SOURCERUNNER: Reverting Revisionism and Rediscovering Truth

Reverting Revisionism and Rediscovering Truth

Siri Saadia

Monday, September 3, 2001

There is a political necessity for revisionist history, which has little to do with accuracy and everything to do with propaganda. One side or another wishes to hold sway with international opinions and uses distortion and, sometimes, outright lies to accomplish it. These statements get published or broadcasted, and in repetition like many of the email hoaxes we find in our mailboxes, they become part of the fabric of the world, like alligators and New York City sewers or "Southern hospitality."

Such is the case with Israel and Palestine.

Several thousand years ago, there was the Kingdom of Israel, which, at about 1000 B.C., split into two nations, both Jewish and ruled by Jewish Kings, called Judea and Israel. About 63 B.C., the Romans conquered the two countries and renamed the land Palestina or Palestine, after the Philistines who had inhabited the area since ancient times. The Muslim Arabs, originally from the Arabian Peninsula (today's countries of Saudi Arabia and Yemen), didn't arrive until they invaded the area in the 7th century A.D. Following this time, a great number of different peoples invaded and controlled the area until the Ottomans in the 16th century, who then ruled until just after World War I in the 20th century.

So, the Palestinians of today have no genetic heritage, unlike the Jews' history, to the ancient countries of Israel and Judea. Therefore, the argument that they are entitled to "right of return" and rights to the land over the Jews is incorrect because, in spite of their claims, they weren't there first.

Just as Iran used to be the ancient civilization of Persia, and the Iranians who live there now are descendants of the same Muslim Arabs who invaded the region in the 7th century, the Palestinians are latecomers to the ancient home of the Jews — Judea or Israel.

Egypt was the home of the ancient Egyptian civilization which dates back over 5,000 years and later developed into the Copts and was invaded by Muslim Arabs in the 7th century. Today's Coptic Christians are the descendants of those ancient Egyptians, who converted to Christianity in the 1st century A.D., before the Muslim Arabs' invasion. They represent about 12% of Egypt's population and have been discriminated against and tortured as recently as two years ago (see Journal of Church & State, Winter 1999 edition).

So how does Yasser Arafat, first a terrorist, now become a "president" and a "statesman?" He employs an American public relations firm to change public opinion by the careful wording of news releases and staged "photo ops." How do the Palestinians become "martyrs" and "refugees?" Disinformation. Misinformation. And the steady drip, drip, drip of revision fed to the world.

Does anyone remember the time of the Partition (1948) when Israel was granted sovereignty? Who remembers that the Kuwaitis didn't want the Palestinians, their own brethren? Or that Jordan killed thousands of Palestinians? Find any pre-1947 map of the region, then overlay a modern map. You'll see that Jordan annexed most of former Palestinian land. And today, Jordan houses about one million Palestinians in refugee camps and refuses to grant them citizenship status. And neither the Egyptians nor the Lebanese want the Palestinians, their own people — Arabs.

The next time, when watching the news, you're left with the impression that all Arab countries get along, remember this:
The Kuwaitis are fighting the Iraqis (remember Desert Storm?);
The Moroccans are fighting the Algerians and the Libyans;
The Egyptians are fighting the Sudanese;
In Sudan, the northern Islamic tribes are committing genocide against the southern non-Islamic (including Christian) Sudanese people. To date, over one million have been tortured and killed and millions more remain homeless and starving from the famines. And now that oil has been discovered under the lands where these non-Islamic Sudanese have lived for centuries, the stakes are higher, the weapons used against unarmed civilians by the Khartoum government are more sophisticated — helicopter gunships and cavalry mercenaries.

With this concerted effort to destroy anything which is not Muslim or Arab, can any rational person deny the efforts of the PLO and Arafat are for the complete annihilation and destruction of Israel and its Jewish population? Jihad (holy war) has become the dominant factor in fundamental Islam today. What is the value of a religion, which teaches that death and destruction will lead to eternal life in falak al aflak?
Is this the reward for rewriting history?

2001 SOURCERUNNER. All Rights Reserved. SOURCERUNNER


-- Anonymous, October 11, 2001

Answers

Cherri,

Well done. Most people don't realize that the Arab peoples in the region claim to support the Palestinians, but at the same time, they won't do a whole lot to help them.

As a result, the Palestinians ARE among the most miserable people on Earth -- but it is by no means entirely (or even predominantly) Israel's fault.

There's a nugget in there that I'd like to pluck out, even though it doesn't directly relate to this guy's point. Note that thing about Arafat using the media to influence public opinion.

It was working, too, slowly but surely.

Now: apply that to Bin Ladin, who has enough money to buy repeated full page ads in most major newspapers, PLUS do saturation advertising on radio and television, PLUS still have money left over to help the people that he claims to be supporting.

He hasn't done that. Instead, at the end of the day, he comes back to what he has really wanted to do in his heart all along: kill Evil Westerners, and Americans in particular. The pious noises about helping Iraq and his Poor Barefoot Palestinian Brethren is just so many crocodile tears.

THIS is probably the biggest mistake made by the "Blame America" crowd. What they CANNOT realize (because they are pathologically incapable of doing so) is that EVEN if the United States were to completely cave on every one of their contentions, people like Bin Ladin would STILL find some reason to hate us and to kill Americans.

Some of the early reports out of Afghanistan show that the Taliban and their supporters are destroying American aid to the refugees. Now, if they cared about hungry people, why would they do that? It's simple: they CANNOT allow the people of Afghanistan to start thinking of America as a friend.

They are willing to allow their own people to starve to prevent that.

These things always have layers upon layers.

Good article.

-- Anonymous, October 11, 2001