| Topic: | Re:Reply | |
| Posted by: | John Hawkes | |
| Date/Time: | 16/05/24 15:26:00 |
| Ms Grant ''Do you believe that Israel has a right to exist?' That is the question many pro Palestinians refuse to answer'. If I might suggest it, a very good book on the whole topic is 'Myths and Facts - A guide to the Arab Israeli Conflict' by Mitchell G. Bard. ISBN 1537152726. I found the following points interesting - 1) Hebrews entered the land of Israel c.1300 BCE uniting under kings Saul, David, then Solomon. 2) Palestine was never an exclusively Arab country, although Arabic became the language of most of the population after the Muslim invasions of the seventh century CE. 3) No independent Arab or Palestinian state ever existed in Palestine. 4) When a distinguished Arab-American historian, Princeton University professor Philip Hitti testified against Partition before the Anglo-American Committee in 1946, he said "There is no such thing as 'Palestine' in history, absolutely not". 5) Prior to partition, Palestinian Arabs did not view themselves as having a separate identity. When the First Congress of Muslim-Christian Associations met in Jerusalem in February 1919 to choose Palestinian representatives for the Paris Peace Conference, they adopted the following resolution: 'We consider Palestine as part of Arab Syria, as it has never been separated from it at any time. We are connected with it by national, religious, linguistic, natural, economic and geographic bonds'. 6) During the British Mandate period in 1937 a local Arab leader Auni Bey Abdul Hadi told the Peel Commission which suggested partition: "There is no such country as Palestine. There is no Palestine in the Bible. Our country was for centuries part of Syria" 7) At the Arab Higher Committee to the UN General Assembly in May 1947, Ahmed Shuqeiri, later chairman of the PLO said: "It is common knowledge that Palestine is nothing but southern Syria. Some say Palestinian Arab nationalism is largely a post-WWI phenomenon that did not become a significant political movement until after the 1967 Six-Day War. Food for thought ! Oh and back to your point on Israeli citizenship, apparently Arab states define citizenship strictly by native parentage and it is almost impossible to become a naturalized citizen in Algeria, Saudi and Kuwait. |