Southern Syria - Palestine

Robert Laird Stewart, 'The Land of Israel,' (1899,) p. 1

Palestine is the familiar designation of that section of Southern Syria which was permanently occupied by the tribes of Israel.

The name, as originally used in the Bible and in Ancient history was limited to the land of the Philistines.
 https://books.google.com/books?id=o_oxAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA1

XX Century Cyclopaedia and Atlas. Biography, History, Art, Science and Gazeteer of the World. Volume 8, (Gebbie & Company 1901,) p.189

The principal river of South Syria (Palestine, which see) is the Jordan.

https://books.google.com/books?id=BQZCAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA189

The Encyclopaedia Britannica. A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and General Literature. Volume 22. (1888), p.821

Palestine is simply a portion of Syria...

https://books.google.com/books?id=UqIMAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA821

____

Walter Laqueur, 'The Israel-Arab Reader: A Documentary History of the Middle East Conflict', (Penguin, 1970,) p. 336

by two-thirds through the amputation of the East Bank of Palestine for the establishment of Transjordan, later Jordan.

By the time the Mandate was in effect, five independent Arab states were established on the territory freed from Turkish rule.

Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Transjordan were allotted an area covering, 1,200,000 square miles.

The ten thousand square miles left to Western Palestine constituted less than 1 % of the total area and was less than a third of the area originally promised by the Balfour Declaration.
The Partition Resolution of 1947, accepted by the Jews and fought by the Arabs, further lopped away at the continually diminishing "notch." A glance at the map of the region shows the ratio between the huge Arab lands and the tiny state of Israel.

But the Arabs and their supporters reject this comparison as irrelevant. That the Arabs received much and the Jews little has nothing to do with the case. Arab nationalism cannot be sated by less than 100% gratification; 90 % plus won't do .

What about the Palestinian Arabs ? Why should they surrender their Palestinian identity to become Syrians or Jordanians as the Jews irrationally suggest?

Such is the Arab argument. If a genuine Palestinian nationalism had been violated then it would be Quixotic folly to ask the Arabs of Palestine to abandon their rights in favor of the unfortunate Jews. But did such a violation take place?

At the end of World War I the inhabitants of the land treasured for centuries by Jews as Zion did not view themselves as a distinct Palestinian nation. Palestine did not exist as a political or national entity as far as the Arabs were concerned.
For them it was merely a geographical locality, the south of Syria.
Whereas no one doubts the fierce authenticity of Arab nationalism, Palestinian Arab nationalism is an artificial creation with no roots before the British Mandate.
As recently as May 3, 1956, Ahmed Shukairy, the extremist chief of the Palestine Liberation Organization, declared before the Security Council: "It is common knowledge that Palestine is nothing but southern Syria."

Nor were the Zionist pioneers who came to an abandoned wasteland forty or fifty years ago afflicted by "moral imbecility."  They may have been simple-minded in believing that the swamps they drained the swamps they drained , the stony soil they irrigated - incidentally, swamps and deserts purchased at fancy prices..
https://books.google.com/books?id=LYAVAQAAIAAJ&q=%22common+knowledge%22
https://books.google.com/books?id=mjG7AAAAIAAJ&q=%22gratification%22

Randall Price, 'Fast Facts® on the Middle East Conflict,  (Harvest House Publishers, 2003) .

p.25

... These acts created the conditions for a new local Arab nationalism that sought independence from colonial control and, as a result, a distinct identity in Palestine.

How did Arab nationalism begin in Palestine?

In March 1919, at the Paris Peace Conference, an agreement was signed between Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann and Arab leader Emir Faisal that promoted the development of a Jewish homeland. The language of this document spoke of “the Arab state and Palestine,” clearly reflecting the understanding that Palestine was that part of the Middle East designated for the Jewish homeland and separate from that part claimed by the Arabs.

However, a different opinion had been expressed in February 1919, shortly before the conference convened.

At the first congress of the Muslim-Christian Association, which had met in Jerusalem to choose its representatives for the Paris Peace Conference, the following resolution was adopted:
"we consider Palestine as part of Arab Syria, as it has never been separated from it at any time. We are connected with it by national, religious, linguistic, natural, economic, and geographical bonds."

Both opinions, then, indicated that Arabs did not view Palestine as having an independent Arab sratus.

This thinking changed the next year when the British began to delineate Palestine and the French overthrew the Hashemite king Amin Husseini, thereby abolishing the notion of a Southern Syria. Isolated by these events, the Muslims of Palestine had to make the best of a bad situation and a prominent Jerusalemite declared at that time that "after the recent events in Damascus,we have to effect a complete change in our plans here. Southern Syria no longer exists. We must defend Palestine."

To what extent this thinking may have been shared by other Arabs is unclear, but when the Peel Commission in 1936 proposed the partition of Palestine , another local Arab leader, Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi, told the commission, " There is no such country [ as Palestine]! Palestine is alien to us; it is the Zionists who introduced it. Our country was for centuries part of Syria."
https://books.google.com/books?id=417EdpQMI9IC&pg=PA25

pp. 58-59

Though the term was never used in the Hebrew Bible nor Arabic Qur'an, ...

The use of term Palestinian in reference to the Arab population west of the Jordan River cannot be found in any dictionary, encyclopedia or history book until after the creation of the State of Israel in 1948.
Although before 1948 both Jews and Arabs, as inhabitants of Palestine, could have been called  "Palestinian Jews" and "Palestinian Arabs," Once the State of Israel was established, the Jews were identified as "Israelis." This left available the name Palestinian for the non- Israeli Arab population.

Even so, it was not immediately adopted by the Arab population. In 1947, when UNSCOP was investigating the cause of violence in Palestine and listening to the demands of Arab leaders, there was never any mention of "Palestinians" nor a demand for the establishment of a Palestinian state, nor was this ever made a part of any debate in the United Nations. The plain reason for this is that there was no Palestinian nationalism at that time. Palestinians did not have a separate identity from the Arab culture and accepted the Arab goal in Palestine, qhich was not political independence in the land, but an Arab state that would be reunited to the Arab Islamic world. This was explained a few years later by Ahmed Shuqeiri (later the chairman of the PLO) to thr UN Security Council: "It is common knowledge that Palestine is nothing but southern Syria."
https://books.google.com/books?id=417EdpQMI9IC&pg=PA58
https://books.google.com/books?id=417EdpQMI9IC&pg=PA59

__

Who are the Palestinians?

Op-ed: ‘Palestinianism’ no more than political construct, rather than legitimate national identity

Moshe Dann | Published:  09.13.10
[..]
Palestinianism, inherently meant only one thing: the rejection of a Jewish state in any form. A few elite Arab intellectuals did talk about Palestinianism, but it was not widely accepted. As Columbia University Professor Rashid Khalidi shows in his book on the subject, not until Zionists began settlements did local Arabs seek an alternative.

Week after launching of direct talks, Palestinian negotiator says recognizing Israel as Jewish state would 'directly threaten Muslims, Christians' and prevent Palestinian refugees from 'returning to their homes'

Focused on opposition to Zionists, rather than a positive self-definition, "Palestinian identity" then, as now, was negative. Palestinian leaders, like the mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husayni, an ardent supporter of the Nazis, and arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat - "fathers" of Palestinianism - rejected Zionism and promoted terrorism.

Anti-colonial and anti-Zionist uprisings against British rule were not directed towards another independent Palestinian state. Nor were Arab riots and pogroms, like those in 1929, 1936, for example, nationalistic. There were no calls for a Palestinian state; the battle cry was, "Kill the Jews."

Arab leaders like Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi told the Peel Commission in 1937: "There is no such country as 'Palestine'; 'Palestine' is a term the Zionists invented!"

During the 1930s, anti-British and anti-Jewish riots were enflamed by the newly created "Arab – not Palestinian - Higher Committee," the central political organ of the Arab community of Mandate Palestine.

In 1946, Arab historian Philip Hitti testified before the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry that "there is no such thing as Palestine in history.” In 1947, Arab leaders protesting the UN partition plan argued that Palestine was part of Syria and “politically, the Arabs of Palestine (were) not (an) independent separate … political entity.”

In 1947, the UN proposed a "Jewish" State and an "Arab" – not Palestinian – State. Efforts to organize a political leadership in 1948, in response to the establishment of Israel, soon collapsed.

The womb of Palestinianism was war, the Nakba (catastrophe) in the Arab narrative, the establishment of the State of Israel. Five well-armed Arab countries invaded the nascent state, joining local Arab gangs and militias in a genocidal war to exterminate the Jews. This was not seen as a war for Palestinian nationalism, however; it was a genocidal war against Jews and Zionism itself.

‘Palestinians’ used to be Jews

Arab gangs that attacked Jews in 1947/8 were called the "Arab - not Palestinian - Army of Liberation." The reason is that prior to Israel's establishment, the notion of a "Palestinian people" was irrelevant, since Arab affiliations are primarily familial and tribal – not national. And also because "Palestinian" meant something else back then.

Before 1948, those who were called (and called themselves) "Palestinians" were Jews, not Arabs, although both carried the same British passports. In fact, only after Jews in Palestine called themselves Israelis, in 1948, could Arabs adopt "Palestinian" as theirs exclusively. Indeed, the central organ of the pre-Israel Jewish community was called "The Palestine Post" – later changed to the Jerusalem Post.

The establishment of UNRWA in 1949 to provide for Arab refugees provided the institutional structure to build and preserve the idea of an "Arab Palestinian people" – and their "right of return." Today, in 58 camps, with an annual budget of nearly a billion dollars, the residents are indoctrinated with hatred and Israel's eventual destruction. Except in Jordan, which granted most citizenship, the residents of these UNRWA towns are severely restricted and denied basic human and civil rights.

Were it not for UNRWA, there would probably be no "Palestinian refugee" problem today. The problem is UNRWA's controversial definition of "Arab refugee," which includes anyone who claimed residence in Palestine since 1946, regardless of their origin; this date is important because it marks the high point of a massive influx of Arabs from the region into Palestine, primarily due to employment opportunities and a higher standard of living.

This category of "refugees" was different from all others in that it included not only those who applied in 1949, but all of their descendents, forever, with full rights and privileges; the total population is expected to reach seven or eight million next year, and keeps growing. This is one of the core issues preventing any resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict. UNRWA's existence, therefore, perpetuates the conflict, prevents Israel's acceptance, and breeds violence and terrorism.

Palestinianism was defined in 1964, in the PLO Covenant, when Jordan occupied "the West Bank," a Jordanian reference from 1950 to distinguish the area from the East Bank of the Jordan River, and Egypt held the Gaza Strip. On behalf of the "Palestinian Arab people," the Covenant declared their goal: a "holy war" (Jihad) to "liberate Palestine," i.e. destroy Israel. There was no mention of Arabs living in "the West Bank" and Gaza Strip, since that would have threatened Arab rulers. Arab "refugees" were convenient proxies in the war against Israel; Palestinianism became a replacement nationalism for Zionism, a call to arms against Jews...
https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3953601,00.html