Home

During the late 1980s and 1990s, Palestinian political identities were transformed as a result of the struggle between the Islamist movements of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and the secular-nationalist parties connected to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

Between Sept. 28, 1999 and Sept. 28, 2000, Loren D. Lybarger, assistant professor of classics and world religion at Ohio University, Athens, interviewed more than 80 Arabs in their 20s and 30s from across the religious, social, and political spectrum about their identities just before the demise of the Oslo Peace Process.

He wanted to know why a number of Palestinians rejected the PLO to embrace new political associations during the first Intifada, particularly the Islamist ones; and what influence the rise of hostilities has had on the Arab population.

His goal is, as he writes in "Identity and Religion in Palestine: The Struggle between Islamism and Secularism in the Occupied Territories," to provide a "more nuanced understanding" of the issues which would "lead to empathy" and the development of better and "wiser policies" to enable the "Palestinians to achieve... a viable state of their own in their ancestral lands. A durable peace in the Middle East requires no less than such an outcome."

He found that Palestinian identity in its Islamist and secularist forms fluctuated. How this identity will evolve, he says, depends on the Israelis, the U.S., and how the Palestinians respond themselves to their feelings of "alienation, dislocation, dispossession, and statelessness that [have] so violently stamped the outlines of their collective life."

The underlying assumption in this very biased study is that Israel is the aggressor, the usurper of Arab lands, and the cause for much of the strife between the Arabs and Israelis. Israel is responsible "for bombings, ambushes, assassinations, and home demolitions" curfews, raids, checkpoints, "foot-dragging" in land transfers, and the vast wall being built throughout the entire length of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which will ensure that another generation of Arabs will be radicalized.

Lybarger seems to know very little about the Arab/Israeli conflict. The first problem with this book is the word Palestine, which is part of the title. Palestine ceased to exist when Israel was declared a state in May 1948. The Arabs were given an opportunity by the U.N. to have their own state in 1948, but rejected the offer, and then sought to destroy the infant state of Israel by force.

This objective to demolish Israel has not ceased, which explains why the Arabs are engaged in a campaign to refute the Jewish connection to the land of Israel by destroying artifacts and Jewish holy sites, deny the Holocaust, dehumanize Jews in their media, textbooks, educational system, political discourse, religious sermons by portraying them as Satan, sons of apes and pigs, a cancer, and using children as homicide bombers. When Israel opens her border checkpoints as an act of goodwill, the Arabs dispatch homicide bombers to maim and kill Israeli civilians. After Arab terrorists are released from Israeli prisons, they revert to murdering Jews.

Lybarger suggests that when Ariel Sharon toured the Temple Mount on Sept. 28, 2000, the Israeli army and the Arabs "were primed for a return to full throttle armed violence." In other words, Israel and the Arabs were looking for an excuse to resume hostilities. There is no proof that Israel wanted to.

Whether by design or out of ignorance, Lybarger did not mention that as historian Mitchell Bard noted, Israel's Internal Security Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami approved Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount only after receiving a guarantee from Palestinian security chief Jabril Rajoub that as long as Sharon did not enter the mosques, the visit would not become an issue.

Information about the Sharon visit and the Intifada was also available in the Arab press. Palestinian Communications Minister 'Imad Al-Faluji admitted "Whoever thinks the Intifada broke out because of the despised Sharon's visit to the Al-Aqsa Mosque is wrong.... This Intifada was planned in advance, ever since President Arafat's return from the Camp David Negotiations." Even before that, Al-Faluji explained that the Intifada was "a strategic decision made by the Palestinians."

A number of other Arab sources affirming that Sharon's visit did not precipitate the Intifada could have been found in "One Year of Yasser Arafat's Intifada: How It Stands and How It Might End," Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs Oct. 1, 2001. A recent source that appeared after the publication of his book is in "Son of Hamas: A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal, Political Intrigue, and Unthinkable Choices," by Mosab Hassan Yousef. Yet Lybarger chose to use Deborah Sontag, the New York Times reporter known for her antipathy toward Israel, as the source for his information.

Why is this flawed and prejudiced work important to read? Lybarger represents the views of many American academics who demonize Israel. We need to understand the specious arguments they use to undermine the Jewish state in order to refute them.

Dr. Grobman, a Hebrew University trained historian, is the author of "The Palestinian Right To Israel" (Balfour Books, 2010). He is the president of Balfour Trust, an educational outreach to help Christians understand the Jewish roots of their faith, Zionism, and the state of Israel.