They speak Arabic They are mostly Sunni Muslim by religion That makes them Arabs pure and simple.

We can go on and on about how there was never a country called Palestine. We can talk about how Yassir Arafat was really Egyptian. We can talk about the fact that Israelis have faced the history of some Arab villagers being pushed out their homes. When will Arabs face their reality? When will they acknowledge that the majority of Arabs left their homes because the Grand Mufti himself encouraged Arabs to flee to their neighboring lands so the Arab armies could wipe out the Jews in 1948 and when they failed to do so they also failed to absorb the population they uprooted? The UN offered two Arab countries including all the lands your "people" say they want as their state (even though your beloved Arafat rejected those lands in 2000). The bottom line Mr. Hanania is that your "people" are not interested in peace with Israel. You have committed yourselves to nothing less than Israel's destruction since Partition. You teach it to your children. Your mothers encourage your children to strap bombs to themselves and kill civilians and tell them Allah will reward them. You don't make peace with those who have sworn to destroy you. Had the Arabs agreed to live in peace at partition, had the Arabs not allowed themselves to be co-opted by the British, and then greedy gun toting thugs like Arafat and the PLO, who stole billions from the world bank while your ignorant, easily duped population blamed the Jews for all their woes the situation would be much different wouldn't it? But you and your "people" don't ever seem to want to talk about that. You dedicated your society and body politic to the destruction of Israel instead of coexistence and you will continue to pay the price until you wake up and admit the truth and accept responsibility for your actions instead of being a society of cry babies who blame everything on everyone else around them. And accept one more truth; if Israel wanted to kill every Arab between the Mediterranean and the Jordan there wouldn't be one of you left. Instead Moshe Dayan asked the Arabs in the West Bank to stay. The Jews gave control of the Temple Mount, our holiest site, to the Muslims. We were thanked with terrorism. You and all your new generation of spokespeople are quite proficient at telling your cry baby lie. You've told it to the UN so many times that the world believes it. The truth is Arafat's widow living in France with her billions that her husband stole from the World Bank while the Arabs of Gaza live in abject poverty. Where is Israel in that equation? Get over yourselves.

An objective analyses from a man who believes in Peace. I read the israeli and their friends commentaries, many of them when they are short of argumentation they bring about the stereotype responses. To those I would like to say this : arrogance, hatred and prejudices will lead you no where except to your bleak fate. Believe you me PEACE worths a try.

Canada. Canada doesnt send weapons around the world. But I do know who did get wealthy from world aid, it was that turncoat Yasser Arafat. His wealth was estimated to be between 4.6 and 6 plus Billion dollars US. When are you going to get facts and analyse them rationally. The corrupt leadership in the territories has been corrupt forever and will be that way for some time. Its the arabs in the territories that suffer.

for the so called palestinians would be the connection with Jordan, and many live there. Maybe that is a better solution carve off some of the west bank, which is for the most part historically Israeli and attach it to jordan and then palestinians can be an autonomous part of Jordan.

Israel should control all of gaza and the west bank as well. And run the country as they see fit. Dont you think Israel proper is better than Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, and Iran. IF you dont like it then I guess you can leave and go to these countries. Possession is nine tenths of the law, is it not??

of the basis for where things are in modern day Israel. Ray you could learn from this. I would appreciate your truth on Arafat and the theft of so much aid money that should have gone to the arabs in the region. Once again, thanks Raphael.

Quit trying ,Raphael! Our explanations are beyond their understanding. Arabs are limited ;they are not able to understand. I have never heard or read something coming from them that make any sense,or reaches common sense. Israel should have already understood this obvious fact ,and started acting on what is right and in what must be done,without talking anymore with these people. It is impossible an honest dialogue with them!They will never reach this kind of level.Their language is a trapping and primitive language. I am sorry for those of them reading this,but that's the truth.

I agree with some of what he writes but how can he dare use "We" representing Palestinians when he doesn't live here. He is an American and a Christian! If Santa Claus supports our cause I am grateful but Hanania is as Palestinian as Santa Claus and shares the same religion.

Canadian Military Components used in Israel's War Against Lebanon can be found at http://coat.ncf.ca/lebanon2006.html Canada manufactures enough weapons or military components to make me ashamed of my country. But in the USA it's REALLY big business....their economy depends on the manufacture of weapons etc I like Einstein's adage: 'You Cannot Simultaneously Prevent And Prepare For War." Even if Arafat was crooked, it doesn't diminish the fact that Palestinians are poorly treated by Israel. Even sadder that their own leader took advantage of the situation... more reason for Israel to be kinder... more helpful???

I believe we have already heard enough whining from the pals asking for rights and not caring about others’ rights. In my opinion, Israel should not stand this state of affairs any longer but should start asking for their own rights. First of all, the right to live in peace without threats and attacks. While the pals are constantly whining for rights at the expense of Israel and attacking it, as if it was a right, Israel keeps silent. I think it is time for Israel to demand its rights as a state and the rights of its people.

your soulution is suicide for israel.....so come up with some new ideas....jb

Both Hanania and Geraldo Rivera used pseudoethnicity to advance their jounalistic and media careers. Both phony opportunists while the real ethnics languish.

Way to go Ray !

..round out your incessant display of anti Israel propraganda? Maybe you could finish things off with a nice cup of Der Strumer....

Also arab countries' problem. They could absorb them easily and integrate them to their societies. I don't understand why those who were born in Lebanon never became lebanese, Syria never became syrians.... You were able to become american, and you must undrestand what I say. Israel shouldn't be the only solution to the palestinian problem. You should first become independant in your own minds, before asking independance from Israel.

A very interesting article. Witnesses accounts also demonstrate Hiz was using the civilians as shields http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/754971.html

by Shmuel Katz The story of the Arabs who left the coastal areas of Palestine in the spring of 1948 encapsulates one of the great international frauds of the 20th century. The Arabs are the only declared "refugees" who became refugees by the initiative of their own leaders. The concoction of the monstrous charge that it was the Jews who had driven out the Arabs of Palestine was a strategic decision made by the leaders of the Arab League months after the Arabs' flight. The Arab "refugees" were not driven out by anyone. The vast majority left at the order or exhortation of their leaders - always with the same reassurance - that it would help the Arab states in the war they were about to launch to destroy the State of Israel. The fabrication can most easily be detected by the simple circumstance that at the time the alleged expulsion of the Arabs by Zionists was in progress, nobody noticed it. Foreign newspapermen abounded in the country, in daily contact with all sides - and they did, in fact, write about the flight of the Arabs, but even those most hostile to the Jews saw nothing to suggest that the flight was not voluntary. In the three months that the major part of the flight took place, the London Times, a newspaper most notably hostile to Zionism, published 11 leading articles on the situation in Palestine, in addition to extensive news reports. In none was there even a remote hint that the Zionists were driving Arabs from their homes. Even more pertinent: No Arab spokesman made such a charge. At the height of the flight, the Palestinian Arabs' chief representative at the United Nations, Jamal Husseini, made a long political statement (on April 27) that was not lacking in hostility toward the Zionists; he did not mention refugees. Three weeks later (while the flight was still in progress) the secretary-general of the Arab League, Azzam Pasha, made a fiercely worded political statement on Palestine; it contained not a word about refugees. Why did they leave? Monsignor George Hakim, then Greek Catholic bishop of Galilee, the leading Christian personality in Palestine for many years, told a Beirut newspaper, Sada al-Janub, in the summer of 1948: "The refugees were confident that their absence would not last long, and that they would return within a week or two. Their leaders had promised them that the Arab armies would crush the `Zionist gangs' very quickly, and that there was no need for panic or fear of a long exile." The initiative for the flight was indeed no secret. One of the famous American newspapermen of the time, Kenneth Bilby, who had covered Palestine for years, explained the Arab leaders' rationale for the flight in his book New Star in the East, published in 1950: "Let the Arabs flee into neighboring countries. It would serve to arouse the other Arab countries to greater effort, and when the Arab invasion struck the Palestinians could return to their homes and be compensated with the property of Jews driven into the sea."

There is also the piquant report in the files of the British police at Haifa, of how the leaders of the Jewish community pleaded with the leaders of the Arab community not to leave Haifa, and how the Arabs refused. There is too, in the annals of the UN Security Council, a speech by Jamal Husseini heaping praise on the Arabs of Haifa for refusing to stay put and insisting adamantly on leaving their homes. The British police then kindly provided transport and helped the Haifa Arabs across the Lebanese and Transjordanian borders. When, four months after the invasion, the prospect of the flightlings' retuning "in a few weeks" had faded, there were some recriminations. Emil Ghoury, a member of the Palestinian Arabs' national leadership, said in an interview with the Beirut newspaper, Daily Telegraph: "I don't want to impugn anybody, but only to help the refugees. The fact that there are these refugees is the direct consequence of the action of the Arab states in opposing partition and the Jewish state. "The Arab states agreed upon this policy unanimously, and they must share in the solution of the problem." The policy adopted inside the country was emphasized by the leaders of the invasion. The prime minister of Iraq, Nuri Said, thundered: "We will smash the country with our guns and obliterate every place the Jews seek shelter in. The Arabs should conduct their wives and children to safe areas until the fighting has died down." One of the Arabs who fled later succinctly summarized the story of the refugees in the Jordanian newspaper Al-Difaa: "The Arab governments told us: Get out so that we can get in. So we got out, but they did not get in." The total number of Arabs who evacuated, even according to the British Mandate's statistics, could not have been more than 420,000. This figure conforms roughly also to the figure published from Arab sources, and by the UN. The central, horribly cruel fact is that the Arab states - who had brought about their plight - denied them residence rights; and the idea was born that they should be left in camps and used as a weapon for Israel's destruction. "The return of the refugees," said president Nasser of Egypt years later, "will mean the end of Israel." It was in the immediate aftermath of the war that the refugee scam was developed into an international operation. As soon as the UN Disaster Relief Organization started providing food, shelter, clothing and medical attention to the Arabs who had fled Palestine, a mass of needy Arabs descended on the camps from all over the Arab states. The organization had no machinery for identification; so the arrivals simply signed the register as refugees and received the free aid. Already in December 1948, the director of the Relief Organization, Sir Rafael Cilento, reported he was feeding 750,000 "refugees." By July 1949 the UN reported a round million. The Red Cross International Committee joined the party. It pressed for the recognition of any destitute Arab in Palestine as a refugee. Thus about 100,000 were added to the list. To add a touch of mordant humor, the Red Cross authority wrote about the additional people that: "It would be senseless to force them to abandon their homes to be able to get food as refugees." So these people stayed at home, received their free services there, and were added to the rolls of the refugees. Thus - and by other more expectable means of humanistic falsification we have, in the third generation, a large amorphous mass of Arabs, all of them comfortably lumped together in official UN lists as Arab refugees, described as "victims of Israeli aggression" and demanding the right of "return."

Thank you ynet for publishing such articles. That's what makes ynet a great media. I doubt any arab media lets Jewish nationalists publish articles justifying for the existence of israel or its right to defend itself. Now i hope israelis understand that, just as when zionists explain the need and the right for a Jewish state, and there's truth in that, there's also truth in this article's point. Israel can become a great, great nation, a light for the world, if it successfully deals with all the matters listed. And the day will happen when israel becomes such a wise nation and understand that defending its right to exist doesn't imply denying parts of history and rights of others. The question is when will that happen, finally ? I wish that, instead of Deir Yassin and all the things that were done to push away arabs in 1948, instead of creating the state of israel at this moment, things happened more slowly with more and more kibboutz, more and more Jews on the land of Palestine working and living with arabs, however reaching to a majority of Jews. I wish both these people could have felt allies against those (europe, US, russia) who killed the Jews or were silent complices, and who ruled arabs and denied their rights for ruling themselves for centuries. Instead of that, we had Jewish terrorism and the use of violence chose as the best strategy in the 1940s. How stupid that was.

Sorry I forgot your name, but I think the writer who once pointed out that no one (hardly anyone) really reads Rays column has a very strong point. Ray's talkbacks have turned into kind of an open rumble to bash each other on whatever suits the writer's fancy. Nice work Ray. You're already becoming irrelevent, but can leave us with a great place to slug it out with each other. YNET Please consider changing the name of Ray's column from "Ray of Hope" to "Ray's Free-for-All Rumble: Bring your own beef. (as in complaint)" Hey, if it works for Jerry Springer, why not YNet? Thanks Ray, you really do have a place here even if we don't have to read the column to enjoy it! Oh, and to the "maybe' Canadian that is so ashamed here country sells some arms to Israel, be glad the Israeli's are able to use them to deal with the terrorists over there rather than you Canucks having to deal with those muslim bombers from Miami wanting to blow up Parliment. Imagine, poor, little, hardly-ever-gets involved Canada is hated by some maniac, meshuguna Muslims from Miami of all places. Hey, standing on the sidelines is only safe when the play is not headed in your direction.

So where did the name Palestine come from? The Romans, who conquered Judea (they even minted a coin with the words "Judea Capta" on it after their victory) changed the name of Judea to Palestina to honor the Philistines and further demean the Jews. There is no Palestinian people, poor guy, and you know it. Arabs from the region began flocking to the land of Israel after the Jews made it "alive" again in the late 1800's early 1900's. Palestine was invented as part of the "fight" against anything other than an Arab entity in the land of Israel, and first came into being as part of the PLO in 1964. Go to New York, Ray, and take all your miserable squatters with you.

I thought Canadians were free to come and go as they please. If you are so ashamed of your country, why don't you come back to where you originally came from? I believe the door is open wide. Or better still, move to Gaza or the West Bank and fight for the recognition of Pallis rights. Anyway, the minute Israel pulled back of Gaza, the PA or whoever is in power over there (Hammas, as we speak) is responsible for their welfare, i.e. Israel has no obligation to provide anything for them. So why do they come banging on our door looking for work, medical assistance, trade and such? because their leaders, Arafat and Haniyyeh and their ilk are busy working for the destruction of the State of Israel instead of taking care of their country and their people (if one may call Gaza that). So let them stay on their side of the border and Israel will treat them better. They cannot have their cake and eat it- look for work and a good time in Israel and engage in terrorist activities. A state must provide for its citizens only. As far as I know, inhabitants of Gaza are no citizens of Israel. The State of Israel was not created by divine intervention. It was recognized by the UN. The only legal dispute might be one concerning the borders. Terrorism will not solve the dispute. It will only cause more victims, because Israel will punish all those who blow themselves up amongst innocent civilians or kidnap and murder soldiers. As any other democratic country would do, including Canada.

More Palestinians (Western and rough name for coastal Arabs), came to the region upon industrialization which was largely due to the Jews who worked with Western powers. Not to say, there were not some (1.5 million) there already, there was. But 1.5 million Jews were also there by about the 1930s. And they came in peace, and they went to regions which were industrialized and lacked people, or were infertile, etc., because that was what was available. Kibbutz and moshavitz brought the land into good use. I don't even know why I am talking serious to you - your article is a bad joke. The Arab armies that the Israelis fought in 1948 included many so-called Palestinians, but it also included so-called Jordanians, Egyptians, and even Bedouins by some accounts. Thus, there is no oxymoron, since they were not fighting Palestinian armies, since none existed, per se. They fought a loose alliance of Arabs. Most of which, no longer support the cause, by the way. Also, it should be noted that the Druze fought then with the Israelis and fought with them again in the Ketyusha war by staying in the North and letting Israel ruin much of Hizbullah's infrastructure, since as we know, but might have forgotten, Lebanon is a Christian/Druze/Sunni held government alliance, but still technically in a civil war, but this time against a common enemy, the Shia and hizbullah. Israel did the dirty work for Lebanon and America. America keeps a semblance of a good guy image, while the Druze/Christian/Sunni alliance get what they want - victory and military control over there Shia and hizbullah factions, which inlcude many Palestinian refugees. This is the big secret and the big cover up. The Cedars are in bed with Israel. Hizbullah suffered defeat because the goal was simply to set back there military ability - which was done. To say there was a victory for Hizbullah is merely a media fad, and a bad joke. It denigrates the Lebanese who had their homes destroyed. Perhaps blaming the Israelis for the destruction on the one hand, but claiming they lost the war on the other is your chance at an oxymoron. Israel and Jews across the world do not pretend. Take this as evidence. I am a Jewish person. But muckrakers on either side, including you, continue to do so. Thanks for the article, however misguided and blatantly wrong. Yonasan ben Yisrael

It is time the Palestinians stopped bleating on about justice and rights from the Israelis and Jews. 60 million refugees after World War II found a new life and prosperity for their children. Many peoples were moved about for peaceful relations between nations - including the Arab World. Ask the Yemenites who were thrown out of Saudi Arabia. The Arab World and Palestinian leadership kept the Palestinians down and in squalor instead of helping them prosper when under the tutelage of Jordan and Egypt. The Palestinians could have had two countries, Jordan and the West bank/Gaza. Instead they frittered away the years hating Jews. It is time the Palestinians took responsibility for their own actions and stopped blaming everybody else like some spoilt child.