WHOSE LAND?
"Facts" Versus "Myths" in the Arab-Israeli Conflict
Adapted "From Time Immemorial" by Joan Peters
Other sources by Alan Lazerte, B.A., LL.B, Canadian Friends of the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem
Myths: False Premises
1) The "Palestinians" have had a continuous identity with the land.
2) That identity has been present for "thousands of years".
3) The alien Jews "returned after 200 years, in 1948, to displace the "Palestinian Arabs" in the "new" Jewish state.
4) The Arabs were there first; it was Arab land.
5) The Jews 'stole" the Arab land.
6) The Jewish "terrorists" forced the peaceable Arabs to flee from "Palestine".
7) Palestine is Israel; and all Israel constitutes Palestine. "In 1948 Palestine became Israel".
8) Only Jews immigrated into Palestine; whereas Arabs were natives for millennia.
9) There are no places for the homeless Palestinian "refugees" to go.
10) Jews and Arabs lived together in equality and peace in Arab lands, before Israel became a state.
11) Arab "Palestinians", like other Arabs, have "nothing against Jews... just against Zionists".
Facts: The Reality
A) Palestine is only the description given to a geographical area; which has not been a nation since Israel was conquered by Rome in 70 A.D.
B) The Turks had this area from 1517 to 1917, and made it a wasteland, causing the peasants to flee... wandering all over the Middle East seeking subsistence.
C) Even after the Roman defeat in 70 A.D. the Jews (with their Zionist dream) never vacated the Holy Land.
D) The area known as Palestine covered areas both East and West of the Jordan; and the Arabic-speaking people there thought of themselves as Syrians, Turks, or simply "Arabs"... but never as "Palestinians".
E) The Arabs did not begin to think in terms of "nationalism" until early in the 1900's. Even T.E. Lawrence was not able to inject them with "nationalism" as late as World War I.
F) Islamic religious prejudice often resulted in anti-Jewish violence, throughout the Middle East, even before Israel became a state in 1948.
G) The British later described these religious persecutions as being "Arab Nationalism", so as to justify limiting Jewish immigration from Europe.
H) The British illegally "gave" Mandate lands (specifically allocated for a Jewish national home) to the Arabs instead.
I) The Arab peasants had been rendered landless by their own Arab landlords, natural disasters, excessive taxes, and Arab money lenders.
J) In 1923 Britain illegally gave Abdulah 77 percent of Palestine (the whole "East Bank") to protect rights to Arab oil, and the Suez canal, etc. for purposes of the British Empire. This created Transjordan; which became Jordan in 1946.
K) Thus, Jordan is the "independent Palestinian state" in the area; and was carved out of what was to become Israel.
L) In 1947 the UN further carved up the 23 percent west of the Jordan, into Israel, another Palestinian state (which the Arabs rejected) and an internationalized Jerusalem.
M) The Jews accepted the UN proposal; the Arabs did not.
N) The UN has changed the definition of "Refugee" for the Arabs only; who therefore need only be in the land two years to qualify.
O) The homelands to which many Arabs fled in 1948 and 1967 include lands from which many of them had recently come.
P) It is their own Arab-Muslim leaders who are preventing Arab refugees in Israel from "returning home". They are sacrificing Arab refugees to put pressure on the UN and Israel for another "Palestinian state".
Q) Of all the adjacent Arab states, only Jordan would grant citizenship to Arabs fleeing Israel. All other Arab states refused to grant Arabs citizenship.
R) Since the state of Israel (even including the "West Bank" and "Gaza strip") would total only 23 percent of Palestine (as defined by the League of nations in granting the British Mandate) how can Arabs be said to have been excluded from a Palestinian homeland?
S) Some elements of Islam are terrorizing and intimidating the world into combined action against Israel; the real intention being to destroy both Israel and Lebanon, so Islam can consolidate the Middle East before launching out to "take the world for Allah".
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