The Myth of ‘Palestine’: How History Was Rewritten

How is it possible that the entire world repeats a lie so confidently that it has become accepted as truth? How can people; journalists, academics, politicians,  say with a straight face that “Palestine has always been an Arab country,” when the historical record shows the exact opposite?

Between 1920 and 1960, the very leaders of the Arab population in the land now called Israel and the Palestinian territories rejected the idea of a Palestinian nation, denied that “Palestine” was a country, and openly identified themselves as Arabs, Syrians, or part of the greater Arab nation. The idea of a separate “Palestinian people” was not only absent, it was considered absurd.

What Arab Leaders Themselves Said

The historical record is crystal clear.
When the Peel Commission, a British inquiry into the Arab-Jewish conflict, questioned local Arab leaders in 1937, Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi, one of the most prominent, declared:

There is no such country as Palestine. ‘Palestine’ is a term the Zionists invented. Our country was for centuries part of Syria.

That wasn’t an isolated remark, it reflected the consensus of Arab leadership at the time. The same message came from Ahmad Shukeiri, who would later become the first chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in the 1960s. In 1956, long before the Six-Day War or the so-called “occupation,” Shukeiri said bluntly:

It is common knowledge that Palestine is nothing but southern Syria.

Those words are not interpretations, they are direct quotes from the leaders who supposedly fought for “Palestine.”

If even the founding fathers of the modern Palestinian movement denied that Palestine ever existed as a separate Arab country, why does the world now pretend otherwise?

A Name Without a Nation

Before 1948, the word “Palestinian” was used almost exclusively for Jews.
The Palestine Post (now The Jerusalem Post) was a Jewish newspaper.
The Palestine Electric Company, Anglo-Palestine Bank, and Palestine Philharmonic Orchestra were all Jewish institutions.

Meanwhile, the Arab population referred to themselves simply as “Arabs.” Their loyalties were local, tribal, or tied to Greater Syria, not to a separate land called Palestine. There was no “Palestinian flag,” no national anthem, no parliament, and no historic capital.

It was only after Israel’s establishment and especially after 1967, when Israel defeated surrounding Arab armies and took control of territories that Jordan and Egypt had occupied, that the Palestinian identity was reinvented, as a political weapon against the Jewish state.

The Western World Fell for the Lie

So how did the narrative flip?
How did a non-existent nationality become the centerpiece of a global campaign to delegitimize Israel?

The answer lies in propaganda and in the West’s willingness to believe it.

After the 1967 Six-Day War, Arab nations suffered a humiliating defeat. They realized they could not destroy Israel militarily. Instead, the Soviet Union and Arab League helped create a new strategy: erase Israel’s moral legitimacy by framing Jews as “colonial occupiers” of an ancient Arab land.

Suddenly, the PLO,  formed in 1964 (before Israel controlled Judea&Samaria or Gaza!), began promoting a new story: that “Palestine” was an ancient homeland stolen by Jews. Western intellectuals, eager to romanticize revolution and anti-colonial struggle, swallowed it whole.

The facts didn’t matter.
That from the 1920s to the 1960s, Arab leaders explicitly denied the existence of any “Palestine.”
That “Palestine” was a Roman invention,  the name imposed on Judea after Rome crushed the Jewish revolt in 135 CE to erase Jewish identity.
That Jews are the only people in history to have had a sovereign kingdom in this land, twice.

None of this mattered to a world eager to believe that Jews are oppressors, never victims.

A Lie Repeated Becomes Accepted Truth

The result? Decades later, schoolbooks, media outlets, and political movements repeat the falsehood that “Palestine has always been an Arab country.” The lie has been told so often that it feels like truth,  even though the documentation, maps, and words of Arab leaders themselves prove otherwise.

Today, Israel stands accused of “occupying” a state that has never existed.
The descendants of those who once denied that “Palestine” existed are now claiming it always has.
And the world, too lazy or too biased to check history, nods in agreement.

Standing for Truth

Israel does not need to invent history, it has it.
The Jewish people’s continuous presence in the land of Israel spans over 3,000 years, with Jerusalem as its heart. When Jews prayed facing Jerusalem for two millennia, no other nation prayed for “Palestine.”

To deny that truth is not to criticize policy,  it is to erase history.

The tragedy is not just the political hypocrisy, but the moral one. The world that once demanded evidence, context, and truth now prefers emotion, slogans, and lies.

So let’s be clear:
There was never an independent Arab state called Palestine.
The name was adopted only to undermine the legitimacy of Jewish self-determination.
And every time someone repeats that Palestine “was always Arab,” they are not defending justice, they are repeating Soviet-era propaganda that rewrote Middle Eastern history.

It’s time to stop accepting historical amnesia as compassion.
It’s time to stand up for truth  and for Israel

#TimeToStandUpForIsrael