A great little lecture on the origin of Zionism as a secular movement

@BlueVeins first of all, Israel is not the Palestinian homeland. They are descended from Arabs who colonized the region (Arabs are from the Arabian peninsula) with broadly Levantine admixture. Jews are specifically from Judea and Samaria, which is modern day Israel and the West Bank. Nevertheless the Palestinians have West Bank and Gaza, Israel is not trying to take those away, but the reason for the current war is because of Hamas’s actions on October 7th and their continued holding of Israeli hostages.

Also it’s important to note that when Israel was established the Arab population in the region was given the right to remain, so long as they did so peacefully. The ones that were “displaced” left voluntarily under the promise from their Arab leaders that the Jews would be eradicated. Well Israel won that one, and all the Arabs that did not leave in hopes of the Jews all being killed, the ones who actually stayed and made peace, they became Israeli citizens, and their descendants now have equal rights with Jewish Israelis.

Meanwhile Jews are not allowed in Gaza.

@Zeuro Israel was conquered by the Roman Empire, which became the Byzantine Empire. The Byzantines Christianized some of the Jewish folks living there. Then, the caliphate rolled in and Islamized most of those Christians. The Palestinians are the ones who stayed and adopted the religious views of those empires, while the Jews are the ones who fled persecution and whatnot and kept practicing their faith. It's true that Palestinians have some amount of lineage from surrounding Arab countries, but so too do Ashkenazi Jews have some amount of lineage from Europe. I'm sure you wouldn't argue that that makes them too ethnically impure to claim Israeli heritage.

Perhaps you're not so different after all.

@Zeuro That's a load of Zionist propaganda.

@BlueVeins Palestinians have BROADLY Levantine admixture. Ashkenazim, as with all Jewish ethnicities, trace their ancestry specifically to Judea and Samaria, aka modern day Israel and the West Bank. Palestinian ancestry cannot be traced to the region of Israel, only neighboring countries like Syria, Lebanon, Jordan. So no, Ashkenazim do have an actual claim to the land of Israel, Palestinians (which wasn’t even a thing until the 40s, before they were just “Arabs”) do not. It’s like people with ancestry from the Midwest trying to claim California because the other source of their ancestry conquered it once, at the expense of people who directly trace their ancestry back to California, and some of whom never even left California. The Arab/palestinian population in the region of Israel did not have significant numbers until after the first wave of Aliyah, where Jews came back to Israel and began cultivating the previously mostly unoccupied land, started businesses, which attracted Arabs from neighboring countries in the Levant. That is what caused the Arab population boom, them coming over from nearby countries. Nevertheless, the Arabs were offered a significant portion of the region, a bigger area than modern day Gaza and West Bank, but the Arabs refused and then waged war on the Jews.

@Zeuro

This is untrue. Both the Palestinians and Israelis have ancestry that traces back to the Caananites. The genetic evidence and the historical record is aligned on this issue.

https://web.archive.org/web/20210304131003/https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/dna-from-biblical-canaanites-lives-modern-arabs-jews#expand

As early as 1800, there were as many as 275 thousand people living in Palestine. There was migration other parts of the Levant and Egypt and whatnot, sure, but the population growth seen from 1800 to 1950 (or wherever you want to draw the line) is roughly consistent with birth rates seen in developing countries.

@Zeuro The current "Palestinians" were Arabs up until about '67 when the KGB helped Arafat (who was born in Cairo in 1929) cook up the new identity..

@BlueVeins no, actually, that is untrue. And the boom in the Arab population was largely a result of them coming from neighboring countries in the Levant AFTER the first wave of Aliyah. When Jews made the area more livable and desirable by introducing agriculture and business. Also, the region of Canaan was not just Judea and Samaria. So that doesn’t contradict my statement that they come from elsewhere in the Levant. Jews are SPECIFICALLY from Judea and Samaria. Palestinians are not.


Even if both Jews and Palestinians have some ancient Canaanite ancestry, that doesn’t prove equal claims to the land. Lots of modern Middle Eastern groups share ancient DNA, it doesn’t mean they all have direct ties to a specific place like Judea or Samaria. Jewish people maintained a continuous identity tied to that land for thousands of years, while Palestinians didn’t exist as a distinct group until the 20th century.

Also, you’re ignoring the fact that Arab migration into the area increased after Jews began returning and building up the land. That wasn’t just “natural population growth”—it was driven by new economic opportunities created by Jewish communities. So no, the demographics weren’t static, and the Arab population boom didn’t happen in a vacuum.