There was no such thing as Palestinians

"There was no such thing as Palestinians" is part of a widely repeated statement by Golda Meir, the then Israeli prime minister, in her second month in office, made in an interview with Frank Giles, then deputy editor of The Sunday Times on June 15, 1969, to mark the second anniversary of the Six-Day War. It is considered to be the most famous example of Israeli denial of Palestinian identity. Interviews Initial statement The interview entitled Who can blame Israel was published in The Sunday Times on June 15, 1969, and included the following exchange: Frank Giles: Do you think the emergence of the Palestinian fighting forces, the Fedayeen, is an important new factor in the Middle East? Golda Meir: Important, no. A new factor, yes. There was no such thing as Palestinians. When was there an independent Palestinian people with a Palestinian state? It was either southern Syria before the First World War and then it was a Palestine including Jordan. It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country from them. They did not exist. Following statements In a 1970 interview with Thames TV: