Submitted by Eran Gafni, May 29, 2007 10:03

Since 1948 and especially after 1967, the common assumption around the world (and among Left-winged Israelis) is that there is an indegenous Palestinian nation which had been drove out of its land by the Jews while the remaining population suffers from the cruelest of occupation.

Well, the term "Palestinian Arabs" emerged only after 1908 and until 1948 the "Palestinians" claimed that they are part of the Greater Syria. i.e. never had they demanded an independent state (see the Phill Commission report of 1937 and the UN delegation report of 1947). Further to that, no one is bale to find any report of a "Palestinian Poeple" until the 1930s, since there wasn't any. The Arabs living in so-called Palestine (i.e. west of the Jordan river) were part of decentants of Arab occupiers from the 7th Century; Jews and Christians who lived in the Land of Israel prior to its occupation by the Arabs and were forces to convert into Islam; Sudanese and Egyptians setlers who came following the rule of Ibrahim Pasha of the 1840s; Syrians and Iraquis who came into "Palestine" follwing the British Mandate (i.e. after 1920). So,

the "Palestinians" who fled in 1948 ascaped to their countirs of origin: the Syrians fled to Syria; the Jordanians to Jordan; the Lebanese into Lebanon; the Egyptian and Sudanese to the Gaza Strip (since they where never allowed into Egypt proper) .

So here you can find the answer why they are so troubled: because the "Palestinian" identity is a false one, created only as a counter-identity to this of the Jews who return to their homeland - the Land of Israel and never have been integrated into a truly cultural, political and religious identity. They are Arabs who emigrated into the Land of Israel and only with the help of anti-Semite British colonial clerics could they named themselves "Palestinians".

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