I have written before about the importance of semantics in the discussion of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and how frustrated many people are about losing various battles over nomenclature, such as references to the disputed territories as “occupied,” and “Judaea and Samaria” as the West Bank.  An arguably more important semantic …

FACT: For many centuries, Palestine was a sparsely populated, poorly cultivated, and widely neglected expanse of eroded hills, sandy deserts, and malarial marshes.  This was Mark Twain’s description when he visited in 1867: A desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds—a silent mournful …

FACT … Despite the growth in their population, the Arabs continued to assert they were being displaced. From the beginning of World War I, how-ever, part of Palestine’s land was owned by absentee landlords who lived in Cairo, Damascus, and Beirut.  About 80 percent of the Palestinian Arabs were debt-ridden …

MYTH Palestine was always an Arab country. FACT The term “Palestine” is believed to be derived from the Philistines, an Aegean people who, in the twelfth century BCE, settled along the Mediterranean coastal plain — now Israel and the Gaza Strip. In the second century CE, after crushing the last …

Israel’s new Nation State Law has provoked controversy both inside and outside Israel.  Both critics and supporters have misinterpreted the text and its implications.  They have also missed what may be the most important motive for the legislation – fear of the demographic threat to Israel’s future. First, we can …