By Ramy Daoud
As the whole world discusses Palestine, it’s a good time to dispel some of the more popular myths surrounding the subject.
Myths & Facts about Palestine
Myth 1: Israel was created after WW2 to help Jewish people after the Holocaust
Fact: Israel was officially created with the signing of the Balfour Declaration in 1917 which declared “Palestine a national home for the Jewish people.” Prior to this, there was already a Palestinian Jewish community which was about 10 % of the Palestinian population. After 1917, Europeans began coming in to Palestine and creating Jewish only settlements. Palestinians actually welcomed these Jewish folk, granting them Palestinian citizenship and helping build more synagogues and started to create newspapers in Hebrew to make life in Palestine easier for their new neighbors. Palestinians had no idea that this would help lead to their own expulsion and displacement from their homeland in the future.
Myth 2: Palestinians Hate Jewish People
Fact: Palestine has one of the world’s oldest Jewish communities. Palestinians have been Jewish for far longer than Europeans have. Before the creation of Israel, Muslims, Christians, Jews & secular folk lived together in harmony in Palestine for centuries.
Myth 3: Hamas is the reason for the “situation” in Palestine
Fact: Hamas was created in 1987 with the help of Israeli politicians as they wanted an organization to compete with the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization) which was a secular nationalist movement gaining a lot of popularity with Palestinian people. Hamas leaders routinely met with Israeli leaders, including several Prime Ministers. Zionists had been displacing, massacring and ethnically cleansing Palestinians for decades before Hamas was created.
Myth 4: Palestinians & Israelis should get along as they are “cousins” who should learn to co-exist.
Fact: The creators of Zionism (which is a movement to create a Jewish only state started in the late 1800’s) were secular and non religious. The current Israeli settlers have no actual connection to Palestine, as they mainly descend from Poland, Russia, Germany, Hungary, Ukraine, Austria & The United States. Palestinians are the rightful occupiers of the land, as their claim is a factual one, being based upon century upon century of living in the region, not a religious claim which is nonsensical when talking about rightful claim to land & property. As for co-existing, it is inhumane & unethical to ask an oppressed people to coexist with their oppressors. Just as one would not ask Jewish people to coexist with Nazis, Palestinians should not be expected to coexist with Zionists.
Myth 5: Palestinians are “terrorists”
Fact: According to international law, any people suffering from a military occupation have the legal right to armed resistance. Palestine has never had an army, a navy, or an Air Force. Palestine has not a single tank, helicopter or plane. Therefore, if Palestinians want to resist their occupiers, they have no choice but to use homemade rockets (largely inaccurate, ineffective and easy to stop with Israel’s Iron Dome defense) and Molotov cocktails, stones, etc. Palestinian resistance groups are not terrorists, they are exercising their legal right to armed resistance, as any indigenous population would when facing foreign occupiers.
Myth 6: A “two state solution” is the only way for peace
Fact: A two state solution will ensure the ongoing genocide, ethnic cleansing and displacement of Palestinians as Israeli politicians and leaders have made it clear that the erasure of Palestinian people is their ultimate goal. You cannot live side by side with those who want you eliminated and displaced. All people are welcome to live in a liberated Palestine, as was the case there before the creation of Israel, Palestinians were a diverse mix of racial backgrounds, religions, cultures, etc. Algeria, for example, did not accept a two state solution with their French occupiers, they drove France out of Algeria completely and now function as an independent & free country.
Myth 7: Palestinians & Jewish people have been fighting forever, this situation is very complicated
Fact: Palestinian can also mean Jewish, as I explained earlier. Palestinians are Christians, Muslims & Jewish, as well as secular. When Palestine was under rule of the Ottoman Empire, members of all three Abrahamic religions lived in harmony without issue or violence. During the Civil War of Lebanon in the 1980’s, Palestinian resistance fighters protected Synagogues. Respecting people of all faiths has always been a part of Palestinian culture. This has not been going on “forever” but rather only since European Zionists began displacing and massacring indigenous Palestinians. No one cares what religion their oppressor is.
As far as the situation being complicated: the largest Israeli human rights group B’Tselem has officially labeled Israel an apartheid state. Human Rights Watch has also officially labeled Israel as an apartheid state. This is, in fact, a very simple case of settler colonialism, military occupation, land theft and ethnic cleansing which leads to an ongoing genocide.
The story of Palestine-Israel is a simple & clear cut situation of oppressors vs. the oppressed.