"Many Palestinians (Muslims and Christians) are, according to Sand, genetic and cultural descendants of Jews who remained on earth after the Roman period and later adopted fresh religions. This undermines claims that modern Jews have a unique ethnic-historic right to this territory."
Summary of the book by GROK 4-
The Invention of the Jewish People by Shlomo Sand (2008, translation into English 2009) This is simply a controversial work by an Israeli historian who questions the conventional Zionist communicative of judaic past and identity.
Basic thesis
Sand argues that the thought of a united, continuous "Jewish nation" — understood as 1 ethnic-national group with common biological roots in ancient Israel, forced out by the Romans and later returned to their homeland — is simply a modern invention, not a historical fact.
He claims that this concept was mostly constructed in the 19th century under the influence of European nationalistic ideas (especially German "Volk") and established by Zionist historiography to constitute ideological justification for the establishment of a judaic state in Palestine/Israel.
Key arguments
There has been no mass exile contrary to popular belief, The Romans did not carry out mass expulsion or deportation of Jews from Judea after the demolition of the Second Temple (70 C.E.) or the uprising of Bar Kochba (132-135 C.E.). Most Jews remained in the region (Palestine) and gradually converted to Christianity or Islam for centuries. The notion of forced "exile" which scattered the full people is simply a later story essential to Zionist claims for return.
Jews as a proselytizing religion, not as a closed cultural group Judaism was an active missionary religion in antiquity and late antiquity, attracting converts from various populations from all over the sea basin, the mediate East and beyond (including known examples specified as the Chazars in the Caucasus region, whose ruling elite and part of the population converted).
Modern judaic communities (especially Ashkenazi Jews in Europe) mostly derive from these converts, not from the direct, uninterrupted lineage of ancient Judeans/Israelites. Palestinians as close descendants of ancient people
Many Palestinians (Muslims and Christians) are, according to Sand, genetic and cultural descendants of Jews who remained in the country after the Roman period and later adopted fresh religions. This undermines the claims that modern Jews have a unique ethnic-historic right to this territory.
Criticism of "etnos" and modern nation building
Sand sees the "Jewish people" as a constructed national identity, as well as another nationalisms of the 19th-Xth century. It is based on historical, archaeological and early genetic evidence available at the time to argue the essentialist views on the continuity of judaic history. It advocates that Israel should become a more inclusive, civic "state of all its citizens" alternatively than an ethnocratic state defined by the alleged biological-religious ethnos.
The book sparked intense debate: any praised it as a bold deconstruction of nationalistic mythology, and others (including many Israeli historians) criticized it as methodologically flawed, ideologically or besides provocative in their claims. Sand presents this as a call to rethink judaic identity beyond cultural exclusivity and to "denanationalize" history.
Translated by Google Translator
source:henrymakow.com
