The debate rages on
Real history of Israel, Palestine ‘buried under a tsunami of propaganda’
AS THE Jewish holiday of Pesach (Passover) begins, Jews worldwide celebrate their exodus from Egypt and their return to their ancient homeland, then known as Canaan.
In 70CE (Christian Era), after the Romans defeated the Jews, the indigenous population of Judea and Samaria was dispersed worldwide – and since then, at every Pesach, wherever they live, the Jewish people have prayed to return once again, saying “Next year in Jerusalem!”
Today’s Israel is a phenomenon in the history of mankind: no other nation has ever been evicted from its original homeland, retained its values and traditions through generations, then returned, after 1 950 years, to reclaim its birthright.
The re-establishment of the Jewish state in its original homeland was ratified by the League of Nations at the San Remo Conference in 1920, then reinforced by the UN in 1947.
Palestine, a mandated area, never existed as a sovereign state. Following World War I, Britain and France divided their jointly conquered territory into newly-created countries (Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Palestine).
Britain administered Palestine but eventually divided the area into Palestine and Trans-Jordan (renamed Jordan), respectively the western and eastern sides of the Jordan River. When the British left in 1947 and the Jewish administration took control, the name of the entire western side of the Jordan was changed to Israel.
Before 1948, Palestine was populated by both Jews and Arabs, the latter coming primarily from neighbouring countries to work – they were not indigenous inhabitants.
In 1948, when Israel was attacked by its neighbours, about 700000 Arabs fled Israel to the attacking countries while an almost equal number of Jews fled to Israel from those same countries after being evicted by them.
In that war the land today known as the West Bank or “Palestine” was occupied and annexed by Jordan, including half of Jerusalem – until 1967 when, after another offensive war by its Arab neighbours, the territory was recaptured. Israel has never “occupied” what is today incorrectly referred to as “the West Bank” or “Palestine”.
The Arab population remaining in the west bank area after Jordan was defeated then invented the narrative of today’s so-called “Palestinian refugees” having been evicted from their homes in 1948.
Real history has been buried under a tsunami of intentionally misleading propaganda.
The reality is that Israel today encapsulates the return of the Jewish people to their ancient homeland where, thousands of years before Christianity and Islam, they lived between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, including that area of land on the west bank historically known as Judea and Samaria but currently misnamed “Palestine”.