No, The Jews Didn't "Steal" Israel From The Palestinian Arabs

Some of the biggest perpetuators of misinformation can make themselves sound so scholarly and knowledgible that those who don't do their homework become easy prey. Lately, it has become popular to assume that Jews were Johnny-Come-Latelies to the land of Israel, that they took it from the Palestinians (who had been their "for hundreds of years"), and that they should give up the land and leave. So do they have a point?  DID the Jews come in and take the land, displacing it's rightful owners? Is the Jewish presence in Israel is a modern phenomenon, and are they simply interlopers who should never have been recognized in the first place?  Let's take a look at the historical account:


Israel (A.K.A. "Palastine") was under Roman control during the time of Christ, but the territory was still Jewish. It wasn't till after the Second Jewish Revolt that Rome attempted to drive out all Jews from the area--BUT THEY NEVER GOT THE JOB DONE.  There was an uninterrupted Jewish presence in the land, even despite the Roman efforts at displacement.

Jews attempted a revolt during the time of Byzanitne rule in A.D 351-52.  The revolt was unsuccessful, and Islamic rule lasted 1,300 years, but under Islamic rule at this time, Christians and Jews were both allowed to live there, being considered "people of the book". All during the time of "Crusader Rule" (up till A.D. 1187) there was a Jewish presence in Israel--it never was eradicated.

During Mamluk rule (which takes us up till A.D. 1516), Maimonides established a synagogue in Jerusalem--it's still there today. Then, the large immigrations came during the Ottoman rule, which came BEFORE Great Britain (or America) had any say in the matter.  I say this because another popular theory is that the Jews came only because of the supposedly illegal Balfour Declaration.  THIS, I believe, is even more important than the non-interrupted Jewish presence. Between 1881 and 1903, some thirty THOUSAND Jews immigrated, and between 1904 and 1914, another forty thousand Jews came.

The Jews were already there, and under Ottoman Rule, all of these thousands and thousands of other Jews came--before New York or London were even in the picture. Again, this was all before the Balfour Declaration of 1917 (which, by the way, was approved by the League of Nations in 1922--it wasn't an illegal mandate). By the time of the Balfour Declaration, the territory was legally in British hands--and it was theirs to govern and then turn over. They had already declared that it would be a Jewish homeland, and they finally turned it over to the Jews in 1948.

This is just a brief, thumbnail sketch, but I'm writing it to show that A. Jews never did just "leave" (though efforts WERE made to force them out), and to show you that the Palestinians never were in control of the land to begin with,..and B. the Palestinians CERTAINLY weren't told to "move over"--the Jews were already in the territory. I hope you find this informative--I really don't think that most people understand the history of the Jewish people in Eretz Israel.