THERE WAS NEVER A COUNTRY OR STATE CALLED PALESTINE

Here's a bit of history for all those who's brains have been filled with propaganda, lies and fake news.  I'm not a historian or a scholar but I do know history the world.  I have "books" on the subject.

There has never been an Arab state called “Palestine” in the land of Judea/Israel. However, during ancient times, there were several Jewish states & kingdoms both inside and outside the land of Israel. For millennia, Jews have been a civilization indigenous to the land of Israel. The Jewish State, however, has steadily been reduced in size.

Jews and other non-Muslims have for centuries lost a considerable amount of land due to Arabian-Islamic colonialism.

Yet the Jews of Israel still practice their ancient traditions, speak the same language, and live on the same land, the homeland of their ancient ancestors.”

A crash course on history of the PALESTINIAN STATE:

1.    Before Israel, there was a British mandate, not a Palestinian state.

 

2.    Before the British Mandate, there was the Ottoman Empire, not a Palestinian state.

 

3.    Before the Ottoman Empire, there was the Islamic state of the Mamluks of Egypt, not a Palestinian state.

 

4.    Before the Islamic state of the Mamluks of Egypt, there was the Ayubid Arab-Kurdish Empire, not a Palestinian state.

 

5.    Before the Ayubid Empire, there was the Frankish and Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem, not a Palestinian state.

 

6.    Before the Kingdom of Jerusalem, there was the Umayyad and Fatimid empires, not a Palestinian state.

 

7.    Before the Umayyad and Fatimid empires, there was the Byzantine empire, not a Palestinian state.

 

8.    Before the Byzantine Empire, there were the Sassanids, not a Palestinian state.

 

9.    Before the Sassanid Empire, there was the Byzantine Empire, not a Palestinian state.

 

10.  Before the Byzantine Empire, there was the Roman Empire, not a Palestinian state.

 

11.  Before the Roman Empire, there was the Hasmonean state, not a Palestinian state.

 

12.  Before the Hasmonean state, there was the Seleucid, not a Palestinian state.

 

13.  Before the Seleucid empire, there was the empire of Alexander the Great, not a Palestinian state.

 

14.  Before the empire of Alexander the Great, there was the Persian empire, not  a Palestinian state.

 

15.  Before the Persian Empire, there was the Babylonian Empire, not a Palestinian state.

 

16.  Before the Babylonian Empire, there were the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah, not a Palestinian state.

 

17.  Before the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah, there was the Kingdom of Israel, not a Palestinian state.

 

18.  Before the kingdom of Israel, there was the theocracy of the twelve tribes of Israel, not a Palestinian state.

 

19.  Before the theocracy of the twelve tribes of Israel, there was an agglomeration of independent Canaanite city kingdoms, not a Palestinian state.

 

20.  Actually, in this piece of land there has been everything, EXCEPT A PALESTINIAN STATE.

PALESTINIANS ARE A HISTORICAL FABRICATION

 

Someone commented on a post on Instagram: “So you are denying the existence of Palestinians? Why not go for a 2 state solution? That is really the only solution. Jews wanted a country. They got it. Why can’t Palestinians have a country too?”

My response for your reading pleasure.

First of all, yes, the Arabs who call themselves Palestinians are a historical fabrication. Golda Meir had a Palestinian passport. She was at the time a citizen of Mandate Palestine- a protectorate of the British Empire. All the people living in mandate Palestine got passports issued by the British authorities. It did not convey British citizenship, nor was Palestine a sovereign state, these were protectorate passports denoting a subject of the British Empire based in a territory administered by the UK.

A Egyptian born terrorist named Yasser Arafat hijacked the word “Palestinian” to describe Jordanians and other Arabs. There never was a Palestinian Arab state. If you disagree, kindly tell me when it was established, what did their flag look like and what the national anthem was.

 

Second of all, they had a state in 1947. While the State of Israel was established on May 15, 1948 and admitted to the United Nations, a Palestinian State was not established. The remaining territories of pre-1948 Palestine, the West Bank - including East Jerusalem- and Gaza Strip, were administered from 1948 till 1967 by Jordan and Egypt, respectively. They rejected it. And then they repeated that same mistake over and over again as I will show the list below

1937
THE PEEL COMMISSION

1947
THE UN PARTITION VOTE

1967
THE KHARTOUM SUMMIT

1991
THE MADRID CONFERENCE

2000
THE CAMP DAVID SUMMIT

2001
THE TABA SUMMIT

2007
THE ANNAPOLIS CONFERENCE

2008
THE REALIGNMENT PLAN

2010
THE JOINT PEACE TALKS

2013
THE JOINT PEACE TALKS

2019
THE BAHRAIN WORKSHOP

2020
THE TRUMP PEACE PLAN

As the famous quote goes, “they don’t miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”

The people who call themselves Palestinians originally came from Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia; this is still reflected in their surnames. Before the creation of the Palestinian identity, they strongly identified with their countries/communities of origin. The Palestinian identity was created as a useful mean to negate Israeli identity and the Israeli claim to the land.

 

They don’t want a state. They want no Israel. Sorry for not accommodating their genocidal aspirations.

I’ll go a little more deeper by looking into the Quran and what it has to say about Israel and Palestine.....

Israel is mentioned 43 times in the Quran out of this, “Bene Israel” meaning children of Israel is mentioned 41 times and “Israel” only is mentioned 2 times. No where in the Quran and hadiths is Palestine ever mentioned.

[20] AND, LO, Moses said unto his people:" O my people! Remember the blessings which God bestowed upon you when he raised up prophets among you, and made you your own masters, and granted unto you [favours] such as He had not granted to anyone else in the world.

[21] O my people! Enter the holy land which God has promised you; but do not turn back [on your faith], for then you will be lost!"     Surah Al-Ma'idah 5:20-21

All food (that is lawful in the Law revealed to Muhammad) was lawful to the Children of Israel, except what Israel made unlawful to themselves before the revelation of the Torah.    Surah Ali 'Imran 3:93

Those were ˹some of˺ the prophets who Allah has blessed from among the descendants of Adam, and of those We carried with Noah ˹in the Ark˺, and of the descendants of Abraham and Israel, and of those We ˹rightly˺ guided and chose.  Surah Maryam 19:58

O Children of Israel! Remember ˹all˺ the favours I granted you and how I honoured you above the others.    Surah Al-Baqarah 2:47

And We said to the Children of Israel after Pharaoh, “Reside in the land, but when the promise of the hereafter comes to pass we will bring you all together.”       Surah Al-Isra 17:104

Hope that answers any questions you may have.

THE 4 STAGES OF ISLAMIC CONQUEST

 

History tells that 40 percent or above genocide is committed by the muslim population this has happened in every country that was once Christian in the Middle East the latest in recent memory being the Armenian massacre by Muslim Turks.

Today the genocide goes on and the Western media is in denial. Importing these male migrants of fighting age is madness, the left liberal and political correctness the West’s greatest weakness is used against us by islamists and Islam’s plan of Global conquest.

Our leaders are weak and ISIS is still a global threat and Turkey is now becoming a bigger threat whether the caliphate falls or not as the case may be we or most would not die for our beliefs - Muslims will and do that is that difference .

Since the time of their prophet, Islam has been at war with us and it’s time for the uneducated liberals and leftists and cultural marxists to wake up to the reality of Islam before we condemn our children and their children to live under the rule of Islam.

What the West does not know is that there are 4 Stages of Islamic Conquest:

 

STAGE 1: INFILTRATION

Muslims begin moving to non-Muslim countries in increasing numbers and the beginning of cultural conflicts are visible, though often subtle.

• First migration wave to non-Muslim “host” country.
• Appeal for humanitarian tolerance from the host society.
• Attempts to portray Islam as a peaceful & Muslims as victims of misunderstanding and racism (even though Islam is not a ‘race’).
• High Muslim birth rate in host country increase Muslim population.
• Mosques used to spread Islam and dislike of host country & culture.
• Calls to criminalize “Islamophobia” as a hate crime.
• Threatened legal action for perceived discrimination.
• Offers of “interfaith dialogue” to indoctrinate non-Muslims.

How many nations are suffering from Islamic infiltration? One? A handful? Nearly every nation? The Islamic ‘leadership” of the Muslim Brotherhood and others wish to dissolve each nation’s sovereignty and replace it with the global imposition of Islamic sharia law. Sharia law, based on the quran, sira and hadith, condemns liberty and forbids equality and is inconsistent with the laws of all Western nations. As the author and historian Serge Trifkovic states:

“The refusal of the Western elite class to protect their nations from jihadist infiltration is the biggest betrayal in history.”

 

STAGE 2:   CONSOLIDATION OF POWER

Muslim immigrants and host country converts continue demands for accommodation in employment, education, social services, financing and courts.

• Proselytizing increases; Establishment and Recruitment of Jihadi cells.
• Efforts to convert alienated segments of the population to Islam.
• Revisionist efforts to Islamize history.
• Efforts to destroy historic evidence that reveal true Islamism.
• Increased anti-western propaganda and psychological warfare.
• Efforts to recruit allies who share similar goals (communists, anarchists).
• Attempts to indoctrinate children to Islamist viewpoint.
• Increased efforts to intimidate, silence and eliminate non-Muslims.
• Efforts to introduce blasphemy and hate laws in order to silence critics.
• Continued focus on enlarging Muslim population by increasing Muslim births and immigration.
• Use of charities to recruit supporters and fund jihad.
• Covert efforts to bring about the destruction of host society from within.
• Development of Muslim political base in non-Muslim host society.
• Islamic Financial networks fund political growth, acquisition of land.
• Highly visible assassination of critics aimed to intimidate opposition.
• Tolerance of non-Muslims diminishes.
• Greater demands to adopt strict Islamic conduct.
• Clandestine amassing of weapons and explosives in hidden locations.
• Overt disregard/rejection of non-Muslim society’s legal system, culture.
• Efforts to undermine and destroy power base of non-Muslim religions including and especially Jews and Christians.

Is there a pattern here? Theo van Gogh is murdered in the Netherlands for ‘insulting’ Islam; the Organization of the Islamic Conference demands ‘anti-blasphemy’ laws through the United Nations; France is set afire regularly by ‘youths’ (read Muslims); the rise of (dis-) honor killings…holocaust denial…anti-Semitism…deception re the tenets of Islam; hatred toward Christians and Jews and Hindus and Buddhists.  The pattern for all to see is the rise of Islamic intolerance and the covert/cultural jihad to remake host societies into sharia-compliant worlds – to remove host sovereignty and replace it with Islamic sharia law.  Sharia law that condemns earthly liberty and individual freedom, that forbids equality among faiths and between the sexes, that rejects the concept of nations outside the global house of Islam, that of dar al-Islam.

 

STAGE 3: OPEN WAR WITH LEADERSHIP & CULTURE

Open violence to impose Sharia law and associated cultural restrictions; rejection of host government, subjugation of other religions and customs.

• Intentional efforts to undermine the host government & culture.
• Acts of barbarity to intimidate citizens and foster fear and submission.
• Open and covert efforts to cause economic collapse of the society.
• All opposition is challenged and either eradicated or silenced.
• Mass execution of non-Muslims.
• Widespread ethnic cleansing by Islamic militias.
• Rejection and defiance of host society secular laws or culture.
• Murder of “moderate” Muslim intellectuals who don’t support Islamization.
• Destruction of churches, synagogues and other non-Muslim institutions.
• Women are restricted further in accordance with Sharia law.
• Large-scale destruction of population, assassinations, bombings.
• Toppling of government and usurpation of political power.
• Imposition of Sharia law

The website www.thereligionofpeace.com keeps track of the number of violent jihad attacks as best it can. The site lists more than 14,000 attacks since September 2001. It is worth a visit. What is occurring, however, that is likely inestimable are events where muslims are bullied by other muslims for not being “muslim enough,” where non-Muslims are intimidated into doing or not doing what they desire, where remnant populations are in a death spiral simply for being non-muslim in a predominantly muslim area. Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists Animists and Atheists meet with death, property destruction or confiscation, forced conversion, rape, excessive taxation (the jizya), enslavement, riotous mobs and various other forms of islam (in-) justice at the hands of muslims in Sudan, Philippines, Kenya, Malaysia, India, etc.  And let us not forget ‘death to Apostates’ the world over.

 

STAGE 4: Totalitarian ISLAMIC “THEOCRACY”

Islam becomes the only religious-political-judicial-cultural ideology.

• Sharia becomes the “law of the land.
• All non-Islamic human rights cancelled.
• Enslavement and genocide of non-Muslim population.
• Freedom of speech and the press eradicated.
• All religions other than Islam are forbidden and destroyed.
• Destruction of all evidence of non-Muslim culture, populations and symbols in country (Buddhas, houses of worship, art, etc).

The House of Islam (“peace”), dar al-Islam, includes those nations that have submitted to Islamic rule, to the soul crushing, liberty-condemning, discriminatory law of Sharia. The rest of the world in in the House of War, dar al-harb, because it does not submit to Sharia, and exists in a state of rebellion or war with the will of ‘Allah.’ No non-Muslim state or its citizens are “innocent,” and remain viable targets of war for not believing in ‘Allah.’

The Christian, Jewish, Coptic, Hindu and Zoroastrian peoples of world have suffered under subjugation for centuries. The Dhimmi-esque are forbidden to construct houses of worship or repair existing ones, economically crippled by the heavy jizya (tax), socially humiliated, legally discriminated against, criminally targeted and generally kept in a permanent state of weakness, fear and vulnerability by Islamic governments.

It should be noted that forced conversions (Pakistan and Egypt) and slavery (Sudan and other African states including parts of the Middle East) are still reported. Homosexuals have been hung in the public square in Iran. Young girls are married to old men. Apostates are threatened with death. “Honor” killings are routine. Women are legally second-class citizens, though Muslim males insist they are “treated better” than in the West. These more obvious manifestations may distract from some less obvious ones such as the lack of intellectual inquiry in science, narrow scope of writing, all but non-existent art and music, sexual use and abuse of youth and women, and the disregard for personal fulfillment, joy and wonder. Look into the eyes of a recently married 12 year old girl to see the consequence of the moral deprivation spawned by Islam.

Islam is NOT a religion; it is a theo-political doctrine as implemented under Islamic Sharia Law. People should take note that Islam makes attainment of political goals a religious duty, thereby making inseparable the religious from the political. Islam’s express goal is to spread Islam across the world—to replace or subjugate anything non-Islamic. Wherever Islam thrives, a state within a state develops and the existing government and unbelieving (kafir, infidel) culture is rejected. The Islamic minority grows in until it can conquer, by political or violent means, the established government and replace it with Sharia.

THE SO CALLED "PALESTINIANS"

 

Who are these people who call themselves “Palestinians”

Before I proceed with this subject, I like to make it absolutely clear that I am not a historian of any sort but, having an ancestral Jewish background going back thousands of years I have this burning thirst and desire to learn about the land of my ancestors.  This burning thirst and desire has lead me to conduct years of extensive research on the Land of Israel and my people “The Jewish People”.  To do this I laboriously read the Torah and the Bible (Old Testament) and acquired historic and archaeological data and information.

So let’s all look at who were the original so called “Palestinians”.  To do this we have to go back to almost 3,000 years or more where the Philistines were an Aegean (Cypriot) people that died out almost 3,000 years ago. To be absolutely clear, there is absolutely no connection between this tribe and the modern day Arabs that identify as Palestinian. Even the land the two people dwelled in was different, Philistine was a tiny stretch of land in the same location as what is known today as Gaza. At this time the much larger area of Israel and the West Bank was almost exclusively inhabited by Jews. To suggest the Palestinians descend from this tiny tribe is positively absurd – they were a different ethnicity, with a different language and no traces of their culture exists in Palestinian culture today. This people became extinct 3,000 years ago, they are NOT the Palestinians.

 

The word Philistine stems from a Hebrew word “Palishtim” which was the Biblical name of this tribe. It is a Hebrew (Jewish) word which translates to invaders, as the Philistines were not indigenous to the region.

Now let’s see where was Syria-Palestina.

When the Romans crushed the Jewish revolt of 132 CE in an attempt to discourage patriotism they renamed the region Syria-Palaestina (exiling many of the Jews at the same time). Syria-Palestina stretched from Egypt to Turkey and from Israel to Jordan, it had a diverse demography but the majority population was Phoenician, Greek and Roman.

 

Syria-Palestina was a foreign name forced upon a region that had never been unified. The Romans chose to name it after two ancient kingdoms Assyria and Philistine, both of which have long since died out. This Roman province had nothing to do with the modern day Palestinian state, either geographically or ethnically.

So who are the so called “Palestinians”?

The so called “Palestinians” are a mixed people and while the majority descend from recent economic migrants, who flocked to the area between 1850 and 1950. A few Muslim families trace their history to the Arab conquest of Jerusalem and some Jewish and Christian families go even back further. However, very few Arabs are indigenous – Arabs are not indigenous to the Israel (unsurprisingly they originate from Arabia, they arrived in the Land of Israel with the Muslim conquests of the 7^th century).

At the beginning of the 20^th century a number of Levantine Arabs reacted to Zionism by creating a nationalist movement of their own and like the Zionists they sought national self-determination. The problem with creating this non-Jewish nationalist movement was that the inhabitants of the region were incredibly diverse, there were Arabs, Bedouins, Druze, Kurds, Europeans, Arameans, Christians, Muslims, etc. and ‘not being Jewish’ was the only thing these people had in common. They had absolutely NO language, culture or religion to make them distinct from Jordanians or Syrians and the only thing that seemed to unify them was opposition to Jewish sovereignty in that region.

Since the end of Jewish sovereignty in the region, Israel remained a tiny province in much larger empires. Some of these conquerors referred to the area by the Roman name of Palestine (Philistia, Palestina, Mandatory Palestine, etc.) – but this always denoted a place and not a people. Irrespective of this fact, the Arab nationalists chose to name the nation they coveted “Filastin”, probably because this was the only consistently used name for the region that did not have strong Jewish associations.

Before Britain relinquished control of the Mandate the inhabitants of the Mandatory Palestine had mixed loyalties, some supported a Jewish homeland, some remained impartial, a minority supported an Arab homeland and a larger number supported the notion of pan-Arabism (which unified all Arab peoples – not just one small province). It was pan-Arabism that had the support of the surrounding Arab states, while powerful local clans like the Husaynis and Nashashibis fought for Palestinian self-determination.

In reality, Palestinian nationalism was a minority position, one powerful Arab leader, Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi, declared “There is no such country as Palestine! ‘Palestine’ is a term the Zionists invented! There is no Palestine in the Bible. Our country was for centuries part of Syria.”

When Syrian President Hafez Assad said to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat “There is no such thing as a Palestinian people, there is no Palestinian entity, there is only Syria. You are an integral part of the Syrian people, Palestine is an integral part of Syria. Therefore it is we, the Syrian authorities, who are the true representatives of the Palestinian people.” 

Arafat was in no place to rebuke him as a few years earlier, he himself had declared…

The question of borders doesn’t interest us… From the Arab standpoint, we mustn’t talk about borders. Palestine is nothing but a drop in an enormous ocean. Our nation is the Arabic nation that stretches from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea and beyond it… The PLO. is fighting Israel in the name of Pan-Arabism. What you call “Jordan” is nothing more than Palestine.

– Yasser Arafat 

 

And it wasn’t just the Palestinians and Syrians saying this…

The truth is that Jordan is Palestine and Palestine is Jordan

 – King Hussein of Jordan 

In 1948, Jordan invaded and conquered the West Bank usurping the territory. They forbade Jews from living there and granted all non-Jews Jordanian citizenship… the local “Palestinians” embraced their new nationality without objection. There was no rejection of this new identity as Jordanians and Palestinians saw each other as one people, it was only because of British interference that they were artificially separated into two people.

One of the most common movements amongst 20th century Arabs was pan-Arabism, which advocated for the unification of Arab countries into an Arab superstate. When King Abdullah of Jordan usurped the West Bank he imagined it being one a stepping stone to ruling his own pan-Arab empire called “Greater Syria”. To his dismay the Israelis shattered this dream in 1967 after repelling an Arab attack on Israel, Jordan were driven out of the West Bank and in the blink of an eye his vision of a Greater Syria crumbled.

Why is it that on June 4th 1967 I was a Jordanian and overnight I became a Palestinian?

– Walid Shoebat, a former PLO terrorist

 

With pan-Arabism on its knees, the Arabs attempted a different strategy to destroy Israel – Palestinian independence. Up until this point Palestinian nationalism had been supported by a small minority that had failed to unify the people behind their cause. When the Grand Mufti attempted to establish the All-Palestine Government in Gaza, it was defeated due to lack of power and public support. Other attempts met a similar fate. In the sixties this changed, pan-Arabism was in its death throes and Palestinian statehood emerged as its successor. The Palestinian Liberation Organisation, headed by Arafat and supported by the Arab League, effectively gave birth to the Palestinian people, they fabricated a history and unity amongst the people that had never existed.

 

The Palestinian people have no national identity. I, Yasser Arafat, man of destiny, will give them that identity through conflict with Israel.

– Yasser Arafat 

 

They created a flag (which was all but identical to their brothers in Jordan) and fabricated a history supporting their claim for sovereignty over all of the land, including Israel.

 

       

The majority of these Arabs were not indigenous, nor were they distinct from other Arabs in that region and while today they define themselves as one people (and they have the right to self-identify this way). One should not be fooled into believing they are an ancient people, or even a people with ancient claims to the land.

Two hundred years ago there were no Palestinians, while there was a multitude of mixed ethnicities living in the land, they did not identify as a collective people. Nor is there any evidence of a Palestinian people every existing. There has never been a Palestinian monarch, a Palestinian language and all Palestinian art and culture is a construct of modernity. In contrast, Jews are an identifiable people with a shared history, monarchs and language with irrefutable ties to the land of Israel.

 So what’s with the Jewish use of the word “Palestine”

Though the nationalists chose to identify as “Filastin”, it was the Jews that first took on this name calling their newspapers, charities, and organizations such names as the “Palestine Post” and the “United Palestine Appeal,” while the Arabs eschewed the term as being “Jewish” and “Zionist.” For them, they were Muslims first, and “Southern Syrians” second.

To summarize all that I’ve provided historically, let’s ask ourselves....

If Palestine were a “sovereign” or “independent” country at some point in history (or as some suggest, one that spans most of recorded history), then it would be easy to answer these questions:

• When was it founded and by whom?
• What were its borders?
• Who was its rulers?
• What constituted the basis of its economy?
• Who were the Palestinian leaders before the Grand Mufti?
• Was Palestine ever recognized by a country whose existence, at that time or now, leaves no room for interpretation?
• What was the language of the country of Palestine?
• What was the prevalent religion of the country of Palestine?
• And, finally, since there is no such country today, what caused its demise and when did it occur?

These questions cannot be answered as the “Palestinians” are modern people and Palestinian nationalism is actually younger than Zionism. They are not indigenous to the land, the majority are recent migrants attracted by economic opportunities created by the Zionists. Even those that pre-date the Zionists are on the whole migrants to the land attracted at different times, during different conquests and for different reasons.

Let’s look to Arafat, the KGB, and the Palestinian Narrative as is stated in the Gatestone Institute:

This comes from a document in the Mitrokhin archives at the Churchill Archives Center at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. Vasily Mitrokhin was a former senior officer of the Soviet Foreign Intelligence service, who was later demoted to KGB archivist. At immense risk to his own life, he spent 12 years diligently copying secret KGB files that would not otherwise have become available to the public (the KGB foreign intelligence archives remain sealed from the public, despite the demise of the Soviet Union). When Mitrokhin defected from Russia in 1992, he brought the copied files to the UK. The declassified parts of the Mitrokhin archives were brought to the public eye in the writings of Cambridge professor Christopher Andrew. He co-wrote The Mitrokhin Archive (published in two volumes) with the Soviet defector. Mitrokhin’s archives led, among other things, to the discovery of many KGB spies in the West and elsewhere.

What is found in the  files are four main points:

• The PLO and the Palestinian Narrative was dreamt up by the KGB, which had a penchant for ‘liberation’ organizations.” — Ion Mihai Pacepa, former chief of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Romania.
• “First, the KGB destroyed the official records of Arafat’s birth in Cairo and replaced them with fictitious documents saying that he had been born in Jerusalem and was, therefore, a Palestinian by birth.” — Ion Mihai Pacepa.
• “[T]he Islamic world was a waiting petri dish in which we could nurture a virulent strain of America-hatred, grown from the bacterium of Marxist-Leninist thought. Islamic anti-Semitism ran deep… We had only to keep repeating our themes — that the United States and Israel were ‘fascist, imperial-Zionist countries’ bankrolled by rich Jews.” — Yuri Andropov, former KGB chairman.
• As early as 1965, the USSR had formally proposed a resolution that would condemn Zionism as colonialism and racism in the UN. Although the Soviets did not succeed in their first attempt, the UN turned out to be an overwhelmingly grateful recipient of Soviet bigotry and propaganda; in November 1975, Resolution 3379 condemning Zionism as “a form of racism and racial discrimination” was finally passed.

Here’s information on three important Palestinian figures.  I have a long list that is too long to add in this article.

Yasser Arafat (PLO Chairman and Leader) was an Egyptian bourgeois turned into a devoted Marxist by KGB foreign intelligence. The KGB had trained him at its Balashikha special-ops school east of Moscow and in the mid-1960s decided to groom him as the future PLO leader. First, the KGB destroyed the official records of Arafat's birth in Cairo, replacing them with fictitious documents saying that he had been born in Jerusalem and was therefore a Palestinian by birth.

Saeb Erekat’s family is Bedouin. According to Bedouin genealogy, the family is part of the Huweitat clan which originated in the Hejaz area of Saudi Arabia, arrived in Palestine from the south of Jordan, and settled in the village of Abu Dis in the early twentieth century.  Saeb Erakat was a Palestinian Politician and Diplomat.

Mahmoud Mirza Abbas (Palestinian President) was born into a completely Baha’i family and Abbas Effendi was his grandfather who had an important position among the Baha’is. His family left Iran following increasing pressure on the Baha’is. Abbas Effendi, the ancestor of Mahmoud Abbas, titled Abdu’l-Baha, is one of the most important figures in the history of the Baha’i sect.

It is not and has never been the Jewish peoples aim to deny these people of their recently found identity, we believe all people have the right to self-identity. But this must not come at the expense of Jewish right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland.

 

ISRAEL AND THE SO CALLED "PALESTINE"

 

HOW MANY TIMES WERE THE PALESTINIANS OFFERED PEACE SETTLEMENTS?

About 20 times.

Following is a list of the major peace offers, proposals, gestures and opportunities presented to the Arabs/Muslims by both the international community and the State of Israel going back as far as 1919, but all have been rejected by the Arabs/Muslims:

1919: Arabs of Palestine refused nominate representatives to the Paris Peace Conference.

1920: San Remo conference decisions, rejected.

1922: League of Nations decisions, rejected.

1937: Peel Commission partition proposal, rejected.

1938: Woodhead partition proposal, rejected

1947: UN General Assembly partition proposal (UNGAR 181), rejected.

1949: Israel's outstretched hand for peace (UNGAR 194), rejected.

1967: Israel's outstretched hand for peace (UNSCR 242), rejected.

1978: Begin/Sa’adat peace proposal, rejected (except for Egypt).

1994: Rabin/Hussein peace agreement, rejected by the rest of the Arab League (except for Egypt).

1995: Rabin's Contour-for-Peace, rejected.

2000: Barak/Clinton peace offer, rejected.

2001: Barak’s offer at Taba, rejected.

2005: Sharon's peace gesture, withdrawal from Gaza, rejected.

2008: Olmert/Bush peace offer, rejected.

2009 to present: Netanyahu's repeated invitations to peace talks, rejected.

2014: Kerry's Contour-for-Peace, rejected.

How often do the Arab/Muslims have to reject offers of coexistence before the world understands that the only way to end the Arab-Israeli conflict it for the rest of the world to tell the Arab world, for once and for all, that Israel is NOT going to “go away”, and they had better learn to accept it?

The common denominator of all the offers, proposals, gestures and opportunities noted above has been the requirement of the Muslim-Arabs to accept the RIGHT of the State of Israel to be, to exist as the sovereign nation-state of the Jewish people. This, clearly, they refuse to do since their commitment has been, all along, the demise of a sovereign nation-state of the Jewish people on ANY parcel of land defined by international law "the national home of the Jewish people".

So, what are some reasons why Israel has not been able to achieve peace with the Palestinians, even though they have made concessions in the past?

Let’s look at them:

There are three main reasons why Israel has not been able to achieve peace with the Muslims.

The first is that it has to achieve peace with each Muslim country and terrorist group separately.

Second is that Israel has made it easy for Palestinians to live in Israel. As long as Palestinians can live and work in Israel with only minor inconveniences there is little incentive to pressure the Palestinian leadership to change. This is a clear indication that the extreme accusations against Israel are untrue. If Israel was wiping out the Palestinians (genocide), starving them, making them homeless, etc. there would be pressure within the Palestinian community to negotiate at any terms.

The third and most significant is that there is great utility in maintaining the current situation. Muslim countries can convince their populations that Israel is a threat to keep their people mollified. The terrorist organizations, UNRWA, the media, and NGOs, all have a vested, financial, interest in not seeing a peace agreement between Israel and the Muslims. Foreign countries (largely European) can use activities in Israel and attacks on Israel to placate their Muslim residents.

Obviously the concessions made by Israel in the past that keep coming up in the media and other anti-Israel groups, are insufficient to counter the benefits accrued by the various groups that would be required to make peace or to promote a reasonable peace agreement. A recent example of this is the failure of the Peace Through Prosperity plan that would have resulted in another Palestinian state with new infrastructure, industries, schools, hospitals, and universities, due to its requirement that all spending and funds be audited and accounted for.

Palestinians remain split between Hamas and Fatah. 

Remember that Hamas totally rejects the two-state solution and the peace process. Hamas wants a war to destroy Israel and replace it with an Islamic welfare state. Hamas is sponsored by Iran, whose stated national goal is “the total annihilation of Israel.”. You ain't gonna find any Hamas person willing to talk peace.

Fatah, on the other hand, is not going to return to the peace negotiations because they will not negotiate for a peaceful independent Palestine that doesn't include Gaza.

Looking at everything that’s been happening from the time Israel declared it’s independence to the numerous times Israel has offered peace and land to the Palestinians only to have them rejected peace settlements again and again, which would have granted them even more land than that granted under the Oslo agreement, and they have stated that they want Israel gone, I think the answer is they do not want peace at all.

 

HISTORY OF THE PORTUGUESE INFLUENCE IN BANGLADESH

 

Ancient Portuguese Map showing Portuguese settlements (1724-1726) of the southern part of East Bengal (now known as Bangladesh).  Chittagong was Xetigram, Dhaka was Decca, Diang was Dianga etc.

Very few of us can trace our ancestry back far enough to identify a forebear who crossed the oceans from an ancient Portuguese province of Lusitania and settled in the Indian Sub-Continent and so, I decided to record the history of the Gonsalves (my grandfather) and the Rozario (my grandmother) family beginning with the history of the early Portuguese settlers to illustrate to my siblings and all my cousins and their children, their Portuguese roots.

I have to make this very clear that I am not a historian but my burning desire to know my maternal origin I had to take a deep dive into history which ultimately created this unquenchable thirst toward history and historical facts.

Prior to embarking on my genealogically journey to record the Gonsalves / Rozario ancestry, I had to go back in time to where they originated from and how my ancestors ended up in East Bengal and in order to do that I went back in time to a province in Portugal that was known as Lusitania. In this endeavour, I will also attempt to briefly describe how the Portuguese colonized Goa and then moved further East and landed in Chittagong moving north to Dhaka and Noakhali.

Lusitania (Portuguese: Lusitânia, Spanish: Lusitania) or Hispania Lusitana was an ancient Iberian Roman province including approximately all of modern Portugal south of the Douro river and part of modern Spain (the present autonomous community of Extremadura and a small part of the province of Salamanca). It was named after the Lusitani or Lusitanian people (an Indo-European people). Its capital was Emerita Augusta (currently Mérida, Spain), and it was initially part of the Roman Republic province of Hispania Ulterior, before becoming a province of its own in the Roman Empire. Romans first came to the territory around the mid 2nd century BC. A war with Lusitanian tribes followed, from 155 to 139 BC. In 27 BC, the province was created.

As with the Roman names of many European countries, Lusitania was and is often used as an alternative name for Portugal, especially in formal and literary or poetic contexts. The 16th century colony that would develop into Brazil was named Nova Lusitânia ("New Lusitania") [after being named Vera Cruz] In common use are such terms as Lusophone, meaning Portuguese-speaking, and Lusitanic, referring to the Community of Portuguese Language Countries—once Portugal's colonies and presently independent countries still sharing some common heritage.

To get a somewhat clear understanding of my maternal genealogy, I had to look even deeper into my maternal ancestry and my research took me on a journey to the ancient Lusitanian World  where I found that the Lusitani, who were Indo-European and may have come from the Alps, established themselves in the region in the 6th century BC, but historians and archeologists are still undecided about their origins. Some modern authors consider them to be an indigenous people who were initially dominated by the Celts, before gaining full independence from them. This hypothesis is also backed by Avienus, who wrote Ora Maritima, inspired by documents from 6th century BC, and describes the coastal Iberians. The investigator Lambrino defended the position that the Lusitanians were a tribal group of Celtic origin related to the Lusones (a tribe that inhabited the east of Iberia). Possibly, both tribes came from the Swiss mountains. But some prefer to see the Lusitanians as a native Iberian tribe, resulting from intermarriage between different tribes. The first area colonized by the Lusitani was probably the Douro valley and the region of Beira Alta; in Beira they stayed until they defeated the Celts and other tribes, then they expanded to cover a territory that reached Estremadura before the arrival of the Romans.

The connection between Lusitania (or Portugal) and the India began with the first Portuguese encounter with the subcontinent on 20 May 1498 when Vasco da Gama reached Calicut on Malabar Coast. Anchored off the coast of Calicut, the Portuguese invited native fishermen on board and immediately brought some Indian items. Gama's expedition was successful beyond all reasonable expectation, bringing in cargo that was worth sixty times the cost of the expedition.

Another Portuguese named Pedro Álvares Cabral sailed to India, marking the arrival of Europeans to Brazil on the way, to trade for pepper and other spices, negotiating and establishing a factory at Calicut, where he arrived on 13 September 1500. However, the locals and Arab merchants were not too happy with the presence of foreigners and matters worsened when the Portuguese factory at Calicut was attacked by surprise by the locals, resulting in the death of more than fifty Portuguese. Cabral was outraged by the attack on the factory and seized ten Arab merchant ships anchored in the harbour, killing about six hundred of their crew and confiscating their cargo before burning the ships. Cabral also ordered his ships to bombard Calicut for an entire day in retaliation for the violation of the agreement. In Cochin and Cannanore Cabral succeeded in making advantageous treaties with the local rulers. Cabral started the return voyage on 16 January 1501 and arrived in Portugal with only 4 of 13 ships on 23 June 1501.  In 1502, the Portuguese built the Pulicat fort with the help of  a local ruler.

Vasco da Gama once again sailed to India for a second time with 15 ships and 800 men, arriving at Calicut on 30 October 1502, where the local ruler was willing to sign a treaty. Gama this time made a call to expel all Muslims (Arabs) from Calicut which was vehemently turned down. He bombarded the city and captured several rice vessels. He returned to Portugal in September 1503.

In 1509, Alfonso de Albuquerque, who was serving the Portuguese government in India as a naval commander, was appointed viceroy (governor) of the Portuguese possessions in India.  A year later in 1510, he defeated the Sultan of Bijapur with the help of the Hindu Vijayanagara Empire, leading to the establishment of a permanent settlement in Velha Goa (or Old Goa). The Southern Province, also known simply as Goa, was the headquarters of Portuguese India, and seat of the Portuguese viceroy who governed the Portuguese possessions in Asia.  Alfonso de Albuquerque strengthened Hindu-Portuguese relations by permitting the Portuguese to take Indian wives – hence, the origin of today’s Goan Christians. However, his attitude towards the Muslims was one of bitter hostility. He died five years later in 1515.

 

Now to make a connection with the Portuguese colonization of the Southern Indian Province of Goa and East Bengal, I will move to Chittagong (Xatigan in Portuguese), which today is the second largest city and main port of Bangladesh, was home to a thriving trading post of the Portuguese Empire in the 16th and 17th centuries.

During the twilight years of the sultanate, the first Portuguese expedition in Bengal landed in Chittagong on 9 May 1518. Providing access to the rest of Bengal through the Meghna-Padma-Jamuna river links and to the rest of the world via the Bay of Bengal, the Chittagong port became the most important for the Portuguese. They called it "Porto Grande" (Large Harbour). In 1536-37 the Portuguese established trading stations or "feitorias" in both Chittagong and Satgaon (referred to as "Porto Pequeno", Small Harbour) after receiving permission from Sultan Ghiyasuddin Mahmud Shah who also gave them custom house in both these towns.  Hence, Chittagong was the first European colonial enclave in the historic region of Bengal.

In the last two decades of the sixteenth century, during the Mughal push into the heart of the delta, the Portuguese established the major port of Hooghly (downstream from Satgaon), built up their community in Chittagong, and established mercantile colonies in and around Dhaka. The Portuguese settled at Dacca about 1580. The remains of the Portuguese trading factory, close to the church of Our Lady of Rosary, were still evident in 1919 .  Although the Portuguese never replaced Asian merchants in Bengal’s maritime trade, as is often supposed, the appearance of European merchants in the sixteenth century certainly stimulated demand for Bengali manufactures, which served to accelerate local production of those goods. 

The settlement of Chittagong (or Chotogam in the local dialect) grew into a great trading center. The Jesuits erected two churches and a residence. About 1590 the Portuguese also captured the fort of Chittagong and made the island of Sandwip a tributary. In 1598 there were 2,500 Portuguese and Eurasians in Chittagong and Arakan. In 1602 Sandwip was conquered by Domingo Carvalho and Manuel de Mattos. This island was, however, lost a short time later (1605 ?).

Towards the end of the 16^th  century, the Portuguese also settled in Dianga (today’s Bunder or Feringhi Bunder), opposite to Chittagong across the southern bank of the Karnaphuli River. In 1607 the King of Arakan massacred about 600 Portuguese inhabitants of Dianga. The Portuguese settled again in Dianga after 1615. Despite the Dianga massacre a small number of Portuguese managed to escape and settled on an island at the mouth of the Ganges.

Portuguese pirates, named Sebastião Gonçalves Tibau and Carvalho, leading 400 Portuguese, attacked and conquered the island of Sandwip and ruled the island for several years having under his command a force of 1,000 Portuguese. Each year about 300 salt loaded ships sailed for Liverpool from Sandwip. Sandwip was very famous for its ship-building and salt industries at that time. In 1616, after the arrival of Delwar Khan, a high-ranking Mughal naval officer, the Portuguese pirates were driven away from Sandwip and Delwar Khan ruled the island independently for about 50 years. 

After Tibau’s defeat the Portuguese in Eastern Bengal (out of the control of Goa) devoted themselves to piracy. They allied with the King of Arakan and settled in Dianga and Chittagong. They allied with the King of Arakan and settled in Dianga and Chittagong. When the Mughals took Chittagong in 1665, they moved to Ferenghi Bazar** (South of today’s Dacca), where Portuguese descendents still reside to the present day.

The harbor of Chittagong became the most important port to the Portuguese because of its location, navigational facilities and safe anchorage. The port is very close to the mouth of the Meghna which was the principal route to the Royal capital of Gouda.

Evidently the Portuguese found Chittagong a congenial place to live. By the end of the sixteenth century. The Chittagong port had emerged as a thriving port, which attracted both unofficial Portuguese trade and settlement. According to a 1567 note of Caesar Federeci, every year thirty or thirty five ships, great and small, anchored in Chittagong port. In 1598 there lived about 2,500 Portuguese and Eurasians in Chittagong and Arakan.

The increased commercial presence included bureaucrats, merchants, missionaries, soldiers, adventurers, sailors and pirates. The enclave had a highly laissez-faire administration led by traders. Slave trade and piracy flourished. Major traded products included fine silk, cotton muslin textiles, bullion, spices, rice, timber, salt and gunpowder

**  There are two Ferenghi Bazars – one in Dacca and one in Chittagong

 

A painting indicating the battle between the Portuguese and the Mughals in Karnaphuli River in 1666.

 

Painting of ships moored off Chittagong in the late 1820s.

 

Christianity spread across Bengal by the Portuguese traders along with the Christian missionaries. Although Christianity had already reached Bengal with St. Thomas the Apostle in 52 CE, the Portuguese set up the first Christian churches in Chittagong. The Portuguese merchants, most of whom were Christian, called Chittagong as Porto Grande de Bengala. In 1498, Christian explorer Vasco de Gama traveled Bengal.

The Roman Catholic Church was established in Bengal during Portuguese rule in Chittagong. The port city was the seat of the first Vicar Apostolic of Bengal. The Portuguese also encouraged intermarriage with the local population. 

 

The ancient name of NOAKHALI, or NOACOLLY, is actually Bhulua. In the 1660s (it was renamed to Noakhali in 1868), the agricultural activities of the north-eastern region of Bhulua were seriously affected by floodwater of the Dakatia River following from the Tripura hills. To salvage the situation, a canal was dug in 1660 that ran from the Dakatia through Ramganj, Sonaimuri and Chaumuhani to divert water flow to the junction of the river Meghna and Feni. After excavating this long canal, Bhulua began to be known as "Noakhali". The name "Noakhali" was originated from the term Noa (New) and Khal (Canal).  The Christian population in Noakhali are mostly direct descendants of Portuguese colonials and they still carry Portuguese family names. Under a truce with East India Company, Portuguese colonials were forced to leave Noakhali and Barisal coast and resettled in Goa, Domon and Dew of India. But they left behind the non-combatant Portuguese civilians. Most of the Portuguese Forts and Churches in the district were destroyed when Noakhali city submerged in the Meghna River.

Father Francesco Fernandes and Father Domingo da Sousa -- two Portuguese Jesuit missionaries from Hooghly -- with the permission of Raja Pratapadittya (1561-1611), built the first church of Bangladesh at Chandecan (also called Chandika, Iswaripur or Old Jessore) in the Sunderbans forest area of the present district of Satkhira. They dedicated their church on January 1, 1600. Later, Father Francesco Fernandes and Father Andre Boves built a small chapel in Chittagong. This is the second church in East Bengal. The first Mass was offered there on June 24, 1601. Later Portuguese Jesuits had to discontinue their work in East Bengal, but they were replaced by Portuguese Augustinian priests.

Christianity also spread to Bhulua (old name of Noakhali District), Bacola (or Bakla or Chandradwip or Bakerganj), Chandipur (Chandpur), Padrishibpur of Barisal District, Tejgaon of present Dhaka city, Dhaka, Nagori (of Gazipur District), Sripur (of Munshiganj District, but eroded into the Padma River), Loricul (or Norikul of Dhaka District), Katrabo (or Katarab of Dhaka District), and Hosenpur (of Netrakona District), and so on.

According to the Analecta Augustiniana (Augustinian Analects or selected reports) of 1682, the whole of Bengal had 27,000 Catholics. Among them, the West Bengal had 12,880 Catholics and East Bengal (known today as Bangladesh) had 14,120 Catholics: Dhaka - 2,000, Chandipur (Chandpur) - 2,000, Loricul (Noricul) - 2,000, Tejgaon - 700, Iswaripur or Old Jessore - 400, Bhusana (in present Gopalganj District) - 20, and Dianga (Diang) and Chittagong - 7,000.

The Portuguese, who married local Bengali women, naturally converted them to Christianity. In some other cases, no doubt, there were forced conversions, but, in most cases, missionaries converted low-caste Hindus, who were victims of discrimination and ill treatment from fellow high-caste Hindus. In order to improve their status, they accepted Christianity. It is to be noted that conversions to Christianity from Muslim community were very few.

Muslims and Hindus in the Indian subcontinent (present-day India, Pakistan and Bangladesh) used to call the Portuguese and other Europeans, who were whites, Firingi (or Feringhi), and local converted Christians, who were dark in colour, Kala Firingi -- kala means 'dark.' The Arabic/Persian word of Farang means 'foreigner.' From farang evolved the word Firingi (or Feringhi). 

 

From Chittagong, the Portuguese proceeded to establish settlements in other Bengali ports and cities, notably Satgaon, Bandel and Dhaka. Satgaon became known as Porto Pequeno (Little Haven). Portogola in Old Dhaka hosted the city's Portuguese community. 

 

Like Portuguese-converted Catholics elsewhere in the world, Roman Catholic Christians in the greater Dhaka District, and the districts of Chittagong, Noakhali and Barisal still to this day carry Portuguese names, especially surnames (last names) instead of their paternal names they had at the time of their conversions. When the Portuguese first converted them, they gave them the first names after Catholic saints and changed their Bengali surnames to Portuguese ones.

This change of names had dual purpose: First, the Portuguese wanted that local converts take the changed names so that they could be identified instantly as Christians. Second, they wanted to uproot the new Christians from the influence of their former Hindu society. They knew that if names were changed, these people could not revert to their former religion, nor could they be accepted easily by their Hindu relatives.

Some of the first names that the Portuguese gave to the new Christians were thus: Antonio (Anthony), Augustinho (Augustine), Domingo (Dominic), Pedro (Peter), Rosa (Rose), Maria (Mary) and so on. These first names continued for a long time, but, later, with the arrival of non-Portuguese missionaries, the first names began to be given in English.

The Portuguese surnames, though, are still continuing today in Bangladesh. Some of these are: Ascensao (Ascension of Jesus), Costa (coast), Corraya or Correia (belt; strap), Cruz (the cross of Christ), da Costa or D'Costa (of or from the coast), da Cruz or D'Cruz (of or from the cross), da Rosario (da Rozario) or D'Rosario or D'Rozario (of or from the rosary -- of the Virgin Mary), da Sa or D'Sa (of or from the manor house; this particular Portuguese surname is wrongly written as Dessai in Bangladesh -- actually, Dessai or Desai is an Indian Gujrati word meaning 'landlord'), da Silva or D'Silva (of or from the forest), da Sousa (da Souza) or D'Sousa (D'Souza) (of or from the salt-marsh), Dias (days), Dores (sorrows), Gomes (a man; a male), Gonsalves (battle; one who fought without weapons), Mendes (son or descendant of Mendel or Mendo), Palma (palm tree), Pereira (pear tree), Pinheiro or Penheiro (pine tree), Peres (or Pires or Piris) (rock), Purificasao (purification), Rego (ditch; furrow), Ribeiro or Rebeiro (river), Rodrigues (famous power), Rosario or Rozario (the rosary of the Virgin Mary), Serrao (of or from the mountain), Silva (of or from the forest), Sousa or Souza (salt-marsh), and Toscano (a man from Tuscany -- of Italy).

This legacy of these Portuguese names is still alive. Now with increasing migration of Bangladeshi Catholic Christians, these names are also visible among them in different part of the world.  

However, besides the conversion, there were Portuguese who enjoyed the lavish lifestyle in the Indian sub-Continent.  Many of them had families back in Portugal and so these men went back and returned to the Indian sub-Continent with their families and settled there.

Hence now you had two classes of people of Portuguese descent .. one local with Portuguese ancestry and the other Portuguese who left their homeland to settle in the Indian sub-Continent.

 

The descendants of the Portuguese traders in Chittagong are known as Firingis. They live in the areas of Patherghata and Firingi Bazaar in Old Chittagong. There are numerous Portuguese loanwords in the Bengali language, including many common household terms, particularly in Chittagonian Bengali.

Can you imagine Bengali cuisine without roshmolai or chillies?  Or the Bengali language without pao-ruti or janala?

These words were not originally in the Bengali vocabulary. They are the centuries-old remnants of a complicated history with the Portuguese, which seeped into the Bengali language and food, and whose flavour still lingers on the tips of our tongues.

According to some accounts, it was the Portuguese who introduced the process of making ricotta cheese (chhana), which lead to a variety of mouth-watering Bengali sweets such as roshmolai and shondesh. Moreover, the Portuguese were already renowned confectioners and bakers. It is through them we have our pao-ruti (the Portuguese word for bread is pão) and steamed egg tarts. The Portuguese brought many exotic fruits, flowers and plants, especially from their South American Brazilian colony. They introduced chillies, delonix regia (or Krishnachura in Bangla)), potatoes, tomatoes, cashews, guavas, pineapples, papayas and Alfonso mangoes to Bengal.

Household words such as janala, almari, verandah are also of Portuguese origin. Peculiarly, the Portuguese meddled with the most intimate of Bangali attire: the sari. Chittagonian women still refer to them as saya and kamis, Portuguese words meaning skirt and shirt respectively. They also introduced non-Portuguese words from their other colonies, for example kerani (clerk) from Malay, and ananás (pineapple) from Guarani, an indigenous Brazilian language.

 

A Portuguese missionary in British Calcutta published the first book on Bengali grammar. The oldest churches in Bangladesh and West Bengal trace their origins to Portuguese missionary missions which arrived in Chittagong in the 16th century. Most Bangladeshi Christians have Portuguese surnames.

After the independence of Bangladesh, Portugal recognized it on 20 December 1974 following the Carnation Revolution, when it established relations with many decolonized nations. The Portuguese have had a great influence on trade, culture, character and language of the people of Chittagong.

Very few physical vestiges of the Portuguese presence are found at present in Chittagong and Bengal, generally. Darul Adalat, the first court building of Chittagong is located in the Government Hazi Mohammad Mohsin College campus, is a structure built by the Portuguese. The structure is locally known as Portuguese Fort. According to college documents, the Mohsin College authorities bought the building along with the hill from government in 1879 at the price of 30 thousand taka. From then on, they used it for various purposes and abandoned it in 2002, terming it 'risky'. Later, they planned to demolish the building in 2009 to replace it with a new one.  But the government halted the plan considering its historic importance. Initiative has been taken by the Department of Archaeology of Bangladesh to preserve the vestige. 

Darul Adalat building is located inside the Mohsin College compound, on top of the Madrasa hill. It is commonly known as the Portuguese building or fort to the locals.

There are few churches and ruins. Some geographical place names remain, like Dom Manik Islands, Point Palmyras on the Orissa coast, Firingi Bazaar in Dhaka and Chittagong.

By the early eighteenth century, the Potuguese settlements on the southeastern coast were located at Dianga, Feringhee Bazar in Chittagong district and in the municipal ward of Jamal Khan in Chittagong.

In closing, I would have to say that while conducting my genealogical research on my maternal family I learned that the Portuguese had a tremendous influence in Bangladesh.  What I also learned is that my grandmother’s ancestors - the Rozario family were very influential in East Bengal especially in Noakhali.   DNA results of my cousins from my mom's side have also confirmed that the Gomes family (which is also one of our ancestors)  had the biggest Portuguese trading fleet that used to travel on the Hooghly.  The Gomes family owned land in Bandel and in Calcutta.  There are two roads in Calcutta i.e. Dixon & Gomes Lanes, one is still remaining. Unfortunately, the vast lands that was once owned by the family, the deeds were held by the Monsignor at the Bandel Church and was destroyed after his death.  The Bishop who took over after the first Bishop's death made a deal with the Bengal Government whereby the Government took possession of the Calcutta properties and the Bandel Church was given ownership of the Bandel properties that the family owned.  The family lost most of its wealth almost overnight.