Of Palestine and Palestinians

Of Palestine and Palestinians

ADec. 23 letter, “Presiden- tial candidate panders,” criticized Newt Gingrich’s claim that the Palestinians are an invented people. The writer of the letter mentions that he is a Palestinian-American and felt obligated to respond. As a Palestinian born in Palestine (before its name was reverted back to Israel) I feel the same.

The writer claims evidence that the name Palestine was used for this land for a long time, and that is absolutely true. However, Mr. Gingrich said nothing about Palestine. He talked about the Palestinian people. There the deception starts. A brief historical review will be helpful at this point.

Almost 2 millennia ago, the Romans had their final victory over the kingdom of Judea, the Jewish state that existed there for more then 1,000 years. The Romans celebrated their victory by a special coin, “Judea Capta”, and by erecting a victory arch to honor the conqueror Emperor Titus. The Romans changed the name of the country to Palestine, which became the occupation name of Judea. The citizens remained Jews, but from that moment they became Palestinian Jews.

The control of Palestine changed hands many times as new super powers conquered the land. However, the land always existed as a part of the big empire, without a name, defined borders or a new nation state. But the Jews kept dreaming of coming back to their ancient homeland, Judea Palestine. Eventually their dream came true, and an independent Jewish state was established in1948. At that time, the Occupation name Palestine was dropped and the ancient name Israel (which preceded the name Judea) was restored.

During the centuries several migrants passed through the land, but they refused to be called Palestinians, since that was the name of the Jews who lived there,. They called themselves Arabs or South Syrian. However, 60 years ago they made a brilliant public relations move, and claimed the name Palestinians to themselves, since the Jews gave it up.

Then the big deception started by claiming that they were always the true Palestinians and therefore the whole land belongs to them. Recently in Bethlehem, the Palestinian prime minister, Salam Fayyad, announced that it is time for the world to learn that Jesus was a Palestinian prophet — rewriting not only history, but also the Bible.

Mr. Gingrich should be congratulated for his courage to go against political correctness and expose the truth.

A.Z. Rabinowitz, Liberty