By ROBERT WALKER
An Aug. 21 opinion column by Anthony Issa, a Montreal-based writer of Canadians for Justice & Peace in the Middle East (CJPME), is an historically ignorant screed that takes a hacksaw to any semblance of factual accuracy.
Issa’s column entitled: “History and beliefs distorted,” is a response to a previous commentary in the newspaper, and his column attempts to convince readers that the history of the Palestinians stretches back not decades, but millennia. How he seeks to do this is with little more than by rhetorical sleight of hand.
Issa states that the earliest recorded use of the term “Peleset” was from 3,000 years ago, and found in Egyptian hieroglyphics, but this is a complete red herring. The term ‘Palestine’ referred to a general geographic area, where the inhabitants were not Muslims, nor Arabic speaking, and had zero connection to the group self-identifying today as Palestinians.
In sharp contrast, the modern state of Israel is the land where for 3,000 years of uninterrupted history, the Jewish people have lived in their ancestral and historic homeland, and where archaeology is regularly adding to incredible richness showing 3,000 years of Jewish habitation in the land of Israel.
But for Issa, irrelevant etymology is more important than actual history, writing off the Jews’ three millennia of ongoing presence in their land as a “colonial” enterprise and “biblical stories.”
With these words, Issa is demonstrating either a profound ignorance or deception, given that in no way, shape or form is Israel colonial, but in fact, the epitome of anti-colonial: an indigenous people achieving self-determination in their own land, and one need not believe a single word of the Bible to recognize the veritable mountain of literary, archaeological and other evidence to recognize the indisputable reality of the Jewish presence in their homeland.
That is not to say that there is no colonialism in the Middle East; far from it. The spread of Islam and Arabic throughout the region did not simply take place organically; it is the result of military conquest and expansion, and cultural imperialism spread primarily through the sword.
Not all of Issa’s disinformation is an attempt to rewrite ancient history; he also shows a profound hostility to contemporary reality, writing that “The UN Partition Plan of 1947, although never fully realized, recognized the Palestinian people’s right to statehood, a right that continues to be obstructed primarily by the ongoing occupation of Israel and international reluctance on the issue.”
This is a blatant falsehood. The UN Partition Plan of 1947 was outright rejected by Arab parties, and accepted by Israel. Furthermore, once Israel declared its independence the following year, it was invaded by its Arab neighbours in an attempt to annihilate the newly reborn country. And Israel still offered to give up parts of its own land for the creation of another Arab state in both 2000 and 2008, both times for it to be rejected.
Three times in his column, Issa accuses those who dare to question pro-Palestinian orthodoxies as peddling racism against “a marginalized community.” It is no surprise that Issa opts to follow this tactic, given that seeking to erase three thousand years of Jewish history is a fool’s errand that has been attempted by empires stretching back to the Romans, Greeks and others, all of whom have failed.
Anthony Issa’s column is not only a slap in the face to historical accuracy, it is an insult to the intelligence of readers.
The writer is assistant director for HonestReporting Canada, a non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring fairness and accuracy in Canadian media reporting on Israel.
