Hijacked Ideas and Stolen Names: The Meme of “Palestine”

On the 150th Anniversary of the Birth of Academician Alexei A. Ukhtomsky

Who owns an idea? Who defines an identity? In the modern battle over language, history, and legitimacy, these aren’t academic questions—they’re existential. Few examples illustrate this more clearly than the appropriation of the name Palestine, a historical-geographical term deeply tied to Jewish heritage, and its repurposing into a modern political identity meant to replace it.

To understand how such a dramatic inversion took hold in global consciousness, we turn to two powerful frameworks: Alexei Ukhtomsky’s theory of the dominant and Richard Dawkins’ theory of memes. These two thinkers, though separated by decades and disciplines, together illuminate how an idea—true or false—can capture the minds of millions, redirect behavior, and reshape reality.

The Dominant: How Attention Shapes Reality

Ukhtomsky, a pioneering Russian physiologist born on June 25, 1875—150 years ago this month—developed the concept of the dominant, a prevailing excitation in the nervous system that seizes attention and suppresses all competing inputs. It becomes the functional center of thought, perception, and behavior. Once an idea achieves dominance, it acts like a gravitational force pulling resources, emotions, and choices toward itself.

The Meme: The Viral Power of Repetition

Fast-forward to 1976, when British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins coined the term meme—a cultural gene, an idea-virus that spreads from person to person. Whether a pop song or a propaganda slogan, memes replicate through imitation and social reinforcement. They thrive not on truth, but on transmissibility. A meme doesn’t have to be accurate to become dominant; it simply needs to spread.

Building on this, psychologist Gad Saad explores in The Parasitic Mind how certain “parasitic” ideas hijack rational thought and degrade societies by spreading harmful, irrational beliefs that resist correction. His work underscores that some memes act like mind viruses, infecting hosts with ideas that are destructive rather than constructive.

How “Palestine” Became a Meme—and a Dominant

Historically, “Palestine” referred to a geographical area associated predominantly with Jews for millennia. It appeared on coins, documents, and maps under Roman, Ottoman, and British rule. The term “Palestinian” once described Jews living in British Mandate Palestine, including institutions like the Palestine Post (now the Jerusalem Post) and the Palestine Philharmonic (now the Israel Philharmonic).

But after 1948—and especially from the 1960s onward—something remarkable happened: the term was hijacked. Through a mix of political messaging, repeated media framing, and international institutions like UNRWA, a new meme took hold: “Palestinians” were no longer Jews indigenous to Palestine, but Arab migrants who had arrived during the late Ottoman and British periods.

Moreover, the term “Palestinian” has not only been hijacked—it has become fluid and ever-expanding, detached from any fixed meaning. In the early stages of this rebranding, it referred almost exclusively to Muslim Arabs, excluding Jews and even Christians who had lived in the region for centuries. Over time, it came to mean all Arabs living in the former British Mandate, regardless of origin. Today, its scope includes virtually everyone except Jews: Arab citizens of Israel, non-citizen Arab settlers in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza, as well as Israeli Druze, Samaritans, Armenians, Circassians, Assyrians, and the millions registered as “refugees” by UNRWA—many of whom have never set foot in the land at all.

It is an identity defined not by history, ethnicity, or even geography—but by its utility in opposing Jewish sovereignty.

This inversion didn’t spread because it was true. It spread because it became dominant in global discourse—a perfect case study in Ukhtomsky-Dawkins dynamics. A simple, emotionally charged meme—“Palestinians = native victims, Israelis = colonial invaders”—was repeated endlessly until it displaced historical memory.

The Manifesto: Reclaiming the Dominant

Today, many Jews instinctively retreat from the word “Palestine,” as though it were a foreign or hostile term. But this is a symptom of lost dominance. When you cede language, you cede narrative—and eventually, legitimacy.

That’s why the Palestinian Identity Manifesto represents not just a political statement but a psychological correction. It seeks to reclaim a hijacked identity by restoring the original meaning of “Palestinian” as Jewish and Israeli. It offers a counter-dominant—one grounded in primary sources, historical continuity, and cultural authenticity.

In the war of ideas, this isn’t just a historical footnote. It’s a strategic pivot. To win the future, we must retake the memes that define us—before they’re used to erase us.

Conclusion: Ideas Shape History—And Can Reshape It

The theories of Ukhtomsky and Dawkins offer more than academic insight. They help us understand how false ideas become dominant and how true ideas can be reclaimed. “Palestine” was once Jewish, both in fact and name. It was taken not by force, but by narrative. And now, through the lens of dominants and memes, we see the path to restoring it—not by fighting the lie with emotion, but by replacing it with a stronger, deeper, truer idea.