The "Palestine" Deception- Jordan Is Palestine

If Jordan is "Palestine" there is no need to create another country called "Palestine".

In 1981 King Hussein (Abdullah's grandson and late ruler of Jordan) stated in an interview with an Arab newspaper: "The truth is that Jordan is Palestine and Palestine is Jordan."1. Later, in 1984, in another interview with an Arab newspaper, he said: "Jordan is Palestine ... Jordan in itself is palestine."2. Crown Prince Hassan, then heir to Jordan's throne, also stated the same thing: "Palestine is Jordan and Jordan is Palestine. There is one people and one land, with one history and one destiny."3. And the PLO leadership declare it also:

Below is a map of the region known as "Palestine" when the British took control after the fall of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War 1:

By the middle of the twentieth century this region was divided into two countries - "Palestine" and Israel. I say "Palestine" because Abdullah of Mecca (who was promised this kingdom) originally wanted to call his 77 percent of "Palestine" the "Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine", but he gave in to British opposition and called it "Transjordan." It was later renamed to the official name it still carries---the "Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan," but more commonly known as Jordan.

Why does Yasser Arafat and his PLO demand the creation of a second "Palestinian" state?

The country of Jordan comprises most of the land of "Palestine". The great majority of Jordan's population is "Palestinian", the Jordanian army is comprised of a majority of "Palestinians", and most of the Arabs living in the Israeli administered territories hold Jordanian passports. In addition to this, the 1970 Jordanian-PLO war was considered a civil war and recorded as such.

The evidence is overwhelming. An independent Palestinian Arab state already exists in the Middle East in the form of Jordan nearly 80 percent of the whole of Palestine. So why do politicians and the news media keep beating on Israel to withdraw to indefensible boundaries?

Arafat wants a chunk of Israel (Gaza and "West Bank") to be his "Palestinian" state but he isn't squealing to the UN for a chunk of Jordan too. Why is this?

1. King Hussein in Al-Nahar Al-Arabi, Dec.26, 1981. Netanyahu, A Place Among The Nations, p.147.

3. Crown Prince Hassan to the Jordaninan National Assembly and reported in Al-Destour Feb. 5, 1970. Cited in Ibid.

4. Yasser Arafat in New Republic, 1974. Cited in Bennett, When Day and Night Cease, p.211.

5. Chafiq el Hout, PLO official on Radio Cairo, May 30, 1967. Cited in Netanyahu, A Place Among The Nations, p.147.

*ibid. In the same place. Used in footnotes and bibliographies to refer to the book, chapter, article, or page cited just before.

"There are no differences between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. We are all part of one nation. It is only for political reasons that we carefully underline our Palestinian identity, because it is in the interest of the Arabs to encourage a separate Palestinian identity in contrast to Zionism. Yes, the existence of a separate Palestinian identity is there only for tactical reasons. The establishment of a Palestinian state is a new expedient to continue the fight against Zionism and for Arab unity."

One always finds in Palestine Arabs who have been in the country only a few weeks or a few months...Since they are themselves strangers in a strange land, they are the loudest to cry: 'Out with the Jews!...Amongst them are to be found representatives of every Arab country: Arabs from Transjordan, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Egypt, the Sudan and Iraq.

Jordan is Palestine and Palestine is Jordan, and Jordan hails every Palestinian who seeks to do his duty to his cause and his country.

Jordan is linked to Palestine by a national relationship and a national unity forged by history and culture from earliest times. The creation of one political entity in East Jordan and another in Palestine would have no basis either in legality or as to the elements universally accepted as fundamental to a political entity.

(R. Hamid (ed.) Muqararat al-majlis al-watani al-filastini 1964 Resolutions of the PNCs 1964-1974, Beirut, PLO Research Centre, 1975, p178 Declaration of the 8th Palestinian National Congress)

This (Jerusalem) for them (the Arabs) was not in 'Palestine'. For the Arabs (And the Turks) the whole of the region lying between the Taurus Mountains and the confines of Egypt, and between the Mediterranean and the edge of the desert, was 'Syria' a term which had been in use since remote antiquity.

(Sir Geoffrey Furlonge, Palestine is My Country, The Story of Mussa Alami (New York, 1969) p. 7

Abdul Malik Dahamshe, an Israeli Arab Knesset member, said at a solidarity visit in Damascus, Syria [David Makovsky, Jerusalem Post, January 24, 1995]:

Palestine and Syria are one homeland. The Arab people will win by the sword; the victory will be won by the Jihad of the Arab world.

There is no such country as 'Palestine'; 'Palestine' is a term the Zionists invented!"

Arab MK, Abdul Darawshe said [Jerusalem Institute of Western Defence, Bulletin 3, August 15, 1997]:

There is no difference between one Palestinian and another. We are all Palestinians and we are all Syrian Arabs.

Salah Khalaf (Abu Iyad) number two in the PLO leadership (Al Sachrah, Kuwait, Jan. 6, 1987)

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

". . . Israel established a civilized, Western-style outpost in which, for the first time in that region, individual rights were recognized. It is the Arabs' tribalism that creates the threat to peace; it is their antagonism toward the principle of rights that makes them willing to engage in both open warfare and covert terrorism. . . It is a moral perversion to demand that Israel give back the very land it captured in the process of defending itself against wars launched by the Arab aggressors."

I do not have firm viewpoints on this particular issue, but I tend to support Israel because they are "like us" - democratic, civilized and not inclined to kill people with suicide bombs. And might I add that Israel has no links to Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden?

If a country attacks you, and you fight back and gain territory, do you not now own that territory, as long as you can defend it? I believe the answer is a clear-cut yes, with lots of historical examples available to back it up. Israel was attacked numerous times, and managed to expand its territory thanks to a combination of their high level of ability and the Arab nations poor showing. Whose fault is this?

Is life in Arab nations in general at all good? Is Yassar Arafat likely to be a fair and decent leader of his people? In reality, is he any different from any other power-mad meglomaniac taking advantage of others' problems? Is he not the Jesse Jackson of the Middle East?

If Arabs within Israeli-occupied areas would stop shooting at Israelis, they would wind up in time becoming part of Israel and enjoy a democratic system, a vibrant economy and a much higher standard of living. Judging by the economic and social performance of other Arab countries, I would think they'd be way better off as Israelis than as Jordanian citizens.

So really, what's the big complaint here? Just stop blowing people up, and in time, you'll become fat and happy.

Or, for that matter, the Israelis will agree to let you go, if you insist. But you'd be a lot better off as part of Israel than under Arafat's boot.

D

How stupid do you think we[you] are?

Based on your comments on this issue, very.

Why shouldn't the residents have the right to be an Arab state...

Because it will be a non-democratic terrorist state much like a mini-Iraq. Jews will be totally expelled from the area and never allowed to return. Jewish holy sites will be desecrated much like the Jordanian occupation '48-'67. Please explain to me why "Jews" should be forced to give up "Judea", even though they have lived there for the past 4000 years, millenia before Arabs or Muslims even inhabited the area.

...instead of Israeli military occupied territories?

OK, how about Israel just annex the territories. At least it wouldn't be occupation. Oh, and just in case you didn't know, the Arabs view all of greater Israel "occupied" as well.

...to make "defensible" geographic and ethnic borders

You're right. That's so silly; why would Israel want "defensible" borders. We all know that their neighbors mean them no harm.

If that's the case, I'll call you a supporter of Israeli Naziism.

You are nothing but an arrogant, ignorant demagogue. "Israeli Naziism" implies that the Jews want to exterminate all of the Palestinians. If Israel wanted to do this, they could, yet they keep sitting down at the peace table with these terrorists even though their citizens are being blown to smitherines. The Jews do not want to destroy all of the Palestinians. However the oppposite is true for the most part. That's why the Palestinian equivalent of "Sesame Street" has a suicide bomber muppet. Go back to CAIR and spout your Jew hating there.

The Philistines and Cretans were in fact GREEK:

From Hellenic Tribes

THE SEA PEOPLES Students of European history will be familiar in a general way with the phenomena of the devolution of Classic cultures, the swarming forth of innumerable barbarian tribes, and the subsequent emergence of the so-called "Dark Ages", together with the slow re-emergence of a vibrant civilization in the Mediaeval and Renaissance eras. Such a model is an oversimplification of what occured, but it is valid at least in broad descriptive outline. What is perhaps less well recognized is that such a pattern has happened, albeit on a smaller scale, before. Before the 1200's BCE, the Eastern Mediterranean played host to a variety of sophisticated civilizations. For a variety of reasons, the 17th to 13th centuries BCE saw a general retreat, one which did not begin to reverse itself until the 9th century BCE (leading to the eventual flowering of Classic-Age civilization by the 5th century). One important factor in this process was the sudden emergence of a group of barbarian tribes known collectively as the Sea-Peoples. These raiders critically damaged the ancient civilizations of Greece, Anatolia and Syria, and seriously threatened the southern Levant and Egypt. The origins of these peoples are unknown, though it is believed that they emerged from the Aegean and may have been Minoan or Greek in origin. They referred to their own homeland as Ahhiyawa, which seems to be related to the word Achaean. The Hittites described their home as an island near Milawanda (Miletos, on the Ionian coast); which may refer to Rhodes, while the Bible describes their origin-point as Caphtor, which is believed to be Crete. They were technologically and artistically sophisticated, being one of the first groups in the Levant to use iron weapons. The following is a list of the documented Sea Peoples, and what linguists and archeologists believe about their origins and eventual fates...

PELESHET These are the Philistines who settled in the southern coast of Canaan and established the pentapolis of Gaza, Gath, Ekron, Ashkelon and Ashdod. They may have invaded Canaan originally in alliance with the Israelites, who settled in the inland areas, but any collegiality quickly disappeared if Biblical records are anything to go by. The name Palestine, given to Judea by the Romans after the Jewish Wars, is believed to be derived from Philistine, although some scholars have suggested that it actually (ironically) comes from a derogatory Greek epithet for Jew.

Where did the name Palestine come from?

The name Palestine refers to a region of the eastern Mediterranean coast from the sea to the Jordan valley and from the southern Negev desert to the Galilee lake region in the north. The word itself derives from "Plesheth", a name that appears frequently in the Bible and has come into English as "Philistine". Plesheth, (root palash) was a general term meaning rolling or migratory. This referred to the Philistine's invasion and conquest of the coast from the sea. The Philistines were not Arabs nor even Semites, they were most closely related to the Greeks originating from Asia Minor and Greek localities. They did not speak Arabic. They had no connection, ethnic, linguistic or historical with Arabia or Arabs.

The Philistines reached the southern coast of Israel in several waves. One group arrived in the pre-patriarchal period and settled south of Beersheba in Gerar where they came into conflict with Abraham, Isaac and Ishmael. Another group, coming from Crete after being repulsed from an attempted invasion of Egypt by Rameses III in 1194 BCE, seized the southern coastal area, where they founded five settlements (Gaza, Ascalon, Ashdod, Ekron and Gat). In the Persian and Greek periods, foreign settlers - chiefly from the Mediterranean islands - overran the Philistine districts.

From the fifth century BC, following the historian Herodotus, Greeks called the eastern coast of the Mediterranean "the Philistine Syria" using the Greek language form of the name. In AD 135, after putting down the Bar Kochba revolt, the second major Jewish revolt against Rome, the Emperor Hadrian wanted to blot out the name of the Roman "Provincia Judaea" and so renamed it "Provincia Syria Palaestina", the Latin version of the Greek name and the first use of the name as an administrative unit. The name "Provincia Syria Palaestina" was later shortened to Palaestina, from which the modern, anglicized "Palestine" is derived.

This remained the situation until the end of the fourth century, when in the wake of a general imperial reorganization Palestine became three Palestines: First, Second, and Third. This configuration is believed to have persisted into the seventh century, the time of the Persian and Muslim conquests.

The Christian Crusaders employed the word Palestine to refer to the general region of the "three Palestines." After the fall of the crusader kingdom, Palestine was no longer an official designation. The name, however, continued to be used informally for the lands on both sides of the Jordan River. The Ottoman Turks, who were non-Arabs but religious Muslims, ruled the area for 400 years (1517-1917). Under Ottoman rule, the Palestine region was attached administratively to the province of Damascus and ruled from Istanbul. The name Palestine was revived after the fall of the Ottoman Empire in World War I and applied to the territory in this region that was placed under the British Mandate for Palestine.

The name "Falastin" that Arabs today use for "Palestine" is not an Arabic name. It is the Arab pronunciation of the Roman "Palaestina". Quoting Golda Meir:

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. [In an article by Sarah Honig, Jerusalem Post, November 25, 1995]

One of the problems with discussing this issue is that I almost never come up with someone inclined to be fair. Either the Israelis are saints or the Palastinians are. I'd love to see a reasonably objective discussion of this issue.

So let's see if I understand this.

The British had control over a huge swathe of Middle Eastern land.

For some reason, they divided it into a bunch of nations. One of them was Israel, and another was Jordan. Jordan was meant as a Palastinian habitat, and Israel was meant for the Jews. However, Palastinians inhabited the West Bank, which is a coastal region, and the Gaza Strip, which was part of Jordan.

Israel took over the West Bank and Gaza, not as a power-mad step, but to have a buffer zone around their country, which seemed likely to be under pretty much continuous attack.

You could say that by arbitrarily dividing the land, and giving the Israelis a choice coastal part of it, the British were largely to blame.

You could also blame the Arab nations. They should have allowed Palastinians to emigrate into their countries, giving them a home and defusing the situation. But it was better politically for them to create a dependent race of beggars, so that they could hide their own shortcomings with hate for Israel.

I find the original essay interesting, because it implies a solution: Palastinians should simply move to Jordan, a country of which I suspect has plenty of wide-open spaces. Ironically enough, it's not nearly as nice a place as Israel, which makes this Palastinian insistance on their own state puzzling to say the least.

I sympathise with Sharon; he says the violence has to stop, and then we work towards peace. Some, including The Economist, say that this is not possible. I say it's the only way forward. If you feel threatened, you're not going to be comfortable with giving up any of your territory, and it makes no sense for you to do so. So at the moment, I find myself definitely in the Israeli camp.

But perhaps I've missed something?

D

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.