Would any American Jew please explain?

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MBC

It's a very good question, but I would also urge the American Arabs reading this to answer. That is because many of them love to rail against Israel for taking land from the Palestinians while at the same time they have CHOSEN to come live in a country that owes its existence in large part to land confiscation from the indigenous people.

The truth is I am sitting right here in Texas, a land that, at least when it comes to fairly recent history, has some things in common with Israel. Mexico once had title to this land, but because it was a huge land and not very well-populated, agreed to allow white settlers from the United States to the east to come and settle here.

After some time, the white settlements grew in number until their numbers made the Mexicans very nervous, as the number of Mexicans living there was not growing nearly as fast. The Mexicans eventually forbade further white immigration. To make a long story short, the white settlers decided to fight and declare independance from Mexico and war broke out. Eventually, the white settlers won and the Republic of Texas, its own independent country, was born. Later it became part of the United States.

So all of us Texans are living on land that was taken from Mexico unwillingly to be a new sovereign nation. As regards much of the rest of the US, land was often taken from the native peoples and they were pushed onto reservations. That is definitely true.

Would any American now say, "Here, take my house, I'll move back to Ireland." (or wherever their ancestors came from)? No. Not even the most liberal and sympathetic person would say that. That is not to say that nobody cares about them, it's just that we can't change what has been done.

And herein lies the dilemma for Israelis and Palestinians. Some things are not going to be able to be changed. We have to recognize that. But we can still hope and work for a better outcome than what happened to the Native Americans who were almost entirely wiped out and now have some of the highest rates of poverty, alcoholism and other drug addiction, unemployment, depression, and suicide in the country.

So I would like to ask the Arab Americans or other Americans (as well as the many other people from countries with a colonistic history) reading this, aren't you also benefitting from the confiscated land of others? Try not to be so smug when considering Israelis then, many of whom were also born into the same situation you have CHOSEN or were born into as well.

EDIT: I try my best. :)

Super Jew

"Many times I read: there are no Palestinians mentioned in the Quaran and the history. Well, Americans, where are Americans mentioned in bibical times? I never heard about them mentioned back then, but - you are here on Y/A now and nobody doubts it."

You raise a very good point, though you may have done so on accident:

Americans aren't mentioned more than a few hundred years ago because before that, there WERE no Americans. Native Americans weren't called Native Americans because the continent had not been found by European explorers and named America.

Similarly, Palestinians aren't found very far back in history (though some would claim, incorrectly, that the Palestinian Arabs of today are related to the Phillistines of ancient times - the connection in fact exists in name only) because there WERE no Palestinians! It's a made-up concept. "Palestinian" even used to refer to the Jews living in Palestine. But there was never a country called Palestine, with set borders, or a government. Heck, if you're looking at the region historically referred to as "Palestine," you're talking about southern Syria, and you're talking about what is now Jordan.

Palestinian nationhood is an artificial construct, invented for the purpose of countering Zionism. If it makes you feel any better, the idea of an "Israeli" national identity is a recent invention too, only a few years older than the Palestinian one. The country called Israel today isn't the historical homeland of the Israelis, it's the historical homeland of the Jews. But since the majority of Israelis are Jewish, we're just splitting hairs.

Mark S, JPAA

Here is a history lesson:

"The land formerly known as Palestine."

The region formerly known as Palestine was formerly known as Israel and only renamed to Palestine by the Romans in order to offend the Jews who lived there

Maybe you have never read a history book but the Jews have been continuously living there for over three thousand years

How long have Arabs or Muslims been living there? Nowhere near as long.

Half of Jewish history had already happened there by the time Mohammed even spoke his first words.

The history of the area is complex due to the many tribes and (later) nations that settled, conquered and ruled, traded there or moved through: Canaanites, Philistines, Samaritans, Nabataeans, Greeks, Romans, Muslims and Christians.

In pre-Biblical times, the area was known as the Land of Canaan and had been a collection of city-states, tributary to the Egyptian Pharoah, as attested to in the Tel-El Amarna tablets. The breakup of the Egyptian empire beginning about 1500 BC made possible the invasion of the Israelites. According to Jewish tradition, twelve tribes entered Canaan from Egypt and conquered it, led by Moses approximately 1240-1200 BC. Historical evidence from the Amarna tablets suggests that there were already 'apiru' (Hebrews) among the Canaanites in the time of Egyptian rule.

During the final years of the Late Bronze Age, the Philistines also invaded Canaan (1500 - 1200 BC). Other evidence suggests that around 1200 BC, semi-nomads from the desert fringes to the east, joined by elements from Anatolia, the Aegean, and the south, possibly including Egypt, began to settle in the hill country of Canaan. A large proportion - probably a majority of this population - were refugees from the Canaanite city states, destroyed by the Egyptians in one of their periodic invasions.

The Biblical account continues with the rise of an Israelite kingdom, first under Saul and then under David at about 1000 BC, the date of David's conquest of Jerusalem.

In 539 B.C. the Persians conquered the Babylonians. The Jewish Temple, destroyed by the Babylonians, was rebuilt (516 BC). Under Persian rule the Jewish state enjoyed considerable autonomy. Alexander the Great of Macedon, conquered the area in 333 BC His successors, the Ptolemies and Seleucids, contested for control. The attempt of the Seleucid Antiochus IV (Antiochus Epiphanes) to impose Hellenism brought a Jewish revolt under the Maccabees, who set up a new Jewish state in 142 BC The state lasted until 63 BC, when Pompey conquered the region for Rome.

At the time of Christ the Jewish state was ruled by puppet kings of the Romans, the Herods. When the Jews revolted in 66 AD, the Romans destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem (70 AD). The Bar Kokba revolt between 132 and 135 AD was also suppressed, Jericho and Bethlehem were destroyed, and the Jews were barred from Jerusalem. The Roman Emperor Hadrian determined to wipe out the identity of Israel-Judah-Judea. Therefore, he took the name Palastina and imposed it on all the Land of Israel. At the same time, he changed the name of Jerusalem to Aelia Capitolina. The Romans killed many Jews and sold many more in slavery. Some of those who survived left the devastated country (and established Jewish communities throughout the Middle East) but there was never a complete abandonment of the Land of Israel. That is, there were always Jews and Jewish communities in Palestine, though the size and conditions of those communities fluctuated greatly.

When Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity (312), he took steps to elevate the status of Jerusalem and the city became a center of Christian pilgrimage. Constantine relaxed some restrictions on Jews, but renewed the prohibition on the residence of Jews in Jerusalem, permitting them to mourn for its destruction once a year, on the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av.

Palestine over the next few centuries generally enjoyed peace and prosperity until it was conquered in 614 AD by the Persians. It was recovered briefly by the Byzantine Romans, but fell to the Muslim Arabs under caliph Umar by the year 640. During the Umayyad rule, the importance of Palestine as a holy place for Muslims was emphasized, but little was done to develop the region economically. Few Arabs came to Palestine; the Muslim rulers ruled Christians and Jews.

In 691 the Dome of the Rock was erected on the site of the Temple of Solomon, which is claimed by Muslims to have been the halting station of Muhammad on his journey to heaven. Close to the Dome, the al Aqsa mosque was built. In 750, Palestine passed to the Abbasid caliphate, and this period was marked by unrest between factions that favored the Umayyads and those who preferred the new rulers.

In the 9th century, Palestine was conquered by the Fatimid dynasty, which had risen to power in North Africa. The Fatimids had many enemies - the Seljuks, Karmatians, Byzantines, and Bedouins - and Palestine became a battlefield. Under the Fatimid caliph al Hakim (996-1021), the Christians and Jews were harshly suppressed, and many churches were destroyed. In 1099, Palestine was captured by the Crusaders, establishing the Latin Kingdom. Jews were seen by the Crusaders as infidels, as bad as the Muslim occupiers of Jerusalem, and were slaughtered by Christian soldiers along their way to liberate Jerusalem and then thousands in the city when they got there. Following the first Crusade, a Papal Bull was issued in 1119 AD to reinforce St. Augustine's earlier plea, in 427 AD, not to kill the Jews, but to allow them to wander the earth as evidence of their rejection by God.

By the time the Crusaders were defeated by Saladin at the battle of Hittin (1187), and the Latin Kingdom was ended, Palestine had become a wasteland. Mongol invaders who arrived in 1260 destroyed many of the villages. The Mamluks ended the Crusader period in 1291, but under Mamluk rule Palestine declined further. Mamluks burned and sacked towns and villages, uprooted orchards, and destroyed wells. In 1351, the Black Death was reported in Palestine and by 1500 the population had declined to barely 200,000 people. For comparison, the state of New Jersey, roughly comparable to Israel in size, had a 2001 population of about 8.5 million people and still had rural, undeveloped areas.

In 1516 the Mamluks were defeated by the Ottoman Turks. The first three centuries of Ottoman rule isolated Palestine from outside influence. The discovery of sea routes to the East began to erode the importance of the Middle East to commerce. In 1831, Muhammad Ali, the Egyptian viceroy nominally subject to the Ottoman sultan, occupied Palestine. Under him and his son the region was opened to European influence. Ottoman control was reasserted in 1840, but Western influence continued. The Ottoman tax system was ruinous and did much to keep the land underdeveloped and the population small. When Alexander W. Kinglake crossed the Jordan in 1834-35, he used the Jordan's only bridge, a survival from Roman antiquity. Among the many European settlements established, the most significant in the long run were those of Jews, Russian Jews being the first to come (1882).

World War I led to the British expulsion of the Ottoman Turks as rulers over their province of Palestine. In the war, the Ottoman empire aligned with Germany against France and Britain. The war also gave Britain the excuse to depose the Egyptian Khedive, Abbas Hilmy, and to create a British protectorate there.

In 1920, following the defeat of the Turks, the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, and the peace conferences after World War I, the British Mandate for Palestine was created by the League of Nations. The Mandate was international recognition for the stated purpose of "establishing in Palestine a national home for the Jewish people." Note that this is long before World War II.

The area of the Mandate was originally 118,000 square kilometers (about 45,000 square miles). In 1921, Britain took the 91,000 square kilometers of the Palestine Mandate east of the Jordan River, and created Trans-Jordan (later the Arab country of Jordan) as a new Arab protectorate. Jews were barred by law from living or owning property east of the Jordan river, even though that land was over three-fourths of the original Mandate.

In 1923, Britain ceded the Golan Heights (another 1,176 square kilometers of the Palestine Mandate) to the French Mandate of Syria. Jews were also barred from living there. Jewish settlers on the Golan Heights were forced to abandon their homes and relocate inside the westerb area of the British Mandate.

The total remaining area of the Mandate for Palestine, after these land deductions, was just under 26,000 square kilometers (about 10,000 square miles). The southern part of the Mandate â€“ the desert of the Negev â€“ was also closed by the British to Jewish settlement. The area was inhabited by 15,000 roaming Bedouins, and had no Jewish or Arab settlements in it.

The balance of the Mandate, the inhabited part of Palestine, and only the part west of the Jordan, was just 14,000 square kilometers. Jewish immigration was limited by the British from time to time, especially after the periods of Arab riots and severely restricted after 1939. At the same time, Arab immigration was not restricted or even recorded. By 1948, when the State of Israel was founded, 1.8 million people lived the western area of the Mandate, estimated to be 600,000 Jews and 1.2 million Arabs. Following the war between the Jews and the Arabs in 1948, the inhabited areas of the 14,000 square kilometers were divided along cease-fire lines between Israel and Jordan/Egypt. 8,000 square kilometers, or 57% of the reduced area (which is only 6.7% of the original Mandate territory), became Israel. The rest of the area of western Palestine, 5,700 square kilometers of historic Judea and Samaria, was annexed by Jordan â€“ and renamed the West Bank - while 360 square kilometers were occupied by Egypt and called the Gaza Strip.

In 1946, Britain unilaterally granted Transjordan its independence completing the action taken in 1922 when all land within the Mandate east of the Jordan was set aside for the Arabs. With Transjordan's independence, the British had partitioned Palestine and created an independent Palestine-Arab state with 77% of the original territory.

In 1947 Great Britain declared its Mandate in Palestine "unworkable" and referred the matter to the youthful UN. That body created a special committee of eleven member states to study the issues and report its recommendations. The UN Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) was the first truly independent tribunal to examine the Palestine question. UNSCOP's majority concluded that the League of Nations pledge of a Jewish national home had never been fulfilled, as Jewish immigration and land purchases had been artificially restricted by the British Mandate authorities.

The committee recommended an end to the British Mandate and the partitioning of the area. However, the partition plan was directed only at the 23% of the original Mandate that was left after the British subdivision that gave 77% to create the Arab territory of Transjordan. Of the remaining 23%, 56% was allocated to a Jewish state, 42% to an Arab state, and an international zone for the holy places in and around Jerusalem was allocated 2%.

On November 29, 1947, the U.N. General Assembly by a two-thirds vote (33 to 13 with Britain and nine others abstaining) passed Resolution 181 partitioning Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab. The Jewish community of Palestine jubilantly accepted partition despite the small size and strategic vulnerability of the proposed state. Not only were Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip not included, but also Jerusalem, most of the Galilee in the North and parts of the Negev desert in the South were excluded. The Arab national movement in Palestine, as well as all the Arab states, angrily rejected partition. They demanded the entire country for themselves and threatened to resist partition by force. Had they accepted the U.N. proposal in 1947, the independent Palestinian Arab state, covering an area much larger than the West Bank and Gaza, would have been created along with Israel. Instead, they launched a war to destroy the nascent Jewish state.

It is important to note that there was a Jewish population in Palestine continuously. Even after the Jewish state was ended by the Romans, Jewish communities continued to exist. All of the successor governments tried to eliminate the Jews at one time or another, but none succeeded as numerous accounts testify over the centuries. When the Zionists started the modern "return" to Eretz Yisrael in the 19th Century, they were joining Jews who never left.

Why do Arabs call themselves Palestinians when the Philistines were Ethnically Greek?

jas

I really had to think about your question to figure out wth you were asking, but I believe that you want to know why Jews sometimes delegitimize Palestinians.

There is endless banter back and forth about who are the legitimate tenants of Judea and Samaria with each side saying the other has no historical ties to the land. Why?

Because people are frustrated. This is an emotional cat and mouse game meant to push each others buttons and ultimately has no bearing on the final solution where the truth of the matter is that nobody is going nowhere.

Arabs in the ME have difficulty accepting defeat, especially when it is a result of their own intransigence. The frustration inevitably inspires idiotic beliefs such as Jews never lived in Israel, there never was a Temple, the Temple was in Nablus and not Jerusalem, and all other kinds of narishkeit.

In return Jews, incapable of resisting the opportunity for an argument, will make similar statements regardless of the fact that Arabs will never listen to a word that is spoken.

So the sooner both sides realize this we can stop the meaningless rants and beating of chests and move on with how to live as 'neighbors'.

samiam-
no offense but that was spoken like an excellent dhimmi.

Mr. X

every inch of earth has been "stolen" by somebody or other at some point.

every inch of land that the arabs have were stolen from someone. it's hilarious to hear them talk about "stolen palestinian" land when the arabs stole it from earlier inhabitants.

we are past the point where you can call some bit of land arab or jewish or anything. we all must be able to live anywhere. israel is doing this; a million arabs live free within her borders. most countries are doing this.
unfortunately, some arabs still think they can have land that is free of jews and other non-muslims. they think somehow the land belongs to them and anyone else living on it is stealing. that is wrong. the arabs stole it in the first place, and at this point they are going to have to learn how to share.

Mashtin Baqir

Let us be realistic.

John Bagot Glubb, the commander of Jordan's Arab Legion, said: "Villages were frequently abandoned even before they were threatened by the progress of war."

In 1958, former director of UNRWA Ralph Galloway declared angrily while in Jordan that the Arab states do not want to solve the refugee problem.

A former Palestinian militant said, "Why is it that on June 4th 1967 I was a Jordanian and overnight I became a Palestinian?
"We did not particularly mind Jordanian rule. The teaching of the destruction of Israel was a definite part of the curriculum, but we considered ourselves Jordanian until the Jews returned to Jerusalem. Then all of the sudden we were Palestinians - they removed the star from the Jordanian flag and all at once we had a Palestinian flag.

"When I finally realized the lies and myths I was taught, it is my duty as a righteous person to speak out."

reader

The history of man kind is full of stories of people coming to live in some other people's land. Many examples have been stated by others in the previous answers.
But should be open the door for such claims as to get back the so called ancestors land and commit genocide against entire populations under the excuse that they are living in somebody's ancestors land.
Soon we would hear that the descendant of the people of Canaan claiming their grandparents land from the Jews.

Hatikvah JPA

The people who wanted to return to Israel are those who LEFT when the war started in order to fight with surrounding nations who ATTACKED Israel. They could have stayed and fought alongside the Israelis as many Arabs did (and are still Israeli citizens). Traitors should be hung, not granted amnesty! However, they never received any punishment at all and now the millions of descendants are begging for asylum in the democratic country their ancestors hated.
.

roswellmuscle

Not Jewish but am American.There was a war between the Natives and the Europeans on the North American continent.The Natives or Indians lost.Too bad for them.There have been numerous wars between Israel and the Arab nations.Israel always wins.Too bad for the Arabs.No Arab or Muslim can win a face to face fight.All they can do is stick a knife in someone's back or toss a bomb at women and children.The world will be a more peaceful place when all the Muslims are gone.

HopelessZ00

I can't speak for the Americans but in Canada the Aboriginals had the belief that they did not own the land, therefore welcoming the French when they first arrived and working with them. The French did not want to take the land or make war. When the British came up from America, they were full of trickery and gave whiskey to the Aboriginals (who had never seen or heard of it before) and once becoming drunk signed away the land for 1,000,000. Today since 1867 they live on reservations without clean water, many die of cancer, social issues etc. There are currently over 500 land claims which still have not been settled.

It would explain Canada's lax attitude of finding a lasting peace solution. America's also. If they can't take care of their business at home and if not enough people at home can take care of their own business, or even care to take care of it, why would they care about Israels business , really?

And why would they care about the Natives of the land , no matter if they are called Palestinians or called another name. They are from there and have the same fundamental rights as anyone else born in their own land, from Russia to China to where ever.

The refugee camps are even worse than the aboriginal reservations. In the end may all people start being a little bit more human and know that all have the same red blood. And start treating each other better, so we can make positive changes for all involved. Peace.

Jdriven

Speaking for the American Native.
Bad comparison. There is nothing similar in the history of the conquest of America, by so many different nations, before the Brits ended up with it.
For problems with the white man you have to start with the French and the East India Trading Co.
We were here before the white man and have been here all this time.
I think if you asked enough modern day Natives, your con census would be God Bless America.

Ivri Anokhi

Hopeless ZOO talks about the refugees. It is well-known and understood that the Arabs, in demanding the return of the refugees to Palestine, mean their return as masters of the Homeland and not as slaves. With a greater clarity, they mean the liquidation of the State of Israel (Al-Misri, October 11, 1949).

The Arab Higher Committee ordered the evacuation of several dozen villages, as well as the removal of dependents from dozens more in April-July 1948. The invading Arab armies also occasionally ordered whole villages to depart, so as not to be in their way (The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, MA: Cambridge University Press, 2004, p. 592).

After the 1948 war, Egypt controlled the Gaza Strip and its more than 200,000 inhabitants (now many times that number), but refused to allow the Palestinians into Egypt or permit them to move elsewhere. This fits in nicely with your two-cat analogy.

They don't like them all that much today either, but they have let 700,000 Gazans into Sinai, with not much hope of their returning to Gaza.

.

buffytou

The area currently known as Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, and a small part of Syria and Egypt has never been an independent nation, except as Israel. While many empires have controlled the land, throughout all of recorded history going back 3500 years, the only nation that has ever been there has been Israel. This history of Israel goes back further than any other nation that has ever existed. And since the Israelites interbred with the other Canaanites, there is no other ethnic group that has any claim to the land. The Jewish state of Israel predates Arabs in Egypt, Arabs in Israel, Arabs in Jordan, Arabs in Syria, Arabs in Lebanon. How much stronger claim can one have over the land.

As far as your ridiculous question. The people of the Koran knew about Israel and Palestine, but just didn't care about it. The people of the old testament did not know about America.

Having intermarried with the other native Canaanites, Jews are the original residents of the land. Your analogy would be more apt if you cast the invading Arabs as the Europeans and the Jews as the Native Americans, with the exception that in this case, the Native Americans would still have a country.

I still want to know how, since throughout all of recorded history, Israel/Palestine/Canaan has been Jewish, how some people from elsewhere can pretend to be the natives? The entirety of recorded history is a pretty strong deed to the land. It doesn't get any better than that.

rabie

actually there is a main difference here Jews ARE NOT the natives we are
@mark here is a history lesson for you
Arabs didn't come to Palestine with Islam there were here centuries before as CANAAN OR PHOENICIANS you can go to REAL history books to tell you so or even read the Bible to know of the people the Israelis had to fight under the command of Moses' disciple and to your astonishment and ignorance you will find that they were called PALESTINIANS

JewishGirl

i have no problem with calling palestinians "palestinians", no matter how recently they have taken on the name. its the name they've chosen for themselves, so its as good as any other.

as for "americans stole the land of the indians", as much as i respect the aboriginal peoples, i think the idea that an entire huge continent of the earth rightfully belongs to a tiny population of people just because some tribes built some villages here and there is pretty much bull. 99% of the land was uninhabited and ungoverned and therefore fair game to be populated by whoever arrived on it and wished to populate it. i do support reparations made to the aboriginal peoples, such as financial grants and tax-free status, but because the europeans wiped out their culture and identity and have kept them oppressed for a very long time and now they need some assistance to get back on their feet, not because their land was stolen.

i also am against terror and do not wish to see arabs end up like the american natives today. if an arab can provide reasonable proof that he owned some property in modern-day israel and was forced off of it, then by all means the government of israel should make reparations to him.

Gamla Joe

I would never make such a stupid or erroneous comment.

The Arabs that lived in the area of the British Mandate decided for whatever reason to call themselves Palestinians. Why should that bother me? A name is a name nothing more. If you be called Palestinian then I will call you that.

It is just the same as when someone argues that Arabs cannot be Anti-Semetic because they are also Semites. Both are arguing meaningless semantics in order to hide what they really feel.

As for the Native American bit I personally do not believe that any group is "native" to any land we are not animals that evolved their. All humanity came from a small place in Africa, that is where we are all native too.

In that same vein I do not believe that any particular group of people is entitled to any particular bit of land. After all what gave the Romans right to the Levant or the Persians for that matter?

The sad fact is people differentiate themselves based on language, culture, and beliefs. And often those things cause conflict between two or more groups. Often times it means in order to avoid conflict groups must separate themselves.

---------------------
If you want to understand how my explanation works in the context of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict feel free to email me.

Shay p

France is mentioned in Kings- a- 18, do the French have a right

Before Palestinians there were Jews, so by your logic the Jews/Habirus should have the land, and they do, let the Indians do what must be done to get theirs back.
As for forefathers, when its convenient you go by the father, when it isn't you go by Palestinians.

eimittaa

yes there is another example of how Texas was stolen from the Mexicans. Texas in the 1800's was part of Mexico and there were spanish speaking Mexicans living there. Over time at first a few Anglo (white American settlers) started to move into the area of Texas. At first the Mexicans welcomed the Anglo Settlers and then more and more settlers came into the land with a different language Englsih for the Settlers and Spanish for the Mexicans. Over time too many english speaking people came and overwhelmed the origianl Mexican population. Different language and culture and customs and so the land was taken away from Mexico. Now many generations later how would the descendants of the conquerors feel if they lost Texas and it went back to mexican control. (this is happening today with virtual uncontrolled immigration and invasion over the border.)

So how would the Anglo-american descendants feel if the land of Texas went back to Mexico.

This is the way the inhabitants of Palestine started to feel since the 1880's when the zionist invasion of their land began a land where they and their ancestors were living for literally hundreds of years. (It doesn't matte rwhat they are called some call them Palestinians others refuse to call them that but the bottom line is that an indigenous people were living ther ein the 1880's and throughout into the 1980's and until this day and they are haivng their land stolen from them.

How can the descendants of a people come back and reclaim waht had been lost. Just like Texas had been lost from the Mexicans. So do the new descendants of the oldtime Mexicans have the right to come and steal the land of Texas from the new tenants (dwellers (ameicans)

This is a complicated question.

Whoo!

Yes, Americans didn't "steal" the land. They CONQUERED it! And Israel has been there since the beginning. That was 5000 years ago. Remember? It used to be Cannaan till the Israelites conquered it and that was The Promsied Land. Then, it was renamed Palestine, I think by the Romans. But Jews were always living there. And then, 1948, Israel got it's independence and the Arab bedouins that were they said "oh, we're the "Palestinians" and since they multiply like rats, they caused all this trouble.

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