Palestine: beware the snake oil salesman

It (the Palestinian cause) has everything to do with the expulsion of Palestinians from their land and with denial of their right to sovereignty, to self-determination and above all their Right to Return. It does not matter who expelled them. It is their land and they have the right to return. It does not matter who denies their existence. They have a right to return.

Larudee's claim that "Palestine" belonged to the "Palestinians", that it is their land, that they were denied the right to sovereignty and self determination and have the right to returnthereis not borne out by the historical record.

Palestine had belonged to the Ottoman Empire for 400 years- forming a very small part of the territories lost by Turkey to the Allied Powers in World War 1.

The Arabs were offered self determinationand sovereigntyin 99.99% of such conquered territories by the Allied Powers - whilstthe Jewish National Home was tobe reconstituted in the biblical and ancient homeland of the Jewish people within the remaining 0.01%-then called Palestine.

The civil and religious rights of the non-Jewish communities in Palestine were notto beprejudiced -but the Arab residents of Palestine rejected this decision of the Allied Powers and subsequently the League of Nations

Indeed the territory set aside for the Jewish National Home in 1920 was to be further restricted to just one-quarter of Palestine in 1922 - whilst the remaining three-quarters was to become an exclusively Arab state that is today called Jordan.

This minuscule area left for Jewish self-determination wasearmarked to be further emasculated when the United Nations recommended its partition into Jewish and Arab states in 1947 - which the Arabs also rejected.

Larudee's use of the term "Palestinians" is not inadvertent or unintentional but serves to mask his support for the Arab claim to sovereignty in the entirety of former Palestine to the exclusion of all its other non-Arab residents

The term "Palestininans" was only defined for the first time in 1964 when the PLO Charter proclaimed:

The Palestinians are those Arab citizens who were living normally in Palestine up to 1947, whether they remained or were expelled. Every child who was born to a Palestinian Arab father after this date, whether in Palestine or outside, is a Palestinian.

The operative wordsare"Arabcitizens" - disqualifying any non- Arab citizens from being classified as "Palestinians"

Larudee's claim that Palestine belongs to the Palestinians underscores his support for this racist and exclusivist claim by the PLO - negating the decisionssupporting Jewish claims that had been recognized by the League of Nations in 1922, the Peel Commision in 1937 and the United Nations in 1947.