The phenomenon of Holocaust denial is well-known, but I had never heard of Diaspora denial—until now.  Any thanks should go to the English translation of Le Monde Diplomatique, which has published an article denying the existence of both the Babylonian and Roman exiles.  Its author—Shlomo Sand, a professor of modern European history at Tel Aviv University—claims that:

The general population of Judah did not go into 6th century BC exile: only its political and intellectual elite were forced to settle in Babylon. . . .

Then there is the question of the exile of 70 AD. There has been no real research into this turning point in Jewish history, the cause of the diaspora. And for a simple reason: the Romans never exiled any nation from anywhere on the eastern seaboard of the Mediterranean. Apart from enslaved prisoners, the population of Judea continued to live on their lands, even after the destruction of the second temple. Some converted to Christianity in the 4th century, while the majority embraced Islam during the 7th century Arab conquest.

The opinion piece is a capsule version of Sand’s Hebrew-language book When and How Was the Jewish People Invented?, which attempts to undermine all Jewish historical claims to a homeland in the land of Israel.  Just published in French translation, the book is an all-out assault not just on the standard understanding of Jewish history but on the very idea that there has ever been a Jewish nation.

In a devastatingly negative review, which describes the book’s treatment of Jewish sources as “embarrassing and humiliating” for its author, Ha’aretz summarizes Sand’s theme:

In his view, the homeland of the Jewish people is not Palestine, and most Jews are descendants of the members of different nations who converted to Judaism in ancient times and in the medieval period. He claims that the Jews of Yemen and Eastern Europe are descendants of pagans.

According to Sand, this historical truth was concealed by Zionist thinkers, who developed an ethno-biological ideology, and the so-called “Jewish people” was invented as late as the 19th century. Furthermore, he argues, the idea of a “nation” that was exiled from its homeland in ancient times and which is destined to return to it in the modern age so as to rebuild its independent state is merely an invented myth.

The reviewer, Israel Bartal, largely avoids discussing the latest research on the sources of Jewish ancestry—something Hillel Halkin engagingly surveyed in the September issue of COMMENTARY—but he does demonstrate that Sand grossly distorts the work of Jewish historians and utterly fails to undertand Jewish historiography.

Curiously, Le Monde Diplomatique seems to have been quite eager to publicize Sand’s anti-Zionist pseudo-scholarship.  Not only did it run his lengthy article, but back in March the magazine allowed the book to be plugged in its pages by Eric Rouleau, who just happens to be a former French ambassador to Turkey and Tunisia.