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"Anything but history, for history must be false.”
One-time British Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole could very easily
have been concerning the Middle East, in particular the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, when he muttered those words. In no other
region of the world is every argument and grievance so centered on the
past. Regrettably, in no place has it been so distorted, revised and
mangled.
Before any discussion on the topic can ensue, one simple but valuable
question needs to be asked: Where should the historical discussion of
Palestine begin? Many Jews point to the arrival of the Moses and
Israelites in Canaan, a land that was promised to Abraham and the Jews
a millennia earlier in the Bible. But applying a biblical birthright to
a national claim will get you few sympathetic ears in modern times.
Muslims will inevitably point to the invasion of Israel in 632. Some
Arab archeologists have even claimed their ancestors are the original
Canaanites.
But if the first declaration of a Palestinian national identity is the
point we must return to, there is no choice but to begin with the years
leading up to 1947’s War of Independence – what Arabs refer to as nakba
or "catastrophe," a phrase coined by Syrian scholar Constantine Zurayk,
who defined the war as “one of the harshest trails and tribulations
with which Arabs have been afflicted throughout their long history.”
In The Palestinian People: A History, authors Baruch Kimmerling and
Joel S. Migdal argue, rather unpersuasivly, that the peasant revolt in
Palestine against the Egyptian ruler Muhammad Ali in 1834 was moment
the Palestinian people coalesced into a nation. This is a noteworthy
assertion. It strategically denies that Palestinian nationalism was a
direct consequence of Zionism. It rejects the notion that Jewish
immigration and appeals for statehood sparked counter-nationalism in
Palestine. In other words, it manufactures history.
If the nation of Israel had never been realized, would the world have
seen the emergence of a Palestinian nation? Not only was the Arab
population ignorant of a momentous national awakening before Zionism,
their leaders struggled against its initiation. In 1918, the
legendary Arab enthusiast, T.E. Lawrence, confessed in a confidential
report that Arab nationalism in Palestine “was invented in Cairo as a
common denominator…it was convenient to pretend to find a common ground
in all of them.” The very next year, Arab representatives to the Paris
Peace Conference stated that they “considered 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.”
This disconnect with a independent sub-Arab identity was reaffirmed in
1937, when top Palestinian leader, Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi, told the Peel
Commission, an official British committee that came to investigate the
roots of the Arab-Jewish conflict ultimately suggesting the partition
of Palestine, that "there is no such country. 'Palestine' is a term the
Zionists invented …Our country was for centuries part of Syria." This
sentiment was reiterated by Arab leaders prior to 1947 – and
occasionally after, when it could potentially damage the Palestinian
public relations’ cause. A high-ranking PLO official, Zuheir Moessein,
claimed in 1977 that “there is no difference between Jordanians,
Palestinians and Lebanese; we are all members of the same nation.
Solely for political reasons are we careful to stress our identity as
Palestinians.”
Masking their extreme revisionism in scholarly language, Kimmerling and
Migdal liberally disregarding the words and deeds of the Arab
leadership in this era. The rest of The Palestinian People follows a
similar pattern and is unmistakably a politically motivated chronicle.
Proof of this can be discerned from a remarkable disclaimer in
introduction of the book that may reveal more than intended regarding
the historical authenticity of the Palestinian national movement:
“For convenience we will refer to Palestinian Arabs as Palestinians,
and to the country as Palestine, even when applied to periods in which
such usage in anachronistic – when the Arabs’ sense of participations
in a common history had not yet evolved, and when the territory was
administratively figurative”
In other words, the authors apply nationhood to people before they are
aware of its existence. How convenient that must be for a historian.
Palestine, the nation, of course, still happens to be anachronistic,
another fact ignored by the authors. But this stance isn’t surprising.
Kimmerling’s zealous leftist and anti-Zionist positions, like his
validation of terror as a justifiable tool of resistance, are the norm
in The Palestinian People.
In his recent book Politicide, Kimmerling purports to “expose the
brutality of Ariel Sharon and his junta’s ‘solutions’” and
“indiscriminate slaughter.” The word “solution” in this context is a
less-than-subtle reference to the Nazis’ Final Solution, imagery that
is a standard and cruel tool of anti-Zionists. What makes this Nazi
correlation particularly ironic is that The Palestinian People glosses
over the significant role of Haj Amin al-Husseini, Yassir Arafat’s
mentor, Mufti of Jerusalem from 1921-1936 and the father of Palestinian
nationalism. For not only did al-Husseini engineer the bloody riots
against Jews in 1929 and 1936, but he was directly involved in the
mobilization of support for Nazis among Muslims. In 1941,the Mufti met
personal with Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, Joachim Von Ribbentrop
and numerous other Nazi leaders. al-Husseini, it turned out, was a
conspicuously successful Nazi, recruiting 20,000 Muslim volunteers for
the SS, many of which participated in the killing of Jews in Croatia
and Hungary. Kimmerling does not venture a guess as to what this man
held for the Jews in Palestine had he and the Arab nationalists had
their way.
Another topic of considerable dispute virtually ignored by the authors,
is the issue of pre-1948 immigration by Arabs into Palestine. Early on,
the authors dismiss Joan Peter’s widely read From Time Immemorial,
which contains 490 pages of heavily footnoted evidence asserting that
the Arab population in Palestine developed as much through immigration
as natural growth. It is discarded in a single sentence as the authors
claim “numerous sober historians” had already dismantled its basic
arguments. The principal ‘sober’ historian who targeted Peters’ work is
Noam Chomsky disciple Norman Finkletstein, whose outrageous claims
about the Holocaust , Israel and terror should disqualify him as a
reputable commentator on issues relating to Jews.
And what about terror? Who can deny that it has been a considerable
part of the national Palestinian identity since the progroms against
Jewish civilians in the 1920s. Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, is
personally responsible for the deaths of thousands of civilians.
Nevertheless, a close look at the index of The Palestinian People,
uncovers that the word “terror,” does not have a single entry, instead
we are told to “see violence.”
Despite the Palestinians’ tenuous claim to a distinct nationalism, no
one can deny they exist as people. Women, children live in squalor, men
have no work and misery is ubiquitous. They have suffered not only
under Israel, who captured this land in a defensive war, but also
beneath the significant burden of their own autocratic rulers, who
often fall prey to the bellicose political manipulation of the Arab
world. Unfortunately, Kimmerling and Migdal fail to accept that the
Palestinian leadership, the land’s people, should also be faulted, at
least in part, for the many tribulations they face. After having
systematically aligning themselves with the losers of history from
Hitler to Gamal Abdel-Nasser to Saddam Hussein, many of the same
mistakes are being repeated.
After 9-11, thousands of Palestinians paraded through cities in the
West Bank and Gaza, celebrating the attacks. Just last month, even as
coalition troops entered Baghdad and spontaneous celebration by
residents erupted all over the city, Palestinians watched in disbelief
and bitter disappointment. "We were certain that the Iraqis will win
the war and that this will be the end of U.S. and Israeli suppression,"
a 32-year-old Amjad Shaaban from Gaza told the AP. "I'm terribly
disappointed."
Palestinians should be terribly disappointed by history. By the end of
last year, almost 2000 Palestinians, many of them suicide bombers,
Molotov cocktail hurlers and other terrorists leaders, have been killed
since the start of the “al-Aqsa Intifada.” A revolting death cult has
emerged, and the now a people find themselves further from statehood
than a decade ago when it seemed inevitable.
While the indignation and non-stop violence directed at Jews that dare
live on Arab soil continues, Palestinians argue for a “right of return”
for refugees and their offspring into Israel. With potentially three
million refugees, not to mention a million Arab-Israelis, “right of
return” is a suicidal proposition for Israel. Kimmerling and Migdal
view this demand as wholly reasonable, categorizing it as the “right of
return” as the “fundamental building block of Palestinism.” They write
that heading to 2000 talks at Camp David that would have created an
autonomous Palestinian state with huge concession offered by Israeli
Prime Minister Ehud Barak, “Arafat felt that Palestinians were not
ready for such far-reaching compromise” on this issue. What issue has
the Palestinian leadership compromised?
Today, Palestinian society is in disarray and Arab nations continue to
promote terror, a policy that breeds hopelessness and destruction for
the Arabs of the West Bank and Gaza. The Palestinian Authority, a
diluted version of the PLO terror organization, is still administrated
by former (possibly current) terrorist Arafat, it suffers in financial
ruin despite generous help from around the world. Its political
prospects in shambles, the PA’s popularity shrivels daily while overt
terror groups like Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad see their
popularity swell. If The Palestinian People offers a true perspective
of a people’s psyche – and I hope it doesn’t -- slight optimism for a
future Arab state.
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