Dore Gold<\/a>\u00a0points out, UN resolution 242, as well as later agreements such as the 1993 Oslo Accords, preserves this \u201cflexibility for creating new borders.\u201d<\/p>\nThen there\u2019s \u201coccupation,\u201d used to describe the Israeli presence in the West Bank, itself a misleading term that obscures the historical fact that this region is Judea and Samaria, the heartland of the ancient Jewish state. Aside from that, using \u201coccupation\u201d to describe Israel\u2019s control over a disputed territory whose final status will be determined by negotiation evokes misleading analogies with historical events like the Nazi occupation of France during World War II, or the Soviet occupation of the Eastern bloc during the Cold War. But that analogy is false: Germany and Russia invaded and then occupied sovereign nations defined by international borders. Israel ended up in the West Bank territories as the result of a defensive war against aggressors. Israel\u2019s continuing control is a defensive necessity, just as after World War I the traditional launching pad for German aggression against France, the Rhineland, was demilitarized and subject to Allied military control. Indeed, the Allied decision to evacuate their forces from the Rhineland was one of many mistakes that led to World War II. Given that central Israel is only 9 miles wide from the Mediterranean to the West Bank, it is understandable that it is cautious about losing control over the traditional Arab launching pad for invasion.<\/p>\n
\u201cPalestinian homeland\u201d is another particularly loaded and historically false phrase. \u201cPalestine\u201d was the name of a multi-ethnic Roman, Byzantine, Arab, and Ottoman province, not a people. The name itself reflects Rome\u2019s attempt to alter historical reality with language. After the destruction of Israel as a political entity and the scattering of its people in the 2nd century AD, the Romans renamed the territory \u201cPalestine\u201d after the Philistines, a people that once lived in the region but had been absorbed into other groups for centuries. Thus the Romans subjected the Jews to a collective\u00a0damnatio memoriae<\/em>, the practice of erasing all public mention or record of an enemy to the Roman state \u2014 exactly what the Arabs have been trying to do to Israel for the last 60 years by denying its historical ties to the land.<\/p>\nLikewise, just as the Romans named the land after a people that no longer existed, so too calling the current Arab inhabitants \u201cPalestinians\u201d perpetuates a similar historical fraud. What constitutes a people are a shared language, culture, customs, traditions, and history distinct enough to set them apart from others. By these criteria, there is no such thing as \u201cPalestinians.\u201d The average Arab living in Israel or the West Bank is no more significantly distinct from one living in Syria, Jordan, or Egypt than a resident from California is significantly distinct from a resident of Arizona or Nevada. Whatever differences that do exist do not trump the more important similarities, and reflect rather the refusal of surrounding Arab nations to integrate their Arab brothers into their own countries, instead constructing a Palestinian identity based on victimhood, humiliation, and failure.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why before 1967, no one talked about \u201cPalestinians\u201d as a distinct people deserving a homeland, and the Jordanians did not create a Palestinian state when they controlled the West Bank. That notion of a \u201cPalestinian state\u201d arose after the Arab defeats in the 1967 Six Day War and the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Once those debacles made it clear the Arabs could not destroy Israel by force, the tactic shifted to making the issue one of national self-determination as a way of chipping away at Israel\u2019s territorial integrity and international support.<\/p>\n
Finally, the claim that the territory inhabited by Israel is the traditional \u201chomeland\u201d of those whom we call Palestinians is false. The majority of Arabs who have lived or are living in Israel and the West Bank are there as the descendants of conquerors, colonizers, and immigrants. Many of them came after Zionists began in the 19th century to develop a mostly desolate, neglected land and to create economic opportunities. History and archaeology tell us that the territory comprising Israel and the West Bank is the traditional homeland of the Jewish people, not a mythical Palestinian people.<\/p>\n
The misleading and false language used to describe the conflict between Israel and the countries that have tried to destroy it obscures the actual causes of Arab hatred of Israel, which in turn creates bad policies pursuing false solutions. A Palestinian state will not bring peace to the region, for the simple reason that a critical mass of Arabs does not want Israel to exist.<\/p>\n
\n
\u00a92011 Bruce S. Thornton<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Bruce S. Thornton Advancing a Free Society As the history of communism and fascism both illustrate, modern political tyranny has relied on fabricated history to legitimize its claims and actions, and such history in turn relies on the debasement of language.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[97,146,22,196],"tags":[255,12,390,91,177,1028,1027,726,542,108,1016],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-Ne","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7190,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/israels-worst-enemy-lies-and-myths\/","url_meta":{"origin":3052,"position":0},"title":"Israel’s Worst Enemy: Lies and Myths","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 8, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton \/\/\u00a0FrontPage Magazine\u00a0 The\u00a0Washington Post\u00a0reports that some members of Secretary of State John Kerry\u2019s senior staff think it\u2019s time to say \u201cenough\u201d of Kerry\u2019s futile and delusional attempts to broker peace between the Israelis and Arabs and implement the \u201ctwo- state solution.\u201d That\u2019s a revelation one would\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Israel"","block_context":{"text":"Israel","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/israel\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7359,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/neglected-prophet-j-b-kelly\/","url_meta":{"origin":3052,"position":1},"title":"Neglected Prophet: J.B. Kelly","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 12, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton \/\/\u00a0Front Page Magazine\u00a0 The received wisdom and unexamined assumptions underlying the Obama administration\u2019s diplomatic efforts to forge peace between Israel and her enemies are as predictable as the ignominious collapse of this latest attempt. We are now well into the seventh decade of this false knowledge\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Our Contributors"","block_context":{"text":"Our Contributors","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8734,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-middle-east-and-orwellian-historical-arguments\/","url_meta":{"origin":3052,"position":2},"title":"The Middle East and Orwellian Historical Arguments","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 21, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"When lies are the foundation of policies. by Bruce S. Thornton \/\/ FrontPage Magazine Many of our policy debates and conflicts both domestic and foreign call on history to validate their positions. At home, crimes from the past like slavery and legal segregation are used to justify present policies ranging\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Israel"","block_context":{"text":"Israel","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/israel\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Photo via www.breitbart.com","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/john-kerry-deep-thoughts-ap-500x375.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5227,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/doublespeak-unveiled\/","url_meta":{"origin":3052,"position":3},"title":"Doublespeak Unveiled","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 26, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Muslim \"moderates\" are true to spirit of Islam by Bruce S. Thornton Private Papers As stalwart as the Bush administration has been in the current conflict with Islamic jihadists, judging from the op-ed in last Saturday's\u00a0New York Times\u00a0by National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley and Homeland Security Advisor Frances Townsend, it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7623,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-language-of-despotism\/","url_meta":{"origin":3052,"position":4},"title":"The Language of Despotism","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 2, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton \/\/ FrontPage Magazine Long before\u00a01984\u00a0gave us the adjective \u201cOrwellian\u201d to describe the political corruption of language and thought, Thucydides observed how factional struggles for power make words their first victims. Describing the horrors of civil war on the island of Corcyra during the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The World"","block_context":{"text":"The World","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/war-is-peace-450x337.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1445,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/despicable-israel-libels-on-display-in-california-universities\/","url_meta":{"origin":3052,"position":5},"title":"Despicable Israel Libels on Display in California Universities","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 19, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton FrontPage Magazine The moral and intellectual corruption of American universities has recently manifested itself in the California State University system, the largest in the country. A group of faculty and administrators has sent a letter to Chancellor Charles Reed asking that he not approve the reinstatement\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3052"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3052"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3052\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3054,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3052\/revisions\/3054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}