The PLO emphasizes that the Israelites under King David conquered Jerusalem from the Canaanites or their sub-tribe, the Jebusites in about 1000 bce. Yasir Arafat spoke of “Our forefathers, the Canaanites and Jebusites” and with this staked a claim to antedating the Jews in Palestine. “We are the Canaanites,” echoed his successor, Mahmoud Ab

these contractors were employed on the construction of camps and aerodromes. No estimates are available of the numbers of foreign labourers who were so brought into the country by contractors or who entered individually in search of employment on military works.Peters rightly says of British rule, “there was not even a serious gauge for consideri

The injustice is when those who live in the country leave it to be a desert for thousands of years.”Confirming their views, the University of Illinois’ Fred M. Gottheil documents the universal human propensity to migrate toward greater economic opportunities, the Palestinian pattern of doing precisely this, and the greater economic opportunitie

The influx of European settlers, even in small numbers, galvanized the Ottoman government also to move to increase the Muslim dominance in the population. The sultan purchased some lands in his own name and brought in Muslim settlers from places as diverse as Algeria, Egypt, Bosnia, and the Caucasus. If it were to develop into a demographic war, th

and who continue unmixed.” In 2013, Israeli scholars Gideon Kressel and Reuven Aharoni noted that their descendants still “have not assimilated entirely into the local Arab population.” The same applies to several other communities, notably the Circassians This centuries-long retention of ethnicity has political implications. As Israeli histo