Final Installment: "Influx of Indignation"
"Indeed, we are the owners of the land and the legal truth, the owners of the independent homeland and the independent state. Therefore, with you and by means of you, and by means of our noble Arab and Islamic nation, and by means of freedom-seeking people in the world, we will establish our independent Palestinian nation and its holy capital of Jerusalem." - Yasser Arafat/September, 2001
April 25, 2007 - Of all the ministers of misinformation who made their way onto the world's stage in the post-Nazi era, none other was quite as cunning, conniving and, sadly enough, effective as Yasser Arafat--the Arab's version of Joseph Goebbels. This was a man who, time and time again, would walk through the front door disguised as a "peacemaker" only to slip out the back, with his Nobel Peace Prize in tow, as a reputed mass murderer who slaughtered innocent people, including women and children. As chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, Arafat successfully fooled the world with a forked tongue, and although true Justice found Arafat after his death, his penchant for deception and treachery lived on through his successors. As such, the "big lie" remains in the open--alive and well as it continues its relentless pursuit of global deception.
The "Palestinians" pervasively and continually assert themselves as the rightful owners of the land of "Palestine". The "Palestinians" claim to be a "displaced" people--cast from an ancestral homeland that has been theirs "From Time Immemorial" (a phrase coined by author Joan Peters). On the wings of such deception, the "Palestinian" demand for an independent state with Jerusalem as its capital continues to soar and, in the eyes of the international community, sprout merit.
Even so, history tells an entirely different tale.
FALSEHOOD: The "Palestinians" are direct descendants of the ancient Philistines, and thus can subsequently trace their presence in the region to said time period.
HISTORICAL FACT: The ancient Philistines were not an Arab people, but were entirely Greek. These were "invaders" (as per the translation of "Philistine") from the Aegean who settled into the region we now know as Gaza. These people, who would later develop a slight case of extinction, remained at war with the Israelites--the region's inhabitants of the time.
FALSEHOOD: "
Israel" does not exist, and "
Palestine" is the only accurate name for this land.
HISTORICAL FACT: The term "Palestine" found its origin with the ancient Philistines. In a complete attempt to "cleanse" Judea of all that was Jewish, it was the Roman Emperor Hadrian who changed the biblical prideland's name from Judea to that which personified Israel's nastiest enemy of the time--the Philistines. As such, the region bore a new title, "Palaestina" which, quite literally, means, "Land of the Philistines". NOTE: PLAYERS INVOLVED: The Romans, the Jews, and the Philistines--the sea invaders from Greece. PLAYERS NEITHER INVOLVED NOR OBSERVED DURING THIS TIME PERIOD: The Arabs.
FALSEHOOD:
Jerusalem represents Islam's third most "holy" city.
FACT: Here, you'll find deception in its purest form--the "Palestinian" claim on Jerusalem. Well documented is a "Palestinian" agenda which asserts that the region never belonged to the Jews. To facilitate this, they unequivocally deny the fact that a Jewish Temple once stood in Jerusalem. After all, to concede the truth would be an open acknowledgement of a Jewish connection to the Temple Mount--a reality emphatically refuted by the "Palestinians". Have you ever wondered why the Arabs, like clockwork, become radically "nervous" every time Jewish archaeologists start kicking up the soil around the Temple Mount? Have you found yourself entirely curious as to the reasons why the Arabs continue to dig around the Temple Mount area and remove its precious ruins?
The answer is clear: Every Jewish artifact found in this area justifies the presence of a Jewish Temple that once stood and, in the process, a Jewish connection to the time period. With East Jerusalem--the area in which the Temple Mount sits, as its "Palestinian" capital, the Arabs could effectively maximize their potential for deception, while suffocating the evidence that could blow it wide open.
Interestingly, "Jerusalem" is mentioned over 800 times in the Holy Scriptures. If Jerusalem were the third most holy city in all of Islam, then why is the Qu'ran completely devoid of any mention of it? Certainly the very city from which Mohammed supposedly ascended would merit a degree of mention somewhere on the pages of Islam’s "holiest" book?
FALSEHOOD: The "Palestinian" Arabs are the rightful owners of the land, for they inhabited the region before the Jews.
HISTORICAL FACT: Recorded history clearly shows the Arabs as a people who did not emerge in this region until midway through the 7th century. Yet, they boast incessantly of ties to the land that date back thousands of years. Perhaps the fairy tale most easily debunked, this nonsensical assertion stems from the elusive and mythical "Palestinian" Arab connection with the ancient Philistines (read: Greeks), which would essentially date their lineage to said time period. While recorded history remains incapable of doing the "Palestinians" any favors, it entirely and unequivocally supports a Jewish presence in this region--dating back some 2,000 years before the time of Christ. To those who would submit that the Holy Scriptures do not qualify as an authentic source of "recorded history", and subsequently do not represent legitimate evidence supporting such an early Jewish presence, consider the 19th-century discoveries of ancient Egyptian records clearly showing Israel as a well-established nation some 1,400 years before the time of Yeshua. Although this author sides entirely with Biblical record, both sources effectively neutralize any "Palestinian" claims that propagate a lack of a Jewish presence during this time. In all of recorded history, and through all the destruction and catastrophe that has come upon the Jewish people, they have always maintained a presence, albeit to a varying degree, in the land that is Israel.
To assert that the Arab people never had control of the land would be as false as the assertions claiming they inhabited it "from time immemorial". Recorded history will show this region in the hands of the Arabs during the centuries leading up to the Crusades, when control of Jerusalem became a "volley" between Christian and Muslim alliances, as well as the brief season leading up to the establishment of the Ottoman empire. Nonetheless, despite these times in which different nations established their dominion over the Holy Land, it never knew a time in which it was devoid of a Jewish presence. The Jewish people can claim an ancestral presence in this region that dates back some 3,300 years, and they would be historically accurate in doing so. The "Palestinians" can accurately lay claim to an Arab presence in the land of Israel dating back no earlier than the 7th century. To erroneously purport that they--the "Palestinians", inhabited this region before the Jewish people would be an inveracity of not only a historical nature, but of a mathematical one, as well.
FALSEHOOD: The "Palestinians" were displaced and uprooted from their land by the creation of the state of
Israel in 1948.
HISTORICAL FACT: In the time period prior to Israel's rebirth, this region was a complete wasteland consisting of barren deserts and swamps. Numerous eyewitness accounts during this time period tell of a land in which there were very few people. Perhaps the most famous account came from none other than Mark Twain who, at the end of the 19th century, wrote of what he saw--or did not see, in this land--one in which a supposed Arab presence was plentiful, "One may ride ten miles hereabouts and not see ten human beings...Nazareth is forlorn . . . Jericho the accursed lies a moldering ruin today...There was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere." (Twain, 1867) The time period surrounding the rebirth of Israel ushered in two historical changes. First, the Jewish people facilitated an agricultural overhaul of the land that gave birth to lush vegetation and abundant crops. Subsequently, this was followed by a mass influx of Arabs into Israel who saw an opportunity. History will show that on May 14, 1948--the day Israel became an independent, sovereign nation, the surrounding Arab countries of Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt and Saudi Arabia launched an invasion of the Jewish state. This was an invasion that would become a costly one at the hands of defeat, and it was Israel, outnumbered at an unprecedented ratio, who would emerge as the victor.
FALSEHOOD:
Israel evicted the "Palestinian" Arabs from the land in 1948 and is subsequently to blame for the ongoing "Palestinian refugee" problem.
HISTORICAL FACT: Said Arabs were not evicted from the region by Israel. They fled. They were told by the surrounding countries--their own people--that an invasion was looming and that they should leave to avoid suffering casualties at the hands of said conflict. Indisputable evidence from political officials and historians--Arab and Israeli alike--support this fact. Fearing for their lives, nearly one million Jews were forced to flee the surrounding, hostile Arab countries. Historical record shows these people were efficiently and immediately absorbed, by Israel, with very little problem. However, can the same be said for the nearly 700,000 "Palestinian" Arabs who fled Israel--at the advice of their own countries? What became of them upon arrival in their homelands? History shows that, when their military initiatives failed, the surrounding Arab countries gave birth to a crisis that exists this very day. Specifically, they refused to absorb their own Arabs--these "refugees" who heeded their recommendation to flee a region soon to be engaged in war-- a war that, with every logistical certainty, should have been completed in short order. In so doing, they returned their Arabs to the land of Israel where they, to this day, live as "refugees" who blame Israel as the cause of their strife and insist they should be allowed to return to their purported "homeland". Such are the dynamics surrounding the elusive and unprocurable "Palestinian Right of Return".
The Arabs are the only people in recorded history to willfully and emphatically pass on their "refugee" status from generation to generation. Make no mistake; this is a wound that was self-inflicted, and where their soldiers failed, their lies have prevailed. Truth be told, there has never, in all of history, been a nation called "Palestine". Recorded history and the "Palestinian people" exist as total strangers unto each other.