Wednesday
October 25, 2000
Palestine has never existed
Ayatollah Khamenei has just announced that he is planning to dispatch
financial assistance as well as one hundred thousand Iranian Basijis to
'Palestine' in order to help the Palestinians regain their 'lands' including
Jerusalem (Qods).
I feel compelled to ask, whoever said that Jerusalem ever belonged to
the palestinians in the first place? Point of fact, in the Six Days War
Israel captured Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem. However they did not
capture these territories from Yasser Arafat and the Palestinians. They
captured them from King Hussein and the Jordanians. I can't help but wonder
why the Palestinians suddenly discovered their national identity after
Israel won that war, since prior to the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, there was
no serious movement for a Palestinian homeland.
History has clearly documented that Palestine is no more real than never-never
land. The first time the name was ever used was in 70 A.D. when the Romans
committed genocide against the Jews, smashed their Temple and declared
the land of Israel would be no more. From then on, the Romans promised,
it would be known as Palestine. The name was derived from the Philistines,
a Goliathian people conquered by the Jews centuries earlier. It was clearly
a way for the Romans to add insult to injury.
Thus in effect Palestine has never existed-- before or since- as an
autonomous entity. It was ruled alternately by Rome, by Islamic and Christian
crusaders, by the Ottoman ( Ossmani ) empire and, briefly, by the British
after World War I. The British then agreed to restore at least part of
the land to the Jews as their homeland.
There is no language known as Palestinian. There is no distinct Palestinian
culture. There has never been a land known as Palestine governed by Palestinians.
Palestinians are Arabs, indistinguishable from Jordanians, Syrians, Lebanese,
Iraqis, etc. The Arabs control 99.9 percent of the Middle East. Israel
represents one tenth of 1 percent of the landmass. In all fairness the
Arabs must do the right thing and co-exist in peace and respect with the
Jews, especially when the Jews even gave the Palestinians land which Israel
had conquered in war from Jordan, thus in effect granting to the Palestinians
the first opportunity in their history as a people to have a land called
independent Palestine. An opportunity in which Jordan or any other fellow
Arabs have often refused to give to the Palestinians.
What about Islam's holy sites? Again historical and holy books clearly
show that there is none in Jerusalem.
I know what you are going to say. The Al Aqsa mosque and the Dome of
the Rock in Jerusalem represents Islam's third most holy sites. Not True.
In fact the Holy Quran says absolutely nothing about Jerusalem or Quds.
It mentions The Holy Mecca and Medina countless times, it never even once
mentions Jerusalem. In fact there is absolutely no historical evidence
to suggest that Hazrate Mohammad ever visited Jerusalem. So how did Jerusalem
ever become the third holiest site in Islam? Some mullahs cite a passage
in the Holy Quran, the 7th sura, entitled "The Ninth Journey".
It relates that in a dream or a vision Hazrate Mohammad was carried by
night " from the sacred temple to the temple that is most remote,
whose precinct We have blessed, that We might show him Our signs..."
In the seventh century, a mullah, independently on his own, identified
the two temples mentioned in this verse as being Mecca and Jerusalem.
In any case even if that 7th century mullah was somehow right and the
verse in the Holy Quran refers to Jerusalem, the city still never belonged
to the Palestinians, therefore today if anyone is entitled to the city
other than the Israelis, it would clearly be the Jordanians.
Now, I suspect if after reading the translation of this article, if
Ayatollah Khamenei should decide to call King Abdullah in Jordan in order
to advise him of his revised intentions to dispatch funds and Basigis to
the King instead of Mr. Arafat, Most probably the King would ask the Ayatollah
"Please only send the money."
In closing, my lowly advise to the wise and all knowing Ayatollah Khamenei
is that any funds or manpower in which he can muster must first and foremost
be urgently utilized to save some thirty seven million of our countrymen
from the deadly drought which is threatening our beloved nation, nearly
four million of which who are known as 'The Street People', homeless women
and children victims of the sigheh practice. Surely the Arabs can take
care of themselves.
Kambiz Ameli
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