A SOLID HISTORY CLASS ON THE MIDDLE EAST & ISLAM FOR THE FALSELY TAUGHT IN TODAY’S PUBLIC & HIGHER EDUCATION—CURRENT EVENTS
As you may well know by now, I am a history nerd…well, lets throw in anthropology, science, psychology, linguistics, Bible, war, and whatever else you want “nerd” in the mix. But I want to give a thorough understanding of the history of Gaza versus Israel and exactly why Egypt wants nothing to do with the Palestinians. So, let’s take a big leap back in time and I started with a simple question to myself of “who are or were the Palestinians?” This made me ask a Biblical question of “who were the Philistines?”
As we read in historical and Biblical text, the Philistines were a historic people who lived on the southeast shore of the Mediterranean Sea during the late Bronze to early Iron Age, essentially the early 12th century BC to the late 7th century BC. Their civilization as I have taught earlier was centered around what we refer to as the “pentapolis” focused on the five cities of the Philistines. These were Ashdod, Ekron, Ashkelon, Gath, and Gaza. Some ancient writings refer to this land as Philistia. We mainly see the Philistines in the Bible as a long-term rival of the tribes of Israel. To best understand this requires historical context.
Long before Philistia was inhabited by Philistines the land was inhabited by Canaanites. They were the indigenous people of that eastern Med coast. They were descendants of the neolithic (meaning, going back to the Stone Age) farmers and village dwellers that goes back before we even started writing history. People from Mesopotamia and Anatolia migrated there as well and bred into the culture and people. Through conflict, migration, and economic trade, Mesopotamian culture was the most influential impact on the culture (darn those Mesopotamian “colonizers”!) on the early Canaanite civilization.
Now, enter the Egyptian influence especially in southern Canaan. Egypt build a fortress at a strategic choke point where Gaza would eventually be built that controlled the easiest access point and land route from Egypt to Canaan. Pharoah Sonwosret III attacked and plundered cities, extracted tribute (tax), and established trade in the lucrative land. Think about it, why do we fight wars? Economics centered around resources. Let’s continue with the history class that your tax dollars did not give you in public and private education.
At this time, the fertile basin of Egypt seemed like a nice place to migrate…are you noticing any trends here? The whole “the grass is greener” idea? During the Middle Kingdom of Egypt from 2055 BC to 1650 BC the Canaanites shifted to the Nile Delta. It worked for a while but a group called the Hyksos overthrew the Egyptian dynasty and shifted them south under the XVI (again AOC, the 16th) dynasty with the Nubian dynasty south of them. After a century, the Hyksos were defeated and the Egyptian dynasty was reunited. Oh, it get better for my fellow history, anthropology, and Bible nerds.
The new Egyptian kingdom was FAR more militaristic from 1550 BC to 1077 BC and we start seeing some serious Old Testament action and their goal was to dominate Canaan. Just a quick question, where are the Palestinians? (Pink and purple headed banshees keep shrieking your “no kings” and “from the river to the sea” mantra). The Egyptian warriors moved easily through Canaan building fortresses and “removed” uncooperative kings. Strategically, this is called building a “buffer zone” like the US has done in Europe with the Fulda Gap and Israel with the West Bank and other key locations.
Like every war and invasion, Egyptian control of Canaan brought economic coastal trade. During the 15th century the city of Gaza was built by the Egyptians and managed by an Egyptian governor by more than 3 centuries. Even though there rebellions, this coastal area benefits from not being involved in Egypt’s wars with the Hittite, Mittani, Assyrian, Babylonian, Elam, Alashiya, and Ahhiyawa Empires.
Now enter the collapse of the Bronze Age and the rise of the Philistines of the early 12th century BC when the former middle world order fell apart. The only empires left were the Egyptian, the smaller Assyrian, and the Elam. What contributed to this collapse were these marauding “sea people.” Are you starting to see the tie to the Barbary pirates and enslavers of people? These murderous pirates left a swath of destruction across the eastern Med and even tried to attack Egypt only to fail. Ramesses III called these pirates Palesets and sequestered those captured to southern Canaan on Egypt’s northeastern border. The Pelesets then became the Philistines.
So, this infers the next question of where di the Peleset people come from and what happened to the Canaanites? The Pharoah Merneptah (1213-1203 BC) laid waste to southern Canaan and even reference “Israel” as being sacked. This is the oldest existing reference to “Israel” found in archeology. Hieroglyphic scholars show that most of Canaan was destroyed un Merneptah and enslavement ensued.
There is ton of history and archeological science to support this that I am skipping, but I just want to make people hungry to learn REAL history to best understand the dilemmas we face today. Eventually, Egypt settled with the Pelesets making them a vassel of Egypt. The Peleset people obviously negotiated peace with the remaining Canaanites to maintain order and legitimacy in the region as a ruling class. From what has been excavated at Philistin sites archeologists have found that there was a unique introduction of a foreign culture. Anthropologically, we can now see that there was an inherent part of Canaanite structure in the Philistine culture. 50% were Canaanite with less than 49% being Peleset.
Egypt’s internal turmoil in the 12th century BC forced them to be more “hands off” in Canaan freeing the “sea people” to continue their piracy and sacking of the coast of Canaan. The Pelesets were indeed formidable warriors leaning to the Greek and Crete tactics of the time. This cultural unification between Peleset and Canaanite became quite strong through breeding, conquest, money, and power expediting what we Biblically refer to in the Old Testament as the Philistines.
This is an aside, but this is what I loathe about the clergy and seminaries. They don’t teach the totality of our theology and the “why.” You have people behind the pulpit pontificating about things they know nothing about in regard to history, the wording, the context, the archeology, and the list can go on. Why do you even go to church? And what does your pastor do? Do you have his phone number?
Alright, back on topic. Here we go with the Aegean Sea connection and this all hinges on trade, commerce, and a common language. Commerce, breeding, intermarriage, and reproduction have always been key. This Aegean Sea, Peleset, and Canaanite connection was a speedy process. In archeology we see the comparison of the Mycenaean pottery and the Philistine Monochrome pottery to illustrate the cultural ties—the only difference is in the clay used. There is also architectural evidence to support this cultural meld. Cooking, structure, etc., all shows an Aegean Sea origin into Philistine culture. The Peleset were part of a mercenary warrior cult and all archeological evidence shows us that.
Biblical accounts show that a tribe Canaanites of Avvites lived in this southern coastal region before the arrival of the Pelesets. I take you to Joshua 13:3 for your own investigation. There are a few surviving Philistine inscriptions in a language similar to Semetic Canaanite or Pheonecian language referring to their gods of Ba’al and others. There is little evidence about a Philistine language, all we know is that the “sea pirates” language quickly assimilated to natural Canaanite language for cultural sustainment. Breeding, law, and linguistics play a major part in all of this assimilation on the eastern seaboard of the Med. This is why it is concerning about assimilation into Western civilization and American culture from those outside today. Because we are taught to be blind goats by our American public education system funded by our tax dollars.
This is when we see the large city-state, inbred traders and commerce of Ashdod, Ekron, Ashkelon, Gath, and Gaza emerge. Yes, I said inbreeders. This is why the Israelite focused on purity of culture and bloodline for unity. Now, the Philistines were quite industrious and why such a major foe to the Hebrews. They taxed (tariffs) trade going to Egypt, developing large production centers. By the 11th century BC, Philistia was a booming center of commerce for the entire Med—money, control equals power in a region. Those five city-states controlled all power in the region.
This is where and when in the 11th Century BC that they were able to dominate the Hebrew tribes to the north and the east. Philistines, like the Egyptians has the technological and tactical advantage of chariots and had an early monopoly of iron-aged weapons to use due to their superior trading contacts. Trade routes along the seaboard and land route allowed the Philistines to impose taxes and tariffs. Sound familiar to the Iranians and Houthis in Yemen?
It was finally in the late 11th Century BC that the Hebrew tribes united to confront the Philistines as we look at I Samuel and Israel’s first king Saul began to confront the outliers—remember, this is post Israel rebellion and exodus from Egypt for God’s promised land. Interestingly, it was David who served as a mercenary with the Philistines against fellow Hebrew King Saul in the early years. Strange bedfellows indeed. With King David there were far more years of peace than strife. Inter-marriage and breeding (again look at the explosion of Islam in Europe and America).
Let’s talk about the Philistine decline around the early 10thCentury. The Philistine territory shrank south of Joffa toward Egypt. Remember, these people have LONG memories. This where we see a split between Judah and Isreal or north and south Hebrew kingdoms. Now, let’s roll in Egyptian Pharoah Shoshenq from 943 BC to 922 BC that ushered in collecting “tribute” to overall Israel. Now enter Hazael of Gath (842 to 796 BC) who came into play. It wasn’t until late 8th Century BC the Judeans (or I would historically refer to as Hebrews). But then the Assyrians came and wreaked havoc destroying everything in their wake which was the strategy and tactic of the time.
Assyrians took control. Then by the 7th century the Assyrian empire began to fall apart. This is where we get Biblical when Nebuchadnezzar (605 – 562 BC) took the five cities of the Pelestins (or Philistines) in the south of Canaan. After all of this we have the Babylion or Persian Empire rulers, the Alexandrian Macedonian Empire, the Seleucid Empire, and then the great Roman Empire.
And now you know history that wasn’t taught to you by the retarded college educated stooges in high school and college. Congratulations so-called Christians of our great republic you voted in Satan is Islam and Socialism. Welcome to the Black Robe Regiment and like those brave clergy before me, I am prepared to die in position and until then will hold my dirt for God and country.
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