INA'LIENABLE, a. [L. alieno, alienus.]

Unalienable; that cannot be legally or justly alienated or transferred to another. The dominions of a king are inalienable. All men have certain natural rights which are inalienable. The estate of a minor is inalienable, without a reservation of the right of redemption, or the authority of the legislature.

Sorry to disappoint, Mr. Abbas, but Syria-Palestina was a province of the Roman Empire. After the Roman Empire collapsed, all its subjects are no longer under the Roman Empire's jurisdiction.

The Palestinian Arabs (and mind you, Palestinian Jews) lived in historical Israel, as subjects of the Roman Empire, then Palmyrene Empire, then Roman Empire, then Umayyad Caliphate, then Abbasid Caliphate, then Fatimid Dynasty, then Abbasid Caliphate, then IIkhanate, then the Ottoman Empire from the Middle Ages till 1918. My history is not very good, so I may have missed some more rulers.

The point is, Arabs living in present day Israel and Jordan, well they have been living in the region as subject of all those empires. Once those empires dissolve, their subjects can no longer claim legitimacy of living there because of those empires.

As long as the Ottoman Empire exist, a Ottoman imperial subject can have the inalienable right to live somewhere within the empire by the authority of the Ottoman Empire. But once the Ottoman Empire is dissolved, then people can be moved around.


So, Mr. Abbas, when you say that the Palestinian Arabs have the *inalienable* right to live everywhere in Israel where they lived in 1948, what legitimacy makes you say that? Is is as subject of the Roman Empire? Is is as a subject of the Ottoman Turks Empire? Is it as a colonized subject of the British Empire? Because until 1918, then until 1948, these are the Empires that gave the legitimacy for Arabs to live in the imperial province of "Palestine".



To be really straightforward, and really rude, even though you Arabs like to refer to some area of land as "Palestine", there is no "Palestine" anymore. It was a province of the Roman Empire, then all the successive Empires. As those empires collapsed, so did their imperial provinces. There is no more Armorica, Lugdinensis, Aquitania and Narbonensis, those were Roman provinces, it's now called France. In the same way, nobody even remember the subdivisions of the Mongol Empire, they disappeared when the Mongol Empire collapsed. There is no more Hindustan. That's when the Hindustanis were subjects of the British Empire. It's now called India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. None of those people still call themselves Hindustani, as if they were still a province of some empire.

The British Empire is no more, either. Since, Mr. Abbas is rather insistent about still being subjects of the British Empire, then please remember that British Mandate (colony) of Palestine includes the territory of Israel and Jordan. And all Israelis and Jordanians are Palestinians as well, not just Arabs, and not just the refugees of 1948.


Any saying of "inalienable" should present what legitimacy you are laying claim on.
If there is no other legitimacy than "used to live there", then the Jews have even earlier and more tangible claim, on the exact same grounds. The Jews lived in JUDEA since Abraham, the first Hebrew. It was the pagan Romans who renamed Judea into "Syria-Palestina" and expelled just about all the Jews, after AD 70. The Jews have inalienable rights to return to where they lived before AD 70, and that include all of Israel back then. (and, by the same sorry logic, the Arabs have the inalienable right to return to Arabia, where they lived before AD 700)


Seriously, I don't even think you are pressing for Jerusalem or "right of return" at all, you are trying to preserve your position and hopefully upgrade it as complete leader of the Palestinian Arabs, so you'd rather the state be formed in your turf, rather than anywhere outside your turf. And the Hamas faction is trying to get the same thing, they want the state to be formed in their turf, and hope Hamas to be the complete leader of the Palestinian Arabs.

When a Palestinian Arab state is formed, there will be a recombining of the populations, and a complete new (and regular) election. This is so that power is spread out among the people, and not permanently concentrated in the hands of a few. Any attempt at consolidating power now is ridiculous. And that's completely not a democratic thinking, it's almost as if both factions were planning to be dictator for life or something. I totally don't relish the idea of the Palestinian Arabs getting themselves "Mexicanned" - that means, "freeing" themselves from foreign rule, only to put their own native elites at the top, with a nominal democracy, but most of the people dirt poor and serving the whims of the top fews. So it's just natives colonizing natives, only the people at the top changed. A typical pattern in developing countries. I know that a first name of "Mohammed" and a last name that is spelled like the Abbasid Caliphate may sound rather glorious to yourself, but the very idea is really dangerous, the idea of 99% of the people subservient to the top 1%. And, a country is rarely made by a name, it takes character and it takes caring about the people as well. And a democracy's leader is better named "Average Arab-Peasant" or something like that, than "Mohammed King".