Arabian Fables (I)
How the Arabs soften up world opinion with
fanciful myths.
Josef Goebbels, the infamous propaganda minister
of the Nazis, had it right. Just tell people big lies often enough
and they will believe them. The Arabs have learned that lesson well.
They have swayed world opinion by endlessly repeating myths and lies
that have no basis in fact.
What are some of these myths?
The "Palestinians." That is the
fundamental myth. The reality is that the concept of “Palestinians” is
one that did not exist until about 1948, when the Arab inhabitants of
what until then was Palestine, wished to differentiate themselves from
the Jews. Until then, the Jews were the Palestinians. There was the Palestinian
Brigade of Jewish volunteers in the British World War II Army (at a time
when the Palestinian Arabs were in Berlin hatching plans with Adolf Hitler
for world conquest and how to kill all the Jews); there was the Palestinian
Symphony Orchestra (all Jews, of course); there was The Palestine Post,
and so much more.
The Arabs, who now call themselves “Palestinians,” do
so in order to persuade a misinformed world that they are a distinct
nationality and that “Palestine” is their ancestral homeland.
But, of course, they are no distinct nationality at all. They are entirely
the same — in language, customs, and tribal ties — as the
Arabs of Syria, Jordan, and beyond. There is no more difference between
the “Palestinians” and the other Arabs of those countries
than there is between, say, the citizens of Minnesota and of Wisconsin.
What's more, many of the “Palestinians,” or
their immediate ancestors, came to the area attracted by the prosperity
created by the Jews, in what previously had been pretty much of a wasteland.
The nationhood of the “Palestinians” is a myth.
The "West Bank." Again, this is
a concept that did not exist until 1948, when the army of the Kingdom
of Transjordan, together with five other Arab armies, invaded the Jewish
state of Israel, on the very day of its creation.
In what can almost be described as a Biblical miracle,
the ragtag Jewish forces defeated the combined Arab might. But Transjordan
stayed in possession of the territories of Judea and Samaria and part
of the city of Jerusalem. The Jordanians promptly expelled all Jews from
the area that they occupied, destroyed all Jewish institutions and houses
of worship, used Jewish cemetery headstones to build military latrines,
and renamed as “West Bank” what had been Judea and Samaria
since time immemorial.
The attempt, quite successful, was to persuade an uninformed
world that these territories were ancestral parts of the Jordanian Arab
Kingdom (itself a very recent creation of British power diplomacy). Even
after the total rout of the Arabs in the 1967 Six-Day War, in which the
Jordanians were driven out of Judea/Samaria and of Jerusalem, they and
the world continued to call this territory the “West Bank”,
a geographical concept that cannot be found on any except the most recent
maps.
The concept of the “West Bank” is a myth.
The "Occupied Territories." After the
victorious Six-Day War, during which the Israeli army defeated the same
cabal of Arabs that had invaded the country in 1948, Israel remained
in possession of Judea/Samaria (now renamed “West Bank”),
which the Jordanians had illegally occupied for 19 years; of the Gaza
strip, which had been occupied by the Egyptians but which (hundreds of
miles from Egypt proper) had never been part of their country; and of
the Golan Heights, a plateau of about 400 square miles, which, though
originally part of Palestine, had been ceded to Syria by British-French
agreement.
The last sovereign in Judea/Samaria and in Gaza was the
British mandatory power — and before it was the Ottoman Empire.
All of Palestine, including what is now the Kingdom of Jordan, was, by
the Balfour Declaration, destined to be the Jewish National Home. How
then could the Israelis be “occupiers” in their own territory?
Who would be the sovereign and who the rightful inhabitants?
The concept of "occupied territories" in reference
to Judea/Samaria and Gaza is a myth created by Arab propaganda.
Unable so far to destroy Israel on the battlefield — though
they are feverishly preparing for their next assault — the Arabs
are now trying to overcome and destroy Israel by their acknowledged “policy
of stages”. That policy is to get as much land as possible carved
out of Israel “by peaceful and diplomatic” means, so as to
make Israel indefensible and softened up for the final assault. The web
of lies and myths that the Arab propaganda machine has created plays
an important role in the unrelenting quest to destroy the State of Israel.
What a shame that the world has accepted most of it!
This ad has been published and paid for by
Facts and Logic About the Middle East
P.O. Box 590359
San Francisco, CA 94159
Gerardo Joffe, President
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