Whitelam states from the outset that he is not attempting to write a history of Palestine: there was, he says, too much data for him to survey and, moreover, the historiography of Palestine is, in general, so suffused with `Zionism' , conscious or not, to make an attempt at Palestinian historiography impossible.These are too mutually exclusive assertions. Surely there cannot be too much data (except for Whitelam's limited ability to process)?
It turns out that Whitelam's definition of `Zionism' means an over reliance on the Hebrew tradition.
This is a problematic assertion. Until recently, the Hebrew tradition, along with an ancient Greek text on the Canaanites, was simply almost the entirety of knowledge about ancient Palestine.
This, says, Whitelam, has `silenced' Palestinian history.
However, what most Palestinian Arab Muslims and Christians have believed about ancient Palestine, is what their respective Islamic and Christian traditions tell them. These are both entirely derived, second or third hand, from the Hebrew. Since Whitelam fails to address these authentic Palestinian Arab Christian and Islamic traditions, he could be accused of `silencing', or censoring them himself -as inconducive to his political agenda.
The Hebrew tradition may not be history by 21st century standards (what ancient text or narrative is?), but it remains not only the oldest indigenous Palestinian narrative written by ancient Palestinians about ancient Palestine in an ancient Palestinian dialect, but the only indigenous Palestinian narrative written by ancient Palestinians about ancient Palestine in an ancient Palestinian dialect that has survived.
Moreover, there is no question there was an ancient Israel and Judah, nor David or his successors.
Exodus may be greatly exaggerated, but the context of Habiru slaves escaping from Egypt into Canaan is known from ancient records.
In any case, Whitelam addresses none of these issues from an archaeological or historical perspective.
He merely concerns himself with unmasking `Zionism' in ancient Palestinian historiography.
Even Israel Finkelstein, who is responsible for a greatly revised history of ancient Israel, is too `Zionist' for him.
Whitelam refers to Canaanites as `Palestinians', but not Jews or Israelites, despite the fact that current historiography sees a large Canaanite component to ancient Israel (Hebrew, for instance, is the only surviving spoken member of Canaanite Semitic -in that sense the Hebrew tradition is the only indigenous `Palestinian' Canaanite tradition that has survived).
This surely is a retrojection of his own political concerns into the past. The Hebrew bible antedates modern political Zionism and the Jewish state of Israel by several thousand years.
Whitelam's `antiBible' does not predate the birth of modern Palestinian nationalism and its western supporters.
Moreover, the reason Palestine is the most excavated place in history, and consequently, why we know so much about it, is because of the Hebrew tradition, not despite it.
This tradition has inspired Christians to dig for their spiritual, Jews their spiritual and ethnic origins.
Whitelam presupposes this is de fact illegitimate, despite the fact that the data-that-is-too-extensive-for-him-to-process-to-write-a Palestinian-history has largely been recovered by Israeli Jews.
Israeli archaeologists have found the first Philistine (the origin of the term `Palestine)inscription. Since it tells us nothing the bible does not, Whitelam's colleague, Niels Peter Lemche suspected it fake!
The reports of the demise of ancient Israel have been greatly exaggerated. True, there are some asynchronisms with the conventional chronology, and our picture, as was intended, greatly nuancd. But they are scarcely disastrous. A monumental Jerusalem, for instance, cannot be found at the precise time of Solomon dated conventionally. But it exists mere decades before. The chronology may be wrong.
Moreover, there is over a milliennium of 'Palestinian' Israelite and Jewish history, documented texually and artifactually, ensuing.
In any case, Whitelam addresses none of these issues as he says he is not writing a history.
Curiously, though professing to write an apology for modern Palestinian Arab nationalist ancient historiography, not once does Whitelam discuss the origin of the term `Palestine', not its place in such an enterprise.
`Syria Palaestina' was created following the Roman suppression of the second Jewish revolt to erase all national Jewish existence for ever -in modern parlance `ethnic cleansing'.
The term 'Palestine', when used of previous periods, is thus a convenient geographical metaphor.
Whitelam, however, uses it in a blatantly revisionist nationalist manner.
`Palaestina' means of the `Plistim', or 'Philistines', the original European colonials in `Palestine'.
But Whitelam has been saying for most of his book that ancient Israel is a `European invention': he is hardly going to suggest that the eponymous ancestors of the Palestinians were themselves Europeans.
Whitelam attempts to label ancient Israel as a work of `orientalism', a patronising European, essentially imperialist or colonialist invention or construct.
This is extraordinary. If the ancient Israelites and Jews were not themselves `orientals', and the Plistim, Philistines, `Palestinians', Europeans, then what were they?
The Hebrew text is an `oriental' indigenous product of Palestine (before, in fact, it was Palestine).
The same can scarcely be said of `The invention of ancient Israel: the silencing of Palestinian history'.
