The Palestinian Myth

Not just an invented people, but a badly invented people

Even though the Jewish history in the land of Israel is one of the most popular stories of mankind and was incorporated into the religious beliefs of over half the human race, it’s become fashionable to deny the connection of the Jews to the land of Israel. And yet similarly dismissing the descendants of Muslim conquerors who now style themselves ‘Palestinians’, some of whom had arrived in Israel as recently as a century ago, as colonists and settlers is angrily denounced.

‘Palestinian’ identity is politically sacrosanct even though it has no historic or linguistic basis in any past deeper than the Islamic wars and invasions that long postdated the Jewish presence in Israel. It’s not only invented in history, but was so recently invented that many people living today remember when it was made up, and also manages ties itself in endless contradictions.

There’s no actual ‘Palestinian’ history. Just the ideological project of ‘Palestinianism’ and its revisionist history which reversed history, transforming the Arab Muslim conquerors who invaded and persecuted the Jews into the indigenous inhabitants who were driven out by the Jews. ‘Palestinianism’ is General Custer putting on an Indian costume and claiming that his ancestors were in America for thousands of years before the Sioux drove them out.

Palestinianism’s historical revisionism insists that the Jews who were in Israel for 3,400 years are European settlers while the Arab Muslims who decided to call themselves ‘Palestinians’ sixty years ago were the original indigenous inhabitants of the land. Their only basis for this otherwise completely ahistorical argument is picking a name with a ‘biblical’ sound to it.

But the name ‘Palestine’ came originally from the Philistines who were European settlers from the Aegean region. The name was imposed much later by the Roman conquerors seeking to remove any trace of the Jewish presence from Israel. Calling Israel ‘Palestine’ is something foreign settlers whose only link to the land came through their ties to foreign empires would do.

Rather than an assertion of indigeneity, the assumption of a false ‘Palestinian’ identity is an unintentional admission of foreignness. It’s what a clueless outsider trying to fit in would do.

The ‘Palestinian’ brand is not some ancient indigenous claim to the land, rather it’s the name of a group of European settlers who waged war against the Jews, over a millennia and a half before Islam, that was reapplied by another group of European conquerors over 500 years before Islam, and was then picked up by the Muslim invaders whose ancestors had served as mercenaries for Rome and had no historical memory predating the Roman Empire.

It’s hard to imagine a name more closely associated with foreign invaders than ‘Palestinians’.

Aware of this problem, Yasser Arafat, who was born in Egypt, took to claiming descent from the Canaanites, and specifically the Jebusites. That equally nonsensical claim of descent from an ancient people also dates back all the way to the 1960s. Rashid Khalidi, the Obama mentor who made that claim, was born in New York City to the former Foreign Minister of Jordan.

But if the ‘Palestinians’ are really Canaanites, why not call themselves that? It doesn’t have the same historical resonance among the Americans and Europeans who were the targets of the ‘Palestinian’ brand. And while the Koran mentions neither ‘Palestine’ nor ‘Canaan’, it does imply that Allah commanded the Jews to wage a Jihad and drive out the Canaanites. The more religiously devout Islamists deeply resent Arafat’s suggestion that they were ever Canaanites.

“The people of Palestine have no historical right to Palestine… our history is simple and it is not ancient. Our history dates back only 1,440 years. 1,440 years ago we had no rights of any kind. Absolutely none,” Imam Issam Amira argued in a talk in the occupying mosque on the Temple Mount that the ‘Palestinians’ can only assert rights based on Islam. “It must not be said that the Palestinians have Canaanite roots. We can go back to the words of Yasser Arafat who lost our cause… the only thing you are allowed to say is: ‘Oh Palestinians, you are Muslims.’”

When not presenting their case to Western audiences, the ‘Palestinians’ proudly trace their descent to what is today Saudi Arabia from the Qays and Yaman families. They all want to be connected to the old Mohammedan dynasties and not the pagan Philistines or the Canaanites.

The basis for the Muslim claim to Israel is the same as the claim to Iraq, Pakistan or any other Muslim country. Islam recognizes only the religious right of conquest, not any kind of indigenous ancestry, whether it’s in Israel, North Africa, India, Afghanistan or any other areas where the indigenous inhabitants were massacred, ethnically cleansed and enslaved by Islamic invaders.

Muslims preach to Westerners about the indigenous rights of ‘Palestinians’, but reject the indigenous rights of every group they conquered from Hindus and Buddhists in Asia to the Berbers in North Africa and the Copts in Egypt. Where have Muslims ever recognized the indigenous rights of any non-Muslim minority they conquered over their own people?

When it comes to Israel, Muslims demand adherence to a principle that they do not adhere to, and they demand it based on an invented history that they themselves never took seriously.

If there really is an ancient ‘Palestinian’ people somehow distinct from all their Arab Muslim relatives, what is it that makes them so? Where is their ancient history predating the 1960s?

Even a brief examination of recent history shows that it was a label of political convenience.

Were they ‘Palestinians’ when the British ran the Palestine Mandate? And yet when part of the Mandate was turned into the Kingdom of Jordan, those ‘Palestinians’ then became Jordanians.

In 1948, Jordan attacked Israel and annexed various areas including Ramallah, and the ‘Palestinians’ in the future capital of the Palestinian Authority became Jordanians. They had no interest in creating a ‘Palestinian’ state. Then only when Israel liberated Jerusalem and other parts of its territory, the Jordanians suddenly became ‘Palestinians’ and demanded a state.

None of this makes any sense if they, like the Jews, had been members of an ancient people with a consistent identity dating back thousands of years, but to the Arab Muslim settlers, Jordan and Palestine were just geographic names that they had inherited, not identities.

Hajj Amin Al-Husseini, better known as Hitler’s Mufti, and one of the pivotal figures of the genocidal ‘Palestinian’ cause who allied with the Nazis in the hopes of exterminating all the Jews, was part of the al-Husayni family which had moved to Israel in the 18th century and claimed descent from Mohammed’s grandson in Saudi Arabia. Their great rivals, the equally ‘Palestinian’ Nashashibis, were Kurds who showed up in the 15th century.

‘Palestinianism’ claims that the Arab Muslim settlers have a deep and ancient connection to the land. Surely this should be reflected in the geography and in the names of their cities?

The name of the Muslim settlers for Jerusalem is Al-Quds or Holy City because that was the only way the Arab Muslims of Arabia could describe a city they had heard about, but never visited. What the Jews call Judea and Samaria, the Arab Muslim settlers call ad-difa’a al-gharbiya or the West Bank. These names show no actual historic connection to the land.

The Arabic for Bethlehem is ‘Bayt Lehem’ or a translation of the Hebrew ‘Beit Lehem’. Is Nablus part of the great and ancient Palestinian heritage? But Nablus isn’t Arabic, it’s the Arabic mispronunciation of Neapolis, which means “New City” in Latin. Much like ‘Palestine’, it’s another borrowing from the Romans by foreign settlers with no ancient roots in Israel.

Ramallah, the capital of the Palestinian Authority, is an Arabic translation of the nearby ancient Jewish city of Beit El. It was barely inhabited under Muslim rule and dates back to the 16th century when a group of Christian Arabs crossed over from what is today Jordan fleeing Muslim persecution. Under Jordanian rule, it was overrun by Muslims and now has a Muslim majority.

When the capital of your people was founded by Christians from the other side of the river in the 16th century and its name was taken from an ancient Jewish city and it wasn’t actually your capital until the bygone days of the 1990’s, and it only became your capital because you drove out its original residents in the 1950’s, then your ancient civilization doesn’t actually exist.

The ‘Palestinians’ are not just an invented people. They’re a badly invented people with no history, no past and whose only talent is for stealing the identities of the ancient indigenous peoples that their invading ancestors from Arabia conquered, persecuted and enslaved.

When the indigenous Jewish people freed themselves, the conquerors switched to pretending to be the conquered, the oppressors played the oppressed and the invaders posed as the indigenous to justify their genocidal plans to conquer, oppress and invade Israel all over again.

Daniel Greenfield is the CEO and a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article previously appeared at the Center's Front Page Magazine.