Is Jordan the Palestinian state?
First of all, there is no Palestinian state (at least, not yet), and there has never been a “Palestinian” state in the history of mankind! The “Palestinians” are Arabs—period. They don’t speak “Palestinian”—because there is no such language. They speak Arabic. They are simply the Arabs who live in the region taken from the defeated Ottoman Empire after World War I, which used to be part of the Ottoman province of Syria, and was called by the Allies, after they took possession of it from the Ottomans, the “Palestinian Mandate.” (Meaning the area mandated by treaty to be administered by Great Britain. The part of Syria that was to be administered by France was called, simply, Syria.) The original name of Jordan was “Trans-Jordanian Palestine”—meaning simply the part of “Palestine” (the Palestinian Mandate) on the other side (east side) of the Jordan River. There never was a “Jordanian” people in history, either—Jordan is simply the name of the river that runs through the area. The “Jordanians” are Arabs, too! But Arabs are very tribal. The Palestinians are Arabs who belonged to various tribes, or have no tribes. The King of Jordan is a Hashemite Arab—meaning he belongs to the Hashemite tribe of Arabs. Now, the Hashemite Arabs in what we call “Jordan” are a minority. The majority of the population are Arabs who call themselves “Palestinians.” But naturally, if you’re the King of a country, and the tribe you belong to is a minority of the population, the LAST thing you want is for the majority to start wondering “Why are we being ruled over by a monarch who represents a minority?” They might actually start wanting equal representation—or worse, top billing! So the first King of Jordan simply changed the name from “Trans-Jordanian Palestine” to “Jordan” and declared it “the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.” Easy-peasy. It’s all about the marketing! And Westerners—especially liberal Americans—who know little or nothing about history or geography, were easily duped into going along with this scam.
Historically, has a Palestinian country ever existed before?
The vacuum that was left by the Jews was filled by many who have come and gone over the centuries. Some of those people remain to this day. And some may have been appointed governors over the region at times. So I think it is only fair to admit that on some level Palestine has over the centuries at times resembled a country. But never a distinct nationality, and never an independent State.The same could be said of regions of nearly every country in the world. France, Germany, Britain, Spain, Italy, Persia, the U.S., Canada. Some regions of these countries were even independent at some point and perhaps even viewed for a time as unique nationalities despite being today included within a larger national entity. If every region of every country that has ever had a semblance of local government was considered a distinct Nation, entitled to their own self determination, there would be a hundred times as many nations in the world.The Jews, however, were so clearly a nation that their nationality remained unique despite being scattered throughout the world for over 1800 years. They retained their own unique language and religion and customs and history and art and literature and every aspect of being a unique nation.And that’s why to the world community a century ago the idea of reuniting the Jewish Nation with the Jewish Homeland came naturally. There was never a question whether it made sense to return the Jews to Palestine, only how those residing in Palestine would be affected by their return. The hope was that they could co-exist. The hope still is for them to choose to co-exist.
Has a Palestinian state ever existed? Should Israel give up land for Palestine? What’s your opinion, and where’s your proof?
History has never recorded an independent political entity called “Palestine”.The name came into general use when the Roman Emperor Hadrian renamed the Jewish vassal state called the Kingdom of Judea, calling it “Syria Palaestina” after suppressing the Bar Kochba revolt in 135 CE and turning it into a province of the Roman Empire. It was part of his punishment, naming the kingdom after one of its historical enemies.From that time until 1920, “Palestine” was used as a geographic descriptor for an area that could have been as small as the old Kingdom of Judea or as large as an area covering what we now consider to be: part of the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, Israel, the West Bank, Jordan, most of the southern half of Lebanon and Syria and small parts of Iraq and Saudi Arabia, depending on who you were speaking with. The area was controlled by various empires and foreign rule, from the Roman Empire to the Ottoman Empire, but was never anything more than a province of any, and often cut up into much smaller districts, each with its local governor, responsible to either the provincial head or the head of whatever empire was presently in control.Borders for a “Palestine” entity were only defined at the San Remo Conference of 1920, when the League of Nations awarded the Mandate for Palestine to Great Britain:PALESTINE UNDER THE BRITISH MANDATENote that the area of Palestine included the present Kingdom of Jordan (77% of the Mandate land cut off from the Mandate for Abdullah bin al-Hussein, the second son of Hussein bin Ali (Sharif and Emir of Mecca) after a failed attempt to seize the Saudi throne (a bribe) in 1922. In violation of the Mandate for Palestine, this land was closed to settlement by Jews, and laws about selling land to a Jew were enacted, calling for the death penalty for both seller and buyer.A year later, Great Britain ceded another 1% to the Mandate for Syria that the League of Nations awarded to France under the questionably legal Sykes-Picot Agreement, drawn up and signed in 1916, when neither country controlled the land in question—it was part of the Ottoman Empire.So the land area under discussion is actually 22% of the “historical Palestine” that Mahmoud Abbas likes to mention… an entity that existed only as far back as 1920, so the claim of being “historical Palestine” is a bit far-fetched.The short answer is: No, there has never been an independent, self-governing state called Palestine.
To all who claim Palestine never existed..?
Coins from 1927 and before that have been found. I myself have Palestinian coin from 1927, it has English, Hebrew, and Arabic words and numbers on it. This has SO much proof that Palestine has existed. Just like Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Pakistan, and etc. have earned independence. Palestine was ready for self determination as well. So to all who Claim Palestine never existed think again.
Why do people still think the "Palestinian" people exist?
Palestinians claim to be Canaanites, who disappeared from the face of the earth three thousand years ago, Sherif Hussein, guardian of the Islamic Holy Places in Arabia, said the Palestinians' ancestors had only been in the area for 1,000 years. Even the Palestinians have acknowledged their association with the region came long after the Jews. In testimony before the Anglo-American Committee in 1946, for example, they claimed a connection to Palestine of more than 1,000 years, dating back no further than the conquest of Muhammad in the 7th century. Over the last 2,000 years, there have been massive invasions that killed off most of the local people, migrations, the plague, etc. The entire local population was replaced many times over. During the British mandate alone, more than 100,000 Arabs emigrated from neighboring countries and are today considered Palestinians for some reason. On the contrary, no reputable historian questions the more than 3,000-year-old Jewish connection to the La
Are Palestinians decendent of Jews who converted to christianity?
Palestinians are descended from all the peoples that settled or invaded Palestine both before and after the 7th century. They make no claim of racial purity. Results of a DNA study by Israeli geneticist Ariella Oppenheim appears to match historical accounts that Arab Israelis and Palestinians, together as the one same population, represent modern descendants of a core population that lived in the area since prehistoric times. It should be noted that Judaism existed as religion and there never was any "Jewish nation" or "Jewish people". Check this out: An invention called 'the Jewish people' http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/9592... No evidence exist to support the Biblical names (Judea and Israel) to the land. Greek historian, Herodotus referred to it as Palestine 2500 years ago (it was larger area back then) and he made a list of all people who lived there. He mentioned nothing about Israel or Judea or Biblical Jews.