israeli-palestinian history denial

This article deals with the actual or alleged denial of historical facts by either Israelis or Palestinians.

Israeli denial of Palestinian history

Israeli textbooks do not deny the existence of a Palestinian Arab population in the land of Israel before the existence of the modern State of Israel; they do not deny that many Arabs have lived in the area for thousands of years. Israeli historians disagree on whether or not the Arabs who lived in this land during previous centuries constitute a nation. Most Israelis, however, do agree that whatever may have been the case in the past, the existence of a Palestinian feeling of national identity over the last 50 years is not in dispute.

Nakba denial

A number of writers have complained that the current government of Israel, led by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, has attempted to remove references to the "Nakba" - the fleeing of most of the Arab population of what would become Israel in the 1948 war, often argued to be a result of Israeli expulsion. They also claim that Israeli textbooks of the 60's systematically ignored this event, and that only after the eighties did awareness of it begin to increase among the Israeli populace.

"The first reaction has been from the Israeli political establishment, with the Sharon government, through its minister of education, beginning the systematic removal of any textbook or school syllabus that refers to the Nakbah, even marginally. Similar instructions have been given to the public broadcasting authorities. The second reaction has been even more disturbing and has encompassed wider sections of the public. Although a very considerable number of Israeli politicians, journalists and academics have ceased to deny what happened in 1948, they have nonetheless also been willing to justify it publicly, not only in retrospect but also as a prescription for the future. The idea of "transfer" has entered Israeli political discourse openly for the first time, gaining legitimacy as the best means of dealing with the Palestinian "problem"." - Ilan Pappe, Al Ahram, May 17, 2002 http://www.itk.ntnu.no/ansatte/Andresen_Trond/kk-f/fra151001/0937.html

The existence of Palestine as a country, and Palestinian as a people

Many politically right-wing Israelis did not accept the existence of an independent Palestinian people. For example, Golda Meir asserted, "There are no Palestinians," (see Palestinian). Today, the existence of a unique Palestinian nationality/identity is recognized by most Israelis although some continue to advocate "transfer", ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the Occupied Palestinian Territories, by claiming that Palestinians are actually Jordanians. (See No such thing as Palestinians) http://www.rosenblit.com/Palestine.htm. Israeli propaganda regularly blames neighboring Arab states for not absorbing Palestinian refugees evicted from their homeland by the Zionist invasion of Palestine (see Jewish refugees).

"The British chose to call the land they mandated Palestine, and the Arabs picked it up as their nation's supposed ancient name, though they couldn't even pronounce it correctly and turned it into Falastin a fictional entity." Golda Meir quoted by Sarah Honig, Jerusalem Post, 25 November 1995.

Historians note that word Filastin is attested in Arabic from the 1st century after the Hijra; see Palestinian. Most of the founding Jewish citizens of what would become the State of Israel believed that there was no indigenous Palestinian people, in the sense of a cohesive nation or a cohesive ethnic group with national characteristics. They recognized the existence of many Arab groups within the land; based on their perception of different political, social and religious traditions, and the lack of a national Palestinian Arab government, they viewed the land as essentially being without any national population. Over time, such ideas became entrenched in the schoolbooks of Israel. However, in recent years there has been a reappraisal by Jewish Israelis of this situation. Many scholars, sometimes referred to as post-Zionist, believe that the Arab groups in Israel were more cohesive, and had more national characteristics, than previous Israelis were willing to admit. Discussion about this issue is at a high level in many Israeli high schools and universities; many Israeli textbooks have been rewritten to provide a more nuanced picture of the indigenous Arab population of the land.

"A land without a people for a people without a land" - widespread early Zionist slogan

"There is no such thing as a Palestinian people... It is not as if we came and threw them out and took their country. They didn't exist." Golda Meir. Statement to The Sunday Times, 15 June, 1969. (See Palestinian.)

Denial of IDF Responsibility for Death of Muhammad al Durrah

An IDF inquiry, released November 27, 2000, came to different conclusions than the initial IDF declaration of probable guilt. IDF Southern Commander Major General Yom Tov Samia stated "A comprehensive investigation conducted in the last weeks casts serious doubt that the boy was hit by Israeli fire," he said. "It is quite plausible that the boy was hit by Palestinian bullets in the course of the exchange of fire that took place in the area." This report was later repeated in a documentary by German ARD Television based on the IDF findings, which concluded that al-Durrah could not have been killed by gunfire from the Israeli outposthttp://www.israelinsider.com/channels/diplomacy/articles/dip_0182.htm. James Fallows, in The Atlantic Monthly (June 2003) cited a number of unanswered questions raised by the Israeli physicist Nahum Shahaf during the second IDF investigation:

"Why is there no footage of the boy after he was shot? Why does he appear to move in his father's lap, and to clasp a hand over his eyes after he is supposedly dead? Why is one Palestinian policeman wearing a Secret Service-style earpiece in one ear? Why is another Palestinian man shown waving his arms and yelling at others, as if 'directing' a dramatic scene? Why does the funeral appear based on the length of shadows to have occurred before the apparent time of the shooting? Why is there no blood on the father's shirt just after they are shot? Why did a voice that seems to be that of the France 2 cameraman yell, in Arabic, 'The boy is dead' before he had been hit? Why do ambulances appear instantly for seemingly everyone else and not for al-Dura?" http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths/mf19.html#f1

These questions have led some to conclude that the whole incident was staged: Yosef Duriel, Shahaf's partner in the IDF investigation, believed that al-Durrah had been killed by Palestinian gunmen collaborating with the French camera crew and the boy's father, with the intent of fabricating an anti-Israel propaganda symbol. He was immediately removed from the investigation after expounding this thesis in an interview with 60 Minutes, but continued to aver that his idea was true and that the IDF refused to publicize it because the results were "explosive". (Anat Cygielman, Haaretz, November 7 2000) Though the IDF did not support Duriel's idea, right-wing supporters of Israel such as WorldNetDaily would continue to propound it http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=18774. The French author Grard Huber made a similar argument—that al-Durrah's death was staged—but went further, claiming that the boy had not even been killed.

Palestinian denial of Jewish history

Claims that Jews never inhabited Biblical sites

Palestinian officials have often stated that sites of particular significance to the Palestinians (eg the Old City of Jerusalem) were never inhabited by Jews, or that sites of particular religious significance to both sides (eg the Temple Mount/Noble Sanctuary) in fact were somewhere else. Such statements can be interpreted as politically motivated attempts to resolve the debate over land in one side's favor by denying the historic existence of the other side. This shares some elements with, but is not to be confused with, Kamal Salibi's wider fringe theory that pre-exilic Jews in fact lived in Arabia.

Quotes

"Jerusalem is not a Jewish city, despite the biblical myth implanted in some minds...There is no tangible evidence of Jewish existence from the so-called 'Temple Mount Era'...The location of the Temple Mount is in question...it might be in Jericho or somewhere else." (Walid M. Awad, Director of Foreign Publications for the PLO's Palestine Ministry of Information, interviewed by the IMRA news agency, Dec.25, 1996.) When Palestinian Authority school books discuss sites of religious interest, Muslim as well as Christian sites are included but not Jewish sites. Even the Jews' connection to the remnant of their holiest site, the Western Wall of the Temple, is denied:

"The Jews claim that this is one of the places belonging to them and call it "The Western Wall", but this is not so." From Reader and Literary Texts for Eighth Grade #578 p. 103.

Some Palestinian textbooks do not mention that Jews have anything to do with the Temple in Jerusalem: "Jerusalem: I have many Islamic holy places and antiquities. This is al-Aqsa Mosque and this is the Dome of the Rock...To the west of the holy mosque you can see a vast stone wall called 'al-Buraq Wall', Wall of the Temple to which the angel Gabriel, peace be upon him, tied the beast of the Prophet Muhammad on the night of his journey heaven... As for my Christian holy places - the most famous of them are 'The Church of al-Qiama' (Church of the Holy Sepulchre), next to the mosque of 'Umar ibn al Khatab, and the church of 'al-Juthmana' opposite al-Isbat Gate, outside the wall. (From Palestinian National Education for Third Grade #529 P. 14.) The Palestine Ministry of Information issued, on Dec. 10, 1997, the following statement. They claimed that a century's worth of archaeological excavations in the Old City of "Jerusalem" have found "Umayyad Islamic palaces, Roman ruins, Armenian ruins and others, but nothing Jewish." The Ministry then claimed that "there is no tangible evidence of any Jewish traces / remains in the old city of Jerusalem and its immediate vicinity."

External Links

The Iron Wall:Zionist Revisionism from Jabotinsky to Shamir

Book Review-The Iron Wall: Zionist Revisionism from Jabotinsky to Shamir (Washington Report on Middle East Affairs)