Ever since I wrote a column last October called "Myths of the Middle East," readers from around the world have asked me what is meant by the term "Palestinian."
 

The simple answer is that it means whatever Yasser Arafat wants it to mean.

For instance, just since the beginning of the Oslo Accords, more than 400,000 Arabs have entered the West Bank or Gaza. They have come from Jordan, Egypt and, indirectly, from every other Arab country you can name.

The Arabs have built 261 settlements in the West Bank since 1967. We don't hear much about those settlements. We hear instead about the number of Jewish settlements that have been created. We hear how destabilizing they are -- how provocative they are. Yet, by comparison, only 144 Jewish settlements have been built since 1967 -- including those surrounding Jerusalem, in the West Bank and in Gaza.

The number of Arab settlers is based on statistics collected on the Allenby Bridge and other collection points between Israel and Jordan. It is based on the number of Arab day workers entering but not leaving Israel. The numbers were published by the Israel Central Bureau for Statistics during the administration of Binyamin Netanyahu and subsequently denied as "recording errors" by the Ehud Barak administration.

Of course, the Barak administration had incentives for denying the high illegal immigration numbers, given its heavy political reliance on Arab voters.

Is this a new phenomenon? Absolutely not. This has always been the case. Arabs have been flocking to Israel ever since it was created and even before, coinciding with the wave of Jewish immigration into Palestine prior to 1948.

Winston Churchill said in 1939: "So far from being persecuted, the Arabs have crowded into the country and multiplied till their population has increased more than even all world Jewry could lift up the Jewish population."

And that raises a question I never hear anyone ask: If Israel's policies make life so intolerable for Arabs, why do they continue to flock to the Jewish state?

This is an important question as we see the Palestinian debate now shift to the issue of "the right of return."

According to the most liberal claims by Arab sources, some 600,000 to 700,000 Arabs left Israel in and around 1948 when the Jewish state was created. Most were not forced out by Jews, but rather left at the urging of Arab leaders who had declared war on Israel.

Yet, there are far more Arabs living in these territories now than ever before. And many of those who left in 1948 and thereafter actually had roots in other Arab nations.

This is why it is so difficult to define the term "Palestinian." It always has been. What does it mean? Who is a "Palestinian"? Is it someone who came to work in Palestine because of a bustling economy and job opportunities? Is it someone who lived in the region for two years? Five years? Ten years? Is it someone who once visited the area? Is it any Arab who wants to live in the area?

Arabs outnumber Jews in the Middle East by a factor of about 100 to one. But how many of those hundreds of millions of Arabs are actually Palestinians? Not very many.

The Arab population of Palestine was historically extremely low -- prior to the Jews' renewed interest in the area beginning in the early 1900s.

For instance, a travel guide to Palestine and Syria, published in 1906 by Karl Baedeker, illustrates the fact that, even when the Islamic Ottoman Empire ruled the region, the Muslim population in Jerusalem was minimal.

The book estimates the total population of the city at 60,000, of whom 7,000 were Muslims, 13,000 were Christians and 40,000 were Jews.

"The number of Jews has greatly risen in the last few decades, in spite of the fact that they are forbidden to immigrate or to possess landed property," the book states.

Even though the Jews were persecuted, still they came to Jerusalem and represented the overwhelming majority of the population as early as 1906.

Why was the Muslim population so low? After all, we're told that Jerusalem is the third holiest city in Islam. Surely, if this were a widely held belief in 1906, more of the devout would have settled there.

The truth is that the Jewish presence in Jerusalem and throughout the Holy Land persisted throughout its bloody history, as is documented in Joan Peters' milestone history on the origins of the Arab-Jewish conflict in the region, "From Time Immemorial."

It is also true that the Arab population increased following Jewish immigration into the region. The Arabs came because of economic activity. And, believe it or not, they came because there was more freedom and more opportunity in Israel than in their own homelands.

. . . . . .More than 80 people have been killed since the current fighting in and around Jerusalem began. And for what?

If you believe what you read in most news sources, Palestinians want a homeland and Muslims want control over sites they consider holy. Simple, right?

Well, as an Arab-American journalist who has spent some time in the Middle East dodging more than my share of rocks and mortar shells, I've got to tell you that these are just phony excuses for the rioting, trouble-making and land-grabbing.

Isn't it interesting that prior to the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, there was no serious movement for a Palestinian homeland?

"Well, Farah," you might say, "that was before the Israelis seized the West Bank and Old Jerusalem."

That's true. In the Six-Day War, Israel captured Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem. But they didn't capture these territories from Yasser Arafat. They captured them from Jordan's King Hussein. I can't help but wonder why all these Palestinians suddenly discovered their national identity after Israel won the war.

The truth is that Palestine is no more real than Never-Never Land. The first time the name was used was in 70 A.D. when the Romans committed genocide against the Jews, smashed the Temple and declared the land of Israel would be no more. From then on, the Romans promised, it would be known as Palestine. The name was derived from the Philistines, a Goliathian people conquered by the Jews centuries earlier. It was a way for the Romans to add insult to injury. They also tried to change the name of Jerusalem to Aelia Capitolina, but that had even less staying power.

Palestine has never existed -- before or since -- as an autonomous entity. It was ruled alternately by Rome, by Islamic and Christian crusaders, by the Ottoman Empire and, briefly, by the British after World War I. The British agreed to restore at least part of the land to the Jewish people as their homeland.

There is no language known as Palestinian. There is no distinct Palestinian culture. There has never been a land known as Palestine governed by Palestinians. Palestinians are Arabs, indistinguishable from Jordanians (another recent invention), Syrians, Lebanese, Iraqis, etc. Keep in mind that the Arabs control 99.9 percent of the Middle East lands. Israel represents one-tenth of 1 percent of the landmass.

But that's too much for the Arabs. They want it all. And that is ultimately what the fighting in Israel is about today. Greed. Pride. Envy. Covetousness. No matter how many land concessions the Israelis make, it will never be enough.

What about Islam's holy sites? There are none in Jerusalem.

Shocked? You should be. I don't expect you will ever hear this brutal truth from anyone else in the international media. It's just not politically correct.

I know what you're going to say: "Farah, the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem represent Islam's third most holy sites."

Not true. In fact, the Koran says nothing about Jerusalem. It mentions Mecca hundreds of times. It mentions Medina countless times. It never mentions Jerusalem. With good reason. There is no historical evidence to suggest Mohammed ever visited Jerusalem.

So how did Jerusalem become the third holiest site of Islam? Muslims today cite a vague passage in the Koran, the seventeenth Sura, entitled "The Night Journey." It relates that in a dream or a vision Mohammed was carried by night "from the sacred temple to the temple that is most remote, whose precinct we have blessed, that we might show him our signs. ..." In the seventh century, some Muslims identified the two temples mentioned in this verse as being in Mecca and Jerusalem. And that's as close as Islam's connection with Jerusalem gets -- myth, fantasy, wishful thinking. Meanwhile, Jews can trace their roots in Jerusalem back to the days of Abraham.

The latest round of violence in Israel erupted when Likud Party leader Ariel Sharon tried to visit the Temple Mount, the foundation of the Temple built by Solomon. It is the holiest site for Jews. Sharon and his entourage were met with stones and threats. I know what it's like. I've been there. Can you imagine what it is like for Jews to be threatened, stoned and physically kept out of the holiest site in Judaism?