In their own words:
"There is no such country [as Palestine] .... Palestine is a term the Zionists invented.... Our country was for centuries part of Syria."-Awni Abd al-Hadi stated in his testimony before the 1937 Peel Commission.
"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)
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.” "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]
In his 1997 book, "Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness", historian Rashid Khalidi noted that the archaeological strata that signifies the history of "Palestine" – encompassed the Biblical, Roman, Byzantine, Umayyad, Abbasid, Fatimid, Crusader, Ayyubid, Mamluk and Ottoman periods.
These periods form part of the identity of the modern-day Palestinian people, as they have come to understand it over the last century. Noting that (al-Filasṭīniyyūn) or "Palestinian" identity has never been an exclusive one, since "Arabism, religion, and local loyalties" played an important role in the make-up of the "Falestinian people" (ash-sha‘b al-Filasṭīnī).
Furthermore, in his book Rashid Khalidi cautioned against the efforts of some "Falestinian" nationalists to "anachronistically" read back into history a nationalist consciousness that is in fact "relatively modern".
Question: "Was there EVER a country called "Palestine"?
The only time this "Palestine" or “Falestine" existed was during the reign of the Roman Empire. Throughout history there never was a specific country called "Palestine". There was for a period of time a Roman Provence called Palaestina.
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 called "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”.
Question: Is a UN resolution binding?
Most experts consider most General Assembly resolutions to be non-binding. ... Resolutions made under Chapter VII are considered binding, but resolutions under Chapter VI have no enforcement mechanisms and are generally considered to have no binding force under international law.
The "Arab residents of the Mandated Territory" and the Seven Members of the Arab League who attacked the nascent Jewish state, were and some still are in direct violation of International Law as mentioned in clause 3 and 4 of Article 2 of the UN Charter:
So as to the question WAS there EVER a "Palestinian State" (Governed by Arab inhabitants of Palestine)
In June of 1967 the "West Bank" -read "disputed territories" was LIBERATED in a DEFENSIVE WAR launched by the illegal Jordanian "Occupiers" of "Mandated Territory".
Few note that the Jordanians were ILLEGAL occupiers because they had invaded and occupied the area prior to the British cessation of control of the Mandate on May 15th 1948 in violation of ART. 5 of the League of Nations Mandate to England for Palestine which explicitly states:
"The Mandatory (His Majesty's Government) shall be responsible for seeing that no Palestine territory shall be ceded or leased to, or in any way placed under the control of the Government of any foreign Power."
Therefore, under International Law, the "disputed territories was liberated and returned to possession of its owners, the Jewish People as ordained in Article 5.
Therefore, the application of the Geneva Convention does NOT legally apply to the "West Bank" -claims of "Occupation".
With the negotiated peace treaty between Jordan and Israel in 1995 the Mandated area for the Jewish Homeland (Article 8 Mandate for Palestine) was returned and therefore the "West Bank" officially became Israeli territory as per International Law termed; Uti possidetis juris or uti possidetis iuris (Latin for "as you possess under law") which is a principle of international law that states that; "newly formed sovereign states should have the same borders that their preceding dependent area had before their independence".
Furthemore, since no country or government had claimed sovereignty over it than according to International Law “terra nullius”, or "land belonging to no one" as per article 4 ("the establishment of the Jewish national home") of the "Mandate for Palestine" it rightly belongs to Israel.
Regarding the arbitrary detachment of Mandated Territory by the Rhodes Ceasefire Agreement to form the Gaza Strip, 1948-1967
After 1948, the Gaza Strip came under Egyptian control but was never annexed to Egypt. Egyptian Ministerial Order Number 274 issued on 8 August 1948 vested an Egyptian Administrator-General with all the powers of the High Commissioner. According to Order Number 6 issued on 1 June 1948, the Administrator-General declared that all laws in force during the Mandate would continue to be applicable in the Gaza Strip. From November 1956 to March 1957 the area came under Israeli military rule during which the Israeli Area Commander issued several orders which were annulled by the Egyptian Administrator-General, who upon re-assuming control in March 1957, declared that all laws and regulation in force prior to the Israeli invasion of 1956 would continue to be in force. On 25 November 1955, the Basic Law of Gaza was issued by the Prime Minister of Egypt. According to Section 23 of this law, a legislative council was established to pass laws to which were then to be approved by the Administrator-General of the Gaza strip. On 5 March 1962, a new constitution of the Gaza Strip was issued by the President of the United Arab Republic (a short-lived confederation between Egypt and Syria) confirming the legislative Council. In its brief existence (1955-1967), the Council made many regulations and passed several laws relating to labor, the professions, matters of personal status and the Moslem Religious Courts. But the bulk of the laws remained intact.
So in real historical documented fact what entity that existed called "Palestine", was in reality a British civil administration area carved out of the previous Ottoman Turkish Empire. An area known previously as "Southern Syria" after World War I which according to the San Remo conference, and the Treaty of Sèvres and later ratified in the Treaty of Lausanne signed in the Palais de Rumine, Lausanne, Switzerland July 24th 1923, created the geopolitical entity called "The Mandated Area of Palestine".
Colonel Sir Tatton Benvenuto Mark Sykes was one of the authors of The Sykes–Picot "highly cynical" war time agreement which formed the basis for the Anglo-French Modus Vivendi in the subsequent partitioning of the Ottoman Empire in the advent of the defeat. The Anglo-French Modus Vivendi, provided a framework for the Occupied Enemy Territory Administration in the Levant in the 1918-1922 period.
As atypical of many upper class Englishmen of the Late Victorian age, Colonel Mark Sykes had a classical upper-class education and he readily recalled Roman History and the Christian references in the Bible to the "Holy Land", as seen in many maps of the "Holyland", as "Palestine"(Arabic: Filastin, Greek: Palaistine; Latin: Palaestina).
As a senior member of the Arab Bureau in Cairo, Sykes suggested to the League of Nations that the Mandatory Area conquered from the Ottoman Turkish Empire in WWI be named "Palestine" in order NOT to inflame animosity and hatred among their WWI Arab allies. Mark Sykes realized that to preserve the British interests, specifically in the strategic need of Arab oil that there was a need to defer from using a Zionistic term, against the expressed wishes of the British Government that had issued the Balfour Declaration.
The Sykes–Picot agreement effectively divided the Ottoman provinces outside the Arabian Peninsula into areas of British and French control and influence. The British and French controlled countries were divided by the Sykes–Picot line. Shortly after the war, the French ceded Palestine and Mosul to the British. Mandates in the Levant and Mesopotamia were assigned at the April 1920 San Remo conference following the Sykes–Picot framework
The agreement allocated to Britain control of what is today southern Israel and Palestine, Jordan and southern Iraq, and an additional small area that included the ports of Haifa and Acre to allow strategic access to the Mediterranean. France got control of southeastern Turkey, northern Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.
With the implementation of the British "Mandate" and the recognition given the land by the Balfour Declaration, the Jews of the pre-World War I "Yishuv" that resided in the Mandated Areas readily called themselves; “Palestinian Jews of Eretz Yisrael”, as seen on all currency issued because of the conditions stated IN THE MANDATE!
At this point I would like to draw your attention to the "preamble" and these three articles from the Mandate given by the League of Nations:
In conclusion:
The present-day "Palestinians" are an Arab people, with Arab culture, Arabic language and Arab history. They now have their own Arab states from where most of them they came into the Land of Israel after the Moslem Conquest in 635CE .
The Arab dwellers of Judaea and Shomron Aka the "West Bank" as well as Gaza underwent a kind of anthropological miracle and discovered that they were suddenly a people the "Palestinians" in 1967 - something they did not know the day before.
Of course, these people having a new identity have had to build themselves a history, namely, they had to steal some others' history, and the only way that the victims of the theft would not complain is if those victims do no longer existed.
Therefore, the Palestinian leaders have claimed two contradictory lineages from ancient peoples that inhabited the Land of Israel: the Canaanites and the Philistines. Historically these peoples were either assimilated and absorbed by other groups and disappeared as separate peoples.
"The Palestinian people"( as a separate "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 today 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.... [T]he moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."— PLO leader Zuheir Mohsen, the Dutch newspaper Trouw, March 31, 1977.Zuheir Mohsen was the top PLO member responsible for the massacre of 684 Christians in Damour that took place on January 20, 1976 during the 1975–1990 Lebanese Civil War.
"There is no such country [as Palestine] .... Palestine is a term the Zionists invented.... Our country was for centuries part of Syria."-Awni Abd al-Hadi stated in his testimony before the 1937 Peel Commission.
"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)
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.” "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]
In his 1997 book, "Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness", historian Rashid Khalidi noted that the archaeological strata that signifies the history of "Palestine" – encompassed the Biblical, Roman, Byzantine, Umayyad, Abbasid, Fatimid, Crusader, Ayyubid, Mamluk and Ottoman periods.
These periods form part of the identity of the modern-day Palestinian people, as they have come to understand it over the last century. Noting that (al-Filasṭīniyyūn) or "Palestinian" identity has never been an exclusive one, since "Arabism, religion, and local loyalties" played an important role in the make-up of the "Falestinian people" (ash-sha‘b al-Filasṭīnī).
Furthermore, in his book Rashid Khalidi cautioned against the efforts of some "Falestinian" nationalists to "anachronistically" read back into history a nationalist consciousness that is in fact "relatively modern".
Question: "Was there EVER a country called "Palestine"?
The only time this "Palestine" or “Falestine" existed was during the reign of the Roman Empire. Throughout history there never was a specific country called "Palestine". There was for a period of time a Roman Provence called Palaestina.
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 called "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”.
FACT:
In 1947, UNR181 a United Nations resolution proposed a plan to partition Palestine into two sections: an independent Jewish state and an independent Arab state, with Jerusalem as internationalized territory.
Question: Is a UN resolution binding?
Most experts consider most General Assembly resolutions to be non-binding. ... Resolutions made under Chapter VII are considered binding, but resolutions under Chapter VI have no enforcement mechanisms and are generally considered to have no binding force under international law.
Partition and UNR181:
With regards to UNR181 "The Partition", the leadership of the Non Jewish "inhabitants of Palestine" aka the Arabs of the Mandated Territories were divided and utterly refused to accept the plan to "Partition" the Mandated Territory with their Jewish neighbors and instead immediately initiated deadly attacks against the Jewish populace.
The Jewish Agency Leadership (see-Article 4 of the Mandate) of the "Mandated Territories" , led by David Ben Gurion, recognizing the Arab rejection of the UNR181 Partition and as denoted in the Mandate, declared Statehood on May 14th 1948.
The "Arab residents of the Mandated Territory" and the Seven Members of the Arab League who attacked the nascent Jewish state, were and some still are in direct violation of International Law as mentioned in clause 3 and 4 of Article 2 of the UN Charter:
3. All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered.
4. All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.
In the ensuing internal battles- within the designated Partition Areas- and in battles against the combined invading armies of the Arab League. The poorly armed and equipped Jewish militia -the Haganah - became the army of the new born state. The new Israeli Army was able to seek weapons with help from the Soviet Block and Jewish Volunteers from abroad that gave the Jews a fighting chance to conquer areas that had been part of the Partition intended for the inhabitants of Palestine-read Arabs in a DEFENSIVE WAR.
In almost ALL the accounts of the bloody conflict nary a word is mentioned of the invasion and ethnic cleansing of the Jewish inhabitants of the communities of Hartuv, Kfar Etzion, Hebron, and the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem by the Jordanian Army.
So as to the question WAS there EVER a "Palestinian State" (Governed by Arab inhabitants of Palestine)
Factually and historically what there was, was a "supposed" State created by the Moslem Brotherhood in Egypt in Gaza called the All-Palestine Government which was formed in September 1948, prior to the end of the war for Israel's Independence
The "ALL-Palestinian government", was created under the leadership of the Mufti of Jerusalem Mohammad Amin al-Husayni.
The Mufti declared the independence of the Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital. However:
In 1959, Egyptian president Gamal Abdul Nasser ordered the dismantling of the All-Palestine Protectorate for good. In March 1962, a Constitution for the Gaza Strip was issued confirming the role of the Legislative Council. The All-Palestine Protectorate is regarded by some as the first attempt to establish an independent Palestinian state, whilst most just saw it as an Egyptian puppet, only to be annulled a few years after its creation by no less than President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt.
Let us review the documented Legal FACTS.
Between 1948 and 1950, the West bank including East Jerusalem came first under the military and later under the civilian administration of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.In June of 1967 the "West Bank" -read "disputed territories" was LIBERATED in a DEFENSIVE WAR launched by the illegal Jordanian "Occupiers" of "Mandated Territory".
Few note that the Jordanians were ILLEGAL occupiers because they had invaded and occupied the area prior to the British cessation of control of the Mandate on May 15th 1948 in violation of ART. 5 of the League of Nations Mandate to England for Palestine which explicitly states:
"The Mandatory (His Majesty's Government) shall be responsible for seeing that no Palestine territory shall be ceded or leased to, or in any way placed under the control of the Government of any foreign Power."
Therefore, under International Law, the "disputed territories was liberated and returned to possession of its owners, the Jewish People as ordained in Article 5.
Therefore, the application of the Geneva Convention does NOT legally apply to the "West Bank" -claims of "Occupation".
With the negotiated peace treaty between Jordan and Israel in 1995 the Mandated area for the Jewish Homeland (Article 8 Mandate for Palestine) was returned and therefore the "West Bank" officially became Israeli territory as per International Law termed; Uti possidetis juris or uti possidetis iuris (Latin for "as you possess under law") which is a principle of international law that states that; "newly formed sovereign states should have the same borders that their preceding dependent area had before their independence".
Furthemore, since no country or government had claimed sovereignty over it than according to International Law “terra nullius”, or "land belonging to no one" as per article 4 ("the establishment of the Jewish national home") of the "Mandate for Palestine" it rightly belongs to Israel.
Regarding the arbitrary detachment of Mandated Territory by the Rhodes Ceasefire Agreement to form the Gaza Strip, 1948-1967
After 1948, the Gaza Strip came under Egyptian control but was never annexed to Egypt. Egyptian Ministerial Order Number 274 issued on 8 August 1948 vested an Egyptian Administrator-General with all the powers of the High Commissioner. According to Order Number 6 issued on 1 June 1948, the Administrator-General declared that all laws in force during the Mandate would continue to be applicable in the Gaza Strip. From November 1956 to March 1957 the area came under Israeli military rule during which the Israeli Area Commander issued several orders which were annulled by the Egyptian Administrator-General, who upon re-assuming control in March 1957, declared that all laws and regulation in force prior to the Israeli invasion of 1956 would continue to be in force. On 25 November 1955, the Basic Law of Gaza was issued by the Prime Minister of Egypt. According to Section 23 of this law, a legislative council was established to pass laws to which were then to be approved by the Administrator-General of the Gaza strip. On 5 March 1962, a new constitution of the Gaza Strip was issued by the President of the United Arab Republic (a short-lived confederation between Egypt and Syria) confirming the legislative Council. In its brief existence (1955-1967), the Council made many regulations and passed several laws relating to labor, the professions, matters of personal status and the Moslem Religious Courts. But the bulk of the laws remained intact.
So in real historical documented fact what entity that existed called "Palestine", was in reality a British civil administration area carved out of the previous Ottoman Turkish Empire. An area known previously as "Southern Syria" after World War I which according to the San Remo conference, and the Treaty of Sèvres and later ratified in the Treaty of Lausanne signed in the Palais de Rumine, Lausanne, Switzerland July 24th 1923, created the geopolitical entity called "The Mandated Area of Palestine".
Colonel Sir Tatton Benvenuto Mark Sykes was one of the authors of The Sykes–Picot "highly cynical" war time agreement which formed the basis for the Anglo-French Modus Vivendi in the subsequent partitioning of the Ottoman Empire in the advent of the defeat. The Anglo-French Modus Vivendi, provided a framework for the Occupied Enemy Territory Administration in the Levant in the 1918-1922 period.
As atypical of many upper class Englishmen of the Late Victorian age, Colonel Mark Sykes had a classical upper-class education and he readily recalled Roman History and the Christian references in the Bible to the "Holy Land", as seen in many maps of the "Holyland", as "Palestine"(Arabic: Filastin, Greek: Palaistine; Latin: Palaestina).
As a senior member of the Arab Bureau in Cairo, Sykes suggested to the League of Nations that the Mandatory Area conquered from the Ottoman Turkish Empire in WWI be named "Palestine" in order NOT to inflame animosity and hatred among their WWI Arab allies. Mark Sykes realized that to preserve the British interests, specifically in the strategic need of Arab oil that there was a need to defer from using a Zionistic term, against the expressed wishes of the British Government that had issued the Balfour Declaration.
The Sykes–Picot agreement effectively divided the Ottoman provinces outside the Arabian Peninsula into areas of British and French control and influence. The British and French controlled countries were divided by the Sykes–Picot line. Shortly after the war, the French ceded Palestine and Mosul to the British. Mandates in the Levant and Mesopotamia were assigned at the April 1920 San Remo conference following the Sykes–Picot framework
The agreement allocated to Britain control of what is today southern Israel and Palestine, Jordan and southern Iraq, and an additional small area that included the ports of Haifa and Acre to allow strategic access to the Mediterranean. France got control of southeastern Turkey, northern Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.
With the implementation of the British "Mandate" and the recognition given the land by the Balfour Declaration, the Jews of the pre-World War I "Yishuv" that resided in the Mandated Areas readily called themselves; “Palestinian Jews of Eretz Yisrael”, as seen on all currency issued because of the conditions stated IN THE MANDATE!
At this point I would like to draw your attention to the "preamble" and these three articles from the Mandate given by the League of Nations:
Whereas the Principal Allied Powers have selected His Britannic Majesty as the Mandatory for Palestine…Whereas the Principal Allied Powers have also agreed that the Mandatory should be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 2nd, 1917, by the Government of His Britannic Majesty, and adopted by the said Powers, in favor of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing should be done which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country; andART. 2.
Whereas recognition has thereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country
The Mandatory shall be responsible for placing the country under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the establishment of the Jewish national home, as laid down in the preamble, and the development of self-governing institutions, and also for safeguarding the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine, irrespective of race and religion.
ART. 4.
An appropriate Jewish agency shall be recognized as a public body for the purpose of advising and co-operating with the Administration of Palestine in such economic, social and other matters as may affect the establishment of the Jewish national home and the interests of the Jewish population in Palestine, and, subject always to the control of the Administration to assist and take part in the development of the country.
The Zionist organization, so long as its organization and constitution are in the opinion of the Mandatory appropriate, shall be recognized as such agency. It shall take steps in consultation with His Britannic Majesty's Government to secure the co-operation of all Jews who are willing to assist in the establishment of the Jewish national home.
ART. 5.
The Mandatory shall be responsible for seeing that no Palestine territory shall be ceded or leased to, or in any way placed under the control of the Government of any foreign Power.
What is important to note, from these quotes from the Legal document -The Mandate for Palestine- issued by the League of Nations and later ratified by the United Nations, and is TOTALLY ignored in ALL discussions, is the glaring fact of the absence of two terms / words: Arabs and Palestinians as a "people". What it DOES say is; "inhabitants of Palestine"!
What we DO SEE is, "affect and secure the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people."
Inquiring minds wish to know how this glaring fact is deviously and glaringly ignored!
This Mandated Territory operated under a British administration from 1919 until the Partition UNR181 and the British withdrawal on May 15th,1948.
Inquiring minds wish to know how this glaring fact is deviously and glaringly ignored!
This Mandated Territory operated under a British administration from 1919 until the Partition UNR181 and the British withdrawal on May 15th,1948.
As stated in the Mandate issued by the League of Nations, the Mandate was "entrusted" to; "His Britannic Majesty as the Mandatory for Palestine" as a "a sacred trust of civilization" !
However, as we Jews experience it the British Government TOTALLY and abysmally failed to accomplish the set goal "entrusted" to them to; "establish a of a national home for the Jewish people "in Palestine".
In conclusion:
The present-day "Palestinians" are an Arab people, with Arab culture, Arabic language and Arab history. They now have their own Arab states from where most of them they came into the Land of Israel after the Moslem Conquest in 635CE .
The Arab dwellers of Judaea and Shomron Aka the "West Bank" as well as Gaza underwent a kind of anthropological miracle and discovered that they were suddenly a people the "Palestinians" in 1967 - something they did not know the day before.
Of course, these people having a new identity have had to build themselves a history, namely, they had to steal some others' history, and the only way that the victims of the theft would not complain is if those victims do no longer existed.
Therefore, the Palestinian leaders have claimed two contradictory lineages from ancient peoples that inhabited the Land of Israel: the Canaanites and the Philistines. Historically these peoples were either assimilated and absorbed by other groups and disappeared as separate peoples.
"As I lived in Palestine, everyone I knew could trace their heritage back to the original country their great grandparents came from. Everyone knew their origin was not from the Canaanites, but ironically, this is the kind of stuff our education included. The fact is that today's Palestinians are immigrants from the surrounding nations! I grew up well knowing the history and origins of today's Palestinians as being from Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Christians from Greece, Muslim Sherkas from Russia, Muslims from Bosnia, and the Jordanians next door. My grandfather, who was a dignitary in Bethlehem, almost lost his life by Abdul Qader Al-Husseni (the leader of the Palestinian revolution and nephew of the Grand Mufti) after being accused of selling land to Jews. He used to tell us that his village "Beit Sahur " in Bethlehem County was empty before his father settled in the area with six other families..." Walid Shoebat (Arabic: وليد شويبات)-