Who are the Palestinians?

I know I have blogged this sort of article before but YNet News has a very detailed examination of this subject. Do read the while piece but here are some extracts:

'Anti-colonial and anti-Zionist uprisings against British rule were not directed towards another independent Palestinian state. Nor were Arab riots and pogroms, like those in 1929, 1936, for example, nationalistic. There were no calls for a Palestinian state; the battle cry was, "Kill the Jews."



Arab leaders like Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi told the Peel Commission in 1937: "There is no such country as 'Palestine'; 'Palestine' is a term the Zionists invented!"



During the 1930s, anti-British and anti-Jewish riots were enflamed by the newly created "Arab – not Palestinian - Higher Committee," the central political organ of the Arab community of Mandate Palestine.


In 1946, Arab historian Philip Hitti testified before the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry that "there is no such thing as Palestine in history.” In 1947, Arab leaders protesting the UN partition plan argued that Palestine was part of Syria and “politically, the Arabs of Palestine (were) not (an) independent separate … political entity.”


In 1947, the UN proposed a "Jewish" State and an "Arab" – not Palestinian – State. Efforts to organize a political leadership in 1948, in response to the establishment of Israel, soon collapsed.



The womb of Palestinianism was war, the Nakba (catastrophe) in the Arab narrative, the establishment of the State of Israel. Five well-armed Arab countries invaded the nascent state, joining local Arab gangs and militias in a genocidal war to exterminate the Jews. This was not seen as a war for Palestinian nationalism, however; it was a genocidal war against Jews and Zionism itself.

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Palestinianism was defined in 1964, in the PLO Covenant, when Jordan occupied "the West Bank," a Jordanian reference from 1950 to distinguish the area from the East Bank of the Jordan River, and Egypt held the Gaza Strip. On behalf of the "Palestinian Arab people," the Covenant declared their goal: a "holy war" (Jihad) to "liberate Palestine," i.e. destroy Israel. There was no mention of Arabs living in "the West Bank" and Gaza Strip, since that would have threatened Arab rulers. Arab "refugees" were convenient proxies in the war against Israel; Palestinianism became a replacement nationalism for Zionism, a call to arms against Jews.


Solution is regional

This balancing act was no longer necessary after 1967, when Israel acquired areas that had been originally assigned to a Jewish State by the League of Nations and British Mandate - Judea, Samaria, eastern Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip - and the Golan Heights, all rich in Jewish history and archeology. A year later, the PLO Covenant was amended to cover both "occupations" – in 1948 and 1967.



Dedicated to armed struggle, its goal has never changed; unable to defeat Israel militarily, however, the Arab strategy is to demonize and delegitimize, creating yet another Arab Palestinian state, in addition to Jordan. In order to accomplish this, it concocted a narrative, an identity and ethos to compete with Zionism and Jewish history: Palestinianism.



Presented in the PLO Covenant and Hamas Charter (1988), the purpose of Palestinianism is to "liberate Palestine" and destroy Israel; neither reflect any redeeming social or cultural values.

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The solution is regional. Arab Palestinians are entitled to civil and human rights in their host countries where they have lived for generations. A second Arab Palestinian state, in addition to Jordan, which was carved out of Palestine in 1922 - whose population is two-thirds "Palestinian" - will not resolve any core issue at the heart of the conflict. The conflict is not territorial, but existential; recognition of a Jewish state is anathema. That explains why Palestinian Arab leaders refuse to accept it in any form.



The problem, for Palestinianism, is not "the occupation" in 1967, but Israel's existence; seen as an exclusively Arab homeland, Palestine is an integral part of the Arab world, completely under Arab sovereignty. This is axiomatic; there are no exceptions and no compromises.



Promoted in media, mosques and schools, anti-Jewish incitement, denial of the Holocaust and Jewish history, and rejection of the right of Jewish national self-determination, by definition, Palestinianism is the greatest obstacle to peace.'