SUBJECT:
Palestine and Palestinians
QUESTION: Who
are the Palestinians? Are the Palestinians of today rooted
back to the Philistines?
ANSWER: The
following document, taken from the Internet:
Short answer: No, there is no connection between the
Palestinians of today and the Philistines of old.
The History and Meaning of "Palestine" and "Palestinians"
"There is no such thing as a
Palestinian Arab nation . . . Palestine is a name the Romans
gave to Eretz Yisrael with the express purpose of
infuriating the Jews . . . . Why should we use the spiteful
name meant to humiliate us?
The British chose to call the land they
mandated Palestine, and the Arabs picked it up as their
nation's supposed ancient name, though they couldn't even
pronounce it correctly and turned it into Falastin a
fictional entity." Golda Meir
quoted by Sarah Honig, Jerusalem Post, 25 November
1995
Palestine has never existed .
. . as an autonomous entity. There is no language known as
Palestinian. There is no distinct Palestinian culture. There
has never been a land known as Palestine governed by
Palestinians. Palestinians are Arabs, indistinguishable from
Jordanians (another recent invention), Syrians, Lebanese,
Iraqis, etc.
Keep in mind that the Arabs control 99.9
percent of the Middle East lands. Israel represents
one-tenth of one percent of the landmass. But that's too
much for the Arabs. They want it all. And that is ultimately
what the fighting in Israel is about today . . . No matter
how many land concessions the Israelis make, it will never
be enough. from "Myths of the
Middle East", Joseph Farah, Arab-American editor and
journalist, WorldNetDaily, 11 October 2000
From the end of
the Jewish state in antiquity to the beginning of British
rule, the area now designated by the name Palestine was not
a country and had no frontiers, only administrative
boundaries . . . .
Professor Bernard Lewis, Commentary Magazine,
January 1975
Talk and writing about Israel and the Middle East feature
the nouns "Palestine" and Palestinian", and the phrases
"Palestinian territory" and even "Israeli-occupied
Palestinian territory". All too often, these terms are used
with regard to their historical or geographical meaning, so
that the usage creates illusions rather than clarifies
reality.
What Does "Palestine" Mean?
It has never been the name of a nation or state. It is a
geographical term, used to designate the region at those
times in history when there is no nation or state there.
The Philistines were not Arabs, they were not
Semites. They had no connection ... with Arabia or Arabs.
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 BCE, 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 "Palestine" is not an Arabic name. It is the Arab
pronunciation of the Greco-Roman "Palastina" derived from
the Peleshet.
How Did the Land of Israel Become
"Palestine"?
In the First Century CE, the Romans crushed the independent
kingdom of Judea. After the failed rebellion of Bar Kokhba
in the Second Century CE, 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.
The History of Palestine
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 BCE 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.
Israel-Judah-Judea has the only united, independent,
sovereign nation-state that ever existed in "Palestine" west
of the Jordan River.
From the beginning of history to this day,
Israel-Judah-Judea has the only united, independent,
sovereign nation-state that ever existed in "Palestine" 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 CE, 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
Palestina-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, Palestine 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 Palestine from
the Ottoman Turks. At the end of the war, the Ottoman Empire
collapsed and among its subject provinces "Palestine" was
assigned to the British, to govern temporarily as a mandate
from the League of Nations.
The Jewish National Home
Travellers to Palestine 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 . . . .
Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes . .
. desolate and unlovely . . . .
Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad, 1867
Their [the Jews] labors created newer and better
conditions and opportunities
The restoration of the "desolate and unlovely" 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 Palestine 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 Palestine 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
protιgι Emir Abdullah was forced to leave the ancestral
Hashemite domain in Arabia, the British created a realm for
him that included all of Manfate Palestine 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 Palestine, 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.
Who Is A Palestinian?
During the period of the Mandate, it was the Jewish
population that was known as "Palestinians" including
those who served in the British Army in World War II.
Jews who might have developed the empty lands of
'Palestine' ... instead died in the gas chambers of Europe
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
Palestine. 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 Palestine 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 Palestine 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 Palestine, until the Jews came and "displaced" them. The
fact is, that recent Arab immigration into Palestine
"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 Palestine for
two years and then left in 1948 qualifies as a "Palestinian
refugees".
Casual use of population statistics for Jews and Arabs in
Palestine 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.
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.
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
Palestine has a large and growing population of Arab
citizens.
From Palestine To Israel
What was to become of "Palestine" 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 "Palestine".
"There is no such country as
Palestine. 'Palestine' is a term the Zionists invented. . .
. Our country was for centuries part of Syria. 'Palestine'
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
Palestine in history, absolutely not" Professor Philip
Hitti, Arab historian to Anglo-American Committee of
Inquiry, 1946
"It is common knowledge that
Palestine 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 Palestine 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 Palestine 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 "Palestinians" never
sought it. Nobody in the world ever suggested it, much less
demanded it.
Finally, in 1964, the Palestine Liberation Movement was
founded. Ahmed Shukairy, who less than 10 years earlier had
denied the existence of Palestine, 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.
[Note: Some of
the material cited above is drawn from the book
From Time Immemorial by
Joan Peters.] |