The Israel Lobby's Devious Myths

In their determination to steal all of Palestine, the Israel Lobby has created and propagated numerous myths, such as the lie that there are really no Palestinian people. In fact the Lobby falsely claims that Palestine was an empty wasteland when Zionists were immigrating there in the late 19th-20th century.

Palestine has historically been described as the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. Ancient Palestine was known as the land of Canaan and had been inhabited for thousands of years before the Hebrew invasion of around 1200 BC. Genetic evidence shows that today's Palestinian Arabs descend from a population that lived in this area from these earliest prehistoric times predating the Hebrew conquest. Indeed, as noted by the late Columbia University Professor Edward W. Said, "Palestine is the birthplace of urban life" with towns still inhabited after up to 9000 years. (Said, Blaming the Victim)

Situated at the crossroads of many cultures, Palestine has had many rulers. Following the Hebrew invasion, the land has been ruled by Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, etc. By 1516 Palestine was a province in the Ottoman Empire known for its beauty and fertility. By 1853, there were about 500,000 people living in Palestine, almost all Arabs except for 20,000 Jews. The Palestinian Arabs lived in small villages with olive groves and farms producing wheat, corn, barley, sesame, cotton, etc. (Ilan Pappe, A History of Modern Palestine) Thus is another myth shattered, namely that the Arabs in Palestine were nomads who moved there to get jobs from Jewish immigrants. It is these olive groves, centuries old, which the Jewish settlers still today keep uprooting.

The "father of Zionism" Theodor Herzl, in advocating Jewish immigration to Palestine, inspired the rabbis of Vienna to send a fact-finding mission there in the late 18th century. Their two rabbis cabled back from Palestine, "The bride is beautiful but she is married to another man." (Avi Shlaim, The Iron Wall) In other words, the land of Palestine was beautiful but already occupied by Arabs.

Nevertheless, against the desire of the Arabs living in Palestine, Jewish immigration exploded so that by 1947, the Jewish population was one third of the total and Jews owned 6-7% of the land. The Arabs opposed giving up half of Palestine as a Jewish State to compensate for the Nazi Holocaust, (why should Palestinians be punished for something the Germans did?), but they had no say in the UN decision. The myth that Arabs left Palestine of their own accord at that time has been also shown to be a lie. The Zionists had crafted a plan using terrorism to drive them out, so as to steal their land and create a Jewish state. (Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine) This process continues to this day. (See previous blogs "Sandniggers" 11/16/08, "Is Israel a Racist State?" 12/24/08, "Lest We Forget: Jewish Terrorism 1/29/09, and "Religious Genocide' 5/4/09).

Another myth is that the Arabs started the 1967 war, whereas it was Israel who attacked first. Clearly this war was designed to expand Israel's territory as shown by the fact that settlements keep expanding. Still another myth is the so-called "generous offer" turned down by Palestinian President Arafat at Camp David in 2000. This offer was unacceptable to the entire Arab/Muslim world as it was not in accordance with international law and UN Security Council Resolutions. The blatantly biased pro-Israel US negotiating team at Camp David, led by Dennis Ross, doomed it to failure. We should have been even-handed. (Clayton E. Swisher The Truth About Camp David) (See previous blogs "The Myth of the Generous Offer" 5/13/07, and "A US Peace Plan" 9/29/09)

The truth is that it is the Arab/Muslim World which has long had a fair just peace plan on the table, endorsed in 2002 by Yassir Arafat as well as Saddam Hussein and virtually the rest of the world except for Israel and the US. If this had been accepted then, we would not be going bankrupt fighting all these unnecessary wars.