The Palestinian prime minister, Salam Fayyad, demanded Gingrich “review history.’’
“From the beginning, our people have been determined to stay on their land,’’ Fayyad said in comments carried by the Palestinian news agency Wafa. “This, certainly, is denying historical truths.’’
Yesterday, Gingrich’s campaign released a statement saying he supports a negotiated peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians, including a Palestinian state. It said his comments in the interview referred to the region’s history.
Gingrich’s statements struck at the heart of Palestinian sensitivities about the righteousness of their national struggle.
Palestinians never had their own state - they were ruled by the Ottoman Empire for hundreds of years, like most of the Arab world. When the Ottoman Empire collapsed in the aftermath of World War I, the British, then a global colonial power, took control of the area, known as British Mandate Palestine. During that time, Jews, Muslims, and Christians living on the land were identified as “Palestinian.’’
Palestinian legislator Hanan Ashrawi said Gingrich had “lost touch with reality.’’ She said his statements were “a cheap way to win [the] pro-Israel vote.’’
Palestinians bristle at the implication that they were generic Arabs with no specific attachment to the land that Zionist Jews coveted. Using the word “Palestinians’’ is a way for them to emphasize their claims.
Palestinians are culturally Arabs - they speak Arabic and their culture is broadly shared by other Arabs who live in the eastern Mediterranean.
For Palestinians, their identity was hewed over decades of fighting against another nationalist struggle over the same land - that of Zionist Jews.
During the war surrounding the Jewish state’s creation in 1948, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled, or were forced to flee their homes.
Gingrich’s reasoning was popular following Israel’s creation, although that argument has since fallen out of favor among mainstream Israelis.
Israeli officials were not immediately available for comment on the Jewish Sabbath.
