What exactly does this word mean? Is a Palestinian a tribe, a religion, a nationality, or just a group of people who really don’t like Jews? Assuming we can define just what a Jew is with any accuracy, which admittedly is just as difficult.
If Palestinians are a tribe then they are little different from Jordanians, Syrians, Negevians, or inhabitants of Sinai since there is no geographic boundary that separates these tribes, all being interrelated. If Palestinians are a religion, then how does one explain the presence of Christians among them, n how can one distinguish Palestinian Muslims from non-Palestinian Muslims? If Palestinians are a nation, then how does one distinguish its boundaries? All nations have boundaries, so where are the boundaries of the Nation of Palestine, which has never existed as a separate political entity in the history of the world?
The word Palestine was created by the Romans as a way of extinguishing any connection between stiff-necked, rebellious Jews n the lands of Galilee, Samaria, n Judea. Jews who survived the Rebellion of Bar Kochba were mostly exiled to Persia n Egypt, or scattered throughout the Roman Empire. The Romans invented the term Palestine to remind Jews that Judea n the surrounding areas were no longer theirs, deriving the name from the ancient Philistines who were more Greek than Jew.
A long time ago. Ever since about 135 CE when Bar Kochba was crushed, the newly created Roman Province of Palestine included modern Jordan, parts of modern Syria, n southern Lebanon. A temple to Jupiter, the Roman chief god, was (re)erected on the former Jewish Temple Mount where the Jewish Temple to Yahweh had been. This remained the situation for 200 years when the Emperor Constantine removed what remained of the long neglected Temple to Jupiter. 300 more years passed, a total of 500 years with nary a Jew in sight of Jerusalem. Then Muslims appeared n built the current Dome of the Rock (most of the original is long gone, rebuilt many times since).
In 1516 the Ottomans moved in n for 500 more years, the Ottoman Turks ran the place, still hardly a Jew to be found except for a few thousand who were content to be obedient dhimmis to the ruling Muslims. When Jewish immigration resulted in the modern state of Israel, not only was there no state of Palestine, there was not even a glimmer of interest in such a state among the Arabs who lived in what had been the Ottoman Levant. Nationalism was a totally foreign concept that only crazy Europeans embraced. The prevailing political concept in the Ottoman Levant was a Muslim Caliphate, as was true throughout the entire Islamic world, with no notion of ethnic solidarity.
Only when the Ottoman Caliphate vanished in 1924, n when the Jews succeeded in establishing Israel in 1948, did the Arabs who lived in the southern Levant suddenly find themselves refugees in Sinai, Jordan, Syria, n Lebanon n began to wonder just what their identity was. All these areas were ruled by tribal entities that had no interest in taking on the problems of over 700,000 Arab refugees, just as Saudi Arabia, despite its vast area, has no interest today in taking on the problems of a ‘foreign’ Arab tribal confederation that calls itself Palestinian.
The most curious wrinkle in the whole Palestinian question is that Palestinians insist on defining ‘their’ Palestine along the exact same borders as modern Israel. IOW, the prevailing definition of a Palestinian is merely an inverse of Israel. If one takes the geographic state of Israel n changes the color from red to blue, there you have it – Palestine! Yet no previous geographic designation of Palestine ever coincided with the modern boundaries of the state of Israel. As for tribal confederations, a majority of the state of Jordan is as Palestinian as any Palestinian who hails from what is now Israel. Israelis have a point when they claim that the Palestinians already have a state, n that state is called Jordan.
This is not to take sides. IMHO the establishment of Israel was a serious error n the Jews who immigrated from Europe were better off staying in Europe. But one can’t hold back the tide of history n once nationalism came to the Mid-East, it was certain to infect everyone, something the Jewish immigrants failed to understand. Once Israel achieved nationhood, 90% of all Jews still residing in the various Arab states n Iran were immediately thrown out n these Jewish refugees, amounting to 850,000 people, went to Israel where they became the Likud Party, n those who stayed behind in the Arab countries n in Iran went underground n became Israel’s potent fifth-column of Mossad spies whose effectiveness the world just witnessed in the latest Mid-East war.
Again, Israelis say they didn’t just throw Arabs out, but that both sides implemented an involuntary population exchange much like India separating from Pakistan, which also happened in 1948. But of course the irony is that it was Israel that introduced ethnic nationalism into the Mid-East yet were surprised to see that even backward Muslim Arabs could refashion themselves into a modern national entity in this ‘land without a people’, n one with aspirations similar to those that European Jews entertained for so many years when they felt exiled, n just as Jews asserted that they needed their own state because no European state would take them in, Palestinians now make the same assertion that they need their own state because no Arab state will take them in.
The most puzzling definition of a Palestinian, however, is the latest: American leftists n so-called Progressives, Feminists, n gays who are now claiming to be ‘Palestinian’, clearly not understanding that 99% of Palestinians are Muslim n that the religion of Islam is 100% incompatible with Leftism, Progressivism, Feminism, or Gay-ism. So have we arrived at the last enumerated definition? That today’s Palestinians are little more than a coalition of people who Really Don’t Like Jews?
