I welcome Andrea Rapp's challenge, but am surprised that she claims
my "long post did not refute" Anne's contention about the use of the
term "Palestinian" not being used prior to 1947.
I thought I had given ample evidence as to the rise of the national
consciousness of the ethnically Arab people of the geographic area of
Palestine. The conferences held early in the British mandate period,
for instance were the "Palestinian Conference" (E.J., V.9, col.457),
not the Palestine Conferences. Arab inhabitants of Palestine were NOT
as Andrea claims, only "occasionally called Palestinians". While it
is true, as far as I'm aware, that this sense of national identity
came to the forefront only after the 1908 Turkish revolution (as I
said in my earlier posting), that's a long time before 1947!
I'll add another example to those I've already given. Horace Samuel
(son of the first British High Commissioner of Palestine, Sir (later
Lord) Herbert Samuel), was a member of the Jewish Regiment (38th
Royal Fusiliers
sometimes called "Jabotinsky's Army) that came to Palestine in 1918.
He was a Zionist, and became a judge "function[ing] all over the
country", as he says in his memoir "Unholy Memories of the Holy Land"
(London: Hogarth Press, 1930). He uses the term "Palestinian"
repeatedly to refer to the non-Jewish native inhabitants of
Palestine. He also uses the word Arab to denote an ethnic group (also
Druse, etc.), Moslem (sic), Christian, Jew to denote religious
groups, and terms such as fellaheen, Bedouin to deonte specific
groups of Arabs.
Of course this is from a non-Arab, but the examples I gave before
were primarily from the Arab pov. As I don't read Arabic, I cannot
give examples from those sources, though I am assured by those who do
read Arabic that they exist pre-1947. Since my knowledge of sources I
can access yields the same result, I have no doubt that thi is in
fact the truth, as opposed to the mythology we have been fed by many
writers and teachers.
This is important and directly relates to Anne's claim of Deborah
Ellis' "skewing of historical events [which] is at the cost of truth.
The bias is subtle and hard to catch", said Anne. But there is no
such systemic bias in Three Wishes, subtle or otherwise.
I'm not sure where Andrea got the quote "significant reasons for what
the Palestinian leadership did". However, I would like to say that
her comment about Islamic ideology and the belief of Muslims
concerning land under the sovereignty of Muslims is fully comparable
to the views of *some* Jews about eretz ha-kodesh, almost word for
word. I also know both Muslim and Christian Palestinains, and just as
I used the word "some" to describe those beliefs equally to Jews, the
same word must be used for Muslims. I hope in this day and age that
we all understand that there are extreme views in the Muslim and
Jewish and indeed every other human grouping in the world. B'shalom,
Bernard.
Bernard Katz, former head, Special Collections and Library Development
McLaughlin Library, University of Guelph
author, descriptive bibliog. of L.M. Montgomery's books (in progress)
and chair, Ontario Library Association Copyright Task Force
Messages and opinions expressed on Hasafran are those of the individual author
and are not necessarily endorsed by the Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL)
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