Kamal Suleiman Salibi (Arabic: كمال سليمان الصليبي) (2 May 1929 – 1 September 2011)[1][2] was a Lebanese historian, professor of history at the American University of Beirut (AUB) and the founding Director (later Honorary President) of the Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies in Amman, Jordan.

In 1994, Salibi helped found the Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies[3] in Amman, Jordan, and became its director from 1997 until 2004, following his retirement from AUB.

As the Arabian Hebrews migrated and many resettled in Palestine where they established the Hasmonean kingdom under Simon Maccabaeus in the second century B.C..

[15] His theory has been both attacked and supported for its supposed implications for modern political affairs, although Salibi himself made no such connection.

Tudor Parfitt wrote "It is dangerous because Salibi's ideas have all sorts of implications, not least in terms of the legitimacy of the State of Israel".

[15] He shared the view of such scholars as Thomas L. Thompson that there is a severe mismatch between the Biblical narrative and the archaeological findings in Palestine.

Thompson's explanation was to discount the Bible as literal history but Salibi's was to locate the centre of Jewish culture further south.

Salibi argued that the description in the Bible is of an extensive tract of land, substantially larger than Palestine which includes a very varied landscape, ranging from well-watered mountain-tops via fertile valleys and foothills to lowland deserts.

Rabinowitz discounts antisemitism as the impetus for the book because Salibi "was not a sworn enemy of Israel or Zionism."