TEST YOUR PPIQ (Palestine/Peace Intelligence Quotient)

by Daniel Pinner


Test your Palestine IQ

If, like most people, you have clear views on the Arab-Israel conflict, and you are convinced that you know how to bring peace to the Middle East, then you are invited to try the following simple quiz. To see how much you really know about the subject, answer these twenty questions, then check your score.

1. As is well known, Palestine is the Holy Land for Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Palestine‚s sanctity in Islam is expressed in the fact that the Koran mentions Palestine:

a) 1,034 times;
b) 837 times;
c) 408 times;
d) 1 time;
e) never.

2. Jerusalem is the third holiest city for Islam (after Mecca and Medina). In honour of this status, the Koran refers to Jerusalem as:

a) Al-Kuds ("The Holy");
b) Al-Medina al-Kuds ("The Holy City");
c) Urusalim ("Jerusalem");
d) Al-Kibla al-Awalani ("The First Direction [of prayer]");
e) By no name, because Jerusalem is never mentioned in the Koran.

3. The Dome of the Rock, on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, is one of Islam‚s holiest shrines. To emphasize this sanctity, Moslems pray on the Temple Mount:

a) facing the Dome of the Rock;
b) in the north-west section, to face the Dome and Mecca simultaneously;
c) standing facing the Dome of the Rock, kneeling facing Mecca;
d) facing the Dome of the Rock for certain prayers, Mecca for others;
e) kneeling facing Mecca, their backsides facing the Dome of the Rock.

4. The Jewish claim to the Holy Land is that God promised it to them. Moses ˆ the Jewish national leader ˆ is quoted as saying: „O my people! Remember the bounty of God upon you∑and gave you that which had not been given to anyone before you amongst the nations. O my people! Enter the Holy Land which God has decreed for you‰. This speech of Moses is recorded in:

a) the Book of Exodus;
b) the Book of Isaiah;
c) the Talmud;
d) the Midrash;
e) the Koran (Sura 5:20-21).

5. In popular literature, historical discussions, political debates, and other forums, the Palestinians‚ standard claim is that they are:

a) the descendants of the Biblical Philistines (a tribe originating in Crete, who invaded the Holy Land in the early Biblical period);
b) the continuation of the Biblical Canaanites (a Hamatic tribe, in perpetual warfare against the Philistines);
c) the descendents of the earliest Christians (i.e. Jews);
d) an integral part of the Arab nation (a Semitic nation originating in Arabia, and entirely unconnected to the Philistines, the Canaanites, and the Jews);
e) all of the above.

6. In the period of history that Palestine was an independent country, its capital city was:

a) Jerusalem;
b) Jaffa;
c) Haifa;
d) Ramallah;
e) meaningless, because there was never in history an independent country called Palestine, so there was never a capital city.

7. The earliest mention of Palestine in history is:

a) in the Hebrew Bible, in the Book of Genesis, when God commanded Abraham to go to Palestine;
b) in the Hebrew Bible, in the Book of Joshua, when the Israelites conquered Palestine;
c) in a stone plaque dating from about 600 BC, commemorating the Babylonian conquest of Palestine;
d) in the New Testament;
e) in the year 135, after the European Roman invaders defeated the Jewish revolt, and re-named the province Palestine.

8. "There is no such country [as Palestine]! ŒPalestine‚ is a term the Zionists invented! There is no Palestine in the Bible. 'Palestine‚' is alien to us." Who said these words?

a) Golda Meir, Prime Minister of Israel, in a speech to the American Zionist Organisation, 1972
b) Moshe Dayan, Minister of Defence of Israel and former Chief of Staff of the Israel Defence Forces, addressing the General Staff, 1968;
c) Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, in his election victory speech, 1996;
d) Abba Eban, Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations, in a speech in 1981;
e) Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi, a local Arab leader, addressing the British Peel Commission, 1937.

9. "The 'Palestinian People‚' does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the State of Israel." Who said this?

a) Egyptian dictator, President Gamal Abdul Nasser, addressing the Egyptian parliament, a month after the Six Day War, July 1967;
b) Jordanian King Hussein, a week before the Six Day War, May 1967;
c) Syrian dictator, President Hafez al-Assad, addressing the Arab League, 1994;
d) Iraqi dictator President Saddam Hussein, addressing the Iraqi nation in a televised speech, 2002;
e) Zahir Muhsein, executive member of the PLO, in an interview with the Dutch newspaper Trouw, March 1977.

10. On the eve of Israel‚s independence in May 1948, approximately 600,000 Arabs lived in the areas that would soon become the State of Israel. When the War of Independence was over (March 1949), 150,000 Arabs were still there. This is why the UNRWA (United Nations Relief Works Agency) officially recognized that the number of Arab refugees was:

a) 450,000;
b) 600,000;
c) 850,000;
d) 1,000,000;
e) 1,300,000.



11. In June 1982, the Israel Defence Forces entered south Lebanon to fight against the PLO, which had invaded Lebanon in 1975. The total population in southern Lebanon was about 400,000, of whom vast numbers 'perhaps as many as 10%' fled northwards to escape the fighting. UNIFIL (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon) officially estimated the number of refugees as:

a) 40,000;
b) 80,000;
c) 120,000;
d) 250,000;
e) 600,000.

12. The Palestine National Covenant (the constitution of the PLO) states that "Palestine, with the boundaries it had during the British Mandate, is an indivisible territorial unit" (Article 2). 77% of this indivisible territorial unit is today:

a) the State of Israel, and the remaining 23% is Judea and Samaria (the „West Bank‰) and Gaza;
b) Israel (including Judea, Samaria, and Gaza, i.e. the „occupied territories‰), and the remaining 23% are the border areas of various neighbouring Arab states;
c) Judea, Samaria, and Gaza (the „occupied territories‰), and the remaining 23% is divided between Israel and Jordan;
d) Judea, Samaria, and Gaza, and the remaining 23% has been annexed to the State of Israel;
e) The Kingdom of Jordan, and the remaining 23% is Israel (including Judea, Samaria, and Gaza).

13. As its name suggests, the raison d‚etre of the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organisation) is to liberate Palestine. Accordingly, the PLO has fought to establish its independent state in:

a) the whole of Israel, starting with Judea, Samaria, and Gaza (the "occupied territories");
b) sovereign Israel alone, rejecting any claim to Judea, Samaria, and Gaza (prior to the Six Day War);
c) Jordan (in the late 1960s and early 1970s)
d) Lebanon (from the mid-1970s until 1982);
e) All of the above.

14. The PLO‚s purpose, as they and their supporters make clear, is to liberate the "occupied territories" which Israel captured in the Six Day War (5th-10th June 1967). This claim is proven by the historical fact that the PLO was founded:

a) in Ramallah, the biggest city in the West Bank, a month after the Six Day War;
b) in Gaza City, which has traditionally been a centre of Palestinian nationalism, on the first anniversary of the Six Day War;
c) as a response to the establishment of the first Israeli settlement in Hebron in 1969;
d) on the 10th anniversary of the Six Day War, in June 1977, in Hebron;
e) 3∏ years before the Six Day War, on 1st January 1964, in Cairo (the capital of Egypt).

15. In the 25-year period 1950-1974, the Arab countries (including Iran) donated a total of $26,476,750 in aid to Palestinian refugees, representing 0.04% (i.e. $1 out of every $2,500) of their combined oil revenue for 1974 alone. The only country in the entire Middle East which gave no aid at all to Palestinian refugees was:

a) Israel;
b) Iran;
c) Libya;
d) Jordan;
e) Algeria.

16. Israel has often been accused of "ethnic cleansing" of the Arabs in the "occupied territories". The demography bears this out, because the Arab population of Judea, Samaria, and Gaza has:

a) plummeted from 6,500,000 in 1967 to 3,000,000 in 2006;
b) plummeted from an estimated 5,000,000 in 1967 to less than 2,000,000 in 2006;
c) remained steady at 3,000,000, despite huge natural growth in the rest of the world;
d) increased at one tenth of the pace of natural population growth;
e) increased from about 750,000 in 1967 to an estimated 3,500,000 in 2006, a population growth of nearly 500% in less than 40 years, which is one of the highest rates of increase anywhere in the world.

17. Israel has also been accused of "ethnic cleansing" of Arabs who are citizens of the state, and deliberately enforcing policies designed to keep the Arab population small. This, too, is shown by the demography, in that the Israeli Arab population has:

a) dropped from slightly over 1,000,000 (40% of the overall population) in 1948 to 750,000 (20% of the population) in 2006;
b) remained at a steady 1,000,000 from 1948 to 2006, while the overall population has increased seven-fold;
c) increased from 500,000 in 1948 to 1,000,000 in 2006, representing a drop from 35% of the overall population to just 12% in 58 years;
d) decreased steadily by 2% per year from 1948 onwards;
e) increased from 150,000 (15% of the overall population) in 1948 to about 1,400,000 (22% of the overall population) in 2006.

18. As of 2007, there are five universities (the Islamic University of Hebron; Bir Zeit University; Bethlehem University; Al-Najah University in Shechem [Nablus]; and Al-Ahzar in Gaza), and five religious higher education academies, throughout the "occupied territories". These institutes are:

a) all that remain of 25 institutes of higher education, the others having been destroyed by the Israeli occupation forces;
b) some of the oldest in the Arab world, with the Islamic University of Hebron having been founded under the original Caliphate in the 8th century;
c) forced to operate secretly, because the Israeli authorities have banned them;
d) barely tolerated by the Israeli authorities;
e) all founded since the Israeli "occupation" of 1967, under Israeli auspices, the oldest one being the Islamic University of Hebron, founded in 1971.

19. Since the Israeli "occupation" of Judea, Samaria, and Gaza in 1967, nine Palestinians have been sentenced to death by the courts and judicially executed. All of them, without exception, were executed:

a) by the Israeli military occupation authorities;
b) by the Israeli Army after military courts-martial;
c) by the Israeli civil administration, following criminal trials in civilian courts;
d) by Israeli civilian courts, acting under special emergency regulations;
e) since September 1993 by the Palestinian Authority, in the autonomous zones, because Israel, alone in the Middle East, does not use the death penalty.



20. In early October 2005, an estimated 650 people charged the security fence/separation barrier, and an estimated 350 succeeded in crossing it. Security forces responded with bayonets, shotguns, and rubber bullets, killing between ten and fifteen people. This incident was given minimal media attention, and has been entirely forgotten, because:

a) the world media is biased in Israel‚s favour;
b) a dozen Palestinians killed is so commonplace, it is not even newsworthy;
c) the Israeli authorities imposed a media blackout;
d) Jewish settlers intimidated the journalists and photographers into silence;
e) the incident occurred along the security fence in Morocco, separating sovereign Morocco from the Spanish Sahara, and the security forces in question were Spanish.



Scoring
Every a) is worth 1 point; every b) is worth 2 points; every c) is worth 3 points; every d) is worth 4 points; every e) is worth 5 points.

Now add up your score. If your score is 20, then you answered a) to every question. You are politically correct, and base your ideas of the Middle East on standard anti-Israel and pro-Arab propaganda lies, rather than on the truth. Since you cannot think for yourself, are more concerned with Israel-bashing than truth, and swallow every cheap slogan peddled, you are ideally suited to become a European career diplomat accredited to the Middle East or a BBC or CNN reporter.

If your score is between 21 and 99, then you might have a slightly more open mind than others, and you might know slightly more than the average media report contains. You might be interested in studying more on the subject.

If your score is 100, then you answered e) to every question. You answered every question correctly, have a good, solid knowledge of the issues involved, and are uninfluenced by official propaganda. Be careful: independent and honest thought might make you a target of Islamic terrorists and their left-wing cohorts.

If your score is below 20 or above 100, this means that you cannot even count properly. You are perfectly suited to become the Secretary General of the United Nations.