The false portrayal of "Palestine" as an Arab entity "since time immemorial" leans heavily on the limited historical horizon of even the better informed members of society. The majority do not look beyond the much publicized events of the 20th century and, therefore, do not perceive how far the status quo has departed from reflecting real historical and legal rights. By their reluctance to confront the wider historical background, many Zionists have actually contributed to the evolution and acceptance of this distorted image. While the campaign against Israel is spearheaded by a blatantly false version of the past, Zionists, deterred by the fear of being labeled "expansionists" should they appear too firm in asserting Jewish rights, therefore refrain from opposing this verbal aggression.

Consider the salient historical features prior to the events of the 20th century:

Since the Canaanite city-states never coalesced to form a political unit, pre-Israelite Canaan -- significantly perceived by contemporary powers as indistinguishable within the larger geographical areas of Retenu and Hurru -- never constituted a national territory. It was never home to any nation and described no unitary regional organism extrinsic to the Jewish context in which it first appeared. From the dawn of recorded history, no country has existed in this region other than the biblical homeland of the Jews, which arose and functioned as a political unit only within the context of Jewish nationhood. The Jews know their land as Eretz Yisrael (Land of Israel), the name which came to denote the land in its entirety distinct from surrounding territories and was then so well established that it even appears in the book of Matthew (2:20-21; 10:23).

In their land, the Jews pioneered the most precious precepts and ideals of mankind and instituted a popular "democracy which, rather than the later and indeed more superficial, slave-based elitist democracy of Greece, has inspired social and democratic movements in western society. Scholars have long noted the profound impact of the Hebraic spirit in guiding the pioneers of modern democracies, not least that of the United States.

Clearly, the biblical period in Jewish history was not the fleeting and insignificant episode dismissively portrayed by its detractors. The story of how the Jews created, pioneered and successfully defended their homeland against all but the superpowers of their day speaks of an unparalleled attachment to their land. Arafat actually claims all this for the "Palestinians"!

It is this land which the Romans, incensed by the fury of the Jewish resistance to their oppressive rule, later (135 B.C.E.) called Palestina, an illegal imposition by a foreign power, derived from the Philistine Indo-Europeans of Aegean origin who settled in the southwest maritime plain of Canaan and, after their defeat by King David around 1000 B.C.E., eventually disappeared. Thereafter, the Romans and succeeding invaders destroyed and obliterated this land so that for almost two millennia there could have been -- and was -- no "Palestine" or "Palestinian" identity.

With the Arab conquest, the Roman-Byzantine province of Palestine, by then fragmented, further degenerated into the Junds of Filastin and Urdun, mere subdivisions within the wider domains of the Damascan Caliphate. Filastin was, therefore, never a country but the fading vestiger of its Judean precursor and generated no corresponding identity. Following the Crusaders, even these shadowy descriptions disappeared as the area was repeatedly invaded and further fragmented into subdistricts now identified only by the sub-capitals from which they were ruled. The manner of its division and rule under the Ottoman Turks shows that by then this region had ceased to play any distinguishing role in the life and culture of the Arab-Islamic world.

During these sterile centuries, the Land of Israel/Palestine persisted only as an abstract Judeo-Christian concept -- the subliminal image of its Jewish past. Even the Arabs have confirmed this truth, not least by their hostility to the creation of Mandated Palestine in what, for them, had become merely a southern part of Syria. Ironically, this mandate for regenerating the Jewish homeland, provides even for the PLO the only real definition of Palestine in their history. In short, the Jewish homeland was destroyed almost from the moment that it was called Palestine, so that Palestine never became an established reality. All this leads to three conclusions of paramount importance:

1. The Jewish homeland is the first and only indigenous, self-defined entity to have emerged in a region which otherwise was merely an arena for conflict, or within the subject domain of foreign powers. This entity is uniquely rooted in Jewish national history, which constitutes the very essence of its being. Indeed, the case for Zionism is not that Jews are justified to a "homeland in Palestine," but rather that Palestine's reconstitution is itself justified primarily by the Jews' right to recover their homeland.

2. As the Peel Commission observed, "Palestine had dropped out of history," so that the Palestine Mandate did not preserve an existing entity but, through Zionism, recovered the Jewish homeland from its biblical foundations.

3. The dimensions of this state were expressly designed to reflect this biblical precedent, its only precursor, which at various times had covered both banks of the river Jordan (from the Hebrew "Yored Dan" -- descending from Dan). It therefore emerged as a composite of various configurations induced by internal and external pressures on the Hebrew kingdoms, its actual borders being determined by those of then existing entities.

Hence, modern Palestine was created for the Jews, who had never surrendered their title to the land nor ever acquiesced in its foreign domination. Moreover, this Palestine included, for the same historical reasons that justified the Mandate itself, the topographical area of "transjordan," which Britain later caused to be illegally differentiated as the unprecedented Arab state of Jordan. That collective sovereignty in this land (of which "TransJordan" is a natural part as defined by the history of the Jewish nation which gave it birth), is the prerogative of the Jewish people, a truism enshrined in all documents leading to and including the Palestine Mandate.

Unfortunately, revival of the slave name "Palestine" has enabled the creation of a false image. Arabs could never claim Eretz Yisrael but, by portraying its historically disparate peoples as an indigenous nation, they now lay claim to an imagined Arab Palestine. Yet a true nation finds its expression in common ideals, institutions and achievements, for an y evidence of which we would search non-Jewish "Palestine" in vain. A true nation is united by a sense of kinship and a kindred ethos, whose group consciousness has been molded by a common history, culture and tradition, by a common language and common institutions, all of which are distinctive from others among whom, or next to whom, it lives and who are uniquely associated with a particular territory. No Arab "Palestinian" entity qualifies on these terms. No such entity existed or recognized itself or was recognized as such by others. The local non-Jewish population not only failed to achieve their own specific identity, but even failed to contribute to the well-being and preservation of the country pioneered by the Jews. The encapsulation of these peoples within the newly revived Jewish homeland gives them the semblance of a political unity without historical foundation and which they had not previously sought nor claimed.

Due attention to the true historical setting therefore plays a crucial role in correctly appraising and defining the parameters relating to the Arab/Israel conflict and in the search for a solution reflecting the true balance of historical/legal rights to the Land of Israel.