James F. Gauss, Ph.D.
October 15, 2023
Excerpted from the author’s book, Understanding Islam in the Light of Christianity, Leaders and Teachers Edition ©2019, 2020, 2023.
NEW RELEASE! Israel and the Middle East: Will There Ever Be Peace? See the end of this post for details.
Prior to 1920, an Arab people known as the “Palestinians” living in “Palestine” did not exist (Pipes). No one from the Arab community in the Middle East referred to the region as Palestine. To do so would imply a Jewish and Christian possession. The concept of Arab nation-states did not occur until Iraq gained its independence in 1936 after the British Mandate of 1920 ended. In 1932, Saudi Arabia became an independent country, followed by Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria in 1946. Smaller Arab nation-states eventually followed, with Kuwait, Yemen, Oman, and United Arab Emirates in 1961, 1967, 1970 and 1971, respectively.
Origin of the Name “Palestine.” As indicated in the above enclosure, prior to 1948, when the term “Palestinians” was used, it referred to the Jews in the Holy Land, not the Arabs. “Arabs never referred to themselves as ‘Palestinians’” noted Joseph Farah, founder and editor-in- chief of WorldNetDaily (Farah). It was not until a few years after Israel’s “Six Day War” with the Arabs in 1967 that the Egyptian, Yasser Arafat, who founded the Palestinian Liberation Organization in 1964, in an attempt to legitimize the PLO movement, decided to identify the Arabs living in the Holy Land as “Palestinians”.
The Palestinian 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. Yes, the existence of a separate Palestinian identity exists only for tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.
Zuheir Mohsen, Executive Committee Member of the PLO March 31, 1977
Source: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Zuheir_Mohsen
“Palestine has never existed—before or since—as an autonomous entity,” Farah, an Arab- American, proclaimed. “It was ruled alternately by Rome, by Islamic and Christian crusaders, by the Ottoman Empire and, briefly, by the British after World War I. The British agreed to restore at least part of the land to the Jewish people as their homeland.
“There is no language known as Palestinian. There is no distinct Palestinian culture. There has never been a land known as Palestine governed by Palestinians. Palestinians are Arabs, indistinguishable from Jordanians (another recent invention), Syrians, Lebanese, Iraqis, etc.
“Keep in mind that the Arabs control 99.9 percent of the Middle East lands. Israel represents one-tenth of 1 percent of the landmass.”
Though the definite origins of the word Palestine have been debated for years and are still not known for sure, the name is believed to be derived from the Egyptian and Hebrew word peleshet. Roughly translated to mean rolling or migratory, the term was used to describe the inhabitants of the land to the northeast of Egypt—the Philistines. The Philistines were an Aegean people—more closely related to the Greeks and with no connection ethnically, linguisticly [sic] or historically with Arabia—who conquered in the 12th Century BCE the Mediterranean coastal plain that is now Israel and Gaza.
A derivative of the name Palestine first appears in Greek literature in the 5th Century BCE when the historian Herodotus called the area Palaistin? (Greek – Παλαιστ?νη). In the 2nd century CE, the Romans crushed the revolt of Shimon Bar Kokhba (132 CE), during which Jerusalem and Judea were regained and the area of Judea was renamed Palaestina in an attempt to minimize Jewish identification with the land of Israel.
Under the Ottoman Empire (1517-1917), the term Palestine was used as a general term to describe the land south of Syria; it was not an official designation. In fact, many Ottomans and Arabs who lived in Palestine during this time period referred to the area as Southern Syria and not as Palestine.
After World War I, the name Palestine was applied to the territory that was placed under British Mandate; this area included not only present-day Israel but also present-day Jordan.
Leading up to Israel’s independence in 1948, it was common for the international press to label Jews, not Arabs, living in the mandate as Palestinians. It was not until years after Israeli independence that the Arabs living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip were called Palestinians.
The word Palestine or Filastin does not appear in the Koran. The term peleshet appears in the Jewish Tanakh [Hebrew Bible or OT] no fewer than 250 times (Israel: Origins of the Name “Palestine.” Jewish Virtual Library).
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.
Abd Al-Ghani Salameh, Arab historian Official PA TV, Nov. 1, 2017
The Balfour Declaration of 1917. On November 2, 1917, a full year before the end of World War I, the British government voted to re-establish a Jewish homeland in what was then referred to as “Palestine” by the British. Under a League of Nations mandate the British were to administer the re-settlement of Jewish people in the region that became known as Palestine or the national homeland for the Jews (Balfour Declaration Encyclopaedia Britannica). By 1939 the British wanted to limit Jewish migration to the region to 75,000 per year and stop migration of the Jews altogether by 1944 unless Arabs in the region consented to further immigration of Jews. With the outbreak of World War II in 1939, the Jewish migration became a moot point and the State of Israel was established in 1948.
Balfour Declaration
(Balfour Declaration: Text of the Declaration, Jewish Virtual Library)
Foreign Office November 2nd, 1917
Dear Lord Rothschild,
I have much pleasure in conveying to you. on behalf of His Majesty’s Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may 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.
I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.
Yours,
Arthur James Balfour
In 1922, the newly established League of Nations, set the borders for Israel of the Jordan River on the east, the Mediterranean Sea on the west, Lebanon on the north and Egypt on the south (see the map to follow). Although the original Mandate included a significant land mass east of the Jordan River, the British were given the administrative option of adjusting the territory. In an effort to appease Arabs in the region, the British decided to carve off the land east of the Jordan River—77% of the total mandated—and gave it to the Arabs in the region, dubbing it Trans- Jordan (Israel’s Legal Borders in International Law). This left the Jewish people with only 23% of the land originally mandated for their homeland.
The 1922 League of Nations sub-division. Image courtesy Eli E. Hertz.
The Two State Solution. In 1946, the League of Nations was absorbed into the newly organized United Nations. Article 80 of the UN Charter specifically recognizes the original mandate for Palestine:
As a direct result of Article 80, the UN cannot transfer these rights over any part of Palestine, vested as they are in the Jewish People, to any non-Jewish entity, such as the ‘Palestinian Authority’ (Israel’s Legal Borders in International Law).
However, not content with stripping away three-fourths of Israel’s new homeland, the concept of a “Two State” solution, dividing up Israel’s homeland to accommodate Arabs (now referred to as Palestinians) was devised in the 1947 U.N. Partition Plan. This chopped up Israel to the point it was not only unrecognizable, but administratively unattainable and indefensible (see the following map).
The 1947 UN Partition Plan.
Courtesy of: http://www.factsaboutisrael.uk/israels-legal-borders/
Interestingly, it was not the Jews in Israel that rejected the “Two State Solution”, but the Arabs resisted it. The Arabs in the region rioted in protest. On May 14, 1948, Israel proclaimed itself to be an independent State of Israel and the British withdrew from Palestine.
. . . the only resolution is for the aspirations of both sides to be met through two states, where Israelis and Palestinians each live in peace and security.
That is in Israel’s interest, Palestine’s interest, America’s interest, and the world’s interest. That is why I intend to personally pursue this outcome with all the patience that the task requires.
President Barack Hussein Obama Cairo, Egypt speech June 4, 2009
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/04/us/politics/04obama.text.html
The Oslo Accord (The Oslo Accords and the Arab-Israeli Peace Process). On September 13, 1993, there was reason for hope and optimism as Israel’s Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) Negotiator, Mahmoud Abbas met at the President Clinton White House to sign the “Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements” otherwise known as the “Oslo Accord”. (Abbas would later be elected the Chairman of the PLO in 2004 and the President of the State of Palestine and the Palestinian National Authority in 2005).
The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) is undoubtedly one of the most infamous terrorist organizations around the world. Created in 1964 during the Arab League Summit in Cairo, the PLO’s originally-stated goal was the “liberation of Palestine” through armed struggle while seeking to destroy the existence of Zionism in the Middle East. . . .
By 1967, the PLO had decided that their primary goal was the destruction of the State of Israel. Over the next ten years, this goal was the primary focus of the massive terrorist campaign by which their reputation was formed. This terror war caused hundreds of casualties, on both sides, with very little to show in return for the Palestinian cause.
Source: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/history-and-overview-plo
Both Israel and the PLO, as representative of the Palestinians, “agreed that a Palestinian Authority (PA) would be established and assume governing responsibilities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip over a five-year period.” Although the United States facilitated this meeting, it had little to do with establishing the Accord or its ratification. By the time Bill Clinton left office in January 2001, the Accord had collapsed and a new series of violent Israeli-Palestinian conflicts were well entrenched.
After the signing of the Oslo Accord, Israel negotiated a peace treaty with Jordan in October 1994. Once again, although the U.S. did not play a role in the negotiations, President Clinton hosted the signing event between King Hussein of Jordan and Prime Minister Rabin. A few months earlier, in May 1994, Israel and Egypt had negotiated Israel’s withdrawal from most of Gaza and Jericho in what was known as the “Cairo Agreement”. In September 1995, Israel also signed the “Taba Agreement” (“Oslo II”) with the PA, dividing the West Bank into Palestinian and Israeli sectors. This Agreement also “spelled out provisions for elections, civil/legal affairs, and other bilateral Israeli-Palestinian cooperation on various issues.”
Two months later Prime Minister Rabin was assassinated by a disgruntled Israeli who disagreed with the Oslo Accords and the ongoing renewal of Hamas terror attacks. With Rabin’s death, the Oslo Accord eventually collapsed, and Israeli-Palestinian conflict reignited with a vengeance. With the election of Abbas in 2005 and his ascension to Chairman of Fatah (largest political faction of the PLO) in 2009, the PA took on a more rigid and violent approach to Israeli- Palestinian relations.
The more I read the Bible, the more clearly I saw this single truth: Loving and forgiving one’s enemies is the only real way to stop the bloodshed.
Mosab Hassan Yousef, “The Green Prince” Author of Son of Hamas, p. 148
With Abbas in control of the PA and his continuous incendiary rhetoric, Hamas rockets and terror attacks have once again become the daily reality for both Israelis and Palestinians.
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Dr. Gauss is the author of Understanding Islam in the Light of Christianity (Abridged Edition); Understanding Islam in the Light of Christianity (Student Edition); Understanding Islam in the Light of Christianity (Leaders and Teachers Edition) and other books on Islam.
Available on Barnes and Noble or Kobo.
Tags: 1922 League of Nations partition, Balfour Declaration, Islamic Terrorists, Middle East, Origin of Palestine, Oslo Accord, Palestine, Palestinians, PLO, Two State Solution
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