By now the attentive reader will have noticed a curious absence from the drama surrounding Jewish settlement in Palestine, the rise of Zionism, and the establishment of the Jewish state: through it all, the “Palestinians,” named as such, are nowhere to be seen. It is no accident that neither Mark Twain, nor any of the series of English travelers who visited the area, nor anyone else who traveled through desolate Palestine over the centuries ever mentioned the “Palestinian” people. They spoke of encountering Muslim Arabs, as well as Jews, Christian Arabs, and others, but no one, among multitudes of people who wrote about Palestine, ever refers to any Palestinians. Nor do the many British white papers and other documents the British government produced during the Mandate period ever mention the Palestinians. The opposing factions in those documents are the Jews and the Arabs. There is a very simple reason for this: there were no Palestinians.

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