War is not  fought only by modern sophisticated weapons but also most effectively by ideas. Knowledge has become more powerful than guns and missile, therefore, those nations who despise knowledge are destroyed by knowledge. Powerful   groups tend to use knowledge in their favour, especially historical knowledge which is distorted and readjusted to strengthen their political position. Nations construct their past in the light of the present to fulfil their  demands and also deny what is not required by them, therefore,  it is constructed  and designed to foster a particular ideology and to further the interest of a particular group. Historical myths are also created in order to involve target groups being used for certain goals. Similarly, traditions are invented for political and social domination of selected groups.

 Past is constructed again and again in the light of present. Repeatedly new interpretations make it dynamic and vibrant. One of the patterns of shaping  the past is by the colonial powers. They constructed the past of their colonies with a view to deny their capacity to rule: such was the case of India; the British Indian historiography proved that the Indians were not capable to understand the statecraft  and the rules of governance. That was the reason that they were ruled throughout history by the foreigners. Their past was portrayed in such a way that the present British rule appeared a blessing for India. The Indian historians responded the British challenge and constructed their own past with nationalist approach arguing that the Indian civilization had reached at zenith in the past. It was glorious for its political, cultural, social, and economic achievements. However, it is evident that in construction of the Indian Past both , colonial as well as nationalists ,took extreme points of view,  both served the interest of certain groups. It shows that whenever the past is constructed it serves the interest of politically dominated minority and not the whole society. That’s why it is shaped and reshaped again and again with the change of political spectrum.

 In another pattern, we see that selective historical facts are manipulated in construction of the past, especially in case when land and countries were occupied and the original inhabitants were either decimated or reduced to insignificant position. The act of elimination of population is always justified that they were uncivilised and savage, therefore, had no right to occupy the land. The superior race had a legitimacy to possess their land. They justified their claim by arguing that they brought civilization to the land and made it a cradle of culture . Take the case of America where the white settlers accused the so called red Indians as savage and barbarian. Once they were dehumanised then it became easy to eliminate them and dispossessed them from their land. It didn’t prick their moral conscience. The American historians, writing the history of America, ignored the Indian past and started the history with the advent of Columbus. The phrase of discovery implies that  it was obscure and lying neglected .The white settlers  brought it to the light and subsequently  linked it to  the European civilization. To establish the superiority of the European civilization, the ancient civilizations of South America were downgraded and their contribution to the human civilization is not recognized. This type of construction of the past suited to the white settlers to justify their political designs to expel the red Indians from their settlements and occupy them believing that  they were right in their acts. The same pattern is followed in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Palestine with the same arguments  that the people were scattered and had no culture; land was empty; the settlers brought civilization and linked these lands to the western culture which was the most advanced and progressive culture of the world. This pattern of construction of the past is adopted by the Israeli and pro-Israeli historians to justify the occupation of Palestine and depriving the Palestinians from their homeland.

 Keith W. Whitelam in “The Invention of Ancient Israel” (1996)  surveys the whole historiography of Israel and points out how these historians manipulated the historical facts and , after distorting or ignoring the facts which do not fit in their framework, construct the Israeli past which suits the present state of Israel and deny the rights of the Palestinians.   The existence of Israel, he writes, “ has led  to the construction of an imagined past which has monopolized the discourse of biblical studies, an imagined past which has come to dominate and deny Palestinian history”.

 In legitimising their existence, the Israelis are not only using history but also archaeology. Trigger in his book “Approaches to Archeology” ( 1984) discusses how nations use archaeology in construction of the past of their liking. He then points out  how Israelis are excavating only those sites which help them to strengthen their case of occupying Palestine. The selected archeological evidence serve their political interest and deny the claim of the Palestinians. The Jewish settlements are justified on the bases that there were ancient Jewish settlements  on the same site in the late bronze and iron age. Thus, the past which is built on archaeological evidence  is used to prove that there is continuity of Israeli history. It is also proved that the Palestinians have no history and no proof of their existence in the past. The popular image which is created by the new research is that the land of ancient Palestine was barren and deserted, the population was scattered and settled here and there.They were  not capable to use the resources of the land. With the settlement of the Jews a new  civilization and culture is brought to this land and made it vibrant and full of life. The argument echoes the Nazi concept of the Lebensraum which inspired the Germans to conqure their neighbouring countries on the ground that the Germans were superior and competent to use those resources of the conquered  countries which were not used by the local people because of their laziness and incompetency. The inferior races could live only a life of subordinates.

 Whitelam points out how newly excavated sites are used for present political purposes. For example, the excavation of Masada, a Jewish city which was besieged and conquered by the Romans, became a national symbol  of the Jewish state. Y.Zerubavel in his article “The death of memory  and the memory of death: Masada and the holocaust as historical metaphors” (1994) writes:

 ‘We will not exaggerate by saying thanks to the heroism of the Masada fighters-like other links in the nation’s chain of heroism, we stand here today, the soldiers of a young-ancient people, surrounded by the ruins of the camp of those who destroyed us. We stand here, no longer helpless in the face of our enemy’s strength, no longer fighting a desperate war, but solid and confident, knowing that our fate is in our hands, in our spiritual strength, the spirit of Israel ,the grandfather revived. We, the descendants of these heroes, stand here today and rebuild the ruins of our people.’ He further writes: ‘Masada is no longer the historic mountain near the Dead Sea but a mobile mountain which we carry on our back anywhere we go.’

 In their first step to deconstruct the history of Palestine, the Israeli historians  make attempts to  obliterate the name of Palestine and replace it with Israel. It is given different names as Land of the Bible, the holy Land, Eretz Israel, Canaan, the Promised  Land, Ancient Israel-Palestine,  and Old Testament Palestine.  The argument is that there was no Palestine in history. M. Dothan in his article “Terminology for the archaeology of the biblical periods” (1984 ) writes:

 ‘Thus for nearly 700 years, the name Palestine was hardly used. Only in the nineteenth century, with the awakening of European religious, historical and political interests, did the Latin name Palestina reappear. We may conclude that the chronologically late and inconsistently used term ‘Palestine’ was apparently never accepted by any local national entity. It, therefore, can hardly serve as a meaningful term for the archaeology of this country.’

 By depriving the people of Palestine from the name of their country, their right to live and claim it as their homeland ,the  newly constructed Israeli past makes them stateless and homeless. The second important step which is taken is to divest them from their historical roots is to make the Bible the major source of ancient history. Because it favours the Israelis. In this history,  Israel replaces Palestine and Israelite history supersedes pre-history and Canaanite  history. Commenting on it Whitelam writes: “In the scholarship of the past and in the reality of the present ,Palestine has become  ‘the land of Israel’ and the history of ancient Israel is the only legitimate subject of study. All else is subsumed in providing background and understanding for the history of ancient Israel which has continuity with the present state and provides the roots and impulse of European civilization.”

 The third step is to have an alliance and close relationship with European civilization and culture. As the present Israeli state is getting all moral and material support from Europe and America, therefore it is argued that in ancient history, Israel played a part of the mediator between Egyptian/Babylonian and Western culture. It makes the Western past a continuity  of the Eastern culture through Greece and Rome to the Renaissance and Reformation and universalisation of European civilisation. Thus Europe is indebted to Israel and in return, must help her in keeping the torch of European civilisation in the Middle East.

 The conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians shows the contrast of  attitude and thinking. The Israelis are using all media: literature, films, history, archaeology, religion,  exhibitions of photographs of the holocaust, gas chambers, and  life of the Jewish people in the third Reich in order to strengthen their case of a separate homeland. The voice of the Palestinians is silenced by propagating   their case of Jewish miseries and anti-semetic movements of the western nations. The Zionist movement, emerging from the soil of Europe, inherited its intellectual, scientific and technological  culture from  the Western civilisation. Therefore, when it came in conflict with the Arab culture, it found no problem to defeat it. Because on the one side there was order, discipline, knowledge, and skill, while the other side had neither skill, nor knowledge, nor order and discipline. The whole scenario of this conflict is vividly depicted by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre in “O Jerusalem” (1972). The  battle against the Palestinians was won because of the modern knowledge of the Israelis and ignorance of the Arabs.

 Keeping in view the present situation, it is clear that  the Arabs in general, and the Palestinians in particular, are not responding to the Israeli construction of the past and the deconstruction of the Palestinian history. Therefore, it is evident that the Palestinians cannot win their battle unless they build their own system of knowledge and construct their own history. Not by rhetoric but with  knowledge they could win their battle.