Israel “has no historical roots” and is “an unnatural state… which the capitalist West established in order to realize its colonialist goals in the Arab homeland” – PA daily op-ed
Excerpt of op-ed by Omar Hilmi Al-Ghoul, regular columnist for the official PA daily
Headline: "The most important challenge of the Palestinian nationalism"
"Since the first colony was established on the land of Palestine in 1878 at the village of Al-Khalisa, the national identity has faced a challenge – particularly since this colony was the beginning of the Zionist project, which grew stronger from the advent of the Basel Conference in Switzerland in 1897 (i.e., the First Zionist Congress), the Campbell-Bannerman Conference in 1905-1907, the Sykes-Picot Agreement in 1916, the Balfour Promise (i.e., Declaration) in 1917, the British Mandate in 1920 that was officially established in 1922, to the [UN] partition plan of 1947 and the establishment of the Israeli colonialism state in 1948 on the ruins of the Nakba (i.e., “the catastrophe,” Palestinian term for the establishment of the State of Israel) of the Palestinian Arab people…
The goal of the establishment of the Zionist project and its physical base, the colonialist State of Israel, was to eliminate and erase the Palestinian people from the Arab, regional, and global geopolitics and to leave the Israeli colonialist state that has no historical roots and is foreign to the Arab surroundings and to the Middle East in general. This is an unnatural state with no political and anthropological suitability, which the capitalist West established in order to realize its colonialist goals in the Arab homeland according to the decision of the Campbell-Bannerman Conference (apparently refers to the 1907 Imperial Conference led by former British Prime Minister Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, the minutes of which disprove claims of a conspiracy theory to undermine the Middle East –Ed.), which was strengthened by the ominous Balfour Promise and its historical progress and development. This is because its implementers wanted to change the map of the region in general, and not to erase only the Palestinians. The capitalist West continues until now to strengthen its colonialist project at the expense of the interests, rights, basic principles, and identity of the Palestinian people, which has refused to die and insisted on staying and adhering strongly to its national project."