Let’s move beyond “There is no such thing as a ‘Palestinian people.’”

All that gets us is a “yes, we are” / ”no, you are not” argument that goes nowhere.

Given some responses to my article on this topic yesterday, I decided to restate my point in a different way. So consider this Part II of “Why I accept that there is now a Palestinian Arab People.”

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Whenever anyone discusses “the Palestinians” you will always get responses saying there is no such thing, they are a fiction created only to destroy Israel, as if, by saying that, the problem with those who now call themselves Palestinians is soundly taken care of. That’s it! They are dismissed. All gone!

But all that gets us is a “yes, we are” / ”no, you are not” argument that goes nowhere.

So let us take another tack.

Just like we Jews do not allow non-Jews to define us, I will not tell these people who now call themselves Palestinians what they are and who they are. But their stance in defining themselves as “the Palestinian people” has consequences for them which I will discuss in this essay.

First, let us remember that throughout history peoples have arisen and peoples have disappeared. Where are the Hittites? Where are the Edomites? Where are the Incas? And there are so many more that have come and gone.

We learn about the cultures of those who disappeared by what they left behind to be discovered by archaeologists: city ruins, temples, coins, sculptures, writing whether that is on walls of caves, on clay tablets, on papyrus, etc. Anything that could survive the ravages of time and the elements. Therefore, there were probably other peoples who disappeared without a trace because they apparently created nothing that could leave a trace.

Are the Palestinians another ‘people’ who will come and go in march of history? Will they occupy a page or perhaps a chapter in a future book of the history of the Middle East? If so, what evidence of their presence will they leave behind?

Or will they do something so remarkably uncharacteristic that it will ensure that they emboss themselves permanently on the land and in history?

It is totally up to them.

So let us say that the Palestinians are a people.

It is true that they do not have a distinct language – they speak Arabic. But then, Jordanians, Lebanese, Egyptians, Iraqis all speak Arabic and are, today, distinct peoples with their own characteristics. One could easily point out that before 1946, there was no Jordanian People. So the fact that the Palestinians may have existed as a people from 1948, 1964 (when the PLO was founded), 1967, -- to be generous -- or 1993 – to be more realistic -- is irrelevant. What is relevant is how they conduct themselves as a people.

“What have the Palestinians created (except for suicide bombers)?” you might ask.

I have watched Palestinian, Lebanese and Jordanian films. For this essay, I looked up websites describing works of fiction and works of art produced by Palestinians.

The Palestinian films, novels, and works of art are almost, if not totally, exclusively related to the nakba of 1948, Israeli occupation since 1967, Israeli security checkposts, Israeli oppression, and arrests. One can say that bashing Israel seems to be the one and only point behind their works of art and anything else – romance, family relations, jobs – are only the backdrop against which to bash Israel.

I think it would be instructive to compare Palestinian works of art with those produced by other peoples under occupation but this is beyond my expertise.

According to lists I find on the Internet for films and novels from other Arab countries, there are, of course, those that concern the conflict with Israel but most do not. And those that do relate to Israel seem to put the subject into wider regional and historical contexts. One can hardly say that they hate us any less than the Palestinians, but they do not define themselves with respect to us. They have much to write about, much to represent in artwork that is unrelated to their relations with the Jews and Israel. And when Syrian civil war films dealt with romance, for example, the romance was foreground and the war background. You might argue that that is because they are sovereign nations and the PA is not.

Sobeit.

So the question remains…can Palestinians move beyond their core experience and define themselves in terms of uniqueness and not in terms of anti-Israelness?

What follows declaring Palestinian peoplehood?

If the definition of their peoplehood is destruction of the Jewish state, well, good luck to them.

If they allow themselves to be called by the name of a people who no longer exist and who were eliminated off the face of the earth – the Philistines -- well, maybe that is their destiny as well. Not my concern. But it should be theirs.

I want to change the conversation from just saying there is no such thing as Palestinians to discussing the choice before them, something like:

Okay, you are a Palestinian people (with a humiliating name and thus far with the sole goal of killing Jews). This means that you will be constantly at war against Israel because such a self-definition of peoplehood leaves no room for negotiation with us.

You can choose to continue trying to kill us off or you can choose to do something radically different: you can choose to put aside the goal of getting rid of us and decide you prefer to offer your children a life that does not set martyrdom as a highest goal.

Your choice: oblivion or life? Reach an agreement with us that we can all LIVE with or go back to the Arab states from whence many of you came or convince them to absorb you as citizens -- where you can live full lives. Or risk dying fighting us.

I want to get out of the habit of letting them get away with being our victims that arguing over “Palestinians: yes/no” perpetuates.

I want to see them with agency to self-define and to choose what kind of people they want to be .... or if they prefer the chance of not being at all.

WE are not responsible for THEIR choices. We are only responsible for how we respond to their behaviors.

Choose well, Palestinians. Your children and grandchildren depend on you.

p.s. In order to eliminate any chance of misunderstanding — I do not expect them to take the rational, the life-saving route. I expect them to stay as they are, with their identity built on their wish to kill us. This may ensure that they join the dustbin of history along with other peoples who have been and gone. In that case, does it matter what they call themselves? Does it matter when their peoplehood first came into being? Nope. So let’s just focus on fighting the evil and not arguing with them over things that really won’t change the course of history.

Feature Image Credit: pixabay public domain photo by Hosney Salah.

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