Was Palestine empty land?

[Mr. Piccolo]

Was Palestine an empty land before the coming of large numbers of Jewish immigrants? Zionists like to claim that Palestine was "a land without a people for a people without a land." However, I find this claim to be hard to believe. Were there really no Muslim or Christian peoples living in the area before Zionist settlement began? Were non-Jews really all nomads?

This issue is heavily politicized so I was wondering if any comrades here had good information from impartial sources on this issue.

Thanks in advance.

[BIXX]

Was Palestine an empty land before the coming of large numbers of Jewish immigrants? Zionists like to claim that Palestine was "a land without a people for a people without a land." However, I find this claim to be hard to believe. Were there really no Muslim or Christian peoples living in the area before Zionist settlement began? Were non-Jews really all nomads?

This issue is heavily politicized so I was wondering if any comrades here had good information from impartial sources on this issue.

Thanks in advance.
No, it was not an empty land. I don't have the time to bring up sources but it'd be easy to find through a google search.

However it really doesn't matter if it was an empty land, doesn't justify what is being done there.

[Creative Destruction]

No. In fact, there was a concerted effort on the part of Zionist settlers to drive out the Arab population. From the beginning of the settlement of Zionists and up to 1948, there were scattered relocation campaigns and skirmishes. In 1948, though, the provisional Zionist government implemented Plan Dalet, which had the effect (if not the outright aim) of ethnically cleansing the Palestinians living in the Mandate.

[consuming negativity]

do you really think Jerusalem was uninhabited

[Palmares]

Obviously Palestine has been inhabited by people for a very long time, as you can loo up yourself on the same quoted webpage below. However, in this quote you can see more specifically the decades leading up to the creation of the Israel.




British mandate and partition

The British began their Sinai and Palestine Campaign (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinai_and_Palestine_Campaign) in 1915. The war reached southern Palestine in 1917 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinai_and_Palestine_Campaign#Southern_Palestine_Ca mpaign_begins), progressing to Gaza and around Jerusalem by the end of the year (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinai_and_Palestine_Campaign#Jerusalem_Campaign_No vember.E2.80.93December_1917). The British secured Jerusalem in December 1917 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Jerusalem_%281917%29). They moved into the Jordan valley in 1918 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_occupation_of_the_Jordan_Valley) and a campaign by the Entente into northern Palestine led to victory at Megiddo in September (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Megiddo_%281918%29). The British were formally awarded the mandate to govern the region (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandatory_Palestine) in 1922. The non-Jewish Palestinians revolted in 1920 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1920_Nebi_Musa_riots), 1929 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1929_Palestine_riots), and 1936 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1936%E2%80%9339_Arab_revolt_in_Palestine). In 1947, following World War II and The Holocaust (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust), the British Government announced its desire to terminate the Mandate, and the United Nations General Assembly (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_General_Assembly) adopted a resolution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Partition_Plan_for_Palestine) recommending partition into an Arab state, a Jewish state and the Special International Regime for the City of Jerusalem. The Jewish leadership accepted the proposal, but the Arab Higher Committee rejected it; a civil war (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1947%E2%80%9348_Civil_War_in_Mandatory_Palestine) began immediately, and the establishment of the State of Israel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Israel) was declared (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_Declaration_of_Independence) in 1948.
Following what is known as the 1948 Palestinian exodus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Palestinian_exodus), the 700,000 Palestinians who fled or were driven from their homes were unable to return following the Lausanne Conference of 1949 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lausanne_Conference_of_1949). In the 1948 Arab–Israeli War (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Arab%E2%80%93Israeli_War), Israel captured and incorporated a further 26% of the Mandate territory, Jordan captured the region today known as the West Bank (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordanian_occupation_of_the_West_Bank) and the Gaza Strip (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_Strip) was captured by Egypt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_the_Gaza_Strip_by_Egypt). In the course of the Six-Day War (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six-Day_War) in June 1967, Israel captured the rest of Mandate Palestine from Jordan and Egypt, and began a policy of Israeli settlements (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_settlement). From 1987 to 1993, the First Palestinian Intifada (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Intifada) against Israel took place, which included the Declaration of the State of Palestine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_the_State_of_Palestine) in 1988 and ended with the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Oslo_Peace_Accords). In 2000, the Second or Al-Aqsa Intifada (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Aqsa_Intifada) began, and Israel built a security barrier (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_West_Bank_barrier). Following Israel's unilateral disengagement plan of 2004 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%27s_unilateral_disengagement_plan_of_2004), it withdrew all settlers and most of the military presence from the Gaza strip, but maintained control of the air space and coast. In 2012, the State of Palestine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Palestine) replaced the PLO as UN observer following United Nations General Assembly resolution 67/19 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_General_Assembly_resolution_67/19).[55] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine#cite_note-55)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palesti..._and_partition (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine#British_mandate_and_partition)

[jullia]

Not really empty, the region was already inhabited by a lot of different minority as muslims, christians, druzes, jews...
Jews already lives in the places before the creation of Israel but they were a minority. The intersting fact is the first who uses terrorism in the region were sionists.

[DOOM]

Was Palestine an empty land before the coming of large numbers of Jewish immigrants? Zionists like to claim that Palestine was "a land without a people for a people without a land." However, I find this claim to be hard to believe. Were there really no Muslim or Christian peoples living in the area before Zionist settlement began? Were non-Jews really all nomads?

This issue is heavily politicized so I was wondering if any comrades here had good information from impartial sources on this issue.

Thanks in advance.

Well the Ottomans were there for quite a time, it's naive to believe that Palestine was empty. That quote however is often misinterpreted like the God's chosen people thing. I thought "a land without people" is describing the lack of a nation in pre-zionist Palestine (jews as the original nation, yeah pretty arbitrary, I know) and not the lack of humans.

[JohnnyD]

While I have no sympathy for the zionist state, I would like to point out the jews who ended up inhabitants of mandate Palestine where not volunteer colonial settlers, but refugees from European schtetlz and I believe the arab states created something like a million refugee from the mizrahi and sephardic jewery they expelled from there own country's. This is what I find frustrating about isreals characterization as a settler state.

[jullia]

I don't remember in which state it happened, but i heard about an operation organize by Israel in an arab state. As the need jew population they create trouble in an arab state to promote antisemitisme to encourage jew emigrate to israel.

[DOOM]

I don't remember in which state it happened, but i heard about an operation organize by Israel in an arab state. As the need jew population they create trouble in an arab state to promote antisemitisme to encourage jew emigrate to israel.
lol this sounds crazy. I'd like to see a source on that.

[jullia]

lol this sounds crazy. I'd like to see a source on that.

I will try to find one. But it's maybe a legend or a propagand. i was hopping somebody should confirm or not the reality of this.

[cyu]

[Sorry, wrong thread]

[Sewer Socialist]

Where have people claimed Palestine was empty?

[bricolage]

Where have people claimed Palestine was empty?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_land_without_a_people_for_a_people_without_a_lan d

[Sewer Socialist]

Oh, because Palestinians are arabs? So not "without people," but "without a people"?

I suppose that would justify driving Jews out of other countries now.:unsure:

[Zealot]

lol, have you ever heard of the Bible dude? Palestine has never been empty land. And if we're to believe the Old Testament, even when the Jews arrived there way back in the day they had to slaughter the people that already lived there.

[Chomskyan]

Israeli scholars themselves admit that the Zionists expelled and mass murdered the Palestinians in order to establish Israel. Also, it's just historical illiteracy to say Palestine was empty land. Before it was Zionist it was British, before it was British, it was Ottoman, before it was Ottoman it was Abbasid and before it was Abbasid it was Byzantine and before it was Byzantine it was Roman. So cut the bull. Many populations exist in Palestine which can trace themselves back over a millennium. Palestinians were and are not a "created people".

[Zealot]

Even if we're to say that Palestine belongs to the Jews, here's the thing: A lot of Jews and Christians in Palestine converted to Islam after the Islamic conquest in the seventh century and acculturated to the Arab world. Modern-day Palestinians are very closely related to their Jewish neighbours.

[Invader Zim]

At the time of the creation of Israel the Arab population of Palestine was approx. 1.2 million. When Zionism first began to gain traction the poulation was around 700,000.

http://israelipalestinian.procon.org/files/1-israeli-palestinian-images/arab-jewish-population-in-israel-palestine-1914-to-2005.gif

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Bamk2j86cNE/UeIXy7xXulI/AAAAAAAAATQ/f4zoap_gIUc/s640/Screen+Shot+2013-07-14+at+1.20.39+PM.png

Much of the idea that Palestine was uninhabited is derived from a desire to perpetuate the notion of 'a people needing a land, a land needing a people'. An oft cited text is Mark Twain's The Innocents Abroad (p. 361-362):

"..... A desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds... a silent mournful expanse.... a desolation.... we never saw a human being on the whole route.... hardly a tree or shrub anywhere. Even the olive tree and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country."

Of course, if you read said text in this fashion and without critical thought then one could be forgiven for also believeing the same thing of much of the surrounding region as far as Greece:

"From Athens all through the islands of the Grecian Archipelago, we saw little but forbidden sea-walls and barren hills, sometimes surmounted by three or four graceful columns of some ancient temples, lonely and deserted---a fitting symbol of desolation that has come upon all Greece in these latter ages. We saw no ploughed fields, very few villages, no trees or grass or vegetation of any kind, scarcely, and hardly ever an isolated house. Greece is a bleak, unsmiling desert, without agriculture, manufactures, or commerce, apparently." p. 203.

[Creative Destruction]

lol, have you ever heard of the Bible dude? Palestine has never been empty land. And if we're to believe the Old Testament, even when the Jews arrived there way back in the day they had to slaughter the people that already lived there.

The Old Testament isn't to be believed. Modern archaeological evidence suggests that the ancient Hebrews were former slaves, and other disaffected folks, of Canaan, and as Canaan began to fail, the Hebrews moved into the uninhabited hill country of Canaan and established, basically, egalitarian communes.

Joshua's conquest was basically a revenge fantasy that has its roots in an overall liberation narrative.

[Zealot]

Joshua's conquest was basically a revenge fantasy that has its roots in an overall liberation narrative.

Yeah I know that. Was just pointing out that the idea of an uninhabited Palestine doesn't even appear in the Bible.


The Old Testament isn't to be believed. Modern archaeological evidence suggests that the ancient Hebrews were former slaves, and other disaffected folks, of Canaan, and as Canaan began to fail, the Hebrews moved into the uninhabited hill country of Canaan and established, basically, egalitarian communes.

The Jewish conquest of Palestine is likely exaggerated but tribal wars probably did take place. I think egalitarian communes is pushing it though. Also, Jews weren't slaves of Egypt let alone Canaan. Jews were Canaanites. They didn't have to settle uninhabited country because they descended from Canaanites and worshiped the Canaanite tribal god, El.

The Exodus story is a myth with no archaeological support.

[Creative Destruction]

I think egalitarian communes is pushing it though.

It may not exactly transfer as to what we know as "egalitarian", but the ancient Hebrew settlements in Canaan were the closest approximation to what we know as that. There were no signs of monumental worship, grand temples and what not; and the housing and dishes discovered were remarkably the same and inornate. There are many examples in the Old Testament (transferred to the New Testament) that implore people to live egalitarian lives, so this is one part of the bible where, if you dig deep, you can find some archaeological evidence that it was rooted in material reality, rather than stories.


Also, Jews weren't slaves of Egypt

Good thing I never claimed that, then!


let alone Canaan. Jews were Canaanites.

"Slave" was probably the wrong word, so I'll retract that. However, they were the dispossessed of the Canaanite world, which is probably what inspired the liberation narrative with Moses and the Jews.


They didn't have to settle uninhabited country because they descended from Canaanites

They apparently thought they had to, due to much political turmoil and, as it's suspected, political repression at the hands of the upper classes of Canaan and so they apparently they escaped. They were "Canaanites" in the same way the American working class is America, or the British working class is British and so on. The proto-Jewish settlements in Canaan were all built on virgin soil. None of it was "conquered" nor were there any signs of being inhabited prior to them arriving there. It's thought that the Canaanite cities were in a state of decline around then, which facilitated the run to the hills, as it were.


and worshiped the Canaanite tribal god, El.

"El" is a generic word for "God," where it regards the Hebrew texts, so I'm not sure what you're getting at here.


The Exodus story is a myth with no archaeological support.

Yes, like I said.

[The Disillusionist]

do you really think Jerusalem was uninhabited

Seriously. How is this even a question?

[Zealot]

"El" is a generic word for "God," where it regards the Hebrew texts, so I'm not sure what you're getting at here.

"El" was originally a desert god in the Levant region who had a wife and family. It was used by the Israelites to refer to their own god and if you read the Bible there's a clear evolution of their theology. In the Torah, El comes off as your typical tribal god that has anger management issues and demands blood sacrifices. Moses later reveals his name to be Yahweh. By the time you get to the New Testament, he's an omnipotent, omnipresent, all-merciful, all-powerful, infinite triune god without gender or associates.

[Creative Destruction]

"El" was originally a desert god in the Levant region who had a wife and family.

Okay, but I'm talking about what "El" meant to the Hebrews. You basically just restated -- in a longer form -- what I already said, so I'm not sure what you're arguing or trying to explain to me.

[contracycle]

Well what it means is that El was neither invented, nor known only, by the Hebrews; which shows that they were in contact with other regional groups.

[Zealot]

Not arguing anything but to elaborate on what contracycle has said, I was merely pointing out that the idea of an uninhabited Palestine is a complete myth. It has been the home to many different but closely-related ethnic groups for millenniums. Jews don't have a special claim to Palestine and Zionist mythology that uses the historical narrative provided by the Bible blatantly has no grounding in reality.

[cyu]

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recent_African_origin_of_modern_humans

Geologically speaking, everywhere was uninhabited during the time period when there was no life on earth.

As far as anarchists are concerned, the question is moot, since borders are arbitrarily drawn and property is arbitrarily claimed. As far as I'm concerned, "illegal" immigration is just civil disobedience. The real question for anarchists is, if people can come and go anywhere they please, can society still function? The answer to that question is pretty obvious to me - if it doesn't matter when someone moves back and forth between Alaska and Texas, it shouldn't matter anywhere else.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

The Old Testament isn't to be believed. Modern archaeological evidence suggests that the ancient Hebrews were former slaves, and other disaffected folks, of Canaan, and as Canaan began to fail, the Hebrews moved into the uninhabited hill country of Canaan and established, basically, egalitarian communes.

Joshua's conquest was basically a revenge fantasy that has its roots in an overall liberation narrative.

The archeological evidence suggests that, during the collapse of the Bronze Age Canaanite society, and immediately afterwards, one part of the population moved to what was previously an uninhabited hill region, and that this settlement formed the core of the later, Iron-Age kingdoms of Israel and Judah.

To extrapolate "egalitarian communes" from this is too much. There is no significant social stratification in what were in all probability refugee settlements because, well, they were populated by refugees. The same goes for the Sea Peoples, even though some of them were probably part of stratified societies prior to their migration (the various Anatolian states for example).

The Biblical narrative is not a "liberation narrative" but a bog-standard "our god is greater than other gods" story.

[Creative Destruction]

To extrapolate "egalitarian communes" from this is too much. There is no significant social stratification in what were in all probability refugee settlements because, well, they were populated by refugees.

This is a non-sequitor. Just because it was a community of refugees doesn't mean it wasn't egalitarian or something close to it.


The Biblical narrative is not a "liberation narrative" but a bog-standard "our god is greater than other gods" story.

Which, back then, was often a matter of politics. The Exodus story absolutely was a liberation narrative.

[Kingfish]

Was Palestine an empty land before the coming of large numbers of Jewish immigrants? Zionists like to claim that Palestine was "a land without a people for a people without a land Whilst the evidence points the other way (After all the 700,000+ refugees produced by the 1948 war could not have come from nowhere) I think the real point that you should contest is how even if that were the case it would justify the current actions of the Israeli state.