PASSOVER: Remembering The Holocaust of Ancient Israelites

The Exodus from Egypt, a story refuted
by historians and archeologists.

April 22, 2011 posted by Dr. Ashraf Ezzat

“Even With archeology aside and relying only on your sane mind you would still reach the same conclusion; the exodus never happened”

Dr. Ashraf Ezzat

History is passed over at the Jewish Passover

What is Passover?

Passover, or Pesach in Hebrew, is an eight-day spring holiday that celebrates the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt.

What is the Exodus?

It is the story of the departure of the Israelites from ancient Egypt described in the Hebrew Bible.
The Hebrew Bible is the pride and joy of every Jew. It is the book of Yahweh, their chosen God, as they are his chosen people.

In Judaism, all the tales of kings and prophets, of conquests and defeats, of captivity and Diaspora and of a united kingdom and some holy temple, it all depended on this ancient story of enslavement and suffering of the ancient Israelites in Egypt under an allegedly ruthless and heathen Egyptian king, or what the Hebrew Bible mistakenly called Pharaoh.

But strange enough, and according to historians of the ancient Near East, Egypt was no land of the heathens, On the contrary, it was exactly in Egypt where the human conscience dawned on earth. The ancient Egyptian civilization which sprouted along the banks of the river Nile, had been mostly of religious and ethical legacy that heavily influenced the way religion had evolved on earth.

This story of exodus is the corner stone of the Israelites’ narrative throughout history; it is their favorite ancient melodrama upon which they claimed divine rights to the land of ancient Canaan.

They simply stripped the fertile portion of the land from its indigenous Canaanites and proclaimed it theirs by Yahweh’s decree. This has gloomy echoes of the present day story of the land grip and the ethnic cleansing of the descendants of Canaanites, the Palestinians, by the modern Jews, the Israelis.

Following the WWII, the modern Jews used, or rather exploited, the story of the calamity of the mass killing and the concentration camps as a non- negotiable pretext to displace the Palestinians and take their land to be their new Zionist state declared by a biased UN decree.

Likewise, the ancient Israelites embarked on their imaginary narrative of an ancient kingdom after they had successfully fled out of the horrors and years of alleged torture and persecution in ancient Egypt.

Two million Israelites exited Egypt without
leaving any archeological trace

Ancient holocaust

In a way, the Exodus after years of unbearable suffering and humiliation on the hands of the Egyptian empire seemed as if it was the Holocaust of the ancient Israelites but with sparing the ovens’ part.

But while we have historical evidence of the holocaust, which the Zionist media managed to augment dramatically, the suffering of the Israelites in ancient Egypt and the exodus stand refuted and totally unsubstantiated as far as history is concerned.

A century of research by renowned archaeologists and Egyptologists has found no evidence, what so ever, which can be directly related to the Exodus narrative of an Egyptian captivity and the escape and travels, for 40 years, through the wilderness of Sinai.

Even more, throughout the entire and long span of the ancient Egyptian kingdom (3100-332 BC) there had been absolutely no mention or any evidence of Egyptians mistreating or isolating foreigners in certain ghettoes. On the contrary Egypt was the world trade center of the ancient times with its markets and trade routes replete with foreigners from the Far East, the Mediterranean coast and the African horn in the south.
According to Exodus 12:37-38, the Israelites numbered “about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children,” plus many non-Israelites and livestock. Numbers 1:46 gives a more precise total of 603,550. The 600,000, plus wives, children, the elderly, and the “mixed multitude” of non-Israelites would have numbered some 2 million people.

A crowd of that multitude couldn’t have passed through the peninsula of Sinai at the eastern Egyptian borders uncommented upon or without leaving an archeological trace. But that what we have on hand, as modern archeologists- including Israelis- have declared after failing to find any shred of historical evidence of the exodus or the encampment for 40 years in Sinai. They found not a piece of broken pottery or a small bone or even a left behind vessel, absolutely nothing.

And while history is unable to recall any memories of the Exodus and archeology refutes it ever happened in the first place, the Hebrew Bible laden with historical anachronisms remains the only source of information behind this imaginary mega-event.

Even With archeology aside and relying only on your sane mind you would still reach the same conclusion; the exodus never happened.

Zombie revenge

Playing back the catastrophic scenes of the unbelievable ten plagues that hit Egypt by the avenging god of the israelites, you would wonder how such a horrendous scale of devastation could have taken place without being mentioned in the scrolls of ancient Egypt, which apart from all ancient world civilizations, is recognized for its meticulous documentation of its history and state affairs.

Egyptian scribes with their inscriptions on the temples and papyri kept a fairly accurate record of the chronicles of ancient Egypt.
But never a reference to such alleged Exodus had been mentioned in the Egyptian records.

Not even once, the Exodus or the ancient Israelites were mentioned in the Egyptian documents while the Exodus is referred to around 150 times in the Bible with pharaoh mentioned alone around 20 times.
What does that tell us?

May be the Israelites were so insignificant and unessential the Egyptians never noticed their existence or bothered to. As a matter of fact, and according to modern archeology, the Israelites were a bunch of herders at the eastern borders of the kingdom with the Egyptians referring to them as the filthy and impure Asians for they were known for their unhygienic outlook and practices and by their notorious reputation as plunderers.
According to the zombie revenge type of Yahweh, the river Nile turned into blood, the land of Egypt had been menacingly fraught with the perils of flocks of frogs, lice, flies, locusts and wild animals and under the abrupt and total shutdown of daylight the first-born of all humans and animals were mercilessly killed by the passing over angel of death.

And amidst that horror and disaster the Israelites were busy looting Egyptian treasures while their god was joyfully watching. They had to leave Egypt in a hurry before the pharaoh and his army could catch them and impede their majestic exit.

Egyptian empire at the time of the Exodus.



The exodus from and into Egypt

And now to the funny part of this exodus story.

Due to the Hebrew scribes’ lack of geographical knowledge concerning the borders of the Egyptian empire and its sovereignty at the time, and lacking any GPS satellite technology, it somehow slipped their attention that going out of Sinai and entering Canaan did not necessarily mean exiting Egypt, as Canaan was just another Egyptian territory with fortified Egyptian garrisons and check points everywhere.

Reviewing that horror stories of the Passover you can’t help but to wonder how ancient Egypt – in the absence of anything like the UN relief efforts in our modern times- ever managed to escape total annihilation and collapse.
If those natural disasters ever stroke the land of the Nile simultaneously and in that extreme manner that had been depicted in the Hebrew bible, ancient Egypt would have been wiped off the map permanently or at least collapsed as an economical, military and political power.

Historians are inclined to place the exodus at the middle 15 century BC, but curiously enough, Egypt at that time- the new kingdom time- was at its pinnacle of strength and prosperity. During that period of time, ancient Egypt with great kings like Thutmose III, Akhenaten and Tutankhamun reigned over an empire reaching eastward to the borders of Iran and Syria and southward to the sources of the Blue Nile in Sudan.

Simply, Egypt was the super power of the ancient world at that time and for centuries to follow.

To cut a long story short, and according to archeologists and geologists; the Passover environmental disasters along with the presence of those hundreds of thousands afflicted Israelites is nothing but a myth that runs counter to the archeological truth, environmental geology facts and chronicles of ancient Egypt.
And if history stands skeptical about this tale of the Exodus from ancient Egypt, what does that say about the rest of the ancient Israelites’ narrative that happened to depend primarily on this story and regard it as self-evident and totally axiomatic.

After thousands of years, the exodus memory had transformed, for modern Jews, into matzah snacks and gathering around the Seder meal while telling the story of the exodus to the children so that it would grow up with them to be retold again to their children.

And this is how historical authority is being systematically undermined every passing year at the Passover. And this is why the Jews are absolutely the best storytellers ever.

For more articles by Dr. Ashraf Ezzat visit his website

YouTube - Veterans Today -Archeologists, Neil Silberman, Israel Finkelstein and Donald B. Redford commenting on the historicity of the Bible and the Exodus...very revealing and compelling

Related articles:

- DR. ASHRAF EZZAT: The Egyptian Torah

- The exodus from Egyptology

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Post-Mubarak Egypt may end Gaza closure

Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa Al-Omrani, The Electronic Intifada, 12 April 2011

Palestinians in Gaza wait to leave through the Rafah Crossing into Egypt. (Wissam Nassar/MaanImages)

CAIRO (IPS) - Two months since the ouster of longstanding president Hosni Mubarak, Egypt's new transitional government is turning its attention to unpopular Mubarak-era foreign policies -- with the ongoing Israeli-Egyptian blockade of the Gaza Strip top of the list.

"There are strong indications that Egypt's approach to the Gaza Strip will change as Egyptian foreign policy increasingly comes into line with popular opinion following the January 25 Revolution," Tarek Fahmi, political science professor at Cairo University, told IPS.

In 2006, Israel sealed its border with the Gaza Strip after resistance movement Hamas swept democratically-held Palestinian legislative elections. One year later, after Hamas seized control of the coastal enclave from the US-backed Fatah movement, Egypt closed the Rafah terminal -- the only crossing along its 14-kilometer border with Gaza -- to human and commercial traffic.

The blockade, now entering its fifth year, has hermetically sealed the territory off from the rest of the world, depriving Gaza's roughly 1.8 million inhabitants of many basic commodities and humanitarian supplies. Gaza is also subject to frequent Israeli attack: within the past four days alone, 19 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli air strikes and artillery barrages.

Following Egypt's recent revolution, the Rafah crossing was opened up to Palestinian students, medical patients and expatriates. However, construction materials -- especially cement -- remain banned from being taken to Gaza from either Israel or Egypt.

Ever since Israel's devastating three-week-long assault on the territory in 2008-2009, the Gaza Strip has remained in dire need of reconstruction. Along with killing more than 1,400 Palestinians, the assault completely or partially destroyed tens of thousands of homes, the vast majority of which have yet to be rebuilt.

"We're not looking for charity or handouts," Kanan Said Obaid, chairman of Gaza's Association of Engineers, told IPS. "We want cement with which to rebuild destroyed homes and infrastructure."

Under Mubarak, Egypt's foreign ministry justified its position by referring to a 2005 US-sponsored security pact between Israel and the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority. According to that agreement, the Rafah crossing could not be reopened until a contingent of EU "observers" -- who had quit the border following Hamas' takeover -- returned to their posts.

But since Mubarak's 11 February ouster, after which Egypt's Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) assumed executive authority over the nation's affairs, there have been signs that Egypt's Gaza policy -- which remains enormously unpopular among vast swathes of the Egyptian public -- now stands on the verge of change.

"It is unbecoming of Egypt that its foreign policy be characterized by ... grave violations of the basic rules of international law, as is the case with Egypt's stance on the siege of the Gaza Strip," Nabil al-Arabi, Egypt's new, SCAF-appointed foreign minister, wrote in the 19 February edition of independent daily Al-Shorouk only days before his appointment.

The five-year-old blockade, Arabi conceded, "contravenes the rules of international humanitarian law," which, he went on to note, "prohibits the siege of civilians -- even in times of war."

Notably, on 29 March, a foreign ministry spokesperson announced that Egypt was conducting "a review of the Rafah crossing to take all necessary action to achieve greater convenience and alleviate the suffering of Gaza residents."

The ministry's statements were put to the test late last month when a group of Egyptian activists attempted to enter the Gaza Strip via Rafah with ten tons of cement. Activists camped out at the crossing for a week awaiting permission to enter the territory, but authorization from Cairo failed to materialize.

"Ultimately, we were barred by the Egyptian authorities from bringing the cement into Gaza," 37-year-old activist Tamer Azzam told IPS. "This serves to confirm that Zionist, Mubarak-era policies vis-a-vis the Gaza Strip remain intact."

According to Fahmi, who is also director of the Israel desk at the Cairo-based Center for Middle East Studies, Egypt's foreign ministry "is still in the process of studying means of reopening the Rafah crossing." He went on to note, however, that "such major policy changes will take time."

"Under Mubarak, Egyptian foreign policy was the polar opposite of public opinion," Fahmi explained. "But in post-Mubarak Egypt, Cairo's official position can be expected to gradually fall into line with the popular will, as the government is freed from the bureaucratic and 'security' constraints that had characterized the former regime due to the latter's close relationship with the US and Israel."

He added "And Gaza will be the litmus test of the new government's ability or willingness to translate the will of the people into official policy."

One indication of this gradual change, Fahmi noted, was that, following Mubarak's departure, the Gaza file was officially transferred from the Egyptian intelligence services to the foreign ministry.

"This means that Gaza has gone from being a security issue, as it was under Mubarak, to a strictly political issue," he said. "And as such, the Gaza file -- if we are to institute true democracy -- must eventually come to reflect the will of the Egyptian people, who overwhelmingly want to see the siege ended and the Rafah crossing opened."

Egypt's transitional government has also appeared more open to Hamas than was its predecessor. In late March, Hamas officials visited Cairo, where they held their first official meeting with members of the SCAF.

Following a closed-door meeting with Arabi, Hamas' Foreign Minister Mahmoud al-Zahar told reporters that his Egyptian counterpart had informed him there would soon be a "shift in policy" vis-a-vis the Rafah border crossing. Al-Zahar went on to refer to "the new positive spirit and obvious change in policy" since Mubarak's departure.

Under Mubarak, Egypt had adopted a tough stance towards Hamas, an offshoot of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood (which had itself been outlawed under Mubarak). At the same time, Egypt had allied itself closely with Hamas' West Bank-based rival, Fatah.

"The Mubarak regime took a hard line towards Hamas while being very friendly towards Fatah, a fellow client of the US," said Fahmi. "After the revolution, by contrast, Egypt can be expected to show much more even-handedness between the two Palestinian factions."

Cairo is planning to receive Khaled Meshal, head of Hamas's Damascus-based political bureau. Meshal last departed Cairo more than a year ago, saying that neither he nor any other Hamas official would return to Egypt as long as Mubarak held the reins of power.

All rights reserved, IPS - Inter Press Service (2011). Total or partial publication, retransmission or sale forbidden.