By David Corbin
Palestine is not a country. Historically, it is a geographical region where Jewish and Arab people live. The term “Palestine” (Falastin in Arabic) was an ancient name for the general geographic region. It is believed that the name was derived from the Philistines who invaded the area between the eleventh and twelfth centuries, before the Common Era.
The Romans corrupted the name to “Palestina,” and the area, under the sovereignty of their city-states, became known as “Philistia.” Six-hundred years later, the Arab invaders called the region “Falastin.”
Throughout subsequent history, the name remained only a vague geographical entity. There was never a nation of “Palestine,” never a people known as the “Palestinians,” nor any notion of “historic Palestine.” The region never enjoyed any sovereign autonomy – remaining instead under successive foreign sovereign domains from the Umayyads and Abbasids to the Fatimids, Ottomans, and British.
Interestingly, the term “Palestinian” was used during the British Mandate period (1922-1948) to identify the Jews of British Mandatory Palestine. The non-Jews of the area were known as “Arabs,” and their own designation of the region was balad esh-Sham (the province of Damascus).
In early 1947, when the United Nations was exploring the possibility of the partition of British Mandatory Palestine into two states, one for the Jews and one for the Arabs, various Arab political and academic spokespersons spoke out vociferously against such a division. They argued, the region was really a part of southern Syria, no such people or nation as “Palestinians” had ever existed, and it would be an injustice to Syria to create a state ex nihilo at the expense of Syrian sovereign territory.
Following the Six-Day-War (1967), there was a strategic change in language among Arabs. The term “Palestinian” was coined to lend legitimacy to claims for the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
This ploy was revealed, perhaps inadvertently, in a public interview with Zahir Muhse’in, a member of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) Executive Committee. In this March 31, 1977 interview, with the Amsterdam-based newspaper Trouw, Zahir Muhse’in said:
“The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality, there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct “Palestinian people” to oppose Zionism. For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.”
Wow! In the absence of sound history, we have come to believe revisionist history – a mythic narrative that teaches that Zionists, with the support of the British, have stolen Palestinian land, exiled the people, and initiated a reign of terror and ethnic cleansing.
The revisionist narrative contends that Israel as a racist, war-mongering, oppressive, apartheid state, illegally occupies Arab land and carries out genocide of an indigenous people that had stronger claim to the land than Israel itself.
That is the argument that fuels the Israel-Palestine conflict. That is the rationale behind the preamble of Hamas’ Charter: ″Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it″.
I am not suggesting that Israel should obliterate Hamas instead. I dislike war. As a Christian, I am encouraged to pursue peace. I am also encouraged to pray for persons in leadership – “that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness” (1 Timothy 2:2).
However, I recognize that governments have a responsibility to protect their people. The apostle Paul, in the context of governmental authority, referred to the barbaric Roman government as “God’s servant” (Romans 13:1-7). Similarly, Israel has a responsibility to protect and pursue peace for her people.
By David Corbin, August 4, 2014
see: http://mondaymorning-minister.blogspot.com/2014/08/palestine-and-palestinians.html
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