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Could this be referring to the downtrodden and oppressed people who remained in the Holy Land after the Bar Kokba revolt in 135 C.E. [A.D.] when the Romans deported every Jew they could get their hands on, out of the Province of Judea?

There had been five bloody - and expensive - Jewish Revolts, and the Romans, by 135 A.D., were tired of putting down Jewish insurrections in Judea.

One thirty-five, Anno Domini, 135, C.E., was the year that the Romans re-named the Province of Judea. The new name they gave it was "Palestine" - which is a Latin corruption of the Greek, "Philistia" after the Sea-going Greeks from "Caphtor" i.e., Crete, who used to dwell on the "Gaza Strip" on the Sea-coast, back in the time of Saul and David.

In 135 C.E., there were no Philistines left in the Land; but the Romans wanted to divorce the Land from any association with the children of Abraham, to whom it had been given as an inheritance by the God of Abraham.

The Romans renamed Jerusalem "Aolina Capitolina" at that time, and built a Temple to Jupiter on the site of the Temple Mount, where Solomon’s Temple once stood, and the Ezra / Herodian Temple did stand, until 71. C.E. And then, to keep all wandering, homesick Jews out of the holy city, they carved swine's heads in the keystones of the arches of the gates of the city, so that no Jew could enter the city without becoming ceremonially unclean according to the Law of Moses.

The Romans also sowed sea salt on all the fruitful fields, and on all the hills and valleys of Judea at that time. This, of course, had the long-term effect of causing the Land to lose many feet of topsoil, and become much more of a desert, than the fruitful Land of Milk and Honey it had been - and still was - in the days when Yashua walked the Land.

For two years after the Bar Kokba Revolt was put down, the Romans worked very hard to deport every Jew out of the Province; every Jew that they could get their hands on. They sent their Legions through every town, and village, in great sweeps, looking for Jews : men, women and children, to seize and put in irons, and march, two by two, on the roads down to Caesarea, where they were put on Galleys and sent abroad to other provinces of the Roman Empire, and commanded never to return.

According to the eminent Jewish philosopher and scholar, Martin Buber, the Romans were not totally successful in their attempts to drive all of the Jews "into the sea." A Remnant did remain: a simple, peasant folk; drawers of water, and hewers of wood; who were able, for a period of two years, to dodge the Roman soldiers every time they passed by. The Remnant were able to hide in cisterns, in caves, in cellars, in the far recesses of Wadis {canyons,} etc.

After two years, the Romans gave up trying to deport & drive all of the Jews out of their new Province, “Palestine.” They needed a servant class anyway, and conveniently, there was one; already in place.

Martin Buber - at the Hebrew University on Mount Scopus - taught that the so-called "Palestinian" people were descended from the Judeans who were left in the Land after the Bar Kokba Revolt. I learned this first-hand from the late Rivka Segal, of Berkeley, {who fought in the Stern Gang; Lehi, during the Israeli War for Independence} and who heard it, first hand from Martin Buber himself, when she was a student at the Hebrew University at Mount Scopus, in or around 1946.

According to Rivka Segal, Martin Buber, who was something of a Zen Master, and who loved to shock his students by parables and similies that upset their preconceptions, would typically say: “Show me a Palestinian Christian from Galilee, and I will show you some of the purest Jewish blood on the Planet.”

The people who were left in the Land after the Bar Kokba Revolt were peasants. Mostly, they were farmers. In Galilee, especially, many of them were Messianic Jews - that is, Nazarenes, or followers of the Way, as taught by Yashua, ben Elohim, blessed be His Name. The rest of the Remnant were either Essenes, or else followers of the Pharisees; which Party was then in the Process of ossifying into Orthodox Judaism. When the Jihad came up from Mecca in the late Seventh Century, many of the peasant folk of the Land were converted to Islam by the edge of the Sword. Over the generations, the children of these Jewish Converts to Islam married into the Arabs from the Peninsula, and eventually, forgot who they were... This is essentially the gist of how Rivka Segal repeated Buber's Account to me. The Blessing is mine.

So, Who are the people who are referred to as "Joseph" in Ezekiel 37: verses 16 and 19?
Are they the Palestinians ? Perhaps. If this is so, it would have to be figurative - a Joseph Company – a “Remnant” - from out of the tribes of Judah, Benjamin, and Levi.

One thing that may militate against the identity of Joseph as the Palestinians is the fact that the two tribes of Joseph: Ephraim and Manasseh, were taken captive by the Assyrians, and went up to an area adjacent to Armenia, before "escaping" from the Assyrian captivity by crossing over the Caucasus range, into Europe. At least that's One Story. Thus, in all probability, British-Israelites and other Fundamentalists who insist, always, upon a literal interpretation of every Biblical text, will never, de facto, accept this possibility - {of the Palestinians being the “stick of Joseph” in Ezekiel 37, verses 16 and 19} - because they want it to be themselves.

If, however, "Joseph" in the passage in Ezekiel 37, does refer to this Remnant - the natives, the Palestinians - then this is an amazing and vital truth that should be generally known, and preached from the housetops...

One thing, however, is Certain: Several years ago, the Zionists, in an attempt to prove that they were different from - and perhaps, superior to - the so-called "Palestinians," conducted an elaborate genetic study of the genes of both peoples. The results of the study were suppressed. Why?

Apparently the results of the study proved that the genetic roots of the Sephardic Jews and the "Palestinians" were identical. Ashkenazi Jews also had "Jewish blood." But, strangely and significantly, Less than the "Palestinian" natives. Thus the study, unintentionally, proved Martin Buber's old classroom Axiom, and Zen Koan, to be true.

 http://www.waccobb.net/forums/showthread.html?83555-Concerning-the-Identity-of-the-people-referred-to-as-quot-Joseph-quot-in-the-Ha-Nevi-im&p=141010