A Neo-Palestinian named Natschuster was banned from commenting here recently for lying about history. But even though I knew he was lying, I didn’t quite appreciate the full magnitude of his lies. The ahistorical redefinitions of the words “Palestine” and “Palestinian” is clearly one of the points of historical propaganda currently being pushed in line with Shapiro’s absurd revisionist redefinition of Western civilization.
Before 1948 the term Palestinian meant Jewish inhabitants of Palestine. For example the Jerusalem post used to be called the Palestine Post. It wasnt until around 1964 the Arabs started calling themselves Palestinians. So the real neo-Palestinians re the Arabs.
That’s not even remotely true. “Palestinian” simply means an inhabitant of the land of Palestine, which is a term that traces back to the nation of Philistia. Consider that prior to 1850, there were only “a handful” of Jews in Palestine and even as late as 1920 the Jewish population was outnumbered by the Christian population.
There are now in the whole of Palestine hardly 700,000 people, a population much less than that of the province of Gallilee alone in the time of Christ. Of these 235,000 live in the larger towns, 465,000 in the smaller towns and villages. Four-fifths of the whole population are Moslems. A small proportion of these are Bedouin Arabs; the remainder, although they speak Arabic and are termed Arabs, are largely of mixed race. Some 77,000 of the population are Christians, in large majority belonging to the Orthodox Church, and speaking Arabic. The minority are members of the Latin or of the Uniate Greek Catholic Church, or—a small number—are Protestants. The Jewish element of the population numbers 76,000. Almost all have entered Palestine during the last 40 years. Prior to 1850 there were in the country only a handful of Jews.
– Interim Report on the Civil Administration of Palestine, 1920
The Palestine Post, by the way, was founded by a Jew who was born in the Ukraine, grew up in Philadelphia, and immigrated to Palestine in 1924. The idea that this immigrant’s choice of a name for his newspaper is to be considered historically and linguistically definitive is obviously ridiculous. But to fully grasp the extent of the anti-historical deceit here, one must take a look at this Google Ngram for the words “Palestine” and “Jew”. Then look at the Ngram for the word “Palestinian” alone.
As a general rule, one is not well-served by taking the average Neo-Palestinian at his word. You may recall a rather significant historical figure once had something to say about their difficult relationship with the truth.
You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
I intensely dislike being lied to, and most particularly in a manner that insults both my intelligence and my education. Anyone and everyone who does so will be banned from commenting here. But one thing useful about this is that it reveals the rhetorical effectiveness of the term “Neo-Palestinian”, because it clearly provokes a characteristic reaction from the Fake Americans it identifies.
