Last month, the Archaeological Studies Institute announced that a team had uncovered an ancient tablet near Nablus that may contain the earliest known mention of God’s name in proto-alphabetic Hebrew. If so, there would be evidence of the word “Yahweh” being used back in 1200 b.c., and perhaps as early as 1400 b.c. — hundreds of years before the Kingdom of David. This might come as a surprise to the New York Times’ Raja Abdulrahim, who notes in a piece about the struggles of Palestinians in Walaja that: “Most of the world considers those settlements a violation of international law, though Israel insists that there has been a Jewish presence in the West Bank for thousands of years.”
Does Israel insist on this, or is it a historical fact? Historically speaking, Jews have a far longer and deeper connection to Judea and Samaria than Tel Aviv or Haifa. And the proof isn’t in the Bible but pulled from the ground. It is true — despite the fact that Arab officials have spent decades treating archaeological sites across the West Bank, especially in “east” Jerusalem, with contempt, barring excavation, allowing vandalism and construction, or unlawfully removing ancient soil that pre-dates the Islamic presence in Jerusalem. None of that, I’m afraid, can change history.