One of the most consistent arguments made by Christians who believe that Israel is the favoured nation of God, is that Palestinians are just Arabs who should just move out of the land of Israel and become Jordanians, or Syrians, or Egyptians, etc, etc. I have heard this argument many times in my life, I even once was convinced by it when I was much younger, less informed and had not really considered the issue from every angle. Palestine is its own nation, this is an undisputable fact, I have written about this here, if you would like to see a more developed argument. But in this piece I would like to let a Palestinian make this argument for you.
Before the founding of Israel, indeed, before the 20th
century, there was already a national understanding amongst the Palestinians
that they were a people, who were tied to their land. As we read in the book The
Hundred Years War On Palestine,
“This sentence is sometimes
cited, in isolation from the rest of the letter, to represent Yusuf Diya’s
enthusiastic acceptance of the entire Zionist program in Palestine. However,
the former mayor and deputy of Jerusalem went on to warn of the dangers he foresaw
as a consequence of the implementation of the Zionist project for a sovereign
Jewish state in Palestine. The Zionist idea would sow dissension among
Christians, Muslims, and Jews there. It would imperil the status and security
that Jews had always enjoyed throughout the Ottoman domains. Coming to his main
purpose, Yusuf Diya said soberly that whatever the merits of Zionism, the
“brutal force of circumstances had to be taken into account.” The most
important of them were that “Palestine is an integral part of the Ottoman
Empire, and more gravely, it is inhabited by others.” Palestine already had an
indigenous population that would never accept being superseded. Yusuf Diya
spoke “with full knowledge of the facts,” asserting that it was “pure folly” for
Zionism to plan to take over Palestine. “Nothing could be more just and
equitable,” than for “the unhappy Jewish nation” to find a refuge elsewhere.
But, he concluded with a heartfelt plea, “in the name of God, let Palestine be
left alone.”
Herzl’s reply to Yusuf Diya
came quickly, on March 19. His letter was probably the first response by a
founder of the Zionist movement to a cogent Palestinian objection to its
embryonic plans for Palestine. In it, Herzl established what was to become a pattern
of dismissing as insignificant the interests, and sometimes the very existence,
of the indigenous population. The Zionist leader simply ignored the letter’s
basic thesis, that Palestine was already inhabited by a population that would
not agree to be supplanted.”[1]
The idea that there were never any “Palestinians” or that
they are just the same as other Arabs and should move on is debunked by the
people’s own understanding of themselves as Palestinian in the quote shared
above. These people saw themselves as indigenous to the land (something
genetic studies also support), they felt a tie and kinship to each other,
apart from Arabs in other parts of the Ottoman empire, and therefore they
believed they should be respected in this self-determination. They had this understanding at least as early as the 19th Century.
The Palestinian author being quoted above also predicts
the many conflicts that would result, how this would cause conflict for Jews in
other Muslim lands, and for all people in the land formerly called of
Palestine, which is now re-established as Israel. His observations are
insightful, but also really what should have been predicted. The only result of
such colonization would be conflict. Also you can’t respond to a people who do
not exist, and a people who do not exist do not resist their land being
colonized. The international power brokers may have ignored the reality of
these people living in the region who are of the region, but often when we try
to ignore reality it jumps up and slaps us in the face. Reality always gets the
last vote.
What also helps us establish that Palestinians are their
own people is that Jordanians and Palestinians know they are separate nations,
just as are the Germans and the French, even though the Franks were a Germanic tribe
originally. Khalidi notes,
“Dr. Husayn knew that Ismail
was going to Amman at the behest of the Arab-American Institute to see King
‘Abdullah of Transjordan, and he wanted to send him a personal but official
message. When my father heard its contents, he blanched. On behalf of Dr.
Husayn and the Arab Higher Committee of which he was the secretary, Ismail was
to tell the king that while the Palestinians appreciated his offer of
“protection” (he had used the Arabic wisaya, literally “tutelage” or
“guardianship”), they were unable to accept. The implicit meaning of the
message was that were the Palestinians to succeed in escaping the British yoke,
they did not want to come under that of Jordan (which, given pervasive British
influence in Amman, meant much the same thing). They aspired to control their
own fate.
My father weakly protested that passing on
this most unwelcome news would ruin his visit, which was meant to gain the
king’s support for the work of the Arab-American Institute. Dr. Husayn cut him
off. Other envoys had brought King ‘Abdullah the same message repeatedly but he
had refused to listen. Given the importance of family ties, he would be obliged
to believe it coming from Dr. Husayn’s own brother. He curtly told Ismail to do
as he had been asked and ushered him out of the office. My father left with a
heavy heart. Respect for his older brother obliged him to transmit the message,
but he knew that his visit to Amman would not end well.
King ‘Abdullah received his
guest and listened politely but without great interest to Ismail’s enthusiastic
report of how the Arab-American Institute was working to change American
opinion on Palestine, which, even then, was overwhelmingly pro-Zionist and
largely ignorant of the Palestinian cause. For decades, the king had attached
his fortunes to those of Great Britain, which subsidized his throne, paid for
and equipped his troops, and officered his Arab Legion. By contrast, the United
States seemed far away and insignificant, and the king appeared manifestly
unimpressed. Like most Arab rulers at the time, he failed to appreciate the
postwar role of the United States in world affairs.
Having carried out the main
part of his mission, my father then hesitantly conveyed the message Dr. Husayn
had entrusted to him. The king’s face registered anger and surprise, and he
abruptly stood up, compelling everyone else in the room to stand as well. The
audience was over. Exactly at that moment, a servant entered, announcing that
the BBC had just broadcast the news of the UN General Assembly’s decision in
favor of the partition of Palestine. It happened that my father’s meeting with
the king had coincided with the assembly’s historic vote on November 29, 1947,
on Resolution 181, which provided for partition. Before stalking out of the
room, the king turned to my father and said coldly, “You Palestinians have
refused my offer. You deserve what happens to you.”[2]
A lot of Palestinians do live in Jordan. But they are not
Jordanian, they are Palestinian. And before the founding of the modern state of
Israel took place the Palestinians and Jordanians recognized each other as
different, and even had their own separate goals for their interactions and
nations. As this Khalidi notes, the Palestinians wanted to control their own
fate, the right of self-determination, which is a right of all nations. This
feels like pointing to the sky being blue, but in the case of Palestinians many
Christians think the sky is green; that is they can’t see reality or they simply
deny it, for ideological reasons.
A lot of arguments about the nature of Palestine and the
conflict between Israel and the Palestinians people are based on ignorance - sometimes
well-meaning ignorance - of both the facts on the ground, but also the concepts
of nationhood, self-identity and self-determination.
As I noted in my article on the subject referred to above
when the Palestinian people were conquered by Israel in 1948 this gave every one
of them a national origin story, just as the did the Exodus for the Hebrews in
the Scriptures. I’ll come back to this in a later piece. But it should be
noted, that as with the Hebrews, they still had a recognition of their national
identity before this, this catastrophe, the conquering of regions of Israel partitioned for the Palestinians, simply reinforced it.
Palestinians are Arab, just as Danes are European, but
this is not their nationality. So, we should never let the error be stated that
Palestinians are not a nation, or that they are just the same as other Arabs.
Many nations make up the people group called the Arab peoples, just as many
nations make up the people group called Europeans. Palestinians are no more
Jordanians, than Italians are Swedes. We need to look at this topic not through
surface level theology, but through the Biblical understandings of nationhood
and nationality. Esau, and Jacob both had the same father, but they founded
different nations. This happens throughout history. Australians are not
English, or even British, though we stem from the British isles and have a
unique kinship with Britian over other lands. Australian is no older an ethnic identity
than the most modern Palestinian self recognition we observed above, yet people
recognize how distinct Aussies are. Everyone can tell the different between a
Brit and Aussie. So why can’t many do this for Palestinians?
The answer is because of ideology, not reality.
List of References
[1] Khalidi,
Rashid . The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: The New York Times Bestseller (p.
5). Profile. Kindle Edition.
[2] Khalidi,
Rashid . The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: The New York Times Bestseller
(pp. 57-58). Profile. Kindle Edition.
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