The ‘Palestinian Land’ Myth

By Seth Mandel

Wednesday, May 06, 2026

 

In January 1948, a group of 38 Jewish fighters embarked on foot on a dangerous mission: to sneak supplies into the Jewish villages of Gush Etzion. The villages were under siege by surrounding Arabs and Arab military personnel, with a hand from the British Mandate authorities who were abetting the chokehold.

 

Three of the men were forced to turn back early in the mission when one of them was injured. The other 35 proceeded to hike through the dark, often hilly terrain—convoys of supplies were being ambushed on the roads, so this was the only option left—overnight. As dawn approached, they encountered two Arab women gathering wood. The Haganah and Palmach men let the women continue unimpeded.

 

When local Arabs were then alerted to the presence of the Jews bringing supplies, they surrounded the men and killed every last one. The Jewish fighters became known as the “Lamed Hey”—the Hebrew letters that combine to mean “35.” The Arabs mutilated the bodies of the Jews; a British soldier took photos of the gruesome scene.

 

When Arab armies invaded soon after, they destroyed Gutz Etzion.

 

As is so often the case with the Jewish people, the story doesn’t end there. In 1967, during the Arab armies’ next attempt at annihilating the Jews, the Israeli military took control of the site of the destroyed Gush communities. The kibbutzniks were reunited with their land, eventually rebuilding the Gush.

 

I retell this story because last night, Park East Synagogue in New York hosted an Israeli real-estate fair. A Hamasnik mob tried to riot over it, mostly failing, all while yelling out the most anti-Semitic things they could think of. Activists from the glorified pro-Hamas P.R. shops posted that the Jews were the ones in the wrong, because the list of cities in which homes might be for sale included not just Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and many other Israeli cities but also Gush Etzion. Mayor Zohran Mamdani joined the chorus disapproving of the synagogue event.

 

This, the mob and their stenographers told us, was “Palestinian land.”

 

The idea behind this is as follows: Jews were massacred and their property stolen by Arabs, therefore Arab Palestinians have a right to it in perpetuity. They believe this is true of Jewish property in Jerusalem and Hebron as well, for example. This is a cornerstone of anti-Zionism, that Jews have no right to life or property.

 

Yet there’s another point to be made here besides the fact that the mayor of New York and a legion of progressive-aligned anti-Semites revealed their unique combination of ignorance and bad faith. There are a couple of problems with the whole concept of “Palestinian land.”

 

The first is that “Palestinian” here is used to mean “Arab.” The protest mob reportedly even chanted “From water to water, Palestine is Arab.” When they use the phrase “Palestinian land” they are declaring it Judenrein.

 

Second: If a Palestinian Arab personally owns a piece of land, that land is a Palestinian’s land, which is not the same thing as Palestinian national territory. From the perspective of national claims and sovereignty, it is, at most, disputed land. There have been two sovereign claimants to land on what is known as the West Bank: Israel and Jordan. Jordan relinquished its claims on the land decades ago. Israel has not annexed it. There is no Palestinian national claim to sovereignty, even if one believes that eventually turning it into Palestinian sovereign national territory is the only just resolution to the conflict.

 

Thus the Palestinian claim to disputed territory that was once occupied by the state of Jordan can best be described as “land the Palestinians want.” That’s fine! They are more than entitled to make demands in a negotiation process. And they should aspire to precisely the kind of statehood that Israelis—both Jews and Arabs—have built with its capital in Jerusalem. The state of Israel is a worthy model, and though successive Palestinian governments have rejected offers of statehood, perhaps they are reconsidering.

 

Israel did not invade a place called “Palestine” and take its land. It fought a defensive war against Jordan and won. “Palestinian land” is a concept of the future—if the Palestinians want it.