Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich dismissed the existence of a separate Palestinian people in a speech he delivered in Paris on Sunday. This has caused predictable outrage from the Arabs, from the EU’s Josep Borrell, and from the Bidenites, who found his remarks on this matter “unhelpful.” But is his statement false? A preliminary Jihad Watch report is here, and more on Smotrich’s speech can be found here: “Israel’s Smotrich: There is no such thing as a Palestinian people,” by Tovah Lazaroff, Jerusalem Post, March 20, 2023:
“There is no such thing as Palestinians because there is no such thing as a Palestinian people,” said Smotrich who heads the Religious Zionist Party.
“Who are the [real] Palestinians? I am Palestinian,” he said.
He recalled his family’s 13 generations in the Land of Israel, mentioning his grandmother who had been born in the northern border town of Metula over a hundred years ago before the creation of the state.
His ancestors and his grandmother were “Palestinians,” he said.
Before 1948, the territory that now encompasses the modern state of Israel had been called Palestine. The Romans used that term to refer to that territory after they conquered the ancient state of Israel.
Smotrich might have added that the place name Syria Palaestina, which was then shortened to “Palestine,” was given to the Roman province of Judaea in the early 2nd century AD. The renaming is often presented as having been performed by the Roman Emperor Hadrian in the wake of the 132-135 AD Bar Kokhba revolt. Scholars suggest it was enacted to “disassociate the Jewish people from their historical homeland.” Certainly “Palestine” helped to efface the Jewish connection to the land that had been made manifest in the toponym “Judea.”
This truth [that there is no such thing as a separate “Palestinian people”] needs to be heard by the Arabs in Israel. This truth needs to be heard by the Jewish people in Israel who have gotten confused. This truth needs to be heard in the Elysee and in the White House. This truth must be heard by the whole world because this is the truth.”
When modern Zionists at the end of the 19th century spoke of a return to their land, they spoke of going to Palestine, a name that appeared on all documents and currency relating to pre-state Israel.
Smotrich is among a number of far-right politicians who do not accept the adoption by regional Arabs of the term Palestinian to describe their ethnicity and national movement as well as their aspirations for self-determination in a state which will be called Palestine.
It is not only “far-right” politicians who disbelieve in the existence of a separate “Palestinian people.” So do all those Arab leaders who before, during, and for decades after, the 1948 war never once referred to the “Palestinian people.” In the run-up to the Six-Day War, for example, Gamal Abdel Nasser made many speeches to Cairene crowds. The recognized leader of the Arabs, Nasser nowhere spoke of the “Palestinian people.”At the UN, between 1949 and June 1967, no Arab ambassador ever mentioned the “Palestinian people.”
It was not until the mid-1960s, and then only on a very few occasions, that the “Palestinian people” started to be mentioned. But after the “naksa” (setback) of the Six-Day War, the phrase was constantly repeated, quite deliberately, so that it quickly become the common currency of the Arabs, and subsequently, the phrase was adopted by most of the rest of the world. Their defeat in that war had made the Arabs rethink their strategy, so that the military option was put off until Israel could be squeezed back within the 1949 armistice lines. Clearly, the Arabs needed to transform the conflict with Israel so that no longer would it seem like a monstrous Arab gang-up on tiny Israel. Instead, that conflict could be presented as a struggle between the “Palestinian people” and the Jews who had usurped the land on which the “Palestinians” had lived since time immemorial.
After the Six-Day War, no Arab leader could open his mouth without mentioning the “Palestinian people.” According to the Romanian intelligence chief, Ion Pacepa, it was the KGB that first advised the Arabs to use the phrase “Palestinian people.”…
Smotrich compared Jewish history in the region which dates back thousands of years with that of the modern-day Palestinians, whose history, he said was absent.
Jews have lived continuously in the Land of Israel since at least the 10th century B.C. The Muslim Arabs arrived in the land only 1700 years later.
The Palestinian nation has existed for less than one hundred years,”[in fact, the claim of a separate Palestinian people goes back only 55 years, to 1967] noting that they do not meet the international standards for nationhood since they are lacking a unique history, culture, language and currency.
“I ask you who was the first Palestinian King, what [unique] language do they have, was there ever a Palestinian coin. Is there a Palestinian history or culture? There isn’t. There is no such thing as a Palestinian nation.
Smotrich is, of course, right. The “Palestinian people” were invented for propaganda reasons, a fiction that has been a smashing propaganda success. But there is no defining characteristic that distinguishes the “Palestinian people” from the other Arabs in the immediate region. They do indeed lack a “unique history, culture, language, and currency.”
It was Zuheir Mohsen, leader of the Palestinian terror group As Saiqa, who in a moment of candor, explained in a 1970 interview with James Dorsey for the Dutch newspaper Trouw why the “Palestinian people” had been invented:
The Palestinian people do not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct “Palestinian people” to oppose Zionism. Yes, the existence of a separate Palestinian identity exists only for tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.
It is too bad that Smotrich did not quote, verbatim, Zuheir Mohsen’s paragraph above. Possibly he’s unaware of it. Providing that damning paragraph could have a devastating effect on Palestinian” propagandists and those they have deceived. Smotrich can still use it, of course, in responding to all those who have been so outraged by his original statement that “there is no such thing as a Palestinian people.”
Smotrich might also point to the statements of Golda Meir, whom no one would describe as “far-right,” who in an interview given to the Times of London in 1969 said: “There was no such thing as Palestinians. When was there an independent Palestinian people with a Palestinian state? It was either southern Syria before the First World War and then it was a Palestine including Jordan. It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country from them. They did not exist.”
In a 1970 interview with Thames TV, Meir said that: “When were Palestinians born? What was all of this area before the First World War when Britain got the Mandate over Palestine? What was Palestine, then? Palestine was then the area between the Mediterranean and the Iraqian border. East and West Bank was Palestine. I am a Palestinian, from 1921 and 1948, I carried a Palestinian passport. There was no such thing in this area as Jews, and Arabs, and Palestinians, There were Jews and Arabs. […] I don’t say there are no Palestinians, but I say there is no such thing as a distinct Palestinian people.”
The Palestinians, he said, are regional Arabs who arrived in the Land of Israel at the same time as the first major waves of [Jewish] immigration at the end of the 19th century….
Once the Zionist pioneers started to settle in Palestine, beginning around the turn of the 20th century, the resulting increase in economic activity attracted Arabs from elsewhere.
“What happened? They created a fictional nation and then worked for their fictitious rights to the Land of Israel just to battle against the Zionist movement. That is the historical truth and the bBblical truth. That is the truth and there is no alternative,” Smotrich said.
“This truth needs to be heard by the Arabs in Israel. This truth needs to be heard by the Jewish people in Israel who have gotten confused. This truth needs to be heard in the Elysee and in the White House. This truth must be heard by the whole world because this is the truth,” Smotrich stated.
United States National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told Channel 12 that such remarks were “unhelpful.”
Smotrich’s remarks may have been “unhelpful” in the view of the Bidenites, but are they false? Look again at the evidence. Why is it that in none of the speeches of Arab leaders before the 1948 war, or before the 1967 war, are the “Palestinian people” mentioned? Why, in the transcribed records of endless Arab speechifying at the UN, are the “Palestinian people” suddenly to be found only after the Six-Day War? And why is it that beginning in the summer of 1967 the “Palestinian people” are mentioned all over the place, most notably in the Khartoum Resolution of September 1, 1967, where all of the Arab states gave their “three Nos” to Israel: “No peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with Israel.” which were immediately followed by this: “and insistence on the rights of the Palestinian people in their country.”
The European Union said it “firmly deplores yet another unacceptable comment by Minister Smotrich ”which should not be “tolerated.
Such remarks are “wrong, disrespectful, dangerous and counterproductive in a situation which is already very tense,” the EU said.
“We call on the Israeli government to disavow those comments and to work together with all the parties involved to defuse tensions,” the EU said.
Israel cannot possibly “disavow” Smotrich’s remarks about the non-existent Palestinian people because Israelis, including those who for other reasons oppose Smotrich, know that his statement, just like those of Zuheir Mohsen and Golda Meir, happens to be true.
The Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesperson said that Smotrich’s words were racist, ahistorical, and fueled anger among the Palestinians and ran counter to efforts by its government to halt a violent outbreak during the month of Ramadan which begins on March 22 and which will overlap with the Passover and Easter.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s office and Prime Minister Mohammed Shytayyeh denounced Smotrich’s remarks as well as the graphic at the podium from which he spoke….
The graphic put up at the podium shows the territory of both Israel and Jordan. This has been taken by the Arabs as a sign that Smotrich wants a “Greater Israel” that would incorporate Jordan into a single state with Israel. That’s not at all what Smotrich meant. He was merely reminding the world that the territory originally assigned to the Mandate for Palestine included territory on both sides of the Jordan River, and that it was the British who in 1921 for reasons of their own — to provide a country for the Hashemite Emir Abdullah — removed all of Palestine that lay east of the Jordan from the terms of the Mandate, and ended Jewish immigration to that area. Smotrich simply was reminding the world of that fact, so often ignored.
Shtayyeh said that Smotrich was repeating the myth that Palestine is “a land without people and a people without land” in contrast to “historical and archeological evidence” proving ancient Palestinian roots in their land.
Where is this historical and archaeological evidence that proves “ancient Palestinian roots in their land”? There are thousands of archeological sites in Israel — 2000 of them in Jerusalem alone. They are full of Jewish artifacts — pottery shards, tools, eating utensils, oil lamps, menorahs, coins, not to mention the examples of writing, such as the spectacular Dead Sea Schools found in eleven caves in Qumran between 1947 and 1956. Where are the “Palestinian” archeological sites, where are the Palestinian artifacts that date back, at the earliest, to the late 7th century? There aren’t any. Instead, the Palestinians claim to be the descendants of various ancient peoples — the Canaanites, the Jebusites, the Philistines — to provide themselves with a fictitious past in the Land of Israel.
There are Palestinian Arabs. There are individual Palestinians. But there never has been a distinct Palestinian people living in the Land of Israel, between the river and the sea.
Well, since you asked.
Yes,there is a Palestinian People,and they are Catholic,other Christians,and non-Jews.and ironically, Jews,(Take a bow,here.), Zionism,Christian Zionists,Evangelicals, and the Occupation of the Palestinian Homeland by, for all intents and purposes,the European Diaspora,(along with regional and Palestinian Jews), played a large,perhaps critical, role in that identity. Whether the Arabs inhabiting the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea were merely disparate communities of Christians and Muslims, NAKBA united these communities in a common existential experience,and the birth of a People,the Palestinian People.And they have the Jews to thank. So,thanks to the land greed of Jews,we have an Arab People with a narrative of imposed Occupation,Displacement,and Ethnic Cleansing,Colonization,and injustice,and an Agenda of Justice and Resistance.
Israel is the eternal homeland of the JEWS, you ignorant knuckle dragger. Don’t like it? Too bad.
Personally, dani. I don’t give a damn or a dram about someone’s “eternal” homeland. Jews have always lived on the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea,and, but for the Occupation of ancient Israel by the victorious Roman occupiers,would still be majority in the National home of Jews,,only without the disgusting and unconscionable Crimes and Sins of Displacement and Ethnic Cleansing of Palestinian Christians and non-Jews,
For the most part,Jews have always been a welcomed,or unwelcomed,presence in Christian and Muslim countries where and when they have migrated.Again,as history can attest,Jews have made significant,second to none,contributions to Modernity and Humanity.Their presence in any and all countries where they settled brought undeniable “value-added” benefits. Quote me. Just sayin’.
if the Israelis are guilty of ‘ethnic cleansing’, they sure are doing a lousy job – plus the moslems multiply like cockroaches – just sayin – and I don’t give a rat’s behind about your Jew hatred, so get lost, irrelevant loser
YOU ARE DESPICABLE AND TOTALY IGNORANT.
No. The Hebrews slaughtered the Caananites to get their land. they named Judea and Israel. Read your Tanach. God is not in the real estate business.
Remember this, pal·at·ine
[ˈpalətʌɪn, ˈpalətɪn]
ADJECTIVE
HISTORICAL
(of an official or feudal lord) having local authority that elsewhere belongs only to a sovereign.
(of a territory) subject to palatine authority.
This was part of the Roman conquests in the lands they took.
Another thing is this, there is no hard P sound in Arabic, but there is a softer F, and Palestinians pronounce the name of their would-be state as “Falastin” (fah-leh-STEEN)
In other words they are Philistines, uncultured & barbaric people.
Show me Palestinian money. Oh, you can’t. OK. Speak to me in Palestinian. Oh, you can’t do that either. Hmmmm. OK, show me Palestinian history, books, maps etc. No again.??
3 strikes and you are OUT !
Palestinians are a made up mytholigical people invented to torment Israel and raise Billions of $$$ over the decades.
75 years of constant attacking and killing Jews and they live in squalor while Israel has grown to be a mighty force on the world scene..
LOSERS.. Why ?? Because they have been fighting the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, not Israeli’s.
But it’s almost over. Maranatha, come Lord Jesus, Yeshauh Messiah !!……
Spoken like a Christian Zionist,or just a plain old Zionist Jew. Your post reeks of Denial and Victim-blaming,something common to victimizers and State sponsors of Genocide,Ethnic Cleansing and other Crimes and Sins Against Humanity. Just sayin’.
spoken like an ignorant, useful idiot – your Jew envy is showing, loser
Well you certainly seem to have all of the liberal buzz words down. Can you say something in real English?? You are obviously an Arab sympathizer because habitual writers of English don’t capitalize every other word. Accusations of genocide are demented. In the 1948 war the 5 invading Arab armies told the Muslim inhabitants to leave lest they get caught up in the festive slaughter of Jews being anticipated. Of course that did not happen so your comment about “ethnic cleansing” is of course another blatant lie.There are currently 2 MILLION Arabs residing in Israel comprising 21% of the population. They are the most free Arabs on the planet with the exact rights enjoyed by all Israelis. 11 currently serve in the Knesset and 20,000+ in the IDF. Apparently the dastardly Jews really dropped the old cleansing ball here. How do you explain this glaring oversight?? And no I am neither Jewish, Zionist nor a resident of Israel. I inhabit a sunny beach area in Florida!!! I do however know how to read.
Whether there was such a thing as a Palestinian is one of the most common, yet irrelevant debates regarding the origins of the conflict.
It does not matter if the Arabs living in Palestine in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries considered themselves to be a part of Palestine, southern Syria, a greater Arab federation, or Ottomans, members of a tribe or clan, or Muslims. Whether they were “a” people or just “people,” they lived in and had profound religious, historical, cultural and sentimental ties to a particular area of land known variously and for centuries as “Palestine” and the Holy Land. They didn’t just drop out of the sky and land in Palestine.
“Jews have lived continuously in the Land of Israel since at least the 10th century B.C. The Muslim Arabs arrived in the land only 1700 years later.”
Really? Which Jews? The Ethiopian Jews, Chinese Jews, Yemeni Jews, Russian Jews, Moroccan Jews, Polish Jews?
The Jews of Europe haven’t lived in the land of Israel. They are European and have lived on that continent for thousands of years. They have no genetic or ancestral claim to the land of Israel. They are a European people who converted to Judaism. Their DNA, particularly through the matrilineal line confirms this.
What confusion would ensue throughout the world if this principle the Jews base their “legitimate” claim were carried out in other parts of the world.What migrations of nations must follow! The Spaniards in Spain would have to make room for the Arabs and Moors who conquered and ruled their country for over 700 years…
And who kicked out the Visigoths who got there before them.
The Jews of Europe were dragged there in chains by their Roman captors, along with the Temple treasures. If you doubt me, check out the Arch of Titus, built for Titus’s triumphal parade through the Forum to show off his loot and his new slaves. Then he put those slaves to work building the nearby Colosseum. (Why is it always construction work for the Jews?) Eventually they made their way out of Italy and throughout the Roman Empire, presumably brought to new Roman possessions by their military owners. Do you think that we ended up in Europe because we always wanted to see the Forum and the Eiffel Tower?
As to the varied, usually indigenous, matrilineal ancestry, many Jewish women were enslaved and had no way of marrying Jewish men and having normal families. Their children, conceived in rape, were the property of their masters to do with as they pleased. The men were sometimes more fortunate and did eventually get to marry and form families, but not with Judean women by that time. Pagan women, often mistreated by their men, found Jewish men to be far more attractive marriage prospects and often converted simply because they liked the religion and lifestyle. Hence you find, for example, a person whose family are European Jews and whose matrilineal ancestry is, say, from Italia or Gaul or Germania, but whose patrilineal ancestry is entirely Judean. A convert, I might inform you, is 100% Jewish, as are her children.
Nothing you stated refutes anything I wrote. Being a Jew is a religious identity. In addition, Jewish Law doesn’t use genetics to determine who a Jew is. Further, there are no European Jews from Judea, or who’s ancestors were from Judea. But, for arguments sake let’s say they can prove 2,500 yrs ago that they had ancestors in the Middle East. My response is, so what? If I’m a Spaniard, but somehow was able to prove that 800 yrs ago my ancestors originated in Germany before making the trek to Spain does that make me a German? Absurd.
The European women of Europe converted to Judaism. They are not from the Middle East/Levant. It’s as simple as that. The men might have had some ME ancestry thousands of years ago, but that doesn’t apply today.
Many famous people have had their DNA examined and it’s posted online. That includes Jews such as Alan Dershowitz, Carol King, Jared Kushner, etc. and none of them showed any ME ancestry in their DNA. They are all Europeans. Their DNA is more closely related to the pre historic indigenous peoples of Europe than the Levant.
You can try to spin it all you’d like. They have no magical genetic connection to Palestine.
The Jews of Europe have been there for thousands of years. They are not indigenous to the Levant. The Archaeogenetic Research Project shows unequivocally that the “Jews of Europe have DNA more closely related to the pre-historic indigenous peoples of Europe than the Levant.” This showed particularly through the matrilineal line. The men, in their study, did show some mixed Middle East and European . However, through intermarriage assimilation, etc, the Jews of Europe show no DNA from that region, and do not have any genetic or ancestral connection to Israel.
There have been famous people, including Jews, that have taken individual DNA tests such as: Alan Dershowitz the famous trial lawyer, Carol KIng, Jared Kushner, etc. All posted online to see and none of them show any DNA from the Middle East/Levant. None. Southern Italians have more ME DNA in their profile.
“A convert, I might inform you, is 100% Jewish, as are her children.”
You don’t have to inform me I’m well versed on the topic. A convert, which is how most Jews have evolved, do not have Israel as their “eternal home.”
Of course there is a Palestinian People!
Its plainly printed, right there, on the deposit slips for the US government checks payable to the Palestinian People.
Fortunately, patriotic Palestinians labor lavishly upon the uninteresting details involved in tedious bookkeeping to save the ordinary Palestinian guy and gal from worrying their little heads about it.
And the No Peep rule is lavishly observed. Thereby preserving those little heads.
The REAL trouble will come when religious/ orthodox Jews try to carry out the reclaiming of ERETZ Israel, which included many countries that now exist..
The Jews of Europe have been there for thousands of years. They are not indigenous to the Levant. The Archaeogenetic Research Project shows unequivocally that the “Jews of Europe have DNA more closely related to the pre-historic indigenous peoples of Europe than the Levant.” This showed particularly through the matrilineal line. The men, in their study, did show some mixed Middle East and European . However, through intermarriage assimilation, etc, the Jews of Europe show no DNA from that region, and do not have any genetic or ancestral connection to Israel.
There have been famous people, including Jews, that have taken individual DNA tests such as: Alan Dershowitz the famous trial lawyer, Carol KIng, Jared Kushner, etc. All posted online to see and none of them show any DNA from the Middle East/Levant. None. Southern Italians have more ME DNA in their profile.
“A convert, I might inform you, is 100% Jewish, as are her children.”
You don’t have to inform me I’m well versed on the topic. A convert, which is how most Jews have evolved, do not have Israel as their “eternal home.”
Wow. Under Jewish law which has existed for thousands of years, Jews recognize descent through two mechanisms: the mother is Jewish or the person converts. This has also gone on for thousands of years. The fact that physical Israel (somewhat larger than the present state of Israel) is historically Jewish can be affirmed through the Bible and through contemporaneous documents and artifacts (stellae etc) which are Roman, Greek, Egyptian, etc. Therefore the fact that the Jewish people were once indigenous and then forced through losing wars to spread a portion of the population to other countries with intermarriage consequences is irrelevant and so is your constant referral to genetics which have nothing to do with Jewish law. And in fact there was a remnant who always stayed in Israel as can be verified by contemporaneous textts and histories. Further there are certain Jews who can indeed trace their ancestry back thousands of years to biblical times (and places)such as the Levites, of whom I am one. My grandfather was a kohen. The people now called Arabs did not hate Jews until the advent of Islam with its conquering and hatefilled mentality. In fact there are Arab tribes with other more constructive agendas–for example the Bedouins. The 20th c creation of an Arab “Palestine” is a fiction designed for political and territorial advantage.
Again, it doesn’t matter what you want to call “Palestinians” whether they are Syrians, Jordanians, Arabs, Ottomans, Muslims, etc, they are still people who’ve lived in that region called Palestine and the Holy Land and they have historical, cultural and deep religious ties there for thousands of years.
Conversion, yes. Using the mother to determine the status of a child is not Biblical. In every culture around the world from the beginning of time the status of a child ran through the father, including the Jews. The Bible is loaded with examples of this. That changed when Jewish leaders decided it was easier to determine the status of a child through the mother.
“Take a census of the whole Israelite community by their clans and families, listing every man by name, one by one” when the Lord spoke to Moses.
European Jews are not from the Levant. They are European.
Using the matrilineal line to determine the status of a child is not Biblical. Every group, throughout history, including the Jews used the father to determine the status of a child. That was changed, and it was considered a radical change, when Jewish leaders decided it was easier to identify a child through the matrilineal line than the father. The fact you disregard the paternal line shows Jews are not an ethnicity, but a religious identity. All the famous male characters in the Bible from Moses to Soloman who married non Jews the child took the status of the father: not the mother.
Yes, conversion.
“Therefore the fact that the Jewish people were once indigenous”
There are no Jews indigenous today from Europe. Period. The Jews of Europe are European people. There are not from the Levant. They are indigenous to Europe. Don’t tell me about thousands of years ago. That’s absurd and everyone can tell fables from thousands of years ago.
BTW, the Orthodox Jews who follow Jewish Law state Zionism is sacrilegious and heretical as only the Divine can lead Jews back to Israel not man, particularly secular Zionists who don’t believe in God or the Bible.
You can’t trace your lineage back thousands of years. Give it a rest. You are from Europe. and so are you ancestors.
Actually, the ancient Philistines recorded in the Bible and history came from the Greek Islands and some parts of the mainland Greece. They have no connection, at all, the to the Arab /Muslim of modern times who called themselves the “Palestinians.”
From those ancient people, the Philistines, the word “Palestine” .came into being.
There is no genuine ethic group or race who are the “Palestinians.”
Early in the last century a anyone living in that land, Arab or Jew, who lived in that land was called a ”Palestinian.”
Only after 1967 did the Arab/Muslims start to refer to themselves , exclusively , by the word “Palestinian.”
The reason for that is that they felt that by giving themselves that title they would appear to have some kind of valid claim on that land.
Furthermore, the truth is the God had given all this land that now composes the State of Israel, including all of the West Bank, to the Jewish people. This may be found in the Bible, as seen in, for example, Genesis 28:13-15. 35:10-12. Deuteronomy 32:48,49. Psalm 105:7-11. 135:4.
In other words the Jews have tall this land by Divine Right. Furthermore, the Jewish people should have this land by historic rights as shown in First Kings 4:20,21, 24,25. 8:55, 56.
Wow. Under Jewish law which has existed for thousands of years, Jews recognize descent through two mechanisms: the mother is Jewish or the person converts. This has also gone on for thousands of years. The fact that physical Israel (somewhat larger than the present state of Israel) is historically Jewish can be affirmed through the Bible and through contemporaneous documents and artifacts (stellae etc) which are Roman, Greek, Egyptian, etc. Therefore the fact that the Jewish people were once indigenous and then forced through losing wars to spread a portion of the population to other countries with intermarriage consequences is irrelevant and so is your constant referral to genetics which have nothing to do with Jewish law. And in fact there was a remnant who always stayed in Israel as can be verified by contemporaneous textts and histories. Further there are certain Jews who can indeed trace their ancestry back thousands of years to biblical times (and places)such as the Levites, of whom I am one. My grandfather was a kohen. The people now called Arabs did not hate Jews until the advent of Islam with its conquering and hatefilled mentality. In fact there are Arab tribes with other more constructive agendas–for example the Bedouins. The 20th c creation of an Arab “Palestine” is a fiction designed for political and territorial advantage.
Using the matrilineal line to determine the status of a child is not Biblical. Every group, throughout history, including the Jews used the father to determine the status of a child. That was changed, and it was considered a radical change, when Jewish leaders decided it was easier to identify a child through the matrilineal line than the father. The fact you disregard the paternal line shows Jews are not an ethnicity, but a religious identity. All the famous male characters in the Bible from Moses to Soloman who married non Jews the child took the status of the father: not the mother.
Yes, conversion.
“Therefore the fact that the Jewish people were once indigenous”
There are no Jews indigenous today from Europe. Period. The Jews of Europe are European people. There are not from the Levant. They are indigenous to Europe. Don’t tell me about thousands of years ago. That’s absurd and everyone can tell fables from thousands of years ago.
BTW, the Orthodox Jews who follow Jewish Law state Zionism is sacrilegious and heretical as only the Divine can lead Jews back to Israel not man, particularly secular Zionists who don’t believe in God or the Bible.
You can’t trace your lineage back thousands of years. Give it a rest. You are from Europe. and so are you ancestors.
Clearly there are people here who doesn’t care to know the truth, and we do not need to look far into the past. Before 1967, Arabs would be outraged to be referred to as Palestinians. Goes to show how propaganda continually repeated, sets in on unthinking minds, the kind of people who would shamelessly come out to argue based on their emotional ideas.. Typically they do not mentioned about the Arabs’ 1948 war to eliminate Israel, either because of a yawning ignorance, or a wanton disregard for the truth.
Part 1
Israel was not established in 1948, rather it was partially liberated for the 3rd time 1,878 years after it was conquered by the Romans in the year 70 CE. Israel was liberated for the 2nd time by the Maccabees from the Greek occupation in 167-164 BCE and this liberation is celebrated as Hanukkah. Israel was liberated the 1st time by Cyrus the Great, the Persian king, on 538 BCE who freed the Jews from Assyrian/Babylonian exile and allowed them to return to their homeland. The Nation of Israel was separated into Kingdoms of Israel and Judea. The ten tribes of Israel were exiled in 720 BCE by Sargon II, the Assyrian King. The two tribes of the Kingdom of Judea were exiled by Nebuchadnezzar II, the Babylonian King in 587 BCE. The Nation of Israel was liberated 49 years after the fall of Kingdom of Judea and 374 years after the fall of Kingdom of Israel. Is anyone claiming Israel’s right to liberation was expired in both 538 BCE and 167-164 BCE? How is the 3rd liberation any different? Is there a limitation on how many times a nation may be liberated?
Part 2
Where were Palestinians when Cyrus the Great liberated Israel-Judea and when the Maccabees liberated Israel from the Greeks? Where were Palestinians in 70 BCE when Jews were heroically fighting the Romans?
In comparison Persia which was established in 550 BCE (2,574 years ago) by Cyrus the Great has been occupied in whole or in part, 9 times and liberated 8 times:
271 years by the Greeks
264 years by the Arabs
120 years by the Seljuq Turks
148 years by the Mongols
122 years by the Tatar Turks/Timurid Dynasty
7 years by the Afghans (which coincided with the Ottoman occupation)
148 years by the Ottoman Turks
6 years by the Soviet Union during WWII (1941-1947)
45 years by Shi’ite mullahs that originated from Iraq, South Lebanon, and India during Safavid dynasty.
A total of 1,124 years of occupation out of 2,574 years of existence or 44% occupation rate!
Can the Greeks, the Arabs, the Turks, the Mongols, the Tatars, the Afghans, and the Russian Federation claim that that Iranians right of liberation of their land had expired every time and therefor they jointly or severally own Iran and that Iranians are the occupiers of Iran?
Also, Spain was colonized beginning in the year 711 by Berber and Arab soldiers serving the Umayyad Caliphate. The last Muslim polity was defeated in 1492. So, for 781 years Muslims had occupied Spain. This is the list of former mosques in Spain that were torn down https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_former_mosques_in_Spain. Can Muslims claim that the Spaniards right of liberation had expired after 781 years and therefore Spain is forever an Islamic land? Are the Spaniards the occupiers of Spain?
There is no staute of limitation for the liberation of nation, especially for a 3700+-year old nation. Liberation of one’s ancestral homeland does not have an expiration date like a perishable item.
Part 3
The only way to convey title to a property is by a proper sale, assignment of rights, inheritance, donation, and court action. In the latter a plaintiff is awarded a court judgement against the defendant through which may acquire title to defendant’s property. The statute of limitations for losing a nation’s right to its homeland does not apply, unless that nation has committed high crimes that would subject it to a court action. Even “Adverse Possession” an American law in some states that allows one who has taken possession of someone else’s land after a few years without consideration (payment of any kind) has a caveat: The property cannot be taken by force or under the gun. If someone has not abandoned and forgotten his property, disavowed its ownership and has not committed any crimes, he cannot be dispossessed of his property legally and legitimately. Jews have been evicted a few times from their land throughout the years. They never abandoned it, forgot it, or disavowed it. They have continuously maintained a presence in their ancestral land. No nation may be accused of occupying its own land.