Reply #35: The truth is not as simple or one sided as you portray

[Lithos]

And you too carry along several myths in your statements.

1) The failure of the Palestinian state was not due to only the Israeli's or the British. Rather, in addition to severe internal divisions and issues (do you think Arafat really wanted to establish a nation or just continue milking the funds - remember they had to lean on him to assume the role), the Palestinian efforts were almost continually frustrated by the efforts of the Jordanians (who desired the West Bank for apx. 40 years) and other neighbors and actors including the US and the USSR. To limit it down and say there were only three chances and that the causation is external when in fact there were hundreds of opportunities that were missed is not helpful nor accurate.

2) A fair number of the Palestinians who left did not inhabit what was Palestine for centuries, that too is a myth. No, I'm not going to repeat the tripe that Joan Peters and others state claiming a vast wave of illegal immigration in the 1930's which is also a myth, but rather note that there was a well documented immigration into Palestine by Muslims starting in the late 18th century with the majority arriving in the middle of the 19th Century. Yes, there were Palestinians who had lived in Palestine for centuries prior to this just as there were Jews and Greeks and Egyptians, but before the great wave of immigration which started in the late 18th Century, Palestine was a very diverse area featuring almost even distributions of Muslims, Christians and Jews.

So, the idea of some sort of special and unique attachment to the land by either side is really a myth.