Chappell, did you know that for two thousand years, Palestine was like an Uber driver with a three-star rating? Nobody wanted it!

Imagine my surprise when I learnt that Bill Maher majored in history, and specifically from Cornell University: a private Ivy League research university! I am truly baffled; his claim that ‘nobody’ wanted Palestine is ridiculously easy to falsify.

The following is a list of conquerors from the last two millennia who held Palestine. Note that the dates are approximate and do not account for brief interruptions. Voilà:

1. Roman Empire (63 BCE – 330 CE)
2. Byzantine Empire (330–634)
3. Arab Caliphates (634–1099)
4. Crusaders (1099–1187)
5. Ayyubid Sultanate (1187–1250)
6. Mamluk Sultanate (1250–1516)
7. Ottoman Empire (1516–1917)
8. British Empire (1917–1948)

Maher told a brave lie: anybody with even a basic familiarity of the Crusades (e.g. a fan of Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings) could have spotted his dishonesty, and his exaggeration is only more unjustified when you have these other conquests in mind.

And there was never any Arab country called Palestine.

So? Turtle Island was never really a country either. It’s a region. So was Palestine. Regions can still have their own native inhabitants, and Palestine is no exception.