Palestine, the Israel-Palestine conflict, Palestinians. All
day long, it seems, there is a merciless barrage of agitprop to brainwash us
into believing that “Palestine” is an actual Arab country peopled with “Palestinian”
nationals. This, despite the fact that there has never been a sovereign state
known as “Palestine” and certainly not a sovereign Arab state known as “Palestine.”
Many writers, commentators, and just plain regular folks
have long given up trying to call the Arabs of the PA and Gaza anything but “Palestinian.”
It’s just become too hard for people to go against that overwhelming tide of
propaganda. And what should one call them instead? Calling them “Arabs,” just
generically, sounds wrong, and almost racist, being that the term has no
connection to any specific location.
So where do we go from here, when you want to be accurate,
without sounding racist, in describing what is essentially a group of ragtag
migrants who found a good place to settle and dug in their heels? I figured the
best person to ask would be my late friend Robert
Werdine. Robert grew up in Michigan, but his mother’s family was Lebanese. “What
do you call them?” I asked.
“I call them ‘Arabs,’” he said.
And that was good enough for me.
It makes sense: the Arabs of the PA and Hamas, along with
the Arabs who left Israel in 1948, have no single nationality, as they
originate from not one but several Arab countries in the Middle East. That
means that the best we can do is identify them as “Arabs,” just as you might more
broadly identify someone as Asian or Native American. When you don’t know a
person’s country of origin or their tribe, you’ve got to go broad. That’s not
racist. It’s inclusive, and even respectful.
What’s not respectful is calling indigenous Jewish land “Palestine”
and pretending that Arabs, and not Jews, are native to the territory. And
still, every day, people are out there, ramming the lie down our throats,
incessantly. I’m a stubborn cuss, however, and so I continue to fight this
dishonest nomenclature. I fight it on Twitter.
If you are an Arab, you are from ARABIA. Just as Jews come from JUDEA.
— (((Varda Epstein))) (@VardaEpstein) March 10, 2021
But mostly I fight the lie of this fictitious Arab nation
and its people on Quora. The people who pose questions on this topic are
disingenuous. They are uninterested in my answers. They only want to assert the
premise of the question—the lie—as fact.
I see them and what they are doing, but I answer them over
and over again, mostly the same way. They are tireless in trying to get us to
swallow the lie, just by saying “Palestine, Palestine, Palestine,” and “Palestinian,
Palestinian, Palestinian” at us all day long, and they have been all too
successful in training us to repeat after them. To my mind, the best way to
deal with this is to counter them all day long, by telling the truth.
By way of example, here are several “questions” along with my
answers, on the topic of the imaginary country of Palestine and its pretend
nationals:
Varda: Israel would still exist and Palestine would still be nonexistent.
Varda: Of the two, only Israel exists.
Varda: I assume that when you say “Palestinians” you mean the Arabs
who live under the Palestinian Authority or Hamas, as there is no such place
called “Palestine” and therefore there cannot exist such a nationality as
“Palestinian.”
There will never be a two-state solution because neither side desires one. This is something that Trump understood, and for some reason others refuse to understand, even when the writing on the wall is plain to see. Hamas and the PA pretend they want this, in order to accrue maximum benefits from the American and Israeli governments, meantime, they tell the truth in Arabic, to their people. See:
Why doesn't Quora show posts related to the Israel and Palestinian conflict?
Varda: If this were the case, I would not be able to see your question.
Varda: Your question is a contradiction in terms. If there were a
place called “Palestine” there would already be two states. If that is the
case, what is meant by the “two-state solution” and why has it not brought
peace?
There is no reason for the Jewish people to give up any of their land, and especially not to those who threaten to annihilate them.
Varda: Israel has no desire to annex land. Not in Judea and
Samaria, and not anywhere else.
“West Bank” is propaganda term that people substitute for
the geographical area known as Judea and Samaria, part of indigenous Jewish
territory. The term is used to suggest that this land sits on the west bank of
the Jordan River, hence belongs to Jordan. The territory is nowhere near any
body of water except for the body of water known as the Dead Sea.
Judea and Samaria was returned to the Jewish people by dint of a defensive war imposed on the Jewish State. There is no need to annex land that already belongs to you. There is, however, a need to exercise sovereignty, because at present, the territory is under martial law, and it is necessary to bring law and order to the area. Also, Israel has a right to declare its sovereignty over all its land, including Judea and Samaria, which was returned to its rightful owners, the Jewish people, in 1967.
Varda: That’s a very good question. There is no state called
Palestine. If there were such a state, there would be no clamor for a two-state
solution, as such a “solution” would already exist, there being two states:
Israel and “Palestine.”
The other reason this is a good question is that those who speak of “Palestine,” cannot name its borders unless it is to say that the borders of “Palestine” are exactly the borders of the Jewish State.
What are some Palestinian building archetypes?
Varda: There is no such thing, as there is no state of Palestine, hence no such nationality.
Varda: There is no Israel/Palestine issue, because one of these countries does not exist. Biden has already sworn to restore aid to the PA and Hamas which will no doubt go toward their terror-incentivizing pay-to-slay program, so he is not as uninvolved as you suggest in the move to rid the Middle East of its Jewish presence.
Varda: I wouldn’t call it an “Israeli-Palestinian conflict” to begin
with, because there is no sovereign Arab country called “Palestine” and as
such, there can be no such nationality as “Palestinian.”
Also, it’s not a conflict if one side wants to live and the
other side doesn’t want them to live.
All in all, I guess I’d have to say I disagree with Jared
Kushner, because it’s not just about real estate, but about the fact that the
PA and Hamas want this real estate to be “judenfrei” or free of a Jewish
presence.
Aside from the land, and who may and may not live there, the PA and Hamas want to destroy the Jewish people and are working toward that eventuality (God Forbid) by inciting the people under their rule to commit terror attacks. The PA even pays stipends to the families of those who murder Jews to incentivize others to follow suit.
Varda: Presumably, you refer to the Arabs who settled in what is the State of Israel. A resolution to the state of war will occur when the Arabs lay down their arms, as they are the belligerent party.
Varda: No such conflict exists as there is no such thing as a
“Palestinian” being that there is no such place as “Palestine.” There was never
an independent state called by this name, and there was never an independent
sovereign Arab state by this name, either. As such, there can be no nationality
called “Palestinian.”
There is, however, a state called “Israel” that is
indigenous Jewish territory and has been for thousands of years. Presumably,
you would like to take this land from the indigenous Jewish people and give it
to the Arabs and pretend it is called “Palestine.”
Perhaps that is your conflict, in a nutshell: that the Jewish people have a tiny sliver of land and you would like to take it away from them and give it to the Arabs. Perhaps you are not aware that even the Quran refers to the Jews as the Bani Isra’il, the “sons of Israel.”
Do you think the conflict between Israel and Palestine will ever end?
Varda: There’s no such conflict, as only one of these countries
exists.
***
Anti-Israel, hence antisemitic Quorans, will continue to bombard me with these stupid questions, and I’ll keep
coming back with the same honest answers. Will it help? Maybe, maybe not. At least not unless everyone
else who knows the truth makes an effort to stop using the language of “Palestine,”
the country that doesn’t exist and never has.