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The History and Meaning of "Palestine" and "Palestinians"
Tzemach Organization ^ | 04/05/2002 | oswegodeee

Posted on 04/05/2002 3:31:40 PM PST by oswegodeee

The History and Meaning of "Palestine" and "Palestinians"

Presented by: A Time To Speak (speak@actcom.co.il) "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.

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The Philistines were not Arabs, they were not Semites. They had no connection ... with Arabia or Arabs.

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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.

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Israel-Judah-Judea has the only united, independent, sovereign nation-state that ever existed in "Palestine" west of the Jordan River.

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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

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Their [the Jews] labors created newer and better conditions and opportunities

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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 protégé 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.

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Jews who might have developed the empty lands of 'Palestine' ... instead died in the gas chambers of Europe

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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.

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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.

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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.]

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TOPICS: Israel
KEYWORDS: historylist; israel; palestine
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This is very interesting information..
1 posted on 04/05/2002 3:31:40 PM PST by oswegodeee
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To: oswegodeee
Very nice.
2 posted on 04/05/2002 3:41:47 PM PST by Maelstrom
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To: oswegodeee
The Arabs, who had no name of their own for this region, adopted the Greco-Roman name Palastina, that they pronounced "Falastin".

There is no "p" sound in Arabic---hence foreign language words imported into Arabic have to substitute either "b" (as in "Boutros" for Greek "Petros" or "Peter"), or "f" as in "Falastin" for Palestine.

A very good article indeed---full of useful and incontestable historical facts about the artificial land of "Palestine" and its make-believe people, the "Palestinians."

3 posted on 04/05/2002 3:42:07 PM PST by Map Kernow
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To: *History_list

4 posted on 04/05/2002 3:44:28 PM PST by Libertarianize the GOP
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To: oswegodeee
Great post, oswegodee. A MUST read for every freeper. This article really added to my understanding of the area's background.

Confucias Leni say, "People who don't read history, BECOME history!"

Leni

5 posted on 04/05/2002 3:45:35 PM PST by MinuteGal
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To: oswegodeee
Thank you for this post.
6 posted on 04/05/2002 3:50:50 PM PST by LurkerNoMore!
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To: oswegodeee
No kidding! Fascinating. Thanks for the post. It clarifies much of what makes the Palestinian question so difficult for Western nations to grapple with.
7 posted on 04/05/2002 3:55:52 PM PST by fire and forget
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To: fire and forget
Bump!
8 posted on 04/05/2002 3:56:36 PM PST by fire and forget
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To: fire and forget
Bookmarked and a Richter-scale bump!
9 posted on 04/05/2002 3:59:40 PM PST by rdb3
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To: oswegodeee
Nicely done, newbie...and welcome. I love history.

Great post--thank you.

10 posted on 04/05/2002 4:00:35 PM PST by Pharmboy
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To: oswegodeee
What land that was owned by Arabs was purchased by Jews at inflated prices, it is their land, it always has been their land and always will be. The Jews are not occupiers and never have been, the international community has no business sticking it's nose into Jewish affairs.

No matter what insanity might prevail to allow these vagabonds that call themselves Palestinians to establish a terrorist state, it will never be enough, and has never been their aim. Their aim is destruction of Israel, and the bannishment of the Jewish population. The international community ruined South Africa, by muddling in the affairs of the founders of that civilization that became overrun with migrants living off the need of the populace for cheap labor, much like is happening in the SW United States at the present time and is happening in Israel and has happened in the Balkins.

I destest the attitude that the capable must make way for the third world to take over their honest hard work and bring it back to a wasteland as seen in Afghanistan, when these people are so much easier to kill than to deal with.

11 posted on 04/05/2002 4:00:51 PM PST by MissAmericanPie
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To: oswegodeee
As interesting as it might be, it is fair to appreciate that Egypt had no native born ethnic Egyptian ruler for aobut 2.5 millenia.

Then, too, virtually 100% of all the Arab and Jewish occupied areas in the Middle East were part of the various and successive Turkish empires for about 90% of a millenium.

It would be ridiculous to say that the Egyptians, the Arabs and the Jews didn't really exist because of these events.

Unfortunately, the article posted here comes to that conclusion with respect to the Palestinians.

It's time to give it up folks. Living human beings do not cease to be living human beings because someone else is able to misarrange words on a piece of paper.

12 posted on 04/05/2002 4:01:56 PM PST by muawiyah
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To: JediGirl
Ping.
13 posted on 04/05/2002 4:03:03 PM PST by geaux
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To: muawiyah
As interesting as it might be, it is fair to appreciate that Egypt had no native born ethnic Egyptian ruler for aobut 2.5 millenia.This does not diminish the fact that the land of Egypt is and has been the homeland of the Egyptians by any objective criteria. American presidents have come from a variety of ethnicities. That doesn't mean that the land became the homeland of different folks with every successive presidency.
14 posted on 04/05/2002 4:25:30 PM PST by fire and forget
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To: fire and forget
The article does, however, do exactly all those things.
15 posted on 04/05/2002 4:27:47 PM PST by muawiyah
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To: oswegodeee
All this article shows is that the Palestinians did not develop a sense of national identity until recently and that it shares a language with other nations. Can someone explain to me why these facts are significant? The implication seems to be that Palesetine is less than a nation because of these facts, but I do not see how this conclusion follows.

Italian nationalism did not develop until the 19th century, and there was no independent political entity called Italy until then, yet Italy, even at its birth, was no less a nation than France, which had had its sense of national identity since the middle ages. There is no language called "Austrian," yet Austria is very much a distinct nation from Germany.

But I do grant the author of this article one thing: he is a good sophist.

16 posted on 04/05/2002 4:39:09 PM PST by traditionalist
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To: muawiyah
Unfortunately, the article posted here comes to that conclusion with respect to the Palestinians.

The article does not come to that conclusion. The article only points out that there is no traditional "Palestinian" state or culture. You mentioned the Egyptians not having a native-born leader for many years, but that fact did not change the fact that Egypt had a distinct land and culture. You mentioned that the Turkish empires controlled much of the Middle East for many years, but you don't tell what point this fact is supposed to support. The article says that while the Ottoman Empire controlled the land, no one actually lived in what people are trying to call "Palestine."

The conclusion of the article is that this land was uninhabited wasteland until the beginning of the last century. When the Arabs heard that it was to be given to the Jews, they moved there first to keep the Jews from having it. While I feel sorry for the descendants of the people who moved for such spiteful reasons, the notion that they have a traditional attachment to the land is silly. To the extent that they share the "don't give the Jews a place to live" attitude of their parents, they certainly don't have any moral claim on any land.

If you can refute the content of this article, you will have a point. As it is, your post doesn't seem to add much light to the subject.

WFTR
Bill

17 posted on 04/05/2002 4:40:48 PM PST by WFTR
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To: MissAmericanPie
What land that was owned by Arabs was purchased by Jews at inflated prices,

So the Jews bought all the land west of the Jordan? Are you seriously asserting that all the Arabs living there now are renters?

Are you seriously asserting that Jews own all the land in Palestinian cities such as Bethlehem or Jerico? I'm sure that's news to the people who live there.

it is their land, it always has been their land and always will be.

If it was always their land, why did they have to buy it, as you claim?

18 posted on 04/05/2002 4:47:02 PM PST by traditionalist
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To: WFTR
The conclusion of the article is that this land was uninhabited wasteland until the beginning of the last century.

Before the British took over Palestine and began the process of colonizing it with Jews, there were approximately 700,000 inhabitants, a tiny poriton of whom were Jews. I must say that your usage of the word uninhabbited is quite unconventional.

19 posted on 04/05/2002 4:52:18 PM PST by traditionalist
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To: traditionalist
All this article shows is that the Palestinians did not develop a sense of national identity until recently and that it shares a language with other nations. Can someone explain to me why these facts are significant? The implication seems to be that Palesetine is less than a nation because of these facts, but I do not see how this conclusion follows.

The significance is that today, the Palestinians (and the arab states in general) are peddling the myth that there used to be a "Palestinian" nation and homeland, and that the Israelis stole it. This myth is at the base of all arguments that the Israelis are "occupying" territory that allegedly rightly belongs to the Palestinians. It's why the arab world is so rabidly adamant about throwing out those nasty Israelis (or outright killing them all) and "retaking" the territory, as if it rightly belongs to the Palestinians.

No one's denying that the Palestinians have a national identity *now*, or that they'd like to establish their own nation somewhere. But the point is that what they can rightly do about those feelings depends heavily upon whether they have a historic "rightful" homeland, or whether they need to go off and find some land that isn't already someone *else's* homeland (e.g., Israel).

20 posted on 04/05/2002 4:56:18 PM PST by Dan Day
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