This is How UAE and KSA Assist in Falsifying Palestine’s History and Heritage?
Over the last seven decades, the Palestinians faced an Israeli propaganda war, which aimed to rob their heritage and falsify their history after their land was stolen.
The Palestinian people confronted with all their might the campaigns of the Judaizing occupation in all international cultural forums, but it was not in the imagination of the most pessimists that this battle would one day be against Arab brothers.
These Arab brothers have been secretly and publicly acquainted with Israel, and began to open their embassies there, and signed a torrent of agreements in all fields, to join its side even in its hostility to the Palestinian people.
False Narratives
Immediately after the Israeli-Emirati normalization, the media began an attack against the Palestinian people, which included the adoption of the Zionist narrative about the occupation of Palestine and the denial of the Palestinian people's right to their land. They also participated in the Judaization campaign against the Palestinians and the theft of their history and heritage.
The campaign in support of the Israeli narrative began at the official level from the UAE, and some Emirati activists associated with the ruling circles in "Abu Dhabi", along with what is known as "electronic flies" on social networking sites.
Abu Dhabi publicly declared this when the official Emirates airline "Etihad" published a promotional video clip for its flights to Tel Aviv, including a picture of the alleged Israeli temple that Jewish religious groups profess to build on the ruins of Al-Aqsa Mosque.
The clip also included the marketing of Palestinian foods as Israeli, in an apparent attempt to change their identity, and support the Israeli narrative about the Temple in Al-Aqsa, which angered the Palestinians.
UAE news websites also published what they called (the natural scenes in Israel) in the context of promoting tourism in the occupying country.
A number of UAE media delegations visited Tel Aviv after the normalization agreement, and began producing video clips promoting Israel "as a country of tolerance, coexistence and religious pluralism."
Avichai Adraee, spokesman for the Israeli occupation army, recently celebrated a video clip prepared by an Emirati Journalist, and commented on it, saying: "Beautiful Israel, in which every corner speaks the language of coexistence and tolerance, as portrayed by the lens of the able Emirati photographer. What a beautiful language of peace."
Some Emirati activists deliberately provoked the Palestinians and tampered with their feelings, by spreading their propaganda in support of the Israeli narrative through the Palestinian hashtags such as (Gaza under bombardment). An Emirati activist published a video clip describing the Israeli people as a classy people who deserve to be saluted, describing the occupation state as (Israel) sweetheart).
As for the Emirati activist Hamad Al Mazroui, who is close to Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, he participated in the publication of promotional clips for the occupying state attempting to polish its image. In contrast to the demonization of the Palestinian people, as he recently promoted that “the area of the State of Israel is 22.770 square kilometers,” meaning that the Palestinians have no right to claim their stolen land.
In the same context, Israel celebrated the opening of the first restaurant in the UAE after the recent normalization agreement, which represents a new marketing platform for Israeli stolen Palestinian and Arab foods in the heart of an Arab country.
Saudi Role
Officially, Saudi Arabia didn’t normalize with Israel so far, despite the meeting of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Mossad chief Yossi Cohen, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, in the city of "Neom". Yet, the Saudi activity in recent years indicates a real rapprochement and the imminence of official normalization of relations.
Apparently, Saudi Arabia, which suppresses freedom of expression, is comfortable with the normalization activities carried out by Saudis from inside the kingdom, including attempts to falsify the Palestinian heritage. The Saudi blogger, Muhammad Saud, who visited Israel several times, said: "He is very fond of Israeli food such as hummus and falafel, because it tastes delicious."
He added, "I did not eat this much food before my visit to Israel, and I also love the songs of Israeli singers: Hava Alberstein, Ofra Haza, Shoshana Damari, Idan Ben Zaken, Sarit Haddad, my list is full of Israeli singers."
Saud had previously published a video clip in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, in which he called for victory for the Israeli army and the Israeli government, headed by Benjamin Netanyahu, and for success in eliminating the Palestinian resistance in the Gaza Strip, which he described as "terrorism."
As part of the campaign to support the Israeli narrative, the Saudi journalist, who is close to the regime, Rawaf Al-Saeen, claimed that the ownership of this land belongs to the Israelis, and the Palestinians have no right to it and that they are not Arabs. Al-Saeen called on Netanyahu to "burn and discipline the Palestinians and rid the world of their evil."
As for the Saudi Okaz newspaper, it published an article questioning the Al-Aqsa Mosque, claiming that the mosque mentioned in the Qur’an is not located in Jerusalem, but rather in an area called “Al-Jarana” between Mecca and Taif, which observers interpreted as a Saudi attempt to falsify the history of Palestine and de-sanctify it in the Islamic world.
The Saudi writer Ibrahim Al-Sulaiman participated in the campaign of forgery of the Palestinian heritage, saying: “If we go away from the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, we find that the Israeli cuisine is rich in delicious foods, such as freekeh, hummus, mujadara, Musakhan, maqluba and falafel. What accompanies it is the delicious Tel Aviv Konafa.”
Zionist Failure
Israel usually claims that the Palestinian women's embroidered dress is part of its Jewish heritage, as it participated in international heritage exhibitions and fashion show competitions in this dress. An attempt to rob its Palestinian identity, using the Western media, which has wide influence, which angered the Palestinians and pushed them to demonstrate, one of which was in front of the headquarters of the United Nations in Gaza in 2011.
When the Israelis failed to prove their ownership of Palestinian fashion, they tried to include these fashions within the Israeli fashion, as it came to promote coexistence between Palestinians and Israelis. The Israeli fashion designer, Yaron Minkowski, who held an exhibition under the name “Coexistence”, when his heritage costumes lost their credibility after He added the keffiyeh designs, known worldwide for its Palestinian identity, expressed that.
On the artistic level, Israel tried to steal famous Palestinian dances such as the Bedouin dance, which began to become commonplace at Jewish weddings, where it is performed in Hebrew words with the same Palestinian melodies and movements, which was marketed by Israeli accounts in recent years as part of Israeli customs and traditions at weddings.
The Palestinian keffiyeh was also not spared from attempts at theft, despite its global fame as being part of the Palestinian identity, as it became a symbol of the Palestinian struggle since the Great Palestinian Revolution in 1936. After the Palestinians revolted in that year, including farmers who did not leave the keffiyeh on their heads at that time, to be Icon of the revolution, which did not save her from theft.
Stab in the Back
Arab-Israeli normalization and the accompanying marketing of the occupation narrative and a denial of the Palestinian people's right to their land constituted a great shock among the Palestinians who watched their brothers rushing into the arms of their enemies without any regard for the blood that is still shed daily with Israeli bullets.
Palestinian networking sites expressed anger and disappointment at what they considered a stab in the back. Palestinian activist Muhammad Al-Sultan says: These days are the best days of the Israeli occupation, where he sees some Arabs believing his story and lining up with him against the Palestinians, and settlers are guests without any visa in Abu Dhabi, while the Palestinians are treated in a humiliating security manner.
The Sultan stressed to Al-Estiklal that the Palestinian people are fully aware that the typographers do not represent the peoples, but the rulers, and that all Arab peoples stand by the Palestinians, to whom they are linked by Arabism, religion and blood.
In turn, the Palestinian writer Dr. Fayez Abu Shamala said: The participation of Arabs in the marketing of the Israeli entity and the adoption of its narrative is a very dangerous matter. which could be part of a systematic plan to wash the Arab mind that rejects the existence of the Zionist entity on the land of Palestine, and rejects the continuous massacres carried out by Israel.
Abu Shamala added to "Al-Estiklal" that the seriousness of this matter stems from Israel's ability to address the Arab citizen directly from the Arab media owned by the UAE, for example, which are very widespread in the Arab world and broadcast false images of tolerance and coexistence between Muslims and Jews, which contradicts the reality.
Entity without History
The rush of some Arabs to adopt the Israeli narrative coincides with a time when the occupying state is experiencing a clear identity crisis, as it occupied a land to which no history has connected. Thus, it prompted to steal the Palestinian heritage, from food, clothing, and archaeological places, and even Palestinian art and folk dances were not spared from theft.
The Palestinians have proven the identity of the Palestinian traditional dress, which is documented in many old photos that show the Palestinian woman in her national dress.
Hajj Umm Hani Abu Diab, who is from the village of al-Sawafir al-Sharqiya, tells her story about the Palestinian dress, to Al-Estiklal: “I immigrated when I was 12 years old during the Nakba in 1948. Yet, the Palestinian dress is still part of my culture. The dress of married women differed from that of single women in the village, from where embroidery and embellishment are, where it is easy to distinguish."
Umm Hani explained that every village and town had a special dress that distinguished it from other towns, and the dress of the people of agricultural villages was predominantly white, and the people of the desert had the red embroidered color, which is a color that distinguishes the desert and the decoration of its horses as well.
