No sense denying the Jewish connection to Jerusalem

Archaeologists have uncovered yet more evidence of the ancient Jewish connection to Jerusalem—the very same week that UNESCO and the Palestinian Authority (PA) were declaring that Jews have no ties to Jerusalem. Talk about irony.

The latest discovery of a site where the Roman army assaulted Jewish forces guarding the outer walls of Jerusalem, during the Second Temple period, explodes the lies of the U.N. and the PA.

Consider this. The Romans were attacking Jewish forces. No evidence was found of any Palestinian forces in the area. The assault took place during the Second Temple period—the temple which the PA says never existed.

The newest findings confirm an account in the book “The Wars of the Jews” by the ancient historian Josephus Flavius in the first century C.E., which some historians previously doubted. Problem for the PA: Josephus never mentions Palestine or Palestinians.

Every time archaeologists dig in Israel, another piece of the Palestinian propaganda line crumbles. Earlier this year, scientists unearthed two ancient document seals in Jerusalem, dating to the late eighth century or early seventh century B.C.E. The script on the seals is Hebrew, not Arabic or any other language connected to Arabs or Muslims.

One of the seals bears the name of a man, “Sa’adyahu ben Shebnayahu.” The other is the name of a woman, “Elihanah bat Goel” (or Gael). Jewish names. Not Arab or Muslim or Palestinian. The archaeologists noted the construction of the names were “in typical Judean fashion for this time period.” Judean, not Palestinian. This is more vivid, indisputable evidence of a Jewish presence in the Land of Israel—more than 1,400 years before Mohammed founded Islam.

Another important archaeological discovery earlier this year found the world’s oldest glass kilns, alongside a railroad track at the foot of Mount Carmel, near Haifa. Professor Ian Freestone, of London’s University College, a specialist in the identification of the chemical composition of glass, noted the kilns prove that “Israel constituted a production center on an international scale--hence its glassware was widely distributed throughout the Mediterranean and Europe.”

The kilns date from around the year 400 C.E., some 300 hundred years after the Romans destroyed the Second Temple, killed an estimated 600,000 Jews, and destroyed more than 1,000 Jewish cities and towns.

Despite that devastation, the Jews were so attached to the Land of Israel that they rebuilt their society, to the point of serving as a glass-production center that exported its wares throughout the Roman Empire. One of the most famous discoveries in this field is an edict by the Roman emperor Diocletian, carved on a stone tablet, setting the prices for what he called “Judean glass.”

Not “Palestinian glass,” but “Judean glass.” Because everyone knew that Judea was the name of the region. That’s what the Bible called it. That’s what historians have called it for more than 2,000 years.

That is, until UNESCO and the Palestinian Arab propaganda machine came along.

Stephen M. Flatow, an attorney in New Jersey, is the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995.