The Indigenous People
Introduction
One of the prevailing narratives is that Israelis are "European White colonizers" who stole the land from the Palestinians, who are considered indigenous to this region.
While I will address the first part—The European White Colonizers—on another page, this page will focus on the topic of immigrants versus indigenous people and the ownership of the land.
The Question of Who is Indigenous to the Land
To answer this question, we need to explore the following:
- The connection of Jews and Arabs to the land in ancient history.
- The connection of Jews and Arabs to the land in modern history.
Sensitive Topics
There is no definitive answer to the question of when we should start considering history. Similarly, there is no clear answer to what is "too ancient" to be meaningful. For instance, if Jews lived here 3,000 years ago, but other families lived here for another 1,000 years, who owns the land? It's hard to say. Hence, this topic may be disputable. I will try to present enough evidence to make it more prominent.
The State of the Population During the Ottoman Empire
We cover the state of the population during the British Mandate on the page “Who Owns The Land”. An important question to consider when looking at the population in Israel is: how far back should we look to decide? There is no one good answer to that.
While there were more than a million Muslims in Israel in 1947, that was not always the case. In the early 1800s, there were only around 250,000 Muslims in the country. While this was still much more than the number of Jews, you also need to consider that Jews were expelled by the Ottoman Empire and had to live as second-class citizens (paying the Jizya tax, along with other taxes). The Ottoman Empire promoted migration into less populated areas (such as Israel), increasing the Muslim population during the 16th century.
In 1831, Muhammad Ali Pasha of Egypt took control of the land of Israel and controlled it until 1839. During that time, he sent many (numbers are unknown but estimated to be more than 30,000 people) to live there, increasing the number of Muslims in the area.
During the British Mandate, many more Muslims immigrated to Palestine for economic reasons. This explains how the Muslim population grew from around 250K to 1M (four times) in less than 150 years.
So, while it is true that Jewish immigration was substantial, so was Muslim immigration.
Traveler Books from Ancient Times
While there was no early Ottoman census early enough to understand how many Jews were there prior to the 19th century, there were quite a few Europeans (mostly Christians who wanted to visit the Holy Land) who traveled to Israel in the last 2,000 years and wrote about it. Although this cannot be used as solid evidence as it is subjective, it does provide another perspective on the state of the land in those days. A good example is Adriani Relandi's book of 1699. He was a Christian who wrote about journeys to the Land of Israel, mentioning a Jewish majority. See here: Adriani Relandi Visit to Palestine 1699 - YouTube.
Palestine
Another anecdote is the use of the name “Palestine.” While it is anecdotal, many posts claim that “Palestinians were there long before the Jews,” and so that deserves a discussion.
The Origin of the Name
The origin of the name Palestine is from the Roman Empire. After the Bar-Kohva revolt (around 132 CE), the Romans decided to punish the Jews by removing names associated with them, instead using the name Syria (which is north of Israel) and Palestina, after the Philistines.
Fun Fact
According to recent research, the Philistines were actually Greek, making them European colonizers.
During the Ottoman Empire, the name Palestina or Palestine was not used. The area of Israel was called South Syria.
During the Mandate
When the British arrived in Israel, they called the land “Palestine.” When writing in Hebrew, they also used the acronym א”י - Eretz Israel (the Land of Israel). The Arabs did not use that name at the time.
Here is a nice video about it.
Actually, while the Arabs considered themselves as Arabs, the name “Palestinians” was mostly used by the Jews and for Jews. For example:
- The Anglo-Palestine Bank was a Jewish bank, later renamed to Bank Leumi (“The National Bank”), which exists to this day.
- The Palestinian Airways (which was called in Hebrew “Land Of Israel Airways”/“נתיבי ארץ ישראל”) was a Jewish airline.
- The Palestine National Football team was a Jewish team, later turned into Maccabi, which exists until this day. Here is a video of a 1939 game of the team against Australia. Note how the terms Palestinians and Jews are used for the same purpose.
Modern Use
The use of “Palestinians” for the Arabs of the area of Palestine started to become common in 1964 when Yasser Arafat started the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization).
Liberating Palestine
Many people claim that the Palestinians are only trying to have their own state within the borders of pre-1967. Sadly, the current leadership instills the idea that the entire land of Israel is theirs and that the state of Israel needs to be eliminated. When discussing this, note that the PLO was created in 1964, prior to the 1967 war, while the West Bank was in the hands of Jordan and Gaza in the hands of Egypt. So, what was it trying to liberate? Obviously, the answer is the entire land of Israel. The fact that this is still the view of many (and probably most) Palestinians today can be found in different surveys and can be seen in videos such as this video from UN Watch and this video from “The Ask Project”. I love the quote by Golda Meir: “We were at the borders of 1967 in June of 67 and in May of 67, why wasn’t there peace?”
The strategic move by the Arabs to call themselves Palestinians allowed them to connect themselves to the area that was called Palestine for many years, thus claiming that they are the real indigenous people of the land. Their claim is that they are converted Jews who have lived here for thousands of years. For some, this might be true, while most of them, as we’ve seen, are immigrants. Some even go further and claim that they are descendants of the original Philistines. This is, of course, not true, but if it were, it would make them European colonizers (see above).
Jewish Presence in the Land of Israel
There is no doubt that, even in small numbers, there has been a constant Jewish presence in the land of Israel since ancient times (more than 3,000 years). There are overwhelming archaeological findings that connect Jews to the land, and not many findings that connect others to it. To see some of them, I recommend looking at videos by Josh and by Traveling Israel.
The Al-Aqsa Mosque
One of the biggest disputes between the Palestinians and the Jews is in Jerusalem, specifically the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The Al-Aqsa Mosque is a mosque built on top of the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem and is considered the holiest site for Muslims in the Middle East and one of the most important in the world.
According to current belief, the Muhammad visited the Al Aqsa mosque as part of the Isra, a night journey, which makes it an important place for all believers Nevertheless, this belief was probably spread by the Mufti of Jerusalem to increase its importance during the time of the Ottoman empire. It is important to note that Jerusalem itself is not mentioned even once in the Quran (and is mentioned 669 times in the Jewish bible, with additional 154 times mentioned as Zion, an alternate name for it), and that Muhammad who lived in the Arab peninsula probably never really visited in the area. A more probable Claim is that “Al Aqsa” reffers to a mosque in Al Ju'ranah, near Mecca, where two mosques resided - the near one mosque and the far mosque, “Al Aqsa” (the edge) is the further one.
Additionally a very important fact is that the Jerusalem Al Aqsa mosque was built either during the rule of the Rashidun caliph Umar (634–644 CE) or the Umayyad caliph Mu'awiya I (661–680 CE) in, while Muhammad lived between 570 and 632 CE, which means he died at least 12 years before the mosque was built
An act of colonialism
The Al-Aqsa mosque was built on top of the Temple Mount - the place where the two Jewish temples were built. The Jewish temple was the most important religious building for Jews. Jews pray towards Jersusalem (no matter where they are in the World) and mention Jerusalem in many prayers, and in many ceremonies such as every Jewish wedding.
When expanding the second temple, to overcome Jerusalem’s terrain made of mountains and valleys, king Herod built a large artificial platform surrounded by walls and supported by arches. TheJewish temple was built on that platform. The Al Aqsa mosque is built on top of that platform built by a Jewish king, for the Jewish temple. In other words - they turned the most sacred place for Jews into a place of prayer for Muslims. This is a very clear and brutal act of colonislism
Conclusion
As you can see - while there are Palestinians who are indigineous to the land, and there was an Arab Majority in Israel in the past centuries, most of the 1947 Arabs are immigrants. The Palestinian identify is modern, and before that there was no distinction between Arabs from Israel, Jordan, Syria or Iraq. Moreover Archeological findings connect Jews to the land therefore I think it cannot be questioned that Jews are at least as, if not more indigineous to the land