Coyote,
et al,
In the "whole man" view, the greater sense, this must be true.
Again - the Palestinian people exist. Whatever you choose to call them - they are there and they inhabit an area. All people's have a beginning. You just choose to be arbitrary in defining that beginning.
(COMMENT)
They were there, they are there, they will be there tomorrow.
When we talk about dealing with reality, we have to deal with the people entangled in the dispute; whatever we choose to call them
(ala Coyote).
The dispute is not over the name, but about the land, control, power and influence.
When I draw-up truth tables, I call them "Brand X."
Most Respectfully,
R
Brand X is a fraud.
The land called "Palestine"
In the 2nd century c.e., the last attempt of the Jews to achieve independence from the Roman Empire ended with the well-known event of Masada, that is historically documented and universally recognized as the fact that determined the Jewish Diaspora in a definitive way. The Land where these things happened was until then the province known as Judæa , and there is no mention of any place called "Palestine" before that time. The Roman emperor Hadrian was utterly upset with the Jewish Nation and wanted to erase the name of Israel and Judah from the face of the Earth, so that there would be no memory of the country that belonged to that rebel people. He decided to replace the denomination of that Roman province and resorted to ancient history in order to find a name that might appear appropriate, and found that an extinct people that was unknown in Roman times, called "Philistines", was once dwelling in that area and were enemies of the Israelites. Therefore, according to Latin spelling, he invented the new name: "Palæstina", a name that would be also hateful for the Jews as it reminded them their old foes. He did so with the explicit purpose of effacing any trace of Jewish history. Ancient Romans, as well as modern Palestinians, have fulfilled the Hebrew Scriptures Prophecy that declares: "They lay crafty plans against Your People... they say: ‘come, let us wipe them out as a nation; let the name of Israel be remembered no more'." - Tehilim 83:3-4 (Psalm 83:3-4). They failed, as Israel is still alive. Any honest person would recognize that there is
no mention of the name Palestina in history before the Romans renamed the province of Judea, that such name does not occur in any ancient document, is not written in the Bible, neither in the Hebrew Scriptures nor in the Christian Testament, not even in Assyrian, Persian, Macedonian, Ptolemaic, Seleucian or other Greek sources, and that not any "Palestinian" people has ever been mentioned, not even by the Romans that invented the term. If "Palestinians" allegedly are the historic inhabitants of the Holy Land, why did they not fight for independence from Roman occupation as Jews did? How is it possible that not a single Palestinian leader heading for a revolt against the Roman invaders is mentioned in any historic record? Why there is not any Palestinian rebel group mentioned, as for example the Jewish Zealots? Why every historic document mentions the Jews as the native inhabitants, and the Greeks, Romans and others as foreigners dwelling in Judea, but not any Palestinian people, neither as native nor as foreigner? What is more, there is no reference to any Palestinian people in the qur'an (koran), although muslims claim that their prophet was once in Jerusalem (an event that is not mentioned in the koran either). It appears evident that he did not meet any Palestinian in his whole life, nor his successors did either. Caliph Salahuddin al-Ayyub (Saladin), knew the Jews and kindly invited them to settle in Jerusalem, that he recognized as their Homeland, but he did not know any Palestinian... To claim that Palestinians are the original people of Eretz Yisrael is not only against secular history but also against Islamic history!
The name "Falastin" that Arabs today use for "Palestine" is not an Arabic name, but adopted and adapted from the Latin Palæstina . How can an Arab people have a western name instead of one in their own language? Because the use of the term "Palestinian" for an Arab group is only a modern political creation without any historic or ethnic grounds, and did not indicate any people before 1967.
