The Lie That Consumed a People—And the World

What October 7 Revealed About a Century of Betrayal

By Jerry M. Elman
A journey from Holocaust memory to uncovering the uncomfortable truth about why there will never be a Palestinian state.

I never expected to write this book. I certainly didn’t plan to finish it.

After publishing Miracles Through Hell, the story of my parents’ Holocaust survival, I thought I had said what I needed to say. That book was deeply personal—an act of remembrance and healing. It gave voice to silence and brought my family’s past into the light.

But something happened I didn’t anticipate.

As I gave presentations—about the Holocaust, about the history of Jew hate—audiences kept steering the conversation toward Israel and the Palestinians. These were mostly non-Jewish audiences, often in rural or conservative communities, and this was long before the world saw Hamas’s true face on October 7. They weren’t angry. They were curious. Confused. Eager to understand something they knew they’d never been taught clearly.

So I added a few slides. Then more. I began researching further—treaties, maps, speeches, original texts. I wasn’t looking for a book. I was trying to answer questions.

But what I found changed everything.

What started as research became something much larger. The presentations turned into writing. And the writing became the manuscript for Promised, Betrayed, and Lost: How a Palestinian State Never Came to Be.

Cover design for my upcoming book, Promised, Betrayed, and Lost

Even then, I stopped. I shelved it. I told myself it was too divisive, too raw, too complicated. I’m not an academic or a professional writer—I’m an engineer by training, someone who asks questions, searches for answers, and refuses to accept surface-level answers.

But I’ve always been something less common: an engineer who’s people-focused. Someone who values empathy and clarity just as much as the depths of science and technology. Throughout my career, I was the one who could take complex topics and make them understandable—translating difficult truths into language people could actually connect with. That combination shaped this book as much as the facts did. Because in a world drowning in slogans, people don’t just need more information—they need understanding.

The times I stopped writing, people close to me who read my drafts pushed back. “You don’t sound like the experts,” they said, “but you make people understand what they never could before.”

I concluded they were right. And the work went on.

What I discovered was a history few have ever seen clearly, including myself. I realized that what I had grown up hearing and learning—what so many of us have absorbed—was a collage of distorted truths, media bias, propaganda, antisemitism, and political spin. And beneath that collage lay the real story: a Palestinian movement that never set out to build a nation—but to prevent one from ever existing.

And then came October 7, 2023.

The illusion died that day. The mask dropped. The true goals—of Hamas, of much of the Palestinian Authority leadership, and of too many who remain silent—were revealed. It was never about a homeland. It was about annihilation. It was fulfillment of a vision of hate and destruction started by one man during British rule. His legacy and control of the Palestinian culture lives on today.

Where the Dream Really Died

The idea of a Palestinian state didn’t collapse in 1967. Or in 1948. It died much earlier—with the British appointment of Amin al-Husseini as Grand Mufti of Jerusalem in 1921.

Al-Husseini wasn’t a peacemaker. He was a political radical who viewed Jews not as neighbors, but as enemies. He incited riots, rejected every peace proposal, and during World War II, found common cause with Hitler. From Berlin, he broadcast Nazi propaganda in Arabic, recruited Muslims into the SS, and pleaded with the Nazis to extend the Holocaust into the Middle East.

He even fought to block Jewish children fleeing death camps from finding safety in Palestine.

That’s where the national movement began. Not with hope or sovereignty—but with hatred.

“Arabs, rise as one man and fight for your sacred rights. Kill the Jews wherever you find them. This pleases God, history, and religion. This saves your honor. God is with you.” — Amin al-Husseini, March 1, 1944, via Radio Berlin (Note, he always referred to Arabs, not Palestinians. The use of name “Palestinian People” started in 1964)

That legacy continued. Yasser Arafat—al-Husseini’s nephew, via his mother, carried the same ideology forward. And today, Hamas completes the chain. They didn’t hijack the Palestinian cause. They gladly inherited it.

Every offer—1937, 1947, 1967, 2000—was met not with negotiation, but with bloodshed. Even the 2000 Camp David offer, the most generous in history, was flatly rejected. There was no counteroffer. Just another war.

A peace offer by Israel after the 1967 Six Day War was answered with the following statement known as the Three No’s: “No peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with it.”

It was never about building a nation.
It was never about preparing to govern.
It has always been about preparing to fight, no matter the consequences to their own people.

October 7: The Reckoning

What Hamas unleashed on October 7 wasn’t resistance. It wasn’t liberation. It was the deliberate slaughter of civilians, the mutilation of bodies, the kidnapping of children. And the response—from parts of the Western world—was even more terrifying.

Marches. Slogans. Justifications. Silence.

In cities across the U.S. and Europe, pro-Palestinian protesters flooded the streets. Some held signs praising Hamas. Some called October 7 “resistance.” College campuses erupted with chants of “Intifada” and “From the river to the sea,” slogans that openly call for the destruction of Israel. These weren’t fringe voices. These were faculty. Student leaders. Elected officials. Celebrities.

And among them were Jews.

Jews who claimed to stand for justice, while justifying terror. Jews who shouted slogans that erased their own history and undermined the safety of Jews everywhere. I understand the desire for peace. But peace built on denial is a lie. And when Jews turn against their own in the name of fashionable activism, they aren’t standing for justice—they’re standing for erasure.

The lie collapsed. This was not a people fighting for freedom. This was a movement fighting for vengeance.

A Century of Betrayals

The Palestinians were betrayed. That much is true. But not by Israel.

They were betrayed by Britain, who carved up the land and abandoned their promises.
By the Arab world, who used them as pawns and kept them stateless.
And by their own leaders—who rejected peace, time and again, and led their people down a path of perpetual loss.

But betrayal alone doesn’t explain what followed. Because at every critical juncture, the Palestinian people had a choice. And again and again, they chose leaders who refused to build a future—but who promised destruction.

They could have followed visionaries. They followed warlords.
They could have built cities. They built tunnels and rockets.
They could have created a state. They chose to deny another’s.

In 2000, even when offered nearly everything—a state, a capital in East Jerusalem, recognition, and international assistance—they didn’t negotiate. They didn’t counter. They walked away. And then they launched the Second Intifada. Because their identity had become wrapped not in building a future, but in destroying Israel’s.

A two-state solution was never truly an option. It still isn’t.

And in the process, they destroyed themselves. There is no one left to blame but themselves.

After World War II, when the Allies defeated Nazi Germany and forced its surrender, the German people didn’t blame the Allies for the ruins they faced. They blamed the regime they had empowered. They accepted responsibility. And then they rebuilt their country—stronger than before. They didn’t choose another generation of war and destruction. They chose something better.

The Palestinians made the opposite choice.

Entire generations have been raised to glorify martyrdom over prosperity. Children are taught that vengeance is justice. That land matters more than life. That dying is a destiny more meaningful than living. A society that teaches its young to die rather than dream is not seeking freedom—it is seeking sacrifice.

They embraced leaders like Arafat and Hamas—not despite their hatred, but because of it. Leaders who not only sought the destruction of Israel—but sacrificed their own people in pursuit of that goal. These leaders didn’t liberate Gaza. They turned it into a launchpad. They didn’t defend the West Bank. They radicalized it. And each time the world offered a hand, they slapped it away—then blamed Israel for the blood on their hands.

This is not just political failure. It is cultural self-destruction.

Vengeance, rooted in a lie, has consumed them. A lie that says there is no room for Jews. A lie that says their pain is sacred, but Jewish pain is expendable. A lie that says resistance—no matter how brutal—is heroic, even when it only leads to more graves.

The world cannot change this. Israel cannot change this. No one can.

Only the Palestinian people can.

Until they demand new leadership, new priorities, and a new national dream—one focused on life, not death—nothing will change. The cycle of destruction will continue. The terror will continue. The poverty. The isolation. The misery. All of it will continue. Because hatred will have remained their compass.

They deserve better. But they must choose better. No one can choose for them.

Why This Book Matters Now

Promised, Betrayed, and Lost: How a Palestinian State Never Came to Be is the book I never meant to write. But I couldn’t ignore what I discovered. Not just as a writer—but as a Jew, a son of survivors, and someone who believes truth matters more than comfort.

October 7 was not an isolated tragedy. It was a culmination. A reckoning. It showed the world what many refused to see: that ideology, not borders, is what fuels this conflict. And that peace will never come from pretending otherwise.

This conflict is not just about territory. It’s about memory, identity, and morality. If we can’t name the lies, we will never find the truth. And without truth, there can be no peace.

This post draws from the final chapters of my upcoming book, Promised, Betrayed, and Lost. As the manuscript nears completion, I offer this not as a historian, but as a second-generation Holocaust survivor, a researcher, and a witness to a history the world keeps rewriting to conform with a false narrative. The truth has been buried going back to British rule.

This book will be uncomfortable for some. But it is necessary—because peace without truth is impossible. And truth still matters. It always will. Lies and destruction do not build nations. And that is why there will never be a Palestinian State.