Read 16th century writer Relandi's book on who lived in Israel during his lifetime. It wasn't Arabs. And he went to see for himself.
Prof. Phyllis Chesler
Prof. Phyllis Chesler is the author of fifteen books, including Women and Madness (Doubleday, 1972), The Death of Feminism: What's Next in the Struggle for Women's Freedom (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005) and most recently, The New Anti-Semitism. She is the co-founder of the Association for Women in Psychology and the National Women's Health Network.
For years, I have risked scorn, defamation, and even physical menace for telling the truth about the “Palestinian” Lie.
Although the “Palestinians” claim a sacred national identity with roots in the Holy Land, the truth is that no such people or group ever existed historically. (Yes, I know that now, given the enormous propaganda and funding for terrorism that there is, indeed, a group of people who call themselves “Palestinians” and who are viewed as such by the immediate world.) My point is that this group has no historical roots. That is my only point. And, given the enormous disinformation on this subject, I believe it is an important point.
For many millennia, the entire Middle East was only pagan, Jewish, Roman, Greek, and Christian. Islam itself only arose in the 7th century CE and Muslims thereafter conquered and colonized the Middle East and central Asia. Islamic genocide, imperialism, colonialism, forced conversions, slavery, anti-black racism, and both gender and religious apartheid characterized the Arab Muslim “takeover” of the region.
Perhaps as early as 1920, perhaps as late as the 1930s—or even the late 1960s, a decision was made about how to fight an infidel Jewish presence in the Middle East. Arabs who were formerly south Syrians, Egyptians, and Jordanians, or who were wandering Bedu, increasingly claimed a historical and religious presence in the Judaeo-Christian Holy Land.
It was a political and propaganda tactic, one which the United Nations, the world media, the professoriate, and the European Union has most ignobly aided and abetted.
Yesterday, former Speaker and Republican Presidential contender Newt Gingrich bravely and sanely stated that the Emperor Has No Clothes, or, as you will, he noted that there was a rather huge elephant in the room.
Gingrich said in a statement: “Remember there was no Palestine as a state,” he said. “We've had an invented Palestinian people, who are in fact Arabs, and historically part of the Arab community. And they had a chance to go many places”.
The infamous Jeremy Ben Ami of J Street has now just issued a statement challenging—nay, strongly criticizing, Newt Gingrich’s point that there has never been a “Palestinian” people. According to Ben Ami:
Newt Gingrich’s comments about the Palestinian people and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are ill-informed, irresponsible and frightening. The former Speaker’s assertion that the Palestinians are an ‘invented’ people shows an appalling lack of understanding of the history of the Middle East in the last century following the break-up of the Ottoman Empire.
Former Speaker Gingrich is right. But in our times, the truth cannot hold its own against Big Lie propaganda.
In addition to all that we already know, and have written many times, Avi Goldreich has now called our attention to a book by the scholar, Hadriani Relandi, which he published at the end of the 17th century. The book, Palestina documents Relandi’s trip to the Holy Land (see Google Books to view the work). It is written in Latin. Relandi spoke Hebrew, Arabic, and ancient Greek, as well as many European languages. According to Goldreich, Relandi surveyed 2500 places where people who appear in the Bible, the Mishnah, and the Talmud once lived.
Essentially, Relandi mapped the Land of Israel and conducted a population survey and census of each community.
Relandi concluded that: “Not one settlement in the Land of Israel has a name that is of Arabic origin. Most of the settlement names originate in the Hebrew, Greek, Latin or Roman languages. In fact, till today, except for Ramlah, not one Arabic settlement has an original Arabic name. Till today, most of the settlements names are of Hebrew or Greek origin, the names distorted to senseless Arabic names. There is no meaning in Arabic to names such as Acco (Acre), Haifa, Jaffa, Nablus, Gaza, or Jenin and towns named Ramallah, El Halil and El-Kuds (Jerusalem) lack historical roots or Arabic philology".
In 1696, the year Relandi toured the land, Ramallah, for instance, was called Bet'allah (From the Hebrew name Beit El) and Hebron was called Hebron (Hevron) as it was in the Bible and the Arabs called Mearat HaMachpelah "El Chalil", their name for the Jewish Patriarch Abraham.”
Ironically, outrageously, UNESCO has just supported the “Palestinian” right to bar Jews from placing the Machpelah on Israel's Heritage Site list, the place where our Jewish ancestors are buried.
Relandi found that the majority of the land was utterly desolate. Where inhabitants existed, they were mainly Jews and Christians and they mainly lived in Jerusalem, Acco, Tzfat, Jaffa, Tiberius and Gaza.
“There were few Muslims, mostly nomad Bedouins. Nablus, known as Shchem, was exceptional, where approximately 120 people, members of the Muslim Natche family and approximately 70 Shomronites, lived. In the Galilee capital, Nazareth, lived approximately 700 Christians and in Jerusalem approximately 5000 people, mostly Jews and some Christians. “
In Goldreich’s view, Relandi’s book “strengthens the connection, relevance, pertinence, kinship of the Land of Israel to the Jews and the absolute lack of belonging to the Arabs, who robbed the Latin name Palestina and took it as their own.”
Goldreich concludes: Spain has a history of Arab rule, not Israel. Based on the Arab Muslim assimilation of Greek and Roman science, they were able to leave a “genuine Arabic cultural heritage: literature, monumental creations, engineering, medicine, etc. Seven hundred years of Arabic reign left in Spain an Arabic heritage that one cannot ignore, hide or camouflage. But here, in Israel there is nothing like that! Nada, as the Spanish say! No names of towns, no culture, no art, no history, and no evidence of Arabic rule; only huge robbery, pillaging and looting; stealing the Jews' holiest place, robbing the Jews of their Promised Land. Lately, under the auspices of all kind of post modern Israelis -- also hijacking and robbing us of our Jewish history. “
I hope that someone sends this information to Newt Gingrich immediately. He will believe it and use it to strengthen his argument. There is absolutely no point in sending it to Jeremy Ben-Ami who has too deep an investment in the Big Lie.
Over the years, I have argued in favor of a “two state solution.” I have written about the pain and sorrow of the Other. And yet: the “two state solution” might already exist. Jordan is the "Palestinian" state. Or, as my friend and colleague, Dr. Mordechai Kedar has argued, a “two state solution” is hardly realistic given tribal and clan rivalries. In his opinion, more stability might be gained with a nine or ten (city) state solution.
Gingrich has announced that he will move the American Embassy to Jerusalem if he is elected President. This confirms that the man knows something about the history of the place and is not willfully misguided by blatant and noxious propaganda.
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