The Real Palestinians: Re-claiming the Land

Many see the Jewish people in Israel as ‘occupiers’ and ‘oppressors’, and argue that they are guilty of ‘colonialism’.  

That is people, many believe that the Jewish people who now live in Israel, were a people who left their own lands and nation states and illegally and immorally moved into Palestine and forcibly otherthrew the oppressed indigenous population is a similar manner to how the British took over Rhodesia and the French, Algeria.

But is this correct? What are the true and verifiable facts on this matter?

For a comprehension analysis of the legal and moral reality in the establishment of the State of Israel, I believe the best and most complete source is the brilliant book ‘Should Israel Exist: A Sovereign Nation Under Attack by the International Community’[1] by Prof. Michael Curtis, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Rutgers University.

What follows is a very brief historical summary of the impressive historical narrative that Prof Curtis presents as part of his book.

When we look at Israel (which was not re-named Palestine until after 135 CE), we see the indigenous people, who had been exiled for some 1900 years, and who had no other nation to call their own returning in significant numbers from around 170 years ago (since the 1840’s the majority population in Jerusalem has been Jewish).

The last time (before 1948) that Israel/Palestine was fully a nation or kingdom of people (totally under their own control) was the Kingdom of David & Solomon. There was a period after the revolt against Hellenism when the Maccabeans were in control of the area of Judea; a brief period of only 3 years when Bar Kocha was in control, and also a very brief period of Crusader rule around 1100 CE.

The Jewish people then have clearly had a very long history and association with the Land of Israel.  Even during the exile of the last 1900 years (since 135 CE), there has always been a Jewish presence in the Land.

As far as being a nation or kingdom state, most of the Arab nations (Egypt being an obvious exception) are actually very new creations, and in many cases have only existed since World War 1 (and this only thanks to the decisions of Britain and France)!

For example, the French Mandate of 1923 established Syria and Lebanon; Libya was established in 1931 by Italy (Gadhafi took over in 69); Saudi Arabia in 1932; Bahrain only in 1971; and the Republic of Yemen in 1990. Many of these areas had been under tribal rule, and foreign rule (Ottoman/French/British, etc.) rule in the preceding years.

Also, the entity known as ‘Palestine’ has no clear geographical borders other than the Mediterranean coast.

It was not until the British Mandate of 1922 (having taken the area by force from the Ottoman Turks), that ‘Palestine’ came to have something like the boundaries we see today of Israel, Judea & Samaria (the incorrectly labeled ‘West Bank’), and Gaza.

Palestine was never an independent state, nor a single administrative or cultural unit, nor historically was there a ‘Palestinian’ people different in any way from the other Arabs in the Middle East (unless you refer to when the Jewish people were termed Palestinians).

There was though a massive immigration of Arabs to Palestine from the late 1800’s as the Jews returned and the land, which had been desolate for centuries, started to flourish and this led to economic growth and jobs, etc.

To repeat, no Palestinian state has ever been established. Israel was not established on the ashes of any such state. The last sovereign power over the  area was really the Ottoman Empire, under which the area was just a district and part of Syria. So the inhabitants then were subjects of the Turkish Empire, not of an Arab nation.

So the Jewish peoples return to  their Land, to Eretz Israel,  can not be seen as a form of ‘Colonialism’ like Britain in Rhodesia or the French in Algeria, etc

Instead large numbers of Jews began to return in the 1600’s (from the Spanish pogroms).

The recognition that the Jews had an historical connection with the land and deserved to again have a home (rather than live as foreigners everywhere), was recognized in 1917 with the Balfour Declaration and then with the League of Nations Mandate.

Jerusalem:

This city, the apple of God’s eye, has historically been a place of conflict having been destroyed twice. Since King David conquered this city and took over its control around 1006 BCE and since the great catastrophes of 70 CE and 135 CE it was controlled by the Romans and Byzantium (136-636 CE), and Muslim dynasties, including the Ottoman Turks, up until 1918 (with a few years of Crusader control). Even around 1516 when the Ottoman Turks first took control its population was around 16000.

Jerusalem is mentioned over 600 times in the Bible (but never mentioned in the Koran). One of those mentions makes it very clear how important it has always been for the Jewish people. They have sung out Psalms 137 for some 2600 years!

“If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill! Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy! – Ps 137:5-6

No other people group, have anything close to the very strong affinity that the Jewish people have to Jerusalem and Eretz Israel. This affinity has remained part of their psyche through thousands of years of exile (the Diaspora) and  passed by parents to children.

Their ancestry has always been a very foundational element of their ethnicity and religion. As part of this, for thousands of years, they maintained a very close knit community with it being extremely rare for any to marry outside of their heritage, and especially so for those of the Levitical (priesthood) line. They have also maintained oral and written records of their genealogies for thousands of years.

Centuries before the very existence of London, Paris, Washington or Moscow, Jerusalem was the capital of a Jewish State, as it is again today!

In contrast the city has minimal importance within Islam. For example, there are no standard Muslim prayers that mention Jerusalem, unlike the many Jewish prayers that cry out ‘Next year in Jerusalem’. Also consider that while Jerusalem was governed for over 1300 years by Islamic dynasties, no Muslim state ever made Jerusalem its capital!
Zionism:

So when we consider the push to have the Jewish people return to their Land, a movement called Zionism, it is crucial to appreciate that this very Biblically mandated phenomenon is not a form of Colonialism.

Zionists did not go to the territory to dominate the Arab inhabitants or improperly expropriate their land.

In fact the first really major return (in terms of numbers) since the 1600’s was between 1891 and 1903 after much anti-Semitism and pogroms in which over 30,000 Jews were murdered, mostly in Russia, Eastern Europe and the area of Yemen.

The Zionist movement created by Theodor Herzl declared in 1897 that “the aim of Zionism is to create for the Jewish people a publicly, legally assured home in Palestine.”

This concept of a national home in an area which the Jewish people had an historical connection to, was accepted and recognized by the Balfour Declaration in 1917 as well as the League of Nations Mandate in 1922.

Herzl envisaged a Jewish state formed by a people united under sovereign rule. He very foolishly (in hindsight) thought that the re-creation of such a state would lead to the end of Anti-Semitism.

Instead many astute and learned observers believe that Anti-Semitism has grown so markedly in recent years and months, that it appears to be every bit as bad as it was before World War II.

“Zionism connected the People of the Book with the Land of the Bible” – Prof. Curtis

The Jews coming into the Land after 1880 did not displace Arabs by conquest; instead thy bought the land from willing sellers. They bought a ‘desolate’ (see the narratives of Mark Twain for example) land and turned it into such a Garden of Eden that the Greenhouses of Gush Katif in Gaza (before 2005) exported their produce throughout the world.

The Jews of Gush Katif transformed the desert into farms and greenhouses that produced 70% of Israel's green vegetables of export quality, and 60% of Israel's cherry tomato and herb exports. They also employed some 10,000 people, 50% of whom were Palestinian Arabs, who all lost their jobs when the Israel government forcibly removed the Jewish people from Gaza in 2005.

By 1918, Eretz Israel already had a population of over 750,000. In 1922 the League of Nations declared that ‘recognition has been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country’.

Clearly, in 1922 much of the world’s leadership was Zionist. That is these nations endorsed the very concept of Zionism. Note this was well before World War II.

While these aims of Zionism, and their endorsement by the nations of the world did not lead to a re-creation of the State of Israel at this time, the horrors of the holocaust appear to have contributed to a recognition of this endorsement in 1947 and the subsequent creation of a ‘nation in a day’ in 1948 (as prophesied in Isaiah 66:7-8).

Many leading Protestants during this time from the 1800’s up to 1948 were great supporters of Zionism, as they saw the clear Biblical mandate that according the Almighty’s distribution of the nations, Palestine was the home of the Jews.

Another major aliyah occurred from 1904 to 1914 and lead to the establishment of Tel Aviv in 1909. During this time there was an incredible change to the landscape of Palestine, The swamps were drained; malaria was conquered; millions of trees were planted; wells and canals were dug and thousands of acres irrigated. This amazing change was so profound that many hoped that a similar effort would transform other lands of the Near East.

These amazing changes and great development of agriculture, etc., lead to a huge influx of Arab workers who received far better compensation for their labours that in their homelands.

This economic benefit for the Arab workers is seen in part by the population increase in Palestine from 565,000 in 1922 to 1,200,000 by 1947.

As is typical of the uneducated and anti-Semitic mindset, these same immigrant Arab workers began to increasingly attack their Jewish employers!

In fact, such an uneducated and anti-Semitic mindset is so prevalent around the globe today and seen in the calls to boycott everything Jewish. If these ignorant anti-Semites were to seriously enforce their boycotts they would be in very serious trouble as they would have to give up ALL their technology, and much of their modern medicine for a start! I say all technology because while much of the words IT hardware and software has Jewish origins, there is virtually no IT technology anywhere in the Western world, that does not contain electronic resistors designed and patented by a Jewish inventor, Felix Zandman. And this is only one small example of how pervasive their inventiveness has been.
Conclusion:

Any serious in-depth investigation of the history of Israel and Zionism will clearly demonstrate that the Jewish people are the genuine indigenous people of Eretz Israel, and that their just cause of Zionism has not been an example of oppressive and illegal Colonialism, but rather a fair, legal and moral cause.

Again I highly recommend the book 'Should Israel Exist? A Sovereign Nation Under Attack by the International Community' - much of the supporting evidence for the summary information in this article is supplied in this brilliant book by Prof. Michael Curtis.

Not only this, an in-depth examination of the conflicts of 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973, etc., in the Middle East will reveal that the re-creation and survival of Israel was nothing short of miraculous, and clearly the hand of G-d, who declared that he would return His People to the Land for His Name's sake! 

A very good article on the Myth of the Palestinian People is here

For the Biblical mandate for this, see my article ‘Israel: Return in Belief or Unbelief’ - http://goo.gl/roKWlU

For a fascinating insight to the whole refugee question please see this pdf

POSTSCRIPT:
While I have read many books on the history of the Jews (with Paul Johnson's being the most impressive and comprehensive), and many books on the formation of the State of Israel and its struggles, I admit that I was unaware of the true background and significance of the Balfour Declaration, and in particular the incredible efforts and centrality of the person of Nahum Sokolow.
It appears, from a deeper appreciation of the history, that his role was more significant and impactful than anyone else's, including the great Chaim Weizmann.

Read the remarkable story of his vital contribution here - https://mosaicmagazine.com/essay/2017/06/the-forgotten-truth-about-the-balfour-declaration/


Appendix:

Israel facts:

Israel, with a little over 8 million people, is the 100th smallest country with less than 1/1000 of the world's population, but it can lay claim to the following:

The cell phone was developed in Israel by Motorola, which has its largest development center in Israel.

Much of the software in today’s computer operating systems was developed in Israel, as well as a lot of the ‘chip’ technology.

Voice mail technology was developed in Israel.

Both Microsoft and Cisco built their only R&D facilities outside the US in Israel.

The technology for the AOL Instant Messenger ICQ was developed in 1996 by four young Israelites.

Israel's $100 billion economy is larger than all of its immediate neighbours combined.

Israel has the highest percentage in the world of home computers per capita.

According to industry officials, Israel designed the airline industry's most impenetrable flight security. US officials now look to Israel for advice on how to handle airborne security threats.

Israel has the highest ratio of university degrees to the population in the world.

Israel produces more scientific papers per capita than any other nation by a large margin -- 109 per 10,000 people -- as well as one of the highest per capita rates of patents filed.

In proportion to it's population, Israel has the largest number of startup companies in the world.

In absolute terms, Israel has the largest number of start-up companies than any other country in the world, except the US (3,500 companies mostly in high tech).

With more than 3,000 high-tech companies and startups, Israel has the highest concentration of high tech companies in the world -- apart from the Silicon Valley, USA.

Israel is ranked #2 in the world for venture capital funds right behind the U.S. Outside the United States and Canada, Israel has the largest number of NASDAQ listed companies.

Israel has the highest average living standards in the Middle East.

On a per capita basis, Israel has the largest number of biotech startups.

Twenty-four per cent of Israel's workforce holds university degrees, ranking third in the industrialized world, after the United States and Holland, and 12 per cent of its workforce hold advanced degrees.

Israel is the only liberal democracy in the Middle East. In 1984 and 1991,

Israel has the third highest rate of entrepreneurship -- and the highest rate among women and among people over 55 -- in the world.

Relative to its population, Israel is the largest immigrant-absorbing nation on earth.

Immigrants come in search of democracy, religious freedom, and economic opportunity (including hundreds of thousands from the former Soviet Union).

Israel has the world's second highest per capita of new books.

Israel is the only country in the world that entered the 21st century with a net gain in its number of trees, made more remarkable because, this was achieved in an area considered mainly desert.

Israel has more museums per capita than any other country. Israeli scientists developed the first fully computerized, no-radiation, diagnostic instrumentation for breast cancer.

An Israeli company developed a computerized system for ensuring proper administration of medications, thus removing human error from medical treatment. Every year in U.S. hospitals 7,000 patients die from treatment mistakes.

Israel leads the world in the number of scientists and technicians in the workforce, with 145 per 10,000, as opposed to 85 in the U.S., over 70 in Japan, and less than 60 in Germany.

With over 25% of its work force employed in technical professions. Israel places first in this category as well.

All the above was accomplished while engaged in regular wars with an implacable enemy that seeks Israel's destruction, and an economy continuously under strain by having to spend more per capita on its own protection than any other county on Earth.

Between 1901 and 2011, around 850 laureates have been awarded Nobel Prizes. Of these, at least 170 Jews and persons of half-Jewish ancestry have been awarded the Nobel Prize, accounting for 22% of all individual recipients worldwide (vs 0.25% of that population) between 1901 and 2005, and constituting 37% of all US recipients during the same period (vs 2% of that population.

In the scientific research fields of Chemistry, Economics, Medicine, and Physics, the corresponding world and US percentages are 26% and 39%, respectively.

Lloyd George stated in 1923:

“Of all the extreme fanaticism which plays havoc in man’s nature, there is not one as irrational as anti-Semitism. … If the Jews are rich [these fanatics] are victims of theft. If they are poor, they are victims of ridicule. If they take sides in a war, it is because they wish to take advantage from the spilling of non-Jewish blood. If they espouse peace, it is because they are scared by their natures or traitors. If the Jew dwells in a foreign land he is persecuted and expelled. If he wishes to return to his own land, he is prevented from doing so.”

“Certainly the world without the Jews would have been a radically different place. Humanity might eventually have stumbled upon all the Jewish insights. But we cannot be sure. All the great conceptual discoveries of the intellect seem obvious and inescapable once they have been revealed; but it requires a special genius to formulate them for the first time. The Jews had this gift. To them we owe the idea of equality before the law, both divine and human; of the sanctity of life and the dignity of the human person; of the individual conscience and so for personal redemption; of the collective conscience and so of social responsibility; of peace as an abstract ideal and love as the foundation of justice...Above all, the Jews taught us...Monotheism" - Paul Johnson, 'A History of the Jews'.

The Khazars Hoax:

The Khazarian hoax is an argument that most of the Jews of Europe at the time of the Holocaust were descendants from the Khazarian Jews, and thus, as they were not direct descendents of the 12 Tribes, they were not real Jews (and neither by inference were those who founded the State of Israel).

While some of the information used to perpetuate this anti-Semitic myth is valid, the full picture tells a different reality. It is also important to recognize that once a person has converted to Judaism, whether full orthodox or Karaite, etc., they are now Jewish with all the religious, political and social realities that that implies.

In the late Prof. David Neiman’s brilliant book ‘The Jews in History’, (see Chapter 53/Lecture 6: Khazarian Empire of the Audible version) he goes into considerable depth on how the whole Kingdom became converted to Judaism and dominated Central Asia for at least 250 years.

The Khazars were a Turkish tribe, who became a strong and independent power. Their empire extended from Kiev all the way east to the borders of China. They decided to have a ‘Universal Religion’ for their empire at a time when Europe had Hellenistic Christianity (centred in Constantinople) and the Middle East/North Africa had Islam (centred in Baghdad).

Bulan, the King (there is some disagreement over whether this was around 740 CE or as late as 840) decides, after researching these two competing religions to choose the religion that they both acknowledged as foundational in some way, that is Judaism.

The next 14 Kings of the empire from this time all had Hebrew names, and Neiman argues that the people as a whole converted to Judaism.

He then tells a story of attending a wedding in Israel in the late 1900's where the bridegroom’s family were Khazarian Jews, and in speaking to them they explained that, as they have converted, they were not descendants of the 12 tribes and in particular, their Kingdom and families had very few Levites (the Priesthood tribe), and he went on to explain the issues that this has caused. As the Levites (Cohen's) maintained their separation the most rigidly over the generations until the last hundred years or so, the use of genetic research (see below) would not provide much support for the 'Jewishness' of the Kharzaian peoples.

What this implies though (given how few have historcial routes that they can trace back to Khazar and therefore identify as Khazarian Jews) is that the Jews who made Aliyah from the late 1800’s until 1948 to re-claim Ertez Israel and re-found the State of Israel were not just Khazars, as these Jewish people from all over the world had many Levites amongst them.

Genetic Research:As recent as 2010 a research paper in The American Journal of Human Genetics, also invalidates the anti-Semitic Khazar hypothesis/hoax.

Also, the genetic researcher M.F. Hammer, wrote in the Proc. Nat’l Academy of Science (May 9, 2000): “Despite their long-term residence in different countries and isolation from one another, most Jewish populations were not significantly different from one another at the genetic level. The results support the hypothesis that the paternal gene pools of Jewish communities from Europe, North Africa and the Middle East descended from a common Middle Eastern ancestral population, and suggest that most Jewish communities have remained relatively isolated from neighboring non-Jewish communities during and after the Diaspora.”

Y-chromosome research of the Jewish people began as an outgrowth of the study of Cohanim—the Jewish priestly family. These studies showed a very high genetic affinity among PRESENT-DAY Cohanim, indicating that they do have a common paternal ancestor, estimated to have lived some 3,000 years ago.

There are people I know personally living in Israel whose surname is Cohen and who believe they are descended from Aaron. The genetic research supports their claim, but the miracles of the Jewish people over the last 2000 years supports them even more.

The most recent genetic research using both mitochondrial and y-chromosomal DNA has looked at the question of whether the scattered groups of modern Jews can be identified as the descendants of the ancient Hebrews of the Bible, or whether their common ancestry has been diluted through influx of converts and through intermarriage so that little remains of their “Jewish genes.”

This research was based on samples from 29 populations, 7 Jewish, categorized into five major divisions: Jews, Middle-Eastern non-Jews, Europeans, North Africans, and sub-Saharan Africans.

The findings were that most Jewish communities—long separated from one another in Europe, North Africa, the Near East and the Arabian Peninsula—do indeed seem to be genetically similar and closely related to one another, sharing a common geographical origin.

These Jewish communities are more closely related to each other and to other Middle Eastern Semitic populations—Palestinians, Syrians, and Druze—than to their neighboring non-Jewish populations in the Diaspora. The results also indicate a low level of admixture (intermarriage, conversion, rape, etc.) into the gene pool of these various Jewish communities.

One study (‘Nature’ January 2, 1997), involved 188 Jewish males (they thought they were Jewish at least) from Israel, England and North America, who were asked to identify whether they were a Cohen, Levi or Israelite, and to identify their family background.

The results of the analysis of the Y chromosome markers of the Cohanim and non-Cohanim were indeed significant. A particular marker, (YAP-) was detected in 98.5 percent of the Cohanim, and in a significantly lower percentage of non-Cohanim. Calculations based on the high rate of genetic similarity of today’s Cohanim resulted in the highest “paternity-certainty” rate ever recorded in population genetics studies—a scientific testimony to family faithfulness.

This lead Dr. David Goldstein of Oxford University to state: “For more than 90 percent of the Cohens to share the same genetic markers after such a period of time is a testament to the devotion of the wives of the Cohens over the years. Even a low rate of infidelity would have dramatically lowered the percentage.” -Science News, October 3, 1998

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[1] http://www.amazon.com.au/Should-Israel-Exist-Sovereign-International-ebook/dp/B0078N6V5A/