Why I accept that there is now a Palestinian Arab People

But I do not understand why they want to call themselves by a name that symbolizes defeat and elimination from the land.

From the time of the Oslo Accords, we have a new People — the Palestinian Arab People. While most pro-Israelis deny the existence of such, I have come to accept it. Questions remain and I want to explore this.

Firstly, there is no way to know how resilient that People would be should they manage to vanquish Israel — more about this in the final section of this article.

Prior to their acceptance of a Palestinian identity

In the 1980s, former Arab Member of Knesset Azmi Bishara (for one) said there is no such thing as a Palestinian Arab People. Israeli Arabs agreed with him and referring to themselves as Palestinian-Israelis is a recent phenomenon.

Let us see what Bishara said on Israel television to the entire population. It was before multichannel offerings so one can guess that a large percentage of the Israeli population saw it back then.

My translation of what he said:

I do not think there is such a thing as a Palestinian nation. I think there is an Arab nation. I always felt that way and I did not change my mind. I do not think there is a Palestinian nation. It is a colonialist invention - Palestinian nation. When were there any Palestinians? Where did they come from? I think there is an Arab nation. In spite of my clear struggle against the occupation, I am not a Palestinian nationalist. I think that, until the end of the 19th century, Palestine was part of Greater Syria.

First, Let's Put the Issue of "Nations" Into a Global Historical Perspective

The contemporary divisions of nations and countries is a modern invention. It was always a very fluid phenomenon and probably will remain relatively fluid for the foreseeable future. Not one country can claim to exist in the same form throughout all of human history, recorded or otherwise.

Innumerable examples can be given for belligerent modification of national boundaries and division of larger countries into smaller independent states along ethnic lines, such as the former Yugoslavia, as shown in the diagram below. In this case, the international borders external to the former Yugslavia remained unchanged through all of this.

Even more interesting is the fact that, throughout history, peoples have arisen and peoples have disappeared. Keep that little point in mind.

Image credit: Original by Hoshie; derivative by DIREKTOR

The Middle East in Historical Context

When I examine what has happened in my own part of the world, I see a land marked by waves of migrations into and out of the area depending on droughts, productive growing seasons, desire for control over routes between Europe and Asia in both directions, etc. Imperialists and colonialists came from Greece, Rome, and Saudi Arabia — all set on conquering and gaining power, influence, riches far from their lands of origin.

The latest conquest, the Arab Conquest in the 600s-700s, led to many indigenous tribal peoples across the Middle East and North Africa being forced to convert to Islam thereby losing their vibrant and unique spiritualities and traditions, and in some cases their languages. Those who now call themselves Palestinians were either part of the colonializing Arabs or they were forced converts from Judaism and Christianity who became interwoven seamlessly within the fabric of Arab conquerer-colonial society.

In the first half of the last century, nationalism was an unacceptable Christian European implant into this region, and pan-Islamic identity was the more pervasive attitude. With time, national identities grew and Moslems began to acknowledge the borders and the new country names that defined them.

Cynical Use of the Name Palestine

By calling their mandated territory ‘Palestine,’ Britain simply used the name given to this area by the Romans, who themselves adopted the Greek term for the Philistines (an Aegean people who settled along the southern coast and who were sworn enemies of the Jews) in order to separate the land from any association with its Jewish history. And now, history repeats itself: if “the” Palestinians are supposedly the Arabs, then this facilitates the promotion of the hateful lie that Israel stole this land from its supposedly rightful indigenous population and has no claim to sovereignty.

Like many other Israelis, I personally know Palestinian Jews who can trace their history on the Land of Israel back hundreds of years. And, in fact, the name ‘Palestinians’ originally referred mainly to the Jews here.

Strangely, to be recognized by the UN as "Palestinian” refugees they only needed to have been resident in Mandatory Palestine from 1946. That does not seem to imply any faith in the myth of their having had any long-term indigenous status.

Palestinians Now Regard Themselves as a Separate People

Even if the Arabs in this region never before considered themselves a nation separate from the pan-Arab nation, it has little salience to the resolution of our conflict today because they now do. Those who fled from the land in 1948 were kept apart, not (re)absorbed into any other Arab nation — in Lebanon, for example, they were/are forced to live in refugee camps, not allowed to study in universities or work in professions. Similarly, in Jordan, Gazan refugees were never given citizenship and many other Palestinian citizens are finding their citizenship randomly revoked without warning. In any case, Palestinian Jordanians need not apply for jobs in government or the military; they will not be accepted.

The name ‘Palestinian’ has come to be fallaciously associated with Arabs. This deceit cements the contemptuous rewriting of history of which we Jews are only too familiar (for example Holocaust denial and now Oct 7th denial).

I propose that one major obstacle to a peaceful resolution to the conflict lies in the lie of calling the Arabs ‘Palestinians.’

Furthermore, I believe that at some time there will be those who ask why proud Arabs chose a name that stands for defeat and elimination from the land, i.e., the ancient Philistines. I have, in fact, asked this question of some Palestinian Arabs and I am still waiting for an answer.

I am afraid that by allowing themselves to be called “The” Palestinians, they are basing their growing national identity on nothing more than:

1. rejection of and hatred toward the Jews; and
2. exploitation by other Arabs who used them as pawns in their war against the Jews.

Rather than a name that celebrates their own culture, whether this distinguishes them from Arabs in other countries or not, they have adopted a name that represents victimhood. And they seem to be living up to that name most ‘admirably’.

If this comprises their defining experience as a new people, will they ever really feel free to make peace with their Israeli neighbours? Furthermore, is this a healthy basis for the foundation of a proud new nation? How will they justify this when they teach their school children about their history decades into the future?

To build the kind of society that their kids deserve, those who now call themselves Palestinians must be able to imagine a prosperous society in which education, good jobs, raising healthy children are their dreams. Such dreams will appear when adults stop seeing in their mind’s eye only the ashes of the society they seek to destroy.

Finally,

If, God forbid, the Arabs did succeed in destroying Israel, what would remain of the Palestinian identity that coalesced around the idea of destroying the Jewish state?

Without Israel, would the Palestinian Authority turn into the ‘State of Palestine’ they try to convince the world already exists? In other words, would it persist as a distinct political unit?

Or would it merge with Syria as they have always claimed to be the southern part of that country?

Or would the neighbouring states, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan, each take bites out of the land and either peacefully or in war divvy it up among them?

In other words, would the demise of Israel mean the demise of ‘Palestine?’ What would pro-Palestinians on foreign campuses and in the streets of the western world do then for entertainment? I really want to know. (But I don’t want Israel to disappear in order to find out.)

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