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Opinion

The real origins of the Palestinian people reinforce their lifelong agenda

Palestinian Authority police officers walk past a mural of late Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, in the West Bank city of Hebron, Nov. 12, 2022. (Photo: Wisam Hashlamoun/Flash90)

One of the top claims, which has been repeatedly used by pro-Palestinian sympathizers, has been that they are the true indigenous people of Israel (Palestine, to them) and that their roots go back thousands of years to that piece of land to which Jews also lay claim. 

But are they a distinct people with their own language, culture and other unique characteristics which set them apart from other Arabs?

The notion of there being a Palestinian people, whose land was stolen by the Jews, began with Yasser Arafat, the chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). Arafat, born in Egypt, under the name Mohammed Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini, proclaimed that Palestinians were a “dispersed people who had been deprived of their home and national identity as well as the most basic rights and rudiments of normal human life.”

But given the fact that he was born into a prominent Egyptian family, which was related to Amin al-Husseini, the grand mufti of Jerusalem, it’s clear that his own roots were not from the strip of land that today is known as the country of Israel.  

Some Arabs acknowledge that the whole concept of a Palestinian people is not exactly what we have been led to believe, and to hear it from them only serves to lend credibility to what has become a very politically-charged subject, but it’s worthwhile hearing another account, especially from an unbiased party, such as another Arab, because its legitimacy is not so easily disputed.

When Muhammad Ibrahim Hussein, a former school teacher had been asked, “Are most Palestinian families originally from Palestine? He answered, “No. My ancestors originate from near the Iraqi/Jordanian border.” Hussein attributes the PLO for having created a “national lunacy that spread like wildfire throughout the West Bank…waging a bloody war of attrition against Israel but publicly calling for the overthrow of Jordan’s Hashemite Monarchy.” He says, “Palestinian leaders have never been interested in peace with Israel or the West for that matter. They will always and forever turn down every single offer, regardless of how generous it is, unless it includes the destruction of the State of Israel and the exodus of all Jews.”

Hussein’s assertions that most Palestinians never came from Palestine (today Israel), is confirmed by the following YouTube clip where agitated Fathi Hammad, Hamas Minister of the Interior and National Security made an impassioned pitch on Egypt’s Al-Hekma TV, back in 2012, stating that Egypt has not come to the aid of the 2 million people in the Gaza Strip by helping them do away with the Israel. Encouraging them to partake in Jihad (holy war), he reminds them that Palestinian roots go back to Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Egypt. In other words, he says that they were not born in Palestine but, rather, in other Arab lands. He goes so far as to say, “We are Egyptians, we are Arabs. We are part of you.”

Ironically, he undercuts his credibility by making a case that there is no such thing as the Palestinian people who claim to be the indigenous natives of the land of Israel, once called Palestine. It is, with this backdrop, that he not only requests financial help but also encourages them to join the fight to rid Israel of its Jews in order to take over the land, the true agenda of these so-called Palestinians.

Of course, that malevolent agenda cannot be revealed as the authentic aspiration, because it is predicated upon the destruction of another people in order to realize its goal of total Muslim dominance in the Middle East, so it has to be cleverly camouflaged to first create a victim, as Yasser Arafat did, by depicting individuals born in other lands as those who were dispersed, although he never says when that took place.

Then he creates the illusion of suffering – “having been deprived of their home and national identity,” although how could that be substantiated, especially when he, himself hailed from such a well-heeled family which suffered no lack?

Once he managed to convince others that his claims were plausible and even valid, it wasn’t long before the sympathizers emerged to help right the wrong he promoted. Now, 20 years after his death, the fabricated story has really taken off and been adopted by an entire generation who believes that all Palestinians came from Palestine and are the rightful heirs of the land of Israel. 

What we know is that many who immigrated to Palestine, when it was ruled by the Ottoman Empire, in the 19th Century, came from Egypt, Sudan and many other countries.

The following statements, made by Arabs reinforce the claim of no real Palestinian people:

It is common knowledge that Palestine is nothing but Southern Syria.” Ahmed Shukairy, 1956

“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…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.” PLO spokesman, Zuheir Mohsen, 1977

“Before the Balfour Promise, when the Ottoman rule [1517-1917] ended, Palestine’s political borders as we know them today did not exist, and there was nothing called a Palestinian people with a political identity as we know today.” Abd Al-Ghani, Historian, 2017

History records that Syria-Palestina was merely a name chosen by the Romans but which “has nothing to do with the modern-day Palestinian state, either geographically or ethnically. The Palestinians are a mixed people and while the majority descend from recent economic migrants, who flocked to the area between 1850 and 1950, very few Palestinian Arabs are indigenous (unsurprisingly, they originate from Arabia).

To recap, the necessity to create a Palestinian people was a pre-requisite in order to fulfill the agenda of replacing the Jewish people in what is their historical, biblical and legal homeland. Most present-day Palestinians came from other Arab lands but used the claim that they were a distinct people, different from other Arabs. Yet, given their identical language, culture and religion, there is no evidence to support those assertions.

Consequently, their goal is not, nor has it ever been, to establish an independent state, able to peacefully co-exist side by side with Israel. Their singular objective is what they say, “From the river to the sea,” meaning no more Israel and just one state, which is yet another Arab territory.

While it’s not likely that these facts will move the needle as it relates to the insistence of many nations to force peace, as a solution upon people whose sole aim is Jewish genocide, all bets are on the fact that they will keep trying to beat the dead horse of two states regardless of the historical evidence which is available for all to see for themselves.

A former Jerusalem elementary and middle-school principal and the granddaughter of European Jews who arrived in the US before the Holocaust. Making Aliyah in 1993, she is retired and now lives in the center of the country with her husband.

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