All Palestine occupied by Palestinians

President Rivlin while hosting leader of Judean and Samarian communities claims Israel’s rights to its land, including Judea and Samaria, as a basic fact in spite of claims of “occupation” coming from Ramallah, Gaza City and many other places. What an egotistical, impetuous, bullheaded philistine this Israeli President is! Without any restraint he carried on, "We must not give anyone the sense that we are in any doubt about our right to our land.” Every time I hear or read the phrase “the occupied territories” I wonder if the person making the statement knows by whom they are occupied. The word “Palestine” is derived from is the Latin “Palestina” which was the Roman name for occupied Judea after the destruction of the Second Temple. This Latin word is based on Philistine but there were no Philistines at the time, so while those words are kissing cousins they mean different things.  Parts of Judea and Samaria frequently referred to by its Jordanian occupational name “The West Bank” are occupied by somebody other than Jews but the word “Palestinian” came to refer to Jews living in Eretz Israel also known as “Palestine.” Eretz Israel, Palestine, was run like a colony by the Syrians within the Ottoman Empire. The more modern usage of the word comes from the Mandate of Palestine. Arabs of Palestine, considering themselves Syrians rejected the term until the early seventies but it’s important to understand this rejection when considering the actions and strategies of Haj Amin al-Husayni, Grand Anti-Semite, scion of a lineage of anti-Semites and oppressors, free Nazi war criminal, Mufti of Jerusalem and leader of Arab Higher [National] committee and his decision to reject his Palestinianess as being too Jewey led him to create a Nakba for himself and those who willing followed him into disaster.

When Britain ruled Mandate Palestine, it did not just rule the Jews aka “the Palestinians” although Palestine had been entrusted by Jews and world government to Britain to help form a viable Jewish State. They also ruled the Arabs as though they were Palestinians and sometimes Britain did so in preference of Arabs and to the detriment of the Jews living there. We could call the Arabs living in Eretz Israel during the mandate period “Palestinians” just as we must call the Jews living there Palestinians even though most Arabs of they would treated the designation as an anathema.

So who rules the Eretz Mandate Palestine today? Mandate Palestinians do, every inch is ruled by a Palestinian. These Palestinians rule from their seats of government in Amman, Ramallah, Gaza City and Jerusalem. King Abdullah might not be a mandate Palestinian as he is of foreign, Hashemite stock but his wife and children are as Palestinian as any Arab who bought into Yasser Arafat’s Egyptian sponsored sense of national identity: close enough where crowns are concerned.

It’s almost a shame the Palestinians changed the name of their country from Palestine to Israel because I would love to see the Mandate Palestinian Arabs that did not become Israelis still calling themselves Syrians and referring to Jerusalem as occupied Syria.  Imagine the people who talk out of their rears -- BDS (Bowel Discourse Syndrome) having to mindlessly proclaim Arabs living autonomously in Judea and Samaria (and Gaza) as occupied Syrians. A barrel bomb of laughs! How long could Syrians then countenance living in Syrian, Lebanese and Jordanian refugee camps when the only thing separating these peoples historically is nothing? The world would have to consider the Palestinians are all over the lands of Mandate Palestine and their status as a local problem.

 I’m not saying the Mandate Palestinians living in parts of Judea and Samaria can’t make a viable nation for themselves within those lands. Considering themselves adrift, finding Jewish Nationalism and Jewish rights to be a trigger for a xenophobic reaction like the Mufti and Israelis frequently only seeing Palestinians a hostile demographic bomb.  Everyone needs to move on.

Those Palestinians who formed the Emirate of Trans-Jordan were able to carve out a state and Palestinian Jews were able to carve state out of what was left of Mandate Palestine so why can’t Mandate Palestinians and their government in Ramallah do the same? The Palestinians as they are known today have been rejected by Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Egypt, they reject Jews and Israel and now Israelis reject them and that is enough to go it alone, provided the Palestinians choose to make peace with their sovereign.  President Rivlin understands a basic truth, Israel is the legitimate sovereign of its lands and therefore the way to peace starts with that understanding. The loudest supporters of “Palestine” fail at understanding the conflict itself much less its resolution. Without the assertion of Jewish rights as the point of negotiation the Palestinians and who ever aids them are only building sandcastles for themselves.  Because supporters of Palestine ignore the historical, political and legal reality of the land and of the State of Israel, they box themselves of nonstarter rhetoric. Demands to stop building homes and demands to let Palestinians build a capital in the Israeli capital are typical. An autonomous Arab state within parts of Judea and Samaria would just be another in the group of Mandate Palestinians with states, it could live in peace and it could flourish with Ramallah as its capital.  With such a state negotiated, perhaps Abbas can finally give up his occupation and return the PA to democratic government.