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The Palestinian Delusion is “the wake-up call to pull Western policy makers out of dreamland”

Dec 21, 2019 6:00 pm By Robert Spencer

Another excellent review of The Palestinian Delusion: The Catastrophic History of the Middle East Peace Process, which you can order here.

“The Palestinian Delusion: The Catastrophic History of the Middle East Peace Process,” review by Loren Rosson, December 19, 2019:

Many will find Robert Spencer’s latest book dispiriting, but reality is often just that. It doesn’t care about our feelings, political optimism, or need for palatable solutions. And nowhere is this more true than in the incendiary sandbox of the Middle-East.

The Left will have no use for it, but speaking as something of a Lefty myself, I give the book full marks, and hope that at least some Leftists will read and learn from it. It’s called The Palestinian Delusion: The Catastrophic History of the Middle East Peace Process, and it chronicles the failure of every peace attempt that has been made for the last 40 years. Spencer argues that the attempts failed for one reason only: the Muslims of Palestine and surrounding Arab countries were never going to accept a Jewish state in any form. The Islamic imperative, “Drive out those who drove you out” allows for no mitigation — not even when the land of Palestine wasn’t theirs to claim.

An Invented Nationality

Many believe that the Palestinians are a genuine nationality — that they are the indigenous people of the land occupied by Israel. Spencer refutes the myth:

“It is no accident that neither Mark Twain, nor any of the series of English travelers who visited the area, nor anyone else who traveled through desolate Palestine over the centuries ever mentioned the ‘Palestinian’ people. They spoke of encountering Muslim Arabs, as well as Jews, Christian Arabs, and others, but no one, among multitudes of people who wrote about Palestine, ever refers to Palestinians. Nor do the many British white papers and other documents the British government produced during the Mandate period ever mention the Palestinians. The opposing factions in those documents are the Jews and Arabs.” (p 87-88)

That flies in the face of the narrative that today’s Palestinians are analogous to Native American Indians: indigenous to the area and thus have a primary claim on the land. But there was never anything to distinguish the Palestinians culturally, linguistically, or otherwise from the other Arabs of the region. During the Mandate Period (1918-48) the Arabs of Palestine usually considered themselves Syrians, and Palestine was called Southern Syria. Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi told the Peel Commission in 1937, “There is no such country as Palestine. ‘Palestine’ is a term the Zionists invented.”

That outlook changed in the ’60s with the Palestine Liberation Organization. The PLO’s constitution refers to “Palestinians” as if they were a distinct ethnic people, though it confusingly alternates between using the terms as a geographical region vs. a nationality. The “Palestinian people” became the PLO’s propaganda used to counter the image of a small Jewish state in a sea of Arab nations. Now it was “the Palestinians” who were an even smaller nation, oppressed by a Big-Bad. And as Spencer says, a nation and a people need an identity; that was provided by the appropriated flag of the (short-lived) Arab Federation of Iraq and Jordan. A founding father was also needed; Yasser Arafat filled that role.

The propaganda was called out. Syrian President Hafez Assad, for example, told Arafat: “You do not represent Palestine as much as we do. Never forget this: there is no such thing as a Palestinian people, there is no Palestinian entity, there is only Syria. It is we, the Syrian authorities, who are the true representatives of the Palestinian people.” There were even those in the PLO who candidly acknowledged the truth, such as executive member Zahir Muhsein, who said in an interview: “The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people.”

Obviously, alternative facts predated the 21st century.

Double standards

I was glad to see Spencer taking on the question of standards, because Israel has always been held to a different one. Especially on the subject of territorial acquisition. After the Six-Day War, the UN had produced Resolution 242 about the “inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war”, stating that a nation doesn’t have a right to hold territory just because it conquered the territory. Really? Since when? As Spencer says, the right of conquest has been the way of things since humanity was born:

“The United Nations never questioned the Soviet Union’s postwar territorial expansion, or any other territorial gain at the expense of a defeated aggressor. The United States acquired California and the vast territories of the American Southwest after defeating Mexico in war. Germany had started an aggressive war. No one questioned the fact that after the war, it should suffer a substantial loss of territory. Nations that lost wars, particularly when the wars were the result of their own aggression, had lost territories through history.” (pp 109-110)

And yet when Egypt, Syria, and Jordan wage an aggressive war against Israel, hell-bent on genocide, the UN suddenly advocates for a principle of the “inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war” — but only against Israel.

This reminds me of Donald Trump’s executive order two years ago. He decided to uphold the law passed by Congress in 1995, which required Jerusalem to be recognized as Israel’s capital by no later than May 31, 1999. (Spencer discusses this too, later in the book, on pp 194-95.) Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama had invoked waivers to this law every six months, postponing the move on grounds of “national security”, and so the law had never taken effect. Trump had also signed a waiver in June 2017, but six months later, on December 6, decided to end the stalling.

Everyone went crazy that day, but this was a rare occasion I applauded Trump, for the same reasons Spencer objects to the UN resolution 242. Every other country has their capital of choice recognized, and Israel should be treated no differently. Israel has controlled the city of Jerusalem since ’67, and if they want to make that their capital (which they did in 1980), no one can properly gainsay them. Trump was simply eliminating two decades of pointless executive stalling. As Spencer’s book demonstrates from cover to back, as long as the state of Israel exists at all, the Arab world will never be satisfied or agree to work towards a peaceful goal — regardless of how boundaries are partitioned or what the Israeli capital is.

It’s to the critical issue we now turn: the peace process between Israelis and Arabs, and why these attempts always fail. Starting with Round 1.

Round 1: The Case of Anwar Sadat

The story of Camp David (1978) is the centerpiece of Spencer’s book, and it’s the story of Anwar Sadat making a fool (and tool) of Jimmy Carter. Sadat was quite a colorful character, having written love letters to Adolf Hitler, praising the German Fuhrer for his campaign against the “sons of Satan”. After World War II he was in bed with the Soviets, who protected and helped Egypt against Israel, until the Soviets got so fed up bailing Egypt out of every jam. In 1973 Brezhnev wanted Sadat to start negotiating with Israel. He was warned by his aide that Sadat and the Arabs would be mighty pissed at being told this.

Brezhnev retorted that the Arabs could “go to hell”, as they had been given everything under the sun — technology, tanks, aircraft, and artillery — and yet they kept getting beaten. “Once again they scrammed,” blasted Brezhnev. “Once again they screamed for us to come save them. Sadat woke me up in the middle of the night twice over the phone, ‘Save me!’ No! We are not going to fight for them.” Egypt would have to start negotiating with Israel peacefully.

So that’s what Sadat did: he became a “peacemaker”, as Spencer explains, by trying to get the United States to fight his battles for him, since the Soviets would no longer do so; America would fight for him at the negotiations table. It was a brilliant strategy that fooled people on all sides. The Israelis were delighted that an Arab leader was making peaceful overtures; Arabs were furious and denounced him. But Sadat had no intention of betraying his fellow Muslims. For all his deceptive talk about welcome and pluralistic abstractions in his speech to the Knesset in November 1977, he budged not an inch on concrete matters, insisting that the Israelis withdraw completely from everywhere he said to withdraw from, including Jerusalem.

What’s astonishing is that Sadat’s repeated insults (and lack of desire for any genuine reconciliation) went more or less unnoticed at this meeting. A state dinner was held in his honor. And the following year, the United States would push for Sadat’s claims….

Generations have come and gone, and Israel is the Jewish homeland now — like it or not, for better or worse. The Israeli-Palestinian problem needs to managed, if not “solved”, with a minimum of bloodshed. But to engage in peace accords and negotiations as if Muslims will give up the doctrine of jihad is an irresponsible policy grounded in historical ignorance. Spencer’s book is the wake-up call to pull western policy makers out of dreamland.

There is much more. Read the rest here.

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Filed Under: Featured, Palestinian jihad, Robert Spencer Tagged With: The Palestinian Delusion


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Comments

  1. mortimer says

    Dec 21, 2019 at 7:13 pm

    So right, Mr. Spencer … they are in a DREAMLAND of their own fashioning.

    Fantasists like Jimmy Carter are clueless, self-righteous ignoramuses in the matter of Islam, but nevertheless they continue to declare their uninformed guesses as fact.

    A fact is something that can be verified by others. It is not an opinion. The Leftards cannot remove jihad from Islam by wishing it away … which is what they are doing.

    They are in a more preposterous dreamland than Alice in Wonderland. Their dreamland has real, tragic consequences for the world.

  2. mortimer says

    Dec 21, 2019 at 8:03 pm

    It is generally true that no one in Arab world ever referred to the Arabs of *Lower Syria* as ‘Palestians’.

    There is no proof of an ethnicity called ‘Palestinian’ before the KGB invented them in 1967 for political purposes.

    The first example of the term ‘Palestinian’ applied to an Arab is found in 1898:

    Khalil Beidas, his preface to his translation of Akim Olesnitsky’s A Description of the Holy Land: “the people of Palestine were in need of a geography book about their country… the Palestinian peasant waits impatiently for winter to come, for the season’s rain to moisten his fossilized fields”.

    It has been proposed that this represents the first instance in modern history where the term ‘Palestinian’ or ‘Filastini’ appears in Arabic. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_name_%22Palestine%22#Rashidun,_Umayyad_and_Abbasid_Caliphates_period)

    It is clear that the term ‘Palestinian’ in this passage is not a reference to an ethnicity, but refers instead to Arabs living in Palestine, Lower Syria.

  3. gravenimage says

    Dec 21, 2019 at 9:16 pm

    The Palestinian Delusion is “the wake-up call to pull Western policy makers out of dreamland”
    ………………

    Good stuff from Loren Rosson. Thank you.

  4. Relic says

    Dec 22, 2019 at 12:03 am

    In the sandbox burn all the shit.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/wellbeing/healthadvice/4706714/In-Sickness-and-in-Health.html

  5. Save Europe says

    Dec 22, 2019 at 1:04 am

    As we enter the 22nd – albeit I’m not Jewish myself, may I wish all members of the Jewish community a happy Hanukkah 👍👍👍

    • observer says

      Dec 22, 2019 at 10:01 am

      Amen to that Save Europe !

      I pray for their safety…
      Always.

    • Infidel says

      Dec 22, 2019 at 5:05 pm

      Yup! Happy Hanukkah🕎🕎🕎 to everybody out here

      • gravenimage says

        Dec 22, 2019 at 8:41 pm

        Yes–Happy Hanukkah to all Jewish Jihad Watchers!

  6. observer says

    Dec 22, 2019 at 9:57 am

    Yes !
    ‘Spencer’ disputes the myth.

    Indeed, Robert Spencer disputes +all+ the myths.

    But who gets it in the West ?
    Who hears ?
    Neither Western political leaders, nor Western politicians, nor most Western citizens…
    Not even those who have had family members ALREADY BEHEADED by islam.
    Nor shall they, until that time when they themselves are at the point of being beheaded by some crazed adherent of the islam.

    Of course beheadings are not the only means used to kill an infidel (…those who do not adhere to the dictates of a mad, so-called prophet).
    No… there are varied means by which infidels can AND ARE BEING murdered:

    >> planes flying into buildings (9 Sep 2001, USA, in case anyone is not aware of this)
    >> throwing people off/out of buildings (for being Jewish or gay but not exclusive to these ‘categories’)
    >> driving heavy duty trucks into crowded market places
    >> placing suicide belts on unsuspecting children who must then walk into crowded market places (e.g. in Africa) to blow up multiple people (most of whom will be presumed ‘infidels’)
    >> attacking Churches in which people are praying (Sri Lanka); or
    >> shooting or bombing people attending synagogue
    >> slaying ‘infidels’ innocently making their way across bridges
    >> hacking off the heads of hikers (as happened to two young Scandinavian women whilst hiking in Morocco)
    >> slaughtering Christians attending funerals in Africa (it’s not important to islamists where or how they kill you – it simply matters THAT they kill those who are not adherents of they’re faith)
    >> I could go on… but do you get the picture ? How you die won’t matter to an islamist who has his/her knife to your neck.

    The above list does not lie in the future — it is NOW!
    These many and varied ways of killing off infidels will continue to occur.
    It’s you and it’s me.
    No matter how someone like Warsi and the rest of them obfuscate.

    Who grasps the reality that Robert Spencer continually exposes at huge risk to himself and his loved ones ?

    Robert screams into a seemingly God-forsaken wilderness…

    WAKE UP PEOPLE !
    BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE… IF IT ISN’T ALREADY…

    Dare I hazard a guess and say, follow the news this Christmas.
    Christian holy times are always good for those who seek to slaughter in the name of their god, al lah

    • b.a. freeman says

      Dec 22, 2019 at 9:35 pm

      well, there *were* some pious muslim airmen who apparently escaped the u.s. air base at pensacola, FL and were still at large, although the claim is being made that all have been found and are back on the base. wouldn’t it have been interesting had trained military men been loose in the country during christian (or at least, christian-inspired) holidays? for instance, if some 12.7 mm machine guns and sufficient supplies of ammunition, along with a few dozen hand grenades, were slowly smuggled into the country, then secreted in rented offices in buildings overlooking times square in NYC, 20 or so gun operators could kill at least a few hundred infidels, if not more, and subsequently cause the death by trampling of thousands in the ensuing panic. thanks to mr. obama, the most successful traitor in all american history, the agencies supposedly protecting us *must* be officially clueless, or at least pretend to be to such a degree that they can do nothing. the time is coming when it will not be safe to be in any large gathering of americans.

  7. David says

    Dec 22, 2019 at 11:44 am

    It would be a fantastic thing, if Robert could become an adviser to Donald Trump on the problem of islam.

    God bless all Christians and Jews. Were is He when we need him?

    • b.a. freeman says

      Dec 22, 2019 at 9:41 pm

      He is right there, in your heart if U let Him in. He promises us eternal life, but that life will be with Him in heaven, not here. He does not promise us that nothing bad will happen to us here; instead, He promises that there will be nothing but joy when we go to be with Him. those who kill the body can only do so much; eventually, the body dies, and U get to go home.

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