Navigating 1000 Years of Palestinian History

Hitler eliminated Hitler, but that doesn't make him a good guy. American universities fighting against Trump don’t automatically qualify as good guys either — especially when they misuse freedom of speech as freedom of bullshit. (Not to say that Trump doesn’t do the same, times a hundred.)

The news about Harvard offering a history course on “1000 years of Palestine” caused a serious WTF reaction. When a respected institution like Harvard introduces such a course, it legitimizes narratives that can have deadly consequences.

Yes, I know — many people hate Israel, white Zionists, and Jewish colonizers for what they believe these “monsters” have done to the poor Arabic-speaking people living in Gaza, Judea, and Samaria. Nevertheless, claiming a virtual or real victim status for the so-called Palestine can’t retroactively fabricate 1000 years of history.

As a professional systems architect, my purpose is to separate concerns. What Israel actually does is one thing. What Iranian-backed propaganda makes people believe is a second thing. The hatred capacity of the propaganda victims — the so-called Western Useful Idiots — is a third thing. And the negative effects of this hatred on the Jewish population worldwide is a fourth thing. None of these four things is the subject of this post. Historical fabrication is.

So, what’s wrong with “1000 years of Palestinian history”?

Such a “history” course makes two assumptions:

1. That Palestine is a “thing.”

2. That this “thing” has 1000 years of coherent historical continuity.

Let me challenge both assumptions — and spare Harvard the effort of teaching things they have invented using Qatari money.

When does something become a “thing”? When people who believe in the “thing” are either numerous or powerful enough to impose their belief on others. Sometimes those beliefs are based on facts. Sometimes on fabricated narratives.

National identities are examples of such "things." They are not physical constructs; they are virtual beliefs. In that sense, all nations are “fake” — but some nations are more fake than others.

My aim is to discard narratives that invent nations out of thin air, and then mobilize those nations to wage ideological or physical war against others.

We must be very careful about recognizing something as a “thing” — because doing so grants it credibility, and that credibility can be used to extract our sympathy and support for aggressive causes.

So, which national identities can be qualified as a "thing"?

Let’s compare some national identities based on the sources of their coherence.

Start with the Jews. Some people hate Jews. Others don’t. But no one seriously disputes whether Jews are a “thing” — not even Hamas or Hitler.

Why?

• Jews have a historical homeland — the Land of Israel — where they've continuously lived for over 3,500 years.

• They have a distinct religion, language (Hebrew), ethnicity, culture, and traditions.

• They have a state — the State of Israel — where dozens of nations, including Arabs, can vote and are represented in parliament.

This is a rare and powerful combination of coherence and continuity. Jews belong to the gold standard of national authenticity. Frankly, I don’t know any other national identity with so many reinforcing sources of coherence.

Now compare this to Americans:

• No distinct language.

• No distinct religion.

• No unified ethnicity.

• No long-standing traditions.

• Even the state doesn't provide them with a shared reality anymore.

American identity is based on three primary sources:

1. Its moral superiority as the “oldest democracy” (currently declining),

2. Its economic freedom and innovation (currently declining),

3. Its overwhelming military power (no longer true).

Americans aren’t worse than Jews — they just have fewer durable factors that bind them together.

These sources of national coherence are crucial for gaining historical legitimacy. Here is why. In the first millennium BCE, the southwestern Levant (today's Lebanon and Israel) was populated by five major identities:

• Israelites (Jews)

• Philistines

• Phoenicians

• Edomites

• Moabites

Between the 8th and 1st centuries BCE, the region faced four major invasions: Assyrians, Babylonians, Seleucids(Greek), and Romans.

Of the five native identities, only one survived: the Jews.

The others weren’t ethnically cleansed. They just forgot who they were once they lost their capacity to defend themselves. Meanwhile, Jews outlived even their conquerors — from the Assyrians to the Ottomans — over a span of 2,500 years.

That's why the sources of national coherence are so crucial for becoming a historical "thing" and for the legitimacy of national self-identification.

So what about Palestinians? Are they closer to Americans or to Jews?

People who identify as Palestinians:

• Have no distinct language (they speak Arabic)

• No distinct religion (mostly Sunni Islam)

• No distinct ethnicity

• No distinct ancient traditions

• No unifying culture

• They proclaimed a state in 1988, but they lack sovereignty and effectively operate two governments — one in Gaza, one in Judea and Samaria (West Bank)

On a scale from 0 (Americans) to 10 (Jews), the Palestinian identity scores around -5. Again, this is not a judgment of Palestinians as individuals, but a critique of the historical basis for their national identity.

Where does the word “Palestine” even come from?

After the Jewish Bar Kokhba revolt (132–135 CE), the Roman Empire renamed Judea to “Syria Palaestina.”

Their goal? To erase the Jewish connection to the land and prevent future uprisings. The Romans didn’t kill or expel all the Jews. They wanted the Jews to forget who they were.

The term was borrowed from Philistia, a coastal region where Hellenic tribes had lived centuries earlier — tribes that were long assimilated and gone by then. Philistia wasn't even an old name for Judea — it was located between Ashdod and Gaza, west of Judea.

The name “Palestine” stuck for 2,000 years. But throughout that time, the region was populated by dozens of identities: Jews, Greeks, Romans, Turks, Egyptians, etc. — and not once did anyone identify themselves as “Palestinian.”

No one chanted “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” during Ottoman rule, or during the British Mandate, or during centuries of Islamic rule. Why? Because Palestinian identity is a recent invention. It did not emerge organically — it was imposed strategically in the 20th century.

So is Palestine a "thing"?

Can Palestinians be classified as a nation or a people?

Historically speaking: No. There’s no record of a continuous, distinct “Palestinian people” across history. A 1000-year history of Palestine is an unscientific historical fabrication. Because Palestine was never a thing — and certainly not a 1000-year-old thing. Basically, when people in Gaza, Judea, and Samaria — who have Egyptian ethnicity, speak the Arabic language, and follow the Islamic religion — call themselves indigenous Palestinians, they are using a colonial name invented by the Romans, based on an earlier Hellenic name, Philistia (which had nothing to do with Judea), and applying it to a people with Israelite ethnicity and Judean religion. This is not a national identity; it is a farce.

Okay, but what about modern identity politics?

Let’s open the Woke-abulary™.

It's not for me to decide who qualifies as a nation. The golden days when white, heterosexual, male “oppressors” labeled everything are long gone. Today, identities label themselves.

You can be whatever you identify as. That’s your freedom of speech. And others must respect it.

So if someone identifies as Palestinian — I respect that. Just as I could identify as a 200kg Black transgender woman — and you’d have to respect that, too.

But even this freedom has limits. I can’t expect you to believe that I belong to a 1000-year-old tribe of 200kg Black transgender women. Even if I claim we were victims of genocide by evil Zionists.

Victimhood doesn’t grant legitimacy to fiction. And fake victimhood grants even less.

So why is this my business?

Why not let people call themselves whatever they want? Palestinians, Space Travelers, Hobbits — let them believe.

Here’s the problem:

The borders of one’s identity should not become weapons against others.

If “Palestinianism” is instrumentalized to mobilize hatred or violence, it’s no longer harmless. That’s where the woke-abulary breaks down.

And that’s why institutions like Harvard shouldn’t lend academic legitimacy to an identity that is often used to justify terror — especially through the historical manipulation of “1000 years of Palestine.”

Yes, there are Arabic-speaking Muslims — mostly of Egyptian descent — living in Gaza, Judea, and Samaria. They’ve been used as political tools, sacrificed by Hamas, PLO, and other terror organizations. The more they suffer, the more funding these groups extract from the world. That suffering is real. It has been catalyzed by Israeli retaliatory strikes, yes — and by the aggressive behavior of ultra-Orthodox Jewish extremists (I call them kosher jihadists).

They’ve suffered through UNRWA sponsorship of terrorist narratives and many other causes. They deserve freedom and peace.

But not at the cost of killing Jews “from the river to the sea” in the name of a mythical 1000-year-old Palestine that "has always been there" until Zionists invaded it.

So, dear Harvard:

Are you a scientific institution — or an amplifier of terror?