There is a theory that the Palestinian identity is a fairly recent invention. Maybe. But if so, the Israeli identity is even more recently invented if the same standards apply. And, the American identity, by the same standards, while rather old today, was very young at the time of the War of 1812. Had Newt Gingrich been around then, would he have said that there was no America, only a British Colony that needed to be straightened out?
I’ve always wondered, ever since Gingrich’s “Contract On America” why he hated his own people so much. Now, I ask, why does he hate the Palestinians, and by extent ion, the Israelis, and for that matter, modern Russians who did not exist just a few decades ago? And himself? He does, after all, reinvent himself every four years or so.
Those who can’t teach run for office, I guess.
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When I heard that, my immediate response was, “yeah, aren’t they all?” Every people is the result of human history. An invention. As with every language. Every political notion. Every cultural more. He seems to think he has said something profound, when in fact he has said something much along the lines of “Okinawa is an island that is surrounded by water.”
World History is obviously not required to get a history degree…
All nationalities are recent inventions as is the idea of nationality itself.
Palestine is about 100 years old as far as I know. That’s not old enough for you Newt?
No, too old. He left it years ago for a younger national identity. Which he then cheated on with a third nation.
Does he mean invented in the same way that the USA was invented by the French to annoy the British?
WTF! And he wants to be president. What a choice you have.
Driveby: Depends. How old is “America?” Do we count from the declaration of independent? If so, then why not the earlier document, the Albany Plan of the Union, which was a first draft, essentially. Or why not the end of the war? Or the surrender oat Saratoga, after which the end of the war was a foregone convulsion?
Usually when people count their own existence they go for the earlier one … so Americans would do the DOI or if they knew about it the APU.
Palestinians are an ethnic Arab group living in a particular region. If Israel is an ancient settlement from the Bible, one could argue that the Palestinians descend from the background non-Jewish peoples, who would have been as old as the Jewish peoples, i.e, they were there when the Jews arrived from either the Tigris-Euphrates region during the Temple period, or some earlier imagined migration related to exodus. In other words, thousandths of years. I suppose we would have to look at the skulls. Perhaps the Palestinians are Mushabians, and date to 17,000 years ago!
If we want to go more for the nation-state thing, and we wanted to be conservative, then we’d have to go with the 1834 Arab result. Israel would by the same standards date, perhaps, to 1881 with the First Aliyah.
I’d like to know why it matters. It seems like a huge attempt to try to distract from the main issue-that a lot of people were displaced by the creation of Israel and they are still suffering. They call themselves Palestinians. Why does it matter how long they’ve been doing it? If they weren’t a people before, they are now.
I have no idea how to solve the issues in this area of the world, but you can’t magic the problem away by saying one of the groups that’s fighting doesn’t exist.
Uhhh… no, what he said was that Palestine, as as a nation or state, does not exist. (And it hasn’t since the British and French re-drew the middle-east borders, lumping Palestine in as part of Jordan.) Who the hell is claiming the people don’t exist?
In my opinion, since it seems they can’t play nice over a wee strip of land, NOBODY should get it. Not the Arabs. Not the Israelis. Not some neutral third party. Give ample warning — say, three months — for everyone to get out, and then nuke it. Don’t spare a single square centimeter, whether it’s a public street, a private home, or some so-called “holy site”. Nuke. It. All. I’m sick of hearing BOTH sides whine about a war that they, themselves, started and perpetuated, and currently refuse to back down from because they’re too busy whinging about “who started it”.
He called the Palestinians an invented people.
“… I think that we’ve have invented the Palestinian people, who are in fact Arabs and are historically part of the Arab community, and they had the chance to go many places…”
He also said “Remember, there was no Palestine as a state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire”
“… I think that we’ve have invented the Palestinian people, who are in fact Arabs and are historically part of the Arab community, and they had the chance to go many places…”
Yeah, quit bitching about your luxurious refugee camps in all the Arab countries where you’re not allowed to work, own land, or vote, and are generally treated like 3rd class citizens. My brother-in-law grew up in a refugee camp in Beirut during the civil war, one of the wonderful places Palestinians were allowed to go. Gingrich is a sick fuck.
The Prophetsaid “if you have no shame do/say what you want” The Palestinians are the Red Indains the Blacks in America and Africa , the Nuked Japanese the vetnamise, the koreans, the Iraqis , the Lebanese, the Afghanistan, the Pakistan, the Libyan , the Tunisian , the Yogslavian , It’s nothing new , but the total New Cons enslavment of the American people white and black , as Rev Jackson once said. The absolute truth is, only Hitler and the Nazist, the Fascist the Zionist mass-murderers, will be hapy with, specially after they will transfer Iran ” to nuclear waste ” , as one Zionist said , these are not my words , google them and say long live the truth , and curse the lies and the liars.
Palestine of Jesus Christ The Palestinian and Homogenous Canannite Palestinian. Palestine The Holy land of the Christians and the Palestinian, as was Egypt the Holyland for Mosess the Egypian and of all the Egyptians, the same Palestine was there, from the mediterranean sea to Jordan river and from Syria in the north to Egypt of Mosess in the South, the same Palestine Prophet Abraham , David and Solomon had visted, the same Palestine that had fought with an unimaginable pravery against every foreign occupier lotter from the Babalonians to the Assyurians to the British Embire who handed Palestine and the Palestinian to the so called Zionist settlers lotting hurrds.