Palestinian nationalism is a very recent construct created by the Soviet Union (which had decided to counter US Middle East expansionism by opposing US regional allies and funding anti-Western terrorist groups) by supporting the Egyptian terrorist, Yasser Arafat.
Propaganda has successfully created the false narrative, believed by millions that the majority of Arab Palestinians were indigenous. Scores of travelers who wrote of their journeys over the centuries never mentioned the presence of an indigenous people known as Palestinians as we know them today. Most of the Arabs in the area were itinerant Bedouin. Agricultural production could not be annually maintained as the soil was so infertile – either malaria infected marshes or desert. It was indeed Zionism their knowhow in technology and their capital input combined with educated labor and advanced farming techniques that made the area flourish agriculturally.
Thousands of Arabs, mostly undocumented, immigrated to Palestine during the early nineteenth century to improve their economic wellbeing directly as a consequence of Zionism. New capital, rapidly developing infrastructure, improved farming techniques, construction and development, honest banking and finance and cleaner water through better purification and irrigation all combined to attract Arab immigrant labor as has been documented in detail. These facts too have been ignored by those only too eager to criminalize the Jewish State and her founders.
As an aside it is ironic is it not that the main Jewish newspaper was called The Palestine Post; the main Jewish Bank was called the Anglo Palestine Bank; the major Jewish wine company was called the Palestine Wine Company and the Jewish orchestra was called the Palestine Symphony. Why on earth would Jews name their companies and organizations after an Arab country? Even more of a paradox is that the sound for the letter ‘P’ does not exist in Arabic so why would Arabs call themselves by a pronoun they cannot pronounce. Moreover, the pronunciation for Palestine is supposedly Filastin. But Filastin is the Arab pronunciation for Philistine, a people that became extinct in the ninth century BC and who originated from the Greek Islands.
Why would the Palestinians call themselves after extinct Greek seafaring invaders or the modern meaning of Philistines, uncouth, uncultured heathens?
So, having populated Palestine with immigrants from surrounding Arab countries, the Arabs decided to ethnically cleanse the Jews by invading with five armies from Arab countries. They failed and the ‘Palestinian’ refugee problem was created.
What did the Arab political classes and various Arab journals comment on this …..
Emile Ghoury, Secretary of the Palestinian Arab Higher Committee in an interview with the Beirut Telegraph, September 6th 1948:
“The Arab States which had encouraged the Arabs of Palestine to leave their homes temporarily in order to be out of the way of the ARAB INVASION ARMIES (capitals intended), have failed to keep their promise to help these people”.
The Jordanian daily newspaper Falastin, February 19th 1949:
“Who brought the Arabs to Lebanon as refugees, suffering now from the malign attitude of newspapers and communal leaders, who have neither honor nor conscience? Who brought them over in dire straits and penniless after they lost their honor? The Arab States and Lebanon amongst them did it”.
The Beirut Muslim weekly Kul – Shay, August 19th 1951:
“The 15th May 1948 arrived. On that day the Mufti of Jerusalem commanded to the Arabs of Palestine to leave the country because the Arab armies were about to enter and fight in their stead”.
The Cairo daily Akhbar el Yom, October 12th 1953:
“For the flight and fall of the other villages it is our leaders who are responsible because of their dissemination of rumors exaggerating the Jewish crimes and describing them as atrocities in order to inflame the Arabs. By spreading rumors of Jewish atrocities, killings of women and children etc. they instilled fear and terror in the hearts of the Arabs in Palestine until they fled leaving their homes and properties to the enemy”.
The Jordanian daily newspaper Al Urdun, April 9th 1953:
“I could go on and on with this forgotten or deliberately obscured history. But you get the point. There was no Jewish conspiracy to chase Arabs out of their homes in 1948. It never happened. There are, instead plenty of historical records showing the Jews pleading with their Arab neighbors to stay and live in peace and harmony. Yet despite the clear, unambiguous words of the Arab observers at the time, history has been successfully rewritten to turn the Jews into the bad guys”.
Even though Jewish communities were being attacked by Arab terrorists from neighboring Arab countries lead by Fawzi al Kaukji, the Jewish leadership pleaded with their Arab neighbors to stay and not listen to the threats of their leaders to leave.
The Jewish organization, the Workers Council of Haifa issued and published the following statement in April 1948.
“For years we have lived together in our City of Haifa in security and in mutual understanding and brotherhood. Thanks to this, our City flourished and developed for the good of both Jewish and Arab residents; thus, did Haifa serve as an example to the other Cities of Palestine. Do not destroy your homes with your own hands and do not bring tragedy upon yourselves by unnecessary evacuation and self-imposed burdens. By moving out you will be overtaken by poverty and humiliation. But in this City, yours and ours, Haifa, the gates are open for work, for life and for peace, for you and your families”.
The Jewish Mayor of Haifa, Shabetai Levi, implored the Arab population not to leave and guaranteed their safety but to no avail. In a memorandum of the Arab National Committee in Haifa to the Arab League, dated April 27th1948 the response to Shabetai was as follows.
“The signing of a truce would be a disgrace to the Arab population …and we proudly refused to sign and asked to be evacuated and transfer to neighboring Arab countries be facilitated. The British military and civil authorities and the Jewish representatives expressed their profound regret at this grave decision. The Jewish Mayor adjourned the meeting with a passionate appeal to the Arab population to reconsider the decision”.
The attempts by the Jewish leaders to stop the Arab population from fleeing was noted in a report by the British Superintendent of Police A.J. Bidmead on April 26th 1948.
“There is no change in the situation in Haifa. The Jews are still making every effort to persuade the Arab populace to remain and settle back into their normal lives in the town”.
A report filed by a special correspondent of the Economist (as reported in the British Government report) stated… “that the Jewish authorities urged all Arabs to remain under guarantee of protection”.
Statements by leading Arab politicians charged with maintaining the refugee problem clearly expose any lack of intent to resolve the situation peacefully but only an attempt to annihilate the Jewish State.
Dr Mohammed Salah-ed-Din, Egyptian Foreign Minister, October 11th 1949:
“In demanding the restoration of the refugees to Palestine , the Arabs intend that they should return as masters not slaves. More explicitly they intend to annihilate the State of Israel”.
Resolution adopted by the Conference of Arab Refugees, at Homs in Syria, July 11/12th 1957.
“Any discussion aimed at a solution of the Palestine problem which will not be based on ensuring the refugees right to annihilate Israel will be regarded as a desecration of the Arab people and an act of treason”.
President Nasser of Egypt in an interview with the Swiss journal, Neue Zuercher Zeitung, September 1st 1960.
“When the refugees return to Israel, Israel will cease to exist”.
Statements from Arab politicians and organizations admitted that responsibility for the situation was that of the Arab leadership.
On April 3rd 1949 the Near East Broadcasting Station in Cyprus broadcast the following ..
“It must not be forgotten that the Arab Higher Committee encouraged the refugees flight from their homes in Jaffa, Haifa and Jerusalem”.
King Hussein of Jordan in January 1960 said to an Associated Press correspondent,
“Since 1948 Arab leaders have approached the Palestine issue in an irresponsible manner. They have not looked into the future. They have no plan nor approach. They have used the people for selfish political purposes. This is not only ridiculous but criminal”.
The statements above made by Arab leaders are just some of numerous similar statements verifying beyond doubt that Arab politics and detestation of the Jewish State took precedence over the wellbeing of the Arab Palestinians.
The Syrian Prime Minister of 1948/9 Haled al Azm in his ”Memoirs of Haled al Azm , 1973 admitted the Arab leadership’s role in persuading the Arabs to leave –
“Since 1948 we have been demanding the return of the refugees to their homes. But we ourselves are the ones who encouraged them to leave”.
The Secretary of the Arab League , Edward Atiyah in his 1955 book The Arabs, penned..
“The wholesale exodus was due to the belief of the Arabs encouraged by the boastings of an unrealistic Arab press and the irresponsible utterances of Arab leaders that it could be only a matter of weeks before the Jews were defeated by the armies of the Arab States…”
And it was not only Arab politicians and journalists who recognized the nauseating, moral indecency of the Arab leadership. Ralph Galloway, former head of UNWRA in August 1958 wrote.
“The Arab States do not want to solve the refugee problem. They want to keep it as an open sore, as an affront to the United Nations and as a weapon against Israel. Arab leaders don’t give a damn whether the refugees live or die”.
It is worthy of note that up until 1964, the year of the first Palestinian Charter, the idea of a Palestinian national identity separates to an Arab identity had not been formulated. Palestinian nationalism is a very recent construct created by the Soviet Union (which had decided to counter US Middle East expansionism by opposing US regional allies and funding anti-Western terrorist groups) by supporting the Egyptian terrorist, Yasser Arafat.
Dear readers, Blitz is neither an Israeli State nor Jewish owned or sponsored publication. It is an independent journal which has been publishing the truth under extreme adversities since 2003 – Peter Baum
Next Installment: Yasser Arafat was not Palestinian but Egyptian
