Palestine: Fictional Country/People

When I send out a batch of family photos, I have to use an account that for whatever reason doesn't allow regular correspondence, so I always label (put in the subject) it with:

"Please reply to ...gmail.com."

And inevitably, replies get sent to that account and vary rarely to my gmail one. And recently I did someone a favor and sent out an email for her to a group list very clearly writing:

"Please don't reply. Call the following number..."

And of course, you guess, I got lots of emails for her and had to forward them.

It's that same sort of careless reading that people use to claim that there had been a "state called Palestine,"sic here where there now is the State of Israel. They use old maps of the Middle East  as proof:

1920 In 1919, the British and French implemented the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement and divided the Arab world into nation-states. The League of Nations recognized these borders and allotted "mandates" to the French and British to govern these states until it was determined that they were ready for independence.

They don't bother checking history books. Just a quick google brought me to the site with these maps. Here are two more which make it very clear, especially if you read the captions that there hadn't been a country named "Palestine" at all.

1880 In the 1700s and 1800s, the once-powerful Ottoman Empire started to lose power. Great Britain, France, and Russia were on the hunt for new territories to conquer and began to interfere in the affairs and territories of the Ottoman Empire and Egypt.

1600 The two primary rulers in the region were the Ottoman and Safavid Empires. The Ottoman Empire began in the 1300s in what is now Turkey. Between 1516 and 1517, the Ottomans conquered the Arab provinces. The Safavid Empire, based in what is today Iran, lasted from 1501-1722.

I'd say that the "country name""Arab Nomads" is about the most accurate one can give the Arabs in this part of the middle east.

There always were Jews here, even after the destruction of the Second Temple. Jews lived all over in many cities, not only Jerusalem, Tzfat and Hebron. I have neighbors who are descended from the Jewish community in Gaza. Yes, until not all that long ago, and I'm talking pre-State of Israel there had always been Jews in Gaza. It had never been an Arab country until just recently when Israel gave it to Hamas and its supporters.

And yes there were also Arabs here, not too many. That is until Zionism brought economic opportunities for both Jews and Arabs. That's when many Arabs emigrated from Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and further away. And don't forget that Jordan is also a Twentieth Century invention. Great Britain, contrary to the instructions they were given for the "Palestine Mandate," gave all of Transjordan, the land east of the Jordan River to the Hashemite Tribe from Saudi Arabia, and they (the Hashemites) have been occupying it ever since.

Ever since the Jewish Kingdoms and People were defeated and banished from this part of the Middle East, there hadn't been a home-grown independent country here until the Establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. We have returned, and the Land is OURS!!