Modern conceptions of “Palestine” date from the mid-19th century when British artist David Roberts followed the trail of the ancient Israelites from Egypt to their “Holy Land.” His lithographs provided stunning vistas of Hebron, Jerusalem, Jericho, Nablus and other ancient Jewish sites. As yet, there were no “Palestinian” locations to include.
Israel Today (h/t Frederic F) With the recent eruption of Palestinian violence on the Temple Mount, followed by the murder of three Israelis from the town of Elad, it is worth reflecting on the history of a people, until recently non-existent, who seem determined to define themselves by killing Jews.
Not long afterward, Scottish writer Alexander Keith, identifying the Land of Israel as the “Holy Land,” described Jews as “a people without a country; even as their own land … is a country without a people.” British Lord Shaftesbury cited “the ancient and rightful lords of the soil, the Jews!” Palestinians were not mentioned.
On the eve of World War I, Chaim Weizmann, who decades later would become the first president of Israel, said: “There is a country which is called Palestine, a country without a people, and, on the other hand, there exists the Jewish people, and it has no country.” What else was necessary, he wondered, “than to fit the gem into the ring, to unite this people with this country?”
Although Arabs in small numbers had lived in Palestine for centuries with prosperous elite families concentrated in Jerusalem, there were no signs of an Arab national identity before World War I. Ironically, budding signs of Jewish nationalism—identified as Zionism—were its primary stimulus. But it took time.
Shortly before the State of Israel was born, Arab historian Philip Hitti stated: “There is no such thing as Palestine in history, absolutely not.” Without Palestine, there could not be Palestinians.
Not until Israel defeated and humiliated Arab countries in the Six-Day War (June 1967), ending Jordanian control over West Bank Arabs, did a distinctive Palestinian identity begin to emerge. Why was it, wondered author Walid Shoebat of Bethlehem, “that on June 4, 1967, I was a Jordanian and overnight I became a Palestinian.”
Even PLO military commander Zuhair Muhsinacknowledged: “There are no differences between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. We are all part of one nation.” The vision of a Palestinian state, he recognized, was merely “a new tool in the continuing battle against Israel.”
Without a history of their own, Palestinians plundered Jewish history to define themselves. The ancient Canaanites were identified as the original “Palestinians.” So, too, were Jebusites, the biblical inhabitants of Jerusalem. Based on these fanciful claims an imaginary “Palestinian” history of 5,000 years was implanted in the Land of Israel.
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has claimed before the international community (at the UN Security Council, no less) that the Palestinian Arabs are direct descendants of the Canaanites.
Palestinians’ identity theft has taken strange turns. They have absurdly equated the nakba(“disaster” or “catastrophe”) of 1948 when Arabs launched—and lost—a war of Jewish extermination with the Holocaust. Indeed, Holocaust denial was the core of the doctoral dissertation of Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas. He preposterously claimed that Zionist leaders were “fundamental partners” of the Nazis, jointly responsible for the slaughter of 6 million Jews.
Comparing Israeli policy towards Palestinians with Nazi policy regarding Jews is an example of Holocaust inversion, where reality is inverted (the Israelis are cast as the “new” Nazis and the Palestinians as the “new” Jews), and an inversion of morality (the Holocaust is presented as a moral lesson for, or even a moral indictment of, “the Jews”). Holocaust Inversion acts as a force against identifying the changing nature of contemporary antisemitism and creating a cohesive coalition against it. After all, who would want to defend modern-day Nazis?
According to former Assistant U.S. Secretary of Education for Civil Rights Kenneth L. Marcus, Holocaust inversion is intended to “shock, silence, threaten, insulate,” and “the stereotype of Jewish conspiratorial power, combined with the use of Nazi motifs, has a peculiarity chilling effect.”
The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is a territorial and political one, whereas the Holocaust was the attempt to systematically annihilate European Jewry. Despite the unfortunate outbreak of violence during the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, the Palestinian population has grown by all metrics, and is projected to continue doing so. To compare this to the murder of millions of Jews during the Holocaust is preposterous and diminishes the pain of those who have suffered during the conflict.
Palestinians have relied upon the model of the Israeli Law of Return to claim that millions of “refugees”—fewer than 30,000 of whom are still alive—should be permitted to return to the land they abandoned in 1947-48 during the Arab war to annihilate Jews. Teenage Arab girls have been taught to equate their plight with that of Holocaust victim Anne Frank.
So it is that a people without a national history until well into the 20th century have attempted to persuade a gullible world audience that Palestinians are the rightful inheritors of Jewish history and land. Ironically, even the holy quran (which makes frequent mention of Jews but does not mention Palestinians) was interpreted by Muslims more than a millennium ago to affirm that the Land of Israel was given by God to “the children of Israel” as a perpetual covenant. Murdering Jews was not mentioned. But as scholar and novelist Dara Horn aptly titles her new book, People Love Dead Jews.
Andrew+Blackadder says
An American idiot I met the other day, non Jew as far as I could tell, told me that Israelis are committing genocide against the muslim/Palestinian populated, so I informed him that its really strange that today there are many more muslims/palestinians today within Israel than there was decades ago so I guess those Jewish Israeli dudes aint too good at that genocide game… Ya think?.
Its rather ironic that muslims are calling the Jews as nazis when IN FACT it was the nazis that hated the Jews and it was the Nazis that loved the muslims and the muslims loved the Nazis, even today..
.Irony sure is a bitch aint it?.
BareNakedIslam says
These idiots don’t care about facts.
BLR says
I have accepted this history as truth uncontested by fact , now what remains to be accomplished is to get the american jews on the left to agree on their own heritage and vote to benefit their historical homeland
BareNakedIslam says
Are pigs flying? Far-Left Jews are worse than Muslims
BLR says
don’t see no flying pigs ! but the blend is working and they could show up any time now if that changes anything
BareNakedIslam says
Doubt it.
Linda Rivera says
The GOD HATERS will never succeed in annihilating Jews and the Jewish Holy Land of Israel given by our Glorious, Awesome, Wonderful Creator to Jews as an Everlasting Possession, thousands of years before the MURDER BLOOD CONQUEST Cult of Islam was invented.
No evil powers on earth or in the Universe will ever be able to extinguish the light of re-born Israel. Israel’s light will shine forever and ever!
Leo Tolstoy, What is the Jew? printed in Jewish World periodical, 1908
“What is the Jew?…What kind of unique creature is this whom all the rulers of all the nations of the world have disgraced and crushed and expelled and destroyed; persecuted, burned and drowned, and who, despite their anger and their fury, continues to live and to flourish.
What is this Jew whom they have never succeeded in enticing with all the enticements in the world, whose oppressors and persecutors only suggested that he deny (and disown) his religion and cast aside the faithfulness of his ancestors?!
“The Jew – is the symbol of eternity. … He is the one who for so long had guarded the prophetic message and transmitted it to all mankind. A people such as this can never disappear.
“The Jew is eternal. He is the embodiment of eternity.”
Thomas Richards says
Abraham was not Jewish