If the Palestinians didn't have the Israelis for their enemies, nobody would heard of them. The very word "Palestinian" would still refer to the Zionists, as it did in 1948. They are an artificial creation, a people designed and maintained as a weapon of war.
Is this the latest incarnation of the Israeli founding myth? Perhaps the best known variant would be Golda Meir, often glossed down to to "there are no Palestinians" :
"There was no such thing as Palestinians, they never existed. Before 1948, we were the palestinians." (June 15, 1969) nationmaster.com
Meir was both more concise and a bit more diplomatic, I'd say. I would never dispute your knowledge of official Israeli history, but the alleged monopoly of that particular version of history on "truth" in the conventional sense of the word seems about as certain as the alleged conservative monopoly on "facts and logic" often asserted around here. Just for amusement, I tracked down an old slogan , it turns out it's a lot older than I thought, by this account anyway:
Christian support for the creation of a Jewish state originated in England, becoming a significant movement in the Victorian period. In 1840, the British foreign secretary, Lord Palmerston, "strongly" recommended that the Ottoman government then ruling Palestine "hold out every just encouragement to the Jews of Europe to return to Palestine." Lord Shaftesbury in 1853 coined the phrase "A land without a people for a people without a land." cdn-friends-icej.ca
I'm not exactly sure how 150 years of sloganeering eliminates the existence of the indigenous population, I'd guess that it's once again one of those "facts and logic" things. I'm sure there's a "facts and logic" explanation about how the 37 year Israeli military occupation that can't be called that is an inspiring precedent for the US in Iraq too. Something to do with "Arab Minds", it's been alleged. |
