Monday, August 8, 2005
The terror-dupes from the International Solidarity Movement, Boston-branch, are on summer holiday in the Holy Land and sending back reports about their experiences. An emailer has forwarded me one such letter that's illustrative of the level of scholarship and reportorial skill present in the campers, who seem to have left their critical faculties back in Boston -- rendering the author's use as a propaganda tool high and a conveyor of reliable information low...just the way the ISM likes them.
In a report entitled "A Visit to the Spring of a Raised [sic] 1948 Palestinian Village" By Kera, the author writes:
She presumably means the place known as Zippori or Sepphoris, an ancient city that pre-dates the Arab conquest by centuries -- to approximately the second century B.C. That's why the Israelis gave it the name it has -- because it has always had that name, even before "Kera's" hosts conquered it for themselves and their current efforts to erase its ancient, non-Arab, history.
Here is one of those rodents of unusual size that people trying to ignore the truth miss at their peril:

That's a portion of the mosaic floor of Zippori's ancient synagogue dating back to approximately the 5th Century. Zippori has a long, varied history that poor Kera is kept completely ignorant of. Remember this the next time someone tries to appeal to their own authority as someone who's actually been to and seen "Palestine" and wants to tell you everything you need to know. It's all very nice, but did they actually know what the hell they were looking at?
More information on ancient Zippori (Sepphoris) can be found here, here, here, here and here.
Plenty of information on the clearly varied cultures of Zippori all preserved by Israeli archaeology. Learn at home what Kera travelled all the way to the Middle East to miss.
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international Jewish (non-)community
You know, given that the Palestinians quite rightly get annoyed when people deny their national existence, they really ought to stop saying crap like this.
Zippori is the most wonderful place to visit. The web sites you linked to are nice, but they really give you no idea of the scale and delight of the place itself. There are so many mosiacs, and several of them are artistically spectacular. It has a marvelous water system to explore, some intact buildings, including the Roman theater, and you can walk down ancient paved streets - paved with cobblestones on which ancient graffiti is incised. Unless memory is playing a trick, among the ancient incised graffiti there was a small but distinct menorah. More physical evidence of those ancient Jews who according to the anti-Israel academics never existed.