Yasser Arafat used to claim that he was the descendant of Canaanites. He also would declare himself to be the descendant of Jebusites.
“Our forefathers, the Canaanites and Jebusites, built the cities and planted the land; they built the monumental city of Bir Salim [Jerusalem]…” [1]
By the term “Canaanite,” Arafat meant the biblical land of Canaan. As it turns out, this geographical term has been discovered archaeologically primarily from the second millennium BCE to refer essentially to the same land as meant by both the Bible and Arafat. There is no indication that Arafat actually knew the term “Canaan” had been archaeologically verified but apparently in this instance, unlike with the Solomonic Temple, Arafat was willing to accept the biblical account as accurate.
The Jebusite reference was elaborated by Faisal Husseini, an advisor to Arafat and minister for Jerusalem affairs:
“I am a Palestinian. I am a descendant of the Jebusites, the ones who came before King David. This [Jerusalem] was one of the most important Jebusite cities in the area…. Yes, it’s true. We are the descendants of Jebusites.” [2]
There is no archaeological reference to the term “Jebusite.” This designation only exists in the Bible. It refers to inhabitants in the city of Jerusalem prior to the conquest by David as recounted in Second Samuel 5:6-8. By contrast, the archaeological record, primarily from Egyptian Execration Texts in the 19th century BCE Middle Kingdom and the Amarna Letters from 14th century BCE in the time of Akhnaton, suggests that the name Jerusalem was known and used centuries before David. Here Arafat was willing to vouch for the biblical record for the name Jebusite without any supporting archaeological evidence.
The reasons for his willingness to accept the biblical terms in these two instances should be obvious. Arafat was playing a game of one-upmanship on Israel. In effect he was saying, “I see your Book of Joshua’s claims of conquest and call your bet. We predate you. We were in the land first.” This deliberate strategy on the part of the Palestinians originated in the 1990s. Marwan Abu Khalaf, director of the Institute of Islamic Archaeology located in Jerusalem, stated in an interview:
“Both the Israelis and Palestinians are determined to prove that their ancestors
lived here first.” [3]
Through this assertion, the Palestinian Authority sought to erode the Jewish claim on the land, first in the entire land of Canaan, and then specifically in the city of Jerusalem. The audience undoubtedly was not the Israelis who would not accept these claims. Rather the intended audience was the proverbial world community. The Palestinian Authority was using Israel’s own words against it. Since Israel had introduced the archaeological record to substantiate a biblical text, Israel opened the door for Arafat to use that same tool against Israel. This is the archaeological equivalent of “live by the sword, die by the sword.” Arafat sought to dismantle the aura of legitimacy used by the Israeli and global Jewish [and evangelical Christian] by offering a counter-narrative based on the “real” archaeological record. Indeed, a biblical scholar suggested that the emphasis on David in the “Jerusalem 3000″ festivities was in part a response to the Palestinian effort to undermine David’s prominence in the city:
The ancient conflict between the Israelites and the Jebusites is being recast as the original battle between Israelis and Palestinians for control of Jerusalem. [4]
The use and abuse of the past is nothing particularly unique to the Israeli/Palestinian situation. Within the scholarly arena, the issue has been raised over the inventing of ancient culture, the inventing of the Middle Ages, and the inventing of traditions by various peoples in Great Britain. As one scholar put it, “the past is a foreign country” which we visit to legitimate actions in the present through the sanctity of antiquity. [5] For every Abraham Lincoln who stood with the Founding Fathers of four-score and seven years earlier, there is a Saddam Hussein who used Amorite Hammurabi and Chaldean Nebuchadnezzar, two pagan non-Arabs after whom two army divisions were named, as part of his way of linking himself to a glorious past.
“Nebuchadnezzar stirs in me everything relating to pre-Islamic ancient history. And what is most important to me about Nebuchadnezzar is the link between the Arabs’ abilities and the liberation of Palestine. Nebuchadnezzar was, after all, an Arab from Iraq, albeit ancient Iraq. Nebuchadnezzar was the one who brought the bound Jewish slaves from Palestine. That is why whenever I remember Nebuchadnezzar I like to remind the Arabs, Iraqis in particular, of their historical responsibilities. It is a burden that should not stop them from action, but rather spur them into action because of their history. So many have liberated Palestine throughout history, before and after the advent of Islam. [6]
The goal in these proclamations is to advance one’s cause in the present regardless of any academic validity. In-other-words, the ends define “the facts on the ground” which are important. This when I learned about the Pathways to Peace Conference I leapt at the opportunity to present the archaeological evidence regarding Canaan, Israel, Palestine, and Arabs given the shared ignorance of those terms. That presentation has now been published as “When Israel and the Arabs Were Allies” in Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Pathways to Peace, ed. Moises Salinas (New York: Cambria Press). My topic for the upcoming April conference is “Israel and Jordan in Ancient Times.”
Prof. Peter Feinman is affiliated with the Institute of History, Archaeology and Education in Purchase New York and is a Teaching Assistant at Barnard College.
[1] From Arafat’s Land Day speech on March 30, 2000, in Al-Quds on the same day, quoted in Eric H. Cline, Jerusalem Besieged: From Ancient Canaan to Modern Israel (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2004), 12.
[2] Jeffrey Goldberg, “Israel’s Y2K Problem,” New York Times Magazine, October 3, 1999, 77, quoted in Cline 12.
[3] From an interview by with Marwan Abu Khalaf by Amy Dockser Marcus, “Time Sharing: In Mideast Politics, Controlling the Past Is a Key to the Present-Clash over Tunnel Illustrates Volatility of Intertwining the Daily and the Divine-Ancient Stories Are Rewritten,” Wall Street Journal, September 30, 1996, A1, quoted in Cline 381n.2.
[4] Cline 13.
[5]David Lowenthal, The Past Is a Foreign Country (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985).
[6] Fuad Matar, Saddam Hussein: A Biographical and Ideological Account of His Leadership Style and Crisis Management (London: Highlight Publications, 1990 [originally published 1979), 235 quoted in Cline 36-37.
