True, Israel did capture the West Bank from Jordan, but shortly after that, King Hussein of Jordan, recognized that the West Bank was Palestinian land and relinquished Jordan's right to Jordan to the Palestinians.

">Meanwhile, Jews can trace their roots
>in Jerusalme back to the
>days of Abraham."

Let me kick some historical facts to you about Jews, Abraham, and Jerusalem (Al-Quds). Back in the days of Abraham, the only people that believed in God was the Jews, you see, 'cause Christianity and Islam would not exist for another few thousands of yrs., so basically the indigenouse people of Palestine intermixed btw. Abraham's sons Isaac (patriarch of the Hebrews) and Ishmael, (patriach of the Arab peoples; this makes Jews and Arabs cousins), and the Philistines, the Romans, and the ancient people of the time. When the Arabic-Islamic empire conquered Palestine in about 700 A.D., the population became Arab-ized, adopted the Arabic, language, culture, etc., and most Palestinians converted to Islam, while some stayed Christian (because Jesus Christ was a Palestinian Jew and his followers lived in Palestine, learned his philosophy making them Palestinan Christians) and some stayed Jewish. Christians and Jews were treated relatively well by the Muslim rulers, compared to Europe's treatment of, especially, the Jews. In Palestine, Arab Muslims, Arab Christians, and Arab Jews co-existed peacefully with the same language and same culture. It wasn't until European Jews devised Zionism–invented and bred in a imperialistic and colonialist European atmosphere in the late 1800s, so naturally, Zionism, too, was imperialistic and colonialistic–that the distinction between Arabs (Muslims and Christians) and Jews became evident. Most Palestinian Jews were brainwashed by the European Jewish Zionists to believe they were superior to the Arabs and therfore had a right to dispossess the Palestinian Arabs of their land and force them into other Arab countries. It is these Palestinian refugees that want to return to their homes.

">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, Iraquis, etc."

The language is Arabic and the culture is Arabic; Palestine is a nationality. In Iraq, Syria, etc., the language is Arabic and the culture is Arabic, the nationality is Iraqi, Syrian, etc. There is no language known as Mexican, it's Spanish, as they speak in Mexico, El Salvador, Argentina, etc. and they share a common Latin American culture.

">Keep in mind that the Arabs
>control 99.9 percent of the
>Middle East lands. Israel represents
>one-tenth of 1% of the
>land mass. "

Refer to my comment above and Do the Israelis want land in Latin America, too, because Latinos contol 99.9%, if not 100%, of the Latin American lands?

"I can't help but
>wonder why all these Palestinians
>ssuddenly discovered their national identity
>after Israel won the war?"

This was around 1967, right? Isn't this around the time many African nations discovered their national identity? Isn't their (the various African nations) right to self-determination against oppressive colonialists justified? If so, then so is the Palestinians right to self-determination against an oppressive, internationally unrecognized and illegal military occupation of their land by the Israeli army.