Pity The Palestinians

It is truly sad, even pitiful. The Palestinians have no state. They have never had a state. They need a state. They cannot get the Israelis to unilaterally declare the existence of a Palestinian state. They cannot convince the U.N. Security Council to proclaim the creation of a Palestinian state. They cannot even cajole the rest of the massive Arab world to carve out a little space for a Palestinian state. In short, the Palestinians get no respect. They are the Rodney Dangerfields of the Arab world.

But wait. It is not the Israelis who disrespect the Palestinians. The Israelis know better. The Israelis recognize that, by and large, the Palestinians are well-educated and well-attuned to their geopolitical realities. The Israelis know that the Palestinians are –as is evidenced by last year’s enviable 7.6% growth on the West Bank – able to manage an economy. The Israelis know that stability on the West Bank reflects the Palestinian capacity to run a state. The Israelis know that the Palestinians are neither intellectually inferior nor culturally impoverished.

So, if the Israelis do not disrespect the Palestinians as a people who does? Kindly check out the conduct of the Arab world. Indeed, it is the Palestinians’ own Arab brethren who have repeatedly demonstrated disrespect for the Palestinians.

But is that news? Anyone conversant with the stateless plight of the Palestinians knows that the Palestinians have long been the bane of the Arab world. Arabs will rush to deny that inglorious allegation, but historical facts speak to the veracity of that assertion. Thus, a candid review of the history of Palestine and the Palestinians is in order.

In the beginning God created heaven and earth. But God chose not create Palestine so the region was called Canaan. Time passed. In due course, Abraham begot a son named Ishmael. He became the forefather of the Arab Palestinians. But the term Palestinian has its origin elsewhere. So where does the term “Palestinian” come from?

In antiquity there was no such people known as the Palestinians. The closest one comes to fabricating a “Palestinian” ancestry is a people known as the Philistines. Arguably, the Philistines came from somewhere in the Aegean. They settled along the eastern Mediterranean coast where they built a pentapolis one of whose cities was named Gaza.

The Philistines evicted the local Canaanites and expropriated their lands. This occurred about the time that Joshua and the twelve Israelite tribes were invading Canaan. That’s when Jericho’s walls came tumbling down. Like the Philistines, the Israelite tribes evicted the locals and expropriated their lands.

In due course, the Israelites expanded westward while the Philistines were expanding eastward. That’s when Samson (the Israelite) got into trouble with Delilah (a Philistine). That’s when David (the Israelite) slew Goliath (a Philistine). My goodness, the Philistines were at odds with the Israelites just like the Palestinians are at odds with the Israelis.

But, long story short, the Philistines were not Arabs. The Philistines were not Semites. The Arab Palestinians are Semites. The Philistines are not the long lost forefathers of the Palestinians. In fact, by about seven hundred years before Jesus, the Philistines had disappeared from history.

Fast forward another seven hundred years. That’s when the Roman General Pompey appeared in the Mideast. Upon learning that the Mediterranean coast had once been populated by the Philistines, Pompey labeled that region Palestina. The “Ph” from Philistine morphed into the “P” of Palestina. It took another several thousand years for the region to become widely known as Palestine. Not incidentally, the P and the F (Ph) are essentially the same alphabetical letter, the P just has a stronger accent. Thus, the relationship between the Philistines and the Palestinians is purely alphabetical and linguistic, but not genetic

All of which (by way of a very telescoped history) brings us to the twentieth century. With seeming suddeness, the region’s residents –now identified by the Anglicized name of Palestine- were labeled as Palestinians. And now the plot thickens.

Jump to 1947. By fiat, the U.N. created two new entities in Palestine. One entity was to be a Jewish State. The other entity was to be an Arab State. There was no mention of a Palestinian State. That was no oversight. Back in 1947 a Palestinian State would have been a figment of a demographer’s fertile imagination.

Be that as it may, Arab nations attacked the fledgling Jewish State. The ensuing war created refugees. The refugees were locals. Perforce, the refugees were called Palestinians.

Time marched on. Jordan “occupied” Jerusalem and the West Bank. In 1967, Israel kicked Jordan out of Jerusalem and retook the West Bank. Depending on one’s perspective, the West Bank and East Jerusalem then became either “occupied” or “disputed” territory. Since that catastrophe, the Palestinians have yearned to regain “their” territory.

Meanwhile, Palestinian refugees had fled. The refugees found homes, but not havens, across the entirety of the Arab Mideast. And the Palestinian refugees multiplied.

It was and is in Arab nations that the Palestinians have suffered widespread discrimination simply because they are Palestinians. It was in Arab nations that the Palestinians were forbidden to enjoy state healthcare, were precluded from being professionals, were restricted from owning real estate, were restricted in their right to travel, were denied citizenship and were even consigned to squalid refugee camps.

These indignities were thrust upon the Palestinians by the own Arab brethern. Palestinian refugees and their progeny were welcomed across their Arab Mideast with disaffection, were often treated with disrespect and were frequently denigrated by rejection.

In fact, by 1965 the plight of the Palestinian refugees across the Arab Mideast had become so pitiful that the Arab League convened a conference designed to ameliorate the substantial adversities afflicting the Palestinians. What resulted was a proclamation known as The Casablanca Protocol.

But Morocco, Tunisia and Saudi Arabia adamantly refused to sign the Protocol. Lebanon, Libya and Kuwait only signed the Protocol with explicit reservations. That posture left about a million Palestinian refugees trapped in a pathetic state of affairs.

As such, in its 1991 campaign of explicit ethnic cleansing, Kuwait unceremoniously expelled 370,000 of the 400,000 Palestinians then living in that country. Why? Because the Palestinian leader, Yassir Arafat, had sided with Saddam Hussein whose army had invaded Kuwait.

In 1995, Libya expelled its 30,000 Palestinians as punishment for Palestinian peace talks with Israel. In his madness, Col. Qadaffi reasoned that even more Palestinian refugees would punish Israel!

As late as 7 March 2011, Lebanon’s 300,000 Palestinians were still denied the right to own real estate, were still denied access to state healthcare and were still forbidden to practice law or medicine.

As recently as mid-2011, Palestinian President Abbas felt constrained to beg Iraqi President Talabani to protect Iraq’s 15,000-30,000 Palestinians from assaults by Iraqi Shia. Additionally, Palestinians in Iraq are still required to regularly reapply for residence papers.

As of this very moment, the approximate half-million or more Palestinian refugees in Saudi Arabia are still the only Moslems in the world who can never become Saudi citizens. The Saudis argue that this policy is designed “…to avoid dissolution of their (Palestinian) identity & to protect their right to return to their homeland.” Geopolitical hogwash!

Premises considered, the Palestinians must surely merit the world's concern and compassion, if not also sympathy. Lest we forget, the Palestinians still have no state, they still have little or no standing in many Arab nations and they still have no Philistine forefathers. And, candidly, absent those redoubtable Philistine ancestors, even the Palestinian claim to Palestine still remains putrid. Pity the Palestinians!