There's no such thing as a 'Palestinian people'!

A provocative headline? It's more than that. It's the truth.

Truth does not change. Truth is truth. If something was true 50 years ago, 40 years ago, 30 years ago, it is still true today.

And the truth is that only 30 years ago, there was very little confusion on this issue of Palestine.

You might remember the late Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir making the bold political statement: "There is no such thing as a Palestinian people."

The statement has been a source of ridicule and derision by Arab propagandists ever since. They love to talk about Golda Meir's "racism." They love to suggest she was in historical denial. They love to say her statement is patently false – an intentional lie, a strategic deception.

What they don't like to talk about, however, are the very similar statements made by Yasser Arafat and his inner circle of political leadership years after Meir had told the truth – that there is no distinct Palestinian cultural or national identity.

So, despite the fact that conventional wisdom has now proclaimed that there is such a thing as the Palestinian people, I'm going to raise those uncomfortable quotations made by Arafat and his henchmen when their public-relations guard was down.

Way back on March 31, 1977, the Dutch newspaper Trouw published an interview with Palestine Liberation Organization executive committee member Zahir Muhsein. Here's what he said:

The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism.

For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.

That's pretty clear, isn't it? It's even more specific than Golda Meir's statement. It reaffirms what I have written on this subject. And it is hardly the only such statement of its kind. Arafat himself made a very definitive and unequivocal statement along these lines as late as 1993. It demonstrates conclusively that the Palestinian nationhood argument is the real strategic deception – one geared to set up the destruction of Israel.

In fact, on the same day Arafat signed the Declaration of Principles on the White House lawn in 1993, he explained his actions on Jordan TV. Here's what he said: "Since we cannot defeat Israel in war, we do this in stages. We take any and every territory that we can of Palestine, and establish a sovereignty there, and we use it as a springboard to take more. When the time comes, we can get the Arab nations to join us for the final blow against Israel."

No matter how many people convince themselves that the aspirations for Palestinian statehood are genuine and the key to peace in the Middle East, they are still deceiving themselves.

I've said it before and I will say it again, in the history of the world, Palestine has never existed as a nation. The region known as Palestine was ruled alternately by Rome, by Islamic and Christian crusaders, by the Ottoman Empire and, briefly, by the British after World War I. The British agreed to restore at least part of the land to the Jewish people as their ancestral homeland. It was never ruled by Arabs as a separate nation.

Why now has it become such a critical priority?

The answer is because of a massive deception campaign and relentless terrorism over 40 years.

Golda Meir was right. Her statement is validated by the truth of history and by the candid, but not widely circulated, pronouncements of Arafat and his lieutenants.

Israel and the West must not surrender to terrorism by granting the killers just what they want – a public relations triumph and a strategic victory. It's not too late to say no to terrorism. It's not too late to say no to another Arab terror state. It's not too late to tell the truth about Palestine.

Where are our roots?

By Moshe Dann

Bowing to pressure from Prime Minister Netanyahu, US State Department and the international community, Nir Barkat, Mayor of Jerusalem, has cut back on plans to remove 88 illegal Arab buildings from a rich archeological park in the Kidron Valley adjacent to the City of David, the ancient city of Jerusalem.

According to plans announced Tuesday, Barkat proposed relocating only about 20 families in the disputed area, while giving legal status retroactively to the rest. The entire area would be renovated and restored as a garden and world-class tourist site, with an Arab residential neighborhood, shops and restaurants, including sports and healthcare centers. Arabs claim that these plans threaten their property and their way of life.

The city claims it will improve the quality of life; Arabs are opposed, saying it is "Judaizing" the area.

The city contends that Arabs have built on public land in an archeological area and they are enforcing "the rule of law;" Arabs decry the lack of building permits.

There are an estimated 10,000-20,000 illegal Arab buildings in Jerusalem alone.

Arabs claim they own the land, but are unable to provide any proof. Assisted by a number of Israeli NGOs, like Peace Now, Ir Amim and Bimkom - recipients of funds from the New Israel Fund, European governments and the EU - they have protested archeological work in the area, insisting that the entire area is "Palestinian."

City Attorney, Yossi Havillo, and State Prosecutor Moshe Lador oppose the destruction of Arab homes; they insist that a nearby Jewish-owned home built without permits be demolished.

According to aerial photographs, the area was uninhabited until the early 1990s, when archeological excavations in the City of David began to attract millions of tourists, and artifacts could be found scattered throughout the area. Under Mayor Barkat's predecessors, Ehud Olmert and Uri Lupolianski, Arabs built extensively throughout the area.

Bedrock of Zionist ethos
The King's Garden, or al-Bustan (The Garden in Arabic), a reference to Biblical times when it was a source of spices used in perfumes and incense, is located just below the City of David, where the Kidron and Hinnom Valleys meet. Water flowed to this area from the Gihon Spring, the ancient city's sole water source, mentioned in Kings I, 1:39, where King Solomon was anointed.

The prophet Isaiah called this "…the waters of Shiloah that flow softly" (VIII,6), which were channeled into a pool, then into the King's Garden, and from there down the Kidron Valley into the Judean Desert.

During King Hezekiah's reign (727-698 B.C.E.), a tunnel was cut from the Gihon Spring, through the mountain, beneath the city, to bring water into the city. (II Kings XX, 20).

The King's Garden is mentioned as the escape route for King Zedekiah (Jeremiah XXXIX,4); in Nehemiah (II,14); in Song of Songs (IV, 15); in Ecclesiastes (II,5) and many other Biblical and Talmudic sources.

The modern Arab village of Silwan (an Arabized version of the Hebrew, Shiloah) is located in and around what was the ancient Jewish cemetery of Mt of Olives, on the eastern side of the Kidron Valley, opposite the City of David.

Across from the Gihon Spring is the tomb of Rabbi Ovadiah Ben Avraham, from the Italian city of Bartinoro, known as "The Bartenura," who died in Jerusalem in about 1500. He traveled extensively in the Land of Israel, wrote letters about Jewish communities in Bethlehem, Hebron, and Gaza, wrote a famous commentary on the Mishna, and was the spiritual and communal leader of Jews in Jerusalem, many of whom had escaped the expulsion from Spain in 1492.

A few hundred meters north in the Kidron Valley, at the foot of the Mount of Olives cemetery, are monumental tombs from the Second Temple Period. This is called the Valley of Jehoshaphat (God has judged) where, according to Joel IV,2,12, Jewish and Christian tradition, the nations of the world will be judged.

Arab riots and international condemnations of Israel, led by the US administration, over the designation of Jewish heritage sites, archeological excavations and environmental restoration bring basic question into sharp focus: Where are our roots?

The struggle over who can build in the King's Garden is not only about physical location, and civil rights, but the protection of archeological sites, the meaning of sovereignty and Jewish historical claims to the Land of Israel. That is, after all, the bedrock of Zionist ethos and purpose, and our collective consciousness.

The author, a licensed tour guide and former assistant professor of History, is a writer and journalist