Facts about "Palestine"

From cjhsla.org by Daniel Pinner (Israelnationalnews.com) 10 January 2010:

The Koran never mentions Palestine

Jerusalem is never mentioned in the Koran.

Moslems pray on the Temple Mount: kneeling facing Mecca, their backsides towards the Dome of the Rock.

Moses – the Jewish national leader – is quoted as saying: “O my people! Remember the bounty of God upon you…and gave you that which had not been given to anyone before you amongst the nations. O my people! Enter the Holy Land which God has decreed for you”. This speech of Moses is recorded in: the Koran (Sura 5:20-21).

In popular literature, historical discussions, political debates, and other forums, the Palestinians’ claim that they are:
a) the descendants of the Biblical Philistines (a European tribe originating in Crete, who invaded the Holy Land in the early Biblical period);
b) the continuation of the Biblical Canaanites (a Hamatic tribe, in perpetual warfare against the Philistines);
c) the descendents of the earliest Christians (i.e. Jews);
d) an integral part of the Arab nation (a Semitic nation originating in Arabia, and entirely unconnected to the Philistines, the Canaanites, and the Jews)
(all of the above)

There was never in history an independent country called Palestine.

The earliest mention of a place called Palestine in history is: in the year 135 CE, after the European Roman invaders defeated the Jewish revolt in Judea, and re-named the province Palestine.

Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi, a local Arab leader, addressing the British Peel Commission, 1937 said: “There is no such country ! ‘Palestine’ is a term the Zionists invented! There is no Palestine in the Bible. ‘Palestine’ is alien to us.”

Zahir Muhsein, executive member of the PLO, in an interview with the Dutch newspaper Trouw, March 1977 said: “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.”

On the eve of Israel’s independence in May 1948, approximately 600,000 Arabs lived in the areas that would soon become the State of Israel. When the War of Independence was over (March 1949), 150,000 Arabs were still there. This is why the UNRWA (United Nations Relief Works Agency) officially recognized that the number of Arab refugees was: 1,300,000.

In June 1982, the Israel Defence Forces entered south Lebanon to fight against the PLO, which had invaded Lebanon in 1975. The total population in southern Lebanon was about 400,000, of whom vast numbers – perhaps as many as 10% – fled northwards to escape the fighting. UNIFIL (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon) officially estimated the number of refugees as: 600,000.

The Palestine National Covenant (the constitution of the PLO) states that “Palestine, with the boundaries it had during the British Mandate, is an indivisible territorial unit” (Article 2). 77% of this “indivisible territorial unit” is today: The Kingdom of Jordan, and the remaining 23% is Israel (including Judea, Samaria, and Gaza).

As its name suggests, the raison d’etre of the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organisation) is to liberate Palestine. Accordingly, the PLO has fought to establish its independent state in:
a) the whole of Israel, starting with Judea, Samaria, and Gaza (the “occupied territories”);
b) sovereign Israel alone, rejecting any claim to Judea, Samaria, and Gaza (prior to the Six Day War);
c) Jordan (in the late 1960s and early 1970s)
d) Lebanon (from the mid-1970s until 1982);
(All of the above.)

The PLO’s purpose, as they and their supporters make clear, is to liberate the “occupied territories” which Israel captured in the Six Day War (5th-10th June 1967). This claim is proven by the historical fact that the PLO was founded: 3½ years before the Six Day War, on 1st January 1964, in Cairo (the capital of Egypt).

In the 25-year period 1950-1974, the Arab countries (including Iran) donated a total of $26,476,750 in aid to Palestinian refugees, representing 0.04% (i.e. $1 out of every $2,500) of their combined oil revenue for 1974 alone. The only country in the entire Middle East which gave no aid at all to Palestinian refugees was: Algeria.

Israel has often been accused of “ethnic cleansing” of the Arabs in the “occupied territories”. The demography bears this out, because the Arab population of Judea, Samaria, and Gaza has: increased from about 750,000 in 1967 to an estimated 3,700,000 in 2009, a population growth of nearly 500% in barely more than a generation, which is one of the highest rates of increase anywhere in the world.

Israel has also been accused of “ethnic cleansing” of Arabs who are citizens of the state, and deliberately enforcing policies designed to keep the Arab population small. This, too, is shown by the demography, in that the Israeli Arab population has: increased from 150,000 (15% of the overall population) in 1948 to about 1,420,000 (22% of the overall population) in 2009.

As of 2009, there are five universities (the Islamic University of Hebron; Bir Zeit University; Bethlehem University; Al-Najah University in Shechem ; and Al-Ahzar in Gaza), and five religious higher education academies, throughout the “occupied territories”. These institutes are: all founded since the Israeli “occupation” of 1967, under Israeli auspices, the oldest one being the Islamic University of Hebron, founded in 1971.

Since the Israeli “occupation” of Judea, Samaria, and Gaza in 1967, nine Palestinians have been sentenced to death by the courts and judicially executed, and scores – probably hundreds – more have been executed in extra-judicial killings. All of them, without exception, were executed: since September 1993 by the Palestinian Authority in the autonomous zones, because Israel, alone in the Middle East, does not use the death penalty.


In early October 2005, an estimated 650 people charged the security fence/separation barrier, and an estimated 350 succeeded in crossing it. Security forces responded with bayonets, shotguns, and rubber bullets, killing between ten and fifteen people and injuring dozens more. This incident was given minimal media attention, and has been entirely forgotten, because: the incident occurred along the security fence in Morocco, separating sovereign Morocco from the Spanish Sahara, and the security forces in question were Spanish.