PA daily editor: “The Palestinian people is rooted… in the land since before the Smaller and Greater Israel”
Editor of official PA daily Hafez Barghouti:
Headline: "Race of Hypocrisy"
"The latest innovation was declared by [US] Republican candidate Newt Gingrich, when he claimed that the Palestinian people was invented. This statement had already been made by brazen Zionists, from Golda Meir to Herzl, founder of the Zionist movement, but the statement does not erase the reality: The Palestinian people is rooted in history and in the land since before the Smaller and Greater Israel, before the United States and the other states which concentrated settler people [in this land], who had no connection with one another except for the seizure of the land of others, theft of resources, and their destruction… Had some other person said that we were an 'invented' people, perhaps there would be room for discussion. But when this is said by a person [who himself is] from an invented people, such as the American people, it is incomprehensible. We are part of the Arab nation which has been rooted in this entire area for thousands of years, and do not need to emigrate from our land, as the Republican candidate demanded. It is he who must go back to the place where he, and the rest of those who seized the lands of others through force, oppression and settlements, came from. Not us. These claims do not deter us; rather, they intensify our determination to be resolute in the face of settlement and annihilation. None of us was counting on a balanced American policy, because those who have settled in our land, previously settled the American Congress and the entire US. It is they who determine American policy, and the American [presidential] candidates turn into a game in their hand, and into parrots repeating their words and their claims."
Headline: "Race of Hypocrisy"
"The latest innovation was declared by [US] Republican candidate Newt Gingrich, when he claimed that the Palestinian people was invented. This statement had already been made by brazen Zionists, from Golda Meir to Herzl, founder of the Zionist movement, but the statement does not erase the reality: The Palestinian people is rooted in history and in the land since before the Smaller and Greater Israel, before the United States and the other states which concentrated settler people [in this land], who had no connection with one another except for the seizure of the land of others, theft of resources, and their destruction… Had some other person said that we were an 'invented' people, perhaps there would be room for discussion. But when this is said by a person [who himself is] from an invented people, such as the American people, it is incomprehensible. We are part of the Arab nation which has been rooted in this entire area for thousands of years, and do not need to emigrate from our land, as the Republican candidate demanded. It is he who must go back to the place where he, and the rest of those who seized the lands of others through force, oppression and settlements, came from. Not us. These claims do not deter us; rather, they intensify our determination to be resolute in the face of settlement and annihilation. None of us was counting on a balanced American policy, because those who have settled in our land, previously settled the American Congress and the entire US. It is they who determine American policy, and the American [presidential] candidates turn into a game in their hand, and into parrots repeating their words and their claims."