I believe you may be conflating two histories here. I’m not aware of “Palestinians” settling in Gaza in 800 CE, but I wouldn’t dispute it. (That was about the right time for Arab settlement in the area, after the wave of conquest under Muhammad and his successors in the mid-seventh century.)

However, I doubt very much that these were “sea-faring peoples”, or that they spoke Greek. The Philistines were indeed sea-faring, and were called that; and as such I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they had strong connections to Greece etc. But that was a different era entirely. (King David’s reign, when the Philistines were at their height — pun intended — is usually dated to approximately 1000 BCE.)

It is possible that some remnants of the earlier cultures were still hanging on in Gaza (originally a Philistine area) at the time of the Arab conquest; they would not have survived that conquest intact.

No, the people who today call themselves Palestinians have a relatively uncomplicated ancestry; they are Arabs, descended from the nomadic tribes of Arabia. They have no blood connection to the Philistines of old, just as there is no real connection anymore between the ancient Egyptian civilization and Egypt’s inhabitants today (who are likewise Arabs).

Of course, the Palestinians like to turn that on its head by claiming that there is no connection between modern-day Jews and biblical Jews. To that I have a very simple answer. My father-in-law and brother-in-law are Cohens (in Hebrew, “kohanim”), entitled to be called first to the Torah at any synagogue they attend. This is an honorific that is passed from father to son, and only from father to son; there is no other way to achieve that status.

In other words, my father-in-law is a direct descendant, through males only, of the Temple priests in the time of King David — and thus a direct descendant of Aaron, the brother of Moses.

So far as I know, the Palestinians have no remotely equivalent claim that they can make.

respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline

Unambigous sanction from Almighty is easy to get, since every man can easily make up their own Almighty to justify whatever he likes. The days of prophecy are over. Nobody hears the voice of the Almighty any more. But lots of people think they do.

I therefor put it to you that your reasoning is absolute bollux.

And yes, Hiroshima was an act of genocide. No, genocide is never justified.

Hiroshima was necessary, not justified.

There is no justification ever to take another’s life. It is too often necessary but never justified.

Enjoy!

I am not finding any record of organisations from the religious left being in attendance at CAMERA.

I will add to Daniel and Mo’s comments the information that the absentee landlords were largely from Turkey and Jordan. The myth of generalised prosperity of the (current) Palestinians in the first half of the 20th C, though widely taught and widely believed, it not supported by evidence.

There are films by the British – news reports mostly – from those times. Try and get them shown in Palestine now. Or Britain either, for that matter.