Palestinian Arab propagandists re-write history—literally

By Stephen M. Flatow

History can be so inconvenient for people with agendas, so they just rewrite it. But in Israel, archaeology trumps the lies. Op-ed.

Two small, seemingly unrelated items in the news this week tell you pretty much everything you need to know about the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The first had to with an archaeological discovery in Israel. Many years ago, Israeli antiquities experts acquired an ancient inscribed bulla—a stamp used for sealing documents—that was of unknown provenance. It was obtained from a Bedouin merchant, not dug up by archaeologists. Given its condition, and without being able to examine the soil where it was uncovered, it was impossible for experts to precisely date or identify the bulla.

(Dani Machlis/Ben Gurion University)

Impossible, that is, until the advent of new technology. Last week, Prof. Yuval Goren of Ben-Gurion University announced that thanks to the latest laboratory testing methods, he and his colleagues had determined that it is one of the earliest known bullas—it was used in the court of the Israelite king Jeroboam II, in the 8th century BCE.

The partially-preserved inscription on the seal shows a roaring lion, with the Hebrew words “L’Shema, eved Yerov’am,” that is, “Belonging to Shema, the servant [or minister] of Jeroboam.”

Keep that in mind as I describe the second news item. This one has to do with a group of activists known as the Pro-Israel Bay Bloggers, who last week noticed that “The Palestine Project,” an anti-Israel website, has been engaged in some pretty sleazy sleight-of-hand.

The Palestine Project gang has taken 45 photos from Life magazine’s archive and created an online exhibit called “Photos: Palestine 1948.” The sharp-eyed Bay Bloggers discovered that the photos’ original captions, as published in Life, had been changed in the Palestine Project exhibit.

A caption which in the original 1948 magazine referred to a dead “Arab” teenager has been changed to a dead “Palestinian” teenager. A caption mentioning “Arab refugees” is now “Palestinian” refugees. A “deserted street” has become “a deserted Palestinian street.”

Why are pro-Palestinian propagandists literally re-writing history? Because they HAVE to. If they leave the historical record intact, their cause crumbles. Accurate history is their greatest enemy.

Now you can understand how these two news items are related.

The ancient bulla comes from the court of a Jewish king who ruled in the Land of Israel nearly 3,000 years ago. He was one of many Jewish kings, who ruled for many centuries over sovereign Jewish states. There were never any “Palestinian” kings—not 3,000 years ago, not 1,000 years ago, not even 100 years ago.

The writing on the bulla is in Hebrew. Not Arabic. Arabs didn’t live in the Land of Israel 3,000 years ago. Or 2,000 years ago. The Muslim imperialist armies of the Arabian Peninsula invaded and illegally occupied the Land of Israel only in the 7th century CE— fully 1,500 years after Jeroboam II ruled.

Now you can understand the problem facing the folks at the “Palestine Project.” Throughout history, there was never a sovereign state called “Palestine” or—until recently—any Arabs who called themselves “Palestinians.”

So, the Palestine Project has to make them up. It has to retroactively crown them as “Palestinians,” to change captions to read as they wish they had been written—to literally change history, and hope nobody notices. This time, fortunately, somebody noticed.

I wonder what the scribblers at the Palestine Project will think when they notice how many pre-1948 historical records use the word “Palestine” very differently from the way that contemporary anti-Israel propagandists wish it had been used.

I’m referring to the records which remind us that it was the Jews, not the Arabs, who called themselves “Palestinians” before 1948. The Palestine Post was a Jewish newspaper (which later changed its name to the Jerusalem Post). The Palestine Symphony consisted of Jewish musicians. Ben Hecht’s American League for a Free Palestine was lobbying to establish a Jewish state. History can be so inconvenient for people with agendas.

At the end of the day, no matter how many captions the anti-Israel propagandists rewrite, the truth of history will win out—because every time an archaeologist digs his spade into the soil of the Land of Israel, more evidence emerges to show who its real indigenous people are.


(Stephen M. Flatow is a vice president of the Religious Zionists of America, an attorney in New Jersey and the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995. He is the author of “A Father’s Story: My Fight for Justice Against Iranian Terror.”)

This column appears on-line at https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/293060

"Pay to Slay" and Joe Biden

 My latest JNS column asks:

Will Biden tolerate ‘pay for slay?’

Through whatever financial or other pressure is available, we need to force the Palestinian Authority to stop paying terrorists, stop naming schools and streets after terrorists, and stop using their media to portray terrorists as heroes.

Supporters of the Palestinian cause are openly clamoring for the Biden administration to let the Palestinian Authority wriggle out of the ban on U.S. aid over the “pay for slay” policy. Friends of Israel should vigorously oppose these efforts.

Taylor Force

“Pay for slay”—the P.A.’s system of giving financial rewards to imprisoned terrorists and the families of dead terrorists—should not be a partisan issue for Americans. Remember: There was broad bipartisan support for the 2018 legislation known as the Taylor Force Act, which bars U.S. aid to the P.A. until that policy stops.

The vote in the House of Representatives was 256-167 (Republicans had a 238-201 majority at the time). The vote in the Senate (where the Republicans had a 51-47 majority) was 65-32. And many of the “no” votes in both chambers were not meant as a “no” on Taylor Force; they were connected to other segments of the package to which Taylor Force was attached.

Taylor Force, an army veteran and Vanderbilt University graduate student murdered in Jaffa in 2016, was one of the more than 140 Americans who have been killed in Israel by Palestinian Arab terrorists. They were not killed because they were Republicans or Democrats. Every American, regardless of his or her political affiliation, should want to do everything possible to deter Palestinian Arab terrorists

Giving terrorists and their families financial rewards incentivizes terrorism. Forcing the P.A. to stop doing that will take away those incentives. That’s the key—forcing the P.A. to stop. Not coming up with gimmicks and sleight-of-hand maneuvers in order to avoid the Taylor Force restrictions.

The idea of coming up with such a gimmick was promoted in a major New York Times article on Nov. 19. It claimed that P.A. officials are planning to “overhaul” the system of paying terrorists in order to convince the United States to resume sending $500 million in aid annually.

What P.A. officials told the Times is not what they have been telling the folks back home. Palestinian Media Watch reports that “nearly every day since the Times report,” one or more senior P.A. officials have reaffirmed in Arabic that the payments to terrorists will continue.

What’s the gimmick that the P.A.’s American friends are promoting? Acting on “the advice of sympathetic Democrats” and “Washington think tanks,” according to the Times, the P.A. would give out the payments “based on their financial needs instead of how long they are behind bars.”

I’m sure it was just a coincidence that a former Obama administration official who is now with a Washington think tank, David Makovsky, told The Jerusalem Post last week that “the Palestinians would be smart [to adopt] a compromise plan that would allow for a welfare system that would avoid giving money” based on terrorism, but instead would be based on financial needs.

That’s not a “compromise.” It’s not a genuine “welfare system.” It’s a trick. And it’s the most contemptible kind of trick—the kind that is performed openly, right before our eyes, as if we’re all too stupid to realize what they’re doing.

It’s easy enough to imagine how it will proceed. An official of the P.A.’s Ministry of Prisoner Affairs will stamp a piece of paper that says, “You are hereby given X amount of money based on our determination of your financial need.” The amount of money given to each family of a terrorist will be the same as before, only it will come with the piece of paper that —presto!— certifies the money is now being given for “financial need.”

The great irony is that the “peace” activists who are trying to get American money to the P.A. in this fashion are actually undermining peace, not advancing it. The only hope for a real peace is to wean Palestinian Arab society away from its glorification of terrorism. Through whatever financial or other pressure is available, we need to force the P.A. to stop paying terrorists, stop naming schools and streets after terrorists, and stop using their media to portray terrorists as heroes.

The Palestinians need to genuinely recognize that terrorism is morally wrong and expunge their terrorists from their society—just as the Allies compelled the German people, after World War II, to recognize that Nazism was evil and to expunge it from their society. Sticking to the Taylor Force Act is one way to advance that goal. Helping them trick their way around it will only encourage terrorism and prolong the Arab-Israeli conflict.

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This column and others may be read at JNS.ORG here.

Well, that's what I think.

Stephen M. Flatow