The Conflict — Part 6
One of the strongly propagated lies of the late Yasser Arafat and other Arabs is that today’s Palestinian Arabs are the descendants of the ancient Philistines, and that the Philistines were Arabs no less. Anwar Sadat, the former president of Egypt, said, “The assassination of Arab brethren like Goliath, by Jewish sheep-herders like David, is the sort of shameful ignomy that we must yet set aright…” It is not surprising that the Arabs believe such nonsense, but it is utterly incredible that an educated world would swallow it. Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary defines “Philistine” as: “a member of non-Semitic people who lived in southwestern Palestine from c. 1200 BC on.” If there is one thing that Arabs are very proud of it is being Arab; however, Arabs are Semites, Philistines were non-Semites! And for the record, there was no such entity as “Palestine” in 1200 BC; that name was not coined until around the year 400 AD. So much for accuracy in world-renowned volumes that affect countless millions of people!
That Philistines were non-Semitic (non-Arab, non-Jewish races) people is also borne out by the Encyclopædia Britannica: “Philistines, a people of Aegean origin who settled on the southern coast of Palestine in the 12th century BC shortly before the arrival of the Israelites…they occupied the coastal plain of Palestine.” Britannica has the Philistine Aegean origin correct, but it follows Webster in the 12th century BC Palestine nonsense — so much for accuracy in that prestigious volume also! Random House Encyclopedia’s entry for Philistine, however, is correct: “Philistines, a non-Semitic people who probably came to Philistia from Crete in about the 12th century BC.” Kudos to Random House; it is part of a small minority that stands for accuracy. This writer will give more examples of inaccuracies and blatant deception concerning Israel in prominent publications in a later post.
Another part of the lie concerning Palestinian ancestry is that they are also the descendants of the Jebusites, the original occupants of Jerusalem when it was called Jebus (Judges 19:10) during the Canaanite period. Western scholars are in agreement that the Canaanites and Jebusites are Hamitic peoples who predate Arab existence by at least five centuries! The Egyptian Copts are also an Hamitic people. The Copts are the original Egyptians and their numbers today are around two million (the name Copt is derived from the Arabic qubt, a corruption of the Greek Aigyptikos, meaning Egyptian). Copts have distinctly different features and skin coloring from those of Egyptian Arabs. The Copts also have their own language, but the Muslims banned the use of the Coptic language in 997 AD, forcing the Copts to use Arabic as the Egyptian vernacular. Another surviving Hamitic people is the black skinned Ethiopians. So-called Palestinian Arabs are Arabs in every sense of the word, both physically and culturally ¯ they bear little resemblance to Hamitic peoples.
The so-called Palestinian Arabs boast of thousands of years of rich Arab history, and the late Yasser Arafat maintained that: “Our nation is the Arab nation, extending from the Atlantic to the Red Sea and beyond.” However, at the same time, they declare themselves not to be Arabs by claiming descent from a non-Semitic Aegean Sea People that disappeared from history during the 2nd and 3rd centuries BC, and also from another race with whom the Arabs had no connection nor share any physical characteristics. With one breath the “Palestinians” are claiming to be Arabs, and with the next, they refute it. Perhaps someone should have pointed this out to Arafat? But that person would have to have been tired of living because Arafat committed his first murder at age 21 and went on to become the godfather of international terrorism and remained its boss until his death in 2004.
We heard from Arab lips earlier in Part 5 of this series that there never was an Arab Palestinian state nor an Arab Palestinian identity, and that these claims are made only for political and tactical purposes. We have also seen that Palestinian claims of descent from ancient peoples is as bogus as previous claims, and made for the same reasons. There are many more similar bogus claims and distortions of history used by the Arabs in their efforts to delegitimatize Israel’s right to her land.
The Arabs now living in scattered portions of the remaining 23 percent of original Palestine are demanding an “independent Palestinian state.” They are wanting to create yet another sovereign Arab state out of half of the less than one-quarter left of Palestine. All of Palestine had been promised to the Jews to be made back into a Jewish national homeland. But Britain, wanting to protect its oil supply in Mosul, Kirkuk and other parts of the Muslim world, sliced off 77 percent of Palestine and gave it to Abdullah of Mecca who was piqued because his younger brother Feisal had been given Iraq. However, as this writer stated in Part 4 of this series, this 77 percent, was and is a Palestinian state, and the Arabs were and are acutely aware of this fact, both then and now.
Abdullah originally wanted to call his 77 percent of Palestine the “Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine,” but he gave in to British opposition and called it “Transjordan.” It was later renamed to the official name it still carries ¯ the “Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,” but colloquially known simply as Jordan. On December 26, 1981, the late King Hussein — Abdullah’s grandson and former ruler of Jordan — stated in an interview with Al-Nahar Al-Arabi: “The truth is that Jordan is Palestine and Palestine is Jordan.” And later, in 1984, in another interview with an Arab newspaper, he said: “Jordan is Palestine…. Jordan in itself is Palestine.” Crown Prince Hassan, heir to Jordan’s throne, also stated the same thing: “Palestine is Jordan and Jordan is Palestine. There is one people and one land, with one history and one destiny.” And the PLO leadership declared it also: Yasser Arafat said, “What you call Jordan is actually Palestine.” Chafiq el Hout said, “Jordan is an integral part of Palestine.” Abu Iyad also said, “We are one and the same people.”
Never were truer words spoken. The country of Jordan comprises most of the land of Palestine. The great majority of Jordan’s population is Palestinian, the Jordanian army is comprised of a majority of Palestinians, and most of the Arabs living in the Israeli administered territories hold Jordanian passports. And the 1970 Jordanian-PLO war was considered a civil war and was recorded as such.
The evidence is overwhelming. An independent Palestinian-Arab state already exists in the Middle East in the form of Jordan ¯ nearly 80 percent of the whole of Palestine. So why do politicians and the news media keep beating on Israel to withdraw to indefensible boundaries? Why do they not turn the screws and apply some pressure to Jordan who backed Saddam Hussein in the 1991 Gulf War? Because the Arabs hold more
than 50 percent of the world’s known oil reserves, and they have billions of dollars to spend with countries who toe the Arab line. That is why.
To be continued
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