This, the 60th anniversary of Israel's Declaration of Independence, is an appropriate time to counter some of the falsehoods about how the current situation came to be — falsehoods that the Palestinians and their many sympathizers and apologists have so successfully promoted. The Terrorism Awareness Project has two excellent resources I commend to you wholeheartedly.

The first is a Flash movie entitled What Really Happened In the Middle East that's a terrific short history lesson (less than ten minutes). It refutes the most oft-repeated lies about Israel and the Palestinians, and it does so in a clear, direct, and riveting manner. Watch it. Then tell your friends to watch it.

The second is a fine essay by Steven Plaut, "How 'Nakba' Proves There's No Palestinian Nation." The enemies of Israel refer to its founding in 1948 as the "nakba" — or "catastrophe" — and tell a fable about the 1948 origin of the term. Plaut described a much earlier use of the term, citing a thoroughly biased source for his account — the 1938 book The Arab Awakening by George Antonius, a rabid anti-Zionist and Arab nationalist. The real origin of "nakba" had nothing to do with Jews, Israel, or Palestinian self-determination:

Before World War I, the entire Levant – including what is now Israel, the "occupied territories," Jordan, Lebanon and Syria – was comprised of Ottoman Turkish colonies. When Allied forces drove the Turks out of the Levant, the two main powers, Britain and France, divided the spoils between them. Britain got Palestine, including what is now Jordan, while France got Lebanon and Syria.

The bulk of the Palestinian Arabs had in fact migrated to Palestine from Syria and Lebanon during the previous two generations, largely to benefit from the improving conditions and job opportunities afforded by Zionist immigration and capital flowing into the area. In 1920, both sets of Syrian Arabs, those in Syria and those in Palestine, rioted violently and murderously.

On page 312 of The Arab Awakening, Antonius writes, "The year 1920 has an evil name in Arab annals: it is referred to as the Year of the Catastrophe (Am al-Nakba). It saw the first armed risings that occurred in protest against the post-War settlement imposed by the Allies on the Arab countries. In that year, serious outbreaks took place in Syria, Palestine, and Iraq." 

So, rather than symbolizing the crushing of Palestinian aspirations for a state, the term "nakba" instead proves they never had such aspirations — until they wanted to justify their desire to wipe out the Jews. Read the whole thing. But I can't resist one more excerpt:

Speaking of Palestinians as Syrians, it is worth noting what one of the early Syrian nationalists had to say. The following quote comes from the great-grandfather of the current Syrian dictator, Bashar Assad:

"Those good Jews brought civilization and peace to the Arab Muslims, and they dispersed gold and prosperity over Palestine without damage to anyone or taking anything by force. Despite this, the Muslims declared holy war against them and did not hesitate to massacre their children and women…. Thus a black fate awaits the Jews and other minorities in case the Mandates are cancelled and Muslim Syria is united with Muslim Palestine."

That statement is from a letter sent to the French prime minister in June 1936 by six Syrian Alawi notables (the Alawis are the ruling class in Syria today) in support of Zionism. Bashar's great-grandfather was one of them.

I wonder what Assad would say today about his pro-Zionist great-grandpa. I wonder what the Middle East would be like if the views of the Alawis in 1936 had become more widely accepted, instead of the pro-Nazi views of men like Haj Amin al Husseini and Sami al Joundi.

Reading news stories about Israel and the Palestinians, or looking at clips from Palestinian TV at MEMRI or LGF, it's easy to develop a very pessimistic attitude and to generalize that the people I've called "paleostinians" are almost universally Jew-hating, murderous, barbaric, and completely irrational.

Well, the belief that Jews are subhuman seems to be pretty universal, and there's certainly far too much murderousness and barbarism. But according to Daniel Pipes, most Israeli Arabs aren't all that irrational — they'd rather be governed by the Jewish "dogs and pigs" than by the Palestinian Authority. That's become especially clear since Ehud Olmert suggested in October that maybe parts of East Jerusalem could be transferred to the PA:

Indeed, Olmert's musings prompted some belligerent responses. As the title of a Globe and Mail news item puts it, "Some Palestinians prefer life in Israel: In East Jerusalem, residents say they would fight a handover to Abbas regime." The article offers the example of Nabil Gheit, who, with two stints in Israeli prisons and posters of "the martyr Saddam Hussein" over the cash register in his store, would be expected to cheer the prospect of parts of eastern Jerusalem coming under PA control.

Not so. As mukhtar of Ras Khamis, near Shuafat, Gheit dreads the PA and says he and others would fight a handover. "If there was a referendum here, no one would vote to join the Palestinian Authority. … There would be another intifada to defend ourselves from the PA."

Two polls released last week, from Keevoon Research, Strategy & Communications and the Arabic-language newspaper As-Sennara, survey representative samples of adult Israeli Arabs on the issue of joining the PA, and they corroborate what Gheit says. Asked, "Would you prefer to be a citizen of Israel or of a new Palestinian state?" 62 percent want to remain Israeli citizens and 14 percent want to join a future Palestinian state. Asked, "Do you support transferring the Triangle [an Arab-dominated area in northern Israel] to the Palestinian Authority?" 78 percent oppose the idea and 18 percent support it.

Read the whole thing.