Israelites or Palestinians: Who Has a Legitimate Claim to Israel?

Palestinians and Jews mostly share a common ancestor that originated in the region. Both Israelis and Palestinians are of semitic origin - both inhabited the land at the time of the Bible - the Palestinians converted and were Arabicized while the Jews were not.

Judaism as a monotheistic religion was actually not created until about 600 BC. Archeological evidence paints no evidence of a great invasion and taking the holy land from the Caanites as it is painted in the Bible. Rather, it rose among the semi-nomadic bronze age tribes in the Levant, between the Phoenicians in the north and the Monitu in the south (and various Arabic and Amaric tribes to the east).

The region was a crossroads for the Empires of the era - Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Macedonians, Romans and Arabs, and the tribes of the region rarely ruled themselves, and never formed a grand power like it is hinted that Salomon ruled. It was also a crossroad for trade that the Phoenicians brought in. Any genetic study will be messed up by the fact that there was lots of intermarrying, taking slave wives from the conquered people.

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Since there is no evidence that the ethnic Judeans of antiquity were ever expelled from Palestine, they are the most likely ancestors of the Palestinians. Over the years they became Christians and Muslims — just like so many other people. This is corroborated by genetic research.

The Jews, OTOH, are dispersed widely throughout history. While some communities were predominantly formed by migrants from Judea (e.g., Iraq and Egypt), others were formed by conversions (central Asia, Yemen, North Africa).

Thus, if we are talking genetics, the Palestinians and Jews are probably, on average, related to each other more than they are related to anyone else.

Check out Shlomo Sands's The Invention of the Jewish People for details. Sand references early Zionist writers — including most notably David Ben Gurion — who took this position early on, before turning into the Jewish-centric nationalist he became.

The Jews who remained in Palestine throughout the generations were no different from the Arabs and were, for all intents and purposes, Arabs of the Jewish faith, in the same way that there were Muslim and Christian Palestinians. The Jews of Arab countries were also Arabs in this way.

The dichotomy and animosity between Jews and Arabs is very much a product of Zionism and is most likely a result of the fact that the Zionists were non-Arab Jews, who adopted an ethno-centric nationalism that was common in Europe in the 19th century.

Thus, starting in the 1880s, the European Zionists came to Palestine where the indigenous Arab people — Jews, Christians, and Muslims — lived and, eventually, succeeded in taking it from them.

To be fair — most of the Palestinians were expelled and not killed. This was done in several waves, with about 750,000 expelled in 1948-49, 300,000 in 1967, and about 150,000 between 1967 and 1994.

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The following contributor opines that Jews have no legitimate claim to the land of modern day Israel, that a two-state solution is already a major concession made by the Palestinians: After reading about the Israel-Palestine conflict, I was shocked at how rarely people point out the flawed logic behind pro-Israel arguments. I do not believe Jews have a meaningful claim to the land of Israel, and a "Jewish state" should have never been established in the region. I will be debunking common arguments for a Jewish state of Israel below, and will gladly respond to any others that are brought up to this post.

1) The Jews deserve a homeland because centuries of history have shown their safety is never guaranteed in non-Jewish countries.

I agree, Jews have every right to establish their own country so they do not have to worry about being a persecuted minority. However, Jews do not have a right to establish a Jewish state over a region that is already inhabited by non-Jewish people. If the principal concern is establishing a country where Jews can be safe, why does it have to be established in a region that is majority Muslim? There are other regions of the world with unoccupied land, but Jews insist their nation be established over the historic land of Israel. In this case, the "Jews just want a homeland" is a red herring to avoid the issue of a Jewish state being established over a region occupied by Arabs for centuries.

2) Jews legally bought land in Palestine in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Yes, Jews legally bought land during both the Ottoman and British administration of the region. However, these were regarding private ownership of the land, which is different from sovereignty of the land. Many Chinese people buy real estate in Vancouver, but it does not mean Chinese people buy the sovereignty of Vancouver. The land is still legally the territory of Canada, Chinese people cannot establish a "Chinese state" because they bought real estate in Vancouver. Therefore, Jews legally buying land in Palestine does not mean it gives them the right to establish a Jewish state on that land.

3) Jews earned the right to establish a Jewish state in Israel after it negotiated the Balfour Declaration from Britain.

This was a colonial era document. If you think colonial territory agreements should be maintained, then you are against the independence of Korea, Vietnam, India, etc. The British should have never made such promises on the first place, especially considering they made overlapping promises to the Arabs in the McMahon-Hussein Correspondence. A similar argument is that Jews earned the land after winning a war instigated by an Arab coalition. This is right by conquest, which has no longer been recognized by international law since the resolution of WW2.

4) Jews made better use of their land than the original Ottoman/Arab landowners. "Israelis like to build, Arabs like to bomb and..." Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, where gay people can have their relationship legally recognized.

People bring up these points because they believe Israelis have made "better use" of the land than their Palestinian Arabs counterparts, therefore Jews deserve the land. This is not how sovereignty works. Imperial Japan was famous for using this argument to justify the annexing/colonization of Okinawa/Taiwan/Manchuria/Korea/etc. This was almost universally condemned, and Imperial Japan is nothing more than two mushroom clouds over the ash heap of history. Even if Japan made greater crop yields/repealed some antiquated practices/provided industrial living conditions to these colonies, doesn't change the fact they were occupying land and people against their will.

5) Arabs live much more peaceful and prosperous lives in Israel, compared to life in Palestine. Israel grants equal rights to it's Arab citizens, many of which are part of the Israeli government.

Just because you give equal rights to Palestinian Arabs doesn't mean you are entitled to their land. By this logic, US can annex even more of Mexico, so long as it offers the Mexicans in the region full US citizenship. It also doesn't solve the issue that the Arabs cannot truly be equals when a Jewish state occupies a majority Muslim region. If you believe in truly equality, you would not need to enshrine Israel as a "Jewish state," this is just to hedge against the fact the region of Palestine is majority Arab Muslims.

6) Jews were the original inhabitants of the region, Jews have maintained a continuous presence in the region of Israel throughout history.

Regardless of who the original inhabitants of the region were, the majority of the region has been inhabited by Arab Muslims for the past few centuries. If you believe being the original inhabitants entitles you to the land forever, does that mean the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand have to return the land to the indigenous population? These indigenous groups were displaced within the past 5 centuries, with some regions still being majority indigenous until the past 2 centuries, whereas Jews did not administer the region for over a millennium. I understand this is a very serious part of your identity, with the name "Palestine" already being a huge scar in your ethnic history, but we cannot undo these tragic events in your history. America is named after an Italian explorer, our capital is named after a colonizer and a slaveowner. The Jews are not the only ones who have historical trauma.

7) There was no such thing as a "Palestinian" identity until recently, they were just Arabs. Arabs have 22 countries, why can't they accept there being one Jewish state?

Most serious people are not saying there cannot be a Jewish state. They are merely arguing that you cannot establish a Jewish state over land that is already inhabited by Arabs. Just because Arabs have a lot of land, doesn't mean you are entitled to some of their land. By this logic, Korea is entitled to some of China's land, Bangladesh is entitled to some of India's land, and Mongolia is entitled to some of Russia's land. It doesn't matter whether the Arabs considered themselves distinctly Palestinian, they are not Jewish and do not want to be under a Jewish state.

8) Israel has always been willing to give concessions for peace, but the Palestinians always reject peace treaties.

From the very start, these peace proposals have been favored towards Israel. The 1947 borders gave the Jewish minority sovereignty over the majority of land in the region. Other sore spots include Israel wanting sovereignty over East Jerusalem, and Israel wanting their borders to encompass areas with arable land and water sources. A two state solution is already a large concession for the Palestinians to make, Israel should offer more concessions.

9) Israel wants peace, but the Palestinians choose terrorism. Israel has no choice but to make "hard decisions" for its own security. The Arab League/Muslim Brotherhood/Iran all want us blown off the map.

Palestinians had no interest in being under a Jewish state, yet it was imposed against their will. It is not unlike the Macabbeans, who revolted against their Seleucid occupiers. You can't occupy/displace people and then be shocked when they fight back. Israel is not a perfect victim, it exacerbated the problem when it bankrolled extremists groups in Palestine in order to destabilize the opposition. While I acknowledge Israel has legitimate security concerns from hostile neighbors, what did you expect when you displaced Muslims to establish a Jewish state in a region dominated by Muslims?

Ideally, the region of Palestine should have been one state, where the rights of the Jewish minority would be enshrined in its constitution. Ultimately, I recognize that Israel has existed for almost 75 years, and at this point the one-state solution is no longer viable. Most of the world has made the right steps in accepting Israel as a member of the world. I wrote this post because I wanted to point out that the framework of the two state solution should have never been used in the first place, and the two state solution is the consequence of the UN's failure to objectively solve the problem in 1947.

posted at reddit by various contributors since 2012