(Note: I hope that Muslim and Christian readers will spare me any religious comments on this article, since I am addressing the Jewish religion, not any other religion, from a historical point of view). The Simon Wiesenthal Center accused me and Al-Hayat of insulting Judaism, after I mentioned in my column published on December 12, 2010, that the Jews “invented a religion to steal a land from its owners”. Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said, “We now have to deal with a new theological front in the war against Israel, one that denigrates the ancient religion of Judaism”. For his part, Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein, director of interfaith affairs for the Simon Wiesenthal Center, compared my remarks to those of Nation of Islam Leader Luis Farrakhan, who said that Judaism is a ‘gutter religion'. Farrakhan's remarks are an opinion which I find to be derogatory, and one that I do not espouse. By contrast, my remarks are factual and I stand by them. I am a student of Arab literature and history before journalism and religion, and I insist that there are no traces of Jewish prophets or Jewish kingdoms in our countries, and there are many books, some even written by Jews, which corroborate what I said. I advise the Simon Wiesenthal Center to limit its activities to the exploitation of the Holocaust and to leave religious issues aside. Here, I will present the reader with my arguments based on quotes from one book of the Torah – the Book of Joshua, which narrates the myth of the Jews' entry to ‘the Promised Land'. The Book of Joshua does not make any religion proud, and it would be better if the war crimes and genocide that the book mentions were not true. The book speaks about the entry of the Jews to the land of Canaan, through Jericho. I can divide it into three parts: From chapter 1 to chapter 12, it is about the conquest of the land; the second chapter is about the division of the land among the tribes of Israel and the third is conclusions, such as Joshua's covenant, as he grew old. For the purpose of this article, I will content myself with the first part which includes war crimes and genocide, with the presumed God ordering the Jews to enter an inhabited land, murder its people and scorch its cities. The Arab reader may not believe that a religious book includes the following: - In the second chapter, Joshua sent out two men to spy; they hid in a harlot's house, named Rahab. No one was to be spared but her and her family. - In chapter six, the Lord tells Joshua to order the priests to blow trumpets of rams' horns and all the people to bellow loudly, causing the wall of the city to fall down flat. According to my knowledge, however, there is no historical evidence of the destruction of Jericho, or any walls since it was a small pastoral town. - In the same chapter, Jericho's walls fell when the people shouted and the priests blew with the trumpets. The Jews entered the city and utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword. Here, I ask: What have the asses, or the children, done to deserve this, and compare it to what the Quran said, that “no bearer of burdens shall bear the burden of another”. - The Lord which permitted Joshua and his people to engage in genocide also asked them to keep all the silver, gold, brass or iron. Here, any comment I might have about this god will be anti-Semitic so I will refrain from it. - In the eighth chapter, Joshua and the Jews go to Ai, which they “smote with the edge of the sword. And so it was that all that fell that day, both of men and women, were twelve thousand, even all the men of Ai.” - The tenth chapter talks about the alliance among the five kings of the Amorites to defend their countries. Joshua defeated them and let his lieutenants step on their necks (compassionately as I see) then slew them. He then destroyed Makkedah and its people, and then Libnah, Lachish, Eglon and Hebron. In each city, all the people were killed and the city was burnt and leveled. According to the Book of Joshua, the Lord himself fought and planned the battles, striking the populations of the cities with hailstones or recommending an ambush here and there. - The eleventh chapter continues the description of the occupation of the northern cities and the killing of their residents and their destruction. Personally, I do not believe 90 percent of the Torah, especially the Book of Joshua. God cannot be a killer. To have anything done, He simply says to it, "Be," and it is. If he had indeed chosen the Jews, he could have created ten gardens of Eden for them instead of killing people in their lands. The Book of Joshua defies logic in each and every page, and I wonder: What is easier, for Joshua to win a battle or to have the sun and the moon stand, as Chapter 10 claims, so that he can exterminate people? What I chose to highlight today is a droplet in an ocean, and it is impossible for it to carry any truth. For this reason, I maintain my position that the Jews invented a religion to steal a land from its owners. God as I know him is innocent of their actions. I also insist that there are no traces of Jewish prophets or kingdoms in Egypt, Palestine, Sinai or Iraq. There were Jews in the entire region, but they lived in dwellings and were tribes, not kingdoms established by prophets who never existed outside of biblical myths. I shall continue with this subject tomorrow.
