Everything associated with the indigenous people of Palestine has been demonized in a campaign of lies and disinformation, from the name Palestine to the denial of the existence of Palestinians as a people. All of this is at the service of a campaign of ethnic cleansing and the denial of Palestinians' human rights and right to self-determination.
Palestine
Where did the name come from? Israeli propagandists claim it was imposed as a punishment to break the link between the Jews and their land by a Roman emperor after the Romans crushed the second insurrection. There is zero historical evidence that this is true, but it has the advantage of establishing a negative association and the persecution of Jews with the name Palestine.
From the Late Bronze Age onwards, the names used for the region of the southern Levant, such of Djahi and Retenu or Cana’an ALL gave way to the name Palestine, the name which thereafter is the most commonly used throughout ancient history and Classical Antiquity.
The Concept of Palestine: The Conception Of Palestine from the Late Bronze Age to the Modern Period
It is important to note here that religious texts like the bible are not history books.
This is what archaeologists have learned from their excavations in the Land of Israel: the Israelites were never in Egypt, did not wander in the desert, did not conquer the land in a military campaign and did not pass it on to the 12 tribes of Israel. Perhaps even harder to swallow is the fact that the united monarchy of David and Solomon, which is described by the Bible as a regional power, was at most a small tribal kingdom. And it will come as an unpleasant shock to many that the God of Israel, Jehovah [Yahweh], had a female consort [see below] and that the early Israelite religion adopted monotheism only in the waning period of the monarchy and not at Mount Sinai.
‘Deconstructing the walls of Jericho’, Ze’ev Herzog (Professor of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University, and the Director of its Institute of Archaeology from 2005 to 2010)
The name Palestine is mentioned in ancient Egyptian inscriptions from the reign of Ramesses III, Assyrian clay tablets dating from 811 BCE—669 BCE, and numerous Greek texts, the most well-known being from the historian and geographer Herodotus and the philosopher Aristotle in the 5th and 4th centuries BC. The Romans just called the province by the name used for over a thousand years.
The Palestinian People
A study by an international team of archaeologists and geneticists from Tel Aviv University and Harvard published in Cell concluded that modern-day Jewish and Arab peoples in Israel and Palestine share a large part of their ancestry, in most cases more than half, with the early Bronze Age Canaanites.
Link: The Genomic History of the Bronze Age Southern Levant >
The DNA evidence backs up the archeology and history; the modern-day Palestinians share the same ancient ancestors as modern-day Jews. The Palestinian Arabs are indigenous to Palestine and have been there for 4,500 years.
What we today call Arabs is a collection of ethnicities that share a language and have assimilated Islamic culture. The people of the Levant, Egypt, and North Africa adopted the Arab language and Islam, acquiring an Arab identity after the Islamic conquests. But they have their own histories and cultures and are indigenous to the lands they live on, having been there for thousands of years before the Arab invasions. This is as true for the Palestinians as it is for the Egyptians or Moroccans.
The denial that the Palestinians even exist and the erasure of their history is part of the Israeli campaign of ethnic cleansing. If it’s a fake identity, how can they have any rights or the right to self-determination? The problem was that “the land without people for a people without land” was a lie. A lie that required the denial of Palestinian existence to sell—” they were a collection of recent immigrants,” “they are really Southern Syrians,” “they are really Jordanians,” and “the name was invented in 1964 to screw the Jews,”—all BS.
Palestinian Nationalism
The idea of the ethno-nation state is a European invention that arose in the 19th century. In Italy, the Risorgimento movement popularized the idea of all the peoples of the Italian peninsula as an “Italian” nation. Kamil Ataturk led the Young Turks movement to establish a modern secular state for Turks in Anatolia modeled on the modern European states from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire. Zionism and Palestinian nationalism were both products of this movement. The Treaty of Versailles codified self-determination as an international right (as put forth in President Wilson’s 14 points) and created the nation-states of Europe from the old European empires.
The Palestinian nationalist newspaper Falastin, which addressed its readers as Palestinians, was founded in 1911. At the time, the Jewish population of Palestine was less than 7%, and the Balfour Declaration was 6 years in the future. Palestinians at the time would have thought that the idea that Zionism or that the Jewish minority was a threat to their national aspirations was ridiculous. The Palestinian Jews who had been living in Palestine for centuries before the arrival of the Zionists were Palestinians. Palestinian nationalism was not born as a reaction to Zionism; it had the same motivating factors as nationalist movements everywhere at the time.
By 1936 things had changed dramatically. The Jewish population had grown to 28%, and the Balfour Declaration had declared that these European immigrants would be given a homeland on Palestinian lands. The mandate for Palestine, as written in the Treaty of Versailles, guaranteed the right of self-determination to the Palestinian people. The British abrogated their treaty obligation with the Balfour Declaration. Lord Balfour was a rabid anti-semite looking for a way to keep Jewish refugees from Russia and Eastern Europe out of England. As he hated Arabs as much as he hated Jews, he decided that giving away the land of the Palestinians was a perfect solution.
There is nothing special about the Palestinian reaction to this. Imagine if President Wilson had declared a homeland for Jews in South Carolina. A state that was less densely populated than Palestine at the time. How do you think the local population would have received masses of immigrating Jews intent on establishing a Jewish state? The same would have been true for any nation, colony, or region. Human nature and human history being what it is, the outcome of the clash of interests that the Balfour Declaration created was sure to end in tears.
The Great Palestinian Arab Revolt
In 1936, a nationwide Palestinian uprising erupted to win independence and establish a Palestinian state. The British were shocked by the scale of the revolt and sent in 20,000 troops to deal with it. At the time, there were 60,000 British troops on the whole of the Indian subcontinent, so 20,000 troops committed to a colony, a miniscule fraction of the size and population of India, is indicative of the scale of the revolt.
A royal commission of inquiry was sent to investigate. The Peel Commission declared Britain's obligations to Arabs and Jews in the mandate irreconcilable. The commission recommended that the region be partitioned, mentioning for the first time a “Jewish state.” The Balfour Declaration had the more vague wording of a “Jewish homeland.” The commission assigned an area that was far larger than the existing Jewish landholdings and recommended the forcible transfer of the Arab population from the area of the proposed Jewish state.
This was like lighting a match to a sea of gasoline. In reaction to the commission report, the Palestinian revolt exploded going into 1937. The British began to arm and train Jewish militias. The main Jewish militia, the Haganah, carried out joint operations with British forces against the Palestinians in ‘38 and ‘39.
For example, in June 1938 Jewish troops got their first taste of what it meant to occupy a Palestinian village: a Hagana unit and a British company jointly attacked a village on the border between Israel and Lebanon, and held it for a few hours. *Amatziya Cohen, who took part in the operation, remembered the British sergeant who showed them how to use bayonets in attacking defenseless villagers: ‘I think you are all totally ignorant in your Ramat Yochanan [the training base for the Hagana] since you do not even know the elementary use of bayonets when attacking dirty Arabs: how can you put your left foot in front!’ he shouted at Amatziya and his friends after they had returned to base.
*Hagana Archives, File 0014, 19 June 1938.
The Ethnic Cleansing Of Palestine, Ilan Pappe
The Palestinian revolt was brutally crushed. The entire Palestinian leadership was killed or exiled, by some accounts 10% of the male Palestinian population was killed. The way was now prepared for 1948. The Palestinian's ability to defend themselves or mount an effective resistance had been completely wiped out. The British backed off the proposals of the Peel Commission going into WW2 to win Arab support, but it was clear where the British stood. They had prevented a Palestinian state and proposed a Jewish one that was far out of proportion to the percent of the Jewish population. They had suppressed with lethal force the forces fighting for a Palestinian state while arming and training the Jewish militias seeking to establish a Jewish state.
“Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves … politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves… The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country. … Behind the terrorism [by the Arabs] is a movement, which though primitive is not devoid of idealism and self sacrifice.”
— David Ben Gurion. Quoted on pp 91-2 of Chomsky’s Fateful Triangle, which appears in Simha Flapan’s “Zionism and the Palestinians pp 141-2 citing a 1938 speech.
The Nakba
In 1947, United Nations Resolution 181 awarded 56% of the land in Palestine to an immigrant minority that made up 32% of the population over the objections of the 68% majority of the population (who would receive 42% of the land). The 2% remaining, including Jerusalem and Bethlehem, would be an international zone.
In March 1948, Ben-Gurion and his ‘consultancy’ devised “Plan Dalet,” a plan for the ethnic cleansing of the areas designated as part of the Jewish state in the UN resolution.
These operations can be carried out in the following manner: either by destroying villages (by setting fire to them, by blowing them up, and by planting mines in their debris) and especially of those population centers which are difficult to control continuously; or by mounting combing and control operations according to the following guidelines: encirclement of the villages, conducting a search inside them. In case of resistance, the armed forces must be wiped out and the population expelled outside the borders of the state. - Plan Dalet, 10 March, 1948
What happened in reality was not so clinical, with only ‘armed forces’ being wiped out and civilians expelled.
Coerced expulsions followed in the middle of February 1948 when Jewish troops succeeded in emptying five Palestinian villages in one day. On 10 March 1948, Plan Dalet was adopted. The first targets were the urban centres of Palestine, which had all been occupied by the end of April. About 250,000 Palestinians were uprooted in this phase, which was accompanied by several massacres, most notable of which was the Deir Yassin massacre.
The Ethnic Cleansing Of Palestine, Ilan Pappe
The British withdrew their forces on May 15, 1948, having done nothing to protect the civilians that they ruled. The British mandate had come to an ignominious end. The Jewish Agency immediately declared the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, which the USA and the USSR officially recognized.
10s of thousands of Palestinian refugees had been streaming across the borders of the newly formed Arab states with stories of rape, looting, summary executions, and mass killings in the months leading up to the Arab League entering the conflict. The massacres by the Jewish militia had outraged the Arab world and threatened to overwhelm them with destitute refugees. Approximately 600-800 poorly trained and poorly equipped volunteers from several Arab countries joined the Palestinian militias before the arrival of the Arab armies. The volunteers made no difference against the better-trained and equipped Jewish militias.
On the day of the British withdrawal, the Arab League regular Army troops entered Palestine. The Arab League gave reasons for intervention in Palestine in a cablegram:
Now that the Mandate over Palestine has come to an end, leaving no legally constituted authority behind in order to administer law and order in the country and afford the necessary and adequate protection to life and property, the Arab States declare as follows:
(a) The right to set up a Government in Palestine pertains to its inhabitants under the principles of self-determination recognized by the Covenant of the League of Nations as well as the United Nations Charter;
(b) Peace and order have been completely upset in Palestine, and, in consequence of Jewish aggression, approximately over a quarter of a million of the Arab population have been compelled to leave their homes and emigrate to neighbouring Arab countries. The prevailing events in Palestine exposed the concealed aggressive intentions of the Zionists and their imperialistic motives, as clearly shown in their acts committed upon those peaceful Arabs and villagers of Deer Yasheen, Tiberias, and other places, as well as by their encroachment upon the building and bodies of the inviolable consular codes, manifested by their attack upon the Consulate in Jerusalem.
Read the entire cablegram here.
The Arab Legion, under the command of the King of Jordan, was the only Arab force with professional training and modern equipment, having been set up and assisted by British officers after World War I. Unknown to his Arab allies, the King had cut a secret deal with the Zionists, giving him the West Bank in exchange for not interfering with their plans for the area of the Jewish partition. King Abdullah had kneecapped the Arab military intervention before it started.
Link: Collusion Across, The Jordan King Abdullah, the Zionist Movement, and the Partition of Palestine by Avi Shlaim
Seeing the situation deteriorate, the US offered two alternate plans: a trusteeship plan for five years in February 1948 and a three-month cease-fire proposed on May 12th; the Zionist forces rejected both plans. After the crushing of the uprising in ‘36-’39, the Palestinians had no organized, effective defense, and resistance quickly disintegrated, leaving the Palestinian civilian population at the mercy of a brutal pogrom that resulted in 33 documented massacres by Jewish militias.
750,000 Palestinians were forced out of their homes. They were never allowed back, and all of their property was confiscated with no compensation - all in direct violation of international law. Palestinians remember the event as the Nakba (Catastrophe in Arabic).
If this were not enough of an insult, the events of 1948 were erased from history in the West. Replaced with an absurd narrative were the people who were forcibly dispossessed were the aggressors, and the people who perpetrated the ethnic cleansing and stole the properties of 100s of thousands were the victims. Not just that. They were told that they, the Palestinians, didn't exist. Yes, the Palestinians, who were just asserting the identity they have had for 1,000s of years, were somehow victimizing Jews by their very existence.
The people who planned and executed the massacres, war crimes, and ethnic cleansing all went on to become Prime Ministers of Israel. After opening the archives that resulted in revealing evidence of the massacres and violent ethnic cleansing, Israeli security services are now in a panic to reseal any documentation of the war crimes against Arabs in ‘48.
Burying the Nakba: How Israel Systematically Hides Evidence of 1948 Expulsion of Arabs
Since early last decade, Defense Ministry teams have scoured local archives and removed troves of historic documents to conceal proof of the Nakba
The Occupation
The Israeli invasion of Egypt on June 5, 1967, began the six-day war. As a result of the war, Israel occupied the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza.
The illegal occupation is now in its 57th year. Almost 700,000 settlers have moved into the occupied territories, putting the lie to any claim that Israel is interested in peace or a two-state solution. Every year, the apartheid system becomes more restrictive, and the terror and violence against Palestinians increase. 124 Palestinian children were killed by the Israeli Occupation Forces and settlers in the West Bank in 2023, making it the deadliest year yet.
The Occupation Will Corrupt, Is Corrupting, and Has Corrupted
And the occupation continues to corrupt. It corrupts body and spirit, law and justice, morals and values, physiognomy and principles. Could it be otherwise? After all, there’s no way to maintain a moral, law-abiding society that’s fair and rational, while at the same time maintaining a horrible ghetto in the south and operating a dark tyranny in the east, a gloomy space controlled by an evil military dictatorship. There is no law there and no judge; everything is permissible and everything is forsaken, available for plundering and looting
Gaza
- Nothing that Israel has done justifies the war crimes committed by Hamas on October 7th.
- Nothing Hamas did on October 7th justifies the war crimes committed by Israel in Gaza.
The Israeli government's strategy of funding Hamas in order to divide the Palestinian leadership and weaken the Palestinian leaders that were willing to negotiate and recognize Israel was consistent with a policy that had as its goal a greater Israel extending from the Jordan to the sea. Funding and promoting terrorists would ensure there would be no chance of any peace negotiations that would result in a two-state solution and would justify continuing ethnic cleansing and apartheid. Netanyahu and his predecessors had as much concern for the Jewish civilian victims of Hamas as Hamas has for the civilian population of Gaza.
The Israeli government has taken full advantage of October 7th to advance its goals. In Gaza, Israel has finally moved from a slow, grinding ethnic cleansing to full-on Genocide. From killing 500 Palestinians a year and displacing small villages or individual families month by month to mass slaughter and mass starvation and the destruction of anything that could support life for 2.1 million people.
A large segment of the Israeli people and virtually all of the Israeli media are cheering on the killing and demanding more civilian blood and dead children. 57 years of violently controlling the lives of millions of occupied Palestinians while stealing their homes and land and the dehumanization of the occupied to justify that control has produced the current generation of Israelis. A generation that is saying the quiet part out loud. No more PC pretending. What used to be the behavior of some fringe violent religious zionist settlers is now government policy. It has been normalized by the Israeli media, by Israeli political leaders, and by all of the ministries of the Israeli government.
If you were to design a war strategy that would create the maximum number of terrorists, Netanyahu's war policy would be it. Every child, wife, and parent killed will create 100 new terrorists bent on revenge. What Netanyahu is creating in Gaza will make Hamas look like a bunch of choir boys, and that is his plan. The Israelis are confident that in a permanent war, the superior military technology and training of the Israeli forces will win out, and the Palestinians will eventually be eliminated. But they need opponents like Hamas for that to happen. Negotiations and peace are kryptonite to the dream of a Jewish supremacist state from the river to the sea sans Palestinians.
The shocking barbarity of the Israeli war on the Palestinian people of Gaza has shattered decades of carefully constructed lies. The gaslighting is no longer working. From the Nakba to Gaza, the true face of Israel and its history of ethnic cleansing and brutal oppression of the Palestinian people is being revealed.