The idea of a Palestinian people is a fiction that has persisted for far too long and it’s about time we all stopped playing this game.
Truth is truth, whether that truth was 5 minutes or 54 years ago it never changes and, certainly, what was true in 1969 is still true today: there is not now, nor has there ever been a Palestinian people as we have come to know them.
On June 15, 1969, then Prime Minister Golda Meir gave an interview to Frank Giles, then deputy editor of the British paper Sunday Times in which she famously declared “There was no such thing as Palestinians”.
Arab propagandists have consistently used Golda Meir's statement as a subject of mockery and scorn. They eagerly highlight her alleged "racism," her supposed refusal to acknowledge historical facts, and accuse her of making a deliberately false and strategic statement.
However, what they conveniently avoid discussing are the strikingly similar remarks made by Yasser Arafat and his close political associates years after Meir had revealed the truth – namely, that there is no distinct Palestinian cultural or national identity.
Despite the prevailing notion that there exist a Palestinian people today, I intend to draw attention to those inconvenient quotes made by Yasser Arafat and his associates when their public-relations guard was down.
But first, some history.
In 1963, the concept of "the Palestinian people" emerged as a strategic move by Israel's adversaries, namely the Palestinians. This strategy aimed to shift the global sentiment against Israel and reinvigorate the ongoing struggle against it.
Amidst all the tumultuous events related to Jewish settlement in Palestine, the emergence of Zionism, and the establishment of the Jewish state, there is a noticeable absence of Palestinians. Palestine was a geographical designation, much like Staten Island or Burlington, rather than a distinct people.
It's no coincidence that none of the English-speaking travelers who explored the region, along with various other individuals who journeyed through desolate Palestine over the centuries, ever mentioned the "Palestinian" people. Their accounts documented encounters with Arabs, as well as Jews, Christians, and various other groups, but none of the extensive writings about Palestine ever alluded to Palestinians. Even the numerous British White Papers and official documents produced during the Mandate period by the British government do not contain any references to Palestinians. These documents typically juxtapose the Jews and the Arabs as opposing factions.
The reason for this is quite straightforward: the concept of Palestinians as a distinct people did not exist at that time.
A disquieting reality for those who assert that Palestinians are the indigenous inhabitants of the region is their historical absence. There has never been a state of Palestine, no King or President of Palestine, and until relatively recently, no Palestinian flag. There is also nothing that sets the Palestinians apart culturally, linguistically, or otherwise from the other Arabs in the area.
During the Mandate period, the Arabs living in Palestine primarily identified themselves as Syrians, viewing Palestine as a part of Southern Syria. In early 1919, Arab Muslims in fourteen Palestinian municipalities formed the Muslim-Christian Association and submitted a petition to the Paris Peace Conference. This petition insisted that Southern Syria, or what was then referred to as Palestine, be regarded as "inseparable from the independent Arab Syrian government." They argued that Palestine was "nothing but part of Arab Syria and it has never been separated from it at any stage." The Arabs in Palestine asserted that they had "national, religious, linguistic, moral, economic, and geographic ties" with Syria, emphasizing that Palestine should remain "integral to the independent Arab Syrian Government" as long as it was not under foreign control.
Ironically, those making these demands back then would now be classified as Palestinians. They would be utterly perplexed if transported a century into the future and confronted with today's rhetoric about Palestinians being the indigenous people of Palestine. Similarly, Musa Kazim al-Husayni, who served as the head of the Jerusalem Town Council and declared in October 1919, "We demand no separation from Syria," would find the contemporary discourse about Palestinian identity bewildering.
Ahmad Shukairy, who served as President of the Palestine Liberation Organization in the 1960s, acknowledged that immediately after World War I, the focus was not on advocating for the rights of the Palestinian people. Instead, there was a prevalent discourse about the potential unification of the Arabs residing in Palestine with their counterparts in Syria.
Indeed, the term "Palestinians" was more commonly associated with Jews rather than Muslim Arabs during the Mandate period. Some Arab individuals even rejected this label, clarifying that they considered themselves Arabs rather than Palestinians and suggesting that the term referred to the Jewish population.
Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi, an influential Arab Muslim leader, expressed a similar disdain for the term when he addressed the Peel Commission in 1937. He stated, "There is no such country as Palestine! 'Palestine' is a term the Zionists invented! There is no Palestine in the Bible. Our country was for centuries part of Syria."
In 1946, the Arab-American historian Philip Hitti testified before the 1946 Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, asserting, "There is no such thing as Palestine in history, absolutely not." This statement emphasized that there was no historical record of a nation bearing the name Palestine.
However, by the early 1960s, there had been a significant shift in this regard. The 1963 draft constitution of the Palestine Liberation Organization now casually referred to "Palestinians" as if they were a distinct and easily identifiable people. The constitution stated, "All the Palestinians are natural members in the Liberation Organization exercising their duty in their liberation of their homeland in accordance with their abilities and efficiency."
In the initial stages of the emergence of the Palestinian identity, the knowledge about their historical absence was far more widespread than it is today. In 1969, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir asserted that "there was no such thing as Palestinians... It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine identifying themselves as a Palestinian people, and we came and expelled them and took their country from them. They did not exist." She further emphasized that there had never been an "independent Palestinian people with a Palestinian State."
The Arab Muslims residing in Palestine were aware of this reality. Syrian President Hafez Assad conveyed a message to Yasser Arafat, stating, "You do not represent Palestine to the same extent that we do. Always remember this one crucial fact: There is no such entity as a Palestinian people; there is no distinct Palestinian identity. There is only Syria. You are an essential component of the Syrian people, and Palestine is an integral part of Syria. Consequently, we, the Syrian authorities, are the genuine representatives of the Palestinian people."
Now, up until this moment you - My Lovely Readers - don’t have to take the word of Golda Maeir, Philip Hitti, Hafez Assad or even mine for that matter but, what you do have to bear in mind is that the very organization that has agitated for the concept of a Palestinian people and a Palestinian state even admits there’s no such thing as a Palestinian people: the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) itself.
On March 31, 1977, an interview with Zahir Muhsein, a member of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, was featured in the Dutch newspaper Trouw. His statements were as follows:
”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.
For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.”
Isn't that remarkably clear? It's even more explicit than Golda Meir's statement and aligns with the points I've made on this topic. Moreover, it's far from being the sole statement of its kind. Arafat himself made an unequivocal and definitive statement along these lines as recently as 1993. This firmly establishes that the Palestinian nationhood argument is indeed a strategic deception aimed at laying the groundwork for Israel's destruction.
In fact, on the very day that Arafat signed the Declaration of Principles on the White House lawn in 1993, he elaborated on his intentions during an appearance on Jordan TV. He stated:
“Since we cannot defeat Israel in war, we do this in stages. We take any and every territory that we can of Palestine, and establish a sovereignty there, and we use it as a springboard to take more. When the time comes, we can get the Arab nations to join us for the final blow against Israel.”
I've stated this before, and I'll reiterate it once more: throughout world history, there has never been a nation called Palestine. The territory referred to as Palestine witnessed various rulers, including Rome, Islamic and Christian crusaders, the Ottoman Empire, and briefly, the British following World War I. After the war, the British agreed to restore part of this land as the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people. It has never been ruled by Arabs as an independent nation.
So, why has it now become such a paramount concern? The answer lies in a vast campaign of deception and relentless terrorism spanning over 50 years.
Golda Meir's statement rings true, and it finds support in historical facts and the candid, albeit less widely publicized, statements of Arafat and his associates.
So, my lovely readers, where have we heard this before? Where have we encountered a group of people who claim to be something they’re not but, because they “feel” it in their “soul”, we have to believe them and that they’ll not stop until their beliefs are enshrined in government, law, and even corporations and academia?
That’s right - this is Self-ID, carried out to its logical (and patently absurd) conclusion and, as it would seem, it’s a page ripped out of the PLO playbook by trans rights activists.
This achievement in propaganda rivals the skill of Josef Goebbels and the editors of Pravda; TRAs, like the PLO, have framed themselves as a marginalized population.
And, like the PLO, their intention is not to genuinely reach an agreement with anyone but to capitalize on the newfound victimhood status of this newly created group in order to secure valuable concessions from the rest of us, much the same way the “Palestinians” do to secure concessions from Israel.
And the goals of TRAs, not unlike the PLO, are virtually the same, they just disagree on method of achievement.