Quote of Note: PLO Leader Zahir Muhsein

Michael L.

{Cross-Posted at Jews Down Under.}

Zahir Muhsein told the following to the Dutch newspaper Trouw in a 1977 interview:

The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct 'Palestinian people' to oppose Zionism for tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa. While as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.

The fact of the matter is that "Palestinian" is neither an ethnicity, nor a nationality.  Palestine was never an Arab-Muslim country, but merely a region within the greater Ottoman Empire.

More and more I am convinced that the biggest mistake that Israel ever made was in acknowledging the "Palestinians" as a separate and distinct people.  They aren't.  They are a small part of the much larger Arab-Muslim nation that controls well over 99 percent of the Middle East, the landmass that they conquered following the death of Muhammad in the 7th century.

The Arab conquerors of that part of the world placed Christians and Jews into positions of submission as "protected" peoples and kept us that way from the 7th until the 20th centuries.  The alleged emergence of a brand-spanking new people, the so-called "Palestinians," came about not out of any genuine national aspirations, but in order to present a competing claim to the 3,500 year old historical Jewish homeland.  This emergence of the so-called "Palestinians" was not an organic process, but derived from conscious political decisions from PLO and Soviet leadership.

According to Mr. Muhsein, "the Palestinian people does not exist."

Who are we to argue?

Nonetheless, if the very point of "Palestinian" people-hood was something other then trying to rob the Jewish people of our homeland after persecuting us for 13 centuries, I would be more than happy to welcome them into the greater family of nations.  However, since the "Palestinians" only emerged as a group for the purpose of doing the Jewish people terrible harm, within living memory of the Holocaust, I see no reason whatsoever in acknowledging them as a distinct ethnicity or nation, particularly given the fact that they are not a distinct ethnicity or nation.  Nations do not come into existence for the sole purpose of destroying other nations and even if they sometimes did, those whom they seek to destroy are under no moral or ethical obligation to assist them by recognizing them.

Israel should cease undermining its own well-being by dealing with these people.  Mahmoud Abbas should be entirely persona non grata, as should the PLO, Fatah, and the Palestinian Authority.

Hamas, on the other hand, should be destroyed by any means necessary.

We have absolutely got to awaken to the fact that there will be no negotiated conclusion of hostilities for the very simple reason that this is not what the "Palestinians" want.  If they had wanted peace with a state of their own they could have had one many decades ago, but they refused every single offer since 1937.  This can only mean that statehood in peace next to Israel is not the goal.

The goal, of course, is the elimination of the State of Israel and returning the Jews to their traditional role as an abused minority under Arab-Muslim domination.

That's the goal and we need to stop pretending otherwise.