A couple weeks after being rejected by the General Assembly for a position on the Security Council, Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper has expressed his sour grapes at the rejection stating that Canada will not “pretend” to be an “honest broker.” The other option then is dishonesty.
There is plenty of that in Canada’s position. In his speech supporting Israel at a “gathering of international parliamentarians and experts,” he performed the old standard of conflating the Holocaust with the creation of Israel, yet he should know that the Zionist cause began well before there were any indications of that genocide. Christian Zionism could be argued to have begun even before the European variety showed its colors at the turn of Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Both Christian Zionists and Jewish Zionists understood that to occupy Palestine meant the displacement by some means — some form of ethnic cleansing or genocide, of the indigenous people, the Palestinians, who resided there and had since the beginning of the Christian era.
With the Holocaust newly behind them, the UN offered a plan — it was just a plan and not a declaration of the creation of a state, which Israel did unilaterally — offering the Jewish population more than their share of the land base when numerated on a per capita basis. Harper then disingenuously said Israel is “the only country in the world whose very existence is under attack.” But wait a moment. If the Israelis claim, as they do, that they have a mandate from the UN to establish the state, then that claim would apply equally to the Palestinians as they were also mandated a state alongside the Jewish state.
Not only is the state of Palestine threatened, its very existence is threatened as it has essentially been dismantled and split up into many little cantons or bantustans or in the case of Gaza, a large outdoor prison. After the Israeli pre-emptive war of 1967, the Palestinians were left with only twenty per cent of the land. That small portion has shrunk into the little truncated areas of today, with the whole region occupied by the military, with both the Israeli military and civilian governments ignoring international law as it relates to occupation and human rights.
The very real threat is to Palestine, yet the Israelis have deviously managed through repetitive rhetoric to try and maintain the world view of themselves as victims. Israel exists. It has declared itself. It will continue to exist. It originated several wars, including the Nakba of 1948, the Six Day War of 1967, the invasion and occupation of Southern Lebanon, the invasion and occupation of Syrian territory, a second attack and invasion on Lebanon, and the ruthless and barbaric attack — not that they all weren’t — on the defenseless citizens of the Gaza Strip.
Harper then argues that Israel “is consistently and conspicuously singled out for condemnation.” I would have to agree with him on this point, but with cause. Israel has full supremacy over the region due to its several hundred nuclear weapons that preclude any attack on Israel by any other state in the region. It has the full support of the largest military and largest economy in the world, the U.S., a partner that believes and acts in a pre-emptive manner, ignoring the very same international standards as Israel does. Yes, there are many other problem areas in the world, but the U.S. occupation of areas of the Middle East, its military and financial support of Israel ($3 billion a year), its kowtowing to any demands that Israel makes for fear of its own domestic votes, its support of non-democratic and oppressive regimes, creates an identical powerful set of international crimes.
Harper of course uses condemnation as a sign of anti-Semitism. No, it quite simply is a sign of opposition to criminal activity that has the intent of displacing all the Palestinians. The historical record is replete with statements about the Zionist knowledge of and willingness to express that they would have to use force in one manner or another to create an ethnic Jewish state.
Yes, there is anti-Semitism in the world, but more importantly there is also a strong and completely separate strand of condemnation that is simply against the criminal abuse, murder, imprisonment, torture, and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people, the people who are truly threatened in the region, whose country has essentially disappeared from the steady encroachment of the Jewish settlers on their land. That is not anti-Semitism, perhaps anti-Zionist at worst. Nor is it an attack on the Jewish faith.
Harper himself is a fundamentalist right wing Christian. Under his beliefs that the Jewish people are the chosen people, that the land of Palestine is really the land of Israel as a God-given covenant, and that the land of Israel needs to be repopulated by the Jewish people before the Christian messiah can return, he needs to ask himself some questions.
What kind of God is it that allows for the greed and arrogance of occupying a land and dispossessing and killing its indigenous populations, of placing them in cantonments/reservations and denying them all the opportunities that the supposed democratic and free societies they claim to be are able to provide?
What kind of God is it whose chosen ones and their main ally torture, incarcerate, starve, invade, and destroy civilian infrastructures in other territories, who rob their resources (oil, water), and carry the strongest and most deadliest of the weapons of mass destruction while trying to argue that others should not have them?
In light of the Israeli atrocities against the Palestinian people and their threats and actions against other countries, will God remove them from his graces, deliver them some humility, so that they may again at some future time serve as beacons and examples of God’s divine graces?
Are the Israelis acting on an anthropomorphized divinity by which they get to claim their own fundamentals, however contrary to either humane or divine love and compassion they may be, contrary to not only humanitarian law but divine law?
Harper’s ignorance of Palestinian/Israeli history has to be willful. Neither the existence of the Jewish people nor the state of Israel is threatened, they are far too strong for that. Anti-Semitism does exist, and I agree it needs to be expurgated. At the same time, the state of Israel still needs to be recognized for its true character as a non-democratic occupier of Palestine whose actions contravene most accepted international norms. Israel and the U.S. both need to accept these international norms before the majority of the rest of the world will be able to stop their condemnation of their actions.
Harper’s comments express an ignorance and conceit — and dishonesty — placing him alongside the best hubris and rhetoric offered by his U.S. and Israeli compatriots. He will probably take that as a compliment.
Well I must say I appreciate the author of this article not holding anything back and letting us know what he really thinks. At the same time, it’s just another in a long line of foolish and uneducated articles that appear on this site.
For the record, Mr. Harper was not expressing sour grapes in his remarks and he certainly was not being dishonest. He knew full well going into the UN vote that the odds were against him because Portugal had been lobbying hard for it’s seat and that the 50 or so Muslim nations were not likely to vote for the one country whose leader is unequivocal in his support for Israel.
And for the record, Mr. Harper’s rival, Michael Ignatioff, also condemned the anti-Semitic and anti Israel ranting staged on Canadian universities.
So Mr. Miles, it seems that for now the two Canadian’s who either lead or may lead the country in the future are on the same page. And yet you …. can only find things wrong with the way these gentlemen think.
Your view of history and in particular the wars that Israel has been involved in made me laugh. Israel started all those wars? Are you kidding?
For the record, Israel would never set foot in, let along start a war, with any of it’s neighbours if it was just left alone. The little country is successful enough and has no envy of it’s neighbours to need to have anything to to with them – if they were just left alone.
And you mention that’s it’s the assumed nukes that Israel has that has kept it’s neighbours from attacking. Here’s a news flash – it’s neighbours have started or were about start several wars with Israel over the past 62 years. It’s a historical fact. Israel’s presumed nukes have never been mentioned let along used and whatever weapons Israel possesses have not deterred the bad guys from causing murder and mayhem whenever they thought they could get away with it.
And here’s another fact. There is no state called Palestine and never was. The term Palestinian, which used to refer to Jews in the area, was reborn around 1967. It’s a convenient term to use for a people who are basically Jordanians because it brings them a certain sympathy. You think Israel plays the victim card? You are looking at life through the wrong glasses because you are light years from seeing the truth.
And finally, my favorite comment in your nonsensical piece. “…and the ruthless and barbaric attack — not that they all weren’t — on the defenseless citizens of the Gaza Strip.” Might you not have added that Israel had warned Hamas to quit firing rockets into Israel for years, and that only when the total finally hit, oh, about 8,000 unanswered rockets, did Israel go in, and then reluctantly. I’ve seen the damage to the psyche of Israelis from those rockets and my only question is why they didn’t go in years earlier.
The point being that you only see your side. You are blind to anything that might make Israel look like a reasonable entity, which in fact I believe it is.
To sum up, this is one of the very worst articles written on this site and that’s saying a lot. Harper spoke up and he spoke well. I commend him for taking a stand and not playing that fake “honest broker” role which so many phonies before him did.
Barry,
Though there are many falsehoods that you once again promote above, I’ll address only two things that are so egregious that they really shouldn’t be allowed to linger here unanswered.
1. “The term Palestinian, which used to refer to Jews in the area, was reborn around 1967.”
Ok, wow. “Reborn” from when?
Obviously, the term “Palestine” has been used throughout history. Not even you would dispute that. Theodor Herzl mentions “Palestine” eleven times in “The Jewish State” which he wrote in 1896. The Sept. 3, 1947 UNSOP report makes 25 different references to “Palestinian” and “Palestinians.” Only four of the references include the extended term “Palestinian Arabs.” General Resolution 181 makes six different references to “Palestinian,” five of which refer to “Palestinian citizens” or “citizenship.”
Of course, the absurdity in even trying to delegitimize the self-determination of the indigenous population of Palestine using semantic arguments lays bare the untenable and silly position you’re trying to advocate. Couldn’t I just as easily ask you to show me where references to “Israel” are to be found in anything outside of Biblical sources? The Balfour Declaration, San Remo resolution, UNSOP reports, and UNGR 181 don’t make a single reference to Israel – my oh my. There was no state called Israel until unilaterally declared in May 1948. It’s as old as you are. Your suggestions are bogus.
NEXT…
2. Your contention that “Israel had warned Hamas to quit firing rockets into Israel for years, and that only when the total finally hit, oh, about 8,000 unanswered rockets, did Israel go in, and then reluctantly” is so ridiculous that you truly embarrass yourself with this one.
First, that Israel – an aggressive nuclear-armed occupying power – was “warning” an imprisoned population of 1.5 million Palestinians not to desperately resist their own dehumanization and oppression is, at face value, completely surreal.
Second, that Israel suffered 8,000 “unanswered” rockets fired from Gaza is an unconscionable lie that you should immediately apologize for and formally retract.
A United Nations OCHA report from November 8, 2006 reported that in the barely 14 months since the so-called Israeli disengagement from Gaza in September 2005, the IDF “fired approximately 15,000 artillery shells” and conducted “more than 550 air strikes” in Gaza. “Approximately 525 Palestinians have been killed and 1,527 injured in the Gaza Strip as a result of Israeli military attacks” in that short 14 month period, in comparison to the roughly 1,700 Qassam rockets that were fired into Israel from Gaza, and which accounted for the injury (not deaths) of 41 Israelis.
The IDF itself reported that, in the first two weeks – TWO WEEKS – of April 2006, they fired over 2,000 artillery shells into the northern Gaza Strip.
Expanding the scope, the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at the Israel Intelligence Heritage & Commemoration Center has found that between 2001 and mid-June 2008, “3,455 rockets and 3,742 mortar shells were fired into Israel from Gaza.” These rockets were responsible for fewer than 40 Israeli deaths.
By contrast, in addition to the numbers already mentioned (15,000 shells and hundreds of air strikes only between Sept. 2005 and Nov 2006), the IDF continued shelling and air strikes throughout 2007, and in February 2008 launched a major assault in which 75 air strikes were conducted in less than five days, resulting in the deaths of over 100 Palestinians. In that time, 150 rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel and killed 2 Israelis.
Not only is your sense of proportion disturbing, but your basic grasp of facts in non-existent.
Oh, and before you come back with the tired excuse that Israel is “retaliating” to Palestinian “aggression,” you must first understand that it is the Palestinians were are occupied and blockaded, not Israelis. Therefore, they are on the defensive and their meager efforts at resistance are desperate attempts of self-defense (which obviously one can object to morally – or legally, even).
Still, as the Nuremberg tribunals (see: The Hostages Trial) affirmed, “Under International Law, as in domestic law, there can be no reprisal against reprisal. The assassin who is being repulsed by his intended victim may not slay him and then, in turn, plead self-defence.”
Too bad for Israel that it’s always trying to claim self-defense when murdering civilians from above. As a Yediot Ahronot article from the third day of the assault noted: “…there is no need to deny this, there is not too much glory and valor involved in flying over a giant prison and firing at its people using helicopters and fighter jets.”
Furthermore, to claim that Israel was “reluctant” about it’s Dec 2008 – Jan 2009 massacre in Gaza is wholly disingenuous. Even Ha’aretz reported on the second day of the assault, soon after Israel began devastating Gaza (which began with over 100 tons of bombs being dropped upon densely-populated civilians areas by the IAF in a mere nine hours), that Israel had long been planning the attack.
The report stated, “Sources in the defense establishment said Defense Minister Ehud Barak instructed the Israel Defense Forces to prepare for the operation over six months ago, even as Israel was beginning to negotiate a ceasefire agreement with Hamas.”
Reluctant, my ass. Whatever you need to keep telling yourself, Barry.
Occasionally you’ve been fun to spare back and forth with over these issues – on this, however, you have revealed a truly vile side of your already warped perception of reality.
Israel did start those wars. No kidding. This is not controversial.
The term “Palestinian” has always referred to an inhabitant of the territory known as Palestine, which, prior to 1948, included both Jews and Arabs. There were Jewish Palestinians and Arab Palestinians.
As for Operation Cast Lead, I’ll remind you, Barry, as I’m sure you know, that it was Israel, and not Hamas, that violated the cease fire.
It’s funny how you think that Israel is some sort of victim in all of this. But if you look at the facts, the real numbers from the Israeli Military themselves (check it out on the IDF website) you would find that the Palestinians have tried leaving the Isrealis alone countless times. What happens when they do that? Israel attacks first. Out of the 14 periods of nonviolence between 2000-2008, these are periods of 9 days or more where no one on either side was killed, Israel is the first one to kill 100% of the time. How can they be defending themselves if they are the instigators? You say if they are left alone they are peaceful but your words mean nothing when they are contradicted and proven wrong by real facts.
Israel when left alone will start killing. The facts show that clearly.
You speak of the mortars and rockets as if they were some sort of illegal act on the Palestinian part and fail to mention that the Palestinians have a right to resist the occupation according to the Geneva Conventions. What they are doing isn’t wrong.
Israel, who tells innocent children to go to a hospital just so they can bomb that hospital is the real monster.
Facts are much stronger than emotions and no matter how hard Israel (and you) try to see this as an emotional thing the facts show that Israel, no one else, is the instigator of this conflict, is the one that prolongs the conflict and is the one that kills first virtually every single time there is peace.
How can you be in favor of such a war mongering country?
“Both Christian Zionists and Jewish Zionists understood that to occupy Palestine meant the displacement by some means”
No. Many wished to work alongside local Arabs. Indeed, many Arab leaders were initially supportive of Zionism. During the pre-State era, no such displacement occurred. The Arab population increased, and so did their standard of living. On the other hand, centuries old Jewish communities were displaced by the Arabs.
“If the Israelis claim, as they do, that they have a mandate from the UN to establish the state,”
Wrong. There’s also the Balfour Declaration, The League of Nations Mandate, the historical connection to the land… and the Bible.
“It originated several wars, including the Nakba of 1948”
Wrong. The Arabs invaded, compelled Arabs to flee from their homes, absorbed Gaza and the West Bank into existing despotic states and incarcerated their Arab brothers into refugee camps and generally prevented them joining society.
“many little cantons or bantustans”
No true. The Palestinians were offered a contiguous state and they rejected it and started a terror war.
“the Palestinians were left with only twenty per cent of the land.”
Jordan is part of historic Palestine. It, along with territory offered by Israel, makes up more than 80% of historic Palestine. You should reverse your figures.
“Israel has full supremacy over the region due to its several hundred nuclear weapons that preclude any attack on Israel by any other state in the region. ”
Like the Yom Kippur War? Like Saddam Hussein’s scud attacks? Like the proxy-wars controlled by the Iran/Syria axis? Full supremacy? Does that include the ability to prevent terror attacks which killed over 1000 people, and injured many others?
Many Jews wished to work alongside the Arabs, yes. But they were not Zionists. The claim that no displacement occurred prior to the creation of Israel is false. Israel does indeed claim to have a mandate from the UN for its existence — the Zionists cited UNGA Resolution 181 in their Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel. The other documents you mention afford the Zionists no legal claim over the land. Arabs didn’t “invade” in 1948. One can’t “invade” one’s own land. They rose up to defend their property rights and right to self-determination against the Zionists’ unilateral declaration.
“Arabs didn’t “invade” in 1948.”
Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the rest… they didn’t invade?
“Many Jews wished to work alongside the Arabs, yes. But they were not Zionists. ”
This is simply not true.
No, they didn’t “invade”. They rose up in arms to defend the property rights and the right to self-determination of the native inhabitants. It was the Zionists who invaded Arab land, claiming it for themselves and ethnically cleansing more than 700,000 Arabs from Palestine.
If you think my other statement “is simply not true”, you’re welcome to point out which part of it you think is in error.
Jeremy, I suggest you study the San Remo Resolutions and their adoption by the League of Nations in 1922. The UN has adopted the League of Nations lock stock and barrel. International Law to this day supports that the Jewish people worldwide were given rights to the land that today encompasses Israel. These are legal rights that cannot be taken away. Therefore, the Arabs did indeed invade in 1948 and every other time as well.
That is that part of your argument which I think is in error. In fact, it’s an error you repeat ad nauseam.
If you think I’m in error, please point out why. Thanks.
I have studied it Barry, and the facts are precisely as I’ve stated them, when I previously already pointed out your error here. But once again, the Balfour Declaration did not and could not confer upon the Zionists any legal claim to Palestine. They legally owned 7% of the land, but their legal title over that land was not derived from the Balfour Declaration. As the ICJ has pointed out, the establishment of a mandate under the League of Nations did not entail any transfer of territory or sovereignty. Your further error is your rejection of the right of the Arab Palestinians to self-determination. You are trapped in a racist colonial mindset that today has no legitimacy or moral standing.
You speak of terror attacks as if they weren’t resisting an occupation according to the Geneva Conventions. This isn’t terrorism, this is called resisting an occupation a right afforded to them as humans. How can you take away that right from another human being while affording it to yourself?
But then again what do Israeli supporters know of international law? To you guys the Geneva Conventions is just a ‘terror document’ and should be thrown out, right? After all Israel has never been afraid to use chemical weapons that are banned according to international law, they’ve never worried about breaking countless ceasefires and murdering innocent women and children after telling them to hide in a hospital and then bombing that hospital…or wait?
Hey Jeremy, is there a limit to the size of what I can contribute, or have I been cut off entirely?
I tried twice today to play a large article which refutes your absurd charge that Israel started any of the wars. However, it seems that what I posted never made it.
Just asking.
Barry, email me your submission as per my submission guidelines.
Jeremy, I wasn’t submitting an article, just a “comment” like this one, but a much longer one. That’s what I was enquiring bout.
I read the submissions criteria but I did not see anything relating to “comments”.
Sorry if I’ve overlooked something here, but I’ll try again with something shorter.
Well, obviously, my invitation was to submit an article. You’re also welcome to comment, of course, but there may be a text length limit (I don’t know), and numerous links will result it it being sent to the spam folder, which I don’t manually check.
At least by receiving such a strongly worded rebuttal I know that I have hit my target. A few additional comments:
Israel’s validity does not come from the Balfour Declaration – it is not a part of international law, but simply British Policy.
The British Mandate was not set up by the League of Nations, but by the Allied Supreme Council, the victors in the First World War who were simply dividing the land up according to their imperial ambitions, disregarding completely Woodrow Wilson’s 14 points that included national identities having their own state.
The historical connection to the land is just as readily used as justification for Palestinian claims as they are descendents of the original populations of the region. Genetically they two peoples are brothers and sisters, as recognized by Ben-Gurion.
Speaking of whom, yes, he did make statements about peaceful coexistence with the indigenous Palestinians, but these were always guarded with additional comments about the Jewish population needing a demographic majority in order to accomplish its goals of a new ethnic state. Later statements and statements by many other supporters of Israel recognized that the Jewish people would have to dislocate and remove by some means or other a great portion of the Palestinian population in order to do this. It was not as the Zionists expressed, “A people without land for a land without people.”
As for the bible, its historical accuracy is arguable. And if it is accurate, did not Abraham “wander in the land of the Palestines” (Genesisi 21).
Yes, the Yom Kipur war was initiated by Sadat of Egypt not to destroy Israel but to regain Egyptian land occupied by Israel in the 1967 war.
All war is terror. When a people are fighting against occupation they are fighting as insurgents, this is within international law under the Geneva conventions. These actions may create terror, but then all wars do.
Jim, you are correct about the Balfour Declaration and no one I know uses it as a legal argument in and of itself.
However, when the Supreme Council of the Allied Powers met in San Remo, Italy on April 24 and 25, 1920, they ADOPTED the Balfour Declaration in full as part of their plan. Given that the losers in WW1 had signed over completely any interests they had previously in this area, it was the legal right of the Council to parcel out the land as they saw fit.
This is also how Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan came into being.
I am not familiar with Wilson’s points but I do know that the US Congress adopted entirely what the Council came up with.
And no, the Palestinian people do not have in any way the same historical connection to the land as do the Jewish people. This has been proven over and over.
As for what Ben-Gurion did or did not say, I can only mention that Jewish and Israeli leaders have consistently said things over the years that hurt their cause. For example, Begin used the terms “occupied territory” when in fact there is no occupied territory.
Actually that’s not true either, the West Bank and Gaza is Jewish territory occupied by Arabs, but we’ll save that for another time.
When the IJC came out with their statement in 2004, everyone on our side knew that it was a poorly written biased document that was incorrect and factually wrong, yet Israel did not challenge it much to their own regret. So I won’t disagree that Israeli leaders have often hurt their cause.
In either case, the Allied Powers of the Supreme Council gave sovereignty of the land to the Jewish people worldwide, and not to a just a part of that group. In fact today, Israel is but the keeper of the land for the Jewish people worldwide and as such does not have the right to make determinations affecting the security of the land.
As for the Yom Kipur war, you make me laugh. Egypt would have not experienced any moral dilemma to act if they had the opportunity to kill every single Jew in Israel. It was only by fighting for their very lives and the good fortune that Richard Nixon, who for most of his life displayed anti-Semitic traits, allowed a large amount of ammunition and weapons to finally be sent to the Israeli side, without which the war and it’s spoils would have gone to Egypt.
FINALLY!
Thank you so much, Barry, for finally, finally revealing yourself to be a religious zealot who thinks the bible is a land deed and historical document. Whew – that took long enough.
Jeremy, to keep insisting the Arab countries only wanted the Sinai and the Golan Heights is ridiculous. Do you think either Syria or Egypt would have stopped the war had the captured either of the two? ALL the evidence is that they wanted nothing more or less than to destroy the state of Israel and kill all the Jews by driving them into the sea. It’s enough that you interpret the law to favor your cause but let’s use a bit of common sense as well, as describe things as they really were.
As for the Golan Heights, why in the world would Israel return them to Syria after it twice used them to launch attacks into Israel? You destroy your argument by saying all the Syria wanted was to recapture it’s territory. If that were the case, why did they attack Israel prior to losing it – given that they already had the Golan? Makes little sense.
And so, in defending itself during the surprise attack in 1973 Israel actually started that war? I’m sure there are others who would believe you on that one but I’m confident that rational people everywhere would have a hard time swallowing yet another fallacy presented by you.
Barry, Israel was occupying Arab territory. Egypt and Syria exercised the right to self-defense to expel the foreign occupying military power from their own land. You can try to spin that however you please, but you can’t change that essential fact.
Ah, the “legal rights” of the conquerors over the conquered territory… Barry, even if we assumed such “legal rights” exist, which international law has long rejected, the Balfour Declaration, whether “adopted” by the Supreme Council or not, does not offer any kind of legal authority or legitimacy to the Zionist’s unilateral declaration of the establishment of Israel. I would remind you that the authors of the declaration (that is, the British government), explicitly rejected your interpretation of it in the Churchill White Paper, and elsewhere. The ICJ has also pointed out that the establishment of a mandate under the Covenant of the League of Nations did not involve any transfer of territory or sovereignty.
The implicit argument that an Arab whose ancestors had lived and worked the land in Palestine for centuries, even millennia, did not have as much of a “historical connection” as a European Jew whose family had never even stepped foot on Palestinian soil is just idiotic, on top of being perfectly racist.
Your argument on the ICJ is funny. That it was “poorly written” is totally irrelevant, isn’t it? It’s not a piece of literature, after all, but a legal treatise. I challenge you to substantiate your opinion that it is “biased” and “factually wrong” on the main point in question here. Best of luck with that.
As for the Yom Kippur war, I would remind you that Egypt and Syria did not invade Israel. They “invaded” their own territory (the Sinai and Golan Heights, respectively), which had been under the occupation of Israeli forces. That is a legitimate use of force under international law.
“As for the Yom Kippur war, I would remind you that Egypt and Syria did not invade Israel. They “invaded” their own territory (the Sinai and Golan Heights, respectively), which had been under the occupation of Israeli forces. That is a legitimate use of force under international law.”
No it’s not. War is a last resort. Sadat refused to engage in any meaningful peace proposals before the war. And don’t cite me the mythology of the alleged 1971 peace proposal. Anyone can easily find the truth about Sadat’s so called peace proposal.
Ephraim, I would direct your attention to Article 51 of the U.N. Charter. The facts are precisely as I’ve stated them.
did not Abraham “wander in the land of the Palestines””
Nonsense. The word is “Philistines”, not “Palestines”. The Palestinians have nothing to do with the Philistines. The Philistines did not reside in what is now the West Bank, and they ceased to exist as a people 1000 years before Muhammad.
Ephraim,
You are wrong to claim that the “Palestinians have nothing to do with the Philistines.” In fact, the words share etymology and common origin. Trying to disassociate them using English words makes no sense.
As far back as the reign of Egyptian pharaoh Ramses III in the mid-12th Century BCE, there are references to the “Peleset” people, who were later referred to as “Peleshet” in Hebrew (פלשת). In English translation, these people have been referred to as “Philistines.”
Assyrian annals from mid-8th Century BCE refer to the region as “Palashtu” and “Pilistu,” and a few hundred years later, Herodotus used the Hellenic version “Palestine.” Naturally, the Arabic word “Falastin” (فلسطين) is derived from there.
Your suggestion that “they ceased to exist as a people” is also disingenuous. The “Philistines” were conquered by the Assyrians, and subsequently the Babylonians, and as such lost their homogeneity as a distinct people. They became a mixed people along with their conquerors and were eventually, for the most part, converted to Judaism by the Hasmoneans in the mid-2nd Century BCE.