Israeli “invaders” are fated to leave “Palestine, whether they want it or not” asserts PA op-ed filled with history distortion
Excerpt of an op-ed by Omar Hilmi Al-Ghoul, regular columnist for the official PA daily
Headline: “Eternal Land Day”
“We will have no homeland other than this, whether the Zionist project state wants it or not, whether the capitalist West agrees to it or not.
The colonialist settlement enterprise has continued to exist for 70 years or a bit more. They have annexed, Judaized, and expropriated the land here and there. They have attempted to change, distort, and falsify the landmarks of Jerusalem, the eternal capital – [but] all of this did not change the equation of the historical conflict, and victory will certainly belong to the Palestinian Arab people…
On Land Day (see note below -Ed.), the people again declares that it is holding onto Arab, independent, and sovereign Palestine, and it is putting down roots there. It emphasizes the authenticity and depth of its narrative, and the falsehood of the narrative of the Zionist colonialist thieves, who stole the land with the support of the colonialist West. No one believes [this narrative], even if they will fabricate and invent an imagined history (sic., an abundance of archaeological evidence unequivocally proves the ancient Jewish connection to Israel)…
We the Palestinians have been the residents and owners of the land since the first man was in Jericho 10,000 years ago (sic., the Palestinians have no history prior to the modern period). Even before there were the three monotheistic religions – Judaism, Christianity, and Islam – there were the Palestinian Canaanites (sic., the Canaanites were not Palestinians), who built the first civilization here. All the invaders – the Greeks (the Hellenists) [parentheses in source], the Romans, the Persians, the Crusaders, the French, and the British – did not succeed in changing its characteristics and its identity. The invaders returned defeated to their states the same way they came. This is the fate of the Zionist invasion, which was created by the capitalist West to serve its colonialist project, and this is in order to tear apart the unity of the Arab nation, to steal its treasures, and to prevent its restoration and liberation…
Whoever reads the modern and contemporary history of the leaders of the Zionist project state understands that every day they are waking up from a nightmare, because they know well that their narrative and their fate are based on deceit, hypocrisy, and lies. The facts that they are attempting to establish through Judaization, expropriation, destruction of properties and homes… and through bringing mercenaries from the states of the world (i.e., Jewish immigrants to Israel) will not change one fact: Arab Palestine is the land and homeland of the Palestinian Arab people that is rooted in its land, and all their hired and defeated pawns – the scum of the Palestinians and Arabs – will not help them in changing the historical facts…
The Palestinians will return to their homeland, whether the Zionists want it or not; whether America, the rickety empire, wants it or not; whether the Arabs who are normalizing [with Israel] want it or not.”
Land Day – annual commemoration of the general strike and demonstrations organized by Israeli Arab residents of the Galilee on March 30, 1976 to protest the Israeli government's decision to expropriate land in the Galilee for security and building purposes, which it later implemented. During the protests, demonstrators burnt tires, blocked roads, and threw rocks and firebombs. Six demonstrators were shot and killed by the Israeli army and police. Israeli Arabs and Palestinians consider Land Day a national day.