Whose Land Is It?

There has never been a civilization or a nation referred to as "Palestine" and the very notion of a "Palestinian Arab nation" having ancient attachments to the Holy Land going back to time immemorial is one of the biggest hoaxes ever perpetrated upon the world. There is not, nor has there ever been, a distinct "Palestinian" culture or language. Further, there has never been a Palestinian state governed by Arab Palestinians in history, nor was there ever a serious Arab-Palestinian national movement until 1964... three years BEFORE the Arabs of "Palestine" lost the West Bank [Judea and Samaria] and Gaza as a result of the 1967 Six-Day War (which the Arabs started). Even the so-called leader of the "Palestinian" people, Yasser Arafat, was EGYPTIAN. In short, the so-called Arab "Palestinians" are a manufactured people...a people with no history and no authenticity... whose sole purpose for existence is to destroy the Jewish State.

Israel first became a nation in 1312 B.C.E., two thousand years before the rise of Islam. Seven hundred and twenty-six years later in 586 B.C.E. these first ancient Jews in the Land of Israel [Judea] were overrun and Israel's First Jewish Temple (on Jerusalem's Old City Temple Mount) was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, king of ancient Babylon. Many of the Jews were killed or expelled; however many were allowed to remain. These Jews along with their progeny and other Jews who would resettle over the next 500 years, rebuilt the Nation of Israel and also a Second Temple in Jerusalem upon the Temple Mount. Thus the claim that Jews suddenly appeared fifty years ago right after the Holocaust and drove out the Arabs is preposterous to say the very least.


The Land Belongs to Israel
No nation, other than the ancient nation of Israel and later again in 1948 with the rebirth of the 2nd Nation of Israel, has ever ruled as a sovereign national entity on this land. A mighty Jewish empire extended over this entire area before the Arabs, and their Islam, were even born. The Jewish People have one of the most legitimate birth certificates of any nations in the world. Every time there is an archaeological dig in Israel, it supports the fact that the Jewish People have had a presence there for well over 3,000 years. The coins, the pottery, the cities, the ancient texts... all support this claim. Yes, other peoples have passed through, but there is no mistaking the fact that Jews have always had a continual presence in that land for over 3,000 years. This predates any claims that other peoples in the regions may have. The ancient Philistines are extinct. Many other ancient peoples are extinct. They do not have the unbroken line to this date that the Jews have. And if you want to talk religion, fine. God gave the Land of Israel to the Jewish People. Period.
          
In 70 C.E. (nearly 2000 years ago), it was the Roman Empire's turn to march through ancient Israel and destroy the second Jewish Temple, slaughtering or driving out much of its Jewish population. Many Jews left on their own because conditions for life were made unbearable in many respects... yet thousands upon thousands stayed for centuries in order to once again rebuild a Jewish Nation in this Holy Land. 

Over 3250 years, various Peoples, Religions and Empires marched through Jerusalem, Israel's ancient capital. The region was successively ruled by the Hebrews [Jews], Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Maccabeans, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Egyptians, the Crusaders, Mamelukes, the Turks (who indifferently governed the backward, neglected territory from the 16th century until the British drove them out during World War I) and then once again by the Jews in 1948. None bothered, nor were they in the least bit inclined, to build a Nation of their own... except the Jews.

It must be noted that in 636 C.E., when the Arabs marauders came to the land and uprooted even more of its Jews, they did not form any Arab nation there... and certainly not a "Palestinian" nation. They were simply "Arabs" who, as did others before them, moved into a geo-political area called "Palestine." It was not the Jews who "usurped"  the land from the Arabs. It was the Arabs in 636 C.E. who overran and stole it from the Jews. 


"PALESTINE?"
The term "Palestine" came from the name that the conquering Roman Empire gave the ancient Land of Israel in an attempt to obliterate and de-legitimize the Jewish presence in the Holy Land. The name "Palestine" was invented in the year 135 C.E. Before it was known as Judea, which was the southern kingdom of ancient Israel. The Roman Procurator in charge of the Judean-Israel territories was so angry at the Jews for revolting that he called for his historians and asked them who were the worst enemies of the Jews in their past history. The scribes said, "the Philistines." Thus, the Procurator declared that Land of Israel would from then forward be called "Philistia" [further changed into "Palaistina"] to dishonor the Jews and obliterate their history. Hence the name "Palestine." 

Very often one hears the revisionists and propagandists finding ancient historical links between the "Philistines" ("Invaders" in Hebrew) and the Arab "Palestinians." There is no truth to this claim. The Philistines were one of a number of Sea Peoples who reached the eastern Mediterranean region approximately 1250-1100 B.C.E. They were actually an amalgamation of various ethnic groups, primarily of Aegean and south-east European origin [Greece, Crete and Western Turkey] and they died out over 2500 years ago. Those Philistines were not Arab... and neither was Goliath. The Arabs of "Palestine" are just that... Arabs. And these Arabs of "Palestine" have about as much historical roots to the ancient Philistines as Yasser Arafat has to the Eskimos. 

The ancient, indigenous inhabitants of Palestine are long perished from the earth. Canaanites, Phoencians, and then Philistines, all were dominated by the Israelites before 1060 B.C.E. Most of these cultural identities dissolved completely by the neo-Babylonian age, or, the 6th century B.C.E. Arabs weren't even in Palestine until the mid-7th century C.E., over a thousand years later, after Palestine�s 1,300-year Jewish history. Arabs later living in Palestine never developed themselves or the land, but remained nomadic and quasi-primitive

Even the word "Palestine" has no meaning in Arabic - every word in Arabic has some meaning deriving from the Koran, but the word "Palestine" does not. The name "Palestine" was associated with Jews. In the years leading up to the rebirth of Israel in 1948, those who spoke of "Palestinians" were nearly always referring to the region's Jewish residents. For example, the "Palestine Post" [forerunner of today's Jerusalem Post] newspaper and the Palestine Symphony Orchestra were all-Jewish. The "Palestine Brigade Regiment" was composed exclusively of Jewish volunteers in the British World War II Army. In fact, Arab leaders rejected the notion of a unique "Palestinian Arab" identity, insisting that Palestine was merely a part of "Greater Syria." 

In Conclusion: 
There was no "Arab Palestinian" history before the Arabs manufactured one shortly after 1948, and then especially after the June 1967 Arab-Israeli War. In an interview with the Dutch newspaper "Trau" (March 31, 1977), PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein said, "The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct 'Palestinian people' to oppose Zionism. It is also been a "conceptual" war for ownership of the term "Palestinian" which has been transferred over to the Arabs whereas, before 1967, "Palestine" has always been synonymous with Eretz Israel and the Land of Israel. 

Archeological sites to this very day continue to yield artifacts with Hebrew writing, not some fictitious "Palestinian" or Arabic text. The so-called "Palestinian" Arabs were simply then, as they are now, Arabs no different culturally, historically or ethnically from other Arabs living in any of the 24 Arab countries from which they emigrated. The suggestion that the "Palestinians" are some sub-group of Arabs with their own unique identity is pure fiction. Great propaganda... but still pure fiction. And had not the Arabs continued to brainwash generation upon generation into believing this historical lie about some ancient "Arab Palestinian" ties to the Holy Land, most could have gotten themselves a real life by now with much less bloodshed and suffering for everyone concerned.