Uncomfortable Questions to Clarify Israel's History

Journalists generally describe the seemingly endless struggle between Jews and Palestinians as a tragic confrontation between two ancient peoples with similarly powerful claims on the same holy real estate between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. Unfortunately, this common but misleading assumption distorts and falsifies more than 3,000 years of history and makes a peaceful resolution of today’s disputes far more difficult than they need to be.

To gain a better perspective on the current conflict, advocates of the Palestinian cause should answer a few uncomfortable but unavoidable questions. Looking back on the long record of various civilizations that have occupied the currently disputed territory, when did the nation of Palestine first arise? Who were its most notable rulers, warriors, poets, prophets, statesmen or builders? Considering the insistent claims that today’s Palestinians are stateless and oppressed, when did they lose their cherished homeland and nationhood?

All of the questions noted above lead to a basic and undeniable truth about Palestinian nationalism: it is a very recent development with no grounding in ancient times.