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ZOA. Vol. 61, November, 1970 (no. 3), pp. 5-6.

Editorial Comment

Nasserism And Palestinianism...

What Was Palestine?

... Palestine, ever since the collapse of Jewish sovereignty during the era of the Roman Empire, was administered, until 1917 when Britain took over from the Ottoman Empire, as a district of the province of Syria.
The name "Palestine" came to be used by Rome specifically to underline the crushing of Jewish sovereignty in Judea. The Arabs did not arrive on the scene as conquerors until 700 years after this event . But Arabs never administered "Palestine" as a separate entity, nor did the empires which, in turn, conquered the area from the Arabs.

We come, then, to the question of population. When the British authorities Nasserism and Palestinianism from the fact that after being twice carried out the first census in 1922, defeated in wars of aggression that were there were only 184,000 Arabs in Palestine. By 1948 when Israel was established there were more than 1,000,000 Arabs. Something like 80 percent of them were recent immigrants to the country from neighboring Arab states, just as a similar proportion of Jews had arrived in the country since the First World War . The reason for the Arab influx was the great economic development of Palestine resulting from the Jewish immigration, and more Arabs came in than Jews because the British Government, despite its Mandate from the League of Nations , never placed obstacles in the way of Arab immigration as it did in the case of Jewish immigration. Far from displacing Arabs, Jewish immigration to Palestine had the effect of attracting more Arabs into the country. And, as is well known, the land used by the Jewish settlers was well paid for.

However, for political reasons too complicated to be recounted here, a murderous hatred for Jews was spread among the Arab population of Palestine. The leadership over the Arab community of Haj Amin el Husseini (Mufti of Jerusalem), who thrived in this political climate, was secured by wholesale slaughter and intimidation of those Arabs who even hinted at the desirability of an accommodation with the Jews. Husseini eventually wound up in Berlin during World War II abetting Hitler's annihilation of the Jews, and working for the world wide triumph of Nazism. This mentality was expressed by the Palestinians back home by a series of massacres of Jews that punctuated the whole history of Palestine in this century up to 1948, and it is still alive in the current Palestinian leadership.

Those who harbor any doubt about the horrible fate that the "Palestinians" envision for the Jews, and who may think that they have undergone a moral evolution since 1948, might ponder whether they would be more gentle with Jews than they have been with each other during recent, and sporadically continuing, fighting in Jordan.

What the Arabs in Amman believe Dayan would never have done to them, we must believe they would do to the Jews. Did they not try to have their little Auschwitz in the desert during the recent hijackings? Still, nationalism is a state of mind. And even if there has never been....