Who are the Palestinians? Are Israelis Occupiers?

This may come as a shock to you, but the truth is that Palestine is no more real than Never-Never Land. There never have been an indigenous Palestinian people. The following article will show you the facts. It refutes today's popular fiction about the Palestinian people, and the myths connected to them that are spread around the globe, which most people gobble up as being the truth.

A Roman Palestine

The first time the name Palestine was used was in 135 AD 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 Roman occupiers came here, 1,400 years before Islam became a religion. 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.

Ottoman province Palestine
1517 - 1917

It was ruled alternately by Rome, by Islamic leaders and Christian
Crusaders, by the Ottoman Empire and after World War I briefly by the British. The British agreed to restore at least part of the land to the Jewish people as their homeland. 

The (non-existent) Palestinian Language and Palestinian Culture

Neither is there a Palestinian language, nor a distinct Palestinian culture. There has never been a land known as Palestine governed by Palestinians. Palestinians are Arabs, indistinguishable from Jordanians (another recent invention), Syrians, Lebanese, Iraqis, etc. Keep in mind that the Arabs control 99.9 percent of the Middle East. Israel represents one-tenth of 1 percent of the landmass. But even that is too much for many of the Arabs. They want it all. And that is ultimately the main reason of the Arab Israeli conflict.

No matter how many land concessions the Israelis make, 

it will never be enough.

Jerusalem and the Koran

Is Jerusalem Islam's First Holy Site? Absolutely not! 

Shocked? You should be!

I don't expect people to ever hear this brutal truth from anyone in the international media. It's just not politically correct. The Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem represent Islam's third most holy sites.

The Koran says nothing about Jerusalem. It mentions Mecca hundreds of times. Jerusalem is not mentioned one time and for good reason.

Even though there is no historical evidence to suggest Mohammed ever visited Jerusalem, then how did Jerusalem become the third holiest site of Islam? Muslims today cite a vague passage in the Koran, the seventeenth Sura, entitled “The Night Journey.” It relates that in a dream, or a vision Mohammed was carried by night "from the sacred temple to the temple that is most remote, whose precinct we have blessed, that we might show him our signs...."

In the seventh century, some Muslims identified the two temples mentioned in this verse as being in Mecca and Jerusalem. And that's as close as Islam's connection with Jerusalem gets.

Jerusalem's Jewish Roots

The Jewish people, on the other hand, can trace their roots in Jerusalem back to the days of Abraham, 2200 BCE, over 4,200 years ago. One of the greatest rounds of violence in Israel erupted when Likud Party leader Ariel Sharon in September 1996 tried to visit the Temple Mount, the foundation of the Temple built by Solomon in 968 BCE. It is the holiest site for Jews. Sharon and his entourage were met with stones and threats. Can you imagine what it is like for Jews to be threatened, stoned, and physically kept out of the holiest site in Judaism?

So, what's the solution to the Middle East mayhem? If there is a manmade solution to the violence, then it should begin with truth. Pretending will only lead to more violence and chaos.

 

 

From the book Israel, History in a Nutshell © Hela Tamir