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**popsicesHoupe** · 11-03-2007, 04:37 AM

This statement is misleading. Are you saying that Greece, which was also occupied by the Turks for 400 years - and therefore to all intents "part of the Ottoman Empire" - ceased to exist as a country during this time period?

We were liberated in 1912 up here in North Greece. We never stopped being Greeks just because the Turks occupied our country. Can we not assume that Palestine and its people remained true to their country as we did? Did they become Turks?

The big difference I see is that Greece was and is a country with a national identity that spans millenia, whereas I don't see any historical indications that Palestine ever gained a new (i.e., non-Jewish) national identity of its own after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and the attempted expulsion of the Jews. In fact, I don't see any indication that Palestine had any kind of independent existence between the end of the Hasmonean Kingdom in 37 BC, and the establishment of modern Israel in 1948 - it was always part of some other kingdom or empire or whatever. Also, I've seen no real evidence that the people there thought of themselves primarily as "Palestinians", at least before the time of the British Mandate, and possibly not even until the establishment of modern Israel.

That's only to say that when Annalise asked "is Palestine not the only country in the world that in recent times actually has been wiped off the map?", I have to answer "no" because I don't see that there was a "country" there - at least "in recent times" - to be wiped off the map. That does not mean in and of itself that the Palestinian Arabs there don't deserve to have their own country; there are a lot of considerations beyond national identity which are knotted up in that question, and I try to avoid commenting on that particular issue because I definitely have neither the wisdom nor the discernment needed to unravel them.

In Christ,
Mike

11-03-2007, 04:37 AM	#24
popsicesHoupe Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 417 Senior Member	This statement is misleading. Are you saying that Greece, which was also occupied by the Turks for 400 years - and therefore to all intents "part of the Ottoman Empire" - ceased to exist as a country during this time period? We were liberated in 1912 up here in North Greece. We never stopped being Greeks just because the Turks occupied our country. Can we not assume that Palestine and its people remained true to their country as we did? Did they become Turks? The big difference I see is that Greece was and is a country with a national identity that spans millenia, whereas I don't see any historical indications that Palestine ever gained a new (i.e., non-Jewish) national identity of its own after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and the attempted expulsion of the Jews. In fact, I don't see any indication that Palestine had any kind of independent existence between the end of the Hasmonean Kingdom in 37 BC, and the establishment of modern Israel in 1948 - it was always part of some other kingdom or empire or whatever. Also, I've seen no real evidence that the people there thought of themselves primarily as "Palestinians", at least before the time of the British Mandate, and possibly not even until the establishment of modern Israel. That's only to say that when Annalise asked "is Palestine not the only country in the world that in recent times actually has been wiped off the map?", I have to answer "no" because I don't see that there was a "country" there - at least "in recent times" - to be wiped off the map. That does not mean in and of itself that the Palestinian Arabs there don't deserve to have their own country; there are a lot of considerations beyond national identity which are knotted up in that question, and I try to avoid commenting on that particular issue because I definitely have neither the wisdom nor the discernment needed to unravel them. In Christ, Mike
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