Where did the idea that the nation of Israel is the troublemaker in the Middle East originate?
Palestinian nationality is an entity defined by its opposition to Zionism, and not its national aspirations. What unites Palestinians has been their opposition to Jewish nationalism and the desire to stamp it out, not aspirations for their own state. Local patriotic feelings are generated only when a non-Islamic entity takes charge — such as Israel did after the 1967 Six-Day War. It dissipates under Arab rule, no matter how distant or despotic. A Palestinian identity did not exist until an opposing force created it — primarily anti-Zionism. Opposition to a non-Muslim nationalism on what local Arabs, and the entire Arab world, view as their own turf, was the only expression of ‘Palestinian peoplehood.’ The Grand Mufti Hajj Amin al-Husseini, a charismatic religious leader and radical anti-Zionist was the moving force behind opposition to Jewish immigration in the 1920s and 1930s. The two-pronged approach of the “Diplomacy of Rejection” (of Zionism) and the violence the Mufti incited oc
