According to conventional wisdom, the root of the Mideast conflict comes
down to this: Palestinians want a homeland and Muslims want control over
sites they consider holy. Simple, right?

Wrong. Forget the conventional wisdom. If you want Mideast peace, you
have to begin on a foundation of truth, not myth.

Isn't it interesting that prior to the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, there was
no serious movement for a Palestinian homeland?

"Well," you might say, "that was before the Israelis seized the West
Bank and Old Jerusalem."

That's true. In the Six-Day War, Israel captured Judea, Samaria and East
Jerusalem. But they didn't capture these territories from Yasser Arafat.
They captured them from Jordan's King Hussein. I can't help but wonder
why all these Palestinians suddenly discovered their national identity
after Israel won the war.

The truth is that Palestine is no more real than Never-Never Land. The
first time the name was used was in 70 A.D. when the Romans committed
genocide against the Jews, smashed the Temple and declared the land of
Israel would be no more. From then on, the Romans promised, it would be
known as Palestine. The name was derived from the Philistines, a
Goliathian people conquered by the Jews centuries earlier. It was a way
for the Romans to add insult to injury. They also tried to change the
name of Jerusalem to Aelia Capitolina, but that had even less staying
power.

Palestine has never existed -- before or since -- as an autonomous
entity. It was ruled alternately by Rome, by Islamic and Christian
crusaders, by the Ottoman Empire and, briefly, by the British after
World War I. The British agreed to restore at least part of the land to
the Jewish people as their homeland.

There is no language known as Palestinian. There is no distinct
Palestinian culture. There has never been a land known as Palestine
governed by Palestinians. Palestinians are Arabs, indistinguishable from
Jordanians (another recent invention), Syrians, Lebanese, Iraqis, etc.
Keep in mind that the Arabs control 99.9 percent of the Middle East
lands. Israel represents one-tenth of 1 percent of the landmass.

But that's too much for the Arabs. They want it all. And that is
ultimately what the fighting in Israel is about today. Greed. Pride.
Envy. Covetousness. No matter how many land concessions the Israelis
make, it will never be enough.

What about Islam's holy sites? There are none in Jerusalem.

Shocked? You should be. I don't expect you will ever hear this brutal
truth from anyone else in the international media. It's just not
politically correct.

I know what you're going to say: "The Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the
Rock in Jerusalem represent Islam's third most holy sites."

Not true. In fact, the Koran says nothing about Jerusalem. It mentions
Mecca hundreds of times. It mentions Medina countless times. It never
mentions Jerusalem. With good reason. There is no historical evidence to
suggest Mohammed ever visited Jerusalem.

So how did Jerusalem become the third holiest site of Islam? Muslims
today cite a vague passage in the Koran, the seventeenth Sura, entitled
"The Night Journey." It relates that in a dream or a vision Mohammed was
carried by night "from the sacred temple to the temple that is most
remote, whose precinct we have blessed, that we might show him our
signs. ..." In the seventh century, some Muslims identified the two
temples mentioned in this verse as being in Mecca and Jerusalem. And
that's as close as Islam's connection with Jerusalem gets -- myth,
fantasy, wishful thinking. Meanwhile, Jews can trace their roots in
Jerusalem back to the days of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

So what's the solution to the Middle East mayhem? Well, frankly, I don't
think there is a man-made solution to the violence. But, if there is
one, it needs to begin with truth. Pretending will only lead to more
chaos. Treating a 4,000-year-old birthright backed by overwhelming
historical and archaeological evidence equally with illegitimate claims,
wishes and wants gives diplomacy and peacekeeping a bad name.