Does Palestine have a right to exist?

Palestine has never existed . . . as an autonomous entity. There is no language known as Palestinian. There is no distinct Palestinian culture. There has never been a land known as Palestine governed by Palestinians. Palestinians are Arabs, indistinguishable from Jordanians (another recent invention), Syrians, Lebanese, Iraqis, etc.

The word itself derives from "Peleshet", a name that appears frequently in the Bible and has come into English as "Philistine". Philistines was migrant people from the Aegean Sea and the Greek Islands who settled on the southern coast of the land of Canaan. There they established five independent city-states (including Gaza) on a narrow strip of land known as Philistia. The Greeks and Romans called it "Palastina".

The Philistines were not Arabs, they were not Semites. They had no connection, ethnic, linguistic or historical with Arabia or Arabs. The name "Falastin" that Arabs today use for "Palestine" is not an Arabic name. It is the Arab pronunciation of the Greco-Roman "Palastina" derived from the Peleshet.

In the First Century CE, the Romans crushed the independent kingdom of Judea. After the failed rebellion of Bar Kokhba in the Second Century CE, the Roman Emperor Hadrian determined to wipe out the identity of Israel-Judah-Judea. Therefore, he took the name Palastina and imposed it on all the Land of Israel. At the same time, he changed the name of Jerusalem to Aelia Capitolina.

After the Roman conquest of Judea, "Palastina" became a province of the pagan Roman Empire and then of the Christian Byzantine Empire, and very briefly of the Zoroastrian Persian Empire. In 638 CE, an Arab-Muslim Caliph took Palastina away from the Byzantine Empire and made it part of an Arab-Muslim Empire. The Arabs, who had no name of their own for this region, adopted the Greco-Roman name Palastina, that they pronounced "Falastin".

During the First World War, the British took Palestine from the Ottoman Turks. At the end of the war, the Ottoman Empire collapsed and among its subject provinces "Palestine" was assigned to the British, to govern temporarily as a mandate from the League of Nations.

The Balfour Declaration of 1917, confirmed by the League of Nations Mandate, commited the British Government to the principle that "His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a Jewish National Home, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object. . . . " It was specified both that this area be open to "close Jewish settlement" and that the rights of all inhabitants already in the country be preserved and protected.

During the period of the Mandate, it was the Jewish population that was known as "Palestinians" including those who served in the British Army in World War II.

The current myth is that these Arabs were long established in Palestine, until the Jews came and "displaced" them. The fact is, that recent Arab immigration into Palestine "displaced" the Jews. That the massive increase in Arab population was very recent is attested by the ruling of the United Nations: That any Arab who had lived in Palestine for two years and then left in 1948 qualifies as a "Palestinian refugees".

God Bless!

Did you knmow that before ISrael was plopped down on Palestinain land without anyone's permission, Jews and Muslims in Palestine got along very well. There were no rockets. there were no assignations. Jews would come to live their sunset years in the Biblical lands and were treated well by the Palestinians.

Did you know that when the Balfor document (British Colnel Balfor wrote after WWI that the Jews sholud have a land of their own. It was the basis for creating Israel) was enacted, the leader of the Zionists was given a protectorate in Africa and agreed to it. But the right wing Zionists threw him out and demanded Palestine. The Jews from Europe and around the world were "given" Palestininan lands and from there American support in arms and money and training which they used to expand their borders. All this was done with no input to or from Palistinians or anybody in the region. Is it any wonder that the people were against it and see Israel as an illegal settlement? If Russia had won the cold war and put there people in most of America, wouldn't you protest it? I would.

But that was yesterday. Today all that land and resources should be divided in half. Half for Palestine and Half for Israel. Palistine should have its own army, airports, etc etc as should Israel. Borders should be enforced by a multi-naitonal force probably American and English as we are the ones who "gave" Israel to the Jews, not God, and we should enforce peace suing any and all force necessary to prevent incursions from either side.

It would take several years to do but the ensuing peace would be well worth the effort.

Palestine has the same right to exist as Israel.

The 1967 borders are spot on. Most of the international community agrees with that.

YES as much as Israel does .

There should not be borders -not in Gods world any way.

There are however natural cultural borders but other wise there should be no borders . Borders are the source of strife.

I hate them with a passion.

P. S. Like the Wall that divided Germany for example.

There is a map on the internet somewhere that shows the boarders and have they have been slowly whittled down over the years through American-backed warfare and genocide towards the innocent civilians of Palestine. What Israel is doing is genocide, and it's what they're after. Tell your government to stop supporting the real terrorists any way you can. Protest, write, call. It's the least we can do so that one day we won't be looked back upon by future generations as the Pope was during the Holocaust. Idling sitting by and saying and doing nothing while people die horrendously for a disgusting ideal.

They were offered a state in 1948 but refused it because they did not agree with the formation of Israel, and thought that destroying the new state of Israel would be an easy matter for the Arab world.

They behaved like children then, and they are still behaving like children now. Grow up give gracefully and with dignity and maybe then they will be mature enough to manage a state of Palestine.

The short answer is Yes.

And supernova:

com·prom·ise / Ñ 'kQmprJmaIz; NAmE Ñ 'kA;m-/ noun, verbŒ noun 1[C] an agreement made between two people or groups in which each side gives up some of the things they want so that both sides are happy at the end.

What compromise do you have in mind?

Palestine exists from thousands of years but Israel never existed before. It was Britain and America who carved Israel out of Palestinian land forcibly. I suppose Israel must be dissolved as quickly as possible. These jews have always been the biggest trouble makers in the world throughout the history. First they made trouble with Moses. Then with muslims in general and with Palestinians in particular. They made trouble with Germany and Hitler was forced to holocaust them. They made trouble in America on 9/11 and killed thousands in the World Trade Centre just to excite Americans send troops to Iraq and Afghanistan. They wanted to destroy Iranian atomic plants by sending in their bombers but Americans declined to cooperate. Now it's Gaza where they are killing innocent unarmed people most of them being women and children.

Yes whatever the name might be it doesn't matter, the Palestinians (or whatever you want to call them)--Christians, Muslims, and Jews who were there before the state of Israel was established--have the right to their homes and their land. The Jewish immigrants who came later from Europe and other parts of the world and took claim to other people's homes and land just because they are Jewish land have no right to be there!

Supernovea: I said "and other parts of the world." European Jews are the majority of immigrants and are the ones who used terror to get what they wanted--their own state). If you can name some other immigrant groups that stole other people's land recently and built their homes on top of them, I would be against those immigrants too so stop playing the race/antisemite card! It's too late to do anything about what happened to Native Americans (if I existed then, I would also be against it as an American because genocide is genocide) but his issue with Israel isn't old--it's recent and current--it can be stopped and some of the damaged reversed.

There has never been a Palestinian nation, and there never will be until they decide to co-exist in peace with Israel.

The name Palestine has only been around since Roman Times. Israel has been around forever.

When people claim Palestine has been around since biblical times, they mean the New Testement. Israel has been there since the Old Testement.

The current borders of Israel have been established by Arab aggression against Israel.