Robert Spencer: How the “Palestinians” Were Invented

Note: This is an exclusive excerpt from Robert Spencer’s new book, The History of Jihad From Muhammad to ISIS. All quotes are sourced in the book. 

In 1948, the nascent state of Israel defeated forces from Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Transjordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen that had been determined to destroy it utterly. The jihad against it continued, but it held firm, defeating Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon again in the Six-Day War in 1967, and Egypt and Syria yet again in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. In winning these victories against enormous odds, Israel won the admiration of the free world, leading to the largest-scale and most audacious application in Islamic history of Muhammad’s dictum “War is deceit.”

In order to destroy the impression of the tiny Jewish state’s facing enormous Muslim Arab foes and prevailing, the Soviet KGB (the Soviet Committee for State Security) developed the fiction of an even smaller people, the “Palestinians,” menaced by a well-oiled and ruthless Israeli war machine. In A.D. 134, the Romans had expelled the Jews from Judea after the Bar Kokhba revolt and renamed the region Palestine, a name they plucked from the Bible, the name of the Israelites’ ancient enemies, the Philistines. But never had the name Palestinian referred to anything but a region, not to a people or an ethnicity. In the 1960s, however, the KGB and Hajj Amin al-Husseini’s nephew Yasir Arafat created both these allegedly oppressed people and the instrument of their freedom, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

Ion Mihai Pacepa, who had served as acting chief of Cold War– era Communist Romania’s spy service, later revealed that “the PLO was dreamt up by the KGB, which had a penchant for ‘liberation’ organizations. There was the National Liberation Army of Bolivia, created by the KGB in 1964 with help from Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara…the KGB also created the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which carried out numerous bombing attacks…. In 1964 the first PLO Council, consisting of 422 Palestinian representatives handpicked by the KGB, approved the Palestinian National Charter—a document that had been drafted in Moscow. The Palestinian National Covenant and the Palestinian Constitution were also born in Moscow, with the help of Ahmed Shuqairy, a KGB influence agent who became the first PLO chairman.”

For Arafat to head up the PLO, he had to be a Palestinian. Pacepa explained that “he was an Egyptian bourgeois turned into a devoted Marxist by KGB foreign intelligence. The KGB had trained him at its Balashikha special-operations school east of Moscow and in the mid- 1960s decided to groom him as the future PLO leader. First, the KGB destroyed the official records of Arafat’s birth in Cairo, and replaced them with fictitious documents saying that he had been born in Jerusalem and was therefore a Palestinian by birth.”

Arafat may have been a Marxist, at least at first, but he and his Soviet handlers made copious use of Islamic anti-Semitism. KGB chief Yuri Andropov noted that “the Islamic world was a waiting petri dish in which we could nurture a virulent strain of America-hatred, grown from the bacterium of Marxist-Leninist thought. Islamic anti-Semitism ran deep…. We had only to keep repeating our themes—that the United States and Israel were ‘fascist, imperial-Zionist countries’ bankrolled by rich Jews. Islam was obsessed with preventing the infidels’ occupation of its territory, and it would be highly receptive to our characterization of the U.S. Congress as a rapacious Zionist body aiming to turn the world into a Jewish fiefdom.”

PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein explained the strategy more fully in a 1977 interview with the Dutch newspaper Trouw:

The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct “Palestinian people” to oppose Zionism.

For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.

Once the people had been created, their desire for peace could be easily fabricated as well. Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu tutored Arafat in how to play the West like a fiddle. Pacepa recounted: “In March 1978, I secretly brought Arafat to Bucharest for final instructions on how to behave in Washington. ‘You simply have to keep on pretending that you’ll break with terrorism and that you’ll recognize Israel—over, and over, and over,’ Ceausescu told him [Arafat]…. Ceausescu was euphoric over the prospect that both Arafat and he might be able to snag a Nobel Peace Prize with their fake displays of the olive branch…. Ceausescu failed to get his Nobel Peace Prize. But in 1994 Arafat got his—all because he continued to play the role we had given him to perfection. He had transformed his terrorist PLO into a government-in-exile (the Palestinian Authority), always pretending to call a halt to Palestinian terrorism while letting it continue unabated. Two years after signing the Oslo Accords, the number of Israelis killed by Palestinian terrorists had risen by 73 percent.”

This strategy continued to work beautifully, through U.S.-brokered “peace process” after “peace process,” from the 1978 Camp David Accords into the presidency of Barack Obama and beyond, with no end in sight. Western authorities never seem to ponder why so many attempts to achieve a negotiated peace between Israel and the “Palestinians,” whose historical existence everyone by now takes for granted, have all failed. The answer, of course, lies in the Islamic doctrine of jihad. “Drive them out from where they drove you out” is a command that contains no mitigation and accepts none.

Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His new book is The History of Jihad From Muhammad to ISIS. Follow him on Twitter here. Like him on Facebook here.

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Suresh

5 years ago

Trump was conned by Abbas initially but when he found out the truth boy was he mad as hell at the jihadi http://bit.ly/2rOmfyJ

That’s when he decided enough is enough and that inspite of huge opposition led to shifting of Embassy to Jerusalem and No more funding to the jihadis.

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James Stamulis

5 years ago

Reply to  Suresh

Amen! Trump is all about truth and freedom for all.

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Dennis

5 years ago

This article confirms my belief that “peace” between Israel and those who call themselves “Palestinians” is not now possible. The reality today is that the Arab world, which has adopted in their charters vitriol and death to the people of Jewish persuasion and destruction of Israel as a functioning nation, have left themselves without any room to enter into any peace with Israel. The sooner Israel and those who support that nation recognizes that is the reality, the sooner action can be taken to guarantee Israel defensible borders, and end the anti-Israel sentiment that permeates this planet, especially the bogus BDS nonsense. Though I recognize that Judaism is the oldest monothematic religion, I have always wondered what “Zionism” means and how it is used to try to explain what its intentions are. While I recognize that Israel was created to provide to the holocaust survivors a place to go, and the land that is Israel had always been settled by people of Jewish persuasion, I have never understood what Zionism really meant, except to the extent that it provided a land to which those affected by the Nazi’s could go to, where there were Jewish people already in residency. If there is a deeper meaning to the word Zionism, I hope somebody with that knowledge can enlighten me accordingly. Thanks..

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mackykam

5 years ago

Reply to  Dennis

Israel was not created to provide holocaust survivors a place to go. that is an outright lie!!! The brits kept the Jews from establishing their own state in the 20’s, after the League of Nations handed britain control of the Palestine mandate.

Zion is the resting place of God in Jerusalem. Zion is the homeland of the Jewish people, who were created there, the land of their birth and rebirth after millennia of exile. The land of Zion has never flourished for any people who have occupied it for two millennia. The land only responds to Jewish tillers, bringing forth its abundance and not a subsistence living. That is what the bible promised and that is what is being witnessed today. Where Jews inhabit the land it is green, where arabs live it is brown.

Zion is, to quote Reagan, ‘ the shining city upon a hill.’ No, not DC.

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Dennis

5 years ago

Reply to  mackykam

Thank you. After writing my commentary, I set out to determine what “Zionism” is defined to mean. Essentially, I learned that the concept of Zionism was to return the Jewish people, who had been dispersed from their original land, to their original land which constituted the biblical places of Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. The movement was started in the 1890’s and today the nation of Israel is the original area where the religion got its start. I will root for Israel, as I see that country as the only true friend of the U.S.A.

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LittleRoot_48

5 years ago

Reply to  Dennis

According to the Bible, there will NEVER be a true and lasting peace in the Middle East. Any peace they manage to achieve will be a false peace.

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joanofark06

5 years ago

Reply to  LittleRoot_48

Yes, a false peace, but a peace, nonetheless. One day, there will be a 7 year peace treaty, signed by Israel and Palestine. (Trump is all giddy about HIS peace plan, that he has his son, and some other person, working on. I don’t think it’s the 7 year one, though). Once this 7 year peace plan/treaty is signed, this begins the 7 year Tribulation period. And at the 3 1/2 mark of that 7 years, satan will walk into a temple (he would have the best, so it would be a very nice new one), and proclaim himself “god”. This is called the “abomination of desolation”. So the mark will probably begin then. It will be an implant, the size of a piece of rice, inserted into the right hand, or forehead. (This implant is already out, and ignorant people are already taking it….to buy drinks at a bar, to use their computer, etc etc.). You will not be able to buy or sell, if you don’t take this mark. It will be demanded that EVERYONE has to take it. What happens when you don’t take it? That awful thing, is in Rev 20:4.
As satan will be a physical person, at that time, he won’t be able to be in more than one place at a time. So he will need help from “followers”, all around the world, to exterminate the people who will NOT take his mark. That is the christians, jews, and possible others.
Now who hates, the christians, and jews, as much as satan does? The ones that are immigrating by the thousands, to all these non-muslim lands. Is there a purpose, or reason, for this worldwide immigration?
I think so. Satan needs them, all over the world, to help give the punishment to those aggravating people, the christians and jews, which I mentioned, is in Rev 20:4. Here’s a hint. It’s also in the koran, as “strike the necks”.
Out of all these peace treaties, they have all failed, but one will come, and it will be for 7 years. Let’s pray it’s not the one Trump has been happy about. In the meantime, these “people” of the koran, are getting put in their places, to serve their master. When their all set, where they need to be, the beginning of the end starts.

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poetcomic1

5 years ago

Reply to  Dennis

About half of Israelis trace their roots to the Arab world where, after suffering centuries of degradation and dhimmitude they were at last driven out by riots and pogroms. If you look at it sensibly, Israel is one tiny, tiny part of the vast Arab lands that is set aside for the Jews driven out of Arab lands. Now, more so than holocaust survivors.

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Dan Knight

5 years ago

I’m on Chapter 3. … So far my head has not exploded, but the steam is rolling out of my ears.

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Alleged-Comment

5 years ago

Two of them are smiling. One because he fooled you Jews and Americans. The other because he fooled Arafat and made a joke of him.

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Drew the Infidel

5 years ago

How do you like that? “Palestine” is a Communist plot created by Russian “collusion”. This fiction appears in the strangest of places, doesn’t it?

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poetcomic1

5 years ago

Reply to  Drew the Infidel

I WAS THERE. I remember when they were not ‘Palestinians’ just ‘Arabs’. Hundreds of millions of ARABS screaming for Jewish blood.

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joanofark06

5 years ago

Reply to  poetcomic1

Palestinians, Arabs….all koran reading muslims.

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DaveM12

5 years ago

Hope I live to see Russia reap the whirlwind for all their attacks on the drive for freedom. That picture of 140,000 muslims with their faces in the dirt in Birmingham is just scary but our lefties continue to drag us down that road to total destruction of our countries.

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dhd123

5 years ago

Arafat was Egyptian and yes “palestinian” is made up, does not exist.

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Roland Deschain

5 years ago

I have been telling people that the palestinians were fake for years, using the story of the Romans and the Philistines. All I ever got was deer in the headlight looks in return, like I was out of my mind. Thank you, Mr. Spencer. Keep up the fight. I know it is against overwhelming odds, just like Israel hes faced. We must stand tall and firm or be destroyed.

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D A

5 years ago

Excellent… I was hoping for another Robert Spencer book.

I looked at the Amazon link….. I hope Mr Spencer is reading these Posts. The book came out August 7th…. today is Aug 12th. And…. THERE ARE NO COPIES AVAILABLE !! ????

And only 3 comments. Is this because it was bought up ? Or because Amazon is boycotting ?? I don’t do E-books.

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joanofark06

5 years ago

Reply to  D A

I…and I hope, others, are boycotting Amazon, for a shirt they are selling on there. Maybe you haven’t heard about it yet? As of now, thank heavens, the page is down!! But one of my newsletters, was the first to tell me about it, it’s the link below. (Everyone should sign up for that website’s newsletter, it’ll keep you informed of what’s happening in the world, and I’ve been receiving it, for probably a year now, so it’s good!)

Amazon Selling “Make Israel Palestine Again” T-Shirts

https://www.investigativeproject.org/7567/amazon-selling-make-israel-palestine-again-t

Sorry that I can’t help you with your question about Robert’s book, maybe someone else can?

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D A

5 years ago

Reply to  joanofark06

I contacted him/them directly. They said they weren’t boycotted….just got sold out. But it’s good to check. Nowadays you never know right ?

Disgusting !!…. Palestine is a made-up myth.

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minted

5 years ago

There should be a separate book sold under title “How the “Palestinians” Were Invented” so the true story of Palestine can come out and is not hidden in some pages of a book where readers may have no idea this information exists.

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D A

5 years ago

Reply to  minted

Agree 100 % !!

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Fred Alexander

5 years ago

Palestinian’s a brief history: The British Mandate.
When Israel was under the British Mandate and called the area “Palestine”, (despite the fact that there was no Palestinian national identity then, that group of people has only been invented recently,) Jews and Arab lived in Israel. The Palestine Post was a Jewish newspaper. The flag of then-Palestine featured a Jewish Star of David, and the sports teams were Jews. The real group of people who shared, if any, Palestinian identity were the Jews. It was only much later that Arabs in the area fabricated a ‘Palestinian national identity’ following the loss of the 1967 war.
The State of Israel
In any event, when Israel declared independence in 1947, it had certain borders. The War of Independence in 1948 changed that, and subsequent wars also changed the borders. Of course, since there never was a ruling Palestinian government in Judea and Samaria, when Israel won the Six Day War in 1967 and took over that territory from the Jordanians, it was by no means occupying it. That is because it was not occupying it from anyone. There never was a previous nation living under their own rule there.
Recall that the Palestinian national identity is a modern fabrication. So at most, there would be a dispute as to who had control over the area, as Israel won it in a war with Jordan, and Jordan took it from the British, who were willing to divide up the land in the first place. So while it may be disputed territory, it is clearly not “occupied Palestinian land”, as there was no national Palestinian identity when Jordan ruled it, and there was never any previous Palestinian national government there from whom Israel had “occupied” it.

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