The Palestinian People: Victims of Israeli Genocide, Media Propaganda, Human Heartlessness And Evangelical Hypocrisy

[GeeR]

The Palestinian People: Victims of Israeli Genocide, Media Propaganda, Human Heartlessness And Evangelical Hypocrisy
By Chuck Baldwin
October 19, 2023



It’s impossible to accurately describe the 75 years of horror that the Palestinian people have been forced to endure. Most of the crimes against humanity inflicted on the Palestinian people have been covered up and unreported. Very few—and I mean VERY FEW—people in the United States and Western Europe have even the slightest heartfelt compassion or intellectual honesty for the unimaginable plight of these suffering souls.

The very best book describing the horrors of Israel’s violent massacres, acts of genocide and sheer terror inflicted upon the Palestinian people over the past 75 years was written by an Israeli historian named Ilan Pappe. His book is called The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.

I’ll say this straight out: If you have not read this book, you have no clue as to the truth of what has happened—and continues to happen—in Palestine.

Since war erupted between Hamas and the Israeli military, Pappe wrote an appeal to his fellow Israelis entitled My Israeli Friends: This is Why I Support Palestinians.

It is challenging to maintain one’s moral compass when the society you belong to – leaders and media alike – takes the moral high ground and expects you to share with them the same righteous fury with which they reacted to the events of last Saturday, October 7.

There is only one way to resist the temptation to join in: if you understood, at one point in your life – even as a Jewish citizen of Israel – the settler colonial nature of Zionism, and were horrified by its policies against the indigenous people of Palestine.

If you have had that realization, then you will not waver, even if the poisonous messages depict Palestinians as animals, or ‘human animals.’ These same people insist on describing what took place last Saturday as a ‘Holocaust’, thus abusing the memory of a great tragedy. These sentiments are being conveyed, day and night by both Israeli media and politicians.

It is this moral compass that led me, and others in our society, to stand by the Palestinian people in every way possible; and that enables us, at the same time, to admire the courage of the Palestinian fighters who took over a dozen military bases, overcoming the strongest army in the Middle East.

Also, people like me cannot avoid but raise questions about the moral or strategic value of some of the actions that accompanied this operation.

Because we always supported the decolonization of Palestine, we knew that the longer Israeli oppression continued, the less likely the liberation struggle would be “sterile” – as it has been the case in every just struggle for liberation in the past, anywhere in the world.

This does not mean we should not keep an eye on the big picture, not even for a minute. The picture is that of a colonized people fighting for survival, at a time when its oppressors had elected a government, which is hellbent on accelerating the destruction, in fact the elimination of the Palestinian people – or even their very claim to peoplehood.

Hamas had to act, and quickly so.

It is hard to voice these counter arguments because Western media and politicians went along with the Israeli discourse, and the narrative, however problematic it was.

I wonder how many of those who decided to don the Parliament House in London and the Eiffel Tower in Paris with the colors of the Israeli flag truly understand how this seemingly symbolic gesture is received in Israel.

Even liberal Zionists, with a modicum of decency, read this act as a total absolution of all the crimes Israelis have committed against the Palestinian people since 1948; and therefore, as a carte blanche to continue with the genocide that Israel is now perpetrating against the people of Gaza.

Fortunately, there were also different reactions to the events which unfolded in the last few days.

As in the past, large sections of civil societies in the West are not easily fooled by this hypocrisy, already at full display in the case of Ukraine.

Many people know that since June 1967, one million Palestinians have been imprisoned at least once in their lives. And with imprisonment, come abuse, torture and permanent detention without trial.

These very people also know about the horrific reality Israel had created in the Gaza Strip when it sealed the region, imposing a hermetic siege, starting in 2007, accompanied by the relentless killing of children in the occupied West Bank. This violence is not a new phenomenon, as it has been the permanent face of Zionism since the establishment of Israel in 1948.

Because of that very civil society, my dear Israeli friends, your government and media will ultimately be proven wrong, as they will not be able to claim the role of victims, receive unconditional support, and get away with their crimes.

Eventually, the big picture will emerge, despite the inherently biased Western media.

The big question, however, is this: will you, my Israeli friends, be able to clearly see this same big picture as well? Despite years of indoctrination and social engineering?

And no less important, will you be able to learn the other important lesson – one that can be gleaned from recent events – that sheer force alone cannot find the balance between a just regime on the one hand and an immoral political project on the other?

But there is an alternative. In fact, there has always been one:

A de-zionised, liberated and democratic Palestine from the river to the sea; a Palestine that will welcome back the refugees and build a society that does not discriminate on the basis of culture, religion or ethnicity.

This new state would labor to rectify, as much as possible, the past evils, in terms of economic inequality, the stealing of property and the denial of rights. This could herald a new dawn for the whole Middle East.

Building on Pappe’s open letter, the Israeli military has murdered more than 5 million Palestinians since 1948. Five million! This IS a holocaust—a holocaust where Israel is the oppressor, not the victim. It is the holocaust almost no one dares to acknowledge.

Just the opposite.

The entire Western media spews out the most venomous propaganda against the Palestinians that the world has ever seen. And conservatives—and especially evangelical Christians—believe the propaganda with no questions asked.

I urge you to read the report by Alan MacLeod entitled Propaganda Blitz: How Mainstream Media Is Pushing Fake Palestine Stories.

Extraordinary Claims, Zero Evidence

One case in point is the claim that, during their incursion into southern Israel, Hamas fighters stopped to round up, kill and mutilate 40 Israeli babies, beheading them and leaving their bodies behind.

The extraordinary assertion was originally reported by the Israeli channel i24 News, which based it on anonymous Israeli military sources. Despite offering no proof whatsoever, this highly inflammatory claim about an enemy made by an active participant in a conflict was picked up and repeated across the world by a host of media (e.g., in the United States by Fox News, CNN, MSN, Business Insider, and The New York Post).

Meanwhile, the front pages of the United Kingdom’s largest newspapers were festooned with the story, the press outraged at the atrocity and inviting their readers to feel the same way.

Extraordinary claims should require extraordinary evidence, and a story like this should have been met with serious skepticism, given who was making the claim. The first question any reporter should have asked was, “Where is the evidence?” Given multiple opportunities to stand by it, the IDF continually distanced itself from the claims. Nevertheless, the story was simply too useful not to publish.

The decapitated baby narrative was so popular that even President Biden referenced it, claiming to have seen “confirmed” images of Hamas killing children. This claim, however, was hastily retracted by his handlers at the White House, who noted that Biden was simply referencing the i24 News report.

The story looked even more like a piece of cheap propaganda after it was revealed that the key source for the claim was Israeli soldier David Ben Zion, an extremist settler who had incited race riots against Palestinians earlier this year, describing them as “animals” with no heart who needs to be “wiped out.”

Manipulating the U.S. public into supporting the war by feeding them atrocity propaganda about mutilating babies has a long history. In 1990, for instance, a girl purporting to be a local nurse was brought before Congress, where she testified that Iraqi Dictator Saddam Hussein’s men had ripped hundreds of Kuwaiti babies from their incubators and left them to die. The story helped whip the American public up into a pro-war fervor. It was later revealed that it was a complete hoax dreamed up by a public relations firm.

The report goes on. Please read it.

The thing that galls me the most is the way evangelical Christians are among the most rabid anti-Palestinian people in the entire world. They are cursed with the venom and hatred of Benjamin Netanyahu and his fellow Zionists.

In the last week, I’ve heard “Christians” calling for the annihilation of Damascus, Syria. I’ve heard “Christians” call for nuclear bombs to be launched against Iran. I’ve heard “Christians” call for the “complete eradication” of the Palestinian people.

Never mind that there are untold thousands of Christians living in Palestine, Syria, Iran and every other Arab country. These are our brothers and sisters in Christ that “Christians” in America want to slaughter. I guess they are considered to be “collateral damage.” Not to mention the blood of innocent Arabs of whatever faith that would be dripping from the pulpits and pews of America’s evangelical churches should this “Christian” bloodlust be realized.

Then, those same “Christians” will go to church on Sunday and preach about the “love of Jesus” and raise their hands and bounce up and down in celebration of “the love of God.” Then they shed tears when someone gives an appeal to send missionaries to a lost world. Anyone see just a little bit of duplicity here?

By the way, it is the Muslim countries of the Arab world that are currently witnessing some of the greatest growth of Christianity of any region on earth—and for the most part, it is happening without the help of the evangelical churches in America.

These pro-Israel “Christians” are bewitched! (See Galatians 3:1.) They are bewitched by Zionism; they are bewitched by the Zionist notes contained in the Scofield Bible; they are bewitched by the false prophecy doctrines of dispensational futurism; they are bewitched by John Hagee, Robert Jeffress, Franklin Graham, Jesse Duplantis, Hal Lindsey, John MacArthur, David Jeremiah, Greg Laurie and most Baptist/“Bible” and Charismatic/Pentecostal churches in America.

All told, approximately 80% of America’s evangelicals are bewitched by the pro-Israel agenda. Never mind that the Zionist State of Israel is an atheistic, antichrist state that is the archenemy of genuine Christianity, freedom, basic human morality and all things “Goyim.”

To learn the truth about Talmudic Judaism that confirms everything I said about Zionist Israel in the previous paragraph (and more), Michael Hoffman’s book Judaism’s Strange Gods is must-reading.

None of that matters! Israel is the fulfillment of Bible prophecy—so they believe. In fact, most evangelicals are deeply entrenched in Israel-based prophecy, not Jesus-based prophecy. They have no concept of Jesus’ Second Coming without Israel. To them, the omnipotent, resurrected Christ is totally dependent upon Netanyahu’s Zionist state to usher Him back. Think about it! I’ll go even further: They have no concept of faith without Israel. Take Israel [the Old Covenant] out of their faith, and they have no faith.

They are ignorant of the New Covenant that was so plainly and passionately taught in the Books of Romans, Galatians, Hebrews and, yes, Revelation. The Book of Revelation is not primarily a Book about prophecy; it is the final divinely inspired Book explaining Christ’s New Covenant.

Evangelicals are still living in the Old Covenant. They think Aelia Capitolina, excuse me, Jerusalem, is still the City of David. They think God’s “chosen people” are determined by race. They think the Old Covenant Promised Land is now reserved for Ashkenazi (European) Zionists.

So, who is going to apologize to the Palestinian people on behalf of all the bewitched Christian Zionists, whose hands and hearts drip with Palestinian blood? How can 75 years of Israeli ethnic cleansing, genocide, apartheid and holocaust facilitated and fawned over by Christian Zionists in America ever be reconciled?

The Palestinian people are not only the victims of Israeli genocidal atrocities; they are also the victims of global media propaganda, human heartlessness all over the world and evangelical hypocrisy—especially in America.

[Atrasado]

I support both sides as far as the people are concerned. I pray for them and hope for peace.

I support neither side as far as the governments (I include the US here) are concerned. Evil serpents causing wars and feeding on the blood of others is what they are.

Jehovah, please come!!!

[lundbaek]

From my perspective, the original refugee Palestinians were those who left Israel during the 1948 war, which I saw as an attempt on the part of certain Arabs to drive Jews out of Palestine, expecting to return after the Jews were driven out. When the Jews prevailed, many of the Arabs who had left were stuck in refugee camps, (I did have to go into one of them on one occasion) and not absorbed as citizens into the population of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, etc. During the 1967 war, additional Arabs leaving the Jordan West Bank, expecting to return, but did not. When I was several months in Israel in 1970, I was initially surprised to note that what seemed to be 20% of the population of Israel, the Jordan West Bank, and occupied Syria was Arabs, Moslem Arabs, Christian Arabs, Druze, and Bedouins. And I was pleasantly surprised to note that the Arabs that I observed and had contact with seemed well adjusted to life in Israel, in spite of obvious cultural differences . I noted Arab-Jew business partnerships, Arabs serving in the voluntarily in the Israeli army, and even some Arab-Jew marriages. Only on the Jordan West Bank and in the Gaza area was I aware of terrorist activity, and there was plenty of that. But I cannot fault Israel for continuing to occupy those areas for their safety. During those few months I was well aware of several acts of terrorism perpetrated by El Fatah, and many failed attacks.

I was back in Israel briefly in 1973 and 1977, and noted only that terrorism continued. However, I also noted that the Arabs who were Israeli citizens seemed to be living peacefully with their Jewish neighbors. It is my understanding that there has been for many years now considerable corruption in both Israel and neighboring countries.

[Rubicon]

It's interesting to me how far right mirrors far left. Chuck Baldwin and the Squad are in alignment on Israel and Palestine. Nazism and Communism are very similar in results and outcomes.

[nightlight]

The Palestinian people are victims of Islam

[farmerchick]

It's incredibly sad many on the forum overlook the fact that the Palestinians are pawns used by their own government. As lundbaek points out the original Palestinians left in 1948 and were stuck in refugee camps...not taken in by the many Arab nations around them....what about the hypocrisy of the Islamic nations? I do not want to see the Palestinians who are not involved with terror paying the price for Hamas....but thats what is happening. The armies of the arab countries are massing on Israel's borders. Russia and China are also watching intently while Iran moves the chess pieces. Meanwhile Gaza leaders are in Qatar watching and directing the mayhem from afar. Hamas is a designated terrorist organization and yet we see pro palestinian protests all over the world screaming for more Hamas violence against Israel. Palestinians are Victims of their own hate and vitriol. From the river to the sea .....a genocidal chant targeting Israelis.....but of course we don't want to talk about that.

[nightlight]

"This does not mean we should not keep an eye on the big picture, not even for a minute. The picture is that of a colonized people fighting for survival, at a time when its oppressors had elected a government, which is hellbent on accelerating the destruction, in fact the elimination of the Palestinian people – or even their very claim to peoplehood.

Hamas had to act, and quickly so."

[Serragon]

"This does not mean we should not keep an eye on the big picture, not even for a minute. The picture is that of a colonized people fighting for survival, at a time when its oppressors had elected a government, which is hellbent on accelerating the destruction, in fact the elimination of the Palestinian people – or even their very claim to peoplehood.

Hamas had to act, and quickly so."

Any Muslim or Arab who complains about colonizers, oppressors, occupiers, etc. is either ignorant or a hypocrite.

the history of Islam is one of conquering, subjugation, and revenge. The city of their great pilgrimage is conquered land and forced religious conversion because they rejected the early teachings of Mohammed. And their intense hatred for the jews comes from their early rejection of Mohammed as the new Moses figure they had so long been waiting for.

These clever terrorists simply use the language of the west to convince the gullible westerners of the righteousness of their cause. But it is all affectation.

[Serragon]

This Chuck Baldwin guy is deluded.

[nightlight]

"This does not mean we should not keep an eye on the big picture, not even for a minute. The picture is that of a colonized people fighting for survival, at a time when its oppressors had elected a government, which is hellbent on accelerating the destruction, in fact the elimination of the Palestinian people – or even their very claim to peoplehood.

Hamas had to act, and quickly so."

Any Muslim or Arab who complains about colonizers, oppressors, occupiers, etc. is either ignorant or a hypocrite.

the history of Islam is one of conquering, subjugation, and revenge. The city of their great pilgrimage is conquered land and forced religious conversion because they rejected the early teachings of Mohammed. And their intense hatred for the jews comes from their early rejection of Mohammed as the new Moses figure they had so long been waiting for.

These clever terrorists simply use the language of the west to convince the gullible westerners of the righteousness of their cause. But it is all affectation.

And we're never going to have truthful discourse with Islam.
Their religion allows them to be dishonest in the cause of spreading their "Allah". The religion even calls them to deny Allah/Islam if the need arises

Also....

This is why you see the Muslim woman outrage all across the West. These Muslim women getting up at raging at the colonizer

It is simple projection

They collar and cover (enslave) their women in Islam.....so this is where they can protest and let out their mistreatment

It's sad

And it's shocking how feminist and progressives turn a blind eye to Islam's treatment of women.

The Jew and the white man are not the oppressors of Islam. It is the false traditions of their fathers that chains these people

[Niemand]

Very few—and I mean VERY FEW—people in the United States and Western Europe have even the slightest heartfelt compassion or intellectual honesty for the unimaginable plight of these suffering souls.

US maybe, but the Palestinian plight is well known in Western Europe and has visible support. I think it garners more sympathy than the Zionist cause although there is obviously a major public relations offensive on the go in the wake of the recent attacks.

Go to some parts of Northern Ireland, or go to one of Celtic's football games and you'll see plenty of Palestinian flags. Not from immigrants or Muslims either by the way.

The Palestinian people are victims of Islam

Palestinian nationalism originates among the Christian population. You may also be surprised to learn that it dates back to the 19th century when such people wanted to shake off the Ottoman/Turkish yoke, before most of the Jewish settlers had turned up.

The Christian population was more open to western ideas than the Muslims. Some of them were educated in Europe. They absorbed ideas such as European nationalism and republicanism. The Muslims came to it later.

After WW1, some of these people had hoped for independence like the smaller eastern European nations. Instead they got divided up between Britain and France, with Palestine/Transjordan going to the former... and over thirty years of British Mandate.

The creation of Israel has helped to drive much of the Christian Palestinian population away, and also meant that they are trapped between it and radical Islam which is seen as providing a more effective opposition to Zionism. Western funding of Islamic radicalism hasn't helped either.

[Niemand]

The most ridiculous Zionist argument is that the neighbouring states should have absorbed the refugees, and that those refugees are to blame for the fact that they haven't been. The question is who and what created them in the first place, and why that should have happened. (Jordan has absorbed them by the way, at great financial cost to itself.) Zionism benefitted from driving those folk away. It gave them space to expand, and also took much of the human problem elsewhere.

As is this notion that they're just all Arabs. There is no Arab nation. A Palestinian Arabic speaker can't even understand certain forms of Arabic as they are almost different languages. S/he would not consider themselves to be the same as a Moroccan or a Yemeni because those areas are not their home. In fact, once you start picking at the threads you'll find most so called Arabs are no such thing. The North Africans are Berbers and Touregs etc who have been Arabised, the Egyptians aren't true Arabs either, nor most of the Iraqis. The Levantines, including the Palestinians, are not really true Arabs either, but ancient populations which have been Arabised. Even the Bedouin are a nation unto themselves apart from the other Palestinians although they qualify better as Arabs than some others do.

There is this notion that because people in that area speak Arabic they are not indigenous. This is as ridiculous as saying Jesus wasn't indigenous because he spoke Aramaic, a later introduction to the region. When it comes to the Arab thing, the genetics says otherwise. They have various external influences but the old Palestinians are descended from Jewish populations which converted to Christianity and Islam hundreds of years ago. They also comprise the oldest Christian population on Earth since they can claim some continuity back to the very first churches, founded before the Vatican or even the Greek and Armenian ones. The Samaritans, and even the Druze, can also claim a continuity right back to ancient times, and may be counted as pre-1948 native Palestinians.

[Wondering Wendy]

Ben Shapiro sees things differently, of course, but I think his perspective on the history is worth adding to the mix. His speech is in the first 25 minutes.

[Rubicon]

This Chuck Baldwin guy is deluded.

He's become deranged and delusional since he was, many years ago, the Constitution Party's vice presidential candidate. I've read things from him that some people here post in admiration. He sounds just like AOC, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Thalib talking about Israel ---- and he's a pastor to boot.

[Rubicon]

". . . the settler colonial nature of Zionism, and were horrified by its policies against the indigenous people of Palestine . . ."

Indigenous people of Palestine?

Multiple generations being kept in crowded refugee camps numbering millions is going to produce bitterness and warped-ness, but what is Israel's alternative? There would be constant terrorist carnage on an hourly basis if the people in the West Bank and Gaza strip were allowed full freedom of movement and the ability to mingle with people outside of those places. As is, ca. 15,000 work permits allowed some people to go back and forth, and some of these work permits were used to carry out the October 7 attacks.

[Rubicon]

Most of this mess stems from Palestinians fleeing en masse with advance notice of the 1967 Six Days war. They were supposed to leave and then come back and take what land and possessions they wanted after Israel was wiped out. Instead, Israel, in quite literally a Biblical miracle, crushed the multi-country invasion hours into it (taking out rival air capability was a big part of it) and expanded its borders. It was only then that the Palestinians clamored to get their land they had abandoned back, and no Arab countries wanted (or still want) to take them in.

They lost their land because they left it hoping to get Israeli spoils, and they and their fellow travelers are screaming for their land "back."

[Niemand]

Most of this mess stems from Palestinians fleeing en masse with advance notice of the 1967 Six Days war. They were supposed to leave and then come back and take what land and possessions they wanted after Israel was wiped out. Instead, Israel, in quite literally a Biblical miracle, crushed the multi-country invasion hours into it (taking out rival air capability was a big part of it) and expanded its borders. It was only then that the Palestinians clamored to get their land they had abandoned back, and no Arab countries wanted (or still want) to take them in.

They lost their land because they left it hoping to get Israeli spoils, and they and their fellow travelers are screaming for their land "back."

A lot of them left because they didn't want to live under the new occupation and be harassed by the IDF or were worried they would be killed. The usual reasons for fleeing an area. Israel has relied on this tactic ever since the Nakba in 1948, in fact earlier. They hope that many more people will leave Gaza so that it gives them extra space to move into and lowers the hostile population. The same tactic was used with much of the West Bank/East Jerusalem, Safed, parts around Jaffa/Yafo and so on. You can read about homes and property being left behind in many Zionist accounts – it's not just Arab propaganda.

The refugee trope also undermines Zionism, because it argues that since someone's ancestors fled as refugees to elsewhere, they shouldn't be allowed back in. That would apply to those who left after AD 70. (Some Jewish populations were already well established elsewhere by the time of the destruction of the temple.)

Israel has had some miracles, but its behaviour has often been less than saintly. Egyptian air capability was taken out due to espionage, something Israel has always excelled at.

". . . the settler colonial nature of Zionism, and were horrified by its policies against the indigenous people of Palestine . . ."

Indigenous people of Palestine?

Multiple generations being kept in crowded refugee camps numbering millions is going to produce bitterness and warped-ness, but what is Israel's alternative?

The alternative for some of the European Jews would have to been to have been to settle in London or Brooklyn, and lead a prosperous and much more uneventful life.... instead of living under permanent siege and fighting their neighbours. Even South America would have been a better bet.

Amazing how Zionists blame people in camps for their own plight. They created the refugee problem in the first place.

Yes, they are indigenous. They are descended from ancient populations in the area, and unlike Ashkenazi, Falashas, Sephardi and most Mizrahi, have remained in the area. People here call them "Arabs" but they are natives of the Levant not the vast deserts of the Arabian Peninsula. They have less in common with them than a Manhattanite does with someone from Wyoming. I don't know why it is such a revelation that Palestinians are indigenous. Their ancestors were there 150 years ago, and almost none of the Israelis' ones were. They are also part descended from Jews who never left the region but converted to Christianity and Islam.

We're seeing a lot of reductio ad Hamas here. Hamas are a direct product of Zionism and were created a generation or two after 1948, and a generation after 1967.

[GeeR]

Most of this mess stems from Palestinians fleeing en masse with advance notice of the 1967 Six Days war. They were supposed to leave and then come back and take what land and possessions they wanted after Israel was wiped out. Instead, Israel, in quite literally a Biblical miracle, crushed the multi-country invasion hours into it (taking out rival air capability was a big part of it) and expanded its borders. It was only then that the Palestinians clamored to get their land they had abandoned back, and no Arab countries wanted (or still want) to take them in.

They lost their land because they left it hoping to get Israeli spoils, and they and their fellow travelers are screaming for their land "back."

A lot of them left because they didn't want to live under the new occupation and be harassed by the IDF or were worried they would be killed. The usual reasons for fleeing an area. Israel has relied on this tactic ever since the Nakba in 1948, in fact earlier. They hope that many more people will leave Gaza so that it gives them extra space to move into and lowers the hostile population. The same tactic was used with much of the West Bank/East Jerusalem, Safed, parts around Jaffa/Yafo and so on. You can read about homes and property being left behind in many Zionist accounts – it's not just Arab propaganda.

The refugee trope also undermines Zionism, because it argues that since someone's ancestors fled as refugees to elsewhere, they shouldn't be allowed back in. That would apply to those who left after AD 70. (Some Jewish populations were already well established elsewhere by the time of the destruction of the temple.)

Israel has had some miracles, but its behaviour has often been less than saintly. Egyptian air capability was taken out due to espionage, something Israel has always excelled at.

". . . the settler colonial nature of Zionism, and were horrified by its policies against the indigenous people of Palestine . . ."

Indigenous people of Palestine?

Multiple generations being kept in crowded refugee camps numbering millions is going to produce bitterness and warped-ness, but what is Israel's alternative?

The alternative for some of the European Jews would have to been to have been to settle in London or Brooklyn, and lead a prosperous and much more uneventful life.... instead of living under permanent siege and fighting their neighbours. Even South America would have been a better bet.

Amazing how Zionists blame people in camps for their own plight. They created the refugee problem in the first place.

Yes, they are indigenous. They are descended from ancient populations in the area, and unlike Ashkenazi, Falashas, Sephardi and most Mizrahi, have remained in the area. People here call them "Arabs" but they are natives of the Levant not the vast deserts of the Arabian Peninsula. They have less in common with them than a Manhattanite does with someone from Wyoming. I don't know why it is such a revelation that Palestinians are indigenous. Their ancestors were there 150 years ago, and almost none of the Israelis' ones were. They are also part descended from Jews who never left the region but converted to Christianity and Islam.

We're seeing a lot of reductio ad Hamas here. Hamas are a direct product of Zionism and were created a generation or two after 1948, and a generation after 1967.

Niemand, thanks for straightening out Rubicon, your knowledge is prolific and appreciated!