WHO ARE THE PALESTINIANS? WHAT & WHERE is PALESTINE?

WHO ARE THE PALESTINIANS?


WHAT & WHERE is PALESTINE?


Please Note: The terms B.C. (Before Christ or Before the Christian Era) and A.D.("Anno Domini" Latin for "In the Year of Our Lord") have been replaced with B.C.E (Before Common, or Christian, Era) and C.E. (Common, or Christian, Era) so as to respect all visitors to this site. The terms are interchangeable and both are based upon the Gregorian Calendar.


These and other questions will be addressed more fully as you go through this website. However, there is a preliminary historical fact that must be established now. There has never been a civilization or a nation referred to as "Palestine" and the very notion of a "Palestinian Arab nation" having ancient attachments to the Holy Land going back to time immemorial is one of the biggest hoaxes ever perpetrated upon the world! There is not, nor has there ever been, a distinct "Palestinian" culture or language. Further, there has never been a Palestinian state governed BY Arab Palestinians in history, nor was there ever a serious Arab-Palestinian national movement until 1964... three years BEFORE the Arabs of "Palestine" lost the West Bank [Judea and Samaria] and Gaza as a result of the 1967 Six-Day War (which the Arabs started). Even the so-called leader of the "Palestinian" people, Yasser Arafat, is EGYPTIAN! In short, the so-called Arab "Palestinians" are a manufactured people...a people with no history and no authenticity... whose sole purpose for existence is to destroy the Jewish State!


Israel first became a nation in 1312 B.C.E., two thousand years before the rise of Islam! Seven hundred and twenty-six years later in 586 B.C.E. these first ancient Jews in the Land of Israel [Judea] were overrun and Israel's First Jewish Temple (on Jerusalem's Old City Temple Mount) was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, king of ancient Babylon. Many of the Jews were killed or expelled; however many were allowed to remain. These Jews along with their progeny and other Jews who would resettle over the next 500 years, rebuilt the Nation of Israel and also a Second Temple in Jerusalem upon the Temple Mount. Thus the claim that Jews suddenly appeared fifty years ago right after the Holocaust and drove out the Arabs is preposterous!






Then in 70 C.E. (nearly 2000 years ago), it was the Roman Empire's turn to march through ancient Israel and destroy the SECOND Jewish Temple, slaughtering or driving out much of its Jewish population. Many Jews left on their own because conditions for life were made unbearable in many respects... yet thousands upon thousands stayed and rebelled on for centuries in order to once again rebuild a Jewish Nation in this Holy Land.


Over 3250 years, various Peoples, Religions and Empires marched through Jerusalem, Israel's ancient capital. The region was successively ruled by the Hebrews [Jews], Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Maccabeans, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Egyptians, the Crusaders, Mamelukes, the Turks (who indifferently governed the backward, neglected territory from the 16th century until the British drove them out during World War I) and then once again by the Jews in 1948. None bothered, nor were they in the least bit inclined, to build a Nation of their own... EXCEPT the Jews!


It must be noted that in 636 C.E., when the Arabs marauders came to the land and uprooted even more of its Jews, they did not form any Arab nation there... and certainly not a "Palestinian" nation. They were simply "Arabs" who, as did others before them, moved into a geo-political area called "Palestine!" And remember this one fact... it was not the Jews who "usurped" (a favorite word from the Arab propagandists) the land from the Arabs. If anything, it was the Arabs in 636 C.E. who overran and stole it from the Jews!


In Conclusion:


No nation, other than the ancient nation of Israel and later again in 1948 with the rebirth of the 2nd Nation of Israel, has ever ruled as a sovereign national entity on this land. A mighty Jewish empire extended over this entire area before the Arabs --- and their Islam --- were even born! The Jewish People have one of the most legitimate Birth Certificates of any nations in the world. Every time there is an archaeological dig in Israel, it does nothing but support the fact that the Jewish People have had a presence there for well over 3,000 years. The national coins, the pottery, the cities, the ancient Hebrew texts... all support this claim. Yes, other peoples have passed through, but there is no mistaking the fact that Jews have always had a continual presence in that land for over 3,000 years. This predates and certain dwarfs any claims that other peoples in the regions may have. The ancient Philistines are extinct. Many other ancient peoples are extinct. They do not have the unbroken line to this date that the Jews have. And if you want to talk religion, fine. G-d GAVE the Land of Israel to the Jewish People. And G-d does nothing by accident!


ANCIENT MAPS
The Kingdom of David and Solomon - 1077 - 997 BCE
Kingdom of Herod- 30 BCE to 70 CE
Jewish Communities in the Land of Israel -7th-11th Centuries


"PALESTINE?"


The term "Palestine" came from the name that the conquering Roman Empire gave the ancient Land of Israel in an attempt to obliterate and de-legitimize the Jewish presence in the Holy Land. The name "Palestine" was invented in the year 135 C.E. Before it was known as Judea, which was the southern kingdom of ancient Israel. The Roman Procurator in charge of the Judean-Israel territories was so angry at the Jews for revolting that he called for his historians and asked them who were the worst enemies of the Jews in their past history. The scribes said, "the Philistines." Thus, the Procurator declared that Land of Israel would from then forward be called "Philistia" [further bastardized into "Palaistina"] to dishonor the Jews and obliterate their history. Hence the name "Palestine."


One more thing. Very often one hears the revisionists and propagandists finding ancient historical links between the "Philistines" ("Invaders" in Hebrew) and the Arab "Palestinians." There is no truth to this claim! The Philistines were one of a number of Sea Peoples who reached the eastern Mediterranean region approximately 1250-1100 B.C.E. They were actually an amalgamation of various ethnic groups, primarily of Aegean and south-east European origin [Greece, Crete and Western Turkey] and they died out over 2500 years ago! Those Philistines were not Arab... and neither was Goliath! The Arabs of "Palestine" are just that... Arabs! And these Arabs of "Palestine" have about as much historical roots to the ancient Philistines as Yasser Arafat has to the Eskimos!


The ancient, indigenous inhabitants of Palestine are long perished from the earth. Canaanites, Phoencians, and then Philistines, all were dominated by the Israelites before 1060 B.C.E. Most of these cultural identities dissolved completely by the neo-Babylonian age, or, the 6th century B.C.E. Arabs weren’t even in Palestine until the mid-7th century C.E., over a thousand years later, after Palestine’s 1,300-year Jewish history. Arabs later living in Palestine never developed themselves or the land, but remained nomadic and quasi-primitive


Even the word "Palestine" has no meaning in Arabic - every word in Arabic has some meaning deriving from the Koran, but the word "Palestine" does not. If anything, the name "Palestine" was associated with Jews. In the years leading up to the rebirth of Israel in 1948, those who spoke of "Palestinians" were nearly always referring to the region's Jewish residents. For example, the "Palestine Post" [forerunner of today's Jerusalem Post] newspaper and the Palestine Symphony Orchestra were all-Jewish. The "Palestine Brigade Regiment" was composed exclusively of Jewish volunteers in the British World War II Army. In fact, Arab leaders rejected the notion of a unique "Palestinian Arab" identity, insisting that Palestine was merely a part of "Greater Syria."


THE RETURN TO ZION
A return through both time and space to their ancestral homeland


The Land of Israel was never devoid of Jews, although at times she numbered only in the tens of thousands. This was because the land was virtually uninhabitable when the Jews once again began their God-given right AND duty to return en masse to the land of their forefathers (the Zionist Movement) in the 1880s. The silly rhetoric about a massive Arab presence being overrun by "invading Jews" is quickly dispelled by Mark Twain, who visited the area in 1867. From his book, "The Innocents Abroad"... "A desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds... a silent mournful expanse.... a desolation.... we never saw a human being on the whole route.... hardly a tree or shrub anywhere. Even the olive tree and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country."


The Jews did not displace anyone, because very few of the people who were there actually owned the land. Most were absentee owners residing elsewhere. Another fact hardly mentioned by the "new historians" is that the arriving Jews never threw anyone off any land. All land was purchased legally from the original owners... whether they be from "Palestine" itself or elsewhere. Furthermore, top dollar was paid for this land which, in many cases, was uninhabited and hardly more than swamp land and rocky terrain. Only about 120,000 Arabs resided in an area that now comprises the State of Israel, Jordan and the so-called "West Bank" [Judea and Samaria] in between. By 1890, the number of Jews who had settled in Palestine reached 50,000 and, by 1907, numbered 100,000. In Jerusalem alone the Jews numbered more than 25,000, out of a total population in the city of only 40,000 Jews, Christians and Arabs. The Arabs did, however, constitute a majority over the sparsely populated countryside abutting Jerusalem.




1880's
Note: For more remarkable early photos of the Holy Land click Here


From 1888 until 1915 there were about six locust plagues that made the land nearly uninhabitable. In the 1915 locust plague alone some 40,000 people died and large numbers of Jews and Arabs left the land. Those that returned did not do so until about 1922 when the Zionist money to reclaim the land started coming in and a pipe line was laid. Then both Arabs and Jews started to come in in large numbers.


Palestine's early Jewish Zionists were idealistic pioneers who arrived in pre-state Israel with every intention of living in peace alongside their Arab neighbors and upgrading the quality of life for all of the land's inhabitants. These pre-Israel Zionists (and later, Israelis) had tried to develop peacefully for the dual benefit of Jews and Arabs in the land. But the Arab leadership always, starting in the earliest days, took the low road of insisting that the only solution was for the Jews to get out, even if that meant continued poverty and stagnation. When Arab demands were not met, they always resorted to violence.


The vast majority of Arabs came to the area after these early Zionist pioneers began draining the malaria-infested swamps (above photo) and plowing the land! In doing so, these Jews created the economic opportunities and medical availabilities which attracted Arabs from both surrounding territories and far-away lands! In fact, over 90% of the Arabs migrated there within the last one hundred years. Most of the Arabs in "Palestine" were interlopers and squatters originating from Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Iraq and other lands who simply took possession of pieces of land. So much for their unfounded claims that they have been there since "time immemorial!" These Arabs came from disorganized collections of tribes with a tradition of constantly terrorizing each other and trying to seize land from their neighbors. Many of them were social outcasts and criminals who could not find jobs in their own countries so they searched for their luck elsewhere. Unfortunately, those Arab immigrants imported into the Holy Land their age-old culture of terrorizing neighbors in order to seize land. In fact, today's Arab "Palestinians", led by Arafat and his PLO (sanitized to the PA, or Palestinian Authority...which is nothing more than A Network of Murderers Masquerading As Government!) are still nothing more than street thugs, bullies and 'Little Saddams' found elsewhere throughout most of the Arab world.


Yet while the returning Jews were highly motivated to restore the land, the Arabs seethed with envy and hatred for they lacked both the leadership to inspire and motivate them for they were, in fact, historical strangers to this land! Unlike the Jews, those Arabs who immigrated there had no ancient attachments to or historical memories of this homeland ... this ancient Land of the JEWS!


The real problem facing those Arabs today is not the lack of a homeland. The historical root-cause of their problem and frustration is the fact that the countries they came from have not agreed to accept them back in. This is why so many of them live, up until today, in refugee camps, in neighboring Arab countries, lacking fundamental civil rights. In their frustration they feel that the only hope and choice they have is to try and steal someone else's country!


In Conclusion:


There was no "Arab Palestinian" history before the Arabs manufactured one shortly after 1948, and then especially after the June 1967 Arab-Israeli War! In an interview with the Dutch newspaper "Trau" (March 31, 1977), PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein said, "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. It is also been a "conceptual" war for ownership of the term "Palestinian" which has been transferred over to the Arabs whereas, before 1967, "Palestine" has always been synonymous with Eretz Israel and the Land of Israel.


Archeological sites to this very day continue to yield artifacts with Hebrew writing, not some fictitious "Palestinian" or Arabic text! The so-called "Palestinian" Arabs were simply then, as they are now, Arabs no different culturally, historically or ethnically from other Arabs living in any of the 24 Arab countries from which they emigrated. The suggestion that the "Palestinians" are some sub-group of Arabs with their own unique identity is pure fiction! Great propaganda... but still pure fiction! And had not the Arabs continued to brainwash generation upon generation into believing this HISTORICAL HOGWASH about some ancient "Arab Palestinian" ties to the Holy Land, most could have gotten themselves a real life by now with much less bloodshed and suffering for everyone concerned!


Click Here for more on the myth of a "Palestinian People."
Click Here for Audio!


Remember: When we use their language (i.e. "West Bank" instead of Judea-Samaria, "occupied territory" instead of liberated Jewish lands, "settlements" instead of Jewish communities, "Palestinian" instead of Arab, "Haram esh Sharif" instead of the Temple Mount, etc.), we are allowing them to define the issues, create or distort history and control the debate.
GREED, PRIDE, ENVY!


The Arabs and/or Muslims of today control 22 nations... 99½ percent of the ENTIRE Middle East land mass while Israel occupies only a 1/2 of 1 percent speck on this same map. But that's still too much land for the Arabs to spare. They want it all. How often have we heard their familiar cry, "We will fight to our last drop of blood for for every last grain of sand!" And that is ultimately what all the fighting is about today. And no matter how many land concessions the Israelis might make for "peace," it will never be enough! Any peace treaty between Israel and the Arab world are ultimately meaningless. The most recent 1993 "Oslo Peace Accord" has brought nothing but homicidal bombers into Israel. Even the Israeli-Egyptian and Israeli-Jordanian peace treaties are holding on by a single thread and, if you were to read their government-controlled newspapers, you'd think they were still at war with Israel!


PEACE IS IMPOSSIBLE!
There's No More "Middle" in the Middle East


From the moment the Jewish People re-established sovereignty in their ancient homeland, they sought genuine peace with all of their neighbors. Unfortunately, their neighbors did not wish to share a peaceful existence with them. They, like Bin Ladin today, felt that they had a religious obligation to destroy the non-Arab/Muslim Jewish State (and, for that matter, ALL non-Arab/Moslem governments in the world). The Arab campaign against Israel is rooted not in any negotiable grievances but in a basic opposition to the very existence of Jewish sovereignty in what they perceive as THEIR Middle East! The ultimate intent of the Arabs is to separate out a Jewish history from "Palestine"... and then to separate Israel from the face of the Earth.


When the Palestine Liberation Organization's (PLO) was formed in 1964, its primary goal was to destroy Israel. After the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, their goal became two-tracked: Either (1) destroy Israel outright (the same pre-1967 goal) or (2) the creation of an Arab-Palestinian state to be used as a launching pad from which to destroy Israel. Different strategies - same ultimate goal... a state not along side Israel, but IN PLACE OF Israel. It's really that simple!




For More Regarding "Palestine" and "Palestinian People"


"Palestinian" People Do Not Exist
and
The History and Meaning of "Palestine" & "Palestinians
and
The History & Meaning of "Palestine" & "Palestinian"


Then take this Quiz


The Question of Jerusalem
And the Temple Mount
Click Here for Maps and Photos of
East and West Jerusalem and the Old City


For over 3,300 years of history, Jerusalem has been a capital city for only the Jewish People. Jews have always lived in Jerusalem, except when they were massacred or driven out. There has, however, been a nearly unbroken Jewish presence in Jerusalem for the past 1,600 years. And since the early 1800's, the population of Jerusalem has been predominantly Jewish. Even when the Jordanians captured and occupied Jerusalem from 1948-67, they (the Jordanians) never sought to change it to their capital (replacing Amman) nor make it the capital of all Arab-"Palestinian" people. Even during the 19 years Jordan "occupied" most of Jerusalem, Arab leaders from other Arab countries hardly ever bothered to visit this city! Only to the Jews has Jerusalem ever held special meaning! The reality is that Jerusalem was never an Arab capital and that it never was, until the Jews revitalized it, a dusty provincial city that hardly played and economic, social or political role.


Another myth deals with the issue of Jerusalem and its Temple Mount. The myth is that Jerusalem is really an Arab city and that it is a central focus of Islam. The truth is that the Arabs expressed very limited interest in the Temple Mount before 1967 after the Six-Day War. Besides, Mecca and Medina (both in Saudi Arabia) are Islam's holiest cities!


Islam's Holy(?) Koran mentions Mecca 2 or 3 (implied, but not actually written) times. It mentions Medina 5 times. It never mentions Jerusalem and with good reason. There is no historical evidence to suggest Mohammad ever visited Jerusalem! And if he did visit Jerusalem, it could not have been until 6 years after his death. Therefore, the notion that Mohammed ascended to Heaven from a rock in Jerusalem (today's Dome of the Rock) is even more ridiculous!


One more thing about Jerusalem in general and its Temple Mount in particular. Jerusalem appears in the Jewish Bible 669 times and Zion (which usually means Jerusalem, sometimes the Land of Israel) 154 times, or 823 times in all. The Christian Bible mentions Jerusalem 154 times and Zion 7 times. All told, in the Old Testament (the Hebrew Bible) and the New Testament, the terms "Judah" or "Judea" appear 877 times, and "Samaria" is used on 123 occasions.


Hold on to your hats, everybody. It gets even better. Upon closer look at their Holy Koran, we have uncovered something quite amazing. These Muslims may actually be more Jewish than Muslim! Get this... the Koran mentions "Israel" [or "Israelites"] 47 times, "Jew" or "Jewish" 26 times! Even "Christian" or "Christians" gets 15 mentions!


OK, so maybe Mohammed just forget to mention "Jerusalem". Maybe he also forgot to mention the Haram-esh-Sharif, their name for Judaism's Temple Mount. Perhaps it was an honest oversight. That desert heat can do strange things to one's brain. But surely "Palestine" is mentioned all through the Koran. After all, the poo' poo' ancient "Palestinians" go way back, right? WRONG. "Palestine" and "Palestinian" are nowhere to be found. Perhaps that's because these so-called Arab "Palestinians" have ancient historical roots going ALL THE WAY back to June 1967! So much for the Arab, Muslim or "Palestinian" ancient religious or physical connections to a single ounce of turf in the so-called "occupied" territories!


From 1948 to 1967, when East Jerusalem and the Temple Mount were "occupied" by Jordanian Forces following the 1948-9 Arab-Israeli War, Jerusalem itself was ignored by the Arab world. No Arab leader ever paid a visit, not even to pray at the al-Aqsa Mosque or the Dome of the Rock (both located on the JEWISH Temple Mount). Also noteworthy during this 19 year period of Jordanian occupation' no Jews were allowed there... not that there was much for them to see since the Arabs destroyed 58 of Jerusalem's Jewish synagogues! Even the Arabs of "Palestine" placed so low a priority on Jerusalem that the PLO's founding charter, the 1964 Palestinian National Covenant, made no reference whatsoever to it. Only when the Jews recaptured it after the 1967 "Six Day War" (initiated by the Arabs) did the Arab world SUDDENLY grow very passionate about Jerusalem!


Can any Muslim in the world produce any credible evidence for their connection to this holy site, other than Mohammed's dream? Believe it or not, the one and only source for the Muslim's claim to Jerusalem and the site of the Holy Temple, is a mention in the Koran of a dream that Mohammed had about an unknown "place far away". Perhaps this "place far away" is the site of the White House in Washington DC or a Nevada "chicken ranch?"


In truth, the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa mosques are just but two of hundreds of thousands of Muslim mosques around the world. Except for these two minor mosques, Jerusalem itself has no major Islamic significance. In fact, far more Christian shrines are in Jerusalem than Muslim ones!


When a Jew prays from anywhere in the world, he faces the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. When a Moslem prays, even while IN Jerusalem, he faces Mecca, Saudi Arabia (1,300 miles away due east!). So in many cases, even when a Moslem is in Jerusalem, his "hind quarters" are facing these two Jerusalem mosques! What does THIS tell you! And when Islamic suicide bombers try to take apart Jerusalem piece by piece, what does THAT tell you!




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