View source for Palestinian-Israeli Conflict - A Closer Look

The wars between Israel and its Arab neighbors were fought for many years on the battlefield between armies. In recent decades the arena of conflict has shifted from hand-to-hand combat to a war of narratives.

Everybody agrees that the current affluence of Israel, its modern infrastructure and economy were developed by the Jews. The Palestinian Arab narrative is that as the ancient, indigenous people of Palestine they feel dispossessed and they deserve to take over Israel’s riches. Jewish claims to their heritage in the land of Israel are supported by abundant archaeological artifacts and historical records.

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Meanwhile, there are no records to support the Palestinian narrative. In history, art and literature there is no trace at all of any Muslim people referred to by anybody as “Palestinians.”

Records show that it was 19th and 20th century Jewish settlement and the resulting employment opportunities that drew successive waves of Arab immigrants to Palestine. “The Arab population shows a remarkable increase ….. partly due to the import of Jewish capital into Palestine and other factors associated with the growth of the [Jewish] National Home..” (The Peel Commission Report - 1937)

“..in the Jewish settlement Rishon l’Tsion founded in 1882, by the year 1889, the forty Jewish families settled there, had attracted more than four hundred Arab families.... Many other Arab villages had sprouted in the same fashion.” (Joan Peters - From Time Immemorial p. 252 - referenced further as: FTI)

British PM Winston Churchill said in 1939: “.. far from being persecuted, the Arabs have crowded into the country [Palestine]..”

Before the Six Day War in 1967, when Jordan controlled the West Bank and Egypt ruled in Gaza, there was never any suggestion on the part of the "Palestinians" that they wanted independence in their ancestral homeland. The reason was that the "Palestinian" nation hadn't been invented yet.

In fact, before the State of Israel was born, the term "Palestinians" was used by the Jews to refer to themselves and their organizations. “The Palestine Post”, the Palestine Foundation Fund, Palestine Airways, and the Palestine Symphony Orchestra were all purely Jewish enterprises.

We first hear of Arabs referred to as "Palestinians" when Egypt’s President Nasser, with help from the Russian KGB, established the "Palestine Liberation Organization" in 1964. It was only during the 1970s that the newly minted “Palestinians” began to promote their narrative through murder and assassination. The Arabs have justified their attacks as acts of the indigenous people struggling for national liberation.