LETTER: No sovereign state called Palestine
The question must be asked: is there a single coin, stamp or monument or any other symbol of Palestinian nationhood from before the founding of the state of Israel in 1948?
Gunvant Govindjee makes highly debatable points (Defending the indefensible, April 18). However, when he refers to “historical Palestine” the issues are no longer up for debate. Since the expulsion of most of the Jewish population by Roman emperor Hadrian in the second century AD, numerous foreign empires have ruled the area. But since the end of the kingdom of Judaea there has not been a sovereign state in the area and certainly not one called “Palestine”. After World War 1 and the establishment of the British mandate, the majority of the Arabs preferred to see themselves as part of “Greater Syria”. In 1947, on the expiry of the mandate, the Arab nations rejected the UN’s splitting of the geographical area into independent Jewish and Arab states. After the war that ensued, Egypt annexed Gaza and Jordan the West Bank (who protested over those “occupying powers”?). It was only in 1964, with the setting-up of the PLO, that the Arabs began defining themselves as “Palestinians” and cl...
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