P F Tinmore
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[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZQ8QX6Qn1w&feature=related]Hijacked Judaism: Israel, Palestine & UNESCO! - YouTube[/ame]
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The adjective Palestinian is comparatively new. This, I need hardly remind you, is a region of ancient civilization and of deep-rooted and often complex identitites. But, Palestine was not one of them. People might identify themselves for various purposes, by religion, by descent, or by allegiance to a particular state or ruler, or, sometimes, locality. But, when they did it locally it was generally either the city and the immediate district or the larger province, so they would have been Jerusalemites or Jaffaites or Syrians, identifying with the larger province of Syria
The constitution or the formation of a political entity called Palestine which eventually gave rise to a nationality called Palestinian were lasting innovations of the British Mandate [1922-1948]
It is by now commonplace that the civilizations of the Middle East are oldest known to human history. They go back thousands of years, much older than the civilizations of India and China, not to speak of other upstart places. It is also interesting, though now often forgotten, that the ancient civilizations of the Middle East were almost totally obliterated and forgotten by their own people as well as by others. Their monuments were defaced or destroyed, their languages forgotten, their scripts forgotten, their history forgotten and even their identities forgotten.
All that was known about them came from one single source, and that is Israel, the only component of the ancient Middle East to have retained their identity, their memory, their language and their books. For a very long time, up to comparatively modern times, with rare exceptions all that was known about the ancient Middle East--the Babylonians, the Egyptians and the rest--was what the Jewish tradiiton has preserved.
"For more than four decades, Bernard Lewis has been one of the most respected scholars and prolific writers on the history and politics of the Middle East. In this compilation of more than 50 journal articles and essays, he displays the full range of his eloquence, knowledge, and insight regarding this pivotal and volatile region."
Oxford University Press: Faith and Power: Bernard Lewis