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| North American Committee Against Zionism and Imperialism (NACAZAI) |
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British Marxist historian on the Jews in antiquity
Here's a section from a big academic book by a British Marxist historian who died six years ago, aged 89, Geoffrey de Sainte Croix. I understand that he never joined any political party or political activity, but he was one of the most thorough to use Marxist analysis in studying the ancient Greeks.
This won't convince many dogmatic leftists of anything because what the ancient Jews were like is "irrelevant" to them - they probably would say that they agree and has already proclaimed it to the world, but that what ancient Jews did and thought should in fact be irrelevant in reality today. Except that when someone wants to link up with his or her Jewish heritage, this is what that heritage contains. And if this were not relevant, then why is the behaviour of the Zionist entity such a close parallel to the racist genocidal doctrines preached by the Old Testament?
---Muhammad Abu Nasr, editorial Board of the Free Arab Voice
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I do not wish to give the impression that the Romans were habitually the most cruel and ruthless of all ancient imperial powers. Which nation in antiquity has the best claim to that title I cannot say, as I do not know all the evidence. On the basis of such of the evidence as I do know, however, I can say that I know of only one people which felt able to assert that it
actually had a divine command to exterminate whole populations among those it conquered: namely, Israel. Nowadays Christians, as well as Jews, seldom care to dwell upon the merciless ferocity of Yahweh, as revealed not by hostile sources but by the very literature they themselves regard as sacred. Indeed, they contrive as a rule to forget the very existence
of this incriminating material. I feel I should mention, therefore, that there is little in pagan literature quite as morally revolting as the stories of the massacres allegedly carried out at Jericho, Ai, and Hazor, and of the Amorites and Amalekites, all not merely countenanced by Yahweh but strictly ordained by him (See in general Deut. XX. 16-17, cf. 10-15. For Jericho, see Josh. VI-VIII, esp. VI. 17-18, 21, 26; VII. 1, 10-12, 15, 24-25; for Ai, VIII, esp. 2, 22-9; for Hazor, XI, esp. 11-14; for the Amorites, X, esp. 11, 12-14, 28-42; for the Amalekites, I Sam. xv, esp. 3, 8, 32-33.) The death penalty might be prescribed, as at Jericho, even for appropriating part of the spoil instead of destroying it: 'He that is taken with the accursed thing,' said Yahweh to Joshua, 'shall be burnt with fire, he and all that he hath' (Josh. VII. 15); and when Achan transgressed, he and his sons and his daughters (not to mention his cattle and other possessions) were stoned to death and burnt (id. 24-25). When Yahweh, at the request of Joshua, was said to have prolonged a particular day, by making the sun and moon 'stand still', it was for no other purpose than that the people should 'avenge themselves upon their enemies', the Amorites (X. 12-14); Yahweh even joined in the slaughter by 'casting down great stones from heaven upon them' (id. 11) – just as Apollo was believed to have saved his temple at Delphi from molestation by the Persians in 480, with thunder and lightning and earthquake (Herodotus VIII, 35-39). Joshua then reduced one Amorite city after another; he 'left none remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the Lord God of Israel commanded' (Josh. X, 40; cf. Deut. XX. 16). And few narratives are more blood-curdling than that of the Prophet Samuel 'hewing Agag [the King of the Amalekites] in pieces before Yahweh in Gilgal' (I Sam. xv. 32-33). The Midianites too, we are told, were mercilessly slaughtered: after the men had all been killed, Moses rebuked the Israelites for sparing the women; he only consented to let virgins live (Num XXXI, esp. 14-18). The Greek and Roman gods could be cruel e