Friday, December 9, 2011

Gingrich Says Palestinians Aren't A People - Is Wrong

Newt Gingrich has now 'gone there' and said that Palestinians aren't a people.

His goal is presumably to make them seem less worthy of self-determination in a state of their own.

This is ridiculous, wrong, and dangerous.

Gingrich says this:

“Remember, there was no Palestine as a state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire. We have invented the Palestinian people, who are in fact Arabs and are historically part of the Arab people, and they had the chance to go many places.”
which is ridiculous.

Historical lack of a state is a ridiculous criterion for whether a group is a 'people'. Jews didn't have a state until 1948 and they are most certainly a people.

The Palestinians are indeed part of a larger group of Arabs as well, but they are also a distinct people, forged from their shared experiences first as Ottoman subjects, then in the British Mandate, then under Egyptian and Jordanian occupation, and lastly under Israeli occupation.

As a people, the Palestinians deserve self-determination in a state of their own, alongside and at peace with Israel, where Jews deserve self-determination and protection in a state of their own. Ideally both of these states would be ethnic homelands with full minority rights, like many states in the old world such as Greece.

Gingrich's rhetoric, in addition to being ignorant, is really dangerous for the prospect of a peaceful resolution to the I/P conflict. It is dangerous for Palestinians, and it is dangerous for Jews.

Cross-posted at Daily Kos Team Shalom.

11 comments:

  1. Excellent article fizziks... Is there nothing the Republicans can tell the truth about? Is there nothing they won't lie about?

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  2. It's not that there were not Arabs that lived on the land called Palestine. It seems, however, that the boom in Arab immigration coincided with Zionist and British economic development.

    Assuming these quotes are accurate, what does that say about the issue?

    In 1937, the Arab leader Auni Bey Abdul Hadi told the Peel Commission:

    "There is no such country as Palestine. Palestine is a term the Zionists invented. Palestine is alien to us."

    In 1946, Princeton's Arab professor of Middle East history, Philip Hitti, told the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry:

    "It's common knowledge, there is no such thing as Palestine in history."

    In 1977, PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein told the Dutch newspaper Trouw:

    The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism.

    For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.


    Is there a different interpretation besides the natural meaning of the words?

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  3. Newt... is that you?

    oldschool... What do those comments say? Well they tell us that we can all find some quotes somewhere to back up claims and lacking the entire context of the statements they don't say much.

    That said.... Certainly it is also true with economic growth that Arab immigration to Palestine did increase, however that in no way eliminates the concept of Palestinians as a people. The United Nations recognized this in creating two states. The Jewish people recognized this in their acceptance of Partition.

    The fact of the matter is that there are separate cultural aspects to people in the areas of Palestine and the rest of the Arab world (just as Syrians, Lebanese, Iraqi's, Saudis are distinct in certain ways.

    If you argue that time is an issue well... Arab people (Palestinians lived on that land for a long time). Remember Jews came to the Mandate and what became Israel in droves even after 1949, no one complains of our people going there later. Why complain about the Arab peoples in the area who became Palestinians.

    Bottom line: despite the Pan-Arab ravings of one or two people, the majority of people in the Palestine district considered themselves a people. Who are we to deny them that?

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  4. No, I am not Newt. Why you had to say that is beyond me.

    Actually, I take these statements from the past to be of great significance. Some quotes DO speak for themselves. Why do you presume they are taken out of context?

    There are other quotes as well. Why not provide something to refute them, rather than summarily dismiss the substance of the remarks?

    There is also the pattern of immigration I mentioned. Most Palestinians are not indigenous as claimed, but recent arrivals. Look at the UNRWA's definition: people whose normal place of residence was Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948. Two years could make an immigrant from elsewhere a Palestinian. Clearly Palestinians are a people today, but are they culturally different from most people living in Jordan, which was carved out of Palestine?

    There is a slew of evidence beyond the quotes to show that before 1948 the the first orientation of the Arab residents in terms of self-determination was as Arabs or Syrians before Palestinians.

    Even though they are now a people, what is wrong with being accurate?

    You say: "the majority of people in the Palestine district considered themselves a people." However, King Hussein said repeatedly that "Jordan and Palestine are one and the same." So did Arafat. Can you supply evidence to support your statement? Can you say as of when? Even a selected quote or two will do.

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  5. This is funny . . . it was only a matter of time before the anti-Arab bigots would rear their ugly, Archie Bunker, faces to defend Newt's latest hatemongering. What they are doing is no different than the antisemites who "question" whether Jews are truly a people. Bigoted hatred that mirrors each other.

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  6. I think that if the Palestinians consider themselves a people, then they are such. They certainly have a claim to it given their shared experience for the past ~70 years.

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  7. "I think that if the Palestinians consider themselves a people, then they are such."

    If every bunch of people who felt like it claimed to be a nation and demanded national rights on that basis, the world would be a madhouse. A nation needs to prove it's a nation, by showing itself to be distinct in some way. Right now the Arab settler-colonists wishing to steal the Jews' one and only piece of land in the world have neither cultural nor linguistic nor racial distinction to mark them off from other Arabs across the border. Calling themselves "Palestinians" (which only the Jews can rightfully do, because no other nation than the Jews has ever regarded Palestine as special) is nothing but a ruse to turn the truth of the Jewish David vs. Arab imperialist Goliath on its head.

    Worse than calling themselves a nation without having anything to show for it is that they actually use the name "Palestinian," thus usurping the claim of another nation (the Jewish nation, the only true Palestinian nation). To see how egregious this is, imagine the Turks calling themselves "Greeks," talking of "Hellenic settlers stealing Greek land" and telling the world about the dangers of "Byzantists wishing to conquer Istanbul, which they call Constantinople in order to erase Greek history." That sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? Well, the faux-Palestinian narrative really is ridiculous, not to mention fraudulent and of malicious intent, and Newt was right to point that out.

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  8. I don't know exactly who that last comment was directed at, but observe that it's usually a matter of time before the demonization commences, rather than address the substance. Nicely done Anonymous!

    Comparing this to antisemites and their denial of Jews as a people is part of the silly game. The differences are wide enough to drive a truck through.

    Palestinians are a people, yes. They are entitled to self-determination. There seems, however, a fear to look at how they became one. Why? Because offensive words against the putative state of Palestine are per se racist? Because bigots may claim things about Jews that they would have claimed anyway? Because we may acquire a more complete and nuanced understanding of motivations and goals as we try to derive our opinions and truth?

    To my knowledge, Palestinians never chose, themselves, to politically organize as such until well into the 20th Century. Which is fine under the circumstances. (Even as some seem to have said it was more to fight Israel than secure their self-determination.) What is not fine, at least to me, is to then claim that Palestinians as a people are indigenous. Is it fair to raise inconsistencies and not be a racist?

    When a Palestinian refugee is anyone whose normal place of residence was Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948, that does not inspire confidence of great lore. In addition, the immigration pattern contradicts that meme.

    In retrospect, Palestinians should have objected when Jordan was created. I don't think there was hue and cry. If so, why not? And why was anger only directed at the Jews?

    Treat Palestinians fairly and according to the same rules as everyone else. A call to insanity, eh?

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  9. Way to double down on the bigotry. The questions you raise are so obviously dripping with the same kind of hatred as the "questions" about Jewish connections to Eretz Yisrael. And you are doing it for the same reason that the Jew-haters do it. Take your bigotry and hatred elsewhere.

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  10. Anon, your claims of bigotry are nonsense. You can scream hatred all you like, but that does not make it so. In fact, that seems all you have to offer here. To me, your words drip with more hatred than any others in the stream, as you demonize to your heart's content. Kudos!!

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  11. Just as Holocaust deniers raise "questions" about historical facts, and just like antisemitic opponents of Israel "question" whether Jews are truly a people, you and your ilk try to undermine the legitimacy of the other side by raising "questions" about the Palestinians as a people. Your motive is just as obvious as are the motives of holocaust deniers. You fool no one.

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