
Originally Posted by
Ford
I'm fairly certain Loren is one of those people who argues (or at least leans toward the argument) that "Palestine" never really existed and therefore the Palestinians are simply Arabs who happen to spend some time living in land that was clearly granted to Israel by God.
Except for the god part, all this is accurate.
"Palestine", at the time of Israel's creation was a purely geographical term, not a national one. Palestinian Arabs had no identity apart from other Arabs
except for being from Palestine and not from, say, the Sahara or Yemen or Egypt or anywhere else that Arabs lived, and having their own cultural characteristics and history and dialects. Palestinian national identity
of the type recognized and respected by European nations and their former colonies[was] only invented when it became
a useful fiction in the Arab fight against Israel necessary for the tribes to band together to fight European colonization and demand recognition of their right to live in their own ancestral homeland.