Lester Golden
4 min readApr 21, 2023

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Here's the antidote to this anti-semitic drivel that denies the Jewish people's right to a state. This is the old now repealed Zionism is racism resolution repackaged. https://medium.com/lessons-from-history/palestine-israel-slogan-demolition-in-nine-minutes-59eb99f88836

We are a religion and a nation due to nearly 4000 years of history. I'm a Jewish atheist, but just as Jewish as any Haredi. If the Brits, who created the mess in the Middle East, and the French, Spaniards, Italian, Germans, Japanese, Koreans etc, have a right to a sovereign state, so do Jews.

The Arabs that call themselves Palestinians since 1965 would have had a state a long time ago had they stopped dreaming of it occupying all the land from the river to the sea. Just ask Arafat's right hand man, Zahir Muhsein where the term Palestinian comes from:

"2. Who Are Palestinians to be Freed? Ask Them.

In 1977 the Dutch newspaper Trouw publishes an interview with the PLO’s head of military operations Zahir Muhsein about the invention of “Palestine”:

“Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct “Palestinian people” to oppose Zionism. For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to

unite Palestine and Jordan.” (http://www.indymedia.ie/article/13700)

And ask Arab-American columnist Joseph Farah who’s a Palestinian:

“Palestine has never existed — before or since — as an autonomous entity. It was ruled alternately by Rome, by Islamic and Christian crusaders, by the Ottoman Empire, and briefly by the British after World War I. The British agreed to restore at least part of the land to the Jewish people as their homeland. There was no language known as Palestinian. There was no distinct Palestinian culture. There has never been a Palestine governed by the Palestinians. Palestinians are Arabs, indistinguishable from Jordanians (another recent invention), Syrians, Lebanese, Iraqis, etc.” https://www.israelandstuff.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Philip-Hitti-IsraelandStuff.com_.jpg

And ask Hamas who’s a Palestinian:

““Brothers, half of the Palestinians are Egyptians and the other half are Saudis. Who are the Palestinians? Egyptian! They may be from Alexandria, from Cairo, from Dumietta, from the North, from Aswan, from Upper Egypt. We are Egyptians. We are Arabs.” — Hamas Minister of the Interior and of National Security Fathi Hammad, Al-Hekma TV (Egypt), March 23, 2012

In fact, the concept of nationality never had currency in the Arab world before its import from the West. What counts in Arab politics: clan, tribe, religion and sect and ummah — the community of the faithful in Islam." https://medium.com/lessons-from-history/palestine-vs-israel-4-more-slogans-demolished-in-8-minutes-dfead4c3cb94

The Israel as white colonial settle state myth is easily debunked:

"3. Israel, “White Colonial Settler” Apartheid State?

Another fact-free cliche from the map above that ignores:

2/3 of Israel is Sephardic, Jews from other Middle Eastern countries, more than 700000 of whom were expelled and whose property was seized. They’re no whiter than their Arab cousins. Iraq’s 150000 Jews, living there since Babylonian times, were targeted by the Farhud, an anti-British, pro-Nazi pogrom that killed from 780–1000 Jews, in June 1941.

19th century Ottoman Palestine was empty and desolate after centuries of parasitic mismanagement by absentee effendi landlords. What Mark Twain saw: “One may ride 10 miles hereabouts and not see ten humans.” “Nazareth is forlorn … Jericho the accursed lies in a moldering ruin today…“There was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere…. [Jezreel]….not a solitary village throughout its whole extent-not for thirty miles in either direction. There are two or three small clusters of Bedouin tents, but not a single permanent habitation. One may ride ten miles hereabouts and not see ten human beings….Come to Galilee for that (solitude)… these unpeopled deserts, these rusty mounds of barrenness…We never saw a human being on the whole route….” (https://freerepublic.com/focus/fr/604628/posts)

1867: The Ottoman Sultan allows non-Muslims to buy land anywhere in the Empire but the Mecca and Medina areas. This minor change in property law opens the door to immigration by Jews wishing to return to their ancient homeland just as they begin to experience more persecution in Eastern Europe.

1857, 1859: The British Consul’s reports on Palestine in 1857 and 1859 were similar to Twain’s: “The country is in a considerable degree empty of inhabitants and therefore its greatest need is that of a body of population…The Muslims of Jerusalem do not exceed a fourth of the entire population.” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ijyyy-Mowk, https://freerepublic.com/focus/fr/604628/posts)

1878: The Ottomans launch a resettlement policy to bring foreign Muslims to “Palestine,” mainly Algerians and Circassians. Palestinian settlement “From Time Immemorial” now dates from 70 years before Israel’s creation. But you can date it much more recently…..

The real origins of the “Palestinians”, from the British mandatory government’s 1946 survey:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Palestine_(region)#/media/File:Survey_of_Palestine_Page_211.jpg, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Palestine_(region) Britain’s anti-Jewish immigration policy is clear here: Trans-Jordan was the sieve through which Arabs “temporarily” entered Palestine

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Lester Golden
Lester Golden

Written by Lester Golden

From Latvia & Porto I write to share learning from an academic&business life in 8 languages in 5 countries & seeing fascism die in Portugal&Spain in1974 & 1976.

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