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Also this issue:
Blind Faith Casualties of Conflict
Casualties of Conflict The Bork Shield Letters to the Editor |
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April 11-17, 2002
slant
Did you know that there was never any country called Palestine? Did you know that there is no such thing as a Palestinian people?
The ideas that the West Bank and Gaza are occupied Palestinian land and that the Palestinian people are fighting for their land have been accepted by most of the governments of the world and by most of the media in the world. But if you read on, you will see that these two claims are the biggest lies ever deliberately perpetrated on humanity.
Check out any map of the Middle East and see for yourself. You will find Palestine listed as a region, as it always has been, but definitely not a country. We can locate the Mojave Desert on the map, but we still do not recognize it as our 51st state, let alone a country. Similarly, Siberia is a region, not a state. Or the Sahara is a region, not a state, etc. Neither is Palestine a state. It never was a country, just a region.
The Jews did not displace anyone, because no one permanently resided there. It was a land inhabited by nomadic Bedouin tribes. The whole region was nothing but deserts and swamps. Only about 120,000 Arabs resided in an area that covered the territories, Israel and Jordan. When Mark Twain visited the area, he wrote that he found nothing but a wasteland.
During the 19 years that the territories, including Jerusalem and Gaza, were occupied by the kingdom of Jordan and Egypt, no one talked about a Palestinian state; not the Arab countries, not the United Nations. Nobody asked Jordan or Egypt to abdicate their ownership and give it to the Palestinians. Not even the Palestinians themselves said anything about a Palestinian state or a Palestinian people, because nobody heard of a Palestinian people. It never existed.
The fact simply is that there are no Palestinians. These people are Arabs like all other Arabs, and they happen to live in a region called Palestine. They are not a separate people.
What makes a separate people? Religion, language, culture, garb, cuisine, etc., etc. The Arabs in Palestine speak the same language, practice the same religion, have the same culture, etc., as all the other Arabs.
The Arabs living in Syria, Jordan and other nearby states are also the same Arabs, but they are each a separate nation because they each have a separate country. The so-called Palestinians want a separate country because they claim to be a separate nation. They are not. They were never a separate people before the new state of Israel. How did they become one now?
Because of these lies, the so-called Palestinians feel justified in sending suicide bombers to kill women, children, babies, old men, old women and noncombatant citizens. Because of these lies, the United Nations and the media of the world are condemning Israel, which is acting less harshly than any other country would act in retaliation for such heinous attacks. What is the United States doing in Afghanistan, a totally foreign country? Killing Afghans. Why? Because they attacked us on Sept. 11. I understand this. But why don't they understand that that is exactly what Israel is doing, only on a much smaller scale?
Ask yourself this: Should the use of terror ever be rewarded? When is the use of terrorism justified as a military tactic? As a political tactic? As an economic tactic? What implications does this hold for future conflicts?
The belief that giving the Palestinians a state will bring peace is a delusion. The truth is that they want it all. The short-term goal is a state consisting of the West Bank and Gaza. The long-term goal is a state which includes all of "historical Palestine," including Jordan.
How do I know this?
The late Faisal Husseini, Yasser Arafat's Jerusalem representative, a man who was cultured, sophisticated and considered the most moderate of all the Palestinians, shortly before his death on May 31, expressed his true feelings in an interview with a popular Egyptian newspaper. Husseini said: "We must distinguish the strategies and long-term goals from the political-phased goals which we are compelled to accept due to international pressures." But the "ultimate goal is the liberation of all of historical Palestine." Explicitly he said: "Oslo has to be viewed as a Trojan Horse."
What does this say to you?
Unless the Arabs recognize and accept these truths, even if they are given a state of their own, and no matter how many agreements and treaties they sign, they will always feel wronged, cheated and forced into giving up what they now claim is theirs. They will continue to plot and look for an opportunity to destroy Israel in order to take back what they claim is theirs, especially the younger generation that has been brainwashed to hate the "occupying enemy." Whether there is a Palestinian state or not, there will be no peace.
Only a massive and ongoing re-education of the Arab people to these truths will enable meaningful negotiations to begin, followed by a lasting peace between Arabs and Jews. It is therefore critical that everyone who has an audience, whether in print or other media, use the forum they have available to repeat these truths again and again until they reach the consciousness of those waging war in the Middle East.
Sharon Nader-Sloan, an attorney, is a Lebanese-American.
