The Truth Behind The Palestinian Myth

First and foremost; 

"Was there or has there been ANY country called "Palestine"?  

The answer is a resounding; NO, ABSOLUTELY NOT!!

there never was.

May I suggest that any person who really believes in this "fantasy" go to visit any museum in the world and search for coinage or archaeological artifacts specifically related to any "Palestinian" Arab king or ancient leader. What you will find in museums all over the world if you make even the most casual search coins, pottery, ancient scrolls, all providing conclusive, empirical and millennial evidence of Jewish civilization throughout the land known as Israel – not Palestine.

And now the DOCUMENTED ISTORICAL TRUTH

Throughout history there never was a country called "Palestine" but instead referred to the region of the ancient world known as Canaan where the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah were located. 

According to "Christendom" this geographical region received the name of Palestine, from the Philistines, who dwelt on the sea coast

The "Holy Land" used by Christian cartographers was taken from Hebrew "Eretz HaKadosh" as being the country where Jesus Christ was born, preached his holy doctrines, confirmed them by miracles, and laid down his life for mankind.It was called Iudea or Judaea by the Romans.

There was for a period of time the area was a Roman Provence called Palaestina -Latin term for the Roman province Syria Palaestina, the Byzantine Palaestina Prima and the Umayyad and Abbasid province of Jund Filastin.

The term "Palestine" itself first appeared in the 5th century BC when the ancient Greek historian Herodotus wrote in Book 7 of his "The Histories", of a "district of Syria, called Palaistinê" which was a reference to the "Sea Peoples" Greek term "palaistes" to identify them, which translates from the term for "wrestlers" for those who conquered the area between Phoenicia and Egypt in The Histories.

You can review a scene from the north wall of Medinet Habu that illustrated the Egyptian campaign against the Sea Peoples in what has come to be known as the Battle of the Delta. 

We refer to these "Invaders" in the Old Testament in Hebrew as "Pleshtim" which in translation in the Greek Old Testament, or Septuagint became Philistines. And it is so fittingly that the "Arabs of the Mandated Areas" have claimed the aegis of "Occupiers"(Pleshtim).

The cartography of the region of Palestine, also known as cartography of the Holy Land and cartography of the Land of Israel, is the creation, editing, processing and printing of maps of the region of Palestine from ancient times until the rise of modern surveying techniques. 

For several centuries during the Middle Ages it was the most prominent subject in all of cartography, and it has been described as an "obsessive subject of map art".

The history of the mapping of Palestine is dominated by two cartographic traditions: the biblical school and the classical school. 

The earliest surviving maps of the biblical tradition derive from the attempts of the early Church Fathers to identify and illustrate the primary locations mentioned in the Bible, and to provide maps for Christian pilgrimage.

The earliest surviving maps of the classical tradition derive from the scientific and historical works of the Greco-Roman world; the European rediscovery of Ptolemy's works in the 1400s ended the domination of the biblical tradition.

Many Graeco-Roman geographers described the Palestine region in their writings; however, there are no surviving pre-modern originals or copies of these maps – illustrations today of maps according to geographers such as Hecataeus, Herodotus or Eratosthenes are modern reconstructions. The earliest surviving classical maps of the region are Byzantine versions of Ptolemy's 4th Asia map

Notable quotes:

Awni Abd al-Hadi stated in his testimony before the 1917 Peel Commission that: "There is no such country [as Palestine] .... Palestine is a term the Zionists invented.... Our country was for centuries part of Syria."

"There is no such thing as 'Palestine' in history, absolutely not. There is no Palestine in the Bible. Our country was for centuries part of Syria.”

(Arab-American historian, Princeton University Prof. Philip Hitti, testifying against partition before the Anglo-American Committee in 1946)

"As our elders have said for years: "Falastin ['Palestine' in Arabic] begins with falas [bankruptcy] and ends with teen [mud]." Bassam Tawil

During an interview with Al-Hekma TV, Hamas Minister of the Interior, Fathi Hammad sought pan-Arab support by stressing their blood ties: “Half of the Palestinians are Egyptians and the other half are Saudis.”

The Romans called the area "Palestina" as mentioned in the "New Testament". However what was the reasoning? If you check all the historical references during the period -specifically Josephus - you would find that the Romans called the area -after the Philistine Greek origin invaders, due to the embarrassment from the terrible loses they had incurred in their suppression of the Jewish revolt in Judea and Shomron. You may view this readily in the coin Struck in 71 AD   "Judaea Capta" authorized by the Roman Emperor Vespasian where on the coin you can see a Jewess in attitude of mourning, seated left beneath palm tree; to right, captive Jew with hands tied behind back standing left; captured weapons behind. " and on the other side it says in Latin – “Sestertius Vespasiano Iudaea Capta”. 

What there was, was a British civil administration carved out of Ottoman Southern Syria after World War I which was a geopolitical entity called "The Mandated Area of Palestine".

The name was given by the League of Nations in recognition of the area's Roman name in order NOT to inflame Arab hatred.

During the Mandatory Palestine period, the term "Palestinian" was used to refer to all people residing there, regardless of religion or ethnicity, and those granted citizenship by the British Mandatory authorities were granted "Palestinian citizenship"

The Jews that resided in the Mandated Areas called themselves; “Palestinian Jews of Eretz Yisrael” as seen on all currency issued.

This Mandated Territory operated under British administration from 1919 until the Partition UNR181 and the British withdrawal on May 15th,1948.

"Before the Balfour Promise (i.e., Declaration) when the Ottoman rule ended (1517-1917), Palestine's political borders as we know them today did not exist, and there was nothing called a Palestinian people with a political identity as we know today, since Palestine's lines of administrative division stretched from east to west and included Jordan and southern Lebanon, and like all peoples of the region [the Palestinians] were liberated from the Turkish rule and immediately moved to colonial rule, without forming a Palestinian people's political identity."  [Official PA TV, Nov. 1, 2017] 

Munazzamat al-Tahrir al-Filastiniyyah is a political and paramilitary organization, regarded by the Arab League since October 1964 to be the "sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.

Founded in 1964,by Daoud Mikhail (Hanan Ashrawi's father), its goal was to end the "occupation" and freedom for Palestinian people. The original PLO Charter stressed Israel's annihilation, as well as a right of return and self-determination for Palestinians, which was during Jordan's and Egypt's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, respectively. Palestinian statehood during the Arab "occupations" was never mentioned, although later the PLO adopted the idea of an independent state between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea.

More recently, the PLO unofficially adopted a two-state solution, with Israel and Palestine living side by side, although many Palestinian leaders, including Yasser Arafat and Faisal Husseini have declared their goal is still "liberation" of all of Palestine.

Very few know the simple fact that the "Palestine Liberation Organization" was "Only" formed in 1964 by the Arabs of the Mandated Areas, which was three years before Israel would gain control over the Gaza Strip and liberate Judea and Samaria (aka "the West Bank") in the defensive war of June 1967.

So the questions that beg to be asked are;

• What were the Arabs of the Mandated Areas aka the Palestinians, bent on liberating in 1964?
• And whom were they to liberate it from?  Jordan? Egypt?
• Did they demand to create their state from Egypt and Jordan?

Please note this is the same PLO that today controls the "Falestinian Authority"(Corruption IS us) today.

The PLO has never renounced its appetite for all of what was once dubbed "Falestina." It was only after Israel's victory in the Six Day war of 1967 that "the West Bank" and "Gaza Strip" suddenly had any real relevance to their Arab inhabitants.
Futhermore, it was only after Yasser Arafat's infamous UN "Zionist = Racism" speech that the Arab propaganda machine really revved up. Arafat's "Negation of Israel Plan" outlined in his speech inverted much of the world's perception of the Middle East: transforming tiny Israel from its natural role of "David" against the massive Arab population and lands, to one of "Goliath" against the "stateless," "oppressed," and "occupied" "Palestinians.

During Yasser Arafat's visit to Hanoi in 1970, Arafat was particularly struck by Ho Chi Minh’s success in mobilizing left-wing sympathizers in Europe and the United States to the Vietnamese cause. Ho’s chief strategist, Võ Nguyên Giáp, a General in the Vietnam People's Army and a politician, made it clear to Arafat and his lieutenants that in order to succeed, they too needed to redefine the terms of their struggle.

Giap’s counsel was simple but profound: the PLO needed to work in a way that concealed its real goals, permitted strategic deception, and give the appearance of moderation.

Arafat sent his adjutant, Khalil Ibrahim al-Wazir - Abu Jihad (later the leader of the PLO’s military operations), to North Vietnam to study the strategy and tactics of guerrilla warfare. Arafat was struck by Ho Chi Minh’s success with left-wing sympathizers in the United States and Europe.

Young college student activists on American campuses were enthusiastically following the North Vietnamese "line" in re-framing the Vietnam war from a Communist assault on the south to a struggle for national liberation.
“Progressive” activists on American campuses, enthusiastically following the line of North Vietnamese operatives, had succeeded in re-framing the Vietnam War from a Communist conquest of the South into a struggle for national liberation.

An insight into this North Vietnamese PR campaign, which provided the key to the Communist victory and a lesson for PLO operatives, was offered by Ho’s chief strategist, General Giap: “Stop talking about annihilating Israel and instead turn your terror war into a struggle for human rights. Then you will have the American people eating out of your hand.”

At the same time that Yasser Arafat was getting advice from General Giap, Arafat was also being tutored by Muhammad Yazid, who had been minister of information in two Algerian wartime governments (1958-1962):

“Wipe out the argument that Israel is a small state whose existence is threatened by the Arab states, or the reduction of the Palestinian problem to a question of refugees; instead, present the Palestinian struggle as a struggle for liberation like the others. Wipe out the impression …that in the struggle between the Palestinians and the Zionists, the Zionist is the underdog. Now it is the Arab who is oppressed and victimized in his existence because he is not only facing the Zionists but also world imperialism.”

The new approach has become wildly successful, especially with the moderate Left, which had generally supported the somewhat socialist state of Israel.