October 26, 2009 | Eli E. Hertz
Justice Richard Goldstone and the United Nations Human Rights Council, sought to rewrite history by labeling Judea and Samaria (Known as the West Bank) "Occupied Palestinian Territories" [Paragraph 11], calling Israeli Arabs "Palestinian citizens of Israel" [Paragraph 111], referring to Israeli Arab villages as "Palestinian Israeli communities" [Paragraph 110] and calling Arab inhabitants of Gaza "Palestinian People in the Gaza strip" [Paragraph 1859]. Essentially Goldstone is endowing Arabs in Judea, Samaria and Gaza with an aura of bogus peoplehood and statehood, as well as a false history as if title or ownership could be assigned out of thin air.
No legal binding authority has empowered Goldstone or any UN organ, including the International Court of Justice (ICJ) or the Human Rights Council to decide that the territories of the West Bank, known as Judea and Samaria, and Gaza could be transformed into "Occupied Palestinian Territories" or "Palestine." Goldstone's use of these dishonest, loaded terms empowers terrorism and the Palestinians with the right to use all measures to expel Israel.
Palestine is a Geographical Area, Not a Nationality
Arabs, the UN and its organs, and lately the International Court of Justice (ICJ) as well, have repeatedly claimed that the Palestinians are a native people - so much so that almost everyone takes it for granted. The problem is that a stateless Palestinian People is a fabrication. The word Palestine is not even Arabic.
Palestine was never an independent state belonging to any people, nor did a Palestinian People distinct from other Arabs appear during 1,300 years of Muslim hegemony in Palestine under Arab and Ottoman rule. During that rule, local Arabs were actually considered part of, and subject to, the authority of Greater Syria (Suriyya al-Kubra).
Historically, before the Arabs fabricated the concept of Palestinian peoplehood as an exclusively Arab phenomenon, no such group existed. This is substantiated in countless official British Mandate-vintage documents that speak of the Jews and the Arabs of Palestine - not Jews and Palestinians.
In fact, before local Jews began calling themselves Israelis in 1948 (when the name "Israel" was chosen for the newly-established Jewish State), the term "Palestine" applied almost exclusively to Jews and the institutions founded by new Jewish immigrants in the first half of the 20th century, before the state's independence.
Some examples include:
* The Jerusalem Post, founded in 1932, was called The Palestine Post until 1948.
* Bank Leumi L'Israel, incorporated in 1902, was called the "Anglo-Palestine Company" until 1948.
* The Jewish Agency - an arm of the Zionist movement engaged in Jewish settlement since 1929 - was initially called the Jewish Agency for Palestine.
* Today's Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, founded in 1936 by German Jewish refugees who fled Nazi Germany, was originally called the "Palestine Symphony Orchestra," composed of some 70 Palestinian Jews.
* The United Jewish Appeal (UJA) was established in 1939 as a merger of the United Palestine Appeal and the fundraising arm of the Joint Distribution Committee.
There Has Never Been a Sovereign Arab State in Palestine
The artificiality of a Palestinian identity is reflected in the attitudes and actions of neighboring Arabs who never established a Palestinian state or advocated one prior to the Six-Day War in 1967.
Only twice in Jerusalem's history has it served as a national capital. The first time was as the capital of the two Jewish Commonwealths during the First and Second Temple periods, as described in the Bible, reinforced by archaeological evidence and numerous ancient documents. The second time is in modern times as the capital of the State of Israel. It has never served as an Arab capital for the simple reason that there has never been a Palestinian Arab state.
The rhetoric by Arab leaders on behalf of the Palestinians rings hollow. Arabs never established a Palestinian state when the UN in 1947 recommended to partition Palestine, and to establish "an Arab and a Jewish state" (not a Palestinian state, it should be noted). Nor did the Arabs recognize or establish a Palestinian state during the two decades prior to the Six-Day War when the West Bank was under Jordanian control and the Gaza Strip was under Egyptian control; nor did the Palestinian Arabs clamor for autonomy or independence during those years under Jordanian and Egyptian rule.
So much for facts and accuracy.
Myths and Facts
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