Newt Gingrich has created a lot of waves by saying:
“Remember, there was no Palestine as a state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire. We have invented the Palestinian people, who are in fact Arabs and are historically part of the Arab people, and they had the chance to go many places.”
Is Newt right? As Jonathan Tobin noted, he is historically accurate. There was no widespread sense of Palestinian nationhood until the last few decades. In fact, there was such widespread apathy among the Palestinians that Yasser Arafat and the PLO initially had little luck in mobilizing a revolt against Israeli rule. Arabs in Israel proper have been largely peaceful to this day. Even in the West Bank and Gaza Strip there was no widespread uprising until the First Intifada in
1987. Until then, the Palestinian cause was largely championed by outsiders—either other Arabs or Palestinians in exile like Arafat (who was in all likelihood born in Egypt). Many, perhaps most “Palestinians” were willing to make accommodations with Israeli rule as they had previously made accommodations with Egyptians, Jordanians, Ottomans and other rulers.
But the fact that Palestinian identity is largely an invention and has not existed for all time hardly makes the Palestinians unique. All national identity is to some extent invented. Britain, France, Italy, Germany, the United States: all are artificial entities that had to be forged over time. The process of state formation in the last three was relatively recent—the U.S. did not come into existence until 1776 and was arguably not a truly unified nation until 1865; Italy and Germany were created at roughly the same time. Britain and France are older, but they still had to be forged out of regional identities—the process of turning “Burgundians” and “Normans” into Frenchmen took centuries.
For better or worse, however, national identity is fairly well entrenched in all those states now—as the European Union is now discovering in the case of Britain, in particular. So, too, the Palestinians have forged a national identity over the past few decades, in no small measure through the terrorism of the PLO, the PFLP, Hamas and other groups, which sparked a backlash from Israel and helped consolidate a Palestinian sense of grievance and hence identity.
There is little point at this stage, I would argue, in disputing whether the Palestinians are a “nation”; they think of themselves as a nation, so they have become one. Other states, including Israel under Benjamin Netanyahu and the U.S. under George W. Bush, have recognized the Palestinian claim to statehood, so the
point seems little more than academic.
The real issue now is not whether the Palestinians should have a state—there seems close to universal agreement on that score, now—but at what pace and on what terms. Gingrich, along with most Americans, including his Republican rivals (full disclosure: I’m a Romney adviser), is not comfortable granting nationhood to regimes such as Hamas and even the Palestinian Authority which have not fully disavowed terrorism and have refused to fully embrace Israel’s existence as a Jewish state. Israel is another fairly new state, albeit with ancient roots. If Palestinians have a claim to statehood, the Israeli case is incontestable.
To win even more Israeli concessions, the Palestinians must show they are fully committed to peace—and this they have not yet shown.
That is the crux of the matter. Gingrich is right in some academic sense but he is also, as a practical matter, arguing the wrong point. He should stick to the
real issue at hand: whether Israel should trade more land for ephemeral promises of “peace.”
Just because they see themselves as a people, and the euros and other Arabs see them as a people and therefore deserving of a state does not mean they deserve a state. n nJust as personal freedoms we all enjoy are limited to the extent that those personal freedoms do not extend to the right to damage someone else, so must national aspirations of a people not give them the right to destroy another. n nIn the case of the Palestinians, there is no cultural ethos other than the directive to destroy the Jews and their homeland. Palestinians have no identity other than as the instrument of Israel’s destruction. No history, no ancient kings, no ancient texts, songs, or dances. Their modern heroes are famous for murder. They name schools and squares after people who kidnap kids, take them to caves, and mash their heads to jelly, who break into homes and cut the necks of sleeping children and their parents, who blow up Passover Seders killing old men, women, and children, who shoot pregnant women and kids point blank. The most famous Palestinian is a murderous deviant who died of God knows what, now buried in a concrete filled hole in Ramallah. n nWhat history they have is manufactured, a usurpation, no, outright theft, of Jewish history, aided and abetted by Koranic interpretations. Kings David and Solomon, and even Jesus, were not Jews, but Palestinians, in their view; Jerusalem is not an ancient Jewish city, but an Islamic city the Jews are trying to usurpate with their phony Jewish history, to illegally ‘Judaize’. n nThey are a weaponized people. Whether it be terrorism or delegitimization, they are the most effective weapon the Islamic world has ever fielded against Israel. n nWe know it, they (at least their leaders) know it, Obama knows it (or maybe he doesn't -maybe he believes their blood soaked rag of lies), and the Euro leaders, in their heart of hearts, know it. n nIf Israel had not been bullied, threatened, and not so subtly coerced over the decades, it is unlikely the current Israeli government would see them as a people deserving of a state. n nWhy the US would try to midwife a state comprised of people whose identity consists of wearing Jewish scalps on their belts ? n nThat you, Mr. Boot, would not recognize the fact that the Palestinians are a weaponized people – invented for the sole purpose of destroying the Jewish state when conventional warfare could not – is a great disappointment. n n nGingrich is absolutely correct that we have to reopen this whole issue of whether they deserve a state – even if the 'invented' portion is not the appropriate disqualifier. n nWhat disqualifies them is the nature of their culture.
For one thing they possess Arab and Islamic culture, about which most of us know very very little. That doesn't mean it is nothing. The Koran is a real ancient text. No doubt the Palestinians have songs and dances and customs and foods coming out of their ears. We just don't know anything their culture except its negative decadencies–but that doesn't mean there is nothing out there. Let's not translate our lack of fine-grain detail about the Palestinians into a projected blank slate etch-a-sketch on which we inscribe black and white pictograms. Wait, wait, wait, think about one thing. Right now, on the ground, there are no suicide bombers, and even Israeli defense officials are uncertain as to whether the guys launching the rockets from Gaza are under Hamas' or even Jihad's control. Israel and the PA and Hamas are actually conducting a cold peace with day to day contacts and announced and unpublished arrangements all sides wish to preseve for now–even as they keep their firearms holstered. Max is not arguing for further concessions or statehood now. Gingrich is all John Boltonish today. Wait till Thursday after next.
Besht n nYes, they eat sleep, defecate, celebrate weddings just like any other human beings. What's your point? Their prime cultural directive is the destruction of the destruction of the Jews and their state. n nMurder in all its industrial premeditated variants- genocide, infanticide, human sacrifice – all the demons of the ancient mid east and human prehistory, are alive and at play in their culture – in fact, form the centerpiece of their culture. n nYou want to take all the leftover little bits, how they hold their forks, their morning greetings to each other, and slowly try to get them to drop the murderous centerpiece, the part that makes their young dip their hands in Jewish blood as their elders pass out sweets? n nHow many will die during that hopeless attempt? n nYes, they adhere to the Koran. That is a large part of the problem. Their culture was designed as a distillation of the most intolerant and violent aspects of Arab and Islamic culture towards the other. That is how you would design a weaponized Arab people if you wanted them to forever hate and forever kill. n nAnd Max, I can't get my mind around how you reconcile yourself to pushing war and destruction on the Taliban, the bad guys in Pakistan, and previously, on the bad guys in Iraq. Are they worse than the Palestinians? How so? Are they not a 'culture' too, deserving a state if they behave themselves? Why are you against negotiating with the Taliban? Maybe they can become good guys, no? n nOr is it all about pushing democracy? You think the Palestinians are democratic, perhaps, and that trumps almost everything. Well, the fixation of some neocons with 'democracy' is about to collide with reality in Egypt, Libya, and elsewhere, to all of our detriment. n nSorry, Max. Have you fallen into a double standard towards your own people? Romney might have had my vote had he showed some of the guts of Gingrich.
Max, n nThey point Gingrich should have made is that the Palestinian identity is 100% to destroy Israel. There is not one iota of Palestinian culture, politics or identity that is not based on eliminationism. Thus, even though there is "universal" agreement that the Palestinians should have a state, but disagreement on the timing and kind of state, this is really semantics. Because if you (or Romney or Netanyahu) believe the Palestinians should get a state only if they renounce terrorism, that is 100% identical to saying that the Palestinians must first stop being Palestinians and then they can get a state. Thus, in a way, Gringrich is more right than you. His point was that the Palestinians are in a key sense illegitimate. You are right that they have created a people and do "exist" and are no more "invented" than the US. But Gingrich is right to sense that the Palestinians' identity is not one that can be accepted in its current form. It is based 100% on negation, and once they give that up, they won't be the Palestinians anymore.
"There is not one iota of Palestinian culture, politics or identity that is not based on eliminationism"–not one? They don't cook? They don't whistle? They don't pray? They don't build Jewish homes on the West Bank (yeah, they do)? 100% it's all Jews all the time? A lot of the time for sure but not every single last iota. I worked with Palestinians on a kibbutz in the early 70's. They weren't destroying nothing, just as they weren't destroying nothing as they supplied construction labor throughout Israel. Things went south first in 1973 and seemingly irreparably after Oslo's Arafat had instituted its revanchist regime and through relentless politicization of society encouraged the behaviors noted, not excluding direct funding of terrorism. After the Al Asqa intifada we have forgotten just how many Palestinians used to work in Israel in the agricultural and building trades without waves of rapine and bloodshed staining the streets.This is where we are now but it need not thus ever be.
I thought that Gingrich's point was that the fabricated history being put forth by the Palestinians to prove Israel has no right to exist is that it can't be other than fabricated. That is the only important point. Any people can make the claim they are a nation — and the world, including Israel and the U.S., would seem to support a 2 state solution. It would advance the cause of peace, however, if the world pointed out in the-discussion-is-over terms that Palestinian "historical" claims will not be acknowledged and that they MUST DEAL WITH THE WORLD AS IT IS!
Land for peace is simply one phase of a patient, clear unwillingness of arab/moslem inability to accept Jewish (or Christian) sovereign control over any land that arabs/moslems deem to be theirs, facts or reason or history notwithstanding. Further, many international borders have been determined by war. Why should Israel's borders be subject to a singular, unique code of conduct that is imposed on no other country on earth?! n nWhere is the outrage about palestinian simple math lessons that use "dead Jews" as the focus of the math exercise? When are the presidential candidates (and Obama) going to demand that the palestinians exercise decency, and when are they going to cease toleration of palestinian murderous behavior?
Gingrich's point was that the Palestinian "right of return" is based on a false historical narrative. The Palestinians have had many chances at statehood, but they have refused because they were not willing to recognize Israel's right to exist. Abbas and the Palestinian Authority has belatedly recognized Israel, but they continue to wage war against Israel, and they refuse any reasonable terms of negotiation. Abbas the Palestinian Authority are not representative of Palestine anyways; but rather Hamas. If they are a state, they are a terrorist state. Israel has the right to set its own borders unilaterally and forget about the so-called Palestinians, most of whom voluntarily left their homes during the wars with Israel.
Gingrich should expand his argument. Jordan is an even more artificial national construct than Palestine. And, if, the present day argument is that there should be two states for two peoples, then Jordan already exists as a national homeland for "Palestinian" Arabs, just as Israel is the national homeland for "Palestinian" Jews. Gingrich should be applauded for reframing the whole debate, not castigated for pointing out the emperor has no clothes.