THE CANAANITE CONNECTION

“Thus, Joshua struck all the land, the hill country and the Negev and the lowland and the slopes and all their kings. He left no survivor, but he utterly destroyed all who breathed, just as the Lord, the God of Israel, had commanded…. He left nothing undone of all that the Lord had commanded Moses.” (Joshua. 10:40, 11:15)

Indeed, Joshua did a very thorough job smiting Canaanites of all stripes, unimpeded by human rights investigations, sanctions or a day of reckoning.

With the above text and others in mind, eminent atheist Richard Dawkins complained that the God of the Old Testament was “a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser … a genocidal … megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully”.

But then, two nice Jewish boys, George and Ira Gershwin doubted the veracity of the biblical narrative "It ain't necessarily so, it ain't necessarily so, the t'ings dat yo' li'ble, to read in de Bible, it ain't necessarily so” (Porgy and Bess)

Well, it seems that the Canaanites managed to survive the purge of their traditional homeland, passing on their DNA over the centuries to their numerous descendants in modern-day Lebanon and other places.

Most of today’s Jewish and Arabic-speaking populations share a strong genetic link to the ancient Canaanites, according to a new study conducted by an international team of archaeologists and geneticists, including Professor Israel Finkelstein from the Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures at Tel Aviv University.

The study concludes that modern-day groups in Lebanon, Israel and Jordan share a large part of their ancestry, in most cases more than half, with the people who lived in the Levant during the Bronze Age, more than 3,000 years ago.

The researchers analysed genetic material from dozens of skeletons found at Canaanite sites across Israel and neighbouring countries, and compared it to the genomes of other ancient populations as well as to modern-day groups.

 “This study suggests there is a deep genetic connection of many Jewish groups today across the Diaspora and many Arab groups to this part of the world thousands of years ago,” said Professor Emil David Reich, a Harvard University geneticist and one of the world’s top experts in the study of ancient DNA.

 Historians know the ancient Canaanites were divided into independent city-states, such as Megiddo, Hazor, and Acre. Most of the texts about them come from external references or later sources, The new study shows that genetically at least, the Canaanites did have a lot in common with each other.

 Most of the recovered genomes could be modelled as having a roughly 50/50 contribution of ancestry from local Neolithic inhabitants and from a group that hailed from the Caucasus or the North-western Zagros mountains, in today’s Iran. For the ancestry of the Canaanites to be split halfway between locals and newcomers there would have had to be an influx of a significant number of people, and a question that begs to be asked is whether this inflow was an invasion or a peaceful migration.

 

“I don’t think we are dealing with an invasion. We have no archaeological evidence of destruction or a major disruption in the Early Bronze Age.” Says Professor Israel Finkelstein.

“The next step in the research will be to continue modelling the ancient populations of the Levant, especially in the post-Canaanite period. It will be interesting to see what happened later on, what was the genetic profile of the people of biblical Israel and Judah, how they were related to us and to their predecessors, and what were the other contributions to the genetic pool along the way.” Israel Finkelstein added.

 

At this juncture, I want to mention a seemingly unrelated news item, but on reconsideration it has a Canaanite connection.

I refer to the tragic death of attorney Raad Mahamid, a resident of Umm el-Fahm who drowned in the Sea of Galilee on July 22. His body was located and recovered by Israeli navy divers on Saturday.

Raad Mahamid fell overboard while sailing with a friend and his brother-in-law about half a mile from the shore. A news report about the accident said he wasn’t wearing a life jacket, but didn’t mention if he knew how to swim.

His body was found after extensive searches by the police, IDF, ZAKA (Rescue and Recovery Organisation) and regional councils, as well as various volunteer groups. He was eventually located using “advanced and extensive technological means,” according to a statement by the IDF and Israel Police spokesperson’s units.

“There is little comfort now because the uncertainty was the hardest to bear, and despite all of the pain, at least they found him,” said Mahamid’s older brother, Na’il, also an attorney, who has been with the search groups since Raad went missing. “This is his destiny. Everything is in God’s hands... We all hoped. The heart said one thing and the mind said another.

Na’il thanked the security forces that searched for his brother, despite the criticism voiced by some people in Umm el-Fahm who complained that not enough was done to find him and that the circumstances would have been different had the missing person been a Jew.

As you probably recall Umm el-Fahm is the epicentre of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement led by firebrand cleric Sheikh Raed Salah. Regardless of the human effort, both official and voluntary invested in the search, it wouldn’t satisfy Raed Salah. Neither would the technological means employed in order to locate and recover attorney Raad Mahamid’s body. The Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement like its mentors the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas doesn’t recognise Israel’s right to exist.

I doubt if Sheikh Raed Salah has read about the Canaanite connection and our shared genomes. If he had, he would probably dismiss it as Zionist propaganda.

 

In order to add a degree of counterbalance I’ll mention the death and funeral of Rabbi Yitzchok Tuvia Weiss who headed the ultra-Orthodox Eda Haradit, a hardline anti-Zionist community. Rabbi Weiss aged 95, died on Saturday and was buried at Jerusalem's Mount of Olives cemetery. Extra police units were deployed and roads were temporarily closed to traffic during the funeral procession.

I’ll hazard a guess and say that the late Rabbi Weiss much like Sheikh Raed Salah would have dismissed the Canaanite connection as Zionist propaganda.

 

Have a good weekend.

 

Beni,                                                               4th of August. 2022.