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Palestinian Identity (Istvan Simon, USA, 10/06/12 3:27 am)

In contrast to what Carmen Negrín wrote on 4 October, Palestinians have not "maintained their Palestinian identity," but rather forged it since 1948. Pre-1948 most of the Muslim Palestinians were not distinguishable from Arabs, of the various groups from Syria say, and the Christians were mostly from Lebanon, from the Maronite community. The overwhelming majority of the ancestors of those that today call themselves Palestinians, did not live in Palestine for centuries, as they now claim, but rather were new immigrants to the area, just like the Jewish immigrants, attracted by jobs and work provided by the Jews.

As the passages I quoted from historian Gold's book clearly show, 100 years before the creation of the state of Israel, the Muslims had no particular interest in Jerusalem, and Jerusalem (that is East Jerusalem, for the modern city did not yet exist) had a small population, and more than 50% of its inhabitants were Jewish. Muslims were a small minority in Jerusalem, not a majority, and consisted of only some 25% of the population of Jerusalem. Therefore it follows that the migration into the area was not only of Jews, who for centuries regarded Jerusalem as their home--indeed in every new Year celebration, every Jewish family had a toast: "Next year in Jerusalem," and this toast pre-dated Islam itself by hundreds of years.

The cultural aspirations of the Jewish people were forged in suffering and persecution for centuries. Persecution that included Ms. Negrin's Spain.

Pereira is a common name in Brazil. And so is Lima, and Nogueira. Yet all of these family names, (and many many others) had Jewish origins. They were from Jewish families, who were forcibly converted to Catholicism during the Spanish Inquisition.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pereira_(surname) "> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pereira_(surname)

Now let me address some of Ms. Negrin's points:

"They are not all Muslims. A large part, now a minority, were Catholics, mainly on the West Bank."

Indeed, that is the story of people in the Middle East. If you are not a Muslim, you are soon a minority... The Catholics, as I said above, were the Maronite Christians. Many emigrated to Brazil. My father used to work for one of these Lebanese immigrants in Brazil when I was still in college, at the Polytechnic School of the University of São Paulo, which is sort of like the MIT of Brazil.

Carmen says:

"The land was indeed occupied by the Ottomans, the British and long before that by the Romans, etc."

Well, how curious, that the Romans are followed by "etc." in Ms. Negrin's post. For perhaps she would then be gracious enough to remember that many of the original inhabitants of Palestine--or was it called Israel back then?--were expelled by the Romans, including my ancestors, both on my father's side and on my mother's side. In spite of this, many Jews remained, for indeed the Jews are the only people that have inhabited this land continuously for over 3,000 years. Not the Muslims, since Islam did not even exist for another 600 years. So how curious, that in spite of this, Carmen wrote:

"Palestinians are very much aware of the fact that they lost part of their land to Jordan and part to Israel."

Their land? Really? When exactly, in the past 3000 years did the land become theirs?

Ms. Negrin continues:

"The relation between Palestinians and Jordanians is far better than between Israelis and Palestinians, especially those living in the occupied territories, even though the distinction is shown on the Jordanian passport for Palestinians. In other words there is not total equality between Palestinian-Jordanians and Jordanians; however this difference in treatment is not comparable to what exists in Israel, either with the Palestinians in the Palestinian Autonomous Territories or with the Arab Israelis, as they are called."

Now I know a few things about Israel myself, so I have to correct Ms. Negrin. For her last sentence is simply not true.

I could argue, that if so, then all that the more than a million Muslim citizens of Israel would have to do, was to move a few miles East, that is to move to Jordan. But surely no such emigration is occurring, even in small numbers, much less on a massive scale, which makes it evident that Ms. Negrin's statement is simply not true.

Contrast this with the emigration of Jews from Iran to Israel. JE marveled some time ago that there are still 25,000 Jews in Iran. Indeed. But in 1979, when the disgraceful government of the Ayatollah Khomeini came to power, there were more than 80,000. What happened to the rest? Well they moved to Israel. That is what people do, when they are not well treated in a country. If the same proportion of Palestinians had moved to Jordan in the same period (let us account for demographic growth, so let us say for the sake of argument, that in 1979 there were 500,000 Muslim citizens of Israel), then about 330,000 Palestinians would have moved to Jordan from 1979 to today. Since no such migration ever occurred, we must conclude that Ms.Negrin's statement is inaccurate.

Ms. Negrin continues:

"Palestinians in Jordan are not being killed or imprisoned, they have kept their homes, can live, they can even marry the King of Jordan!"

Not true. At least not true if they are female. For if they are female, and let us say 16, and that they fall in love with a 17-year-old descendant of the Hashemite King, they will be murdered by their own brother and father, in so-called "honor killings." They will not be protected from such fate in Jordan, but on the other hand, they will be protected in Israel.

Ms. Negrin continues:

"Regarding Jerusalem, houses are not being 'bought,' as Istvan writes, from Palestinians in Jerusalem. Palestinians are being expelled from their house which their families have owned for generations!"

First, this is another untrue statement. If not, perhaps Ms. Negrin would provide some proof of her allegations. But let us, for the sake of argument, assume that I am mistaken, and Ms. Negrin is correct. I would then ask Ms. Negrin for how many generations did they own said houses, because my statistics of my previous post already proved that there were no more than 4,500 Muslim souls in East Jerusalem in 1865! How many houses can 4,500 people own, considering that they lived with their numerous children, and their parents as well in the same house? Simple arithmetic then disproves Ms. Negrin, for clearly we may safely divide 4,500 by at least 10, giving us a grand total of at most 450 houses.

Ms. Negrin continues:

"I do not see why the proposal once made by Arafat of a joint capital in Jerusalem is not acceptable (East Jerusalem for the Palestinians and the rest for Israel)"

Well, I am on record, that in the interest of peace, I have defended a similar idea. But Ms. Negrin's arguments are making me more militant, not less, so in this post I will reverse myself, and say this: the joint capital proposal is unacceptable for Israel, because East Jerusalem was a Jewish city nearly 100 years before the creation of modern-day Israel. Because Jews were not allowed to pray at the Wailing Wall from 1948 to 1967. And so Jews have been, since 1967, a far more generous administrator of the Muslim Holy sites, than the Muslims were of the Jewish Holy sites from 1948 to 1967.

JE comments:  If arguments from the other side tend to make folks more militant, not less, can there ever be hope for peace in Israel/Palestine?

I would like to explore further the notion of Palestinian identity.  Most modern articulations of nationalism came about in the 19th century.  What was the "consciousness" of the Palestinians, say, at the time of the Franco-British Boundary Agreement of 1920?

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