Did you know that there was never any country called "Palest¡ne"? Did you know that there is no such thing as a Palest¡nian people?
The ideas that the West Bank and Gaza are occupied Palest¡nian land, and that the Palest¡nian people are fighting for their land, have been accepted by most of the governments of the world and by most of the media in the world. But if you read on, you will see that these two claims are the biggest lies ever deliberately perpetrated on humanity.
Importantly, the Jews did not displace anyone, because no one permanently resided where Israel is today. The land was inhabited by nomadic, Bedouin tribes and a few Jews. The whole region was nothing but deserts and swamps. Only about 120,000 Arabs resided in an area that covered the territories, the state of Israel and Jordan. When Mark Twain visited the area, he wrote he found nothing but a wasteland.
During the 19 years that the territories, including Jerusalem and Gaza, were occupied by the kingdoms of Jordan and Egypt, no one talked about a Palest¡nian state, not the Arab countries, not the United Nations. Nobody asked Jordan or Egypt to abdicate their ownership and give it to the Palest¡nians. Not even the so called "Palest¡nians" themselves said anything about a Palest¡nian state or a Palest¡nian people, because nobody heard of a Palest¡nian people. It never existed. There was never a "Palest¡nian" culture, president, flag, currency, national anthem, or even any documented country to have relations with. It is completely fictional.
There is no way to identify Palest¡nians. No DNA, no practices, no address. There ARE Jews, Christians, and Muslims. In the case of Muslims, there are a handful of Muslim factions who also call themselves Palest¡nians. There are no laws in Israel that identify or separate Jews from Christians, or Jews from Muslims. Israel has a equal rights provision in its constitution and is a signatory to the human rights conventions. Security regulations restricting movement in Israel did not exist until the number of terrorist attacks against Jewish people became so large that the costs of treatment of wounded and burials became a significant portion of the countries GNP.
Arabs living in Palest¡ne today are not indigenous to the region. It was not until after the Jews had changed deserts and swamps into a productive and thriving land that the Arabs started migrating there. Every one of the PLO leaders is an Egyptian and was born in Egypt. Not one was ever born a "Palest¡nian". Arafat himself was born and raised in Cairo, Egypt.
The late Faisal Husseini, Arafat's Jerusalem representative, a man who was cultured, sophisticated and considered the most moderate of all the Palest¡nians, shortly before his death on May 31, 2001, expressed his true feelings in an interview with the popular Egyptian newspaper el Arav. Husseini said: "We must distinguish the strategies and long-term goals from the political-phased goals which we are compelled to accept due to international pressures." But the "ultimate goal is the liberation of all of historical Palest¡ne." Explicitly he said: "Oslo has to be viewed as a Trojan Horse."
He even added and clarified that it is the obligation of all the Palest¡nian forces and factions to see the Oslo Accords as "temporary" steps, as "gradual" goals, because in this way, "We are setting an ambush for the Israelis and cheating them." He also differentiated between "strategic," long-term, "higher" goals, and "political" short-term goals dependent on "the current international establishment, balance of power" etc.
Israel did not go to war against a Palest¡nian state and occupy its land. Rather, Israel was attacked by six Arab countries at once. She defended herself, defeated her attackers, and won the so called territories, not from the Palest¡nians, but from Jordan and Egypt.
Jerusalem was never the capital of any state but Israel. It was certainly never the capital of a country that never existed. Why should the Palest¡nians get any part of it? Because they want it? Because they have terrorists? Jerusalem, under the current Israeli control, is a free and open city. Israel, as a democracy, guarantees freedom of religion within its borders. Contrast this fact with areas that have come under "Palest¡nian" occupation.
Ever since the late Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir made the statement, "There is no such thing as a Palest¡nian people", Arab propagandists have talked about her "racism", and suggested she was in historical denial. What they don’t talk about is that Yasser Arafat and his inner circle made similar statements - there is no distinct Palest¡nian cultural or national identity.
In March of 1977, a Dutch newspaper published an interview with PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein, who said "The Palest¡nian people do not exist. The creation of a Palest¡nian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palest¡nians, Syrians, or Lebanese. For political and tactical reasons, we speak today about the existence of a distinct Palest¡nian people to oppose Zionism. Jordan, a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa. As a Palest¡nian, I can demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva, and Jerusalem. The moment we reclaim all of Palest¡ne, we will not wait a minute to unite Jordan and Palest¡ne".
On the same day Arafat signed the Declaration of Principles on the White House lawn, he explained his actions on Jordanian TV by saying, "Since we cannot defeat Israel in war, we will do this in stages. We will take every territory we can in Palest¡ne and establish sovereignty there, then use it as a springboard to take more. When the time comes, we can get the Arab nations to join us for the final blow against Israel".
Palest¡ne has never existed as a nation. Why has it now become such a critical priority? The answer is to continue the massive deception campaign and relentless terrorism used over the last 60 years to show Palest¡nians as victims of Israeli oppression who need their own country. The West must not surrender to terrorism by granting the Arabs another terror state. Golda Meir was right. George W. Bush is wrong.
The origin of the name "Palest¡nians" is also important, what happened was a Nazi by the name of Johan Van Leers, who had been a personnel aide to Goebbels, escaped Europe after the war and fled to Egypt. Where he became a Muslim, and in 1964 he had a ephipany. His epiphany was that the Arab slogan up till then had been push the Jews into the sea. He realized that that is a tough sell. So he invented the "Palest¡nians" - a poor persecuted people just trying to get their land back. That also never existed, it was a perfect Nazi lie and the world bought it hook line and sinker.
What you must remember is that it is irrelevant if the "Palest¡nians" (Who are in fact a phony nationality invented by Joseph Goebbles personel aide Johan Van Leers, a Nazi who escaped Europe to become a Muslim and assistant to Nasser) are about to make a breakthrough and accept the Jews. They have already made war upon us and murdered thousands of Jews.
Where did he create this word "Palest¡nians" from? The word itself derives from "Peleshet", a name that appears frequently in the Bible and has come into English as "Philistine". The name began to be used in the Thirteenth Century B.C.E., for a wave of migrant "Sea Peoples" who came from the area of the Aegean Sea and the Greek Islands and settled on the southern coast of the land of Canaan. There they established five independent city-states (including Gaza) on a narrow strip of land known as Philistia. The Greeks and Romans called it "Palastina".
The Philistines were not Arabs, they were not Semites. They had no connection, ethnic, linguistic or historical with Arabia or Arabs. The name "Falastin" that Arabs today use for "Palest¡ne" is not an Arabic name. It is the Arab pronunciation of the Greco-Roman "Palastina" derived from the Peleshet.
In the First Century C.E., the Romans crushed the independent kingdom of Judea. After the failed rebellion of Bar Kokhba in the Second Century C.E., the Roman Emperor Hadrian determined to wipe out the identity of Israel-Judah-Judea. Therefore, he took the name Palastina and imposed it on all the Land of Israel. At the same time, he changed the name of Jerusalem to Aelia Capitolina. The Romans killed many Jews and sold many more in slavery. Some of those who survived still alive and free left the devastated country, but there was never a complete abandonment of the Land. There was never a time when there were not Jews and Jewish communities, though the size and conditions of those communities fluctuated greatly.
Thousands of years before the Romans invented "Palastina" the land had been known as "Canaan". The Canaanites had many tiny city-states, each one at times independent and at times a vassal of an Egyptian or Hittite king. The Canaanites never united into a state.
After the Exodus from Egypt — probably in the Thirteenth Century B.C.E. but perhaps earlier — the Children of Israel settled in the land of Canaan. There they formed first a tribal confederation, and then the Biblical kingdoms of Israel and Judah, and the post-Biblical kingdom of Judea.
From the beginning of history to this day, Israel-Judah-Judea has the only united, independent, sovereign nation-state that ever existed in "Palest¡ne" west of the Jordan River. (In Biblical times, Ammon, Moab and Edom as well as Israel had land east of the Jordan, but they disappeared in antiquity and no other nation took their place until the British invented Trans-Jordan in the 1920s.)
After the Roman conquest of Judea, "Palastina" became a province of the pagan Roman Empire and then of the Christian Byzantine Empire, and very briefly of the Zoroastrian Persian Empire. In 638 C.E., an Arab-Muslim Caliph took Palastina away from the Byzantine Empire and made it part of an Arab-Muslim Empire. The Arabs, who had no name of their own for this region, adopted the Greco-Roman name Palastina, that they pronounced "Falastin".
In that period, much of the mixed population of Palastina converted to Islam and adopted the Arabic language. They were subjects of a distant Caliph who ruled them from his capital, that was first in Damascus and later in Baghdad. They did not become a nation or an independent state, or develop a distinct society or culture.
In 1099, Christian Crusaders from Europe conquered Palest¡na-Falastin. After 1099, it was never again under Arab rule. The Christian Crusader kingdom was politically independent, but never developed a national identity. It remained a military outpost of Christian Europe, and lasted less than 100 years. Thereafter, Palest¡ne was joined to Syria as a subject province first of the Mameluks, ethnically mixed slave-warriors whose center was in Egypt, and then of the Ottoman Turks, whose capital was in Istanbul.
During the First World War, the British took Palest¡ne from the Ottoman Turks. At the end of the war, the Ottoman Empire collapsed and among its subject provinces "Palest¡ne" was assigned to the British, to govern temporarily as a mandate from the League of Nations.
Travellers to Palest¡ne from the Western world left records of what they saw there. The theme throughout their reports is dismal: The land was empty, neglected, abandoned, desolate, fallen into ruins
Nothing there [Jerusalem] to be seen but a little of the old walls which is yet remaining and all the rest is grass, moss and weeds. — English pilgrim in 1590
The country is in a considerable degree empty of inhabitants and therefore its greatest need is of a body of population — British consul in 1857
There is not a solitary village throughout its whole extent [valley of Jezreel] — not for 30 miles in either direction. . . . One may ride 10 miles hereabouts and not see 10 human beings.
For the sort of solitude to make one dreary, come to Galilee . . . Nazareth is forlorn . . . Jericho lies a moldering ruin . . . Bethlehem and Bethany, in their poverty and humiliation . . . untenanted by any living creature . . . .
A desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds . . a silent, mournful expanse . . . a desolation . . . . We never saw a human being on the whole route . . . . Hardly a tree or shrub anywhere. Even the olive tree and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country . . . .
The restoration of this desolate and barren land began in the latter half of the Nineteenth Century with the first Jewish pioneers. Their labors created newer and better conditions and opportunities, which in turn attracted migrants from many parts of the Middle East, both Arabs and others.
The Balfour Declaration of 1917, confirmed by the League of Nations Mandate, commited the British Government to the principle that "His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palest¡ne of a Jewish National Home, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object. . . . " It was specified both that this area be open to "close Jewish settlement" and that the rights of all inhabitants already in the country be preserved and protected.
Mandate Palest¡ne originally included all of what is now Jordan, as well as all of what is now Israel, and the territories between them. However, when Great Britain's protégé Emir Abdullah was forced to leave the ancestral Hashemite domain in Arabia, the British created a realm for him that included all of Manfate Palest¡ne east of the Jordan River. There was no traditional or historic Arab name for this land, so it was called after the river: first Trans-Jordan and later Jordan.
By this political act, that violated the conditions of the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate, the British cut more than 75 percent out of the Jewish National Home. No Jew has ever been permitted to reside in Trans-Jordan/Jordan.
Less than 25 percent then remained of Mandate Palest¡ne, and even in this remnant, the British violated the Balfour and Mandate requirements for a "Jewish National Home" and for "close Jewish settlement". They progressively restricted where Jews could buy land, where they could live, build, farm or work.
After the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel was finally able to settle some small part of those lands from which the Jews had been debarred by the British. Successive British governments regularly condemn their settlement as "illegal". In truth, it was the British who had acted illegally in banning Jews from these parts of the Jewish National Home.
During the period of the Mandate, it was the Jewish population that was known as "Palest¡nians" including those who served in the British Army in World War II.
British policy was to curtail their numbers and progressively limit Jewish immigration. By 1939, the White Paper virtually put an end to admission of Jews to Palest¡ne. This policy was imposed the most stringently at the very time this Home was most desperately needed — after the rise of Nazi power in Europe. Jews who might have developed the empty lands of Palest¡ne and left progeny there, instead died in the gas chambers of Europe or in the seas they were trying to cross to the Promised Land.
At the same time that the British slammed the gates on Jews, they permitted or ignored massive illegal immigration into Western Palest¡ne from Arab countries Jordan, Syria, Egypt, North Africa. In 1939, Winston Churchill noted that "So far from being persecuted, the Arabs have crowded into the country and multiplied . . . ." Exact population statistics may be problematic, but it seems that by 1947 the number of Arabs west of the Jordan River was approximately triple of what it had been in 1900.
The current myth is that these Arabs were long established in Palest¡ne, until the Jews came and "displaced" them. The fact is, that recent Arab immigration into Palest¡ne "displaced" the Jews. That the massive increase in Arab population was very recent is attested by the ruling of the United Nations: That any Arab who had lived in Palest¡ne for two years and then left in 1948 qualifies as a "Palest¡nian refugees".
Casual use of population statistics for Jews and Arabs in Palest¡ne rarely consider how the proportions came to be. One factor was the British policy of keeping out Jews while bringing in Arabs. Another factor was the violence used to kill or drive out Jews even where they had been long established.
For one example: The Jewish connection with Hebron goes back to Abraham, and there has been an Israelite/Jewish community there since Joshua long before it was King David's first capital. In 1929, Arab rioters with the passive consent of the British — killed or drove out virtually the entire Jewish community.
For another example: In 1948, Trans-Jordan seized much of Judea and Samaria (which they called The West Bank) and East Jerusalem and the Old City. They killed or drove out every Jew.
It is now often proposed as a principle of international law and morality that all places that the British and the Arabs rendered Judenrein must forever remain so. In contrast, Israel eventually allotted 17 percent of Mandate Palest¡ne has a large and growing population of Arab citizens.
What was to become of "Palest¡ne" after the Mandate? This question was taken up by various British and international commissions and other bodies, culminating with the United Nations in 1947. During the various deliberations, Arab officials, spokesmen and writers expressed their views on "Palest¡ne".
"There is no such country as Palest¡ne. 'Palest¡ne' is a term the Zionists invented. . . . Our country was for centuries part of Syria. 'Palest¡ne' is alien to us. It is the Zionists who introduced it." — Local Arab leader to British Peel Commission, 1937
"There is no such thing as Palest¡ne in history, absolutely not" — Professor Philip Hitti, Arab historian to Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, 1946
"It is common knowledge that Palest¡ne is nothing but southern Syria." — Ahmed Shukairy, United Nations Security Council, 1956
By 1948, the Arabs had still not yet discovered their ancient nation of Falastin. When they were offered half of Palest¡ne west of the Jordan River for a state, the offer was violently rejected. Six Arab states launched a war of annihilation against the nascent State of Israel. Their purpose was not to establish an independent Falastin. Their aim was to partition western Palest¡ne amongst themselves.
They did not succeed in killing Israel, but Trans-Jordan succeeded in taking Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and East Jerusalem, killing or driving out all the Jews who had lived in those places, and banning Jews of all nations from Jewish holy places. Egypt succeeded in taking the Gaza Strip. These two Arab states held these lands until 1967. Then they launched another war of annihilation against Israel, and in consequence lost the lands they had taken by war in 1948.
During those 19 years, 1948-1967, Jordan and Egypt never offered to surrendar those lands to make up an independent state of Falastin. The "Palest¡nians" never sought it. Nobody in the world ever suggested it, much less demanded it.
Finally, in 1964, the Palest¡ne Liberation Movement was founded. Ahmed Shukairy, who less than 10 years earlier had denied the existence of Palest¡ne, was its first chairman. Its charter proclaimed its sole purpose to be the destruction of Israel. To that end it helped to precipitate the Arab attack on Israel in 1967.
The outcome of that attack then inspired an alteration in public rhetoric. As propaganda, it sounds better to speak of the liberation of Falastin than of the destruction of Israel. Much of the world, governments and media and public opinion, accept virtually without question of serious analysis the new-sprung myth of an Arab nation of Falastin, whose territory is unlawfully occupied by the Jews.
Since the end of World War I, the Arabs of the Middle East and North Africa have been given independent states in 99.5 percent of the land they claimed. Lord Balfour once expressed his hope that when the Arabs had been given so much, they would "not begrudge" the Jews the "little notch" promised to them.
It is important to note that Arabs in Israel receive free medical care, government pensions for each and every child they have (and Arab families have very large numbers of children), unemployment benefits and a host of other welfare state benefits, free education in public schools in their own language, and equal opportunities admissions to all Israeli colleges and universities. Arabs are free to use all Israeli public facilities, such as parks, restaurants, trains and buses, (even though some of them plant bombs on buses). The Israeli government pays for the Islamic religious education of Israeli Arab children, allows Islamic courts to have jurisdiction over the private affairs of Muslim citizens, and even pays the salaries of Muslim clerics.
In the late 1980s Israel setup checkpoints on major thoroughfares within Israel that led between typically Jewish settlements and so called Palest¡nian settlements. The Palest¡nians do not have the economy to buy or even rent homes (the PA does not produce an audit of where its funds are being spent) thus live in refugee camps. They live in these camps because they did not come from a home and move into Israel because it was a decision they made. They migrated because they were forced out of Arab run nations of Lebanon, Syria, Egypt or Jordan.
The so called displaced members of the nation of Palest¡ne foment a myth that the "Palest¡nians" are oppressed by the Jewish people in Israel and around the world. They myth includes geographical references to the region that are not supported by any written history and ignore International Law, chronological defeats in war, or rationale discussion. The entire campaign of the so called "Palest¡nians" is simply a political tool deployed to destroy Israel and murder the Jewish people.
There Is No Palest¡ne
By Rabbi Meir Kahane, Zt"l
There is no "Palest¡ne people" and there is no "Palest¡ne." The lands that today constitute the State of Israel, Judea, Samaria (the West Bank), Gaza and the Golan are parts of Israel, the sole land of the Jews.
The Jewish claim to the Land of Israel is not an ordinary nationalist one. It is NOT merely derived from the fact that ONCE Jews were sovereign there, were the majority, ruled the land under their own government and that never was the land empty of Jews. All this is true but this is not the main claim of the Jewish people. Jewish refusal to give up lands is sometimes based on the logical and self evident fact that to give up lands to a people that has constantly threatened to destroy you is sheer madness, and that Jews dare not trust to their kindly intentions in the future. This too, is true, but again, it is not the reason for Jews remaining on the lands liberated after June, 1967.
The fundamental and REAL Jewish claim to The Land of Israel is based on the fact that there is a Divine grant of the land to the Jewish people, and that G-d gave the Holy Land to the Jewish people in order that it be holy and create a holy society therein. No other arguments - Jewish or Arab - have any relevance to the essential fact that the One who created the entire world and who possesses it, has the power and the right to give it to whomever He chooses and this is what was done more than 3,000 years ago at the time of Moses and Joshua. This is what remains inalienable right today. The Land of Israel in its Biblical boundaries is the Divine decree to the Jewish people, it belongs to the Jewish people in its entirety and no alien trespass has any merit or chance of success.
Zionism is NOT one more movement of national liberation. It is not one more like all the rest any more than the Jewish people is one more like all the rest. The believing Jew as the believing Christian knows that there is a Divine pledge - repeated again and again in the prophets of the Bible - that the Jew will be brought back from the Exile, gathered from the corners of the earth and brought home - to the Land of Israel. The believing Jew and the believing Christian know that this resurrection of the Jewish state and this return of the Jew to his home is a NECESSARY precondition for the coming of the final redemption and the establishment of the Kingdom of G-d.
Zionism, the establishment of the State of Israel, the return of millions of Jews home, the miraculous victories of the few over the many Arabs, the liberation of Judea, Samaria (the West Bank), Gaza, and the Golan, the return of Jewish sovereignty over the Holy City and Temple Mount are all parts of the Divine pledge and its fulfillment.
There can be no "Palest¡ne", a name that was invented by the Romans to symbolize the end of the Jewish people, for that would be to diminish and to force back the miracle of G-d and to go against the Divine era of redemption. There can be no "Palest¡ne" for if there is, then there is no Israel.
In all this we DIFFER FUNDAMENTALLY with the government of Israel which 1) recognizes a "Palest¡nian" people after years of refusing to do so, 2) that there are "moderate Palest¡nians" who will both challenge the PLO thesis and leadership as well as permanently accept a Jewish State, 3) believes that peace with the Arabs by concessions is possible, 4) is prepared to give up parts of the Land of Israel to the Arabs, and 5) refuses to allow Jews to settle unrestrictedly in any part of the Land of Israel under Jewish control.
We differ with these stands and maintain that the government of Israel, through its short-sighted, timid and vacillating policy, not only destroys the vision and the dream of redemption but brings potential disaster down on the heads of the Jewish people. We maintain that there must be an immediate program of declaring:
1) There are no meaningful Arab moderates who will permanently accept any Jewish state, of any size. The ultimate Arab goal is the elimination of any Jewish state.
2) There is no "Palest¡ne people" or "Palest¡ne" entity.
3) All of the Land of Israel belongs exclusively to the Jewish people.
4) If there are those who wish to create something known as "Palest¡ne' they are welcome to do so in "Jordan" which in itself is a fictitious state created by the imperialist British by cutting away, in 1921, the eastern part of the Land of Israel. The Arabs who call themselves "Palest¡nians" had the opportunity to create a "Palest¡ne" in a far larger part of the Land of Israel but refused to do so. They lost that chance forever and if they refuse to create a state in "Jordan" now, but insist upon war, they will lose again and lose "Jordan" in the process because - WHILE WE WILL NEVER BEGIN A WAR FOR THOSE PARTS OF THE LAND OF ISRAEL NOW UNDER FOREIGN RULE, SHOULD THE ARABS BEGIN THAT WAR AND WE LIBERATE STILL OTHER AREAS OF THE LAND OF ISRAEL, THEN THOSE WILL NEVER BE GIVEN UP EITHER.
5) The Arabs today sit in large areas of the Land of Israel promised by G-d to us. For the sake of peace, we are prepared to go to a peace conference with maps to show which lands we claim as our own but declare that we are prepared to declare a state of non- belligerency and not demand those lands back. In exchange for that concession, and as the price they should pay for their aggression of 1948, 1956, 1967, and 1973 the Arabs must recognize the State of Israel in the area it now controls.
6) Immediate, unlimited and unrestricted Jewish settlement in any and every part of the Land of Israel including Judea, Samaria, Gaza, and the Golan.
There is no "Palest¡ne" people and there is no "Palest¡ne." We are not dismayed by the Arabs, we are not shocked, we are not confused. Above all, we are not fooled by them. Not by their vague and tantalizing hints of "recognition" not by their aura of "moderation" and not by their ingenious effort to create a camp of "extremists" versus "moderates." We are not fooled by those who for 44 years have threatened to do away with the Jewish state, as in 1967 - before they were taught to be more discreet and allow the world a face-saving way to allow Israel to die. We are not fooled by those, who, in 1956 - BEFORE Jews had liberated the lands the Arabs claim constitute the major cause - took arms from the Soviets and prepared to wipe out the Israel of that time. We are not fooled by those who, in 1947 turned down even the pathetic, grotesque tiny state that the United Nations gave the Jews. We are not fooled by those who rioted against and killed Jews in 1921, 1929, 1936, 1937, and 1938. We are not fooled. There are no "moderate" Arabs. There are only clever and less clever, patient and impatient. The final solution for ALL is the same - the elimination of any Jewish State. And so we repeat: There is no "Palest¡ne people" and there is no "Palest¡ne." They are Arabs, part of the Arab nation that lives in many countries, and to where the Arabs of the Land of Israel must and will be repatriated.
(Written in 1974)
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