Appalling
The New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs (and Trade) has issued a statement that they are “appalled” at the assertion by Israel’s Finance Minister that today’s Palestinians are fakers.
Michael Kuttner
What, in reality, is really appalling are their unbelievably inaccurate assertions peddled forth in a knee-jerk reaction to undeniable historically accurate facts.
Take note of how quickly and energetically the bureaucrats burst into print and compare it with their silence in the face of decades of Arab incitement to hate and the negation of Jewish history.
Compare the hot-air rhetoric with actual cold facts, and you will get an inkling of how entrenched bias and ignorance combine to produce an immoral foreign policy.
The Finance Minister’s crime was that he articulated truths that, unfortunately, have been deliberately covered up over many years. As a result of this conspiracy of silence, the lies and fables churned out by latter-day “Palestinians” have become the accepted narrative. It is safe to assume that foreign ministries and their relevant ministers parrot the prevailing slogans without actually having the faintest idea of the actual facts.
If, by some miraculous chance, someone stumbles upon the truth, it is rapidly buried because it contradicts false international beliefs.
Was Mr. Smotrich guilty of being undiplomatic? Undoubtedly this is the case.
Did his unvarnished revelations deserve the appellation of “appalling”? Judge the situation for yourself.
As recorded by the Jewish Virtual Library:
Palestine was never an exclusively Arab country, although Arabic gradually became the language of most of the population after the Muslim invasions of the seventh century. No independent Arab or Palestinian state ever existed in Palestine. When the distinguished Arab-American historian, Princeton University Prof. Philip Hitti, testified against partition before the Anglo-American Committee in 1946, he said: “There is no such thing as ‘Palestine’ in history, absolutely not.”5
Prior to partition, Palestinian Arabs did not view themselves as having a separate identity. When the First Congress of Muslim-Christian Associations met in Jerusalem in February 1919 to choose Palestinian representatives for the Paris Peace Conference, the following resolution was adopted:
We consider Palestine as part of Arab Syria, as it has never been separated from it at any time. We are connected with it by national, religious, linguistic, natural, economic and geographical bonds.6
In 1937, a local Arab leader, Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi, told the Peel Commission, which ultimately suggested the partition of Palestine: “There is no such country [as Palestine]! ‘Palestine’ is a term the Zionists invented! There is no Palestine in the Bible. Our country was for centuries part of Syria.”7
The representative of the Arab Higher Committee to the United Nations submitted a statement to the General Assembly in May 1947 that said “Palestine was part of the Province of Syria” and that “politically, the Arabs of Palestine were not independent in the sense of forming a separate political entity.” A few years later, Ahmed Shuqeiri, later the chairman of the PLO, told the Security Council: “It is common knowledge that Palestine is nothing but southern Syria.”8
Following the 1967 war, the PLO, with the help of the Soviet KGB, concocted a new history that was aimed at eradicating any Jewish legitimacy and replacing it with a fictional Arab Palestinian presence.
Thanks to a combination of inept and ineffective Israeli countermeasures plus a deliberate international willingness to swallow each and every PLO lie, the pattern for the future was set in place.
Anyone who dares to challenge and expose the warped mantra of the UN is automatically designated as an “appalling” racist and a threat to peace.
Will any revelation of facts actually change the minds of the NZ Foreign Ministry? Regretfully the answer is no because, by now, they have been conditioned to not upset the inciters.
The NZ Foreign Minister was in China at the time that her department expressed their “appalled” reaction to what is actually the plain truth. I wonder whether anyone has noticed the ironic situation. While the NZ Government convulsed about Israel, its Foreign Minister was hobnobbing with representatives of a totalitarian regime. I realise that trade trumps moral and human rights causes, but for those of us fed up with selective condemnations and consistent voting against Israel at the UN, this particular display of double standards is nauseating.
Has anyone by any remote chance heard expressions of appalled outrage issuing forth from Wellington or other Capitals after the PA and its supporters propagate vile slanders? Claims that Jews are descendants of apes and pigs and that they have no historical connection to a fictitious Temple in Jerusalem are met with nary a peep of appalled outrage by the same countries which now lambast Israel.
The US State Department spokesperson claimed that “the Palestinians have a rich history and culture.” Unfortunately, nobody has yet managed to name when an independent Arab Palestine existed or who its kings or rulers were. Apparently, it is far easier to swallow malicious fantasies and instead gang up on the eternal scapegoat.
As we prepare to celebrate the Festival of Pesach (Passover), we should brace ourselves for the annual litany of woke-induced rhetoric.
Politically incorrect, especially in certain circles, is the fact that we escaped from servitude in a strange pagan land and started on our long journey to the Promised Land. On the way to that long-promised destination, we received our constitution and learnt the painful consequences of failing to live up to its laws.
The core essence of this Festival is, therefore, the journey to the land, which is central to the whole history of the Jewish People.
It is this message that these days becomes obscured and buried by all those who cannot stand how finally, after all this time, Jews have finally returned to their national homeland.
Nothing riles the Jew-haters and post-Zionist self-loathers alike more than the sight of a resurrected Israel. We have always been plagued by dissenting voices, internally and externally, who love nothing better than to wreck and rubbish our sovereignty. Pesach reminds us once a year that not only do we still face those who wish to destroy us physically, but there are also far too many of our own who refuse to see the return to Zion as relevant.
This Chag is, therefore, the perfect opportunity to shatter myths and revisionist agendas and proclaim why we are here in Eretz Israel.
Our detractors will be appalled at whatever we do.
It’s time to declare “dayenu.”
Chag Sameach.
And chag sameach to you too. The hypocrisy is indeed appalling, but equally appalling is the fact that Jewish leaders have remained shtum instead of declaring at all times that the “Palestinians” were invented to counter Jewish rights of self-determination.