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.
