I rely on the Cairo-born Yasser Arafat, PLO commander Zuheir Mohsen and the late King Hussein to deny the existence of a Palestinian national identity separate from other Arabs. What don't you understand from what the "Palestinians'" own leaders have said to prove that this is simple fact. How are these statements "pro-Israel propaganda"? What leads you to "westplain" them away instead of taking them both literally and seriously? What leads you to ignore British foreign secretary Ernest Bevin, who said the Jews' #1 priority is to build a state while the Arabs' #1 priority is that the Jews not have a state?

When one side confesses that its national identity narrative was a purely tactical invention, and that its ultimate goal is to eliminate the demographic presence and sovereignty of the other ("from the river to the sea"), who should you believe? The question answers itself.

The Arabs who live on the West Bank and in Gaza certainly exist. But their "Palestinian" narrative is pure fantasy and tactical invention, according to their own leaders. Their self-proclaimed 1948

war of extermination predated occupation, "illegal" settlements and Nak ba.

Generic bothsidesism merely subsidizes the West Bank and Gazan Arabs' delusion that 1948 and Jewish sovereignty are reversible and that 7.3m Jews will return to where they came from. This nonsense is as delusional as Japanese Bushido imperialism ever was, and requires the same treatment as the US administered to postwar Japan.