the city, stretching over an area of four square kilometers (1.5 square miles), are located on a depth of between three and 17 meters some 60 to 800 meters off the coast.

Among the remains was a 30-meter-long wall with a width of 70 centimeters found 60 meters off the coast.

"The excellent state in which the wall was found proves that the receding of the shore was a slow process," Hurani said in an interview with AFP.

They also found paved roads, covered with algae, some of which were 60 meters long at a depth of five meters some 250 meters off the coast.

A pile of stones which had apparently been used for the construction of houses was also discovered on the site, as well as remains of a stairway, squares and dikes at a depth of some 17 meters.

"The theory of the receding shores was born after the discovery of many remains swallowed by the sea," said Hurani who has been gathering and studying documents about undersea cities off the Lebanese coasts for 40 years.

"Writings dating back to 1934 by French archaeologist Poidebard, who had carried out studies about the remains of the city of Tyre, had first drawn my attention," he explained.

Hurani said Poidebard had "gathered testimony from old fishermen, who had all clearly recalled having seen visible remains under the water, off the coast of Tyre, that had later disappeared."

The name of Yarmuta last appeared in the "Letters of Tell Amara," written in 1370 BC by the governor of the ancient port city of Byblos, north of Beirut.

In the document, Yarmuta was described as an important center of supplies, particularly in wood, for the Pharaohs.

Searches have also led to the discovery of a statue with the head of a lion and the body of a man resembling the god of "Basta," revered by the ancient Egyptians in the 15th century BC.

"In the Pharaonic texts, dating back to more than 38 centuries, Yarmuta was mentioned as one of the hostile cities located along the present Lebanese coast such as Sheet, Byblos or Araqa, at a time Tyre, Sidon and Beirut did not yet exist," said Hurani.

He said searches on the remains of Yarmuta started two years ago following the undersea discovery, by divers led by Sarji, of remains of the antique city of Sidon.

He said the remains of the antique Sidon led to the discovery of squares and streets that consisted as "a first evidence of the possibility of the gradual receding of the Lebanese coast."

From: Web Administration <mikeorshirl@askwhy.co.uk>
Date: Sat, 03 Feb 2001 21:21:57 +0000
To: Salim Khalaf
Subject: Hebrews

Dear Salim George,

By chance I checked my guestbook and found your message. Thanks for your kind words. I have looked at your most interesting website and will certainly link to it from my page on Phoenicia.

Let me take up one point with you while I am writing. You complain justifiably about the Euro and Hebrew centredness of western history. This is quite true but you are accepting it yourself in a most important way that you might decide to change.

I refer to the use of the word Hebrew to mean Jewish. Thus you write with emphasis:

The claim that the Hebrews were Phoenician Canaanites was/is an unfounded heresy. The Phoenicians and the Hebrews were NEVER the same people.

You mean, of course, that the Phoenicians and the Jews were never the same people. As you will know, the Phoenicians were part of the Persian province of Abarnahara -- Eber-niri, to the Assyrians -- the region 'Beyond the River' (Euphrates) to the people like the Assyrians and Persians who lived further east. This region is what we now call the Levant and included Phoenicians, inland Canaanites (Edomites, Moabites, Israelites, Ammonites), Aramaeans, Arabs and the remnants of the Hitties and Hurrians. All of these were collectively called Hebrews, a word stemming from Eber.

My opinion is that the temple state of Yehud was set up by the Persians to serve the whole of the Satrapy of Abarnahara, which is the reason all of the governors 'Beyond the River' (it is always translated thus in the Hebrew bible, rather than shown as a place name) had to contribute to its upkeep (see Ezra). The Jews were colonists moved in by the Persians to maintain the temple state and collect taxes from Abarnahara. They were given privileges over the natives (Israelites, also called Samaritans and Am ha Eretz) and treated as Zoroastrians by the Persians for doing their job effectively.

Again the Jewish scriptures (written in the Phoenician script called Hebrew -- the script adopted for the province, or at least for its holy books) are plain that the Jews were not 'returning' because they despised the local Canaanites and would have nothing to do with them, though the mythology is that they were the Jews that had not been taken into exile, and so the brethren of the 'returners'.

After the conquest of Persia, Judah became a part of the Greek kingdoms and the satrapy divided -- names previously with a distinct meaning were left the property of the temple attendants. The Jerusalem temple became the temple of the Jews, who considered themselves a nation of priests -- because they were, under the Persians. Neverthless many people elsewhere had, under Persian patronage, taken to the religion these priests served -- a form of Zoroastrianism, so Jews extended throughout the Persian satraps, and later extended into Rome. They were never a nation until the time of the Maccabees, but were a sect dedicated to a particular god. It is plain that they could not have procreated in such numbers in a short time from a tiny underpopulated country of arid hills, but they multiplied by conversion from a variety of religions considered Daevic by the Zoroastrians.

So, to conclude, you are accepting that Hebrew exclusively means Jew. It does not, but it does quite justifiably mean Phoenician! Or anyone else that lived in Eber-niri. This explains fully why Jews have three names -- Jews, Israelites and Hebrews. What other explanation is there?

It is also an explanation of:

Many parts of the Old Testament were plagiarized from Phoenician literature, poetry, and religion, similar to plagiarizing of the Book of Job (for example ) from Babylonian tales.

Please consider this a contribution to your discussion about Phoenicaian matters, if you wish,

Kind Regards,

Mike Magee

Mike
AskWhy! Publications Selwyn 41 The Butts Frome Somerset BA11 4AB United
Kingdom
Telephone 01373 462679
e-mail mike@askwhy.co.uk http://www.askwhy.co.uk/
(and http://www.adelphiasophism.com with Saviour Shirlie --
shirlie@askwhy.com)
Publishers of Books by Mike Magee
The Hidden Jesus: The Secret Testament Revealed 1997
The Mystery of Barabbas: Exploring the Origins of a Pagan Religion 1995
Who Lies Sleeping? The Dinosaur Heritage and the Extinction of Mankind 1993

----------

From: Web Administration <mikeorshirl@askwhy.co.uk>
Date: Sat, 03 Feb 2001 21:21:57 +0000
To: Salim Khalaf
Subject: Hebrews

Dear Salim George,

[snip] I am probably guilty myself. I have pages written long ago in which I am sure I will speak of Hebrews, but when we mean Jews we should say Jews. It is because the bible is called the Hebrew bible, because the Judaeao-Christian God is called the Hebrew God and because the bible in places calls the Israelites Hebrews that we continue the habit, but it is an appellation of wider significance.

[snip] Well, quite true, which is it? The Jews were set in place as privileged priests of the Jerusalem temple state. The previous inhabitants were Canaanites who apparently called themselves Israel meaning (as you will know) something like we are the sons (or seed) of El, because their god was El. The Jews were colonists -- an elite, privileged, imposing a new unknown god on the colony to be centred on Jerusalem. I accept that Yehouah was another local god known as a son of El but the colonists adopted this name as the name of their revised god -- a god based on Ahuramazda. So, even the local people who revered Yehouah found that this Yehouah was not their own. As you point out on your own interesting pages, their Yehouah had a consort, Asherah. The local people never accepted the nation of priests, and the Samaritans (same as the Israelites) and Jews never got on. The Jews called them disparagingly, the Am ha Eretz -- the Men (people) of the Land (peasants) but also probably punning on Mother Earth, because they still revered goddesses (or a goddess).

[snip] It is important for people that think like us, a small minority, should aim to show the other side of the story. The Phoenicians were very great people. It is not a question of seeking to make the Phoenicians replace the Greeks because there is no doubting that Greeks were also great, but debts should be acknowledged. My own particular interest of late has been to show that the Jewish religion was deliberately set up by the Persians to further their foreign policy in Palestine. The links between Judaism and Zoroastrianism are profound -- and Zoroastrianism came first! You will have read in the item you spoke of on my pages about the Phoenicians that the temple they had in Spain, according to a classic writer, sounded Zoroastrian in its practices. My guess is that the Persians were doing the same in all their satrapies. Their name for believers in other religions was the Juddin! Is that a remarkable coincidence or not? They apparently had a ministry to set up a common Juddin religion, for the same purpose as the Romans tried to promote syncretism and the cult of the Emperors -- to unite a large and diverse empire. Karen Armstrong, a former nun and now a religious commentator, wrote a book called the 'History of God' in which she mentions Zoroastrianism only three times in the index and does not mention the Persians at all. I find this so bizarre that I am inclined to believe the silence of the biblical scholars is deliberate. The scholars know that much of the Jewish bible is propaganda and mythology, not true history, but few are willing to admit it, for political reasons, and for the sake of their carrers.

[snip] It is simple really. The Jews are the believers in Yehouah as the universal God but not his son. They are not a distinct people but a sect, members of whom could be any nationality or ethnic group. They always have been a sect but have sought nationhood through false mythology, surely written mainly in the second century BC when the Jewish state existed briefly under the Maccabees. I mean, of course, the false invasion of Canaan, the false period of Judges (unless it is allegorical), the false kingdom of David and Solomon. Not a jot has ever been found outside the Jewish scriptures, that cannot be disputed, that backs up any of this false history. It is ancient propaganda. The kingdom of David and Solomon is precisely the Persian Satrapy of Abarnahara projected back 500 years.

[snip] I agree they are all equally crazy -- and liars. It has always baffled me why they think God wants them to lie for him, but they are all too stupid even to realise that they are lying. They obviously think God gave them brains so that they could lie for him, and not so that they could actually think and come to moral decisions about truth and justice. The reason for this is that none of it comes from God but from rulers who want to control the way people think.

[snip] The use of Semite to mean only Jews is another example of the stealing of words, like Hebrew and Israelite. Too many Israelis are themselves anti-Semitic in that they treat the Semitic Palestinians abysmally. Many diaspora Jews, liberal Jews here in the UK and doubtless in the US too, are concerned about the actions of Israeli governments, but out of loyalty, or fear, say nothing. The curious thing is that the Jews were set up by the Persians in just the situation that they now find themselves. A privileged class able to treat the People of the Land with contempt. Doubtless, I too would be falsely accused of anti-Semitism for making these comments. The nationalities of the Near East are in any case (you might not wish to agree but it is true) are so mixed up, it must be impossible to say that this person is Semitic or not. It was even more the case probably at the time we are speaking of. If the Phoenicians were Canaanites mixed with the People of the Sea, then they were probably themselves of partly Aryan blood. The Medes and Persians were Aryans. The Assyrians were supposedly Semites and doubtless they were mainly but had already bred with the Kassites and the Mitanni -- Aryans. The Sumerians were not Semites, and not Aryans either! The Hittites were Aryans. The Aramaeans were Semites. All mixed together in the melting pot, as the presence of Aryan words in languages like Akkadian prove. I suppose the reason why Semitic characteristics are prominant today is because of the Arab conquests, but genes do not disappear -- they just dilute! They are still there. Modern Jews, having lived in the west for millennia, are thoroughly mixed genetically.

[snip] Well, I always feel guilty when I am not trying to complete the central investigations of my own sites, like when I write letters like this :), so I must decline your invitation, but if you want to use the material from these letters -- just as direct correspondence, if you like, because you also will not want to waste time by editing -- then fine.

If you have not read it, take a look at 'The Invention of Ancient Israel' by Keith W Whitelam (London 1996). Whielam is an archaeologist appalled by the dishonesty about Ancient Israel. He is a professsor in a Scottish University. His book is pretty repetitive but perhaps he needed it to get his message over. He is fond of quoting Edward Said.

Best wiahes,

----------

From: Web Administration <mikeorshirl@askwhy.co.uk>
Date: Sat, 03 Feb 2001 21:21:57 +0000
To: Salim Khalaf
Subject: Hebrews

Dear Salim,

[snip] There is a funerary inscription of the Sidonian king, Eshmunezer II who reigned in the mid fifth century BC (Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum, Pars Prima: Inscriptiones Phoenias Continens I (Paris 1881)) in which the king says the Persians allowed the Sidonian king to rule "Dor and Joppa, the mighty lands of Dagon, which are in the plains of Sharon, in accordance with the important deeds that I did. And we added them to the borders of the country, so that they would belong to Sidon forever" (trans F Rozenthal, ANET 662). This shows that the whole of the coastal plain was administered from Phoenicia at about the time the temple state of Yehud was being set up. If the Phoenicians were using their own script at this time and not Aramaic script, then the religious books of the Jews would have been written in the script of the local administration -- Phoenician Hebrew script, the script of the province of Abarnahara. Shortly afterwards, I believe the Persians made Aramaic the official language of diplomacy and Aramaic script will have replaced Hebrew, but evidently not in holy books. It also means of course that half of modern Israel belongs to Lebanon!

Apologies if this is not news to you.

Best wishes,