Gingrich "invents" Another Whopper

There are two ways to view Newt Gingrich's assertion Palestinians are an "invented people." It could be the rambling of a lazy professor provoking frivolous speculation for the purpose of filling class time. Or it could be the scheming of a hack politician pandering for Jewish support in next fall's election. Hmm. Let me think.

Considering in the same self-indulgent proclamation Gingrich also inferred that Bibi (Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu) was his new BBF, proclaiming, "I see myself as in many ways being pretty close to Bibi in thinking about the dangers of the world," I choose the latter.

Now wherever you come down philosophically on the Israeli-Palestinian conundrum, asserting Palestinians are somehow unique in the world because they were "invented" - thereby implying their cause is without merit - is simply ludicrous.

According to Wikipedia, the first use of the word "Peleset" to describe roughly the landmass between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River appeared in Egyptian documents around 1150BCE. That's about 150 years before King David conquered what was to become Jerusalem and invented a unified Jewish state. The term "Palestinians" has been applied to the population living in that area since the 5^th century BCE.

You don't suddenly appear on earth all "nomenclatured" up. We're invented for Pete's sake! The term "Americans" generally was not applied to the colonists for some 200 years after the first settlements. Unless you happen to be a member of an aboriginal group, at some point in history your "people" and nation were invented.

If Newt wants to get technical, how 'bout these numbers:

In all 3000 years since King David's conquest Jews only controlled Jerusalem for about one-sixth of its history; the last time, before their 1967 illegal occupation of the U.N.-mandated "open city," was in 63 BCE.

In 701 BCE the Assyrians captured Jerusalem marking the beginning of the Jewish diaspora. They were followed by Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans -interspersed occasionally with short intervals of Jewish rule - Byzantines, a succession of Arab Caliphates, the Crusaders, Egyptians, Ottomans and the British until 1948.

The point is Israel now exists. It was carved out of Britain's Palestine Mandate - invented or reinvented, so to speak, sans name - by the United Nations in 1947 as "a Jewish state" just as the remaining territory was designated as "an Arab state." Do we really want to make a fuss about what Arabs within that territory call themselves?

This invented people nonsense is another example of the kind of loopy pronouncements and flighty temperament for which Gingrich is noted. It adds nothing to the debate but pointless rancour and does nothing to further resolution.