>>In the American context being an “invented people” isn’t a problem.<<
He is talking about Palis and not Americans.
Thay are a problem and their “We have been here forever” deal is what is nutty.
The "national narrative" the Palestinians would like to have simply did not happen. On the other hand, that does not mean their ancestors didn't live there ~ just that it didn't count once the Turks were done with them.
African Americans have a comparable problem. We have no doubt they had some ancestors who lived in Africa ~ and they had names, a culture, governmental systems, heroes, famous people, and even agricultural geniuses as adept at breeding new plants as anyone on Earth.
European slavery destroyed all that and took them to America. It was centuries before they emerged as a new people with new names, a new culture, governmental systems, heroes, geniuses, famous people ~ and we all know that history.
I watched them INVENT THEMSELVES in the American fashion in the 1950s and 1960s. As a child I participated in that when my grandmother made sure we gave our seats in the front of the bus to black ladies so we could stand in the back with "the colored people" and dare the bus driver to have us arrested.
There'd been all sorts of history up to that point, with rights, property assignments, cultural values and segregation laws but my grandmother didn't care. She saw the black people reinventing themselves as new men and women and she saw that was a good idea for the white people as well.
This goes on all the time here. Palestinians will never be taken seriously until they can understand how WE think in America.
>> “Thay are a problem and their “We have been here forever” deal is what is nutty.” <<
.
Where they have been for 4000 years is in what is now known as southern Jordan. They are a remnant, partially bred, of “Edom.”