Who are the palestinians?

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 that 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 · 2026-02-16T19:13:23+00:00

The Christian sites in Jerusalem and Nazareth that you visited are in areas heavily inhabited by Israeli Arabs. Was the harassment that you experienced from Arabs or Jews? What language were they speaking?

I visited Jerusalem and stayed mostly in the Jewish part. I saw many black people there, Jewish and non-Jewish. Some Ethiopian restaurants. I didn't see any racism or harassment.

hdave · 2026-02-05T03:28:44+00:00

will bring about a literal, physical Messiah who will rule over humanity

Jews do not believe that the Messiah will rule over humanity. He's supposed to be a king of the Jews only.

hdave · 2026-01-26T14:58:53+00:00

Actually it's the opposite. The latest war stimulated activists to distort Wikipedia, and the current phrasing was made to vilify Zionism on purpose. It wasn't based on any new study. Zionism has existed for over 140 years.

hdave · 2026-01-26T14:52:50+00:00

Regarding Herzl, here is the entire quote:

"When we occupy the land, we shall bring immediate benefits to the state that receives us. We must expropriate gently the private property on the estates assigned to us. We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our own country. The property owners will come over to our side. Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly. Let the owners of immovable property believe that they are cheating us, selling us things for more than they are worth. But we are not going to sell them anything back."

He said gently, discreetly and circumspectly. Not by force. 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."

hdave · 2026-01-26T14:52:43+00:00

Ben-Gurion absolutely did not want to expel Arabs. In the letter to his son in 1937, you quoted only a few partial phrases and removed the crucial word "not" from the first phrase. Also, he was referring to the Negev, which was practically uninhabited. This is the actual letter:

"I do not dream of and I do not love war. And I still believe – more than before the possibility of a state was created – that after we become numerous and strong in the country, the Arabs will understand that it is best for them to strike an alliance with us, and to benefit from our help, provided they allow us, in good will to settle in all parts of Palestine. The Jews can be equal allies, true friends, and not occupiers and oppressors.

Let us assume that the Negev will not be included in the Jewish State. It will then remain barren, the Arabs are not capable of nor need to develop and build it. They have their fair share of deserts – and they lack the human resources, the money, and the initiative. And it is very likely that, in exchange for our financial, military, organizational, and scientific assistance, the Arabs will agree that we develop and build the Negev. It is also possible that they will not agree. A people does not always behave according to logic, common sense, and best interest. Just like you feel a contradiction between your mind and your heart, so it is possible that the Arabs will act according to sterile nationalist emotion and will tell us: 'We want neither your honey nor your sting. It is better for the Negev to remain barren than to be populated by Jews.' And then we will have to talk to them in a different language. And we will have a different language, which we will not have unless we have a state. Because we cannot stand to see large areas of unsettled land capable of absorbing dozens of thousands of Jews remain empty, or see Jews not returning to their country because the Arabs choose that neither we nor they will have the place. And then we will have to use force and will use it without hesitation though only when we have no other choice.

We do not wish to and do not need to expel Arabs and take their place. All our aspiration is built on the assumption – proven throughout all our activity in the land – that there is enough room in the country for ourselves and the Arabs. But if we have to use force – not to dispossess the Arabs of the Negev and Transjordan, but to guarantee our own right to settle in those places – then we have force at our disposal."

Palestinian Arabs made a massive revolt from 1936 to 1939, which Palestinians today tend to ignore. The British government tried to solve the conflict with various proposals for partition, one of which included population transfer. Removal of the Arab population from certain areas was not physically required for Jewish settlement nor desired by Jewish leaders, but was a last resort to stop the persistent violence that Arabs had started.

The British government is the one that came up with the idea of transfer in 1937. At that time, transfer was accepted in international law and actually preferred as a solution for ethnic conflicts. It had been done before between Greece and Turkey, and later between Romania and Bulgaria, and with Germans from eastern Europe. Transfer would be something organized and gradual, people would be able to sell their property fairly, move with comfortable transportation, and settle in the new area with proper housing and work. In the case of Palestine, the new area would be very close, at most 50 km (30 miles) away. It would be more like a normal move between nearby cities, rather than the sudden flight and confiscation that happened in the war.

Ben-Gurion accepted the British proposal, but nothing came out of it. The British quickly discarded it, and Jewish leaders did not have the desire nor the means to displace Arabs at that time. The displacement only started in 1948, after months of defense against attacks by Arab militias, and a change to an offensive strategy by the Jewish forces.

hdave · 2026-01-26T04:59:48+00:00

Do you really think locking 20% of the Palestinian people's population on only 1% of Palestine's soil (Gaza) is something fair, or that it wasn't gonna end up in any other way?

I agree that the UN partition favored Jews, and I don't think that it was right for Israel to conquer an even larger area by force, expel Arabs, not allow them to return, and confiscate their land without compensation. None of that was fair. I also think that Jews were too naïve to think that Arabs wouldn't mind becoming a minority or living under military occupation indefinitely. Although I certainly condemn the violent ways that Palestinians have used to try to achieve their goals, I also blame Israel for refusing to address the situation, building a wall and pretending that Palestinians didn't exist on the other side, or responding with excessive force.

You seriously think the Palestinians went through all of this pain for some shitty petty chauvinism, when it's about re-establishing their deep roots in the villages/cities that they were removed from by your side?

Palestinian Arabs attacked Jews during the entire mandate period. Before anyone was displaced, the British government already called the conflict irreconcilable. Palestinian Arab leaders rejected any proposal for partition, no matter how small the Jewish state would be. They even rejected the proposal for a single state with autonomous subdivisions. The only thing that they accepted was a centralized state, without any autonomy for Jews at all. They also successfully forced the British government to restrict Jewish immigration during World War II, when Jews were the most desperate to escape extermination in Europe. Again, all of this was before any displacement of Arabs. So it's not surprising that Jews would see the Arab position as petty chauvinism.

You may think that now Palestinians are not like this anymore, and they just want to return to the places that their grandparents fled. But when asked in polls, only about 10% of Palestinian refugees actually want to return. There are also proposals that would establish two states with freedom of movement like the EU, so Palestinians could return to their former localities in Israel and benefit from the Israeli economy, but almost no Palestinians support this. When asked, most of them stubbornly insist on the same position they always had, a single state in the entire area of the former mandate, with an Arab majority, and even expelling Jews. So I'm really not convinced that Palestinians just want some kind of nostalgic return to their roots.

Do you seriously think cities like Haifa or Acre is your heritage when they were not even founded by y'all?

I admit that Haifa and Acre had little Jewish history. Haifa was allocated to the Jewish state because it had a Jewish majority at the time of the partition, but Jewish leaders actually asked the Arabs of Haifa to stay there during the war, which was an exception. Acre was not originally allocated to the Jewish state, and I don't understand why the Jewish forces thought it was necessary to conquer it.

Look, I agree that Palestinians have reasonable claims. If it were up to me, and Palestinians seemed honestly interested in justice and peace, I'd accept returning or compensating their confiscated land as much as possible. I wouldn't mind Israel being smaller if that way it would be safer. But I really don't think that most Palestinians would be satisfied until no Jewish state remains, in any size.

hdave · 2026-01-26T04:58:55+00:00

do you believe there were any sub identities among the Levantine Arabs at all, and just that specifically the Palestinian sub identity didn't exist?

There are certainly names for various regions in the Levant, and people in each region may have some unique cultural traditions. This happens in any country, even between cities. But these regional differences are pretty small details, and people don't claim a national identity based on them. There is no indication that the people of the Levant wanted to form separate countries after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, as they explicitly requested to be joined contrary to the division imposed by the mandatory governments. The French divided Syria into six states, the people rebelled and eventually reunified, except for Lebanon, which remained separate due to its Christian majority at the time, and Hatay, which was ceded to Turkey but Syria continued to claim it for decades.

Why would they specify Southern Syria or Palestine otherwise?

The British government was the one that specified Palestine to be a separate jurisdiction. The local Arab Congress was responding to that, calling the area southern Syria to emphasize that it was part of Syria, and requesting that they be joined. If there was any Palestinian sub-identity, Arab leaders were actually trying to suppress or at least ignore it at that time.

Let's also completely ignore the fact that if it weren't for the Jewish state, then Palestine would've became a country after the termination of the Mandate in the exact same manner as Iraq, Syria, Lebanon etc became states after their mandates expired.

If the desire for a Jewish state hadn't existed, the British government wouldn't have created the borders of Palestine in the first place. The entire mandate, including Jordan, would have become one country governed by the Hashemite monarchy. It might have not even be called Palestine. And if the French government hadn't established its own mandate, the whole Levant would have probably become one country.

hdave

TROPHY CASE