Does It Matter Whether Palestinian Nationalism is "Invented" -- Part I

Does It Matter Whether
Palestinian Nationalism is "Invented"
Part I

by Jonathan Rosenblum
Yated Ne'eman
December 27, 2011


"A gaffe," Michael Kingsley once observed, "is when a politician speaks the truth." Ever since Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich told an interviewer, "Remember, there was no Palestine as a state – [it was] part of the Ottoman Empire. I think we have an invented Palestinian people, who are, in fact, Arabs and historically part of the Arab community. . . ," he has been accused of having made a Kingsley gaffe.

Before we can determine whether Gingrich's words were a "gaffe," we first must understand what was included in those words, and determine whether they were true. What does it mean to say that Palestinian identity is "invented?" There are at least five different ideas subsumed in that assertion.

Mideast Media Sampler 12/28/11: The Useful Fiction Of A Palestinian People and Hamas Goes Fundraising

1) The Palestinians' inventiveness

In the wake of candidate Newt Gingrich's assertion that the Palestinians are an invented people, Lee Smith wrote that indeed the Palestinians are invented but that it's a Useful Fiction:

The problem is that current Palestinian nationalism is not strong enough. If it were, Yasser Arafat and, later, Mahmoud Abbas might have been more inclined to accept the peace deals offered by Israeli prime ministers and American presidents. If Palestinian leadership were more like the early champions of Zionism, who wanted a state for the Jews no matter its size, then the conflict might have been resolved at any point over the last seven decades.

Why Are Rebuttals Of Gingrich's Claim Of #Palestinian Invention Limited to Insults And Personal Attacks?

It should also go without saying that radical and bigoted polemicists on the other side of the Arab-Israeli dispute have their own pseudo-scholarship—their own numbing, often anti-Semitic, tracts—which make the case that Israel, and the Jewish people, are alien and have no claim on the land.
David Remnick, Newt, The Jews and an "Invented" People, The New Yorker

It should also go without saying that this sort of nationalistic sloppiness reflects an inability to actually address what Newt said head on. While "Naturally and justifiably, Palestinian politicians rushed forward to cite the underlying racism and destructiveness of Gingrich’s remark," one might have just as naturally expected the Arabs--or Remnick, for that matter--to cite the historical sources that back up the Palestinian claim.

Keep waiting.

Mideast Media Sampler 12/13/2011

From DB:

1) Invention
Newt Gingrich's comment about the Palestinians being an invented people has been much discussed. (See memeorandum for more.)

Barry Rubin writes:

Yet again I don’t see this point as very significant. What’s important is whether a large portion of the people in question believe that they are a people. Moreover, the same “invented” charge has been made against the Jewish people by Stalin and of course by Arab and Islamist propaganda.

The fact that today, a Palestinian people does exist doesn’t give the Palestinians a right to invent history, of course.

Arlene Kushner On Newt Gingrich And The Invention Of The Palestinians

From Arlene Kushner

December 12, 2011

"Can It Be?"

I'm reading about the fact that Newt Gingrich is leading the polls among the Republican presidential candidate contender, and I'm hearing the things he's saying.  And I ask myself if I dare hope that a man with great intelligence, and enormous historical and political savvy, who is not afraid to tell it like it is, might be elected president. 

At this juncture my impulse is to tell everyone to pray.  The contrast between Gingrich and Obama takes the breath away.  Too soon to call it, but what it would mean for the US, for Israel and for the world!

~~~~~~~~~~

Gingrich created quite a flap when he said the Palestinians are an invented people -- that in the Ottoman empire there were no nation states (i.e., no "Palestinian state"), and that the "Palestinians" were simply part of the Arab people.  He is quite correct and it took a great deal of courage to say it, as politically incorrect as such an observation is.  Of course, it created apoplexy among PA leaders  And, according to one report I encountered, Gingrich's campaign office then came out with a statement saying he was providing necessary historical context but that he now supported negotiations with the Palestinians. 

When Gingrich Says The "Palestinians" Were Invented--Maybe His Source Was...A Palestinian

We should thank Newt Gingrich for bringing up the fact that the term Palestinian as referring to Arabs is a recent invention, as reported in the New York Times:

Does Newt Gingrich believe in a two-state solution to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Democratic and Republican administrations since the 1990s have adopted that framework for peace in the Middle East, but Mr. Gingrich suggested that he might break with it, calling Palestinians an “invented” people and the current stalled peace process “delusional.”

Pity that Gingrich has backed down from the controversial statement.
But he needn't have.