Those who have no history have to steal one.
Anyone who spends time on social media has seen these pictures. Images from the British Mandate held up by anti-Israel activists to ‘prove’ that there was a land called ‘Palestine’ before the Jews ‘invaded and stole it’:
As we all know, these images betray the ignorance and foolishness not just of those who post them – but because they go so viral, also of the entire anti-Israel movement that loves to share them around.
- The manhole cover was made by Vulcan a Jewish (and Zionist) foundry.
- The coin contains the initials for ‘Eretz Israel‘ inscribed on it. As did all coins and banknotes.
- The ‘Palestinian football team’ was actually Maccabi Tel Aviv. Their kit even had the Star of David on it.
The scale of the delusion is staggering. This tweet about a ‘Palestinian’ driving licence was posted on 18th July. Within a day it had already received over 24,100 likes.
The licence of course was a British one – issued from within the Mandate that the League of Nations ratified in 1922 in order to help rebuild a Jewish homeland.
But few stories encapsulate the Palestinian theft of Jewish history as much as this next one:
The Jerusalem Airport
It starts as always with viral posts. These were tweets about the ‘Jerusalem’ or ‘Qalandia’ airport:
The fake narrative
These posts go viral for several reasons. The first, as with the coin, manhole, licence and soccer team – is to suggest that ‘Palestine’ existed, happy and glorious – before the Jews stole it.
The second is that Israel is planning to build a settlement called ‘Atarot’ on the site:
Devoid of any real national story, there are two periods the Palestinians rely on for their fake ‘history’. The first is the Palestine Mandate, a land the British only called ‘Palestine’ because for them it was the romantically notional name given to the Christian ‘Holy Land’. The other is the Jordanian occupation between 1949-1967.
The airport covers both these periods. The false narrative being sold here is that the Israelis invaded, captured, and stole the airport from the Palestinians. And now they want to build on it – thus erasing the glorious Palestinian history from the map.
As you will see – rarely has a package contained so much bunkum.
What really happened
In 1912 land was purchased by ‘Hachsharat Hayeshuv’ – the *Zionist* ‘Palestine Land Development Company‘. This was before the British even arrived. The intention was to set up a farming village outside Jerusalem.
The Jews abandoned the first attempt to settle the land during WW1, probably in fear either of Ottoman oppression or military conscription. The Ottomans viewed Jews as ‘enemy’ (as an example Jewish communities in Tel Aviv were expelled at this time).
They returned in 1919 and in 1923 the JNF purchased a further 384 dunams to expand the Moshav. It was named ‘Atarot‘ after a biblical settlement that was believed to have existed in the area.
The British wanted to build a small airstrip near their seat of power in Jerusalem – and they began to expropriate the Moshav’s lands.
In 1926 and 1931 the British uprooted trees, destroyed crops, tore down buildings and restricted any further growth of the Moshav.
The fields and trees they destroyed were part of the livelihood of the Jewish village.
This was not the only problem the Jews faced. During the brutal Arab massacres of Jews in 1929, the settlement was attacked, almost destroyed, and the women and children were evacuated to Jerusalem. During the Arab riots of 1936-39, the settlement was attacked several times and five of its residents were killed.
As a side note – In 1936 the airport was renovated by a Jewish engineer and businessman, Pinchas Rutenberg. And as the airport began to take commercial flights – Rutenberg founded ‘Palestine Airways’:
That is no doubt another image that anti-Israel activists can turn into a viral ‘theft’ of Jewish history.
There was no happy ending. In 1948 The Jewish town was attacked, first by locals, and then the Jordanian Legion. As they tried to hold on, a convoy sending supplies in March 1948 was attacked, and 16 Jews were slaughtered. Unable to survive – the Jews were forced to leave in May. Several Jewish neighbourhoods in the area were ethnically cleansed:
*ALL* of the Jewish villages captured by the Egyptian, Syrian or Jordanian forces in 1948 were razed to the ground. And *ALL* of the Jewish inhabitants either fled – or were jailed, expelled or murdered.
The Jordanians destroyed almost all the evidence that the village had ever existed – and used all the available lands to expand and internationalise the airport. It was built on top of an ethnically cleansed Jewish village.
This is the airport the Palestinians are so proud of.
The Palestinian academic narrative
It would be foolish to think the fake narrative is only the work of social media trolls. This is how this history is described in a piece on the website of the ‘Institute for Palestine Studies’ in the section under ‘Historical Background‘:
“The airport was established by the British Mandate in 1920’s. It was a small military base known by the British as ‘Kolundia Airfield’. In 1948, the British Mandate ended and the West Bank was put under the supervision of Jordan. In the early 1950’s the Jordanians turned the airfield into a civil airport, erected the still existing airport building and named it the Jerusalem Airport.”
They simply wipe the Jewish history out completely.
The inversion of truth
I often say that the Palestinians probably cannot believe their luck. They can make up any old story – create any fake history, and much of the world is willing to think the worst of the Jews. This was land that the Jews bought – even before the British arrived. They built a village there. For decades they faced British and Arab hostility – had land stolen – people killed, and eventually were expelled completely from the area. And today anti-Israel activists turn it all on its head – pushing lie after lie. Perversely, they even use words like ‘illegal’ and ‘colony’ – as if it is the Jews who have stolen something.
“The Qalandia Airport was a magical place where I first experienced, as a child, the freedom of flying. Like the rest of Palestinian land, it was stolen, violated and deformed, becoming a symbol of oppression and captivity.” – Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO)
Stealing history
Very little of what Palestinians claim is true. It is without much doubt one of the most effective and successful propaganda machines ever built. They even make up stories about imaginary dams flooding and European politicians will share the story as if it is true. The Jerusalem Airport story is a microcosm of the conflict and the Palestinian propaganda war against the truth. The Palestinians deny Jewish history and seek to erase it – in order to convince people that once upon a time Palestine was actually a nation. When you literally do not have a history you have to invent or steal one. The Palestinians do both.
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Excellent piece
Here are a few more Palestinian names that were started by Jews
Palphot…Still exists….and made into Israphot
Palestine Philharmonic Orchestra…..now the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra
National Bank of Palestine……now Bank Leumi
The only Palestinians who lived in Mandatory Palestine were Jews.
The Arabs of the area insisted on being called Arabs
My father who travelled to Mandatory Palestine during WW2 with the Air Force told me that he was often asked by the British officials at the airports not to call the Arabs Palestinians as it used to cause friction/trouble as the Arabs objected to being called Palestinian
My father grew up in Israel in the 1920s and told me that Jews were referred to as Palestinians
I think you’ll find this interesting:
https://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-entire-bogus-history-of-palestinian.html#.VskpmpwrLAQ
Yes, the fiction of the Arab narrative is well chronicled with lots of material in the public domain. The key point in your quoted article is the complicity of Western academia and its willingness to re-purpose historical fact to suit the zeitgeist. Pretty shameful really but hardly new.
This is all known over here and as a consequence we have far fewer sleepless nights than the diaspora Jews when we defend our land and destroy our enemies. I guess that they just care about different things to us now.
At last, someone is beginning to repudiate the Arab lies. But this isn’t enough. Zionism needs to be far more proactive and far more aggressive in fighting the propaganda war that has been launched against us. Sadly, there seems few in the Zionist community who agree with me.
This sort of reminder always seems to bother the Jew baiters.
https://www.israelandstuff.com/the-kgb-and-the-origins-of-the-palestinian-narrative#.Xu08WCxlOaw.facebook
Daed cat
INDEED!… The entire ‘Palestinian Narrative’ was concocted in the 1960’s and it’s time the world knew it.
What’s also relevant is why the Palestinian leadership will never make peace with Israel and no one can make them…. unless the world unites to end funding their kleptocrats.
https://www.israelandstuff.com/analysis-the-arabs-will-never-make-peace-with-israel-the-us-eu-cant-make-them
NOTE TO READER
The above post contains a link to a Pro-Israeli, Zionist website whose content was likely fabricated in Tel Aviv by propagandists keen to defend the racist, apartheid state and spread black propaganda dehumanizing Palestinians and justify Zionist violence carried out against them.
So true!
Palestinians and their fellow travelers are not only trying to erase Jewish history. They’re trying to turn Palestinians into some sort of perpetually oppressed Jew-ish nation, deserving of world’s sympathy and help, just like Jews were immediately after the Holocaust.
Were Jews kept in ghettoes? So are the so-called Palestinian refugees, even on the territory of the PA. Were certain professions off limits for Jews? So are many professions for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. Were Jews imprisoned in camps and murdered? So are, according to legend, the Palestinians (Gaza the concentration camp lie). Are Jews the indigenous people of Palestine? Palestinians are more indigenous, going back to before the dinosaurs…
Palestinians are the only artificially manufactured nation whose sole purpose is to annihilate another nation.
I doubt a single solitary Palestinian gives a flying fuck about Jewish history.
Ironically “flying fuck” is the National Airline of Pal-e-SWINE.
My comment has nothing to do with how and what single Palestinians think, or give flying fucks about. It’s about the attempt, by various interested parties, to brainwash people worldwide into blindly adopting the “Zionists are Nazis” and other assorted libels against Jews as gospels, in order to gain international support for their terror campaigns against the Jewish state and Jews in general.
There are two wars going on at the moment.
The first is the physical actual war which we can all see.
The second is the war of words and ideas, which amongst other things includes lies,bias and propaganda often fueled by prejudice and hatred.
Lose one of these and you lose the war, and we in Israel and the diaspora are at risk of losing the second. Pretending that it doesn’t matter is surrendering our entire history and existence to the enemy
Respectfully Richard, I would probably take slight issue with the the characterisation of our situation with the Arabs in Judea and Samaria and the Iranian proxies in Gaza and Lebanon as “war”. For there to be a state of war there needs to be 2 sovereign states with armies of combatants bearing arms against each other. Israel is a sovereign state but our opponents are not. They are terrorist organisations, murderers kidnappers and would be assassins. They do not prosecute war against us in any meaningful or cohesive way, march under the flag of no country nor wear uniforms or insignia when attempting to enact their violence.
It may suit the needs of some of the pro Israel activists and indeed their opponents to talk of war and I’m sure we don’t need to go into the reasons why. However this dignifies and elevates the attempts of an already marginalised, impotent and entirely made-up people to prosecute terror on our civilian communities and justifies the payment of stipends to the families of those who fail in their murderous attempts. Let’s call it what it is; Arab terrorism.
Lebanon, Syria, Iraq are still officially at war with Israel.
There may be ceasefires, but a state of war still exists
The Arabs of Gaza are in an active state of war with Israel, and the IDF is in a low level conflict with the Arabs of Judea and Samaria
I think this is rather my point Richard. Using this language serves many parties, mainly outside Israel. If we talk of war it is easier to talk of peace and each actor and agency’s interpretation of a solution. This is expedient. Solutions are clear, decisive and have a finality to them. “If they agree to this and that, the war will end and there will be peace”. It’s much neater to package into a slogan on a placard or a speech at the UNGA. Thinking about it for what it actually is; a war on Arab terror against Jews, complicates matters and makes everything much harder for everyone beyond the theatre of event. And lets be honest. Everyone who wants an audience, craves relevance and influence, wants to have something to say on the matter, ideally some simple and intelligible soundbite like “2 State Solution” or “Illegal Occupation”. These clips may still mean something in the echo chambers and activist silos of the internet or amongst a few hundred flag wavers in London, Berlin or New York. But ask a kibbutznik from Beit Haemek, a Hi Tec worker from the Triangle or a farmer from Nachal Oz whether we’re at war, they’ll shrug, moan about another looming election and the spiralling cost of unleaded..
So, yes on a technical level you are right about the definitions of a states of war. But is that what you really meant in your original post and if not it is worth asking, “who does the mischaracterisation serve the most?”
Ian you really should leave thinking to those of us with an aptitude for it
In Vino Eternal Nakba.
Happy Nakba!
You’re not the chap to impart that slice of advice, as you are mendacious, boring, and stupid.
I think there are really just different interpretations of the same issues.
Richard, I think that the use of language has to be precise and unambiguous as words have consequences. Think about how cross the Pro Israel activists get when they hear opponents and baiters blatantly and maliciously misusing words like “occupation”, “apartheid” or “genocide”. These are as inaccurate and inappropriate as the use of the word “war”. They are not simply interpretations of events or issues but are tools of propaganda designed for that simple purpose. Of course this may be your intent.
Nonetheless, if you wish to perpetuate the notion that Israel is at war (using the technical interpretations that you have cited above) then at least be aware that you may be playing into the hands of your opponents. In a state of war, one side can legitimately claim victim status and make its case for international aid, external mediation, UN resolutions and the characterisation of its opponent as the aggressor. Moreover it can encourage and promote sanctions and boycotts amongst sympathetic onlookers in the public and private sectors. And guess what? This is exactly the playbook being used. These are the consequences of promoting the language of war. Now, as I have said, if you called it what it actually is; a fight against Arab terrorists, kidnappers and murderers funded by external actors in order to line their own private bank accounts, then the mood and the response changes quite significantly. Something to think about over a balmy summer weekend. Shabbat shalom.
Stephen
I’ve never really thought of you as a thinker, rather as a wrecker, an insurgent intent on causing disruption etc
Your speciality has always been inane and irrelevant one liners, and a failure to ever answer questions and offer evidence to back your ridiculous claims
What can one expect from DUMB BELLamy gutter snipe?