<p>Dear Friend of FLAME:</p>
<p>In a rare display of honest reporting on the part of American media, the Associated Press affirmed Newt Gingrich's statement that the Palestinians are an "invented" people---and the story ran in hundreds of newspapers. Of course, <span style="text-decoration: underline;">it's sad and ironic that we cheer simply when the media tell the truth about the Middle East</span>.</p>
<p>In any case, the fact that the Palestinians are a made-up people has been established by <span style="text-decoration: underline;">all manner of historical research and acclamation</span>, even by Arabs themselves.</p>
<p>We know that never in history was there a Palestinian state. We also know that the original Palestinians in the 20th century were Jewish---they called their newspaper the <em>Palestine Post</em> and their orchestra the Palestine Symphony. In those days, the Arabs called themselves <em>Arabs</em>, or in some cases Syrians. Even after Israel's birth in 1948, <span style="text-decoration: underline;">no Arabs called themselves Palestinians</span>. The "Palestinians" began calling themselves that only after the 1967 war, when Israel chased Jordan and Egypt out of Jerusalem, the West Bank, Sinai and Gaza.</p>
<p>The name Palestine is Greek transmuted from Latin, and was applied by the region's ancient conquerors. Nearly all the cities in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza have Hebrew names---like Bethlehem, Nazareth, Hebron---and <span style="text-decoration: underline;">their current Arabic names are translations of these names</span>. The capital of the West Bank, Nablus isn't an Arabic name, but a mispronunciation of Neapolis, or Latin for "New City."</p>
<p>Need more proof? Way back in 1937, the Arab leader Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi told the Peel Commission, "There is no such country [as Palestine]! <span style="text-decoration: underline;">Palestine is a term the Zionists invented</span>! There is no Palestine in the Bible. Our country was for centuries part of Syria."</p>
<p>Next consider the statement of Zahir Muhsein, a member of the PLO Executive Committee, who in 1977 told the Dutch newspaper <em>Trouw</em> that "<span style="text-decoration: underline;">The Palestinian people does not exist</span>. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel . . . Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak about the existence of the Palestinian people."</p>
<p>Mahmoud Abbas, however, in a dazzling display of chutzpah and mendacity at the U.N. recently, recounted a history of ancient Palestine full of Palestinians and a guy named Jesus (no mention of his religion), but no Jews at all. In fact, <span style="text-decoration: underline;">today's Palestinians are a group of Arabs left over after Syria and Jordan were formed</span> from the 1947 U.N. Partition Plan (which the Arabs rejected and the Jews accepted).</p>
<p><a href="http://www.factsandlogic.org/flame_hotline_122011-p.html">READ MORE&gt;&gt;&gt;</a></p>