"Palestinian" Identity As Propaganda Device

A prime example of propaganda masquerading as fact can be found in the modern assertion by "Palestinian" Arab and other revisionist historians that, even before the dawn of Christianity, an ancient nation-state known as "Palestine", inhabited by "Palestinians", was in existence, and that it continued to exist, even under the yoke of successive conquering empires, until the creation of modern Israel brutally usurped it in 1948 -- the implication being that Today's "Palestinian" Arabs are the descendants of those ancient "Palestinians".

Prior to the dawn of the Christian era, as a result of the successful Jewish revolt against the Hellenic-Syrian Seleucid Empire in the second century BCE (Before the Common Era) -- commemorated as the Jewish holiday of Chanukah -- the geographic area identified by these revisionist historians as "Palestine" instead hosted the independent nation-state known as Judea, successor entity to the northern biblical kingdom of Israel and to the southern biblical kingdom of Judah; and it was inhabited, not by Arabs, but by Jews. Several hundred years later, in 135 CE (Common Era), after having long-become a province of the Roman Empire, Judea’s third and final revolt against Rome was crushed by Emperor Hadrian; but Rome's army also suffered devastating losses, including the complete annihilation of its illustrious XXII Legion. In furtherance of Rome's costly victory, Hadrian -- in a blatant propaganda effort to delegitimize further national Jewish claims to the Land -- renamed the province Palestine after the Philistines, a long-extinct Aegean people who had disappeared from History more than 700 years earlier after being extirpated by the Babylonian Empire. However, although the province had been converted from Judea, the Latin-language word for which was Iudaea, meaning Land of the Jews, to Palestine, the Latin-language word for which was Palaestina, meaning Land of the Philistines, and although a vengeful Rome massacred and expelled much of the Land's Jewish inhabitants, it nonetheless continued to be populated by Jews, together with substantial populations of other ethnic groups, but hardly any Arabs, at least until the great Islamic Arab invasion of 638. However, even under the rule of the Arab and all subsequently superseding empires, the Jewish people nevertheless maintained a continuous national presence in the non-sovereign territory of "Palestine" -- right up until the resurrection therein of the Jewish nation-state of Israel in 1948.

In contrast, the ersatz people identified nowadays as the "Palestinians" are a collection of diverse Arab clans plus a smattering of other ethnic groups (such as Serbs -- these are the so-called Bosnian Muslims who were Serbian Orthodox Christians before their forced conversion to Islam -- as well as Circassians and Chechens, all imported by the Ottoman Empire from their lands of origin to the Middle East, including the Land of Israel, several centuries ago), which, for reasons virtually identical to those of the Roman Empire, have, since Israel's Six Day War of 1967, publicly declared themselves to be a distinct ethnic nation named after those very same defunct Philistines -- this despite the fact that the ancient Philistines were not even Arabs.

Moreover, in light of “Palestinian” claims to aboriginal status, it is ironic and noteworthy that the English-language cognate words “Palestine” and “Philistine”, as well as the Arabic-language word “Falastin”, are all derived (via Latin and, before that, Greek) from the biblical Hebrew-language word “Pelishtim”, meaning literally: “Invaders”. It is indeed telling that the “Palestinians” have created for themselves a faux ethnic identity whose very name originates, not from their own Arabic language, but rather from the Hebrew language.

That the "Palestinian" Arabs constitute a fictitious people is hardly surprising due to the fact that, by 1948, a substantial portion of the "Palestinian" Arab population resident in British-administered Mandatory Palestine originated, not from that territory, but rather from the surrounding Arab lands which now comprise the modern states of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt.

In this regard, it is noteworthy that none of the foundational international instruments which deal with the Middle East conflict ever referred to the Arab inhabitants of Mandatory Palestine as the "Palestinian" people. For, prior to Israel's resurrection as a Jewish nation-state in 1948, only the Jewish inhabitants of Mandatory Palestine (although sometimes referred to as “Palestinian Jews” by the British and other third parties) identified themselves as just “Palestinians”, while the Arab inhabitants thereof (although sometimes referred to as “Palestinian Arabs” by the British and other third parties) instead insisted on identifying themselves as “southern Syrians”. In deference to this non-assertion of "Palestinian" Arab ethnic identity, the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine of 1922 referred to the local Arab population, collectively, as "existing non-Jewish communities" while United Nations Security Council Resolution no. 242 of 1967 referred to them, collectively, as "the refugee problem". In other words, the very language of these international instruments confirms that the vaunted concept of a "Palestinian" ethnic identity is a fabrication of more recent origin (popularized together with the nouveau appellation "West Bank" -- a de-Judaizing substitution for the historical names Judea and Samaria -- in the aftermath of the Six Day War).

Moreover, during the 19 years (from 1948 to 1967) that Judea, Samaria, and the eastern portion of Jerusalem, and Gaza were illegally occupied, respectively, by Jordan and Egypt, neither the Arab inhabitants of those areas nor the larger Arab and Muslim worlds ever asserted the existence therein of either an ethnically distinct "Palestinian" people or a historical nation-state (or kingdom or other sovereign entity) known as “Palestine”. It is consequently not surprising that during this same period, there was never any demand from any quarter for the establishment in Judea, Samaria, and the eastern portion of Jerusalem, and Gaza of a "Palestinian" state. In fact, the Arabs of Judea, Samaria, and the eastern portion of Jerusalem, after having emphatically insisted that they were “southern Syrians” prior to Israel’s 1948 War of Independence, supinely accepted that they were “Jordanians” from 1948 to 1967 -- only to assert their identity as “Palestinians” after the Jewish people’s reacquisition of these territories in the Six Day War. Moreover, the leadership of the "Palestinian" people even went so far as to publicly disavow any claim to these very areas during those 19 years of illegal occupation by Jordan and Egypt per Article 24 of the National Covenant of the Palestine Liberation Organization enacted May 28, 1964. The Covenant operatively declared, in part, as follows:

. . .

Article 1. Palestine is an Arab homeland bound by strong Arab national ties to the rest of the Arab countries which together form the large Arab homeland.

Article 2. Palestine with its boundaries at the time of the British Mandate is a regional indivisible unit.

Article 3. The Palestine Arab people has the legitimate right to its homeland and is an inseparable part of the Arab nation. It shares the suffering and aspiration of the Arab nation and its struggle for freedom, sovereignty, progress and unity.

Article 4. The people of Palestine determine their destiny when they complete the liberation of their homeland in accordance with their own wishes and free will and choice.

. . .

Article 17. The partitioning of Palestine in 1947 and the establishment of Israel are illegal and false regardless of the lapse of time, because they were contrary to the wish of the Palestine people and its natural right to its homeland, and in violation of the basic principles embodied in the Charter of the United Nations, foremost among which is the right to self-determination.

Article 18. The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate system and all that has been based upon them are considered a fraud. The claims of historic and spiritual ties between Jews and Palestine are not in agreement with the facts of history or with the true basis of sound statehood. Judaism, because it is a divine religion, is not a nationality with independent existence. Furthermore, the Jews are not one people with an independent personality because they are the citizens of the countries to which they belong.

Article 19. Zionism is a colonialist movement in its inception, aggressive and expansionist in its goal, racist and segregationist in its configurations and fascist in its means and aims. Israel, in its capacity as the spearhead of this destructive movement and the pillar of colonialism, is a permanent source of tension and turmoil in the Middle East in particular and to the international community in general. Because of this the people of Palestine is worthy of the support and sustenance of the community of nations.

Article 20. The causes of peace and security and the needs of right and justice demand from all nations, in order to safeguard true relationships among peoples and to maintain the loyalty of citizens to their homelands, that they consider Zionism an illegal movement and outlaw its presence and activities.

Article 21. The Palestine people believes in the principle of justice, freedom, sovereignty, self-determination, human dignity, and the right of peoples to practice these principles. It also supports all international efforts to bring about peace on the basis of justice and free international cooperation.

Article 22. The people of Palestine believe in peaceful co-existence on the basis of legal existence, for there can be no co-existence with aggression, nor can there be peace with occupation and colonialism.

Article 23. In realizing the goals and principles of this Covenant the Palestine Liberation Organization carries out its complete role to liberate Palestine in accordance with the fundamental law of this Organization.

Article 24. This Organization does not exercise any regional sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, in the Gaza Strip or the Himmah area. Its activities will be on the national popular level in the liberational, organizational, political and financial fields.

Article 25. This Organization is charged with the movement of the Palestine people in its struggle to liberate its homeland in all liberational, organizational, political and financial matters, and in all other needs of the Palestine Question in the Arab and international spheres.

Article 26. The Liberation Organization cooperates with all Arab Governments, each according to its ability, and does not interfere in the internal affairs of any Arab State.

. . .

Since the Palestine Liberation Organization's original Covenant explicitly recognized Judea, Samaria, and the eastern portion of Jerusalem, and Gaza as belonging to other Arab states, the only "homeland" of "Palestine" which that organization sought to "liberate" in 1964 was the State of Israel. However, in response to the Jewish people's reclamation in the 1967 Six Day War of those illegally-occupied areas, the Palestine Liberation Organization thereupon revised its Covenant on July 17, 1968 to, inter alia, remove the operative language of Article 24 therefrom, thereby rescinding its prior declaration that those areas were not occupied "Palestine" and thereby newly asserting a "Palestinian" claim of sovereignty thereto.

Furthermore, as regards its dominant Arab element, the "Palestinian" people is not ethnically distinct from the great masses of Arab clans ranging through 22 sovereign Arab nations from Mauritania in the West to Oman in the East. Moreover, never in the annals of History, did the ancestors of the people who now call themselves "Palestinians" ever rule -- or even reside in -- a nation-state of "Palestine", as such a sovereign entity never existed.

Lastly, even the quintessential symbol of the "Palestinian" people, namely, the Palestine Liberation Organization chairman and Palestinian Authority president Yasser Arafat, serves to prove its nonexistence. Mr. Arafat is an Egyptian national born in Cairo in 1929 -- some four decades before any assertion of the existence of an ethnically distinct "Palestinian" people -- who continued to live there through the creation of modern Israel (i.e., he is neither a "Palestinian" nor a refugee). And his predecessor as P.L.O. chairman, Ahmed Shukeiry, was a Saudi Arabian national.

In truth, the "Palestinian" designation is geographical rather than ethnic; for, the "Palestinian" Arabs are no more a distinct ethnic people than are Texans or Californians (and no one suggests that either of the latter have the juridical right to establish a separate ethnic nation-state).

Occasionally, even "Palestinian" leaders themselves admit as much. As candidly stated by Zahir Muhsein, then head of the P.L.O. Military Department and a member of its Executive Committee: "The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the State of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality, Today, there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak, Today, about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct Palestinian people to oppose Zionism. For tactical reasons, Jordan -- which is a sovereign state with defined borders -- cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa. While, as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beersheba and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan." (Amsterdam-based newspaper "Dagblad de Verdieping Trouw", March 31, 1977).

Consequently, the spurious claim of a separate and distinct "Palestinian" ethnic identity -- together with its corollary assertion of contemporary "Palestinian" ownership of the Land of Israel by virtue of the prior existence therein of a fictional nation-state of "Palestine" -- is merely a modern adaptation by the Arab nations and the larger Muslim world of that ancient propaganda device fashioned by the Roman Empire to delegitimize the almost four millennia old national Jewish claim to the biblical Land of Israel.

[Note: Just as the "Palestinians" are not an authentic ethnic group, neither are the Israelis -- comprising Jews, Circassians, Samaritans, Arabs and (those descendants of Arabs known as) Druze -- an authentic ethnic group. However, the Jews -- unlike the "Palestinians" -- are such an ethnic group.]

© Mark S. Rosenblit

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