Before the Hebrews first migrated there around 1800 B.C., the
land of Canaan was occupied by Canaanites.
"Between 3000 and 1100 B.C., Canaanite
civilization covered what is today Israel, the West Bank,
Lebanon and much of Syria and Jordan...Those who remained in the
Jerusalem hills after the Romans expelled the Jews [in the
second century A.D.] were a potpourri: farmers and vineyard
growers, pagans and converts to Christianity, descendants of the
Arabs, Persians, Samaritans, Greeks and old Canaanite tribes."
Marcia Kunstel and Joseph Albright, "Their Promised Land."
The present-day Palestinians' ancestral heritage
"But all these [different peoples who had come to Canaan]
were additions, sprigs grafted onto the parent tree...And that
parent tree was Canaanite...[The Arab invaders of the 7th
century A.D.] made Moslem converts of the natives, settled down
as residents, and intermarried with them, with the result that
all are now so completely Arabized that we cannot tell where the
Canaanites leave off and the Arabs begin." Illene Beatty,
"Arab and Jew in the Land of Canaan."
The Jewish kingdoms were only one of many periods in
ancient Palestine
"The extended kingdoms of David and Solomon, on which the
Zionists base their territorial demands, endured for only about
73 years...Then it fell apart...[Even] if we allow independence
to the entire life of the ancient Jewish kingdoms, from David's
conquest of Canaan in 1000 B.C. to the wiping out of Judah in
586 B.C., we arrive at [only] a 414 year Jewish rule." Illene
Beatty, "Arab and Jew in the Land of Canaan."
More on Canaanite civilization
"Recent archeological digs have provided evidence that
Jerusalem was a big and fortified city already in 1800
BCE...Findings show that the sophisticated water system
heretofor attributed to the conquering Israelites pre-dated them
by eight centuries and was even more sophisticated than
imagined...Dr. Ronny Reich, who directed the excavation along
with Eli Shuikrun, said the entire system was built as a single
complex by Canaanites in the Middle Bronze Period, around 1800
BCE." The Jewish Bulletin, July 31st, 1998.
How long has Palestine been a specifically Arab country?
"Palestine became a predominately Arab and Islamic country by
the end of the seventh century. Almost immediately thereafter
its boundaries and its characteristics - including its name in
Arabic, Filastin - became known to the entire Islamic world, as
much for its fertility and beauty as for its religious
significance...In 1516, Palestine became a province of the
Ottoman Empire, but this made it no less fertile, no less Arab
or Islamic...Sixty percent of the population was in agriculture;
the balance was divided between townspeople and a relatively
small nomadic group. All these people believed themselves to
belong in a land called Palestine, despite their feelings that
they were also members of a large Arab nation...Despite the
steady arrival in Palestine of Jewish colonists after 1882, it
is important to realize that not until the few weeks immediately
preceding the establishment of Israel in the spring of 1948 was
there ever anything other than a huge Arab majority. For
example, the Jewish population in 1931 was 174,606 against a
total of 1,033,314." Edward Said, "The Question of
Palestine."
How did land ownership traditionally work in Palestine and
when did it change?
"[The Ottoman Land Code of 1858] required the registration in
the name of individual owners of agricultural land, most of
which had never previously been registered and which had
formerly been treated according to traditional forms of land
tenure, in the hill areas of Palestine generally masha'a, or
communal usufruct. The new law meant that for the first time a
peasant could be deprived not of title to his land, which he had
rarely held before, but rather of the right to live on it,
cultivate it and pass it on to his heirs, which had formerly
been inalienable...Under the provisions of the 1858 law,
communal rights of tenure were often ignored...Instead, members
of the upper classes, adept at manipulating or circumventing the
legal process, registered large areas of land as theirs...The
fellahin [peasants] naturally considered the land to be theirs,
and often discovered that they had ceased to be the legal owners
only when the land was sold to Jewish settlers by an absentee
landlord...Not only was the land being purchased; its Arab
cultivators were being dispossessed and replaced by foreigners
who had overt political objectives in Palestine." Rashid
Khalidi, "Blaming The Victims," ed. Said and Hitchens
Was Arab opposition to the arrival of Zionists based on
inherent anti-Semitism or a real sense of danger to their
community?
"The aim of the [Jewish National] Fund was `to redeem the
land of Palestine as the inalienable possession of the Jewish
people.'...As early as 1891, Zionist leader Ahad Ha'am wrote
that the Arabs "understood very well what we were doing and what
we were aiming at'...[Theodore Herzl, the founder of Zionism,
stated] `We shall try to spirit the penniless [Arab] population
across the border by procuring employment for it in transit
countries, while denying it employment in our own country...
Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor
must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly'...At various
locations in northern Palestine Arab farmers refused to move
from land the Fund purchased from absentee owners, and the
Turkish authorities, at the Fund's request, evicted them...The
indigenous Jews of Palestine also reacted negatively to Zionism.
They did not see the need for a Jewish state in Palestine and
did not want to exacerbate relations with the Arabs." John
Quigley, "Palestine and Israel: A Challenge to Justice."
Inherent anti-Semitism? - continued
"Before the 20th century, most Jews in Palestine belonged to
old Yishuv, or community, that had settled more for religious
than for political reasons. There was little if any conflict
between them and the Arab population. Tensions began after the
first Zionist settlers arrived in the 1880's...when [they]
purchased land from absentee Arab owners, leading to
dispossession of the peasants who had cultivated it." Don
Peretz, "The Arab-Israeli Dispute."
Inherent anti-Semitism? - continued
"[During the Middle Ages,] North Africa and the Arab Middle
East became places of refuge and a haven for the persecuted Jews
of Spain and elsewhere...In the Holy Land...they lived together
in [relative] harmony, a harmony only disrupted when the
Zionists began to claim that Palestine was the 'rightful'
possession of the 'Jewish people' to the exclusion of its Moslem
and Christian inhabitants." Sami Hadawi, "Bitter Harvest."
Jews attitude towards Arabs when reaching Palestine.
"Serfs they (the Jews) were in the lands of the Diaspora, and
suddenly they find themselves in freedom [in Palestine]; and
this change has awakened in them an inclination to despotism.
They treat the Arabs with hostility and cruelty, deprive them of
their rights, offend them without cause, and even boast of these
deeds; and nobody among us opposes this despicable and dangerous
inclination." Zionist writer Ahad Ha'am, quoted in Sami
Hadawi, "Bitter Harvest."
Proposals for Arab-Jewish Cooperation
"An article by Yitzhak Epstein, published in Hashiloah in
1907...called for a new Zionist policy towards the Arabs after
30 years of settlement activity...Like Ahad-Ha'am in 1891,
Epstein claims that no good land is vacant, so Jewish settlement
meant Arab dispossession...Epstein's solution to the problem, so
that a new "Jewish question" may be avoided, is the creation of
a bi-national, non-exclusive program of settlement and
development. Purchasing land should not involve the
dispossession of poor sharecroppers. It should mean creating a
joint farming community, where the Arabs will enjoy modern
technology. Schools, hospitals and libraries should be
non-exclusivist and education bilingual...The vision of
non-exclusivist, peaceful cooperation to replace the practice of
dispossession found few takers. Epstein was maligned and scorned
for his faintheartedness." Israeli author, Benjamin
Beit-Hallahmi, "Original Sins."
Was Palestine the only, or even preferred, destination of
Jews facing persecution when the Zionist movement started?
"The pogroms forced many Jews to leave Russia. Societies
known as 'Lovers of Zion,' which were forerunners of the Zionist
organization, convinced some of the frightened emigrants to go
to Palestine. There, they argued, Jews would rebuild the ancient
Jewish 'Kingdom of David and Solomon,' Most Russian Jews ignored
their appeal and fled to Europe and the United States. By 1900,
almost a million Jews had settled in the United States alone."
"Our Roots Are Still Alive" by The People Press Palestine
Book Project.