Have A Laugh At J Street's Expense

Here's the J Street Statement on Newt Gingrich which begins

J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami released the following statement in response to Republican Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich’s recent remarks about the Palestinians.

“Newt Gingrich’s comments about the Palestinian people and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are ill-informed, irresponsible and frightening.

The former Speaker’s assertion that the Palestinians are an ‘invented’ people shows an appalling lack of understanding of the history of the Middle East in the last century following the break-up of the Ottoman Empire.

So, the glorious history and heritage of the ancient "Palestinian people", whose supposed ancestors predated Jews in the country, who descended from Jebusites, etc., etc., etc., - but who actually refered to themselves as "Southern Syrians" in the early 1920s, demanding that the League of Nations Mandate be dissolved and the country reunited with Syria * - needs to be defended by Jeremy Ben-Ami who can go back no further than "the last century"?

Oh, woe!

And who is ill-informed?

See below.

________

*

Arab opposition to the Mandate idea of a Jewish National Home began in early 1919:


The first Palestinian Arab congress (al-Muʾtamar al-Arabi al-Filastini) met in Jerusalem from 27 January to 9 February 1919. Organized by local Muslim and Christian associations, its thirty participants framed a national charter that demanded independence for Palestine, denounced the Balfour Declaration (and its promise of a Jewish national home), and rejected British rule over Palestine. A majority sought the incorporation of Palestine into an independent Syrian state, and the delegates strongly denounced French claims to a mandate over Syria. The congress expressed its request for independence in the language of U.S. president Woodrow Wilson's principles supporting the right of self-determination of subject peoples.

This, of course, highlights the major problem with the so called "Palestinian nationalism" in that in the early 1920s, it sought not an "independent Palestine" but a "Greater Syria".

The text of two of the relevant decisions:

"1. 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 geographic bonds.

2. The Declaration made by M. Pichon, Minister for Foreig Affairs for France, that France had rights in our country based on the desires and aspirations of the inhabitants has no foundation and we reject all the declarations made in his speech of 29th December 1918, as our wishes and aspirations are only in Arab unity and complete independence.

3. In view of the above we desire that one district Southern Syria or Palestine should not be separated from the Independent Arab Syrian Government and to be free from all foreign influence and protection."

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