Israel Matzav posted an interesting little chart which flows from Google Books Ngram Viewer.
The things we can learn!
Editor's note - the captions in yellow read as follows:
There is virtually no talk of a Palestinian people or a Palestinian state for almost 500 years prior to Israel taking the West Bank in self defense.
Talk of a "Palestinian state" and a "Palestinian people" suddenly emerged after Israel took the West bank in 1967 in self-defense. Why? - ML
A great find, Doodad! (And thanks to Carl in Jerusalem, of course.)
ReplyDeleteAccording to the book anti-Zionists love to hate, Joan Peters's From Time Immemorial, the faux-Palestinian narrative was born in the early 1950s, when Arab strategists reflected on their diplomatic defeat in the years 1946–7. (That was when the Jewish delegates managed to justify the creation of a Jewish state to the U.N.S.C.O.P. on the grounds that the Arab nation already had quite a few states while the Jews had none.)
I have often said that no publication prior to 1960 in the West mentions any non-Jewish "Palestinian nation." According to this diagram, no publication prior to 1967 did so. I assume that the years 1950–67 was when the faux-Palestinian narrative was incubated and sold to Soviet propagandists for elaborate myth-building. While the Six-Day War may have been used by Western Marxists as a justification to bring the faux-Palestinian narrative openly to the West, let us not forget that the end of the 1960s was that era, the Woodstock era, when Marxism started to get a foothold in Western Europe and the U.S.A., eventually leading up to the present situation of having driven the older Social-Democrat Left of FDR's legacy, the largely pro-Israel Left, to the margins.
A fake state for a fake people retelling a fake narrative. It far simpler than any notion of 'two state. Israel needs to do whatever it needs to do while turning its back completely, on the 'palestinians'. A so called 'two state' implies that that Arabs will someday agree to something, anything, that it will be some soft of event. It will not. But also does not mean that the lack of that necessitates no change at all. What Israel need do is simply proceed along their own axis, their own agenda and when they're done, they're done. The 'palestinians' are free to make of that whatever they like, carve out their own space however they see fit. If they ever do that then they are free to declare that other state, or not. After all Israel can't determine for the Arabs what their 'state' is going to look like, how it will function, what kind of civil society it's going to be. That's what this purported 'self determination' is at its core - SELF determination.
DeleteThink of it this way - The Arabs who call themselves 'palestinians' have a long history of being cut loose and abandoned - by the Ottomans, by Egypt, by Jordan, by each other and themselves. Israel needs to cut them loose.
For those of you who may have had a hard time reading the captions in yellow, they say this:
ReplyDeleteThere is virtually no talk of a Palestinian people or a Palestinian state for almost 500 years prior to Israel taking the West Bank in self defense.
Talk of a "Palestinian state" and a "Palestinian people" suddenly emerged after Israel took the West bank in 1967 in self-defense. Why?
I suppose one question to ask is this:
Is historical reality inherently racist?
The "Palestinian people" are a people who came into being specifically for the purpose of destroying Jewish self-reliance and autonomy on historically Jewish land.
The fact of the matter is that the Arabs who live in Israel come from all over the Middle East.
"Palestinian" is, therefore, not a separate ethnicity.
It simply is not.
I understand that we want to be as open and accepting as possible, but I fail to understand how we are under any moral obligation to accept the existence of a fake ethnicity that came into being for the specific purpose of harassing the most harassed people in recorded history.
And if you want to bookend that with what the Arabs actually said and did you can go all the way back to Sykes-Picot and the Ballfour agreement and the post WW1 dissolution of the Ottoman empire and Britains installation of Faisal as the king of the Arabs and read in unambiguous terms that the Arabs, will never suffer to have a single Jew living among them, they will never submit to the dhimmi.
ReplyDeleteSource - Edwin Black, "The Farhud"
That graphic's definitely a keeper...
ReplyDeleteWhere did the term Palestinian come from?
ReplyDelete**PALESTINE** was created by the Soviet disinformation masters in 1964 when they created the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, the "PLO".
The term "Palestinian People" as a descriptive of Arabs in Palestine appeared for the first time in the preamble of the 1964 PLO Charter, drafted in Moscow. The Charter was affirmed by the first 422 members of the Palestinian National Council, handpicked by the KGB.
A well-known Arab is quoted as saying.
“Why is it that on June 4th 1967 I was a Jordanian and overnight I became a Palestinian?”
“We did not particularly mind Jordanian rule. The teaching of the destruction of Israel was a definite part of the curriculum, but we considered ourselves Jordanian until the Jews returned to Jerusalem. Then all of the sudden we were Palestinians - they removed the star from the Jordanian flag and all at once we had a Palestinian flag”.
Though this is factual and should matter, some that discover it will not care, so invested in their crusade against Israel and the West.
DeleteInformation like this, however, can help open minded people see yet another example of dissembling to manipulate, mislead and create a false and mistaken perception.
It would also be helpful to provide citations if available.
Shirl,
Delete"**PALESTINE** was created by the Soviet disinformation masters in 1964 when they created the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, the 'PLO'."
You mention the year 1964, that definitely rings a bell: That was indeed when Ahmed Shukeiri created the PLO. I don't know how much the Soviets were involved initially, but they took it to heart quickly enough, culminating in the infamous U.N. "Zionism = racism" decision in 1975.
And it was three years before the Six-Day War. So much for the idea held by Israeli Jewish peaceniks that all Israel has to do is give up the post-1967 territories and everything will be hunky-dory. Anyhow, in this year 2013 the view of Israel's very creation in 1947 as the "Original Sin" is moving to the mainstream. As soon as Jim Baker (Bush the Elder's Sec. of State) pushed the "Right of Return" in his Iraq Study Group report, that was the signal for all the annihilationists to start making their views public (although Helen Thomas made the mistake of being too blatantly honest; but give it time).
The narrative about 1882 and 1947 is where the fight is now.
This is an interesting conversation, but the next question, necessarily, is are we under any meaningful obligation to recognize an Arab "Palestinian" people?
ReplyDeleteFrom the middle of the 19th century until the middle of the 20th century, if not earlier, "Palestinian" generally meant Jewish, which is why, for example, the Jerusalem Post was known as the Palestine Post.
What I recommend is giving up the terms "Palestine" or "Palestinian" entirely.
I try my best not to use these words at all.
"Palestinian" refers to the Philistines who were Greek islander competitors with the Jews during the Iron Age. The Philistines are long gone and the "Palestinians" are not the Philistines.
The Philistines had nothing whatsoever to do with contemporary Arabs who have robbed them of their name. The people we tend to call "Palestinians" have nothing to do with the Philistines from a cultural or ethnic or historical viewpoint.
I therefore take it that the general consensus of this group is that the "Palestinians" do not exist as a distinct ethnicity.
If that is the case - and I think that it is - perhaps we should stop using the term and simply refer to the local Arabs as local Arabs.
One thing is certain. The conflict is not between Israelis and "Palestinians" but between Jews and Arabs.
That is probably the most accurate description, thus I think that we should use it.
It is the Arab-Israel conflict.
Or the the Arab-Jewish conflict.
Or, perhaps, even the Muslim-Jewish conflict.
What it is not is the "Israel-Palestinian" conflict because the conflict, itself, far exceeds just Israeli Jews and local Arabs.
What the conflict really is, is the oppression of the tiny Jewish minority by the great Arab majority, just as it has always been for fourteen hundred years.
The main difference between now and then is the IDF.
And G-d bless the IDF.
Agreed on naming the conflict.
DeleteAs for the Arabs who live in the territories, I would certainly look more favorably upon granting them whatever name they choose for themselves, were it not for the fact that it sure does seem to be that a major component of their 'identity' is support for, and action toward, the destruction of another people's (i.e. - the Jews) state.
And like clockwork...
Delete"Code Red" warning sirens sounded in Ashkelon and surrounding areas early Wednesday morning, an IDF spokesperson confirmed.
Shortly after the sirens went off, three rockets fell in open areas, possibly landing in Palestinian areas, Israel Radio reported.
No damage or injuries were reported.
The rocket fire broke a weeks-long period during which the Hamas regime in Gaza restrained elements in the coastal enclave, bringing about quiet. Since Operation Pillar of Defense in November, there have been few incidents of rocket fire.
This shit needs to end. Now.
While meanwhile, 'progressives' at Daily Kos are calling for 'misery to be inflicted on Israel' in the form of terror attacks and / or a foreign military invasion.
DeleteTalk about a keyboard warrior.
Racist calls to violence are apparently acceptable at that place, now that they've gotten rid of us troublemakers and all...
Mike,
Delete"From the middle of the 19th century until the middle of the 20th century, if not earlier, 'Palestinian' generally meant Jewish,..."
Immanuel Kant, in the 18th century, refers to the Jews of the Holy Roman Empire (Germany) as "the Palestinians among us." The 1917 JPS translation of the Tanakh to English says that "the Palestinian rabbis" were not happy about the Septuagint (Greek translation of the Tanakh). Clearly, the term has been co-opted. And so:
"What I recommend is giving up the terms 'Palestine' or 'Palestinian' entirely."
I recommend taking the terms back. Arabs aren't Palestinians; Palestinian = Jew.
"It is the Arab-Israel conflict. Or the the Arab-Jewish conflict."
Yep. That's how the Jewish delegates sold it to the U.N.S.C.O.P. and won. Because, under this view, standing against the Jewish state is unsupportable; it's like saying the Greeks in the 1820s were oppressing the Turks.
"Or, perhaps, even the Muslim-Jewish conflict."
In the sense that various nations that would otherwise have no reason to be part of this conflict, such as Turkey and Iran, are on board because of Islam.
"And G-d bless the IDF."
Amen!
Jay,
DeleteThe fact is, I call the Arabs in Palestine just "Arabs" for the same reason that I don't use the terms "Syrian" or "Iraqi" much either: Those decolonial entities just don't have the national cohesion to be given special names.
Even so, I agree with you that the problem with giving them a particular name is that the one they've chosen is in deliberate clash with the Jewish claim. I sometimes call them "Sudeten Arabs," to point out their similarity to the German irredentists in Czechoslovakia that Hitler so successfully employed to further his imperialist goals. Another name could be "Southern Syrians," which is what they were before Britain and France divided Greater Syria between themselves in 1920.
But I really don't see a reason to refer to them specially. Plus, calling them just Arabs emphasizes the truth that they're part of a nation that is in no shortage of land.
The DKos anti-Zionists don't change, do they? That comment is no different in spirit from Assaf's old post that prompted Mike to write a post titled "Contempt" back in the DailyKosWatch days—the view of Israeli Jews as moral pygmies who won't make a move for peace unless their convenience is threatened. (That tallies with my "Ease of Making Demands" post.)
Good catch, I've been lax in reading the DKos Israel-related threads lately, as they seem to have gone rather quiet in the past few weeks. In contrast, the flow of excrement on 972Mag and Mound o' Scheiss is relentless—the latter just asserted the story of Putin stealing an American official's ring has got to be because of Israel. Between them and Jonathan Cook's talk of "Israel stirring the pot in Syria" and Gilad Atzmon's piece about the Occupation as a human science lab, I don't know what the world needs Stormfront for.
The terms of discussion.
ReplyDeleteI am not going to be around much today, but I like where this conversation is going because it challenges the prevailing terms of discussion.
One of the biggest mistakes that we have made as people who care about the well-being of the Jews in the Middle East was in accepting the terms of discussion invented by those who would do them (and us) harm.
Breaking away from those terms will be difficult because they have been incorporated into the ways of thinking of the general population throughout the western world.
But that does not mean that it cannot be done.
It can be done and we are, in fact, in the process of doing so.
Terms like "Palestinian" and "West Bank" and "Israel-Palestine conflict" are central because they tend to favor the great Arab majority aggressors over the tiny Jewish minority defenders.
The Jews of the Middle East are already outnumbered by a factor of 60 or 70 to one, so why should we give the Arabs or the Muslims a rhetorical advantage as well?
As someone who comes out of the progressive-left this can be exceedingly difficult because we always tend to feel that if we are simply nice to others then they will be nice to us, but this not true.
Y'know, I distinctly remember as a teenager coming to the surprising (and somewhat horrifying) realization that sometimes when you are nice to people they will emphatically not be nice to you, and that sometimes when you are hard on people they will respond with considerably more appreciation and respect.
The Arab conquerors in the Middle East have no such compunctions. They stand up for themselves and stand against us even as we equivocate and navel-gaze.
I think that it is long past time for international Jewry to stand up for itself. Jews and friends of Jews and those who are favorable toward Israel must stand up now. We are moving into a whole new era which I tend to think of as "post Oslo" but I am sure that we can come up with better terminology.
The fact of the matter is that both truth and justice are on the side of the Jews of the Middle East, but we have to have the cajones to speak that truth (as Dan Bielak pleads for us to do) and to invoke that justice.
As I say, I am not going to be around much today, but I like where this conversation is going. Others will read what we say and call us nasty names. The reason for that is because we are doing precisely what we need to be doing, i.e., upending their apple-cart.
We are taking back the conversation and we will have it on our terms, not the terms of those who are exceedingly harsh toward the Jewish people and the Jewish state.
I say that we stand up.
Mike,
DeleteThe first step isn't even about convincing the world, it's about building our own self-confidence. Zionists have for too long been boxed in parameters that have them seeking "lightening circumstances" for Israel's "sins" (including Israel's very coming to be), instead of presenting our rightfulness from a point of confidence.
There is a deference to the Arabs, born of guilt feelings, that permeates the discourse once the narrative of "Zionist invaders dispossessing the indigenous Palestinians who had lived on the land for generations" is adopted. While non-Jewish Americans feel little to no guilt when answering their charges of dispossessing the American Indians thus: "We won, they lost—a pity, sure, but conquest is a part of human history"; Jews in contrast are heavily shaken by the thought that they might be oppressors and thieves. I believe it has to do with the idea that the Jews have an exemplary role in the implementation of justice—a generalization and secularization of the concept of Tikkun Olam that the anti-Zionists are only too adept in using for their purposes. This also explains why so many defenders of Israel persist in pursuing the line of showing how good and merciful and beneficial Israel is, how the Arabs are much better off in Israel than in their own states, despite the clear, constant evidence that it is the rightfulness of Israel's very being that is up for grabs.
I'm sorry to say it, but a lot of defenders of Israel sound like door-to-door salesmen. That's a definite downer when the other side attacks with fiery ideological appeals to justice. "Israel is the only country in the Mideast where gays are not executed" vs. "The Palestinians are fighting for freedom from the Zionist oppressor stealing their land"—which do you think is going to win? Not the one that appeals to reason and modernity, despite what people have been led to believe.
It's time to turn the tables on the anti-Zionists, but even before that, it's time Zionist Jews started truly thinking of themselves as the best contenders for this land. It's time for Jews to realize that, in the Land of Israel, we Jews out-Inca the Incas.