I will point out the notice at the bottom of both pages: "© 2006-2012 Sanford Holst." I would kind of like to see his expertise vouched for by someone other than himself before I accept him as an expert.
Regarding the article in the second link, he starts off by discussing the arguments for and against some degree of Near Eastern influence in the development of Minoan culture. In these he seems to be following the footsteps of a number of scholars, and I have no particular qualms about accepting that elements of what we think of as classical Minoan culture may have roots in the Near East.
However, I have some problems with this statement:
The written language of the Minoans, called ‘Linear A,’ was well known to have Semitic roots among its heritage.[xlix]
So far as I know, this is not "well known"--it is still under quite a bit of debate, given that we
can't read Linear A.
I am also highly dubious of his claim that:
Recent research has shown the Phoenician land and society had diverged from the Canaanite land and society by 3200 BC.[xxvi]
As far as I know, there is no evidence that the "Phoenicians" thought of themselves as anything other than Canaanite. (The footnote leads to a citation of... his own book. More on that in a minute.) This is in contrast to, for example, their Ugaritic neighbors to the north, who saw themselves as being distinct from the Canaanites, though related. In fact, the term "Phoenician" is derived from a Greek word for reddish-purple. Such as the color of murex dye. And what did Akkadian-speakers call wool of that color?
Kinaḫḫu. What inscriptions we have indicate that the "Phoenicians" spoke roughly the same language and used the same script as their "Canaanite" neighbors.
He also dwells at some length on the Minoan wall frescos, claiming they show the Minoans as a peaceful society. He claims that:
The other extraordinarily peaceful society at this time belonged to the Phoenicians, who relied upon negotiation rather than fighting[liii] and, throughout their long history in Lebanon, had no army.[liv]
(Footnote liv is his book again.) This would seem to contradict certain of the Amarna letters in which the Rib-Hadda, king of Byblos (generally accepted as a Phoenician city) requests military aid from his Egyptian overlord. The city of Tyre was also besieged a number of times, notably by Alexander the Great. While the Phoenicians may have demonstrated no particular military prowess, that is not the same thing as having no army.
On a related issue regarding the frescos, there is this quote from elsewhere on
phoenicians.org:
What did the Phoenicians look like? Since they preferred to keep their private affairs strictly private, the Phoenicians made almost no pictures of themselves, whether as sculpture, paintings or on their highly-prized metalwork. Therefore we primarily rely on the many people who came in contact with the Phoenicians to obtain images of them.
If the Minoans are Phoenician, and the Phoenicians made no pictures of themselves, then who are all the people in these frescos?
As for all this back-and-forth migration, it seems a simpler suggestion that the fortunes of trading cities along the Canaanite coast waxed and waned with the power of their major trading partner, Egypt. When Egypt was strong, trade in Cypriot copper and Lebanese cedar prospered under Egyptian protection. When Egypt was weak, cities would become vulnerable to outside attack, and their inhabitants would disperse among the related peoples who surrounded them. The fall of the Minoan culture around 1450-1425 BC happens to coincide with Egypt's expansion into Canaan under Thutmose III during that same century, and I would expect that the later had much more of an effect on the fortunes of the "Phoenician" cities than the former. The lack of conflict between the maritime empire of the Minoans and the maritime empire of the Phoenicians is that they simply didn't overlap that much.
Finally, getting back to Holst, it seems that all of his boldest assertions in the linked article are primarily supported by citations of his own work. This quote perhaps sums it up best:
There is more than enough information to write a complete history of the Phoenician people. Surprisingly, this complete history—from 3200 BC to 146 BC—was only told for the first time in Phoenicians: Lebanon’s Epic Heritage (2005).[xliv] In this source one sees such a wealth of classical and archaeological information that it becomes impossible to go back to the belief that the Phoenicians are a ‘mystery.’
The author of
Phoenicians: Lebanon’s Epic Heritage? That would be Holst. Such a wealth of information indeed.