There were two topics that I hated at school \u2013 math and history. I was no big fan of most of the others, either \u2013 but math and history stood out as areas of study that no sane person should ever engage in. And then something happened in my Fifth Form Year (year 11 for those of you under 30). About 3 weeks before the November School Certificate exams I realised that, in order to pass School Certificate, I would need to pass School C History. So, I grudgingly spent the night before the exam swotting the study booklets of a topic I thought I hated. And guess what \u2013 I found that I loved history and even managed to pass the exam!<\/p>\n
Over the next 43 years I\u2019ve become passionate about history \u2013 starting with Brit history and gradually expanding my knowledge to take in a cursory understanding of the major empires around the world and most of the periods of history dating back to Mesopotamia in what we now call the Middle East and up into Asia Minor.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a fascinating region with a rich history and \u2013 like Europe \u2013 has been ruled over by various different dynasties and power blocs going back thousands of years. The most recent of these was the Ottoman Empire \u2013 the last of a succession of Islamic Caliphates which had ruled the region until they were defeated by the Allies in 1918 at the end of WW1. The former territories of the Ottomans were then partitioned through a series of Treaties where the terms were dictated by the Allies and divvied up, according to the whims and political dictates of the Brits and the French. This led to the creation of several new nations, including a State of Israel in 1948 within part of an area which, for almost two thousand years, was an administrative district with indistinct borders \u2013 and the rest is history (no pun intended).<\/p>\n
And that really leads me to the point of this article. Given the longevity of Palestine as a territorial entity \u2013 what happened to its proud history over the two thousand years of its existence? Over that same period of time the nations of Europe and Asia have a rich tapestry of history which includes evolving national borders, continual wars, and the changing dynasties of Kings and Queens against a backdrop of constant intrigue and hubris. In like manner, surely the proud nation of Palestine has an equally impressive history spanning back over a period which begins at around the time of Christ? Surely museums are replete with the stories of Palestinian rulers and groaning under the weight of Palestinian artefacts and a written record of the proud history of the Palestinian people?<\/p>\n
Well, no. There are certainly artefacts and records from that region \u2013 but they\u2019re almost all Hebrew and, in most cases, predate Christ. Try as you might, you won\u2019t find any historical record of the \u2018Palestinians\u2019 beyond simple stories of migration into, and out of, that area by nomadic Arab peoples. There are no records of great Palestinian leaders, great Palestinian battles, or great Palestinian structures. Don\u2019t take my word for it \u2013 Google it. They\u2019re not there.<\/p>\n
Oh, there are certainly historical records of great battles over the territory starting in the 7th Century – but they were between the European Crusaders and the Islamic Caliphates \u2013 neither of which were actually based in Palestine. No actual \u2018Palestinians were harmed in the making of those battles! (sorry, couldn\u2019t resist).<\/p>\n
So if there\u2019s no history or historical remnant of a \u2018Palestinian\u2019 people \u2013 where did Palestine come from? What were the Arabic origins of this territorial designation which now features so prominently in international affairs and causes so much anxiety for members of the UN?<\/p>\n
Well, that\u2019s the thing. \u2018Palestine\u2019 isn\u2019t an Arabic entity. The people to whom it refers weren\u2019t Arabic \u2013 and the word itself isn\u2019t an Arabic word (there\u2019s no \u2018P\u2019 in the Arabic language). The word \u2018Palestine\u2019 derives from the word \u2018Philistia\u2019 which was the name given to the land of the Philistines who occupied a small pocket of land between Tel Aviv and Gaza in the 12 th Century BC. Those people have long since disappeared from history but the name was revived by the Romans, in the 2nd Century AD, primarily as an insult to the Jewish occupants of the land at that time.<\/p>\n
So what does this all mean? Is there really a \u2018Palestinian\u2019 nationality? Yes, of course. There have been Arabs living alongside Jews, in that region, for hundreds of years \u2013 and an emerging Arabic nationalism since the 19 th Century \u2013 comparable to the European presence in New Zealand over a similar period of time which has led to the development of a \u2018kiwi\u2019 culture as distinct from a British culture.<\/p>\n
For this reason we shouldn\u2019t just dismiss \u2018Palestinian\u2019 aspirations to statehood \u2013 but we also shouldn\u2019t attribute, to them, a fictitious history going back over millennia. The \u2018aboriginal\u2019 people of Israel are the Jews \u2013 and acceptance of that fact must always be the starting point for any solution to the issues facing that region of the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There were two topics that I hated at school \u2013 math and history. I was no big fan of most of the others, either \u2013 but math and history stood out as areas of study that no sane person should ever engage in. And then something happened in my Fifth Form Year (year 11 for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":6012,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[689,816],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6010"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6010"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6010\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7328,"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6010\/revisions\/7328"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}