I was made in Palestine. My parents met there, got married there and I was conceived there. So the subject of Palestine and Palestinians naturally interested me enough to want to learn more about the people and region — and I did. As a political science major in college, I took a couple of classes on Government and Politics of The Middle East. I have also written about Palestine and Palestinians in my books.
Now that the question of Palestinian refugees and Palestinian State are again in the news, after Israel’s new conservative-religious coalition government, some say extreme, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was sworn in, I thought I should again share what I know and think about Palestine and Palestinians.
In Custom Maid Spin for New World Disorder, published in 2004, I wrote:
Joseph Farah, an Arab-American journalist, reminds us that East Jerusalem
was not captured from Yassar Arafat and the Palestinians
during the Six Day War. In fact Arafat was not born in Jerusalem either.
He was born in Egypt. Jerusalem was captured from Jordan’s King Hussein.
“The truth is that Palestine is no more real than Never-Never Land.
The first time Palestine was used was in 70 AD when the Romans
committed genocide against the Jews, smashed the Temple and declared the
land of Israel will be no more. They promised from then on the land of
Israel would be known as Palestine – a name derived from the Philistines,
a Goliathian people conquered by the Jews earlier. Palestine has never existed
before or since as an autonomous entity. There is no language known as Palestinian.
There is no distinct Palestine culture. Palestinians are Arabs, indistinguishable
from Jordanians, Syrians, Lebanese or Iraqis. There has never been a land governed
by Palestinians. It was ruled alternatively by Rome, by Islamic and Christian crusaders,
by the Ottoman Turks and, briefly, by the British after World War I.”
In Custom Maid Knowledge for New World Disorder, I went on to write:
It was the Palestinians who rejected the United Nations
decision in 1947 to partition the land between Arabs and Jews,
with Jerusalem as an international city. The subsequent war launched in 1948,
by the Palestinians and five Arab armies with the intention of eliminating the
newborn Jewish state, was won by Israel. The departure of 800,000 Palestinians,
who fled at the urging of their leaders to avoid being killed, was supposed to be
temporary. However, they continue to remain in suspended animation and have not been
assimilated into other countries (unlike the more than 1 million Jews evicted from
Arab countries that were absorbed by Israel). Unfortunately, they remain useful political
pawns in the Middle East millennium chess game. They have been perpetually promised by their
leaders that they will return. Their leaders, including the late Yassar Arafat, became victims
of their own propaganda. “The reason for this fantastic attachment to Palestine is partly because
the Arabs encouraged it,” said Kamel Abu Jaber, a retired Jordanian foreign minister and peace negotiator. “To say, let’s settle them, let’s absorb them, was considered treason and still is.”
False Palestinian narratives have to be challenged and uprooted if there is to be a Palestine state. Lasting peace can only take root if it is grounded in truth. Facts not myths. Reality. The alternative, more homeless and stateless Palestinians.