Debunking the Palestine Lie

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has launched an international campaign to achieve recognition by the United Nations for an independent Palestinian state. Abbas and his international supporters claim that only Israel (with the United States) stands in the way of this act of historical justice, which would finally bring about peace in the Middle East.

This video debunks the Palestinians' claim and shows that Abbas has been lying about the origins and history of the conflict. Palestinian leaders have rejected partition plans that would have given them much more land for their independent state than the Jews were offered for theirs. Rather than being the innocent victims of a "dispossession" at the hands of the Israelis, the Palestinians rejected reasonable compromises and instead pursued their aim of getting rid of the only Jewish state in the world.

[jimdavis]

I guess you can't have a 2-state solution when the Palestinians will only accept one state as the solution.

[AmoghRKanade]

Cant believe that this video is from 13 years ago, and tons of people still simply refuse to study history.

[KrakenUmbra]

Imagine starting a war because you refused to have peace, and then get destroyed in the war, and then start complaining the other side were the evil ones.

[stephenjablonsky]

The Jews angered the Arabs even more by creating a thriving, vital nation with first world status where even the Muslim citizens had a good life.

[thomasdavid]

Firstly a disclaimer: Not a Jew, not an Arab, simply a Brit who studies Arabic at university and lived in Jordan (Amman) and Palestine (Ramallah) for a year. I lean more towards supporting Israel on the conflict (I refuse to use the term "pro-Israel" because it gives the impression that I side with Israel on all aspects, which would obviously be ludicrous), but ultimately see both sides as having good and bad within them.

While overall this video is correct in the information it provides (and is 7 years out-of-date), it does also leave out events and information (the Deir Yassin massacre of 107 Palestinian villagers, the controversy surrounding Plan Dalet, the exploitation of Ottoman home ownership laws etc) that would more correctly portray both sides of the conflict (although admittedly not every single facet can be shown without the video becoming hours long). It also jumps from the conclusion of the 1948 war to the Camp David accords of the early 2000s, completely ignoring many important things that happened in-between such as the 6 Day War and the start of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the Khartoum Resolution, Black September, the Munich Massacre, the Yom Kippur War, the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty, the Israeli invasion and occupation of southern Lebanon, the First Intifada, the Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty and the Oslo Accords. Post-2000 the video also ignores the construction of the West Bank barrier and checkpoints, the 2006 Lebanon War and the 2008 Operation Cast Lead.

As for the information provided, whilst (as previously stated) the information is generally accurate, there are some mistakes that I'll correct:

0:45 - There were no borders pre-1967. After the conclusion of the 1948 war, the Israelis and the Arabs agreed to armistice lines separating Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Egypt from Israel. The Arabs made it explicitly clear that these were simply ceasefire lines and didn't demarcate country boundaries, for the simple fact that it would unofficially be a recognition of Israel (which they refused to do).

1:46 - True, but while 10% were Jews, the majority of that 10% were recent refugees and immigrants from Europe making Aliyah.

3:28 (with reference to 2:31) - The Palestinian people didn't exist at this point as a national identity. Palestinian nationalism, the idea of the unique Palestinian people, arose as a response to Zionism and Israel and came to the forefront after the Arab defeat in the 6 Day War. At this point the now-Palestinians saw themselves simply as Arabs, no different from the other Levantines of Greater Syria, and pan-Arab nationalism and support of King Faisal was very much the default at the time (in fact his defeat and exile to Iraq after the 1920 Franco-Syrian War is one of the causes of the Nebi Musa Riots discussed from 3:22). It was mostly the collapse of the United Arab Republic in 1961; the humiliation of Abdel Nasser, the figurehead of pan-Arab nationalism, after his defeat in the 6 Day War; and the work of Yasser Arafat and his opposition to Zionism that led to the modern Palestinian national identity.

4:05 - Everything depicted here is true; however, it should also be noted that, along with 4 Arabs dying and 21 injured, sheiks of 82 Arab villages surrounding Jerusalem and Jaffa condemned the riots and attacks on Jews.

4:54 - Very true, there were many more riots and pogroms against the Jews, the worst probably being the massacres of 1929; however, as previously stated, this ignores Jewish attacks against the Arabs, the worst being of course the massacre at Deir Yassin.

5:49 - The Jews rejected the Peel Commission.

7:09 - Wrong order of events. After the declaration of the proposed UN Partition Plan in 1947, the Arabs started a civil war against the Jews which saw the beginnings of the Nakba. The other Arab states invaded in 1948 after the expiry of the British Mandate and the declaration of the State of Israel.

8:09 - The widely-accepted number of Palestinian refugees displaced in the Nakba is 700, 000 or 80% of the population. 20%, or 150, 000 Arabs, remained within Israel and became Israeli citizens (although under martial law until 1966). Specific cases to mention would be Haifa, where the Jews of the city pleaded with the Palestinians to stay and not flee as refugees; and the expulsions at Lydda and Ramle, where Palestinians were literally forced out of their homes at gunpoint under the threat of death.

8:14 - Not so much sent as they were already there due to fighting in the war, and they also occupied East Jerusalem. Worth mentioning as well that the Jordanians expelled every single Jew living within the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem and throughout the West Bank; denied all Jews, not just Israelis, any access to all holy sites within East Jerusalem and the West Bank (eg the Western Wall, the Temple Mount, Rachel's Tomb, the Cave of the Patriarchs etc - too many to mention really, the entire area is riddled with important historical Jewish sites) until their loss of the territory in 1967; destroyed synagogues, including blowing up the famous Hurva Synagogue in Jerusalem; desecrated ancient Jewish cemeteries; and looted and vandalised Jewish property.

8:40 - This is annoyingly misleading, painting the notion that the Palestinians reject peace agreements simply because they're against the very idea of peace with Israel. Just because the Palestinians disagree to the terms of a peace agreement doesn't mean they're anti-peace; similarly, just because Israel rejected the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative doesn't mean Israel is anti-peace, it just means they disagree with the terms of the agreement.

8:54 - Conflation of the Camp David Summit of 2000 and the Taba Negotiations of 2001. Yasser Arafat walked away from the Camp David Summit, true, but the terms of the agreement were nowhere near as favourable as the video says; instead, the terms the video talks about were part of the Taba Negotiations, which were ended by the Israeli PM Ehud Barak because of the upcoming Israeli elections - his successor, Ariel Sharon, never resumed the negotiations. This is still widely claimed to be the very closest they've ever got to a peace agreement, stating they were only mere weeks away from a final resolution.

9:16 - The Second Intifada began after Ariel Sharon visited the Temple Mount with an entourage of 100-odd Israeli riot police. Palestinians rioted against his visit, the Israelis cracked down of the riots, voilà Second Intifada.

10:06 - Skipped a bit. The Palestinians in the Gaza Strip then held the legislative elections in 2006. Hamas got the highest amount of votes, 44%, with Fatah getting the second highest at 41%. Hamas then took over the entire Gaza Strip, executing not only Fatah but all their political rivals, throwing them off buildings and driving them out to the West Bank; then they started the rocket launches against Israel, leading to the blockade in 2007.

10:12 - The Olmert Peace Plan is misrepresented here. The then-PM Ehud Olmert was convicted of corruption and bribery, indicted and sent to trial, stepping down as PM. This all happened just days after he summoned Abbas to the private meeting where he first brought up the proposed peace plan, saying that Abbas had to accept ASAP or it was off the table. At 10:43 there's a crucial mistake in that Abbas was forbidden from taking a map of the proposed agreement - Olmert refused to grant Abbas one after he asked. Abbas went back to his advisors and had to hand-draw the map from memory on a napkin, with his advisors rightly saying that agreeing to anything without proper perusal would be idiocy. Frankly the entire thing was dead in the water before it ever really began, it had no chance of happening.


Wow this became a very long post, but the video needed a few corrections. Everything else mentioned in the video is correct to the best of my knowledge.

[RandyYalch-iqsz]

Starting wars @ losing them doesn't make you the victiim

[ComputeCrashers]

I don't think that many people in the 2020s were ready to see this video

[mawnkey]

You remember that kid in school who would always talk a big game, start shit, get stomped every time, and continue to talk a big game while complaining about how he's treated _so_ unfairly?



I'm not saying it's relevant here or that it might apply to any group. I'm just throwing it out there.

[ephemeralcreek]

Every single time I try to research and understand the history of conflicts in this region, I just get more and more confused....

[spikefivefivefive]

The fact that Palestinians cheered in the streets during 9/11 tells me everything I need to know about them.

[raysjb]

Among the many ironies of the history is that since 1948, the Druze have almost always been supporters of Israel, including serving in the IDF. But it was the Druze who attacked Jews or led the attacks on Jews back in 1660 and in the 1800s.

[E.AllTheAbove]

The fact that this was done 12 years ago, is amazing.

[bassiehd]

A correction...It says "in April 1920 Palestinians poured into the old city"...but these Arabs refused to be called "Palestinians, " in fact at the time and throughout the first half of the 20th century it was considered an insult to Arabs, like calling them "dirty Jews" since the Jews were the ones known as "Palestinians." They insisted on being called simply "Arabs." But yes, these are the people who perpetrated regular massacres of Jews in the 1920s and 1930s.

[AhavaMath]

Excellent video, but important to note, since it can be misleading, on the point of Jews making up 10% of the population at the time. That might seem to some to imply that the muslim arabs made up the other 90%, but this was not the case. There were many different peoples living in the land at the time. To name a few other groups: Druz, Circassians, Christian Arabs, Baha'i, Bedouin, ... Many of those groups stood with the Jewish people and are now citizens of Israel. Some of them even serve in the Israeli army (for instance the Circassians and the Druz are required to serve in the military).

[shainazion]

There was no "land", all the land of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, Turkey, parts of Greece, Egypt and more were part of One large empire. The Ottomans had nothing called Palestine for their 400 years of rule. The land was divided into 3 to 5 Sanjaks (provinces), none called Palestine.
The British illegally gave 77% of the Mandate of Palestine lands to the Arab Hashemites to become trans-Jordan, leaving only the 23% to become the future Jewish state!

[LuKiSCraft]

At least you know he isn't biased by recent events in this video lmao

[VincentNajger]

This creator must be surprised that their 12yr old vid has become super relevant and goes viral after all this time. Never abandon hope.

[jaycristoval]

Strange to hear you refer to the Arabs as Palestinian prior to that's not what they called themselves until Egyptian born Yasser Arafat invented the

[mikemesser]

Well, I have stuck to a very neutral position on the current mess (condemning the Oct 7 stuff though). I just haven't had time to research all this history. Here it is in a nice concise package.

I mean I support the idea of a two state setup and kept wondering why it hadn't been done. Now I know.

[jyndev]

You left out that only 'Palestinian' Refugee have their own UN Department (UNRWA) and that theirs is the only refugee status that is hereditary so that number of refugees grows instead of diminishes. No other group is treated this way. For all other groups only the initial displaced persons are considered refugees. Their descendants born elsewhere are not.