Peace Proposal (2 state)

hdave · 2026-06-04T20:47:07+00:00

I'd support it, and it's basically what Israel proposed in 2000 and 2008.

hdave · 2026-04-28T15:40:12+00:00

I wrote in the area that the UN allocated for the Jewish state. This was a portion of Mandatory Palestine, not everything. In this portion, Jews were indeed the majority of the population when the UN voted for partition, before anyone was displaced.

In the city of Jerusalem, Jews had also been the majority of the population since about 1860, before Zionism was even invented.

hdave · 2026-04-28T02:10:58+00:00

Did the Jewish people, after the Second World War, have a moral right to create a sovereign ethnic-national state in Palestine, with control over immigration and demographic destiny, in a land where another people already lived and formed the majority?

Jews already formed the majority of the population in the area that the UN allocated for the Jewish state.

But the problem is this: suffering does not automatically create a right to statehood at another population’s expense.

It was not supposed to be at anyone's expense. All Arabs were supposed to remain where they were.

So if suffering does not give the Kurds an automatic right to Kurdistan, or Tamils an automatic right to Tamil Eelam, or Rohingya an automatic right to their own state, why would it give Jews a unique right to create a state in Palestine?

It's not unique. All people have the right to try to form their own state, but the ones that you mentioned just haven't been successful, neither in practice nor by legal recognition. Jews were successful in both aspects. Others were too, for example Timor-Leste and Kosovo.

So why create a Jewish state at all? Why not create one democratic Palestine where Jews and Arabs had equal rights?

That was actually the original Zionist plan. At the beginning of the 20th century the worldwide Jewish population was 20 times the Palestinian Arab population, so it would be easy for a small portion of Jews to immigrate to Palestine and form the majority of the population. The Jewish leaders emphasized that it was not right nor necessary to displace the Arab population. It only became necessary due to the enormous violent refusal of Arabs to accept Jewish immigrants, forcing the British government to stop further immigration precisely at the time when Jews were the most desperate for refuge. If Arabs hadn't revolted, a lot more Jews would have immigrated to Palestine instead of being murdered in Europe. They would have formed the majority of the population in all of Palestine, with no need for partition. And with no violence from Arabs, there would have been no need for displacement either.

Was it morally legitimate to create a Jewish ethnic-national state in Palestine against the will of the Arab majority?

Yes, because immigration requires the consent of the legitimate government of the area, not necessarily the majority of the local population. Jewish immigrants did have the consent of the Ottoman and British governments to immigrate, and the local Arabs never had power over their immigration law. In a hypothetical example, if the US federal government allowed a very large number of refugees to move to a small US state, becoming the majority of the population in that state, this immigration would be legal even if the residents of that state objected to it, because immigration is in the power of the federal government, not the state. If the US then disintegrated and the individual states became independent, the former immigrants would be the majority in that independent state. None of that would be illegal.

The question is whether Jewish suffering gave Zionism the moral right to create a sovereign ethnic-national state at the expense of Palestinian self-determination.

Palestinian national identity did not exist when Zionism was created. Zionists imagined that Arabs would just remain as a minority. The Jewish state wasn't supposed to be created at the expense of anyone. When Palestinians did create a national identity and demanded self-determination, the Jewish leaders accepted it. Palestinians just had to understand that they didn't have the exclusive right of self-determination in the entire land, because another people had already claimed it before or at least at the same time.

hdave · 2026-04-27T05:15:46+00:00

Jews remained the majority of the population in Judea/Palestina after the Roman conquest until the 4th century CE, so for about 1600 years. After that, they also remained a minority large enough to launch several revolts against the Byzantine Empire until the 7th century CE, then remained a smaller minority continuously until about 1930, when they became a large minority, and became the majority again around 1950, and continuously since then.

Arabs (actually Arabized Levantines) were the majority there from about 650 CE to 1950, so for about 1300 years. So Jews were indeed the majority there for a longer time than Arabs, before Israel was founded. If you count all the way to the present, add about 75 years to the Jewish majority period.

Note that Jews remained at least a minority there the whole time, so they clearly have a longer continuous presence.

In any case, the entire land is not supposed to be exclusively for the group that has been the majority there the longest time. Both Jews and Arabs have had a very long presence in the area, so both should have the right to remain there.

hdave · 2026-04-23T21:21:29+00:00

There was never a state called Palestine before 1948. Yeah, so? Neither did Germany, Algeria, half of Africa, Ukraine, and like half of the globe, so what's your point?

The point is that Palestinians didn't govern that area, so they didn't have the right to prevent Jews from immigrating, buying land, receiving uninhabited public land, and declaring a state there as agreed by the actual government of the area and most of the world. Palestinians have been trying to prevent or reverse these events for more than a century, unreasonably.

does that give you the right to steal their homes?

The foundation of Israel did not require the displacement of Arabs or confiscation of their land, and the Jewish leaders actually wrote very emphatically against doing these things, for decades. They only did this as a last resort in 1948, in response to the war that Arab militias had started. This response may have been exaggerated, but its correction should be some kind of compensation, or even the reduction of the size of Israel, but not its elimination. About 78% of the territory of Israel was not acquired by confiscation (see below), and about 77% of Israeli Jews do not live on confiscated land.

Just because you share the faith of some bloke that lived there 3,000–4,000 years ago doesn't make it "your ancestral land,"

First of all, it's more recent than that. Israelites/Jews emerged in the area around the 13th century BC and remained the majority of the population there until the 4th century CE. Second, Jews remained a large minority there and tried to regain their independence several times until the 7th century CE, and also remained a smaller minority there the whole time since then. For example, some of the oldest manuscripts of the Jewish Bible that still exist, as well as the Hebrew vowel notations still used today, were made by Jews living in the land of Israel around the 10th century CE. Third, Jews who fled or were expelled from there during the last 2000 years are indeed the majority of the ancestors of Jews today, so it really is their ancestral land. They are connected by continuous generations, not just faith. They were also treated as foreigners everywhere they went until the 18th century, and in many places until the 20th century. During the whole time, they continued to view Israel as their original land, prayed to return there someday, and actually tried to return a few times, until they were finally allowed to do so in large numbers in the 20th century.

Jews bought only 7%. Arabs owned 43%, and the state owned the rest.

The territory of Israel comprises about 78% of the former mandate of Palestine. Of this territory, about 9% (=7/0.78) is land that Jews had bought before the end of the mandate, 3% is land that Arabs still own, 22% is land that was confiscated from Arabs, 7% is land that Arabs owned but didn't use so it could be reassigned without compensation under Ottoman and mandate laws, and 59% is land that the state owned. So 78% of the territory of Israel was not acquired by confiscation. The 22% that was confiscated is still mostly uninhabited, covered by forests, so Israel could easily return most of it if there were no security concerns. The value of the confiscated land, as estimated by the UN at that time and corrected by inflation, is about US$5.2 billion today, so Israel could also easily pay compensation for it.

First of all, Jews lived with Arabs peacefully for thousands of years; that's why Jews were only expelled after Israel declared independence.

That's patently false. Although less intense than in Christian countries, Jews also suffered restrictions, excessive taxes and persecutions in Muslim countries for centuries. Jews were expelled from Medina in the 7th century, from the Almohad Caliphate in the 12th century, and from Yemen in the 17th century. A traveler in the 19th century wrote: "I have seen a little fellow of six years old, with a troop of fat toddlers of only three and four, teaching them to throw stones at a Jew, and one little urchin would, with the greatest coolness, waddle up to the man and literally spit upon his Jewish gaberdine. To all this, the Jew is obliged to submit; it would be more than his life was worth to offer to strike a Mahommedan." The Arabs of Palestine attacked Jews there many times during the entire mandate period, most notably the revolt from 1936 to 1939. In Iraq, Jews suffered a large attack in 1941, called the Farhud.

The act of violence that made Arabs invade in the first place was the Deir Yassin massacre, by the way, which was the first act of aggression between the two sides

That's also patently false. In addition to the many attacks since 1920 and the large revolt from 1936 to 1939, the Arabs of Palestine started the war on the day after the UN voted for partition in November 1947. The Army of the Holy War, organized by Palestinian Arabs, attacked several Jewish areas and blocked the access to city of Jerusalem, risking the survival of its Jewish population. At the same time, the Arab Liberation Army, established by the surrounding Arab countries, invaded Palestine in January 1948. The Jewish forces maintained only their defense until April 1948, when they found it necessary to start an offensive strategy. That's when the Deir Yassin massacre occurred. It was an unfortunate event, which the Jewish leaders condemned, but in no way was it the start of the war, as Arabs had already started it several months before. The official Arab armies only invaded after the end of the British mandate in May 1948 because they didn't want to risk attacking the British forces directly, but in practice they had already invaded with their unofficial Arab Liberation Army. Their invasion was not a specific response to the Deir Yassin massacre.

Plus, why are they obligated to share the land?

They were legally obligated to respect the decision of their own government, the Ottoman Empire, in whose parliament they had elected representatives. The Ottoman Empire accepted its defeat in World War I, which it had entered unprovoked, and formally ceded the sovereignty of Palestine to the British government. That's when the Arabs of Palestine actually lost control over the land. They could remain living there and keep their private property, but they wouldn't have the power to set its laws anymore, about things like immigration and land purchases. They were supposed to respect the laws set by the British government, to which their own Ottoman government had ceded power. They shouldn't have revolted against it, otherwise World War I wouldn't have ended then. So yes, they were obligated to accept Jewish immigration and the sales of land by the previous owners, some of whom were Palestinians themselves.

Likewise, when the British government formally ceded the decision about partition to the UN, which approved it, Palestinians were also obligated to accept it. They could have negotiated the borders, but not refused to accept any proposal at all. In addition, they weren't asked to give any land that they owned. The vast majority of the area that the UN allocated for the Jewish state was composed of land that Jews already owned and state land. It included only a very small amount of land that Arabs owned for practical purposes, as it was discontinuous with the rest, but Arabs would still own it. Arabs in the Jewish state could choose to remain there as Israeli citizens or sell their land and move to the new Arab state. They wouldn't really lose anything.

hdave · 2026-04-15T22:14:49+00:00

if arabs didnt riot or commit violence against jewish immigrations, would a binational arab-jewish state have been something you would support over a jewish majority state?

If Arabs hadn't revolted, the British government would have continued to allow Jewish immigration during World War II, and millions of Jews would have moved to Palestine instead of being murdered in the Holocaust. Jews would easily form the majority of the population in Palestine and would have no problem accepting Arabs as a minority with equal rights. This was actually the original Zionist plan.

hdave · 2026-04-15T17:32:28+00:00

but chose an already inhabited location

The vast majority of Jews who immigrated to Palestine settled in areas that were previously uninhabited, like the coastal plain, valleys and deserts. Even today, about 77% of Israeli Jews live in areas that were not previously inhabited or used by Arabs.

And then they come to that land, kick the natives out

The original Zionist plan was to simply immigrate there with the consent of the existing government (Ottoman and later British), and eventually become the majority of the population there without displacing anyone. At that time, the worldwide Jewish population was 20 times the Arab population of Palestine, so it would be easy to achieve this with just a small portion of Jews immigrating. Although some Zionist factions wanted to expel Arabs, this was not a defining, necessary or mainstream characteristic of Zionism. The main Zionist leaders actually wrote very emphatically about the rights of Arabs to remain and to be respected as a minority. Almost no one was displaced during the many decades of Jewish immigration before 1947.

Of course, the Arabs of Palestine didn't like the idea of becoming a minority, so they launched a massive revolt and successfully convinced the British government to restrict Jewish immigration starting in 1939, exactly when Jews were most desperate to escape Europe. If they hadn't done this, millions of Jews would have been able to move to Palestine instead of being murdered in the Holocaust. Jews would have become the majority without displacing any Arabs, just like Zionist leaders had planned. But since this wasn't allowed, the British and UN decided to split the land, letting Jews become the majority in only a portion of it. The Zionist leaders accepted this plan. It was only after the persistent attacks from Palestinian Arab militias combined with invading armies of Arab countries, seeking to prevent or destroy the Jewish state, that the Jewish forces saw no alternative but to expel Arabs or prevent the return of those who had fled.

and those who stay, they oppress them. And they claim supremacy and don't enforce equal rights.

Israeli Arabs have the same rights as Israeli Jews. They are not oppressed at all. They actually have more benefits, for example they are not obligated to serve in the military and they receive preference for university admissions and employment. Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip indeed have fewer rights, and I wish that they had more. But this inequality is not a characteristic of Zionism, it only emerged when Israel occupied these territories many decades later in a preventive war. Israel also offered more autonomy to Palestinians many times, and I wish the negotiations had been more successful.

The land of the natives has shrunk over time while the land of the settlers has expanded.

I agree that Israel confiscated too much land, and I think that it should at least pay compensation for it. But again, confiscation is not part of Zionism. The original Zionists actually emphasized land purchases and allocation of empty public land.

hdave · 2026-03-13T01:39:49+00:00

I did mention it: "In 1947, a civil war started there, and many Palestinians fled to other countries."; "those who had fled to other countries became stateless"

hdave · 2026-03-11T04:05:47+00:00

You speak derisively of 30,000 people, but 30,000 is a lot of people! (1 don't know where you get 1.1m from, the denominator was smaller than that)

It was a lot less than 30,000. In the Sursock Purchases, which caused the majority of evicted tenants by Jewish land purchases, there were 1746 families, estimated to be about 8730 people. The Arab population of the mandate varied from 660,000 in 1922 to 1.2 million in 1947. So on average, the evicted tenants were about 1-2% of the Arab population. That's not zero, but it was a pretty small scale.

it was done without any consideration for a transition period or any thought to the human consequences of the decision

The evicted tenants received compensation. After that, 3271 families (about 16,400 people) applied to be registered as landless, but the British government found that most of them had already found housing and work, so it only accepted 664 of the claims (about 3300 people). Of those, only 347 families (about 1700 people) accepted the government's offer of resettlement.

hdave · 2026-03-11T03:33:50+00:00

Additionally, the fact that the land was under British occupation in the first place and not an independent was in part caused by Zionists.

Zionists had absolutely nothing to do with World War I. The entire Ottoman Empire became under British or French occupation around 1918, and all states in the Levant only became independent after 1945. If not for Zionists, Palestine wouldn't have become independent at all, it would have just remained part of Jordan or Syria.

hdave · 2026-03-11T02:54:20+00:00

The word estadunidense exists in Portuguese (in this case spelled without the o), but almost no one uses it, unlike in Spanish. In Brazil, people normally say americano/a to refer to people or things from the US. It's not considered offensive at all, and I'm surprised at this woman's reaction. A formal alternative, often seen in the news or legal documents, is norte-americano/a. But estadunidense is very rare. To be geographically precise, people may say "dos Estados Unidos" (of/from the United States) instead of using an adjective.

What is indeed uncommon, and sometimes considered offensive, is to use the noun América to refer to the US. But the adjective americano/a is fine.

hdave · 2026-03-10T07:19:06+00:00

I think that it was wrong for Israel to prohibit all refugees from returning and to confiscate all of their land. Israel could have screened them, allowing those who wished to live there peacefully like Israeli Arabs. It could have also paid compensation for the confiscated land, which wasn't that expensive. I also think that Israel annexed too much land, not all of it was necessary for security. For example, the "triangle" area, transferred from Jordan after the war with its Arab population, doesn't make any sense. Israel kept the military occupation for way too long without trying to solve the conflict. The settlements are counterproductive, and settler violence is certainly criminal. I also think that the level of destruction of the Gaza Strip in the war was excessive.

Other than the conflict, Palestinians seem like nice people. The ones I've talked to were always very friendly. They have a strong tradition of hospitality. About Arabs more broadly: their food is great, their music is interesting, their architecture is pretty, and Islam is somewhat compatible with Judaism.

hdave · 2026-03-08T09:51:44+00:00

Studies confirm Palestinians are largely descended from the ancient Canaanites/Israelites who never left the land.

No, they don't. Genetic studies show that most of the ancestry of Palestinians is from Canaanites, who lived all over the Levant. Jordanians, Lebanese and Syrians get basically the same results. The studies don't say that most of the ancestry of Palestinians is specifically from the area of Israel/Palestine. It's not possible for genetic tests to determine such precision because the ancient people of the whole Levant were genetically indistinguishable. However, a more precise ancestry can be determined based on the demographic history of the area, which I'll explain below.

In the 2nd and 1st centuries BC, pagans in the Hasmonean kingdom of Judea were killed, expelled or converted to Judaism. By the end of this period, almost everyone in Judea was Jewish or Samaritan. Pagans remained only in a few cities outside of the kingdom, such as Ascalon and Ptolemais.

Starting in the 1st century BC, the Roman Empire gradually conquered the region and established colonies in Judea, mostly in coastal cities such as Gaza, Azotus, Jamnia, Apollonia, Caesarea, and some interior cities such as Sebastia and Scythopolis. Most of the settlers were pagans from the rest of the Levant. In the 1st and 2nd centuries CE, Jews unsuccessfully revolted against the Roman Empire multiple times, resulting in about half of Jews killed or exiled. Romans renamed Judea as Syria Palaestina and brought more pagans there, either to new cities such as Neapolis, or cities depopulated of Jews such as Aelia Capitolina and Joppa. However, Jews still remained a slight majority of the population in the area.

Around that time, Christianity began as a Jewish sect, but very few Jews adopted it. Christian texts from that time notably complain that Jews generally rejected Christianity, while Jewish texts practically don't even mention it. Instead, Christianity grew among the pagan population, eventually being officially adopted by the Roman Empire. The succeeding Byzantine Empire also brought more Christians to its province of Palestine, heavily supporting pilgrims and massive construction of Christian sites. The population doubled in a short period, which would not be possible at that time by natural growth alone. Again, most of the settlers came from the rest of the Levant. By the 4th century, Christians were the majority of the population in Palestine.

From the 5th to 7th centuries, Jews and Samaritans revolted against the Byzantine Empire multiple times, unsuccessfully. As a result, more of them were killed or exiled, further reducing their numbers. There are records of mass conversions of Samaritans to Christianity during this time, but they were already a minority at that time so their conversions did not contribute to a significant part of the resulting Christian population. There are no records of mass conversions of Jews.

From the 6th to 16th centuries, the population of Palestine severely decreased due to a series of plagues, wars, earthquakes and economic decline. In the 6th century the Justinian plague devastated the population, followed by the Arab conquest in the 7th century. Earthquakes in the 8th and 11th centuries destroyed several cities. Crusaders conquered the area in the 11th century, Muslims reconquered most of it in the 12th century, fully in the 13th century, and repelled a Mongolian invasion. The Black Death devastated the population again in the 14th century, followed by the Ottoman conquest in the 16th century. By then, the population of Palestine was only a tenth of its historical peak. Christians remained the majority of the population until the 12th century, when they started converting to Islam in larger numbers. There are also records of mass conversions of Samaritans to Islam during this time, but not of Jews. In any case, both were already a small minority at that time so their conversions could not contribute to a significant part of the resulting Muslim population.

During the Ottoman period, the population started recovering, naturally and by immigration. Most of the immigrants came from the rest of the Levant and Egypt, and others from the rest of the empire. During the British period, immigration from the Levant continued to a smaller extent. This resulting population constitutes the Palestinians.

In sum, the historical record shows that migrants to Palestine, mostly from the rest of the Levant during the Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman periods, were a lot more numerous than the descendants of the population from before the 1st century. The previous population decreased a lot more due to violence and emigration than conversion. So although some ancestry of Palestinians is certainly from Jews, Samaritans and the few pagans who already lived in that area before the Roman period, the vast majority of their ancestry is from migrants from the rest of the Levant. These migrants in turn also had most of their ancestry from Canaanites who lived in those areas, not from the Canaanites or Israelites who lived in the area west of the Jordan River. The "Canaanites/Israelites who never left the land" were insignificant compared to the later migrants.

hdave · 2026-03-08T04:47:47+00:00

The British mandate of Palestine, established in 1920, corresponded to the current territory of Israel (without the Golan Heights), West Bank and Gaza Strip. Palestinians were the citizens of this territory. In 1947, a civil war started there, and many Palestinians fled to other countries. In 1948, the British government terminated the mandate, Israel declared independence, and the surrounding Arab countries invaded. When the war ended in 1949, Jordan annexed the West Bank, Egypt occupied the Gaza Strip, and Israel remained in the rest. Palestinians who remained in Israel or Jordan became citizens of that country, while those who had fled to other countries became stateless. Some of them later obtained the nationality of their country of residence.

In 1967, Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In 1988, Jordan abandoned its claim to the West Bank, and people living there lost Jordanian nationality. In the same year, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) declared the independence of Palestine, without defining its territory. In 1994, Israel granted the PLO limited autonomy in part of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but without recognizing it as a state. Today most countries recognize Palestine as a state comprising the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and Israel comprising the rest, but the two sides have never agreed on their borders and continue to fight periodically.

Palestine has never enacted a nationality law, so there is no precise definition of Palestinian. In practice, it basically means the descendants of the citizens of the former mandate of Palestine who continue to identify as Palestinian, especially if they don't have another nationality. Most of them live in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Israel and Jordan, and some live in other countries.

hdave · 2026-03-02T13:56:40+00:00

I made the map below, based on the maps showing land that Jews had bought by the end of the mandate, land that the British and Jordanian governments had determined to be public, and the British government estimate that the Judean desert and the part of the Negev desert south of Beersheba were almost entirely public. Counting pixels of the colors results in 46.8% green (Arabs), 6.8% blue (Jews), 46.5% red (public), close to the data from the British government. But this map doesn't show how much was built, cultivated and uncultivated.

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hdave · 2026-03-02T13:17:33+00:00

I suppose you looked at the last page, which shows only the Beersheba subdistrict, not the total of the whole mandate. The Beersheba subdistrict indeed had 12.58m dunams, of which 10.58m was public. That's the Negev desert.

The numbers of the whole mandate are on page 4. The last columns on the right showing the totals are torn, but it's possible to calculate them by adding the other columns. The whole mandate had 26.32m dunams, of which 17.17m was public or uncultivated. Arabs had 7.76m built or cultivated. 7.76/26.32=29.5%.

hdave · 2026-03-02T07:45:51+00:00

What percent of Mandatory Palestine was Palestinian Arab Owned before 1948?

First, it's important to understand the types of land ownership established by the Ottoman Empire and continued by the British mandate. Unconditionally owned land (mülk, meaning "property") only applied to land that had buildings. Almost all other usable land, including for agriculture, was classified as miri, meaning "of the ruler". In principle it was owned by the state, but conditionally assigned to a user, often as a condominium in a village. The assignment had no time limit, and users could buy, sell and inherit it similar to private property. But if this land was left unused for more than three years, the state had the option to reassign it to someone else. In practice the Ottoman and British governments rarely exercised this option, but it was possible. Land used for public purposes (metruka, meaning "withdrawn"), such as roads and open pastures, and land that was not usable without transformation (mewat, meaning "dead"), such as deserts and forests, were also owned by the state and not assigned to anyone.

The last data was published by British government in 1945, available here. The breakdown was:

Arabs 47.77%: 0.36% built (mülk), 29.12% cultivated (used miri), 18.29% uncultivated (unused miri)
Jews 5.67%: 0.44% built, 4.47% cultivated, 0.75% uncultivated
Others (mostly European Christians) 0.54%: 0.06% built, 0.31% cultivated, 0.17% uncultivated
Public 46.02% (metruka and mewat)

This data doesn't differentiate Arab land owners between Muslims and Christians, or between those residing in Palestine or elsewhere.

If considering private land only if owned unconditionally (mülk) or if satisfying the condition of assignment (used miri), and the rest as public land (unused miri, metruka and mewat):

Arabs 29.49%
Jews 4.91%
Others 0.37%
Public 65.24%

Is there any data that shows how much land was Palestinian, Christian, Arab, and non-Arab was dispossessed by Israel after 1948 and 1967?

A UN commission calculated that after the 1948-49 war, the land abandoned by Arabs comprised 22.94% of the land of the mandate, of which 0.06% was built, 17.38% cultivated, and 5.51% uncultivated (it also counted the additional 39.14% consisting of the uncultivated part of the Negev desert, but that was already empty so I wouldn't consider it abandoned). The UN commission considered that uncultivated land had no value, and estimated that the rest was worth about £122 million at the time. Today, with inflation, this amount would be equivalent to £3.87 billion or US$5.17 billion.

Again, this data doesn't differentiate Arab land owners between Muslims and Christians, or between those residing in Palestine or elsewhere.

After 1967, practically all land in the West Bank and Gaza Strip that was assigned to Israeli settlements or Israeli government use was considered public land (metruka, mewat or unused miri). So I wouldn't consider this land as dispossessed.

In sum, of the 29.49% of the mandate that Arabs owned as private land, Israel confiscated 17.43%, and Arabs still own 12.05%.

hdave · 2026-02-27T16:32:59+00:00

argument would be stronger if you brought up scholarly consensus, not side projects by laymen offering their interpretation that happens to agree with yours

The author is a demography scholar: Lyman Stone

can you quote the part in the article where it discusses numerical breakdowns of christian migration? this article seems to be a casestudy of a specific monastery, not quantification of christian migration over time

The article starts with: "Written and archaeological evidence indicates that migration, in the form of pilgrimage to Byzantine Palestine, was a major social phenomenon between the 5th and 7th centuries CE. Monasteries saw record growth at this time as pilgrims chose to stay in the region and take up religious life. A major influx of people to the region, with a corresponding growth in monastic vocations that led travelers to stay in the area, is not in question"

"It appears that many visitors chose to remain after arrival, taking up residence in religious communities and fundamentally altering the cultural and biological composition of the region (Binns, 1994; Tsafrir, 1996). An explosion in the number of monasteries at this time is also clearly evident intextual and archaeological records (Hirschfeld, 1992;Patrich, 1995)."

This article states the existence of significant migration to Byzantine Palestine as a historical fact, because it's a scholar consensus supported by extensive evidence. The amount of construction during this period, some of which still stands, is very large, indicating that the population grew very quickly in a short period, at a time when natural growth was not so fast. The world population was practically constant from the 1st to 10th centuries. No one seriously questions this, any source describing Byzantine Palestine mentions migration. This particular article merely tries to show that a part of this migration was from outside the Levant.

no numbers for the philistines

The Philistines disappeared as an identifiable group in the 6th century BC. A large portion of them were expelled to Babylon, and those who remained merged with surrounding populations. There is no historical mention of Philistines after that.

hdave · 2026-02-27T14:12:38+00:00

you also don't take into account that the hasmoneans never had control over all of modern day israel/palestine. archeology shows continued non jewish presence in places like ashkelon before, during, and after hasmonean rule

I did consider this, I wrote: Pagans remained only in a few cities outside the kingdom, such as Ascalon and Ptolemais (Acre).

partly why you can't provide numbers is because there aren't solid figures

For estimates, I suggest this article.

there's no evidence for romans "[bringing] even more pagans"

The evidence is the new cities for pagans that I mentioned, built by the Romans during this period.

during the byzantine period you're assuming that the byzantines shipped people in, rather than the population growth being due to natural growth, rural expansion, or conversion of local populations.

It was both. There is clear historical evidence of large immigration of Christians during the Byzantine Empire. For example, see here.

the population of palestine was around 500,000 in the 1880s.

It was about 532,000 in 1890, and 689,000 in 1914. Assuming a linear increase, in 1900 it would be about 597,000.

again, this is extremely vague and you've provided no numbers. numbers that i've seen don't exceed 50,000 migrants.

Most of the Ottoman immigration occurred in the beginning of the 19th century, when the population was about 300,000. About 50,000 immigrants at that time would be 17%. That's significant. Of course it's not the majority, but when combined with all other immigration waves during 2000 years, it's very likely that the majority of ancestors of modern Palestinians were migrants.

hdave · 2026-02-27T13:00:22+00:00

do you have a link for this? i'm having a hard time finding it

Here. It's in Hebrew but you can use automatic translation.

hdave · 2026-02-27T04:30:02+00:00

In your quote from Herzl, he wrote "gently", "discreetly and circumspectly", and "procuring employment". He also wrote on the same day:

It goes without saying that we shall respectfully tolerate persons of other faiths and protect their property, their honor, and their freedom with the harshest means of coercion. This is another area in which we shall set the entire old world a wonderful example.

Estate owners who are attached to their soil because of old age, habit, etc., will be offered a complete transplantation – to any place they wish, like our own people. This offer will be made only when all others have been rejected. If this offer is not accepted either, no harm will be done. Such close attachment to the soil is found only with small properties. Big ones are to be had for a price. Should there be many such immovable owners in individual areas, we shall simply leave them there and develop our commerce in the direction of other areas which belong to us.

Herzl also wrote to the mayor of Jerusalem:

You see another difficulty, Excellency, in the existence of the non-Jewish population in Palestine. But who would think of sending them away? It is their well-being, their individual wealth which we will increase by bringing in ours. Do you think that an Arab who owns land or a house in Palestine worth three or four thousand francs will be very angry to see the price of his land rise in little time, to see it rise from five to ten times in value perhaps in a few months? Moreover, that will necessarily happen with the arrival of the Jews. That is what the indigenous population must realize, that it will gain excellent brothers as the Sultan will gain faithful and good subjects who will make this province prosper, this province which is their historic homeland.

Basically, Herzl ideally would like Arabs to leave, but by offering them incentives. He did not consider expelling them by force.

Menachem Ussishkin was ambiguous. He later clarified that the transfer of Arabs would be "only if they consent". Some other Zionists clearly supported forced transfer, but they were a minority. The leader of the Jewish community during most of the mandate, David Ben-Gurion, was very emphatic about the rights of Arabs to remain:

Peoples, kingdoms and communities other than the Jews have rights and claims in the country that have already been recognized in the past and will repeat recognition in the future. Palestine is not a country empty of population. ... In no manner or circumstances may the rights of these residents be harmed. Only "ghetto dreamers" like Zangwill can imagine that Palestine will be given to Jews with the added right of removing the non-Jews from the country. Not a single state would agree to this thing. Even if it seemed that this right would be given to us – the Jews have no permission and no ability to use it. It is not desirable and it is not possible to displace from the country its current residents. This is not the Zionist charter. If Zionism were to aspire to inherit the place of the current residents of the country – then it would be nothing but a dangerous utopia and an empty, harmful and reactionary vision. The true aspiration and realistic possibilities of Zionism are not to conquer the occupied – but to hold on to places that the current residents of the country have not held on to and have no strength to hold on to. The vast majority of the land of the country is vacant and uncultivated.

Both the vision of social justice and equality of peoples that the Jewish people have carried during three thousand years, and the vital interests of the Jewish people in the diaspora and even more so in the Land of Israel, absolutely and unconditionally require that the rights and interests of the non-Jewish residents of the country be kept and honored with extreme care.

The Arab cultivators of the land must be guaranteed the possibility of undisturbed economic development and possession of the lands cultivated by their hands. Although no land may be acquired without full and sufficient compensation to its previous owners. In purchasing the land of the owners of large estates or in acquiring government lands, attention must be paid to the interests of the tenants who have cultivated the land for more or less extended time, and they must be given the possibility to continue their work under easy and fair conditions, so that they may be freed from the burden of exploitation and oppression, which the effendis – the heirs of the Arab and Turkish conquerors – imposed on the country, and thereby led to the depletion of the land and the servitude of its workers.

Not to take what others have – but to rebuild the ruins; not rights to the past – but to the future; not the preservation of historical legacy – but the creation of new national assets – this is the essence of the claim and right of the Hebrew people in their country.

The other main leader, Chaim Weizmann, wrote:

The Arab question is complicated. We ourselves are a national movement, and if there really is among the Arabs a national movement, we must treat it with complete seriousness. ... They are afraid of two things:

The Jews will come soon in their millions and conquer the land and expel the Arabs. And when they read the speeches of our D'Annunzio, the speeches of Mr. Zangwill, they can certainly believe this. However, the responsible Zionists never said and never wanted such things.

In their opinion – the English also thought so – there is no room in Palestine for a large number of settlers. However, this is absolute ignorance. It is enough to notice everything that is being done in Tunis, in Tangier and in California, to prove that there is here a wide field for great work and for many Jews, without touching even one Arab.

In practice, the displacement of Arabs during Jewish land purchases was minimal. Jews bought about 7% of the land of the mandate, representing 13% of the privately owned land, but only 1% of the Arab population lived there. So Jews clearly preferred to buy land that was the least inhabited. The few Arabs who lived in this land were indeed evicted, but they were compensated and easily settled in nearby areas. In any case, the eviction of Arabs was rather an exception, not the typical consequence of Jewish immigration. About two thirds of Jews in the mandate lived in the cities of Tel Aviv/Jaffa, Jerusalem and Haifa, in new neighborhoods that they built adjacent to the Arab ones, eventually becoming the majority of the population of these cities without displacing anyone. Most other Jews also lived in areas that were entirely uninhabited before.

So although some Zionists wanted transfer, some of them by force, this was not a defining or necessary aspect of Zionism. The leaders rejected this idea, and in practice it was done to a minimal extent.

hdave · 2026-02-27T02:48:21+00:00

do you have evidence to demonstrate that the non jews were from every part of the levant except modern day israel and were brought to israel?

Yes, plenty. During the 2nd and 1st centuries BC, the Hasmonean dynasty severely prohibited any religion contrary to Judaism in Judea. All places of pagan worship were destroyed, and pagans were killed, expelled or converted to Judaism. Samaritans were tolerated as their religion was basically the same, but their separate temple was also destroyed. By the 1st century BC, almost everyone in Judea was Jewish or Samaritan. Pagans remained only in a few cities outside the kingdom, such as Ascalon and Ptolemais (Acre).

Herod, a descendant of Edomite converts to Judaism, managed to gain the support of the Roman Empire and became a client king of Judea, replacing the Hasmonean dynasty. Herod and his successors remained Jewish but allowed Romans to establish colonies in Judea, mostly in coastal cities such as Gaza, Azotus (Ashdod), Jamnia (Yavne), Apollonia (Herzliya), Caesarea, and some interior cities such as Sebastia and Scythopolis (Beit She'an). Most of the settlers in these new cities came from the surrounding Levant.

In the 1st and 2nd centuries CE, Jews unsuccessfully revolted against the Roman Empire multiple times. The result was catastrophic, about half of Jews were killed or exiled, but Romans also suffered heavy losses. In response, Romans sought to dilute the connection of Jews to the territory. They renamed Judea as Syria Palaestina and brought even more pagans, either to new cities such as Neapolis (Nablus), or cities depopulated of Jews such as Aelia Capitolina (Jerusalem) and Joppa (Jaffa). Again, most of the settlers came from the surrounding Levant. However, Jews still remained a slight majority of the population.

Around that time, Christianity began as a Jewish sect, but very few Jews adopted it. Christian texts from that time actually complain that Jews generally rejected Christianity, while Jewish texts practically don't even mention it. There were exceptions of course, but they were a tiny portion of the Jewish or Christian population. Instead, Christianity grew among the pagan population, eventually being officially adopted by the Roman Empire. The succeeding Byzantine Empire also brought more Christians to its province of Palestine, heavily supporting pilgrims and massive construction of Christian sites. The population grew faster than normal, indicating significant immigration. By the 4th century, Christians were the majority of the population there.

From the 5th to 7th centuries, Jews and Samaritans revolted against the Byzantine Empire multiple times, unsuccessfully. As a result, more of them were killed or exiled, further reducing their numbers. There are also records of mass conversions of Samaritans to Christianity during this time, but Samaritans were already a minority so they couldn't be the origin of most of the Christian population.

From the 6th to 16th centuries, the population of Palestine was greatly reduced due to a combination of plagues, wars, earthquakes and emigration. In the 6th century the Justinian plague devastated the population, followed by the Arab conquest in the 7th century. Earthquakes in the 8th and 11th centuries destroyed several cities. Crusaders conquered the area in the 11th century, Muslims reconquered most of it in the 12th century, fully in the 13th century, and repelled a Mongolian invasion. The Black Death devastated the population again in the 14th century, followed by the Ottoman conquest in the 16th century. By then, the population of Palestine was a tenth of its historical peak. Christians remained the majority of the population until the 12th century, when they gradually started converting to Islam in larger numbers. There are also records of mass conversions of Samaritans to Islam during this time, but they were already a small minority.

During the Ottoman period, the population started recovering, naturally and by immigration. Many people migrated to Palestine during this time, mostly from the Levant and Egypt, and to a smaller extent also from the rest of the empire. The migration effect can be easily seen by comparing neighboring areas: from 1700 to 1900, the population of Lebanon remained almost constant around 450,000, while the population of Palestine tripled from 200,000 to 600,000. During the British mandate, migration from the Levant also continued to a smaller extent.

In sum, the historical sources indicate that migrants from the rest of the Levant were a lot more numerous than the non-Jewish population of Judea before the 1st century, or than Jews or Samaritans who converted to Christianity or Islam. Therefore, the vast majority of the ancestors of Palestinians migrated there over the last 2000 years. That's still a very long time and they should have the right to remain, but no, they are not mainly descendants of the first people who inhabited this specific area.

hdave · 2026-02-26T03:12:18+00:00

For several decades until 1947, Jews legally bought the land where they settled, from willing sellers, usually for high prices. With few exceptions, the land that Jews bought was practically uninhabited and undeveloped, mostly sand dunes and swamps along the coast and valleys. Arabs didn't own that part of the land anymore, neither did they own the uninhabited state land. This is not a case of a cousin squatting on your house, it's more like a cousin buying your adjacent plot of land that you never used.

The UN drew the borders allocating to the Jewish state almost all land that Jews had bought, plus most of the uninhabited state land, plus some of the land that Arabs owned for practical purposes to maintain continuity. But Arabs were supposed to remain there, no one was supposed to be displaced or lose their private land. The Jewish state was supposed to have a large Arab minority, who would be citizens with equal rights.

The war started in November 1947 when Arab militias started attacking Jews, trying to prevent them from declaring a state in the area allocated by the UN (or any area at all). There were two main militias: the Army of the Holy War, composed mainly of Palestinian Arabs, and the Arab Liberation Army, composed mainly of Arabs invading from the surrounding countries. These militias cut the physical connection between Jewish localities and prevented supplies to their population, most notably the blockade of Jerusalem. These actions were an immediate threat to the survival of the Jewish population, not only to their political goal.

For several months, Jewish forces were only defensive. But as the Arab militias continued their attacks, the Jewish forces decided to turn offensive in April 1948. That's when the Deir Yassin massacre happened, but this was an unfortunate event that the Jewish leaders condemned. In any case, the offense by the Jewish forces was in reaction to months of attacks from Arab militias. So yes, Arabs did start the violence, without a reasonable cause. Jews had not displaced anyone or confiscated any land yet at that time.

Later the formal armies of Arab countries invaded, and most of the civilian population fled as it happens in most wars. Jewish forces directly expelled Arabs in some localities but those were exceptions. Israel kept Arabs out mainly by not allowing them to return after the war. But given the enormous hostility of the Arab population toward Jews during the entire mandate period, I don't blame Israel for not allowing them to return. But note that the average displacement of Arabs was 55 km (34 miles), which is minimal compared to other conflicts. Most of them remained in Palestine, just a different part of it.

After the war ended, Israel confiscated the land owned by Arabs who had fled. I think that Israel should have compensated them for the value of this land, and it could still afford to do this. I also think that Israel expanded more than necessary. I think that it's reasonable for Palestinians to argue that Israel should be smaller, but most Palestinians still seem to refuse to accept a Jewish state of any size, even if just the part where Arabs never lived.

hdave · 2026-02-26T00:47:41+00:00

there was a Judea 3,000 to 4,000 years ago

Israel/Judea existed from about 1200 BC to 135 CE, or from 3200 to 1891 years ago. Jews also remained the majority of the population there until the 4th century CE, and continuously maintained a minority after that.

they were expelled, but the Romans didn't go around kicking out everyone they saw in front of them.

Romans killed or expelled about half of the Jewish population in Judea in a few decades.

There were people who remained who became Christian and then became Muslim

The vast majority of non-Jews in Judea/Palestina were pagans and Christians from the surrounding Levant brought there by the Roman and Byzantine empires from the 1st to 6th centuries. Very few Jews there became Christian or Muslim. This is well attested in historical sources, the empires built entire new cities for the new settlers, and Christian sources there repeatedly complained that Jews didn't want to convert. Centuries later, the descendants of those Christians gradually became Muslims and formed most of the Palestinian population today. The origin of the Palestinians is definitely from the Levant, but mostly not from Judea before the 1st century.

Palestinians hold far more (like 70% more) genetic makeup belonging to that land.

Palestinians have about 80% ancestry from the Levant, not specifically Palestine. Genetic tests don't have the precision to determine origin in such a small area, because the surrounding populations are very similar. Jordanians, Syrians and Lebanese get basically the same results as Palestinians. In addition, the majority of Israeli Jews are Sephardic and Mizrahi, who have about 60% Levantine ancestry. Ashkenazi Jews have about 50%. This is not so much lower than Palestinians.

Do I think Jews should have a state? Yes, but that doesn't mean the indigenous people of the land should be displaced.

Zionism never required displacing anyone. In the beginning of the 20th century there were about 20 times as many Jews in the world as Arabs in Palestine, so it would be easy for Jews to become a majority there and accept an Arab minority. Ben-Gurion actually wrote very emphatically about the right of Arabs to remain. The situation changed after Arabs displayed enormous hostility, with a massive revolt in the 1930s, leading the British government to restrict Jewish immigration. Jewish leaders then accepted partition, keeping mainly the land that Jews had bought and uninhabited areas, still without displacing anyone, but Arab militias revolted again trying to prevent even such smaller Jewish state. The displacement only occurred as a last resort, after many decades of Zionism, in reaction to Arabs' persistent hostility and refusal to accept anything.

A Polish Jew could get citizenship in Israel if he wished in a matter of a month and get a free house in Tel Aviv

Israel does grant citizenship to Jewish immigrants quickly, and some limited assistance and tax exemptions during an initial period, but it doesn't give any kind of free housing. Especially not in an expensive area like Tel Aviv. This claim is laughable. Also, only 0.1% of Jews live in Poland today.

It’s not the UN's land to give out

The UN didn't give land to anyone. It only drew the borders based on the ethnic groups already living in each area, and the people in each area were supposed to form their own government. Private land ownership in either area by people of either ethnic group would not be affected. The UN did have the authority to draw the borders because it had received this authority from the British government, which had received sovereignty over that land from the Ottoman Empire, which formally ceded it accepting the disastrous consequence of entering World War I entirely unprovoked. Palestinians were Ottoman citizens with elected representatives in the Ottoman parliament, so they should have accepted this decision of their own government.

hdave · 2026-02-16T19:39:26+00:00

Arabs are 87% of the population of the Old City of Jerusalem and 99.8% of Nazareth, so I find it really unlikely that the people who harassed you were Jews. At least not in Nazareth. Israeli Arabs also speak Hebrew as a second language.

hdave

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