130 chapter four some Israelis had publicly recognized the Palestinian entity. This refusal to recognize the existence of an entire people is often closely related to the Israeli refusal to accept any responsibility for the Palestinian refugees. From 1948 until after the 1967 war, the refugees were either totally ignored or were treated as components of the larger Arab world. …. As late as 1969, Golda Meir, in a much publicized interview, denied the existence of the Palestinians, saying: ‘There was no such thing as Palestinians’. Zionist publications are also full of cursory references to Jewish settlement in ‘abandoned Arab villages’, with no further mention regarding the people who had once inhabited these areas. If noted at all, the Palestinians are referred to in such terms as ‘migrant Arab communities in ruined villages’ (Terry 1976, 71–72). Terry goes on to explain that the post-1967 period witnessed strides in the Palestinian liberation movement, thereby compelling the Israelis to address the existence of the Palestinians. Here, [a]gain, Zionist reactions took several different forms in their attempts to counter Palestinian national demands. There was some persistence, especially among the older Zionists, to continue as if the Palestinians still did not exist; however, as the Palestinians became more effective in presenting their case and in forcing their grievances before the world, the ‘Palestinians do not exist’ rationale largely ceased to be a functional, useful Zionist response. Consequently, Zionist publications began to face the Arab and Palestinian entity more directly, but, here again, several negative attitudinal approaches were clear. Most Zionist publications sought to avoid directly mentioning the word ‘Palestinians’, but preferred terms like ‘the refugees’ or ‘the Arab refugees’ (Terry 1976, 72). Thus, Yakobson and Rubinstein are correct to point out that some of the first Zionist thinkers acknowledged the presence of non-Jewish populations in Palestine. That said, they certainly do not adequately weigh the colonial framework through which both the image of the indigenous Arab is formed, and political attempts to involve Arab citizens and residents in the Jewish state since its inception are realized. However, putting aside this historical record for a moment, it is important to illuminate the ways in which the authors’s reference to Altneuland as an example of the Zionist acceptance of an Arab presence and participation in the Jewish state is problematic and misleading. To this end, let us seriously examine the treatment of Arabs and the question of their representation in Herzl’s Altneuland. While the image of the indigenous Arab does reappear at various points of the novel, this is done primarily through vague and momentary indicators of Arab presence that are mentioned in passing by mainly Jewish voices. Remnants of Arab existence in their post-colonized native soil appear throughout the novel with a certain uneasiness and ambiguity.