Palestine

Palestine - The Peace FAQ
● Was there ever a state of Palestine? Did Israel conquer Palestine and
replace it with a Jewish state?
● In what percent of Palestine does Israel exist?
● Who does Palestine rightly belong to? Why do the Arabs, a nation
which occupies 22 countries, also insist on occupying Palestine?
● What is the history of Palestine, where did it get it's name?
● Who are the Palestinians? Where did the Arabs of Palestine come
from? Are they a separate people, historically different from other
Arabs?
● Was Palestine full of Arabs before the mass return of Jews?
● Did the Jews expel the Arabs from Palestine? Are there no more
Arabs in Israel?
● If the Land of Israel was so important to the Jews, why did they
leave?
● Jews were mostly living outside of Palestine for a long time, doesn't
that reduce their claim to the land?
● Weren't the Arabs living in Palestine for hundreds of years or
millenea before the Jews came?
● Why did the Jews insist on returning to Palestine? They were doing
quite well in other peoples' countries...
● Did the Arabs invade the region by force?
● Did the rich European Jews take advantage of the poor Arabs and
trick them into selling their best land at low cost?
● Did the Jewish influx improve the job opportunities, health care,
standard of living, infrastructure, which made Palestine an attractive
place for Arabs, who would later immigrate to Palestine?
● Is the Arab opposition to Israel's existence, an opposition to
imperialism, or a fight over limited land?
● Where is Palestine? What are its borders? Is it only between the
Mediteranean and the river Jordan?
Was there ever a state of Palestine? Did Israel conquer Palestine

and replace it with a Jewish state?
● In the Six-Day War, Israel captured Judea, Samaria and East

Jerusalem. But they didn't capture these territories from Yasser
Arafat. They captured them from Jordan's King Hussein. I can't help
but wonder why all these Palestinians suddenly discovered their
national identity after Israel won the war.
http://www.peacefaq.com/palestine.html (1 of 25)8/9/2007 9:39:21 AM

The truth is that Palestine is no more real than Never-Never Land. ...
Palestine has never existed ...as an autonomous entity. It was ruled
alternately by Rome, by Islamic and Christian crusaders, by the
Ottoman Empire and, briefly, by the British after World War I. The
British agreed to restore at least part of the land to the Jewish people
as their homeland.
- Joseph Farah, Arab-American journalist,

editor and CEO of WorldNetDaily
● When Jews began to immigrate to Palestine in large numbers in

1882, fewer than 250,000 Arabs lived there, and the majority of
them had arrived in recent decades. Palestine was never an
exclusively Arab country, although Arabic gradually became the
language of most the population after the Muslim invasions of the
seventh century. No independent Arab or Palestinian state ever
existed in Palestine. When the distinguished Arab-American historian,
Princeton University Prof. Philip Hitti, testified against partition
before the Anglo-American Committee in 1946, he said: "There is no
such thing as 'Palestine' in history, absolutely not." In fact, Palestine
is never explicitly mentioned in the Koran, rather it is called "the holy
land" (al-Arad al-Muqaddash).
● In a recent speech to the United Nations General Assembly, Yasser

Arafat talked of "the need to realize justice for the Palestinian
people, to restore their international status and their seat in the
United Nations." He referred to "our country, Palestine" and
expressed the hope that it would be "restored its freedom."
The meaning of this message is clear: Palestine is a country that

belonged to the Palestinians until it was invaded and usurped by the
Jews. Jerusalem was the Palestinian capital now being Judaized by
Israel. Justice will be served only if the Palestinians are allowed to re-
establish their sovereignty in it.
That all this is unadulterated fiction has not prevented many

governments from accepting it. Nor has it deterred pundits from
upbraiding Israel for failing to "give back" Palestinian land.
In fact, there never has been a state called Palestine, nor have the
Palestinian Arabs ever been an independent people, and Jerusalem
never has been an Arab or Muslim capital. Jerusalem has had an
absolute Jewish majority for more than a century (and a plurality
before that), and for the last three thousand years, only the Jewish
people have called it their capital....To inveigh against "Judaizing"
Jerusalem is like protesting the Arabization of Cairo.

David Bar-Illan, former Executive Editor of the Jerusalem Post, in

an article first published in November 1998 in the Los Angeles Times.
In what percent of Palestine does Israel exist?
● Arab critics of Israel speak of Jewish migration to Palestine after

World War I, neglecting to mention that there has been a substantial
and continuous Jewish presence in the land for over three thousand
years, and a steady Jewish majority in Jerusalem. Nor do they care
to remember that when, after World War II, the General Assembly
proposed to partition Palestine, this followed an earlier (1922) and
illegal partition by the British which gave almost 80% of the land
promised to the Jews by the Balfour Declaration to create the Arab
state of Transjordan. Thus, at the time of the 1947 partition vote in
the United Nations, the Jews had already been unlawfully deprived of
four-fifths of their entitlement.
- Louis Rene Beres

Professor of International Law
Department of Political Science
Purdue University
Who does Palestine rightly belong to? Why do the Arabs, a nation
which occupies 22 countries, also insist on occupying Palestine?
● History and Background
In 1920 the world organization of nations [League of Nations]

proclaimed that Palestine was to be a homeland for the Jews. Around
the same time, Lebanon was made a place for Arab Christians, and
Syria, and Iraq were to be homelands for Arab Moslems. In 1922
England [the occupying power in Palestine] gave all of Palestine east
of the River Jordan [77% of Palestine] to Arab Moslems, forbidding
Jews to live there.
Further UN estimates put the property loses of Jews kicked out of

Arab countries after 1948 at 10 times those lost by Palestinian Arabs.
● [In World War I] Turkey, with an expansive empire that compassed

the Middle East (including Palestine) and North Africa, fought with
Germany and the Central Powers against the Allies. At the breaking
up of the Turkish Empire by the victorious Allies, both Jews and
Arabs requested independent states. The world powers were
generous in the extreme to the Arabs by granting them twenty-two

independent Arabs states - encompassing 5,414,000 square miles.

The Jews asked for less than one percent of that vast territory. The
Allies agreed to this request (which included both sides of the
Jordan) in the 1917 Balfour Declaration and the 1920 San Remo
Conference of World Powers.
For imperialistic interests, however, in 1921 Great Britain reneged on

the Balfour Declaration, lopped off 77 percent of the Land promised
in the Balfour Declaration and set up the Arab Emirate of
Transjordan. Then in 1922 the League of Nations gave Great Britain
a Mandate to prepare the remaining 23 percent of Palestine
(including Samaria, Judea, Gaza, Golan Heights and Eastern
Jerusalem) for a Jewish National Home. But under French pressure,
in 1923 the Golan Heights was ceded by the British to the French
mandate of Syria. They partitioned His Land and the Lord was angry.
Oil Diplomacy
Oil was then discovered in the Arab countries. Consequently, "oil

diplomacy" was instituted. British foreign policy simply appeased the
Arabs. In 1939 the British White Paper banned further immigration to
Palestine. Also, with brutal callousness, the United Sates and most
nations refused to accept the beleaguered Jews of Europe.
Consequently, 6 million Jews were slaughtered in the Holocaust.
How many millions of these hapless victims would have found a

haven in Palestine if Britain had not reneged - with the silent consent
of the other nations of the world - on its own mandate obligations by
banning Jewish immigration? What a heinous, collective crime of
history! Lloyd George, the Prime Minister of Great Britain when the
Balfour Declaration was issued, went on national radio to call the
British 1939 White Paper, "an act of national perfidy which will
dishonor the name of Britain."
This time the nations actually denied the Jews any of God's Land and
the Lord was angry. Finally, the gentile nations, guilt-ridden after
defaulting on their promise since 1922, felt a moral obligation to
grant the Jews an independent state. But, unfortunately, the UN
Partition Plan of 1947 further reduced the size of the new Israeli
State. They partitioned "My Land" and the Lord was angry. .. .
When Israel became an independent State in 1948, armies from six

Arab nations invaded the newborn State. Outnumbered 100 to one,
Israel's ragtag army pushed back the invaders and took more of its
rightful Land. Divine Providence was telling the world something
about whose Land it is.

Jordan Occupied East Jerusalem
However, the Arab State of Transjordan captured East Jerusalem,

expelled all Jews and destroyed or desecrated all Jewish holy sites.
This is the time when Jerusalem became "occupied territory." In
addition to defying the U.N. Mandate, Transjordan also occupied the
west bank of the River Jordan. No longer limited to being
"Trans" (across) Jordan (the east bank), Transjordan reduced its
name to simply Jordan, now ruling over both the occupied west bank
and the original east bank of Jordan.
But this annexation of the "West Bank" by Jordan was not recognized
by any nation of the world - except Great Britain and Pakistan.
Jordan was even denounced by its Arab allies, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt
and Saudi Arabia, who wanted to expel Jordan from the Arab League!
It is claimed that 600,000 Arabs fled "temporarily," but temporarily
became permanently when the Arab invaders failed to destroy the
new State of Israel. David Ben-Gurion adamantly argued that the
600,000 figure was a lie. "The refugee issue is one of the biggest
lies, even among our own people...I have all the figures. From the
area of the State of Israel, only 180,000 Arabs left in 1948. There
were 300,000 Arabs altogether in Israel and 120,000 remain."
In the 1967 Six Day War, under the threat of being "pushed into the
sea" by Egypt, Syria and Jordan, Israel actually liberated the
"occupied territory" of Jerusalem and granted free access to Jews,
Christians and Moslems to worship at their respective holy sites.
Israel also liberated the "West Bank" and Gaza. How easily recent
history is forgotten. By comparison, Israel's administration, despite
its faults, has been much more humane.
- Bible Students Congregation of New Brunswick
What is the history of Palestine, where did it get it's name?
● The first time the name was used was in 70 C. E. when the Romans
committed genocide against the Jews, smashed the Temple and
declared the land of Israel would be no more. From then on, the
Romans promised, it would be known as Palestine. The name was
derived from the Philistines, a Goliathian people conquered by the
Jews centuries earlier. It was a way for the Romans to add insult to
injury. They also tried to change the name of Jerusalem to Aelia
Capitolina, but that had even less staying power.

Palestine has never existed -- before or since -- as an autonomous

entity. It was ruled alternately by Rome, by Islamic and Christian
crusaders, by the Ottoman Empire and, briefly, by the British after
World War I. The British agreed to restore at least part of the land to
the Jewish people as their homeland.
- Joseph Farah, Arab-American journalist,

editor and CEO of WorldNetDaily
● The name "Palestine", from the Greek Palaistina, originally from the
Hebrew Pleshet (Land of the Philistines): a small coastal strip north
east of Egypt, also called Philistia. The Roman term "Syria
Palaestina" in the 2nd century BCE referred to the southern third of
the province of Syria, including the former Judea. The name
"Palestine" was revived as an official title when the British were
granted a mandate after World War I.
- Encyclopaedia Britanica ill, Micropaedia, vol. Vll, "Palestine."
● The term "Palestine" is believed to be derived from the Philistines, an

Aegean people who, in the 12th Century B.C., settled along the
Mediterranean coastal plain of what is now Israel and the Gaza Strip.
In the second century A.D., after crushing the last Jewish revolt, the
Romans first applied the name Palaestina to Judea (the southern
portion of what is now called the West Bank) in an attempt to
minimize Jewish identification with the land of Israel. The Arabic
word "Filastin" is derived from this Latin name.
● The name "Palestine" was the name the conquering Romans gave the
ancient Land of Israel so as to obliterate the JEWISH presence in the
Holy Land! Despite being conquered and controlled by the Romans,
Greeks, Turks and numerous others, only TWO nations have ever
existed there over the last 3,000 years... ancient "Israel" and again
"Israel," re-established in 1948! To the Arab people as a whole no
such entity as "Palestine" ever existed prior to the early 20th century
and there was certainly never an ancient Palestinian Arab nation!
Who are the Palestinians? Where did the Arabs of Palestine come
from? Are they a separate people, historically different from other
Arabs?
● Palestine has always constituted a single geographical, political and

demographic unit with Greater Syria and Egypt. On its soil the
civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt intermingled. Palestine also
witnessed, as a land bridge linking Asia, Africa, and Europe, several

movements and waves of conquerors who dominated it for different

periods of time and left behind varying degrees of influence.
- By Abdul Jawad Saleh, in Transformation of Palestine, printed in

Challenge, February 1995, published on the WWW by the Center for
Research and Documentation of Palestinian Society, Bir Zeit
University, the West Bank
● Prior to partition, Palestinian Arabs did not view themselves as

having a separate identity. When the First Congress of Muslim-
Christian Associations met in Jerusalem in February 1919 to choose
Palestinian representatives for the Paris Peace Conference, the
following resolution was adopted:
"We consider Palestine as part of Arab Syria, as it has never been

separated from it at any time. We are connected with it by national,
religious, linguistic, natural, economic and geographical bonds."
● "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."
- Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi, a local Arab leader, to the Peel

Commission, 1937
● "Palestine was part of the Province of Syria...

...politically, the Arabs of Palestine were not independent in the
sense of forming a separate political entity."
- The representative of the Arab Higher Committee to the United

Nations submitted this in a statement to the General Assembly in
May 1947
● "It is common knowledge that Palestine is nothing but southern

Syria."
- Ahmed Shuqeiri, later the chairman of the PLO, to the UN

Security Council
● The Romans had changed the name of the Land of Israel to

"Palestine." But from A.D. 640 until the 1960s, Arabs referred to this
same Land as "Southern Syria." Arabs only started calling the Land
"Palestine" in the 1960s. Until about the eighteenth century, the
Christian world called this same Land, "The Holy Land." Thereafter,
they used two names: "The Holy Land" and "Palestine." When the
League of Nations in 1922 gave Great Britain the mandate to prepare

Palestine as a national home for the Jewish people, the official name
of the Land became "Palestine" and remained so until the rebirth of
the Israeli State in 1948. During this very period, the leaders of the
Arabs in the Land, however, called themselves Southern Syrians and
clamored that the Land become a part of a "Greater Syria." This
"Arab Nation" would include Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Transjordan as
well as Palestine. An observation in TIME magazine well articulated
how the Palestinian identity was born so belatedly in the 1960s:
Golda Meir once argued that there was no such thing as a

Palestinian; at the time, she wasn't entirely wrong. Before Arafat
began his proselytizing, most of the Arabs from the territory of
Palestine thought of themselves as members of an all-embracing
Arab nation. It was Arafat who made the intellectual leap to a
definition of the Palestinians as a distinct people; he articulated the
cause, organized for it, fought for it and brought it to the world's
attention.
If there was an Arab Palestinian culture, a normal population

increase over the centuries would have been expected. But with the
exception of a relatively few families, the Arabs had no attachment to
the Land. If Arabs from southern Syria drifted into Palestine for
economic reasons, within a generation or so the cultural tug of Syria
or other Arab lands would pull them back. This factor is why the Arab
population average remained low until the influx of Jewish financial
investments and Jewish people in the late 1800s made the Land
economically attractive. Then sometime between 1850 and 1918, the
Arab population shot up to 560,000. Not to absolve the Jews but to
defend British policy, the not overfriendly British secretary of state
for the colonies, Malcolm MacDonald, declared in the House of
Commons (November 24, 1938), "The Arabs cannot say that the
Jews are driving them out of the country. If not a single Jew had
come to Palestine after 1918, I believe the Arab population of
Palestine would still have been around 600,000. . ."
Because Arabs until the 1960s spoke of Palestine as Southern Syria

or part of Greater Syria, in 1919 the General Syrian Congress
stated, "We ask that there should be no separation of the southern
part of Syria, known as Palestine." In 1939 George Antonius noted
the Arab view of Palestine in 1918:
Faisal's views about the future of Palestine did not

differ from those of his father and were identical with
those held then by the great majority of politically-
minded Arabs. The representative Arab view was
substantially that which King Husain [Grand Sherif of
Mecca, the great grandfather of the current King
Hussein of Jordan] had expressed to the British

Government. . . in January 1918. In the Arab view,

Palestine was an Arab territory forming an integral part
of Syria.
Referring to the same Arab view of Palestine in 1939, George

Antonius spoke of "the whole of the country of that name [Syria]
which is now split up into mandated territories..." His lament was
that France's mandate over Syria did not include Palestine which was
under Britain's mandate.
Syrian President Hafez Assad once told PLO leader Yassir Arafat:
You do not represent Palestine as much as we do.

Never forget this one point: There is no such thing as a
Palestinian People, there is no Palestinian entity, there
is only Syria. You are an integral part of the Syrian
people, Palestine is an integral part of Syria. Therefore
it is we, the Syrian authorities, who are the true
representatives of the Palestinian people.
Assad stated on March 8, 1974, "Palestine is a principal part of

Southern Syria, and we consider that it is our right and duty to insist
that it be a liberated partner of our Arab homeland and of Syria."
In the words of the late military commander of the PLO as well as

member of the PLO Executive Council, Zuhair Muhsin:
There are no differences between Jordanians,

Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. We are all part of
one nation. It is only for political reasons that we
carefully underline our Palestinian identity....yes, the
existence of a separate Palestinian identity serves only
tactical purposes. The founding of a Palestinian state is
a new tool in the continuing battle against Israel.
The following are significant observations by Christians of the Arabs

in Palestine in the 1800s:
The Arabs themselves, who are its inhabitants, cannot

be considered but temporary residents. They pitched
their tents in its grazing fields or built their places of
refuge in its ruined cities. They created nothing in it.
Since they were strangers to the land, they never
became its masters. The desert wind that brought
them hither could one day carry them away without
their leaving behind them any sign of their passage
through it.

Stephen Olin, D.D., L.L.D., called one of the most noted of

American theologians after his extensive travels in the Middle East
wrote of the Arabs in Palestine "...with slight exceptions they are
probably all descendants of the old inhabitants of Syria."
Was Palestine full of Arabs before the mass return of Jews?
● "[The Holy Land was] desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but
is given over wholly to weeds - a silent mournful expanse . . . A
desolation is here that not even imagination can grace with the pomp
of life and action . . . We never saw a human being on the whole
route . . . There was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere. Even the
olive and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had
almost deserted the country"
- Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad, or The New Pilgrim's Progress

(1869).
● The area was underpopulated and remained economically stagnant

until the arrival of the first Zionist pioneers in the 1880's, who came
to rebuild the Jewish land. The country had remained "The Holy
Land" in the religious and historic consciousness of mankind, which
associated it with the Bible and the history of the Jewish people.
Jewish development of the country also attracted large numbers of
other immigrants - both Jewish and Arab.
● "The road leading from Gaza to the north was only a summer track
suitable for transport by camels and carts ... Houses were all of mud.
No windows were anywhere to be seen.... The plows used were of
wood.... The yields were very poor.... The sanitary conditions in the
village [Yabna] were horrible.... Schools did not exist.... The rate of
infant mortality was very high.... The western part, toward the sea,
was almost a desert.... The villages in this area were few and thinly
populated. Many ruins of villages were scattered over the area, as
owing to the prevalence of malaria, many villages were deserted by
their inhabitants."
- The report of the British Royal Commission, 1913
● We found it inhabited by fellahin who lived in mud hovels and

suffered severely from the prevalent malaria....Large areas...were
uncultivated....The fellahin, if not themselves cattle thieves, were
always ready to harbor these and other criminals. The individual
plots...changed hands annually. There was little public security, and
the fellahin's lot was an alternation of pillage and blackmail by their
neighbors, the Bedouin.

- Lewis French, the British Director of Development
● There are many proofs, such as ancient ruins, broken aqueducts, and
remains of old roads, which show that it has not always been so
desolate as it seems now. In the portion of the plain between Mount
Carmel and Jaffa one sees but rarely a village or other sights of
human life.
There are some rude mills here which are turned by the stream. A
ride of half an hour more brought us to the ruins of the ancient city
of Cæsarea, once a city of two hundred thousand inhabitants, and
the Roman capital of Palestine, but now entirely deserted.
As the sun was setting we gazed upon the desolate harbor, once
filled with ships, and looked over the sea in vain for a single sail. In
this once crowded mart, filled with the din of traffic, there was the
silence of the desert. After our dinner we gathered in our tent as
usual to talk over the incidents of the day, or the history of the
locality.
Yet it was sad, as I laid upon my couch at night, to listen to the

moaning of the waves and to think of the desolation around us.
- by B. W. Johnson, in Young Folks in Bible Lands: Chapter IV, 1892
● Then we entered the hill district, and our path lay through the
clattering bed of an ancient stream, whose brawling waters have
rolled away into the past, along with the fierce and turbulent race
who once inhabited these savage hills. There may have been
cultivation here two thousand years ago. The mountains, or huge
stony mounds environing this rough path, have level ridges all the
way up to their summits; on these parallel ledges there is still some
verdure and soil: when water flowed here, and the country was
thronged with that extraordinary population, which, according to the
Sacred Histories, was crowded into the region, these mountain steps
may have been gardens and vineyards, such as we see now thriving
along the hills of the Rhine. Now the district is quite deserted, and
you ride among what seem to be so many petrified waterfalls. We
saw no animals moving among the stony brakes; scarcely even a
dozen little birds in the whole course of the ride.
- by William Thackeray in From Jaffa To Jerusalem, 1844
● So when the Arabs speak of an historical "Palestinian people," this is

a lie and they know it! The Land of Israel was virtually uninhabited
when the Jews began their return ["Zionist Movement"] in the late
1800s. The vast majority of Arabs came to Israel AFTER these
Zionists pioneers began to rebuild the land and thereby creating the

economic opportunities and medical availabilities which attracted

Arabs from both surrounding territories and far-away Arab lands!
Terrorism, slaughter, rape and carnage by the Arabs against the

Jews began as soon as the Jews began to resettle the barren land
and largely uninhabited lands, continued through the British
Mandatory period after World War I, continued again after the Jews
declared a Jewish Palestinian home [Israel] in 1948 and is still
continuing today.
● The Palestinian claim that the Land for centuries sustained a thriving
Palestinian culture is not authorized by the facts of history. Yet the
world community has given this claim a receptive hearing. PLO
Chairman Yassir Arafat in his speech before the U.N. in 1974
declared, "The Jewish invasion began in 1881 . . . Palestine was then
a verdant area, inhabited mainly by an Arab people in the course of
building its life and dynamically enriching its indigenous culture."
What happens when this claim is compared with the personal

observations of the following recognized authorities? In 1738
Thomas Shaw observed a land of "barrenness.... from want of
inhabitants." In 1785 Constantine Francois de Volney recorded
the population of the three main cities. Jerusalem had a population of
12,000 to 14,000. Bethlehem had about 600 able-bodied men.
Hebron had 800 to 900 men. In 1835 Alphonse de Lamartine
wrote, "Outside the city of Jerusalem, we saw no living object, heard
no living sound. . .a complete eternal silence reigns in the town, in
the highways, in the country . . . The tomb of a whole people."
In 1857, the British consul in Palestine, James Finn, reported, "The

country is in a considerable degree empty of inhabitants and
therefore its greatest need is that of a body of population."
The most popular quote on the desolation of the Land is from Mark
Twain's THE INNOCENTS ABROAD (1867), "Palestine sits in
sackcloth and ashes. Over it broods the spell of a curse that has
withered its fields and fettered its energies....Palestine is desolate
and unlovely.... It is a hopeless, dreary, heartbroken land."
...The records of history simply do not confirm today's Palestinian

claim of Palestinian roots and culture in a "verdant area" since the
Arab rule of the land (A.D. 640-1099).
Did the Jews expel the Arabs from Palestine? Are there no more
Arabs in Israel?

● If this piece of propaganda were true, one should indeed not find
Arabs in Israel. That some 15% of the population of Israel is Arab
(Muslims and Christians, although the Christians are not technically
Arabs) with full voting and civil rights with members in parliament -
certainly disproves that propaganda. There were, of course, Arab
refugees as a result of the War of Independence in 1948 and the Six-
Day war in 1967. There were as many Jewish refugees expelled from
Arab lands during this time period. The difference is that, in Israel,
the Arab states encouraged the Arab residents to leave Israel
temporarily while they exterminate the Jews. Some Arab residents
went along with this scheme expecting to come back and take Jewish
property after the Arab victory. But there was no victory, and no
return. The Jewish residents of Arab lands, on the other hand, were
expelled without provocation by their Arab overlords who seized vast
amounts of Jewish posessions and property. The Jewish refugees
were absorbed almost immediately by Israel and France. The Arab
refugees were left to rot by the Arab governments responsible for
their predicament, and were put in camps which became breeding
grounds for hatred and extremism. That anger at Israel and the Jews
is misdirected.
- The Society for Rational Peace
If the Land of Israel was so important to the Jews, why did they
leave?
● A common misperception is that the Jews were forced into the

diaspora by the Romans after the destruction of the Second Temple
in Jerusalem in the year 70 A.D. and then, 1,800 years later,
suddenly returned to Palestine demanding their country back. In
reality, the Jewish people have maintained ties to their historic
homeland for more than 3,700 years. A national language and a
distinct civilization have been maintained.
Even after the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem and

the beginning of the exile, Jewish life in Palestine continued and
often flourished. Large communities were reestablished in Jerusalem
and Tiberias by the ninth century. In the 11th century, Jewish
communities grew in Rafah, Gaza, Ashkelon, Jaffa and Caesarea.
Many Jews were massacred by the Crusaders during the 12th

century, but the community rebounded in the next two centuries as
large numbers of rabbis and Jewish pilgrims immigrated to Jerusalem

and the Galilee. Prominent rabbis established communities in Safed,

Jerusalem and elsewhere during the next 300 years. By the early
19th century-years before the birth of the modern Zionist movement-
more than 10,000 Jews lived throughout what is today Israel.
● Although the expulsions of Jews after A.D. 70 and 135 were massive,
devotion to the Land of Israel caused some to linger just outside the
borders, wait for quieter times and keep coming back. One of the so-
called Early Church Fathers, Origen, during his stay in the Holy Land
from A.D. 231-254, observed that the Jews were still a majority in
the Land at that time. After the Roman Empire embraced Christianity
in the fourth century, a systematic dispersal of the remaining Jews
began. However, between A.D. 614-617, the Jews actually controlled
large parts of the Land:
Consequently, the population of the Land was a "quilt" of minorities

when the Arabs acquired it in their conquest of Byzantine Syria in A.
D. 640. This quilt of people whose Land was dubbed "Palestine" by
Imperial Rome was composed of Jews, Samaritans, dissident-
Christians and the largest grouping-Syrian Orthodox Christians-none
of whom were Arabs.
Although the Arabs ruled the Land from A.D. 640 to A.D. 1099, it is
questionable that they ever became the majority of the population.
The historian James Parker wrote:
During the first century after the Arab conquest [A.D.

670-740], the caliph and governors of Syria and the
Land [Palestine] ruled entirely over Christian and
Jewish subjects. Apart from the Bedouin in the earliest
days, the only Arabs west of the Jordan. . .were the
garrisons.
In A.D. 985 the Arab writer Muqaddasi complained about the large
majority Jewish population in Jerusalem and added, "The mosque is
empty of worshippers. . ." Although Al-Hakim, Caliph of the Arab
Empire (A.D. 996-1021), ordered all non-Moslems in Syria and the
area called Palestine to convert to Islam or be expelled, he later
rescinded some of the restrictions and so the Arabs remained a
minority. The noted Arab historian Dr. Philip Hitti observed that
after almost four centuries after the Arab conquest (about A.D.
1070), the Christians (non-Arabs) in Syria, including Palestine, were
still fully as numerous as the Moslems and that the Moslems were by
no means all Arab.
The Crusader rule (A.D. 1099-1291) in the Land was followed by the
non-Arab Moslem rule of the Mamelukes (A.D. 1291-1517). The Arab

historian Hitti observed that there was a large exodus of Arabs

during this period. Th e Arab historian Ibu Khaldun wrote in A.D.
1377, "Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel extended over 1400
years. . . . It was the Jews who implanted the culture and customs of
the permanent settlement." Nearly 300 years after the Arab rule in
the Land, the noted Arab historian Khaldun (called one of the
greatest historians of all time by Arnold Toynbee) observed that the
Land still was permeated with Jewish culture and customs. In A.D.
1400, nearly 300 years after Arab rule, there was still no evidence of
Palestinian roots or established culture.
During the period of the Mamelukes as a consequence of the Black

Plague, the population of the Land west of the Jordan River dwindled
down to 140,000 to 150,000 Moslems, Christians and Jews. After the
Turkish conquest in 1517 a census for tax purposes tabulated 49,181
heads of families and single men liable to tax. Professor Roberto
Bacchi calculated that in the years 1553-1554 there were 205,000
Moslems, Christians and Jews. From his travels in 1785, Francois
Comte de Volney's figures would leave less than 200,000 for the
total population of the land of Palestine. Both Dr. Philip K. Hitti and
Alfred Bonni agree that the total population was less than 200,000
in A.D. 1800. Some estimate the total population of the Land at
150,000 by 1850. This total population would include Jews,
Christians and Arabs.
Then Jewish funds started to flow into the Land by 1856 when Sir
Moses Montefiore purchased Land outside of Jerusalem to teach
agriculture to the Jews in the Land. From about 1878, Edmond de
Rothschild began to actually finance the establishment of Jewish
agricultural colonies. At this time in history, an uninterrupted stream
of Jewish funds and Jewish immigration commenced to pour into
Palestine. This influx of resources resulted in an economic upswing
that attracted Arabs from surrounding countries. Since the Land was
at that time under Turkish Moslem rule, Arabs throughout the Middle
East had unrestricted access to Palestine. By 1918 the Arab
population increased to 560,000. In spite of restrictions on Jewish
immigration, Jews and Arabs continued to pour into the Land until
the birth of the State of Israel in 1948. Clearly, Jewish financial
investments and immigration - together with laborious cultivation of
the land - had put the Land of Israel on the economic map.
...The Jewslived in the Land of Israelfor seventeen hundred years

virtually uninterrupted until the Roman destruction of its national
polity in A.D. 70. At this point, Israel's population of over two and
one-half million was abruptly decimated by massive slaughter and
expulsion. But as late as A.D. 617, Jewscontrolled Jerusalemand a
large portion of the Land. After that time, even though
Arabsconqueredthe Land, they were only a minority. Then through

the centuries of ChristianCrusader rule and the Mameluke period, the

Land was still dominated by Jewishculture and customs until A.D.
1400 even though the Arabseventually became a small majority.
● What is important is not how many Jews were living in Palestine at

any given moment but the huge host of those who were not, those
who had to suffer for possessing no country of their own. It is
because the Jews had no country that they are entitled to demand
equality with those more fortunately placed.
- Jacques Givet, "The Anti-Zionist Complex"
Jews were mostly living outside of Palestine for a long time,

doesn't that reduce their claim to the land?
● No, it increases their claim - in proportion to the time spent

wandering without a home, at the mercy of other people in foreign
lands and their tyrants...
- The Society for Rational Peace
● Not because we were here two thousand years ago are we entitled to
be here today, but because it has taken us two thousand years to
win our freedom.
- Claude Ranel, Moi, Juif palestinien, Laffont, Paris
● If I am turned out of hearth and home and remain outside one night,
I am legally entitled to return the following day. If I suffer for ten,
twenty, five thousand or fifty thousand nights, does my right of
return stand in inverse relationship to the length of my exile? Quite
the contrary; my right to return and recover my freedom becomes
stronger in direct proportion to what I have endured, not by virtue of
some abstract arithmetic, but because of the nights spent in exile,
and because I want my children, to be spared a similar experience.
- Jacques Givet, "The Anti-Zionist Complex"
Weren't the Arabs living in Palestine for hundreds of years or

millenea before the Jews came?

● As I lived in Palestine, everyone I knew could trace their heritage

back to the original country their great grandparents came from.
Everyone knew their origin was not from the Canaanites, but
ironically, this is the kind of stuff our education in the Middle East
included.
...The fact is that today's Palestinians are immigrants from the

surrounding nations! I grew up well knowing the history and origins
of today's Palestinians as being from Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Morocco,
Christians from Greece, Muslim Sherkas from Russia, Muslims from
Bosnia, and the Jordanians next door.
...My grandfather, who was a dignitary in Bethlehem, almost lost his

life by Abdul Qader Al-Husseni (the leader of the Palestinian
revolution) after being accused of selling land to Jews. He used to tell
us that his village Beit Sahur (The Shepherds Fields) in Bethlehem
County was empty before his father settled in the area with six other
families. The town has now grown to 30,000 inhabitants.
- Walid, a Palestinian Arab defector.

quoted at "Answering Islam"
Why did the Jews insist on returning to Palestine? They were

doing quite well in other peoples' countries...
● Perhaps because this is not quite true, and that in the long run those
"other peoples' countries" may be fine for other peoples, but not for
the people without a country, who only had to organize their
scattered members and to return to their land from which they were
unjustly expelled in the first place.
Did the Arabs invade the region by force?
● "Muhammad had prepared an army to invade the borders of Syria.

When Muhammad died Abu Bakr sent an army headed by Usama Ibn
Zayd and 'Umar Ibn al-Khattab. The army marched towards southern
Palestine and invaded some parts of the land, frightened the people
and captured some booty. ...By the end of the year 12, Hajira Abu
Bakr became interested in Syria (Al Sham). He issued orders to four
of his great generals and designated for each one of them a country
which he was given to invade. He assigned Damascus to Yazid,
Jordan to Sharhabil, Homs to Abu 'Ubayda and Palestine to 'Umru

Ibn al-'As."
- in "The Rightly Guided Caliphs" by Dr. Abu Zayd Shalabi
Did the rich European Jews take advantage of the poor Arabs and
trick them into selling their best land at low cost?
● "At the end of World War I, some of Palestine's land was owned by
absentee landlords who lived in Cairo, Damascus and Beirut. About
80% of the Palestinian Arabs were debt-ridden peasants, semi-
nomads and Bedouins. Analyses of land purchases from 1880 to
1948 show that 73% of Jewish plots were purchases from large
landowners, not poor fellahin".
- The Peel Commission (1937)
"The Arab charge that the Jews have obtained too large a proportion
of good land cannot be maintained. Much of the land now carrying
orange groves was sand dunes or swamp and uncultivated when
purchased...there was at the time at least of earlier sales little
evidence that the owners possessed either the resources or training
needed to develop the land. Jews paid more than $20 million at 1936
rates) to arab landowners, mostly estate holders...In 1944, Jews
payed between $1000 and $1100 per acre in Palestine, mostly for
arid or semi-arid land; in the same year, rich black soil in Iowa was
selling for about $110 per acre (U.S. Dept. of Agriculture)"
- The Peel Commission's report in Land Ownership in Palestine, 1880-

1948
[Moreover, the Commission found the shortage was "due less to the
amount of land acquired by Jews than to the increase in the Arab
population." The report concluded that the presence of Jews in
Palestine, along with the work of the British Administration, had
resulted in higher wages, an improved standard of living and ample
employment opportunities.]
● According to British government statistics, prior to the establishment

of the State of Israel, 8.6% of the land area now known as Israel
was owned by Jews; 3.3% by Arabs who remained there; 16.5% by
Arabs who left the country. More than 70% of the land was owned by
the British Government. Under international law, ownership passed
to Israel in 1948. The public lands included most of the Negev Desert
--half of Palestine's post-1922 total area.

source: Survey of Palestine, 1946, British Mandate Government
● Jews actually went out of their way to avoid purchasing land in areas
where Arabs might be displaced. They sought land that was largely
uncultivated, swampy, cheap and, most important, without tenants.
In 1920, Labor Zionist leader David Ben-Gurion expressed his
concern about the Arab fellahin, whom he viewed as "the most
important asset of the native population." Ben-Gurion said "under no
circumstances must we touch land belonging to fellahs or worked by
them." He advocated helping liberate them from their oppressors.
"Only if a fellah leaves his place of settlement," Ben-Gurion added,
"should we offer to buy his land, at an appropriate price."
It was only after the Jews had bought all of this available land that
they began to purchase cultivated land. Many Arabs were willing to
sell because of the migration to coastal towns and because they
needed money to invest in the citrus industry.
● "They [Jews] paid high prices for the land, and in addition they paid
to certain of the occupants of those lands a considerable amount of
money which they were not legally bound to pay."
- John Hope Simpson, May 1930
● It is made quite clear to all, both by the map drawn up by the

Simpson Commission and by another compiled by the Peel
Commission, that the Arabs are as prodigal in selling their land as
they are in useless wailing and weeping (author's emphasis).
- Transjordan's King Abdullah, in his memoirs
● By 1947, Jewish holdings in Palestine amounted to about 463,000

acres. Approximately 45,000 of these acres were acquired from the
Mandatory Government; 30,000 were bought from various churches
and 387,500 were purchased from Arabs. Analyses of land purchases
from 1880 to 1948 show that 73 percent of Jewish plots were
purchased from large landowners, not poor fellahin. Those who sold
land included the mayors of Gaza, Jerusalem and Jaffa. As'ad el-
Shuqeiri, a Muslim religious scholar and father of PLO chairman
Ahmed Shuqeiri, took Jewish money for his land. Even King
Abdullah leased land to the Jews. In fact, many leaders of the Arab
nationalist movement, including members of the Muslim Supreme
Council, sold land to Jews.
Did the Jewish influx improve the job opportunities, health care,

standard of living, infrastructure, which made Palestine an

attractive place for Arabs, who would later immigrate to Palestine?
● In the last decade Palestine has been lifted to a new economic level,
and the standard of life has risen not only among the Jews, but
among the Arabs too.
- Dr. Arthur Ruppin, in "The Picture in 1907", February 27, 1908
● "Those good Jews brought civilization and peace to the Arab Muslims,
and they dispersed gold and prosperity over Palestine without
damage to anyone or taking anything by force. Despite this, the
Muslims declared holy war against them and did not hesitate to
massacre their children and women... Thus a black fate awaits the
Jews and other minorities in case the Mandates are cancelled and
Muslim Syria is united with Muslim Palestine."
- from a letter sent to the French Prime Minister in June 1936 by six
Syrian Alawi notables (the Alawis are the ruling class in Syria today)
in support of Zionism. (Source, Daniel Pipes, Greater Syria, Oxford U
Press, p. 179)
● If there was an Arab Palestinian culture, a normal population

increase over the centuries would have been expected. But with the
exception of a relatively few families, the Arabs had no attachment to
the Land. If Arabs from southern Syria drifted into Palestine for
economic reasons, within a generation or so the cultural tug of Syria
or other Arab lands would pull them back. This factor is why the Arab
population average remained low until the influx of Jewish financial
investments and Jewish people in the late 1800s made the Land
economically attractive. Then sometime between 1850 and 1918, the
Arab population shot up to 560,000. Not to absolve the Jews but to
defend British policy, the not overfriendly British secretary of state
for the colonies, Malcolm MacDonald, declared in the House of
Commons (November 24, 1938), "The Arabs cannot say that the
Jews are driving them out of the country. If not a single Jew had
come to Palestine after 1918, I believe the Arab population of
Palestine would still have been around 600,000. . ."
Jewish contributions and Jewish immigration continued to flow into

the Land. The Jews created industry, agriculture, hospitals - a
complete socio-economic infrastructure. As job opportunities
increased, so did Arab immigration. In fact, in 1939 President
Roosevelt observed that "Arab immigration into Palestine since
1921 has vastly exceeded the total Jewish immigration during this
whole period." For one specific example, in 1934 between 30,000
and 36,000 Arabs from the Hauran Province in Syria left for "the

better life" in Palestine.
On the other hand, Great Britain's White Paper of 1939 closed the
doors of Jewish immigration to their Land. Simultaneously, there was
a large-scale Arab immigration to the new Land of opportunity during
World War II. In 1946 Bartley C. Crum, a United States
Government observer, noted that tens of thousands of Arabs had
entered Palestine "because of this better life - and they were still
coming."
● It is absolutely necessary that an entente be made between the

Zionists and Arabs, because the war of words can only do evil. The
Zionists are necessary for the country: The money which they will
bring, their knowledge and intelligence, and the industriousness
which characterizes them will contribute without doubt to the
regeneration of the country.
- Dawood Barakat, editor of the Egyptian paper Al-Ahram
● The resources of the country are still virgin soil and will be developed
by the Jewish immigrants. One of the most amazing things until
recent times was that the Palestinian used to leave his country,
wandering over the high seas in every direction. His native soil could
not retain a hold on him, though his ancestors had lived on it for
1000 years. At the same time we have seen the Jews from foreign
countries streaming to Palestine from Russia, Germany, Austria,
Spain, America. The cause of causes could not escape those who had
a gift of deeper insight. They knew that the country was for its
original sons (abna'ihi-l-asliyin), for all their differences, a sacred and
beloved homeland. The return of these exiles (jaliya) to their
homeland will prove materially and spiritually [to be] an
experimental school for their brethren who are with them in the
fields, factories, trades and in all things connected with toil and
labor.
- Sherif Hussein, the guardian of the Islamic Holy Places in Arabia
● As Hussein foresaw, the regeneration of Palestine, and the growth of

its population, came only after Jews returned in massive numbers.
The Jewish population increased by 470,000 between World War I
and World War II while the non-Jewish population rose by 588,000.
In fact, the permanent Arab population increased 120 percent
between 1922 and 1947.
This rapid growth was a result of several factors. One was

immigration from neighboring states-constituting 37 percent of the
total immigration to pre-state Israel-by Arabs who wanted to take
advantage of the higher standard of living the Jews had made

possible. The Arab population also grew because of the improved

living conditions created by the Jews as they drained malarial
swamps and brought improved sanitation and health care to the
region. Thus, for example, the Muslim infant mortality rate fell from
201 per thousand in 1925 to 94 per thousand in 1945 and life
expectancy rose from 37 years in 1926 to 49 in 1943.
The Arab population increased the most in cities with large Jewish
populations that had created new economic opportunities. From
1922-1947, the non-Jewish population increased 290 percent in
Haifa, 131 percent in Jerusalem and 158 percent in Jaffa. The growth
in Arab towns was more modest: 42 percent in Nablus, 78 percent in
Jenin and 37 percent in Bethlehem.
● Before Jewish immigration and Jewish investments spawned massive

Arab immigration, Arabs were actually leaving Palestine. Then the
flow of traffic reversed. ". . .Palestine changed from a country of
Arab emigration to one of Arab immigration. Arabs from the Hauran
in Syria as well as other neighboring lands poured into Palestine to
profit from the higher standard of living and fresh opportunities
provided by the Zionist pioneers." [Ernst Frankenstein, Justice for
My People (London: Nicholson & Watson, 1943)] This phenomenon is
confirmed by the Palestine Royal Commission Report which observed
that in the period between the Balfour Declaration and the United
Nations Partition Resolution of 1947, Palestine became a land of Arab
immigration. As further documented by Frankenstein, substantial
Arab immigration was a recent phenomenon:
The early "lovers of Zion" began the stimulation of

Arab immigration. Some writers have come out with
the conclusion that in 1942, 75 percent of the Arab
population were either immigrants or descendants of
immigrants into Palestine during the preceding one
hundred years, mainly after 1882.
These facts of history explain why the United Nations needed to

develop a definition that a "Palestinian Refugee" is any Arab who had
been in "Palestine" for only two years. This U.N. definition, in fact, is
incompatible with the assumption that the Arab Palestinian roots go
back one or two thousand years. The Jews themselves have
dominated the Land called "Palestine" for the past two millennia. The
Jews themselves are as much "Palestinian" as the Arabs who claim to
be Palestinians. If any population has a right to the name Palestinian
(if they wanted it), it would be the Jews whose ancestors had their
Land renamed "Palestine."

Is the Arab opposition to Israel's existence, an opposition to

imperialism, or a fight over limited land?
● "We Arabs, especially the educated among us, look with deepest
sympathy on the Zionist movement... We will wish the Jews a hearty
welcome home... We are working together for a reformed and
revised Near East, and our two movements complement one another.
The movement is national and not imperialistic. There is room in
Syria for us both. Indeed, I think that neither can be successful
without the other."
- Emir Feisal to Felix Frankfurter, March 3 1919
Where is Palestine? What are its borders? Is it only between the

Mediteranean and the river Jordan?
● Decapolis
league of 10 ancient Greek CITIES IN EASTERN PALESTINE THAT

WAS FORMED AFTER THE ROMAN CONQUEST OF PALESTINE IN 63
BC. The name Decapolis also denotes the roughly contiguous
territory formed by these cities, all but one of which lay east of the
Jordan River. The 10 cities of the league were Scythopolis (modern
Bet She'an, Israel), Hippos, Gadara, Raphana, Dion (or Dium), Pella,
Gerasa, Philadelphia (modern Amman, Jordan), Canatha, and
Damascus (now the capital of Syria). Damascus lay the farthest
north, while Philadelphia lay the farthest south. The cities
participated in the Decapolis as a means of mutual protection and
security against their Semitic neighbours. The league was subject to
the Roman governor of Syria, though his authority was somewhat
tenuous in eastern Palestine. The cities of the Decapolis created a
rich Hellenistic culture that produced the philosopher-satirist
Menippus, among other figures. The league survived until the 2nd
century AD.
- Encyclopedia Britanica, at Britannica.com http://www.britannica.

com
● The Dead Sea, as you have heard ever since you were children at
school, has no outlet, and you can see at once that if it had any
connection with the great body of seas and oceans, it would be an
inlet. If, as Chinese Gordon proposed a few years ago, a canal were
cut so that the waters of the Mediterranean Sea might pour in, they
would swell the surface of the Dead Sea thirteen hundred feet up the
sides of the mountains on either side; they would rise above the

Jordan proportionately; the river Jordan would disappear; the Dead

Sea and the lake of Galilee would disappear; and in the place of
these a long body of sea water would divide western from eastern
Palestine. These characteristics distinguish the Jordan from all the
other rivers of the earth, and make its formation a profound study to
the geologist--one that has never yet been explained in attempting
to trace back the history of this old world.
- J. W. McGarvey, Louisville, Kentucky, August 27, 1893
● "[The Jordan river] will not do as Palestine's eastern boundary. Our

duty as Mandatory is to make Jewish Palestine not a struggling State
but one that is capable of a vigorous and independent national life."
- the Times of London, September 19, 1919
● Let me start by stating that the word "Palestine" had no clear cut
geographical denotation, and, represented no political identity before
the First World War. "Palestinians" are therefore all people, Jews,
Arabs, Druze, Christians, Armenians, Melchites, Greek Orthodox and
Bahai, etc., who live in the Territory of the Palestine Mandate as
constituted in 1920. It is also a Fact that Jordan and Israel have
emerged as successor States of the "Palestine Mandate".
The Palestine Mandate as granted to Great Britain at the San Remo

Conference of 1920, and, confirmed by the League of Nations in
1922, covered a territory of 45,820 square miles East and West of
the Jordan river. Its boundaries reached from the Mediterranean in
the West to Iraq border in the East. Thus, all of Jordan was
encompassed within the border of Palestine. Trans-Jordan (Jordan)
was in fact what the relevant League of Nations file called "The Trans-
Jordan Province of Palestine" until the last meeting of the League on
April 18, 1946.
As everyone knows by now that on September 16, 1922, two months

after the confirmation of the said Mandate, and, in breach of its
Mandatory obligations, Britain refused to apply the "Jewish National
Home" provision of the Mandate in Eastern Palestine (Trans-Jordan
Province of Palestine). It was under an authorization contained in
Art. 25 of the Mandate that the British Government obtained the
League's consent to "postpone or withhold" the application of the
Jewish National Home Provision of the Mandate.
Art. 25 by its own legal terms, defines the Eastern Border of the
Palestine Mandate "In the territories lying between the Jordan (river)
and the eastern boundaries of Palestine" means that Palestine
reached its Easternmost border with Iraq.

In what the relevant file of the League of Nations describes as the

"Trans-Jordan province of Palestine," a local administration was
established within the Palestine Mandate, headed by the Emir
Abdullah, older brother of King Feisal of Iraq. Jews were not allowed
from that moment on to establish or live in Trans-Jordan. But, this
did not mean that Trans-Jordan was legally separated from Palestine
in any way as far as the Arab population of the country was
concerned. There was no separate Government; unlike the situation
of the French Mandate of Syria-Lebanon. Palestine was meant to
remain whole. Trans-Jordan by now called Transjordan, remained
under the Palestine Mandate and was administered under the
authority of the High Commissioner of Jerusalem. The residents of
Transjordan traveled under the authority of the Commissioner and
his protection. Under International Law their Nationality then was
"Palestinian."
Transjordan was given Independence by the Attlee-Bevin

government in May 25, 1946, nine months later, in February 1947,
the British submitted the TRUNCATED "Palestine Mandate", now
restricted to an area of 10,100 square miles to the United Nations for
its decision. About two years later, the kingdom of Transjordan, later
renamed Jordan in 1950, occupied 37,730 square miles, and, the
state of Israel 7,999 square miles. About 100 square miles were
occupied by Egypt in the Gaza district. Thus that FIRST partition of
Palestine had left the Arabs with 82.5% of the Mandate.
Later the loss of the "West Bank" territory - the province of Samaria
and Judea - which the British led army of King Abdullah of
Transjordan occupied in 1948, and which Israel liberated in 1967
represents 4,5% of Palestine. The Kingdom of Jordan today occupies
77% of the Country (Palestine Mandate). Considering that the whole
of the "Mandated Palestine" territory according to the Balfour
Declaration was to be the of Jewish National State, the Arabs
emerged with the Lion share.
Especially when Art. 5 of the Palestine Mandate, "The Mandatory

shall be responsible for seeing that no Palestinian Territory shall be
ceded or leased to, or in any way placed under the control of, the
Government of any Foreign Power."

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Palestine

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Palestine - The Peace FAQ

Was there ever a state of Palestine? Did Israel conquer Palestine

● In the Six-Day War, Israel captured Judea, Samaria and East

http://www.peacefaq.com/palestine.html (1 of 25)8/9/2007 9:39:21 AM

- Joseph Farah, Arab-American journalist,

● When Jews began to immigrate to Palestine in large numbers in

● In a recent speech to the United Nations General Assembly, Yasser

The meaning of this message is clear: Palestine is a country that

That all this is unadulterated fiction has not prevented many

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David Bar-Illan, former Executive Editor of the Jerusalem Post, in

In what percent of Palestine does Israel exist?

● Arab critics of Israel speak of Jewish migration to Palestine after

- Louis Rene Beres

● History and Background

In 1920 the world organization of nations [League of Nations]

Further UN estimates put the property loses of Jews kicked out of

● [In World War I] Turkey, with an expansive empire that compassed

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independent Arabs states - encompassing 5,414,000 square miles.

For imperialistic interests, however, in 1921 Great Britain reneged on

Oil was then discovered in the Arab countries. Consequently, "oil

How many millions of these hapless victims would have found a

When Israel became an independent State in 1948, armies from six

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Jordan Occupied East Jerusalem

However, the Arab State of Transjordan captured East Jerusalem,

- Bible Students Congregation of New Brunswick

What is the history of Palestine, where did it get it's name?

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Palestine has never existed -- before or since -- as an autonomous

- Joseph Farah, Arab-American journalist,

- Encyclopaedia Britanica ill, Micropaedia, vol. Vll, "Palestine."

● The term "Palestine" is believed to be derived from the Philistines, an

● Palestine has always constituted a single geographical, political and

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movements and waves of conquerors who dominated it for different

- By Abdul Jawad Saleh, in Transformation of Palestine, printed in

● Prior to partition, Palestinian Arabs did not view themselves as

"We consider Palestine as part of Arab Syria, as it has never been

● "There is no such country [as Palestine]! 'Palestine' is a term the

- Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi, a local Arab leader, to the Peel

● "Palestine was part of the Province of Syria...

- The representative of the Arab Higher Committee to the United

● "It is common knowledge that Palestine is nothing but southern

- Ahmed Shuqeiri, later the chairman of the PLO, to the UN

● The Romans had changed the name of the Land of Israel to

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Golda Meir once argued that there was no such thing as a

If there was an Arab Palestinian culture, a normal population

Because Arabs until the 1960s spoke of Palestine as Southern Syria

Faisal's views about the future of Palestine did not

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Government. . . in January 1918. In the Arab view,

Referring to the same Arab view of Palestine in 1939, George

You do not represent Palestine as much as we do.

Assad stated on March 8, 1974, "Palestine is a principal part of

In the words of the late military commander of the PLO as well as

There are no differences between Jordanians,

The following are significant observations by Christians of the Arabs

The Arabs themselves, who are its inhabitants, cannot

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Stephen Olin, D.D., L.L.D., called one of the most noted of