Let’s talk about the” Palestinians”. For thousands of jihad-minded Islamists and their Ivy League sycophants, the idea of resistance is associated with this tribal descriptor. The name in and of itself seems to have an atmosphere of respect and pride, modesty and revolution, pain and persistence.  ,
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It does n’t come across the history books with the flash-bang, in-your-face effect of the British or the Chinese or especially of us loudmouth Americans. Instead, the name” Arab” comes across like a forgotten outgrowth of a greater strength long ago, like a lesser community of Native Americans or Siberian nomads, their spartan naïveté unfairly smothered under the colonialist onslaught of wiser, more perilous forces. At least that’s how eager hacks in the West know the” Israeli”.
But to know it in its proper historical context, the tag” Palestinian” shows geographic location, not cultural identity. Residency in the Midwest, the Rust Belt, or the Great Plains does n’t mean there are separate ethnic groups of Midwesterners, Rustbeltics, and Great Plainsians. The current political system in Israel is situated on land that has witnessed the migration of numerous ethnic groups over the course of thousands of years, and each of these people could legitimately refer to themselves as” Palestinians.” Prior to the current fight, the name was never used to describe a particular church, nationality, ethnicity, or political ideology.
The name” Palestine” is Hebrew ( or possibly Aramaic ) in origin. It first appeared in the Book of Exodus as” Pelishtim”, thought to have its source between 1440 and 1400 BC. By the 5th century BC, the Greeks had previously adapted the name into” Palaistine”, which roughly translates from Greek to “wrestler”. This supports the idea that Israel’s Biblical roots are related to the phrase” those who wrestle with God.” The Romans continued its usage as” Palaestina”.
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It was used to identify the country’s various Celtic citizens, a diverse mix of Trilobites, Moabites, Hittites, Assyrians, Canaanites, and most substantially Hebrews. In the ensuing centuries, the Babylonians destroyed the Moabites. The Egyptian records document that an unknown” sea people” destroyed the Hittites. Modern-day Ammonites inhabit Iraq and Jordan ( whose capital is Amman ). Modern scholarship suggests that the Canaanites perished and that its descendants reside in contemporary Lebanon, despite the fact that the Hebrews are typically given credit for that accomplishment.
The Hebrews have lived in the area for longer than any other group and have a stronger ancestral claim than any other group to the land once called” Palestine.” The same Western activists who claim the entire Western hemisphere is” stolen land” refuse to apply that same logic to the historical realities that apply to Israel. For anyone counting, the Jews called” Palestine” their home over 2, 000 years before Islam was even a religion.
No pan-Arab political ideology, even in the 20th century, referred to a distinct” Palestinian” people until after the 1967 war. Palestinians were initially praised for their eventual integration into” the greater Arab homeland” by the newly established Palestinian Liberation Organization.
However, Muslims are familiar with a few things about” stolen land.” On it was the foundation of their entire religion. Today’s Muslim” Palestinians” are largely ethnic Arabs, the grim result of their ancestors having launched several invasions since the 6th century and never stopping. Had they been white Europeans, any Western activist would decry them as” colonizers” and “occupiers”.
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The Muslims who live in Gaza and their Iranian rulers are not interested in the physical location. The occupying Muslims immediately destroyed every structure that the Jews left behind when then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon unilaterally pulled the IDF out of Gaza. They view the land as belonging to them by divine law, to the extent that they are concerned about it in the abstract.  ,
But do n’t take my word for it. The Quran itself advises its adherents to” Kill them whenever you come upon them and drive them out of the places that they have driven you out.” This passage makes a significant point about the mindset of radical Muslim extremists around the world.
Muslims are instructed to “drive them out of the locations where they have driven you out.” Islam’s more fundamentalist interpretation of this is that once it has claimed or conquered land, Muslims are obligated to fight for its reclamation if that land falls back under the control of the infidel.
For example, Osama bin Laden ( and other Islamic extremists ) often referred to the Iberian Peninsula ( Spain and Portugal ) as “al-Andalus”. This was the name that Muslim invaders gave this region during their 700-year occupation. By 1492, Christians had finally driven these occupiers out. Hardcore Islamists believe that even if Muslims stole Spain first, that they have a religious duty to reclaim it from the evils.
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Got that? They can steal from us, and it’s Quranically sanctioned. However, if we win the land back, they view it as a violation of their theological order and are compelled to fight for the particular land until they reclaim it. If you examine their rhetoric, this holds true not just for Israel, but also for land they’ve “lost” in Spain, Italy, France, southern Europe, Turkey, northern India, Kashmir, and elsewhere.
Let’s say a Muslim enters your home and evicts you by force ( assume he does n’t murder you and convert your children to slavery, as they did with millions of Europeans ). Let’s say you can get up the courage to go back to your house and expel the Muslim who robbed you of it. The Muslim then conveniently glosses over the fact that he stole it from you first, saying that he now has to fight you until you leave your own home because the Quran commands him to “drive them out of the places where they have driven you out.”
This is the logic we’re dealing with when Muslims say they’re “resisting” Israeli occupation of Palestine.
Muslims first took control of the Holy Land in 636 AD, when Arab armies imposed siege on and took Jerusalem. Aside from a brief respite during the Crusades, Muslim empires ( first Arab, then Turkish ) occupied Palestine until the creation of the state of Israel. But contrary to ill-informed college opinion, there were never no Jews on the land. Palestine has been their homeland since the Exodus, despite pogroms, exiles, and oppressions, and has remained so even throughout the worst of the Muslim occupation.
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The radical Islamists view this as a reversal of their religion because they once ruled it and believe it to be theirs forever because Jews now rule the land. This explains why people are so obsessed with this smaller piece of land than New Jersey does. The occupying Muslims had largely neglected and sparsely inhabited the land itself before Israel was established. It will quickly return to this neglected state if they ever regain control.
The jihadist’s focus today is the reclamation of Israel. Tomorrow, it will be the reclamation of Spain, Italy, and southeast Europe. It’s only a matter of time before radical Muslims use these theological justifications as an excuse to conquer what remains of the West because they view the entire world as” Dar al-Islam.” That means no more parades, Queers for Palestine.
To recap, the term” Palestinian” is operationally useless but politically genius. It’s the verbal equivalent of the Che Guevara t-shirt for schemons who believe it to be revolutionary but fail to grasp any of the underlying ideas. However, the current Muslim occupiers, who identify as” Palestinians,” reside on land that their ancestors stole. The true” Palestinians”, were it an actual ethnic phrase, are the Hebrews who have lived there continuously for over 3, 000 years now.
Find a leftist who is taking a break between screams for some wholesome fun. Start by explaining the precise history of the term” Palestine” to them and recording the nanoseconds it takes for them to scream once more. It’s the best possible wager to make.
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