Hassan Nasrallah, Secretary General of Hezbollah, on Israel and Hamas
On Monday, Hassan Nasrallah, Secretary General of Hezbollah in Lebanon, issued scathing remarks against Israel Finkelstein (head of the School of Archaeology and Maritime Cultures at the University of Haifa) in the wake of the conflict in and around the Gaza Strip between Hamas and Israel over the hotly debated issue of the reconstructed Iron Age chronology for dating of historical sites and kingdoms in the region.
In April 2023 Palestinians inhabiting the West Bank and East Jerusalem barricaded themselves inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount. They did so in protest over Israel Finkelstein's "Low Chronology" proposal that the period of Iron Age I lasted until circa 950 BCE, after which Iron Age IIA lasted until circa 800 (or even 790) BCE with the start of Iron Age IIB, instead of the more traditional ending date of Iron Age I at 1000 BCE (coinciding with the reign of David), Iron Age IIA from 1000-925 BCE (coinciding with the military campaign of Egyptian Pharaoh Sheshonq I, or Shishak in the Hebrew Bible), and Iron Age IIB starting after 925 BCE. Over fifty of the Palestinians inside the mosque were injured and hundreds of others arrested by Israeli police forces armed with superior Iron Age weaponry over the inferior Bronze Age tools used by the rioters to secure the site.
"Son of a motherless goat!" Screamed Nasrallah as he winced in visible pain at Finkelstein's latest "Post-Zionist" attempts to downplay the role of biblical King David, third king of a United Kingdom of Israel, in the development of that ancient state. "I wonder what I will cut from you first, INFIDEL!" Nasrallah mused as he softly stroked the blade and jeweled hilt of his Damascene steel scimitar sword. "Allah shall sound the trumpets of Jihad against him, for we the oppressed have now been given a mighty sword with which to strike back at the heart of the nonbelievers in the traditional dating of Iron Age chronology. Allah is most merciful but he curses them! The IDF cannot save them!"
Nasrallah then addressed Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s threat last week that Israel Finkelstein "will return Lebanon to the Stone Age" if there is a war.
"You too will be returned back to the Stone Age," Nasrallah said in response. "And by Stone Age I mean the Neolithic period of Israel-Palestine that began in roughly the year 9,122 BH, Before the Hijra, or as the blasphemous infidels date it, 8000 BC, Before Christ; or as the godless nonbelievers date it, 8000 BCE, Before the Common Era. And by the way, that would be roughly seven thousand years before the start of Iron Age IIA, not seven thousand and fifty years as the accursed kafir Israel Finkelstein would have you believe."
Nasrallah declined to comment and denied the allegations that in 2014 he sent his skilled agent, lieutenant, and trained "hashshashiyin" assassin William G. Dever to assassinate the character of Israel Finkelstein, who he said was an evil, clever Jew "magician" and "showman".
Dever was reached for comment on the matter as he prepared to cross the Lebanon-Israel border. Brandishing his AK-47 and wearing the color-coded battle fatigues of a Hezbollah faithful, Dever replied to these allegations by issuing a lengthy tirade aimed at Israel Finklestein. He stated the following about the latest conflict in Gaza ignited over Finkelstein: "The real point of this book is to argue that the Biblical 'United Monarchy' of David and Solomon in the tenth century BCE. is a later fiction, concocted by the southern, Judahite-biased Biblical writers. The real 'Israelite state,' according to Finkelstein, is the northern kingdom of Israel, and even this arose only in the ninth century BCE, that is, in the days of the Omrides (as Finkelstein has claimed for some 20 years)."
The Israel Defense Force (IDF) prepared to invade Gaza following coordinated attacks by Hamas on October 8, 2023, in a daring raid on the archaeological digging sites of Meggido where Finkelstein's team operates, to steal items from the site for radiocarbon dating, holding them hostage in undisclosed locations of Gaza City. The IDF laid siege to Gaza in hopes of retrieving the Philistine pottery samples dated to Iron Age I.
William G. Dever,
Hezbollah militant and trained character assassin, seen here in a rare photo, 2014
Israel Finkelstein,
Archaeologist, professor emeritus of Tel Aviv University, and author of The Forgotten Kingdom: The Archaeology and History of Northern Israel
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Originally Posted by Enros
Nobody goes to war quite like scholars, especially archaeologists. The pen is mightier than the sword, and infinitely more terrifying than any Jihad. Did Finkelstein ever grin at you like that, with those dead eyes? 
up.
