The Narrative of Palestine

All people have a history – the only real question is how far back it goes and what is in it. The Palestinians would have you believe that they are the predecessors of all. It’s a matter of pride. In their twisted and desperate attempt to create a history of magnificent proportions, they find they are sadly lacking. What can they do? The earth doesn’t lie even if they do and so they…acquire…yes…they acquire an ancient history.

Here is an ancient coin (circa 1927) that “proves” Palestinian history because of the Arabic and the word “Palestine”.

Of course, the coin also has Hebrew and English and was minted by the British recognizing the three languages spoken in the area at the time – Hebrew by the Jews, Arabic by the Arab inhabitants (not necessarily Palestinians since both Jews and Arabs were referred to as Palestinians since they lived in the British Mandated Palestine), and English for the British occupiers. Note that the Hebrew says “Palestine” followed by two Hebrew letters (א”י) which is an abbreviation for Eretz Yisrael – the land of Israel).

And here is an ancient Jewish coin that dates back to the Roman period over 2,000 years ago on which the name of our land, “Judea” is inscribed. One point for the Jews on the coin battle.

Then there are bottles. Here’s an ancient Jewish relic that dates back to the Byzantine era (about 1700 years ago). Note the menorah engraved on the side?

Finding an ancient Palestinian bottle was a bit of a challenge. The first one I found dated back to about 2,000 BCE and came, according to BBC’s webpage, from
“Jericho, Palestine” – of course, there was no Palestine in the year 2,000 BCE so that’s quite interesting. What there was, were the Canaanites, who were the sons of Ham and Noah.

The Jews and Arabs came through the son of Noah, Shem – thus we are all called “Semites” (but we get the anti-Semitism all to ourselves). So, to say that a Canaanite jug is Palestinian is too far a stretch to be considered acceptable (except by BBC, of course).

And so it was back to the search to try to come up with a Palestinian bottle. I did find this one. There are two problems with it. 

The first is that it isn’t a bottle and the second is the even though it says “Pepsi” in Arabic, I don’t think it’s the real thing. So, in the area of ancient bottles, we have 1 point for the Jews, 1 point for the Canaanites and 0 for the Palestinians. Overall score for proving our historical presence in the Jewish homeland – 2-0.

And then, I came across this picture showing more of the Palestinian narrative. This is a horrible picture of a massacre perpetrated by Jews against the poor Arab population of Deir Yassin in 1948, prior to the establishment of the State of Israel. Re-establishment, I should say.

There are just a few problems with this sad, tragic, horrible picture.

The first are the people walking on the right side of the image. They are American soldiers, not Israelis.

The second is the location of the image. It wasn’t actually taken in the tiny village of Deir Yassin. The massacre wasn’t theirs – it was ours. The picture was taken on April 17, 1945 in Germany, is on exhibit in the US Holocaust Museum, and can be viewed online here. (What happened at Deir Yassin has also been exaggerated and falsified, but will have to be the subject of a post of its own).

In our little game of scoring, that makes the score 3-0. But this isn’t a game, is it? People are dying because the Palestinians refuse to look forward or backwards. Backwards tells them that we are the legitimate heirs to our homeland and though we have made it clear that we are prepared to live with them, despite very clear historical evidence that if you dig in the ground, it is our history you will find, not theirs (except for old Coca-Cola and Pepsi bottles circa 2010 left to rot).

The Palestinian narrative dating back anything more than 100 years is, without question fabricated. Even in the last 100 years, much of it is established by using other people’s images. That they live here now is something we all have to accept. When the Jews first moved into the land of Canaan, there were others who lived here. Those that were prepared to live with us nearly 4,000 years ago, remained. Those who were not, were defeated. It was the way of the world then and not something we have to answer for now. We were exiled 2,000 years ago and we have come home. The land offers its testimony on a regular basis that this land is our home.

Stealing images of the Holocaust just makes you look pathetic. Borrowing images from war-torn Syria, as they often do, just makes them look desperate. In days filled with violence, it is clear that the Palestinians have yet to learn that the way to a peaceful solution will not be found through violence or forgery.

We grow tired of your violence and your childish attempts to maintain the status quo when it suits you and demand it change when it doesn’t.

No, you will never rule this land – but then again, history shows that you never did. You rule in something like 40 other lands in this world. It won’t happen here. Accept it…or leave. Deal with it…or lose.

25 thoughts on “The Narrative of Palestine”

  1. The problem is that Israeli government needs to tell them exactly that: accept it or leave.
    As long as they think that violence will bring them glory, they won’t stop. They need to understand, that nothing is more sacred than protecting the lives of the people of Israel.

    1. As I noted, for Arabs honor is more important than life. A man is nothing without it.

      That’s the primary reason why conflict resolution is so elusive and hard to attain in the Middle East. Intangible considerations matter more than material things.

      In a word, you can’t deal with crazy, passionate people in the same way you could deal with normal, rational people.

      What works for Israeli Jews and Westerners doesn’t work for Arabs. The Middle East follows a different set of rules.

      1. The only thing that has a track record of working with these nutters is massacre. I’m not advocating that we stoop to their level, but we do need to be prepared for the fact that they’re not going to stop until somebody stops them from the outside. If it won’t be us, then we need to build our walls and aim our guns and make our peace with the unpleasant situation, if we can’t make peace with our neighbors.

        1. Pass new laws. Threatening to kill them doesn’t work. Bulldozing their houses doesn’t work. What could work, is if residency and citizenship stopped being an unconditional right, and becomes a privilege, which can be revoked. If violence could strip them of access to any territory under Israel’s control. If citizenship could be rescinded. Irreversibly. Jerusalem Arabs have special status, merely because they are from Jerusalem. That needs to become a privilege, not a right.

      2. Absolutely. It’s not just that honour is more important than life, they seek to attain honour through these killings, hoping to “go out in a blaze of glory”. If they get killed, it’s a higher form of honour. You can’t hope to win against that, and I have no idea how to contain that. The only hope Israel has, is for the Arab leadership to work in cooperation with them. The only ones who can convince Muslims that their actions will bring shame, not honour, are Muslim leaders, who are respected, preferably a solid group. But they fuel and exacerbate the incitement instead.

  2. Actually the cola can says “Bebsi” in Arabic, as the sound “P” does not exist in the Arabic language.

    1. Paula R. Stern

      yes – but it says Judea on it – proving that even the Romans recognized the country as Jewish. That was my point. There are, of course, many ancient Hebrew coins as well.

      1. Douglas Beachler

        I think I found a palestinian coin with my metal detector. On one side the inscription said “No face value”, the other side, “good for one free ride”. Perhaps you can help me authenticate it.

  3. Arabs live in an honor/shame culture. Appearances are everything and facts, logic and the truth to them are irrelevant.

    And the worst source of shame is losing control to the hated, despised, infidel dhimmi Jews. In the Arab Muslim culture, its simply unimaginable Jews have that kind of power.

    The only way Arabs can deal with it is to think they can humiliate the Jews into abject submission so they can build themselves up again – restoring their lost honor. In reality, they lose because Arab honor is tied into a definition of conflict resolution that demands they win and the Jews lose. But unfortunately for them, Jews in Israel are not at the bottom of the social pecking order and the usual gambit doesn’t work.

    What usually happens is they wind up with nothing. A compromise settlement to normal people is win/win but that means Jews have rights, needs and interests too that have to be taken into account and that is too much for Arabs to bear.

    When is all said and done, when the drama is over, the metal detectors will stay and humiliated Arabs will find more reasons to seethe about the Jews.

    Then again, they have been playing with a losing hand now for over a century. This is the narrative of Palestine in a nutshell.

    1. So surely, with a brave enough government Israel should annex the settlement blocks, build a wall/fence around it all and declare its borders. All the while retaining military control of the Jordan valley and the right of ‘hot pursuit’ in the event of any cross border attacks. Arab Jerusalem residents (or Arab Israelis) not willing to stay on Israeli terms can then be relocated to the other side of the new border. The so-called ‘palestinians’ can then do whatever they like, declare a state or whatever floats their boat as long as they stay out of Israel and leave well alone. They can then bleat their ‘narrative’ to their hearts’ content but we won’t be listening or care a hoot. Laughed my socks off at the AJ article on how Israel is usurping ‘palestinian’ cultural heritage: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/08/hobby-lobby-funds-israeli-settlement-archaeology-170826181403031.html

  4. “the Palestinians have yet to learn that the way to a peaceful solution will not be found through violence or forgery”
    Well, sure, but they are seeking a violent, final solution to Israel, so this lesson isn’t really on their radar.

  5. Actually it is a Zionist conspiracy to rid every single library in the world of the ancient Palestinian history. Darn Joos, foiled again!

  6. 1Biodegradable1

    What makes that Deir Yassin lie even more offensive is that they’ve used a photo of a real Nazi massacre of Jews to promote the fake Deir Yassin libel.

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