Palestinian PM says the original sin is Jews in Petah Tikva, 1882

People like to say there will be no peace until "occupation" ends. This is of course nonsense, since there wasn't peace before "occupation."

I noted yesterday a 1929 conference where Arab leaders said there would be no peace until the Balfour Declaration was rescinded.

Yet even that wouldn't go back enough in history to make the Palestinian Arabs happy.

In his opening speech to the "Refuting Israel's Narrative" conference I've been reporting on this week, Palestinian prime minister Mohamed Shtayyeh said something notable.

Shtayyeh said, "The colonization of Palestine did not begin with the Zionist movement, but 15 years before its establishment, as the first colony to be established was Petah Tikva, in 1882."

The land for Petah Tikva was purchased by religious Jews from two Jaffa landowners in 1878. The Ottomans allowed the purchase because the land was considered to be low quality. After initial setbacks and a malaria outbreak, the Jews drained the swamps and managed to build up the land, first as a farm and then as a city.

Even in its earliest days, Petah Tikva was attacked by Arabs. It didn't matter that the land was purchased legally or that it was uninhabitable before the Jews came. 

The supposedly moderate Palestinian prime minister reminds us that the Palestinian problem isn't with "occupation" or "colonialism" or "ethnic cleansing" or the other lies they tell the West. Even blaming the Balfour Declaration is false.

Their problem is with Jews.

---

---