• POINT 1: Jews have no ancient history in Palestine
  
  
  • COUNTERPOINT: This claim is false. Historians concur that Jews have a history in the region that extends back 3000 years.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: Mainstream scholars agree that the Jews, an indigenous tribe, settled in present-day Israel approximately 3000 years ago, established independent kingdoms and "for more than 1600 years formed the main settled population." Historian Martin Gilbert. [1]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: A Jewish state had political independence for approximately five hundred years (1000 BCE-586 BCE) after which it was dominated by successive empires for 400 years (586 BCE-165 BCE). It regained its political independence for another hundred years until 63 BCE when the Roman General Pompey captured Jerusalem and made the Jewish kingdom a client state of Rome. World Book Encyclopedia [2]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "The most influential of the smaller Middle Eastern groups, however, were the Jews, who gave the world the first clearly developed monotheistic religion….The Jews, a Semitic people influenced by Babylonian civilization, settled near the Mediterranean around 1200 BC…..The Jewish religion and moral code persisted even as the Jewish state suffered domination by a series of foreign powers…until the Romans seized the state outright in 63 BCE." Historian Peter N. Stearns [3]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Jews are called Jews because they are named after their land of origin, Judea. When the Romans finally conquered the Judeans rebelling against them in 135 AD, they renamed the area Palestine in order to de-Judaize it. [4]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: Archeological and historical records document the Jews' ancient history in Palestine.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "Biblical record and archeological evidence indicate that the Jews conquered and began to settle the land of Canaan during the thirteenth century before the Christian era….[and lasted in various forms until] [t]he destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem (70 AD) brought an end to all hope of reestablishing the Second Jewish Commonwealth, and thereafter Jewish national life began to disintegrate." Historian Mark Tessler [5]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "[W]e have hundreds, probably thousands, of ostraca, inscriptions on stone, inscribed pots, seals and seal-impressions from well dated tenth-sixth century BCE contexts…in…Iron Age Hebrew" which prove Hebraic-speaking Jews lived in ancient Israel, according to Professor William G. Dever, a leading archeologist in the field. [6]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Archeologist Herschel Shanks, in his 1995 book, Jerusalem: An Archeological Biography, reports on the current "archeology of Jewish Jerusalem" and locates "David's conquest of Jerusalem in concrete archeological terms." Marshall J. Berger. [7]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Roman emperors acknowledged the Jews' distinctive history and traditions and that Jerusalem was the Jews' religious and political center. Consider Caesar Augustus' Edict about the Jews in 1 BC: "Caesar Augustus, pontifex maximus….proclaims….the Jews shall use their own customs in accordance with their ancestral law….and their sacred offerings shall be inviolable and shall be sent to Jerusalem; and they shall not [be required to appear] in court on the Sabbath or on the day of preparation before it after the ninth hour." Edict of Augustus on Jewish Rights. 1 BCE [8]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Roman emperors acknowledged the importance of defeating the Jews in 70 AD, an event commemorated in the Arch of Titus which still stands today. "Located at the highest point of the Via Sacra which leads to the Roman Forum, this triumphal arch….commemorates Titus' conquest of Judea which ended the Jewish Wars (66-70)…..[Scenes on the arch] depict the triumphal procession with the booty from the temple at Jerusalem--the sacred Menorah, the Table of the Shewbread shown at an angle, and the silver trumpets which called the Jews to Rosh Hashanah. The bearers of the booty wear laurel crowns and those carrying the candlestick have pillows on their shoulders. Placards in the background explain the spoils or the victories Titus won." [9]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: The sacred texts of both Christianity and Islam confirm the presence of the Jewish state and the Jewish people in ancient Palestine.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: The New Testament, the sacred text of Christianity, is set in the Jewish land and refers frequently to the "Land of Israel" (Matthew 2:20-21), to the Jewish Temple where Jesus threw out the moneylenders, (Matthew 21:12) and to the Jewish liturgical calendar. The Final Supper was observance of the Jewish holiday, Passover.
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: The Koran, the sacred book of Islam, refers frequently to Jews and identifies them with Israel and the Promised Land. "And thereafter We said to the Children of Israel: 'Dwell securely in the Promised Land…." (Sura 17:104 The Night Journey)(*) The Koran describes Solomon's construction of the First Temple (Sura 34:13) and recounts the destruction of the First and Second Temples (Sura 17:7)(**) [10]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: In the 20th century, the world community acknowledged the Jews' 3,000 year old historical attachment to the land.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: When Lord Robert Cecil explained why Britain had promulgated the Balfour Declaration in 1917 supporting the establishment of a national home for the Jews in Palestine, he observed: "It is, indeed, not the birth of a nation, for the Jewish nation through centuries of oppression and captivity have preserved their sentiment of nationality as few peoples could;….I believe we must say it is the rebirth of a nation." [11]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: In 1920, the League of Nations committed to reconstituting the Jewish homeland in recognition of "the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine.(*) "The United Nations incorporated this commitment in its founding Charter in 1945. (Article 80) [12]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: It is a "deed of justice and reparation" to assist the "renaissance of the Jewish nationality in the land from which the people of Israel were expelled so many centuries ago." Director-General of the French Foreign Ministry, Jules Cambon, June 4 1917. [13]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "It is manifestly right that the scattered Jews should have a national center and a national home and be reunited and where else but in Palestine with which for 3,000 years they have been intimately and profoundly associated?" Winston Churchill [14]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: Arab leaders acknowledged the history of the Jews in Palestine.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "Who can challenge the rights of the Jews in Palestine? Good Lord, historically it is really your country." Letter of Yusuf Diya al-Khalidi, Jerusalem Muslim dignitary, to the Chief Rabbi of France, March 1, 1899. [15]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "[The Jews] are our brothers in race and we regard them as Syrians who were forced to leave the country at one time but whose hearts always beat together with ours." Declaration of First Arab Congress in Paris, June 1913. [16]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "The Arabs, especially the educated among us, look with deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement…We will wish the Jews a hearty welcome home." Emir Faisal, leader of the Arab movement, 1919 [17]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: The Supreme Muslim Council in its 1930 book, A Brief Guide to al-Haram al-Sharif, wrote that the Temple Mount's "sanctity dates from earliest times. Its identity with the site of Solomon's Temple is beyond dispute" and that Solomon's Stables "was used as a place of refuge by the Jews at the time of the conquest of Jerusalem by Titus in the year 70 AD." [18]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: This willful distortion of the historical record is motivated by a political agenda.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: Benny Morris, a historian much respected by pro-Palestinian advocates, called this denial "a rejection to the point of absurdity of the history of the Jewish link to the land of Israel, a rejection of the legitimacy of Jewish claims to Palestine…leavened by a healthy dose of anti-Semitism." [19]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "[M]any of the declarations of the 'revisionists' [archeologists who try to claim Jews did not live in ancient Israel]…seem so absurd to mainstream scholars….it is tempting to dismiss all this as so much 'post-modern' piffle…[but] we should take the 'revisionists' seriously….because….their ideology poses a threat to biblical studies….The problem lies in …basing [their ideas] on illusions rather than facts," and using "sensationalist polemics." Archeology Professor William G. Dever. [20]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "For the Palestinians and their supporters, archeology as well as history serves as a way to promote a nationalist ideology. Thus does the Palestinian minister of culture preside over bizarre …ceremonies to the god Baal [the ancient god of the Canaanites]….But this is sheer silliness." Archeology Professor Marshall J. Breger [21]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Though many anti-Israel spokespeople claim that new archeological discoveries have led them to conclude that Jews had no ancient history in Palestine, anti-Israel advocates made this claim long before the "new" archeology even began. The PLO made this claim as early as 1968 as part of its political agenda, not because any new scholarship suggested it was true. "The claim of historical or spiritual links between Jews and Palestine is neither in conformity with historical fact nor does it satisfy the requirements of statehood." Palestine Liberation Charter, Article 20, 1968. [22]
      
      
• POINT 2: There was no Jewish Temple in Jerusalem and Jesus was a Palestinian.
  
  
  • COUNTERPOINT: Historical records confirm the existence of the 2nd Temple in Jerusalem.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: When the Jews returned from the Babylonian exile in the 6th century BC, the "immediate …result of the return from exile was the reconstruction of the Temple, initiated by Zerubbabel of David's royal house and completed in 515 BC. The Second Temple had a life of 585 years (in the course of which there was a further rebuilding by Herod the Great) before its obliteration by the Romans." Historian Michael Grant [23]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: One of the most famous geographers of the ancient world, Strabo, described the 2nd Temple in Jerusalem and Pompey's victory over the Jews. "[Jerusalem's fortress] was a stronghold situated on a rock…On the wall of the temple were built towers, constructed of the materials procured when the ditch was excavated, The city was taken, it is said, by waiting for the day of fast, on which the Jews were in the habit of abstaining from all work. Pompey avail[ed] himself of this." Strabo The Geography, 22 CE [24]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: During his reign, the Roman appointed king of Judea, Herod, undertook "a scheme of breathtaking vastness-the total and magnificent reconstruction of the Jerusalem Temple. The project was announced c. 22 BCE, and the building of the Sanctuary was completed in 18; the immense surrounding courtyards, now the platform of the Haram-al Sharif, were completed ten years later….there grew up a proverb 'He who has not seen the Temple of Herod has never seen anything beautiful.'" Historian Michael Grant [25]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Roman historians such as Tacitus described Jewish religious practices and the Temple in Jerusalem. "A great part of Judea consists of scattered villages. They also have towns. Jerusalem is the capital. There stood a temple of immense wealth…Only the Jew might approach the gates…The temple resembled a citadel, and had its own walls, which were more laboriously constructed than the others. Even the colonnades with which it was surrounded formed an admirable outwork. It contained an inexhaustible spring….."Tacitus, History, 5:8, 5:12 [26]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: The Romans commemorated their defeat of the Jews and their destruction of the Jewish Temple in 70 AD in the Arch of Titus which still stands in Rome today. "Located at the highest point of the Via Sacra which leads to the Roman Forum, this triumphal arch….commemorates Titus' conquest of Judea which ended the Jewish Wars (66-70)…..[Scenes on the arch] depict the triumphal procession with the booty from the temple at Jerusalem--the sacred Menorah, the Table of the Shewbread shown at an angle, and the silver trumpets which called the Jews to Rosh Hashanah. The bearers of the booty wear laurel crowns and those carrying the candlestick have pillows on their shoulders. Placards in the background explain the spoils or the victories Titus won." [27]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: Arab sources confirm there was a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: The Koran describes Solomon's construction of the First Temple (Sura 34:13) and recounts the destruction of the First and Second Temples (Sura 17:7) [28]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: The 10th century Muslim writer Tabari described how Mohammed changed the Muslim direction of prayer from the Jews' former Temple in Jerusalem to Mecca. "On the authority of Ikrima and Hasan al-Basri: The first injunction which was abrogated in Quran was that concerning the qibla [holy place that you face when praying]. This is because the Prophet used to prefer the Rock of the Holy House of Jerusalem, which was the qibla of the Jews. The Prophet faced it for seventeen months [after his arrival in Medina] in the hope that they would believe in him and follow him." Muslim Classical Commentary of Tabari (died 923 AD) [29]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: The Muslim historian al-Din described the destruction of the 2nd Temple in the 15th century. "In the first year of his [Titus'] reign, he came to the city of the Holy House, fell upon the Jews, massacred them and took the survivors captive…He put the Temple to the torch and burn their sacred books…..Helena, mother of Constantine the Victorious,….had the Temple of Jerusalem leveled down to the ground-it was that which was in the sanctuary-and she ordered that the filth and scourings of the city be thrown on its place….That state of affairs remained until the arrival of Umar ibn al-Khattab, who took the noble city of Jerusalem." Mujir al-Din, Jerusalem's chief Muslim historian, 1496 [30]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: The Supreme Muslim Council in its 1930 book, A Brief Guide to al-Haram al-Sharif, wrote that the Temple Mount's "sanctity dates from earliest times. Its identity with the site of Solomon's Temple is beyond dispute" and that Solomon's Stables "was used as a place of refuge by the Jews at the time of the conquest of Jerusalem by Titus in the year 70 AD." [31]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: The claim that Jesus was a Palestinian, not a Jew, is an attempt to deny the Jewish origins of Christianity. In fact, Jesus himself and the first Christians were Jews. The Gospels underscore Jesus' Jewish roots and identity and his birth in the Jewish kingdom ruled by Herod.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: The New Testament opens with Matthew describing Jesus' genealogy which underscores that he was a direct descendent of the Jewish King David, born into the House of Judah. "The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham." (Matthew 1:1) "So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen generations." (Matthew 1:17) Luke goes through a similar genealogy (Luke: 3:24 to 3:38)
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: The New Testament clearly states that "Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king…" (Matthew 2:1)
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: When Jesus was born, his family followed Jewish law, including circumcision performed 8 days after the birth of a son. "And when eight days were accomplished, for the circumcising of the child, his name was called JESUS" (Luke 2:21) "And when the days of her [Mary's] purification according to the law of Moses were accomplished, they brought him to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord." (Luke 2:22)
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Jesus lived according to the Jewish law. His parents "performed all things according to the law of the Lord" (Luke 2:39) and "went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of Passover." (Luke 2:41)
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Jesus was called the "King of the Jews." (Matthew 2:2). When he was crucified, Pilate had "set up over his head his accusation written: 'This is Jesus the King of the Jews.'" (Matthew 27:37) The Jews objected to the sign. ""The ranking Judean priests tried protesting to Pilate: 'Don't write, 'The King of the Jews, but instead, 'This man said, 'I am king of the Jews.'" (John 19:19)
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: The claim that Jesus was a Palestinian, not a Jew, distorts the history of Christianity. Followers of Jesus, or Christians, remained a sect within Judaism for over one hundred years after the death of Jesus.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "[T]he Gospels are themselves Jewish literature. In the first century C.E., when all the Gospels were written, Christianity had not yet separated from its Jewish roots. Paul, James, Peter, and the other apostles were all Jews and never repudiated their Judaism. The second generation of church leaders, as well-those under whom the Gospels were written-were also primarily Jewish. The church historian Eusebius reports that all the bishops of Jerusalem up through the Bar Kokhbah revolt (135 C.E.) were Jewish (Ecclesiastical History 4.5.1-4). Anthony J. Tomasino, PhD [32]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: One of the most significant developments "that overtook Judaism in the Roman world [was when] the Jewish religion….gave birth to the Christians….Within a century after the date ascribed to his [Jesus] death, his followers had become completely independent of world Jewry. But until that final rift occurred, they were still linked in various ways with the Jewish originators of their church…."Historian Michael Grant [33]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: Jesus could not have been considered a Palestinian. His country of origin was called Judea and the Roman Emperor Hadrian would not rename it Palestine until 100 years after Jesus' death when the Romans savagely put down the 3rd Jewish revolt. It would be another 500 years before Arab Muslim armies swept into the area, conquered it and imposed Arabic and Islam. “Jesus Christ,” World Book Encyclopedia, 1979, Volume 11, pp 82-85
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: The official adoption of the name Palestine in Roman usage to designate the territories of the former Jewish principality of Judea seems to date from the suppression of the great Jewish revolt of Bar-Kokhba in the year 135 CE…the name Judea was abolished…and the country renamed Palestina or Syria Palestina, with the…intention—of obliterating its historic Jewish identity. The earlier name did not entirely disappear, and as late as the 4th century CE we still find a Christian author, Epiphanius, referring ‘Palestina, that is, Judea.’” Historian Bernard Lewis [34]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Although Hadrian’s coins had so recently honored ‘Judaea,’ the Romans now decided [135 AD] to eliminate this hazardous name altogether. They renamed the province ‘Syria-Palaestina,’ thus reviving a name, not specifically associated with the Jews or their nationalism, which went back to the Philistines….” Historian Michael Grant [35]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: “The word Palestine does not occur in the Old Testament. It appears twice in the English authorized version, and in both places is a mistranslation for Philistia [the coastline formerly inhabited by the Philistines]….Palestine does not occur in the New Testament at all.” Historian Bernard Lewis [36]
      
      
    • Question: Given the fact that the New Testament says Jesus was born a Jew in Judea, was circumcised (Luke 2.21), had the Jewish name Yehosuha, (Matthew 1.21) and lived according to Jewish law (Luke 2.39), that the area would not be called Palestine until 100 years after Jesus’ death—why do you distort the facts? Why can’t you rely on your own history to make your case of Palestinian nationhood without denying historical fact and someone else’s historical narrative?
      
      
    • Question: Jesus could not have been considered a Palestinian. His country of origin was called Judea and the Roman Emperor Hadrian would not rename it Palestine until 100 years after Jesus' death when the Romans savagely put down the 3rd Jewish revolt. It would be another 500 years before Arab Muslim armies swept into the area, conquered it and imposed Arabic and Islam. “Jesus Christ,” World Book Encyclopedia, 1979, Volume 11, pp 82-85 [37]
      
      
    • Question: (To Hanan Ashrawi or other Christians) As a Christian, how do you reconcile the claims you make for political reasons and the text that is the core of your faith which refers repeatedly to the Jews and the “Land of Israel” and incorporates the Old Testament narrative?
      
      
• POINT 3: The "new" revisionist archeology proves that Jews have no ancient connection to the land.
  
  
  • COUNTERPOINT: Revisionist biblical archeology (called minimalist as opposed to maximalist) has not proved anything. Its premise-that the Bible is primarily literature written in 500 BCE and has little historical reality-is hotly contested. Most mainstream archeologists dismiss the "revisionist" archeology and charge that it is based on political ideology, not on sound scholarly research.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "The misnamed 'maximalist' side in this debate consists of the overwhelming majority of scholars from both sides of the 'Biblical archaeology' debate on both sides of the Atlantic. Most maximalists do not maintain that every event recorded in the Hebrew Bible occurred. They differ among themselves as to what in Biblical historiography reflects actual events and as to how relevant information from other disciplines bearing on the different periods of Israelite history should be used. They concur, however, that all contemporaneous extra-Biblical sources must be included in discussions of Israelite history, that minimalist super-skepticism is unwarranted, and that its descriptions of Israelite history and historiography are overly general, descriptively inadequate and often incorrect factually." Ziony Zevit in the journal Biblica 2002 [38]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "[M]any of the declarations of the 'revisionists'…seem so absurd to mainstream scholars….it is tempting to dismiss all this as so much 'post-modern' piffle…[but] we should take the 'revisionists' seriously, not so much because their assertions will stand the test of time or because their flawed methodology in itself is worrisome. Rather, we must confront [them] head-on because….their ideology poses a threat to biblical studies, to Syro-Palestinian archeology….The problem lies in …basing [their ideas] on illusions rather than facts," and using "sensationalist polemics." Archeology Professor William G. Dever. [39]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "For the Palestinians and their supporters, archeology as well as history serves as a way to promote a nationalist ideology. Thus does the Palestinian minister of culture preside over bizarre …ceremonies to the god Baal….[and some writers] argue that Jewish archeologists have tried to deny the Palestinian stake in the Holy Land….But this is sheer silliness." Professor Marshall J. Breger [40]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: The PLO made this claim decades before revisionist archeologists even began publishing. The claim was based on a political agenda, not new research. "The claim of historical or spiritual links between Jews and Palestine is neither in conformity with historical fact nor does it satisfy the requirements of statehood." Palestine Liberation Charter, Article 20, 1968. [41]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: Mainstream archeologists have severely criticized revisionists for denying or dismissing archeological evidence that refutes their theories.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "This tendency to deny contradictory evidence reached a sour-noted crescendo when archaeologists were accused of manufacturing inscriptions whose contents undermined minimalist assertions. At Tel Dan, fragments of a ninth century BCE Aramaic victory inscription were discovered that mentioned the 'House of David'. The find embarrassed minimalists because of their claim that David and Solomon most likely never existed…Some minimalists accused A. Biran, director of the Hebrew Union College excavations at Dan, of having forged and planted the inscription. Likewise, an inscription found in the Philistine city, Ekron, mentioned the names Achish, a Philistine name, Padi, a name uniquely associated with Ekron in the Bible, and the name Ekron itself. This inscription was awkward for the minimalist narrative because it supported the historical connectedness between these three names as reported in biblical historiography….This time, the accusation of forgery was hurled at the two directors of the Ekron expedition: S. Gitin of the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeology and T. Dothan of the Institute of Archaeology of the Hebrew University." Ziony Zevit in the journal Biblica 2002 [42]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Mainstream archeologists protested that minimalists were dismissing the archeological record. "[W]e have hundreds, probably thousands, of ostraca, inscriptions on stone, inscribed pots, seals and seal-impressions from well dated tenth-sixth century BCE contexts…in…Iron Age Hebrew" which prove Hebraic-speaking Jews lived in ancient Israel, according to Professor William G. Dever, a leading archeologist in the field. [43]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "The main problem with the Biblical Minimalist point of view is that there are too many correlations of the biblical narrative to other Near Eastern sources. For example, the Pharoah Shishak's destruction of Megiddo is recorded in the bible, and his actual victory stelae are found at Megiddo and Karnak; we also have the later Babylonian lists of Israelite Kings, which correlates with biblical narrative." Ong Kar Khalsa, UCLA Archeology, 1998 [44]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: Revisionist archeologists do not prove that the historical aspects of the Biblical narrative are untrue. Archeology is interpretive and theoretical. The revisionists theorize that because there is no specific evidence confirming the existence of King David and King Solomon and their kingdoms, then they most likely did not exist. But the absence of archeological discoveries does not mean such evidence will never appear, nor does it prove that Biblical events did not happen. Their argument, like all archeology, is based on interpretation of material remains. It cannot be considered definitive.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "The current debate over Solomon shows how the argument between the maximalist and minimalist positions is not over whether archeological evidence should be considered but over how it should be interpreted." Professor J. Maxwell Miller [45]
      
      
• POINT 4: The Jewish history of enduring ties to Palestine is a "constructed" (invented) narrative.
  
  
  • COUNTERPOINT: Jewish history in Palestine is not invented. It is based on concrete historical and archeological evidence.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: Mainstream scholars agree that the Jews, an indigenous tribe, settled in present-day Israel approximately 3000 years ago, established independent kingdoms and "for more than 1600 years formed the main settled population." Historian Martin Gilbert.
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: A Jewish state had political independence for approximately five hundred years (1000 BCE-586 BCE) after which it was dominated by successive empires for 400 years (586 BCE-165 BCE). It regained its political independence for another hundred years until 63 BCE when the Roman General Pompey captured Jerusalem and made the Jewish kingdom a client state of Rome. World Book Encyclopedia [46]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "[W]e have hundreds, probably thousands, of ostraca, inscriptions on stone, inscribed pots, seals and seal-impressions from well dated tenth-sixth century BCE contexts…in…Iron Age Hebrew" which prove Hebraic-speaking Jews lived in ancient Israel, according to Professor William G. Dever, a leading archeologist in the field. [47]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Classical authors, such as Tacitus described the Jews--their antiquity, unique customs, ferocious attachment to their land and their defeat at the hands of the Romans. "This [Jewish] worship, however introduced, is upheld by its antiquity….the Jews have purely mental conceptions of Deity, as one in essence…They believe that Being to be supreme and eternal…" During the bloody battle with Rome in 70 AD, "All who were able bore arms….Men and women showed equal resolution, and life seemed more terrible than death, if they were to be forced to leave their country. Such was this city and nation…." Tacitus, History, 5:5, 5:13 [48]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: Today, post-modern theory holds that all national identities are an invented mix of myth and historical realities. If this is the case, then Jewish identity is no different than other national identities which are also constructed. It is hypocritical to single Jews out and deny their narrative's legitimacy and supplant it with a competing, constructed narrative of Palestinian identity.
    
    
• POINT 5: Israel now tries to eradicate all traces of the indigenous Palestinians and their culture to deny Palestinians' ancient connection to the land.
  
  
  • COUNTERPOINT: Israel has not tried to eradicate traces of other cultures. To the contrary, Israeli scholars and archeologists research and preserve the remains of all ancient peoples in the region, not just Jews.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: Israeli archeologists and the Israeli Antiquities Authority have carefully excavated and preserved pre-Biblical, Jewish, Christian and Muslim sites and those of other people such as the Philistines to promote scholarly study of the past. Its archeologists have unearthed major Muslim structures, such as the Omayad palaces south of the Temple Mount, the Muslim Nimrod Fortress as well as Neolithic and Canaanite sites, Crusader Churches and the Church of John the Baptist. [49]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "Twentieth-century histories of ancient Israel are distinguished from their predecessors precisely by their attention to the literature of inhabitants of ancient Canaan/Palestine, who were hitherto known only from tendentious portraits in Biblical and other sacred texts." Professor Benjamin D. Sommer 1998 [50]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "Israeli archaeology is not conducted on behalf of any ideology, nor does it explicitly serve the heritage of the Jewish people on its land…". Israeli excavations and preservations include "the Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine and Islamic city [in Nablus]…hundreds of Byzantine churches and monasteries….[and] grand palaces built by Umayyad (Muslim) rulers were uncovered. There is no indication of these palaces before their excavation. They did not appear in any written historical source, until the Israeli excavations discovered them….[and there are] hundreds of published excavations with strata from Islamic periods… proving that the pinnacle of church and monastery construction in Israel took place during the Umayyad period under Islamic rule." Deputy Director of the Israeli Antiquities Authority, 2003 [51]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: This claim inverts reality. It is the pro-Palestinians who have tried to eradicate all physical traces of the historical Jewish presence in Palestine.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: Jordan desecrated Jewish holy places, destroyed the ancient Jewish quarter and expelled the Jews when it gained control of East Jerusalem in the 1948 War. 58 synagogues, some centuries old, were razed, ruined or turned into stables and chicken coops. The gravestones of the ancient Jewish burial ground on the Mount of Olives were uprooted and used for footpaths and urinals. [52]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: The Waqf (Muslim authorities who control the Temple Mount in Jerusalem) began carelessly destroying layers of archeological remains when they started a series of renovations in late 1999. The site is filled with precious artifacts vital for reconstructing pre-biblical, biblical, Jewish and Muslim history, but the Waqf refused to cooperate with archeologists. They bulldozed the area and threw the artifact-rich soil in landfills. Archeologists periodically recover the artifacts from dumping areas, as students from Bar-Ilan University did in piles of fill in the Kidron Valley in 1999. [53]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: When the Al-Aqsa Intifada started, the Palestinian Authority did nothing to stop the destruction of Jewish holy sites. "In Nablus, Joseph's Tomb came under repeated gunfire and was eventually sacked and burned by Palestinian mobs; Palestinian authorities made preparations to convert the tomb into a mosque. At the Jerusalem-Bethlehem border, Rachel's Tomb came under repeated Palestinian sniper attack. Finally, the ancient Shalom al Yisrael synagogue in Jericho was burned by Palestinians as well." [54]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "Having seized Joseph's Tomb, the Palestinians control it, for now. Yasser Arafat has promised to rebuild the destroyed shrine, but the talk on the streets is that it will now be used as a mosque. The dome of the tomb has already been painted Islamic green, and even Israelis who do not believe Joseph lies there feel that this is an attempt to write them out of Joseph's story." Wall Street Opinion Journal, October 14 2000 [55]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: This claim inverts reality. It is Palestinians and their supporters who deny the ancient presence of the Jews and their historical connection to the land.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "The rewriting [of history] makes Jews disappear from the ancient Middle East. The historical museum in Amman tells through objects and inscriptions the history of all the ancient peoples of the region-with one exception. The kings and prophets of ancient Israel are entirely missing." Professor Emeritus Bernard Lewis. [56]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "It is the art of the Jews to deceive the world. But they can't do it to us. There is not a single stone in the Wailing Wall relating to Jewish history. The Jews cannot legitimately claim this wall, neither religiously nor historically. The Committee of the League of Nations recommended in 1930 to allow the Jews to pray there in order to keep them quiet. But by no means did it acknowledge that the wall belongs to them….In the whole city, there is not even a single stone indicating Jewish history." Sheikh 'Ikrima Sabri, PA-appointed Mufti of Jerusalem. January 2001 [57]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "[The Israelis] claim that 2000 years ago they had a Temple [on the Temple Mount]. I challenge the claim that this is so." Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) in Kul Al-Arab, August 25, 2000. [58]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "For 34 years, [the Israelis] have dug tunnels [around the Temple Mount]…they found not a single stone proving that the Temple of Solomon was there, because historically the Temple was not in Palestine (at all)…They are now trying to put in place a number of stones so they can say 'We were here.'" Yasser Arafat, Oct. 5, 2002 in Al-Hayat [59]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "The only new idea he [Arafat] raised at Camp David was that the temple didn't exist in Jerusalem, it existed in Nablus." Dennis Ross, Interview on Fox News, April 21 2002 [60]
      
      
• POINT 6: The Jews lost their connection with Palestine after the Romans expelled them in 135 AD. Then all of a sudden, 2000 years later, they decided to reclaim it.
  
  
  • COUNTERPOINT: Jews maintained a continuous presence in Palestine and periodically flourished there in the two millennia after the Roman defeat.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: Though the Roman army slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Jews, sold thousands more into slavery and forbade Jews to enter Jerusalem during the Jews' second revolt in 135 AD, Jews remained the majority of the population. They simply moved to other parts of the country. "The center of Jewish habitation moved to the north and east of the country, and especially to Galilee, which had suffered little destruction, and was still populated to an overwhelming extent by Jews. The center of Hebrew religious scholarship, too, was moved…to various successive Galilean villages and towns….Rabbis abounded in this region." Historian Michael Grant [61]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: The Romans also allowed the Jews to maintain some autonomy in what was now called Palestine. Shortly after the Jewish revolt in 135 AD, the Romans established a Jewish Patriarchate located in the Galilee. "[T]he patriarchate became a unique office which…attracted Jewish loyalty while also permitting a considerable degree of administrative and even, to some extent, political autonomy." Historian Michael Grant [62]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Thousands of Jews remained in the Galilee, Safad (which became a center of Jewish mysticism), Tiberius and Hebron with smaller numbers in Gaza, Rafah, Ashkelon, Jaffa and Jericho. They produced the Palestinian Talmud in the 3rd century; and tried to retake Jerusalem in 625 AD, just before the Muslim conquest. [63]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "The Arab geographer Abu Abdallah Mohammed-known as Mukadassi-writing in the 10th century, describes the Jews as the assayers of coins, the dyers, the tanners and the bankers in the community." [64]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: By the time of the Crusades (c. 1100 AD), about 300,000 Jews lived in Palestine and they joined forces with the Muslims to fight the Christian invaders. The Crusaders decimated the Jews, herding them into synagogues that they then set on fire. [65]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Once Saladin expelled the Christians, Jews again began to flourish in Palestine. They looked upon Saladin's victory as a sign of their return to Zion. "God is zealous for his name and has had mercy for his people.… In the year 4950 of the creation [1190], God awakened the spirit of the king of Ishmael, and he and all of his army went up from Egypt and laid siege to Jerusalem, and God delivered it into his hands…. And he bid a proclamation be made throughout the city… saying: Speak unto the heart of Jerusalem, that whoever from the seed of Ephraim wishes may go unto it…."Jewish poet Judah al-Harizi, 1214 "The belief that the redemption would begin at this time prompted Jews from many lands to move to Palestine. By 1211, groups of immigrants were already arriving, including a large number of the leading Tora scholars of France, England, North Africa, and Egypt…" [66]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: In 1491, a European Christian pilgrim described the many Jews in Jerusalem: "There are not many Christians but there are many Jews, and these the Moslems persecute in various ways…The Moslems know that the Jews think and even say that this is the Holy Land which has been promised to them….in spite of all the troubles and sorrows inflicted on them by the Moslems, they refuse to leave the land." Martin Kabatnik, Journey to Jerusalem, 1491 [67]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "During the sixteenth century, there developed a new effervescence in the life of the Jews in the country. Thirty communities, urban and rural, are recorded at the opening of the 16th century.(*) They include Haifa, Sh'chem, Hebron, Ramleh, Jaffa, Gaza, Jerusalem and many in the north. Their center was Safed. Its community grew quickly….The 8,000 or 10,000 Jews in Safed in 1555 grew to 20,000 or 30,000 by the end of the century." 16,000 lived in Safad in 1700, at a time when only a handful of European cities even 10,000 inhabitants.(**) [68]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: When the Ottoman Turks took over Palestine in the 16th century and began to restore it, their tax registers showed an increasing number of Jewish families in Jerusalem:(*)

      1525: Muslims: 3,670 Christians: 714 Jews: 1,194
      1553: Muslims: 11,912 Christians: 1,956 Jews: 1,958 [69]
      
      

    • Supporting Evidence: "[T]hroughout the Middle Ages, sizeable Jewish communities existed in Jerusalem and Safed, and smaller ones in Nablus and Hebron." Historian Walter Laqueur [70]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: In 1864, thirty-four years before modern Zionism, British officials estimated that Jews were the majority population in Jerusalem. "The population of the City of Jerusalem is computed at 15,000 of whom about 4,500 Moslem, 8,000 Jews, and the rest Christians of various denominations." [71]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: Exiled Jews maintained a continuous and intense attachment to their people and their homeland for 2000 years. A return to that homeland was at the core of their religious beliefs.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "[T]he severance of Judaism from its territorial roots encouraged…an idealization of the homeland [whose] restoration was much more marked [among them] than among other [exiled] peoples…." Sociology professor Anthony D. Smith [72]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "[T]he cause, the concept of Zion, has been present throughout Jewish history. A survey of the origins of Zionism must take at its starting point the central place of Zion in the thoughts, the prayers, and the dreams of the Jews in their dispersion…The longing for Zion manifested itself in the appearance of many messiahs….in the meditations of generations of mystics. Physical contact between the Jews and their former homeland was never completely broken…." Historian Walter Laqueur [73]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "Throughout all the centuries of Jewish dispersion [Jews] displayed a uniform preoccupation with the Holy Land. Poets, philosophers, mystics, liturgists in Spain, North Africa and Europe traditionally vied with one another in expressing the yearning of the people of Israel for the ravished cradle of its nationhood." Historian Howard Sachar [74]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "The longing for Zion manifested itself in the appearance of many messiahs, from David Alroy in the 12th century to Shabtai Zvi in the 17th century," who promised they would lead Jews back to the Holy Land. Shabati Zvi inspired and mobilized "multitudes" of Jews across the Middle East and Europe who sold their belongings to follow him back to Palestine. [75]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: In 1674, the Jesuit Father Micahel Naud wrote that the Jews in Jerusalem were "paying heavily to the Turk for their right to stay here…They prefer being prisoners in Jerusalem to enjoying the freedom they could acquire elsewhere….The love of the Jews for the Holy Land which they lost…is unbelievable. Many of them come from Europe to find a little comfort, though the yoke is heavy." Voyage Nouveau de la Terre-Sainte, 1702 [76]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: For millennia, in their daily liturgy, Jews prayed "Return in mercy to Jerusalem, your City and dwell therein as You have promised….Blessed are You Lord who rebuilds Jerusalem." Daily Prayer Book At the end of their yearly Passover service, Jews proclaim "Next Year in Jerusalem." [77]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "Everywhere great numbers of Jews, whose religion causes them to live, spiritually, largely in the past, began to take an active interest in those passages of their ritual, that dwelt, with constant emphasis, upon the connection of their race with Palestine; passages which they had hitherto read day by day and week by week, with the lax attention that is given to contingency that is possible but remote. Among a great proportion, at least, of the fourteen millions of Jews, who are dispersed in all the countries of the globe, the Zionist idea took hold. They found in it that larger and higher interest, outside and beyond the cares and concerns of daily life, which every man, who is not wholly materialist, must seek somewhere" Interim Report on the Civil Administration of Palestine to the League of Nations, 1921. [78]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: In the two millennia of their exile, Jews kept returning to Palestine in periodic waves of emigration.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: Jews who survived Mohammed's assault on their well-established towns in Arabia (Yathrib, which became Medina) migrated back to Palestine and settled in Jericho in the 7th century. (*) After Saladin expelled the Crusaders in 1187-89, Jews from North Africa and Spain returned to Zion in waves of immigration. (**) [79]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: In the first half of the 13th century, there was a wave of immigration to Palestine."The belief that the redemption would begin at this time [1240] prompted Jews from many lands to move to Palestine. By 1211, groups of immigrants were already arriving, including a large number of the leading Tora scholars of France, England, North Africa, and Egypt. This movement, which historians refer to as the "aliya of the three hundred rabbis," was unusual in both size and composition. It included several key figures of the French school of the Tosafists, such as R. Samson of Schantz, one of the leading scholars in France, whose talmudic commentaries are studied in yeshivot to this day; and R. Jonathan Hacohen of Lunel, one of the outstanding scholars in Provence and a follower of Maimonides." [80]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "From the beginning of the thirteenth century there was a growing movement for the return of Jews, especially from France, to Palestine. A leading exponent of this movement was the Spanish rabbi Nachmanides who settled in the Holy Land in 1267…." Historian Hans Eberhard Mayer [81]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: In the early 15th century, there was another wave of messianic hope for the redemption of Israel that led to "a mass movement of aliya embracing thousands of Jews from Spain, Italy, North Africa, and Egypt. We find evidence of this movement in a contemporary edition of an anonymous historical text…in Rome in 1429: "And now many people have awakened, and have decided to go to the land of Israel, and many think that we are close to the coming of the redeemer, seeing that the nations of the world weigh heavily upon Israel.""A contemporary source describes the dramatic change that occurred in Safed within just ten years of the arrival of the first wave of Jewish immigrants:

      "Whoever saw Safed ten years ago, and sees it today, will find it remarkable, because more and more Jews are coming all the time, and the clothing industry grows daily…. Any man or woman who works in wool at any labor can earn his living comfortably." [82]
      
      

    • Supporting Evidence: In the late 15th century, yet another wave of immigration to Palestine began. In 1492, 8,000 Spanish Jews returned after their expulsion from Spain, others returned after expulsions from Lithuania (1495), Portugal, Sicily and Sardinia (1497), Rhodes (1502) and Naples (1541). Their return was followed in subsequent centuries by immigration from eastern and central Europe and Middle Eastern countries like Yemen, a return that was often contingent on the tolerance of those who ruled Palestine. [83]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: When the Ottomans took over Palestine in the 16th century, Jews returned in large numbers to Safed, the Galilee and Jerusalem. A Jewish memoir from 1625 reported that "In the year 1625 under Sultan Murad of Turkey…[t]he city of our God was then more greatly populated than at any time since the first exile when Jews constantly arrived to settle here….Jerusalem's fame spread. It became known that we lived here in peace and tranquility. Many of us purchased homes and fields and rebuilt the ruins; our elders dwelt in the streets of Jerusalem, which were filled with children…many academies were opened and scholars flocked to the gates." [84]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: In the mid 17th century, there was yet another major wave of immigration to Palestine, and one of its leaders observed: "For, thank God, it has become crowded in Jerusalem. For the Ashkenazi community in Jerusalem is already twice that of Safed; may it be speedily rebuilt in our days, for every day it increases…. Also the Sephardim in Jerusalem increase greatly, to literally hundreds [of families]." Rabbi R Isaiah Horowitz Letters, 17th century [85]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Again in the mid-18th century, there was a mass immigration to Palestine. "Recently discovered historical sources from the period indicate that the messianic expectations that preceded the year 1740 sparked a mass immigration to Palestine lasting many years. These immigrants, whose numbers reached several thousand within a decade, arrived in Palestine from all over the diaspora, and particularly from within the Ottoman Empire and Italy. They settled mostly in Tiberias and Jerusalem, two cities that the talmudic tradition had singled out for a central role in the redemption." [86]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Prior to 1840, the largest influx of immigration occurred. "In the years leading up to 1840 (5600), messianic fervor again spread throughout traditional Jewry in the West and East and inspired a mass movement of aliya. In strictly numerical terms, this movement was more successful than all those which had preceded it: Over the ensuing decades, tens of thousands of Jews arrived in Palestine, radically changing the demography of the Jewish community there; by the time the first of the Zionist immigrants began arriving towards the end of the nineteenth century, the land of Israel was already host to its largest and most vibrant Jewish community in many centuries." [87]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: By 1858, the British consul in Jerusalem reported that the Jews were the majority of the population in the city and that Muslims "scarcely exceeded one quarter of the whole population." [88]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: More Jews probably would have returned to Palestine over the centuries but didn't because travel was so dangerous and because the ruling Empires and local officials oppressed them.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "The heathens oppress them at their pleasure. They know that the Jews think and say that this is the Holy Land that was promised to them. Those of them who live here are regarded as holy by the other Jews, for in spite of all the tribulations and the agonies they suffer at the hands of the heathen, they refuse to leave the place." Martin Kabatnik, 1491 [89]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: In 1674, the Jesuit Father Micahel Naud wrote that the Jews in Jerusalem were "paying heavily to the Turk for their right to stay here…They prefer being prisoners in Jerusalem to enjoying the freedom they could acquire elsewhere….The love of the Jews for the Holy Land which they lost…is unbelievable. Many of them come from Europe to find a little comfort, though the yoke is heavy." Voyage Nouveau de la Terre-Sainte, 1702 [90]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: In 1766, a Jewish immigrant to Palestine reported: "I had to depart from Jerusalem and flee from the city at night, for dwelling there had become almost impossible. The persecutions and extortions were increasing every day…On my journeys I saw how contemptible we Ashkenazis are in the eyes of those who dwell in the land….More than two hundred families have departed this year from cities like Jerusalem. Life is also difficult in Hebron, Safed, and Tiberius. The legal conditions are hard and are made worse, by reason of our great sins, by persecution, denunciation , and so on." Simon van Geldern [91]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: The Jews were "wretchedly poor…and found it almost impossible to earn money….the Christians hated them so, they would not deal with them; while the Muslims had their own craftsmen, and when they had recourse on occasion to the special skill or knowledge of a Jewish workman, they often held back payment in the knowledge that the Jew would be afraid to press his claim." James Finn, British Consul in Jerusalem, 1878 [92]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "There were rules: Jews had to pass Muslims on their left side, because that was the side of Satan. They had to yield the right of way, step off the pavement to let the Arab go by, above all make sure not to touch him in passing, because this could provoke a violent response….any demonstration of alternative forms of worship, had to be avoided so synagogues were placed in humble hidden places, and the sounds of Jewish prayer carefully muted." Historian David Landes [93]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "Like the miserable dog without an owner he [the Jew] is kicked by one because he crosses his path, and cuffed by another because he cries out-to seek redress he is afraid, lest it bring worse upon him; he thinks it better to endure than to live in the expectation of his complain being revenged upon him." Consul William T. Young to Colonel Patrick Campbell, May 25, 1839 [94]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "The messianic expectations of the Jews of Palestine were sorely tested, however, by the tragic events that they faced in the years leading up to 1840. The plagues that raged throughout the region, the earthquake of 1837 that killed more than two thousand Jews in the Galilee, and particularly the systematic attacks by the Muslim authorities and the local Arab population, threatened to make Jewish existence there intolerable." [95]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "Anti-Jewish violence reached its height during the rebellion of the Arab farm workers that broke out in 1834 against the rule of Muhammed Ali. In the course of these riots, the rebels also attacked the Jews living in major cities. Over a period of several weeks, they rampaged against the Jews of Safed, looting their property, destroying their homes, desecrating their synagogues and study houses, and raping, beating, and in many cases killing Jews. R. Shmuel Heller of Safed reported:"

      For forty days, day after day, from the Sunday following Shavuot, all of the people of our holy city, men, women, and children, have been like refuse upon the field. Hungry, thirsty, naked, barefoot, wandering to and fro in fear and confusion like lambs led to the slaughter…. They [the Arab marauders] removed all the Tora scrolls and thrust them contemptuously to the ground, and they ravished the daughters of Israel-woe to the ears that hear it-and the great study house they burned to its foundations…. And the entire city was destroyed and laid ruin, they did not leave a single wall whole; they dug and sought treasures, and the city stood ruined and desolate without a single person….." [96]
      
      

    • Supporting Evidence: Supporting Evidence:"The [wailing] Wall also drew the spite and malice of the resident Arabs, who took every opportunity to harass the hapless worshipers, scattering broken glass through the alleys leading to the Wall, dumping their garbage and sewage against it, fouling it with urine and feces." Historian David S. Landes [97]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Supporting Evidence:"I arrive at the foot of the Old Wall….they are there, as expected, the elders of Israel, who soon will be nourishing the grass in the valley of Jehosaphat…There before us,…there is already a band of Arab children, there to torment them: the little ones disguised as animals, as dogsm under burlap sacks, coming up on all fours with wild laughs to bark at their feet. On that occasion these Jews did rouse me to profound pity…." Pierre Loti, 1895 [98]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Supporting Evidence:"It might be asked why the Moslems should now be more uncompromising towards the Jews than they had been under the Turkish regime. The answer to that was obvious; under the Turkish regime there had been no Balfour Declaration. The Jews were then a small minority in Palestine without any political claims or rights." Minutes of the Permanent Mandates Commission, 16th (Extraordinary) Session June 30 1930 [99]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: More Jews probably would have returned to Palestine but didn't because of the economic and physical hardships under the Ottoman Empire.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: Supporting Evidence:"[T]he Palestine of the early 1800's was hardly less than an administrative shambles. Centuries of Turkish indifference and misgovernment had encouraged recurrent warfare between local pashas and had permitted Bedouin robber band to terrorize the country's 400,000 inhabitants. Trade was minimal. The entire region was…stunted in its growth by the depredations of tax farmers, by army recruitment, forced labor, drought, and locusts." Historian Howard Sachar [100]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Supporting Evidence:"Jerusalem is, then, in the hands of an almost independent governor; he can do with impunity the evil he wishes, safe from a later accounting to the pasha. It is well known that every superior in Turkey has the right of delegating his powers to an inferior and those always extend over property and life. For a trifling sum a janissary becomes a minor agha, and this agha can put you to death or allow you to buy back your life. Thus executioners multiply throughout the villages of Judea…One might think that the pasha, in superintending his government, would provide a remedy for these ills and vindicate the people. But the pasha is himself the greatest scourge of the people of Jerusalem. His arrival is anticipated like that of a principal enemy of the city." Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand, 1806 [101]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Supporting Evidence:"Nobody knows of all the hardships, sickness and wretchedness they [the early Zionists] underwent. No observer from afar can feel what it is like to be without a drop of water for days, to lie for months in cramped tents visited by all sorts of reptiles, or understand what our wives, children, and mothers go through when the Arabs attack us…No one looking at a completed building realizes the sacrifice put into it." Early Zionist account of settling, 1885 [102]
      
      
• POINT 7: The Jews who returned in the 19th and 20th centuries were foreign interlopers who disrupted the stable, pure, age-old indigenous culture of the Palestinian Arabs.
  
  
  • COUNTERPOINT: The return of exiled Jews to the Holy Land did not disrupt the cultural history of Palestine. Jews had been returning to Palestine for two millennia. The Jews returning in the 19th and 20th centuries were merely part of this age-old pattern.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: Jews who survived Mohammed's assault on their well-established towns in Arabia (Yathrib, which became Medina) migrated back to Palestine and settled in Jericho in the 7th century. After Saladin expelled the Crusaders in 1187-89, Jews from North Africa and Spain returned to Zion in waves of immigration. [103]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: New archival evidence has shown that "Starting with the year 5000 on the Jewish calendar (1240 c.e.), the beginning of each new century signaled for many the possibility of redemption, leading large groups of Jews to make the journey to Palestine as a necessary step in bringing it about. Some of these aliyot were unknown to us until recently; in other cases, recent research has added substantial detail to the historical record. The picture which emerges is one of a clear, recurrent trend of immigration to the land of Israel, which was by no means limited to the "lower" elements of society but took with it Jews from all walks of life. Indeed, in many cases, some of the outstanding Jewish figures of their day led the way. Although the number of Jews who succeeded in making the voyage and settling in Palestine never constituted more than a small portion of world Jewry, these messianic aliyot were of enduring significance…" [104]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: In 1492, 8,000 Spanish Jews returned after their expulsion from Spain, others returned after expulsions from Lithuania (1495), Portugal, Sicily and Sardinia (1497), Rhodes (1502) and Naples (1541). Their return was followed in subsequent centuries by immigration from eastern and central Europe and Middle Eastern countries like Yemen, a return that was often contingent on the tolerance of those who ruled Palestine. [105]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Throughout the millennia, "individual migration [of Jews] to Palestine never ceased; it reached a new height with the arrival of groups of Hassidim in the late eighteenth century." Historian Walter Laqueur [106]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "In the years leading up to 1840 (5600), messianic fervor again spread throughout traditional Jewry in the West and East and inspired a mass movement of aliya. In strictly numerical terms, this movement was more successful than all those which had preceded it: Over the ensuing decades, tens of thousands of Jews arrived in Palestine, radically changing the demography of the Jewish community there; by the time the first of the Zionist immigrants began arriving towards the end of the nineteenth century, the land of Israel was already host to its largest and most vibrant Jewish community in many centuries." [107]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: By 1858, the British consul in Jerusalem reported that the Jews were the majority of the population in the city and that Muslims "scarcely exceeded one quarter of the whole population." [108]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: The indigenous culture was not stable. Throughout the Holy Land's history, foreign empires had overrun it and left their mark and their people on the land. In the 18th and 19th centuries, administrative neglect, civil disorder, poor agricultural techniques and the assaults of Bedouin tribes had led to instability and depopulation.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "[T]he Palestine of the early 1800s was hardly less than an administrative shambles. Centuries of Turkish indifference and misgovernment had encouraged recurrent warfare between local pashas and had permitted Bedouin robber band to terrorize the country's…inhabitants…Trade was minimal. The entire region was agriculture-based but stunted in its growth by the depredations of tax farmers, by army recruitment, forced labor, drought, and locusts." Historian Howard Sachar. [109]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "The peasants are incessantly making inroads on each others' lands, destroying their corn, sesame and olive trees and carrying off their sheep, goats and camels…The Bedouin whose camps occupy the level country are continue at open hostilities with them [the Turks], of which the peasants avail themselves to resist their authority or do mischief to each other…The mutual devastation of the contending parties renders the appearance of this part of Syria more wretched than that of any other." Count Constantine F. Volney, Travels Through Syria and Egypt in the Years 1783, 1784, 1785 Vol. 2, pp. 196-197
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: The pasha who governed Jerusalem would come yearly to collect onerous taxes. "Scarcely was the pasha out of sight when another evil, a consequence of the first, began. The devastated villages rose up and attacked their neighbors in pursuit of hereditary feuds. All communications were broken; agriculture was destroyed as peasants went out during the night to destroy the vineyards and cut down the olive trees of their enemies. The pasha returns the following year and demands the same tribute of a country where the population has been decimated. He must redouble the oppression; he must destroy entire peoples. Little by little the desert grows larger; the ruins of settlements extend further and further…Each year another hut collapses and another family dies off so that soon there remains only a cemetery to mark the place where the was once a village." Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand, 1806 [110]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "Few individuals…die in the same village in which they were born. Families are continually moving from one place to another….in a few years…they fly to some other place where they have heard that their brethren are better treated." --early 19th Swiss-German explorer, John Lewis Burckhardt, Travels in Syria and the Holy Land, (1822) reprinted 1983, p. 299 [111]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "Outside the gates of Jerusalem we saw indeed no living object, heard no living sound, we found the same void, the same silence…as we should have expected before the entombed gates of Pompeii or Herculaneam…a complete eternal silence reigns in the town, on the highways, in the country…the tomb of a whole people." Alphonse de Lamartine, 1835 [112]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "A few years ago the whole Ghor (Jordan Valley) was in the hands of the fellaheen, and much of it cultivated for corn. Now the whole of it is in the hands of the Bedouin, who eschew all agriculture…The same thing is now going on over the plain of Sharon where….land is going out of cultivation and whole villages rapidly disappeared….Since the year 1838, no less than twenty villages there have thus erased from the map, and the stationary population extirpated. " H.B. Tristam, The Land of Israel: A Journal of Travels Through Palestine, London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1865, p. 490
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "No nation has been able to establish itself as a nation in Palestine up to this day. No national union and no national spirit has prevailed there. The motley impoverished tribes which have occupied it have held it as mere tenants at will, temporary landowners, evidently waiting for those entitled to the permanent possession of the soil." Sir John William Dawson, Modern Science in Bible Lands, New York, 1890, pp. 449-450
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "The internal wars (between Bedouins and villagers and between villages) had a harmful influence on the growth of population, on the cultivation of the land, and on the degree of rootedness of the fellaheen in their villages. Very often villages passed from hand to hand. There really was not much difference between the fellah who regarded his land as his property and the Bedouin who pitched his tent on it for a brief stay and then moved on to another plot of land." Arieh L. Avneri [113]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "One of the most amazing things until recent times was that the Palestinian used to leave his country, wandering over the high seas in every direction. His native soil could not retain a hold on him…." Sherif Hussein, guardian of the Islamic Holy Places in Arabia in Al-Qibla, March 23, 1918 [114]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: The indigenous population was not all indigenous, unified by a common culture or stable. Foreigners constantly settled in Palestine because Muslim rulers wanted to populate it, because it was the holy land and drew the religious, and because of the shortage of labor.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "In the course of the 18th and 19th centuries Palestine was essentially repopulated by foreigners, some coming from great distances. Egyptians arrived in a number of waves, with an especially large one from 1832 to 1840. Sudanese pioneered successfully in the swampy marshlands. Entire tribes of Bedouin from as far away as Libya settled on the coastal plane. Abandoned villages in the Galilee were resettled by Lebanese Christians. Coastal towns attracted Armenians, Syrians, Turks. The French expansion in North Africa resulted in waves of refugees coming to Palestine; many of the followers of the Algerian resistance leader Abd el Kader went to the Galilee where they founded a number of villages…Russian expansion into the Caucasus led to the emigration of its Muslim people (Circassians and Georgians)…many of these made their way to Palestine, where they founded their own villages. Similarly, the Austrian advance into the Balkans led to the emigration of Bosnian Muslims to Palestine. Turkomans from Russian Central Asia and Kuyrds coplete this roster of "Canaanites." Ironically, the only surviving 'Canaanite' culture is that of the Jews, who everywhere still pray, and in Israel also speak, in a Canaanite language." [115]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Observing this reality, as late as 1911, the Encyclopedia Britannica reported that the area known as Palestine had so many "ethnological groups" that it was hard to write concisely about the area's "ethnology" where "no less than 50 languages were spoken." [116]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: In the 19th century, "[T]he Ottoman authorities-in an effort at Islamization-transferred tens of thousands of Muslims from the empire's northern and Balkan peripheries (Bukhara, the Caucasus, Albania and Bosnia) to its Levantine core, including Lebanon, Syria and Palestine. This increased the Muslim proportion of the population and, perhaps, intensified Islamic consciousness as well." Historian Benny Morris [117]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: During Egypt's rule of Palestine (1831-1840), the ruler, Mohammed Ali, "sent new settlers to consolidate his rule. The Egyptian settlers scattered to many urban and rural points, appropriated large tracts of land, and lent variety and numbers to the existing population….In a number of villages….there are hundreds of families of Egyptian origin who accompanied the conquering forces….Similarly, in the cities of Samaria and Judea there are hundreds of families which, to this day, are named Masri. The origin of all of them is traceable to those who left Egypt at the time of …Mohammed Ali. [118]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Moslems from Algeria and other parts of North Africa (Berbers, called Mugrabis) fled to Palestine seeking asylum from the French after 1830. In some areas, travelers would find "a colony of Algerian Arabs, refugees, who still wear the Algerian bournous, and built the gourbis of Mount Atlas. They cordially responded to me when addressed in the patois of North Africa." H.B. Tristam, The Land of Israel: A Journal of Travels Through Palestine, London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1865, p. 590
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Circassian refugees settled in Palestine after 1878; Turkoman tribes from Iraq arrived in the same period; Arab Yemenites settled in the Jaffa area in 1908. [119]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "The German Templars began their colonization project for religious reasons in 1869." [120]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: European companies that contracted to build railroads hired Egyptian, Syrian and Lebanese laborers in the late 19th century. After World War I, the British Army of Occupation brought in thousands of Egyptians for police duties and building projects. [121]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "Berl Repetur, a board member of the Center for Aliya and Labor, recalls that the case made with the representatives of British rule was that the Palestine Government (the British) employed 15,000 foreigners as against only 500 permanent Jewish residents of the country." [122]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "[T]he utilization of Arab labor by the British was a standing grievance of the Jewish agency. Jobs were being created by an administration pledged to facilitate the development of a Jewish National Home (with tax money, moreover, coming chiefly from the Jewish population), and those jobs were being filled, often not even by Palestinian Arabs but by Arabs coming from abroad. Thus, in December 1936, out of 750 men employed in porterage at Haifa port, 200 were Egyptians and 500 others were described as 'Hauranis,' with only 50 being Palestinian Arabs." [123]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Britain brought 30,000 foreign Arab workers into Palestine to assist in the war effort during World War II, at a time when it had closed off immigration to Jews. Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry [124]
      
      
• POINT 8: Jews returned to Palestine illegally.
  
  
  • COUNTERPOINT: Jews returned legally while the Ottoman Empire still ruled Palestine, though it was often difficult for them to do so.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "Over the three decades, Constantinople's measures certainly…deterred many would-be immigrants, but a steady trickle got through, thanks to Ottoman inefficiency, Great Power pressures and, above all, bribery (baksheesh). Almost every Ottoman official had a price…." [125]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: Jews returned legally after the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1918. The international community had set up the legal mechanisms for their return in the Palestine Mandate in 1920.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "[R]ecognition has…been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstitution of their national home in that country…" Preamble. League of Nations Palestine Mandate. [126]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "The Mandatory shall be responsible for placing the country under such…conditions as will secure the establishment of the Jewish national home…" Article 2 League of Nations Palestine Mandate. [127]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: The Mandatory powers "shall facilitate Jewish immigration…and shall encourage…close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes." Article 6 League of Nations Palestine Mandate. [128]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: The Mandatory powers shall "facilitate the acquisition of Palestinian citizenship by Jews who take up their permanent residence in Palestine." Article 7 League of Nations Palestine Mandate. [129]
      
      
• POINT 9: Britain and the League of Nations had no right to set up the Palestine Mandate as a Jewish homeland.
  
  
  • COUNTERPOINT: Britain and the League of Nations had the right to set up the Palestine Mandate. When World War I ended, the defeated Austrian, German and Ottoman rulers renounced all claims to their once-sprawling empires. International laws and treaties gave the Allies and the League of Nations the obligation and the right to carve out new boundaries and nation-states to replace those empires.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: The Law of Belligerent Occupation, spelled out in the Hague Conventions of 1907, made the Allies, in effect, the new legitimate power of the conquered territories whose former rulers had renounced their claims. "The authority of the legitimate power having actually passed into the hands of the occupant, the latter shall take all steps in his power to re-establish and insure, as far as possible, public order and safety, while respecting, unless absolutely prevented, the laws in force in the country." Hague Convention, Section III, Article 43, 1907 [130]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "The Arabs maintained that their country belonged to themselves and that they had been masters in it for fourteen centuries. Great Britain, in authorising the establishment of a National Home, had disposed of a country which did not belong to it. This claim was particularly open to refutation. It was not in accordance with most elementary facts of ancient history in Palestine. It would be enough to point out that Palestine had belonged before the war to the Ottoman Empire. The country had been conquered, not by Arabs of Palestine, but by the Allies, and had finally been ceded to the Allies and not to the Arabs. Since 1517, Palestine had been under the rule of the Turks. There could be no reference, therefore, to an Arab nation in Palestine, nor could it be claimed that the territory formed part of the patrimony of that nation." Minutes of the Permanent Mandates Commission, 16th (Extraordinary) Session June 30 1930 [131]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: The Peace Treaty between the Allies and Turkey gave the Allies the right to set up the Palestine Mandate as they saw fit. "Article 95 of that Treaty drew an essential distinction between the status of Mesopotamia and Syria and the status of Palestine. The first two countries were provisionally recognised as independent States, whereas, in regard to Palestine, no mention was made of independence nor was there any reference to the assistance and advice of a Mandatory. The article referred only to the administration of the country by a Mandatory chosen by the Principal Allied and Associated Powers, without making any reservation in regard to the character of the administration." Minutes of the Permanent Mandates Commission, 16th (Extraordinary) Session June 30 1930 [132]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: The Covenant of the newly created League of Nations established the right and legal principles for administering the lands of the former empires, which included setting up a Mandate system. "To those colonies and territories which as a consequence of the late war have ceased to be under the sovereignty of the States which formerly governed them and which are inhabited by peoples not yet able to stand by themselves under the strenuous conditions of the modern world, there should be applied the principle that the well-being and development of such peoples form a sacred trust of civilisation and that securities for the performance of this trust should be embodied in this Covenant….this tutelage should be exercised by them as Mandatories on behalf of the League. The character of the mandate must differ according to the stage of the development of the people, the geographical situation of the territory, its economic conditions and other similar circumstances." Article 22, League of Nations Charter [133]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: Britain and the League of Nations had the right to establish the Jewish homeland because it met the principles by which they were carving out new nations: self-determination for peoples who had been ruled by former empires. The Jews were one of the minorities that merited their own state.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "The most general principle of the [post WW I peace settlements] was to recognize the right of national self-determination….Each people or nation, as defined by language, was in principle set up with its own sovereign and independent national state." Historian RR Palmer [134]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "When it is asked what is meant by the development of the Jewish National Home in Palestine, it may be answered that it is not the imposition of a Jewish nationality upon the inhabitants of Palestine as a whole, but the further development of the existing Jewish community, with the assistance of Jews in other parts of the world…." Winston Churchill. [135]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: The international community recognized the legal authority that justified setting up the Mandate for a Jewish homeland.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "At the same time, there is the age-long aspiration of Jews all over the world for a centre in Palestine. This aspiration and claim were formally and most specifically recognised by His Majesty's Government in the Balfour Declaration in 1917. This Declaration was subsequently endorsed in almost identical terms by all the other Principal Allied and Associated Powers in the War, and was finally enshrined in the Mandate which is our authority for the government of Palestine; and it was entrusted to His Majesty's Government by the Principal Allied and Associated Powers at the San Remo Conference in January, 1920. The Balfour Declaration itself made it clear that with the establishment of the Jewish national home and the recognition of the Jewish claims nothing should be done which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine." Honorable W.G.Ormsby-Gore, League of Nations Report on the Administration of Palestine and Trans-Jordan for the Year 1936, Chapter 60. [136]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: The legal principles which justified setting up the Palestine Mandate as a Jewish homeland were identical to those that justified the establishment of multiple other states in the post World War I period.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: In international conferences, the victors of WW I established the boundaries and nation states that emerged from the former Austro-Hungarian Empire and from the fringes of Tsarist Russia. Nine newly independent nations emerged. [137]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: The victorious allies and the League of Nations used these same legal principles when they established the boundaries and nation states that emerged from the Ottoman Empire which had ruled the Middle East for 400 years. Twenty-two Muslim-Arab states were created. They still exist today.
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: Arab leadership accepted the legitimacy of the Mandate for a Jewish homeland.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "We Arabs, especially the educated among us, look with the deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement. We regard [the Zionist proposals submitted in Paris] as moderate and proper. We will do our best….to help them through; we will the Jews a most hearty welcome home." Emir Faisal, Arab leader and spokesman, 1919 [138]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "His Royal Highness the Emir Feisal, representing and acting on behalf of the Arab Kingdom of Hedjaz, and Dr. Chaim Weizmann, representing and acting on behalf of the Zionist Organization, mindful of the racial kinship and ancient bonds existing between the Arabs and the Jewish people, and realizing that the surest means of working out the consummation of their natural aspirations is through the closest possible collaboration in the development of the Arab State and Palestine, and being desirous further of confirming the good understanding which exists between them, have agreed upon….." eleven articles, including Article IV: "All necessary measures shall be taken to encourage and stimulate immigration of Jews into Palestine on a large scale, and as quickly as possible to settle Jewish immigrants upon the land through closer settlement and intensive cultivation of the soil. In taking such measures the Arab peasant and tenant farmers shall be protected in their rights and shall be assisted in forwarding their economic development." Agreement between Emir Feisal and Dr. Weizmann, 1919 [139]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "Many men of education and enlightenment among the Arabs took no part, however, in this antagonism [the 1920-1921 anti-Jewish riots]. They recognised that the fears that had been expressed were illusory. They realised that Jewish co-operation was the best means, perhaps the only means, of promoting the prosperity of Palestine, a prosperity from which the Arabs could not fail to benefit." Interim Report on the Civil Administration of Palestine to the League of Nations, 1921. [140]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: The world community believed that the Arab people's' rights to self-determination would not be compromised by a Jewish homeland. The area that had been under the Ottoman Empire was all awarded to Arabs, except for the small area of Palestine.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: British officials "saw no incompatibility between furthering both Zionist and Arab aspirations. The Jews, they reasoned, would receive only a small slice of the former Ottoman domains, Palestine; the Arabs would not mind, as they would be receiving the vast reaches of Arabia and Greater Syria (including parts of Mesopotamia)." Historian Benny Morris [141]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "No race [the Arabs] has done better [in the post war settlements] out of the fidelity with which the Allies redeemed their promises….Owing to the tremendous sacrifices of the Allied Nations…the Arabs have already won independence in Iraq, Arabia, Syria, and Trans-Jordania, although most of the Arab races fought throughout the war for the Turkish oppressors….The Palestinian Arabs [in particular] fought for Turkish rule." Prime Minister Lloyd George [142]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "Dr Weizmann…has been a great helper of our cause, and I hope the Arabs may soon be in a position to make the Jews some return for their kindness. We are working together for a reformed and revived Near East, and our two movements complete one another…there is room in Syria for us both. Indeed I think that neither can be a real success without the other." Emir Feisal letter to Felix Frankfurter, March 3 1919 [143]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Even as late as 1930, the international community believed the two national movements could co-exist. "We believe that the [Jewish] National Home can be established without detriment to non-Jewish interests, and, indeed, that it can and will confer lasting benefits upon the country in which all sections of the population will share." Shaw Commission 1930 [144]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: The League of Nations' decision to set up a Jewish homeland in Palestine is just as legitimate as its decision to create the 22 Arab states that still exist today.
    
    
    • Question: If you believe the League of Nations had no right to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine, then you also have to question the legitimacy of the 22 Arab nations it also created, which still exist today. Do you believe they also need to be dismantled?
      
      
• POINT 10: Zionists came to Palestine as tools of colonialist, imperialist Western nations.
  
  
  • COUNTERPOINT: Zionists could not be considered the tools of colonialist, imperialist nations given the accepted definitions of colonialism and imperialism.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "Colonialism is a system in which a state claims sovereignty over territory and people outside its own boundaries, often to facilitate economic domination over their resources, labor, and often markets." Free Dictionary [145]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "Imperialism [is] the policy of a state aiming at establishing control beyond its borders over people unwilling to accept such control. Imperialist policy always involves the use of power against its victims. It has therefore been considered morally reprehensible, and the term has been employed in international propaganda to discredit an opponent's policy." The New Encyclopaedia Britannica [146]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: Zionists did not come to Palestine as tools or representatives of any nation. They came as individuals from nations around the world to resettle in their homeland.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "The Jewish movement is national and not imperialist." Emir Feisal, 1919 [147]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Jews came from nations across Europe and the Middle East. They did not represent any of those nations, come in the service of those nations, get support from them or have allegiance to them though many brought the ideals and know-how of Europe with them. They did not form a colonialist outpost for any nation. [148]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Zionism was made up of Jews from around the world, not from any one nation. At the First Zionist Congress, the two hundred and four delegates came "from 15 countries, including the US, Algeria, Palestine as well as western and eastern Europe." Historian Howard Sachar [149]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: Zionists went to Palestine to flee the oppression and discrimination of Western nations, not to be their representatives.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: Anti-Semitism "is a remnant of the Middle Ages, which civilized nations do not even yet seem able to shake off, try as they will….[O]ur presence produces persecution…We have honestly endeavored everywhere to merge ourselves in the social life of surrounding communities….We are not permitted to do so….In countries where we have lived for centuries we are still cried down as strangers, often by those whose ancestors were not yet domiciled in the land where Jews had already had experience of suffering….." The only solution: "[T]he restoration of the Jewish state." Theodore Herzl, The Jewish State, 1896. [150]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: The "Jewish Question" in Europe was not getting resolved. "Jews were at best suffered, nowhere were they welcomed or loved. For the Jews were strangers….The Jews were neither Germans nor Slavs, neither French nor Greek, but the children of Israel…." 1840 German pamphlet assessing the "Jewish Question" [151]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "But even an act of conversion cannot relieve the Jew of the enormous pressure of German anti-Semitism. The Germans hate the religion of the Jews less than they hate their race-they hate the peculiar faith of the Jews less than their peculiar noses. Reform, conversion, education and emancipation-none of these open the gates of society….We shall always remain strangers among the nations. They may even be moved by a sense of humanity and justice to emancipate us, but they will never respect us…." Moses Hess, Rome and Jerusalem: The Last Nationality Question, 1862 [152]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: The Jews are "everywhere [guests], and nowhere at home." "When we are ill-used, robbed, plundered and dishonored, we dare not defend ourselves, and, worse still, we take it almost as a matter of course…Though you prove patriots a thousand times…some fine morning you find yourselves crossing the border and you are reminded by the mob that you are, after all, nothing but vagrants and parasites, outside the protection of the law." Leo Pinsker, 1882 [153]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Returning Jews were escaping brutal persecution in the Russian Empire and discrimination from the Western powers. In Russia, beginning in 1881, "tens of thousands of Jews were expelled from the villages in which they had settled…. Pogroms became an almost permanent feature [of life]….[In cities] Jews were killed and injured by a fanatical mob and much of their property destroyed." [154]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: Exiled Jews had been returning to Palestine for millennia, long before Western nations became powerful, before Europeans dominated the area, and before the Balfour Declaration and the Palestine Mandate. Jews had tried to secure approval for their return from the various empires that had dominated the area for two millennia, including the Ottoman Empire.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "The term Zionism appeared only in the 1890's, but the cause, the concept of Zion, has been present throughout Jewish history….Physical contact between the Jews and their former homeland was never completely broken….individual migration to Palestine never ceased…." Historian Walter Laqueur [155]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Jews who survived Mohammed's assault on their well-established towns in Arabia (Yathrib, which became Medina) migrated back to Palestine and settled in Jericho in the 7th century. (*) After Saladin expelled the Crusaders in 1187-89, Jews returned from North Africa and Spain in waves of immigration.(**) [156]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: New archival evidence has shown that "Starting with the year 5000 on the Jewish calendar (1240 c.e.), the beginning of each new century signaled for many the possibility of redemption, leading large groups of Jews to make the journey to Palestine as a necessary step in bringing it about. Some of these aliyot were unknown to us until recently; in other cases, recent research has added substantial detail to the historical record. The picture which emerges is one of a clear, recurrent trend of immigration to the land of Israel, which was by no means limited to the "lower" elements of society but took with it Jews from all walks of life. Indeed, in many cases, some of the outstanding Jewish figures of their day led the way. Although the number of Jews who succeeded in making the voyage and settling in Palestine never constituted more than a small portion of world Jewry, these messianic aliyot were of enduring significance…" [157]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: In 1492, 8,000 Spanish Jews returned after their expulsion from Spain, others returned after expulsions from Lithuania (1495), Portugal, Sicily and Sardinia (1497), Rhodes (1502) and Naples (1541).
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: In the 1500's and 1600's, there were waves of immigration from eastern and central Europe and Middle Eastern countries like Yemen. [158]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Migration to Palestine "reached a new height with the arrival of groups of Hassidim in the late eighteenth century." [159]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: In the early years of Zionism, Western nations refused to give official help to the Zionist effort.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "Everywhere in the West, the foreign offices, defense ministries and big business were against the Zionists." Historian Paul Johnson [160]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Theodore Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism, had been unable to win the support for a Jewish home from any national government. When he died in 1904, he considered himself "a failure. All his hectic diplomatic activity had been in vain…The German and the Russian governments were neither willing nor able to do anything on their behalf, and others were even less friendly. [The Zionists] had turned down [the British offer of] Uganda and there was no reason to believe that the British would make a better offer." Historian Walter Laqueur [161]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: Zionism was not viewed as a colonialist tool, but as a fulfillment of national self-determination.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: As the French Foreign Minister declared in 1917, It was "a deed of justice and reparation" to endorse the "renaissance of the Jewish nationality in the land from which the people of Israel were expelled so many centuries ago." [162]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "When it is asked what is meant by the development of the Jewish National Home in Palestine, it may be answered that it is not the imposition of a Jewish nationality upon the inhabitants of Palestine as a whole, but the further development of the existing community……This community, then, with its town and country population, its political, religious and social organizations, its own language, its own customs, its own life, has in fact 'national characteristics.'" Winston Churchill [163]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "Large sums of money were collected in Europe and America, and spent in Palestine, for forwarding the movement. Many looked forward to a steady process of Jewish immigration, of Jewish land colonization and industrial development, until at last the Jews throughout the world would be able to see one country in which their race had a political and a spiritual home, in which, perhaps, the Jewish genius might repeat the services it had rendered to mankind from the same soil long ago. The British Government was impressed by the reality, the strength and the idealism of this movement. It recognised its value in ensuring the future development of Palestine…" Interim Report on the Civil Administration of Palestine to the League of Nations, 1921. [164]
      
      
• POINT 11: Zionists stole Palestinians' land when they came to Palestine in the 19th and 20th centuries.
  
  
  • COUNTERPOINT: The Zionists did not steal land. They legally bought it from willing Arab landowners, often for exorbitant prices.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: Of the 463,000 acres that Jews owned in 1947, they had bought 387,500 from Arabs (84%), 30,000 acres from various churches and received 45,000 from the British Mandate authorities. [165]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "It is made quite clear to all…that the Arabs are as prodigal in selling their land as they are in useless wailing and weeping." King Abdullah of Jordan [166]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Arab nationalists "in daylight were crying out against Jewish immigration and in the darkness of the night were selling lands to the Jews." Dr. Heinrich Wolff, German Consul in Jerusalem [167]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Some anti-Zionist Arab newspapers stressed the theme that "large Arab landowners were involved in sales of land to the" Zionists, and one writer, Najib Nassar, "wrote that those who should be leaders themselves are selling their country cheaply." Another newspaper "leaves its reader with the unmistakable impression that Arab complacency, disunity, greed and self-interest were more important reasons for Zionist success and Arab failure than the strength of the settler movement itself." Historian Rashid Khalidi [168]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Large landowners who sold land to Zionists included the mayors of Gaza, Jerusalem and Jaffa, As'ad el-Shuqeiri (father of the first PLO Chairman) and members of the Muslim Supreme Council. Even King Abdullah leased land to Jews. [169]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: The Jewish National Fund reported on the "constant stream of Arab offers to sell," and that it was "flooded…with more offers than it could accommodate" in the 1930's. [170]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "They (Jews) paid high prices for the land, and in addition, they paid to certain occupants of those lands a considerable amount of money which they were not legally bound to pay." John Hope Simpson, Simpson Report 1930 [171]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "In 1944, Jews paid between $1,000 and $1,100 per acre in Palestine, mostly for arid or semiarid land; in the same year, rich black soil in Iowa was selling for about $110 an acre." [172]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: Much of the land Zionists bought and settled was unpopulated.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "The country is in a considerable degree empty of inhabitants and therefore its greatest need is that of a body of population," British consul James Finn noted in 1857. [173]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "A few years ago the whole Ghor (Jordan Valley) was in the hands of the fellaheen, and much of it cultivated for corn. Now the whole of it is in the hands of the Bedouin, who eschew all agriculture…The same thing is now going on over the plain of Sharon where….land is going out of cultivation and whole villages rapidly disappeared….Since the year 1838, no less than twenty villages there have thus erased from the map, and the stationary population extirpated. " H.B. Tristam, The Land of Israel: A Journal of Travels Through Palestine, London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1865, p. 490
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: The area suffered from severe underpopulation and was facing even more depopulation in the 19th century because of economic stagnation, the lack of civic order and the oppressive Ottoman system. There were barely 260,000 Arabs in 1882 in what today is Israel and the Territories, an area that had supported approximately 5 million people in the 1st century AD.. [174]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "The country was…and is now, underdeveloped and under-populated. The methods of agriculture are, for the most part, primitive; the area of land now cultivated could yield a far greater product. There are…large cultivable areas that are left untilled. The summits and slopes of the hills are admirably suited to the growth of trees, but there are no forests. Miles of sand dunes that could be redeemed, are untouched." Interim Report on the Civil Administration of Palestine to the League of Nations, June 1921. [175]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "Arab claims that the Jews have obtained too large a proportion of good land cannot be maintained. Much of the land now carrying orange groves was sand dunes or swamps and uncultivated when it was bought." Peel Commission Report, 1937 [176]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Tel Aviv was founded in 1909 on an expanse of empty sand dunes. "1909: A group of Jews intent on founding an alternative city to the crowded, predominantly Arab port city of Jaffa buy uninhabited sand dunes to the north and create a garden suburb. They name it Tel Aviv, which translates to "Hill of Spring." Tel Aviv becomes the first modern Jewish city, with a population of 35,000 by 1921 and 200,000 by 1948." PBS "Global Connections, The Middle East."

      "Considering its size and importance today, it comes as a surprise that Tel Aviv was nothing but a sand dune 100 years ago….So crowded did Jaffa become that a group of Jews decided to leave Jaffa's lively, noisy and dirty environs to create a garden suburb which would become Tel Aviv. They bought uninhabited sand dunes north of Jaffa, formed an association called "Ahuzat Bayit" and divided property into parcels of land by drawing lots." Travel internet site [177]
      
      

    • Supporting Evidence: "In the 1920's most purchases were of large, relatively empty, mostly uncultivated tracts from absentee effendis (landlords)…." Benny Morris [178]
      
      
• POINT 12: Zionists displaced the local population.
  
  
  • COUNTERPOINT: Few Palestinians were uprooted from their land by the Zionist purchases.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "Historians have concluded that only 'several thousand' families were displaced following land sales to Jews between the 1880'sand the late 1930's." (Benny Morris) This is a "fraction of the number of people displaced by the Egyptian construction of the Aswan Dam," Alan Dershowtiz reminds us. [179]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "The purchase of land by Jews from fellaheen has very rarely led to peasants becoming landless. This fact was so apparent that the provision contained in the Government Ordinance of 1920 compelling the owner to retain sufficient land for his needs was abolished in 1929 as a result of the experience gained over a period of nine years, which showed that no such safeguard was necessary." Report cited in the Minutes of the Permanent Mandates Commission, 16th (Extraordinary) Session, Monday June 9 1930 Session, June 30 1930 [180]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "In point of fact, an exhaustive inquiry by the Government showed, as we have seen, that the displacement of Arabs was infinitesimal and although defenders of the Arab case deny this, they have so far produced no fact or figures to shake the statement in the Annual [Mandate] Report of 1935 that the dispossessed Arabs represented about three-fifths of 1 percent of the rural non-Jewish population as shown by the 1931 census." [181]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "The Arabs cannot say that the Jews are driving them out of the country. If not a single Jew had come to Palestine after 1918, I believe the Arab population of Palestine would still have been around 600,000…" Malcolm MacDonald, British Secretary of State for the Colonies, 1938 [182]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: Few local Palestinians were displaced because the majority of the land Zionists bought did not belong to them, but to non-Palestinian Arabs and large Palestinian landowners who did not live on the land.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "[T]he available figures…suggest that well over 60 percent of the land acquired by the Zionists before 1930 was sold by non-Palestinians." Palestinian-American historian Rashid Khalidi. [183]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "The major part of the purchases made by Jews have been confined to the large estates of absentee landlords." ." Report cited in the Minutes of the Permanent Mandates Commission, 16th (Extraordinary) Session, Monday June 9 1030 Meeting, June 30 1930 [184]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "Analyses of land purchases from 1880 to 1948 show that 73% of Jewish plots were purchases from large landowners, not poor fellahin. " [185]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Large tracts of land in Mandate Palestine were owned not by Palestinian Arabs, but by non-Palestinian absentee landowners, including Turkish government officials, foreign diplomats and Beirut merchants. Palestinian-American historian Rashid Khalid [186]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Large absentee landowners who sold land to Zionists included the mayors of Gaza, Jerusalem and Jaffa, As'ad el-Shuqeiri (father of the first PLO Chairman) and members of the Muslim Supreme Council. Even King Abdullah leased land to Jews. [187]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: As a policy, Zionists tried to buy land that would not displace the local population.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "[U]nder no circumstances must we touch land belonging to fellahs or worked by them." "Only if a fellah leaves his place of settlement should we offer to buy his land at an appropriate price." David Ben Gurion [188]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: The Jewish National Fund's highest priority was buying "the best and largest possible land area available from a cultivability standpoint with the fewest number of owners. Acquiring land with the fewest number of fellaheen occupants was also a priority…." [189]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: Much of the land Zionists bought was uninhabited and uncultivated.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "The country is in a considerable degree empty of inhabitants and therefore its greatest need is that of a body of population," British consul James Finn noted in 1857. [190]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "A few years ago the whole Ghor (Jordan Valley) was in the hands of the fellaheen, and much of it cultivated for corn. Now the whole of it is in the hands of the Bedouin, who eschew all agriculture…The same thing is now going on over the plain of Sharon where….land is going out of cultivation and whole villages rapidly disappeared….Since the year 1838, no less than twenty villages there have thus erased from the map, and the stationary population extirpated. " H.B. Tristam, The Land of Israel: A Journal of Travels Through Palestine, London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1865, p. 490
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: There were barely 260,000 Arabs in 1882 in what today is Israel and the Territories, an area that had supported approximately 5 million people in the 1st century AD.. [191]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "The country was…and is now, underdeveloped and under-populated. The methods of agriculture are, for the most part, primitive; the area of land now cultivated could yield a far greater product. There are…large cultivable areas that are left untilled. The summits and slopes of the hills are admirably suited to the growth of trees, but there are no forests. Miles of sand dunes that could be redeemed, are untouched." Interim Report on the Civil Administration of Palestine to the League of Nations, June 1921. [192]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "Arab claims that the Jews have obtained too large a proportion of good land cannot be maintained. Much of the land now carrying orange groves was sand dunes or swamps and uncultivated when it was bought." Peel Commission Report, 1937 [193]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Tel Aviv was founded in 1909 on an expanse of empty sand dunes. . "1909: A group of Jews intent on founding an alternative city to the crowded, predominantly Arab port city of Jaffa buy uninhabited sand dunes to the north and create a garden suburb. They name it Tel Aviv, which translates to "Hill of Spring." Tel Aviv becomes the first modern Jewish city, with a population of 35,000 by 1921 and 200,000 by 1948." PBS "Global Connections, The Middle East." [194]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "In the 1920's most purchases were of large, relatively empty, mostly uncultivated tracts from absentee effendis (landlords)…." Benny Morris [195]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: Most often, when Jews bought peasants' land, the peasants were not displaced because they sold only the portion of their lands that they could not afford to cultivate, and kept their productive land.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "Misleading allegations have been made concerning the eviction of Arabs from their holdings through Jewish land purchases. Where land was purchased from Arab peasant owners or from villages, the Arab cultivator was, as a rule, too poor in capital to derive any benefit from the large amount of land that he held. Such Arab cultivators generally, sold land which was useless to them and retained a portion from which they derived an income, and used the money thus obtained for improving their condition." Report cited in the Minutes of the Permanent Mandates Commission, 16th (Extraordinary) Session, Monday June 9 1030 Meeting, June 30 1930 [196]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: The Palestinian farmers who were uprooted from their land were not displaced by Zionists but by social and economic forces that had nothing to do with Zionists.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "[T]housands.[of small farmers].during the period 1880-1920 moved from the rural areas to the towns or other villages, as a result of debts, a multiplicity of heirs, famine or other causes unconnected to Jewish land purchases." Historian Benny Morris [197]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, " Vast land-holdings, in amounts exceeding five thousand dunams or more, were accumulated in large part owing to fellaheen indebtedness. This [indebtedness] was mostly caused by poor crop yields and unproductive methods of land use. Merchants, rural shaykhs and notables, and urban professionals gradually amassed areas of land as financial investments." [198]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: As modernization began after World War I, rural people left the countryside for opportunities in the growing cities, a pattern also occurring in America and Europe. As Benny Morris observed: "[T]here was a growing shift of population from the countryside to urban shantytowns and slums; to some degree this led to both physical and psychological divorce from the land." [199]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "[S]uccessive years of agricultural setback such as those from 1911 to 1920 and from 1930 to 1935 battered the Palestinian fellaheen….Coincidentally, the influx of Jewish capital into Palestine acted as a magnet pulling economically weak fellaheen away from the lands they worked." [200]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: The Arab population grew and benefited because of Jewish settlement.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "Those good Jews brought civilization and peace to the Arab Muslims and they dispersed gold and prosperity over Palestine without damage to anyone or taking anything by force." Syrian Alawi notables letter to French Prime Minister June 1936 [201]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "The Arab population shows a remarkable increase since 1920, and it has had some share in the increased prosperity of Palestine. Many Arab landowners have benefited from the sale of land and the profitable investment of the purchase money. The fellaheen are better off on the whole than they were in 1920. This Arab progress has been partly due to the import of Jewish capital into Palestine and other factors associated with the growth of the National Home. In particular, the Arabs have benefited from social services which could not have been provided on the existing scale without the revenue obtained from the Jews." Peel Commission Report [202]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "[T]he infusion of Jewish capital--in payments for land, for agricultural produce, building materials, wages, rents and services-profoundly stimulated the Arab economy…Arab manufacturing…branched out….By 1935, no fewer than seven hundred Arab cooperatives were functioning. New opportunities were opening out in medicine, law, government employment, journalism and teaching. The number of Arab children attending schools had grown from less than 2% in 1920 to about 13% in 1936." [203]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "No one doubted that the Arabs had benefited from Jewish immigration. Their numbers had almost doubled between 1917 and 1940, wages had gone up, the standard of living had risen more than anywhere else in the Middle East." Historian Walter Laqueur [204]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: The Muslim infant mortality rate fell from 201 per thousand in 1925 to 94 per thousand in 1945. Life expectancy rose from 37 years in 1926 to 49 in 1943. [205]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: Zionists did not displace Arabs. The reverse occurred. As Jewish settlement developed, Arabs from outlying regions and from other countries immigrated to these areas because of the economic boom the Zionists had created.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "Indeed, in the Middle East, it was Palestine alone that saw Arab immigration exceeding emigration: the Jews were providing a new market for Arab food and services." Historian Howard Sachar [206]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: An estimated 25% to 37% of immigrants to pre-state Israel were Arabs, not Jews. Between 1922 and 1946 alone, "approximately 100,000 Arabs entered the country from neighboring lands." [207]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "This illegal[ Arab] immigration was not only going on from the Sinai, but also from Trans-Jordan and Syria, and it is very difficult to make a case out for the misery of the Arabs [as Arabs opposed to Jewish settlement were claiming] if at the same time their compatriots from adjoining states could not be kept from going in to share that misery." C.S. Jarvis, Governor of the Sinai from 1923-36 [208]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "[T]he movement of Arabs within Palestine itself was largely to regions of Jewish concentration. Thus Arab population increase during the 1930s was 87% in Haifa, 61% in Jaffa, 37% in Jerusalem. A similar growth was registered in Arab towns located near Jewish agricultural villages." Historian Howard Sachar [209]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "So far from being persecuted, the Arabs have crowded into the country and multiplied till their population has increased more than even all world Jewry could lift up the Jewish population." Winston Churchill, 1939 [210]
      
      
• POINT 13: The British let Jews flood into Palestine by "facilitating Jewish immigration," in accord with the Palestine Mandate stipulations, and preventing Arab immigration to Palestine.
  
  
  • COUNTERPOINT: The British did not "facilitate Jewish immigration" into Palestine despite the Mandate stipulations.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "Article 6 [of the Mandate] stipulated that, without prejudice to the rights and position of other sections of the population, the Palestine Administration "shall facilitate Jewish immigration under suitable conditions and shall encourage, in co-operation with the Jewish agency referred to in Article 4, close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes". It would, however, be useless to search for the measures taken to facilitate Jewish immigration, and the result would be as negative if an enquiry were made as to the State lands and the waste lands on which the settlement of the Jews had been encouraged." Minutes of the Permanent Mandates Commission, 16th (Extraordinary) Session June 30 1930 [211]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: Just the reverse was true. The British imposed more and more strict immigration quotas on Jews to pacify Palestinian Arab demands.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: After the 1921 riots against the Jews, Britain issued the Churchill White Paper which restricted the Jewish National Home to the area west of the Jordan River-effectively slicing off 77% of the Mandate in what became Jordan-and made clear that Britain did not intend to create a Jewish-majority state in the remaining Mandate and "limited Jewish immigration thenceforth to the 'economic capacity of the country'"-a criterion that could be used arbitrarily. Churchill White Paper 1922 [212]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: After the 1929 riots against the Jews, Britain released the Passfield White Paper (1930) which claimed that "There remains no margin of land available for agricultural settlement by the new immigrants…." "Jewish immigration must be suspended …." Passfield White Paper and historian Howard Sachar. [213]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: After the Arab Revolt (1936-1939), Britain announced that "His Majesty's Government therefore now declare unequivocally that it is not part of their policy that Palestine should become a Jewish state," that only 75,000 Jewish immigrants would be allowed in the country for the next five years "if economic absorptive capacity permits" and that "after the period of five years no further Jewish immigration will be permitted unless the Arabs of Palestine are prepared to acquiesce in it." British White Paper of 1939 This effectively violated Britain's obligations under the League of Nations Mandate. [214]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: After World War II, Britain refused to expand Palestine immigration quotas to absorb a hundred thousand Jewish survivors of World War II who were interred in Europe's displaced persons' camps. Britain's Foreign Minister, Ernest Bevin, declared publicly that Americans supported this immigration to Palestine because "they did not want too many of them [Jews] in New York." [215]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: Quite the reverse was true. Though Britain restricted Jewish immigration purportedly because of the area's limited "absorptive capacity", it never expressed similar concerns about the significant Arab immigration to the region and to areas of Jewish settlement. It did not even keep careful records about this Arab immigration.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "M. RAPPARD felt that the smuggling of immigrants into Palestine by Arabs must create bitterness among the Jews. He was surprised that there was no reference to the subject in the High Commissioner's statement to the Arab Executive reproduced on pages 10 and 11 of the report." "Minutes of the Thirty-Fourth Session" of the League of Nations Permanent Mandates Commission June 18 1935 [216]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "In the matter of immigration, Trans- Jordanians were subject to the same restrictions as anyone else. They were, however, allowed to visit Palestine temporarily without passports.

      M. ORTS wondered whether the free admission of Trans-Jordanians into Palestine did not lead to abuses, since it was a fact that a certain number of Trans-Jordanians remained in the country. He wished to ask whether the Palestine Government could be certain that Arabs entering Palestine through Trans-Jordan (and these need not necessarily be Trans-Jordanian Arabs) did not avail themselves of the privilege accorded to the Trans-Jordanians in order to settle down in Palestine." "Minutes of the thirty-Fourth Session" of the League of Nations Permanent Mandates Commission June 18 1935 [217]
      
      

    • Supporting Evidence: "Lord LUGARD… asked whether the casual Haurani and other Arab labourers who came over the frontier had to obtain licences or permits, and what steps were taken to see that they returned. He noted from a letter from the mandatory Power to the Jewish Agency that 473 had recently been deported. Mr. MOODY said that up to the present time the High Commissioner had not thought it necessary to introduce any form of registration." "Minutes of the thirty-Fourth Session" of the League of Nations Permanent Mandates Commission June 18 1935 [218]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "Lord LUGARD said that La Syrie had published, on August 12th, 1934, an interview with Tewfik Bey El-Huriani, Governor of the Hauran [Syria], who said that in the last few months from 30,000 to 36,000 Hauranese had entered Palestine and settled there. The accredited representative would note the Governor's statement that these Hauranese had actually "settled".

      Mr. MOODY expressed the view that the statement of the Governor of the Hauran was a gross exaggeration.

      M. ORTS did not know how much value could be attached to the statement, but the statement itself was quite definite. The Governor even referred to the large sums remitted by these immigrants to their families, who remained in the Hauran." "Minutes of the thirty-Fourth Session" of the League of Nations Permanent Mandates Commission June 18 1935 [219]
      
      

  • COUNTERPOINT: There was clear evidence of sizeable Arab immigration from Transjordan and other Arab countries into Palestine, and of Palestinian Arabs moving to Jewish areas of the Mandate itself because of the economic opportunities there.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "Indeed, in the Middle East, it was Palestine alone that saw Arab immigration exceeding emigration: the Jews were providing a new market for Arab food and services." Historian Howard Sachar [220]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: An estimated 25% to 37% of immigrants to pre-state Israel were Arabs, not Jews. Between 1922 and 1946 alone, "approximately 100,000 Arabs entered the country from neighboring lands." [221]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "This illegal[ Arab] immigration was not only going on from the Sinai, but also from Trans-Jordan and Syria, and it is very difficult to make a case out for the misery of the Arabs if at the same time their compatriots from adjoining states could not be kept from going in to share that misery." C.S. Jarvis, Governor of the Sinai from 1923-36 [222]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: During World War II, while European Jews could not get sanctuary in Palestine, the British government imported 30,000 Arabs to help with the war effort. They remained and settled in Palestine. Anglo-American Committee Report [223]
      
      
• POINT 14: The UN's Partition Plan for Palestine was an historically unprecedented way to resolve such conflicts.
  
  
  • COUNTERPOINT: It was not historically unprecedented. Partition was the way the world community resolved and continues to resolve such conflicts.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: Just months before the UN Partition recommendation, India had accepted a similar partition plan to separate hostile Moslems and Hindus. Pakistan was carved out of India, with a refugee population of an estimated 12 to 24 million people who fled to one or the other side of the new border. [224]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: The map of eastern and central Europe was redrawn after WW II, with 10 to 15 million Germans expelled from areas where they had lived for centuries. "German expulsion after World War II refers to a policy agreed to at the Potsdam Conference and undertaken by the Soviet Union…They expelled ethnic Germans from countries under Soviet influence. Some allege that the purpose of this policy was to punish Germany for its actions during World War II and to create ethnically homogenous nations. Others believed this is the only way to prevent ethnic violence. As Churchill expounded in the House of Commons in 1944, "Expulsion is the method which, in so far as we have been able to see, will be the most satisfactory and lasting. There will be no mixture of populations to cause endless trouble...A clean sweep will be made. I am not alarmed by these transferences, which are more possible in modern conditions..." Some of those removed had been settled in the East by the Nazi government. Some groups claim that over 15 million Germans were forced to relocate…" [225]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: The UN endorsed the division of Korea into South and North Korea in 1947, and recognized the southern section of the country as the Republic of South Korea. [226]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: In our own day, small nations have been carved out of larger countries to separate hostile groups: Yugoslavia divided into five states between 1992-1999, despite competing claims to the land and the necessity for population movements.
      
      
• POINT 15: The UN had no right to intervene and impose partition as a solution.
  
  
  • COUNTERPOINT: The UN had not just a right but an obligation to find a solution to the conflict.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: The UN's purpose is "[T]o bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace." Article 1, UN Charter [227]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "My basic approach…was that the long-range fate of Palestine was the kind of problem we had the UN for." President Harry Truman, Memoirs [228]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: The UN had not just a right but an obligation to find a solution for the Arab-Jewish dispute that met its Charter obligations to both national movements.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: For non-self-governing Territories like the Palestine Mandate, the UN was "to develop self-government, to take due account of the political aspirations of the people and to assist them in the progressive development of their free political institutions, according to the particular circumstances of each territory and its peoples." Article 73 UN Charter [229]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: The world community recognized that partition was the only fair solution. It recognized that the Palestinian and Jewish national movements BOTH had validity and that they were irreconcilable.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "It was relatively easy to conclude… that since both groups steadfastly maintain their claims, it is manifestly impossible, in the circumstances, to satisfy fully the claims of both groups, while it is indefensible to accept the full claims of one at the expense of the other." United Nations Special Committee on Palestine Report 1947 [230]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "Both of these people have their historic roots in Palestine…The basic conflict…is a clash of two intense nationalisms…who are dissimilar in their ways of living and….political interests which render difficult full and effective political cooperation. Only by partition can these conflicting national aspirations find substantial expression…." UN Investigating Committee, 1947 [231]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "In analysing the various plans for the future of Palestine, it is essential…to bear in mind the indisputable fact that the population of Palestine consists of two peoples, the Arabs and the Jews. Both have historical roots in Palestine. Palestine has become the homeland of both these peoples, each of which plays an important part in the economy and the cultural life of the country. Neither the historic past nor the conditions prevailing in Palestine at present can justify any unilateral solution of the Palestine problem, either in favour of establishing an independent Arab State, without consideration for the legitimate rights of the Jewish people, or in favour of the establishment of an independent Jewish State, while ignoring the legitimate rights of the Arab population. Neither of these extreme decisions would achieve an equitable solution of this complicated problem, especially since neither would ensure the settlement of relations between the Arabs and the Jews, which constitutes the most important task." Andrei Gromyko, USSR representative to the UN, Speech to the Plenary Session on Palestine, May 14 1947 [232]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: The need for a compromise based on partition had been recognized even ten years before the UN Partition Resolution by Britain's Peel Commission.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "An irrepressible conflict has arisen between two national communities within the narrow bounds of one small country…..Their national aspirations are incompatible….Neither of the two national ideals permits of combination in the service of a single State…. "Peel Commission Recommendation, 1937 [233]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "No fair-minded statesman can think it right either that 400,000 Jews,….should be handed over to Arab rule, or that, if the Jews should become a majority, a million Arabs should be handed over to their rule. But while neither race can fairly rule all Palestine, each race might justly rule part of it. " Peel Commission Recommendation, 1937 [234]
      
      
• POINT 16: The UN Partition Plan was unjust to the Arabs because Arabs formed a majority of the population in Palestine.
  
  
  • COUNTERPOINT: Jews formed 1/3 of the population (1,200,000 Arabs and 650,000 Jews) and were therefore a significant minority who warranted the division into two states.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: When India and Pakistan were carved out of India, Hindus also formed only one-third of the population but still merited their own separate nation.
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: The UN's recommendation was based precisely on the principle of population majorities. With Partition, one state would have a Jewish majority; the other an Arab majority.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: The proposed Jewish state included 583,000 Jews and 397,000 Arabs; the 100,000 Jews who made up the majority of Jerusalem were excluded because Jerusalem was to become an international city. [235]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "It is hard to see how the Arab world, still less the Arabs of Palestine, will suffer from what is mere recognition of accomplished fact-the presence in Palestine of a compact, well organized, and virtually autonomous Jewish community." London Times Editorial, December 1 1947
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: Arabs had already been granted the vast majority of the land of the original Palestine Mandate when Britain closed 80% of it to Jewish settlement and awarded it to the Hashemite Abdullah in what became Jordan.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: The original Mandate had included what is today the country of Jordan, but Britain cut off this portion--77% of the Mandate's original territory--and gave it to Arabs in 1922. [236]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: This land was described as "a reserve of land for use in the resettlement of Arabs [from Western Palestine] once the National Home for the Jews in Palestine" became a "Jewish independent state." British Envoy to Palestine, Sir Alec Kirkbride [237]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Britain agreed that Jordan was to be settled exclusively by Arabs though this agreement violated the Mandate's stipulation to "encourage close settlement of the Jews on the land." Instead, it forbade Jews to live there. [238]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "In terms of territory, Transjordan represented a full four-fifths of the original Mandatory Palestine… [the British hoped] the Arabs would now waive their claim to the remaining fifth." [that is, their claims to the whole Palestine Mandate] Historian Benny Morris [239]
      
      
• POINT 17: The UN Partition Plan was unjust because Jews owned only 6% of the Mandate lands.
  
  
  • COUNTERPOINT: Land ownership is irrelevant to statehood. Self-determination and national identity are based on population density and shared identity.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "A nation-state may be thought of as one in which supreme political authority…represents the will and feeling of its inhabitants. …The nation is usually (though not always) composed of all persons sharing the same speech…a belief in a common descent or…common history, a common future, a common religion, a common geographical home or a common external menace. Nations take form in many ways. " Historian RR Palmer [240]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "In its simplest form, nationalism is an awareness of cultural and territorial identity-the identity, that is, of people who share a common language, history, and traditions…." Basic History Textbook [241]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: How much land is owned is irrelevant to sovereignty or self-determination. A dense urban population might own no land and yet vastly outnumber large landowners in rural areas or large urban landlords. Similarly, large numbers of peasants might work and live on land owned by a few large, foreign landowners.
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: Palestinian Arabs did not own 94% of the British Mandate as this claim implies.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: The vast majority of the land-70%--was state land, according to British government statistics. It was not owned by any individuals, but belonged to the ruling power and passed from the authority of the Ottoman Empire to the British Mandate after World War I, in accordance with international law. [242]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Of the remaining non-state lands:
      • 8.6% was owned by Jews.
      • 3.3% was owned by Arabs who remained in the new state of Israel.
      • 16.5% was owned by Arabs who left the new state of Israel. [243]
      
      
• POINT 18: The Partition Plan was unjust because it gave Arabs a minority portion of the Palestine Mandate land. Arabs were offered 45% of the land; Zionists 55%.
  
  
  • COUNTERPOINT: The vast majority of the original Palestine Mandate-77%--had already been awarded exclusively to Arabs in 1921: the area that became known as Jordan.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "The field in which the Jewish National Home was to be established was understood, at the time of the Balfour Declaration, to be the whole of historic Palestine, including Transjordan." Peel Commission Report [244]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "In terms of territory, Transjordan represented a full four-fifths of the original Mandatory Palestine… [the British hoped] the Arabs would now wave their claim to the remaining fifth." Historian Benny Morris [245]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: The British appointed Abdullah king of Jordan and abrogated the Mandate rules. Jews were not allowed to settle in this area though it too had been designated for the Jewish homeland. [246]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "In actual practice, two mandates were being applied, one to Palestine and the other to Trans-Jordan, the latter being comprised in the former; but while Trans-Jordanians might go freely into Palestine, Jews were not allowed to settle in Trans-Jordan." "Minutes of the Thirty-Fourth Session" of the League of Nations Permanent Mandates Commission June 18 1935 [247]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: Of the remaining 22% of the Mandate lands, Palestinians were offered the majority of the cultivable, inhabitable land.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: Jews were offered 55% of the land west of the Jordan River, and Arabs 45%. But 60% of the Jewish portion was the Negev Desert, deemed uninhabitable and uncultivable. This means that, in the end, the Jewish population of Palestine was awarded an area of land significantly less attractive than that awarded to the Arab population.
      
      
• POINT 19: The Partition Plan robbed Palestinians of their state.
  
  
  • COUNTERPOINT: The Partition Resolution in fact OFFERED to create a Palestinian state which Arab leaders rejected.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "Palestine within its present borders, following a transitional period of two years from I September 1947, shall be constituted into an independent Arab State, an independent Jewish State, and the City of Jerusalem…." UNSCOP Report 1947 Part A # 1 [248]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "The Arabs rejected the United Nations Partition Plan so that any comment of theirs did not specifically concern the status of the Arab section of Palestine under partition but rather rejected the scheme in its entirety." ….." UN Conciliation Commission for Palestine, Secretariat General Report July 30, 1949. [249]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "Our position is clear, and has been proclaimed on every occasion. It is never to allow the creation of a Jewish State in Palestine and to exclude partition. And our object is to cooperate with the other Arab States in her deliverance." Prime Minister of Transjordan to the Political Committee of the League of Arab States, 1948 [250]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "The Governments of the Arab States emphasize, on this occasion, what they have already declared before the London Conference and the United Nations, that the only solution of the Palestine problem is the establishment of a unitary Palestinian State…" Statement by the Arab League States, May 15, 1948 [251]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Arab leaders even rejected the UN's alternate suggestion for Arab and Jewish cantons to join together in a federal government-known as the minority proposal. "The Arabs rejected [the Partition Plan] with passion. Indeed, both the majority and the minority plans horrified them." Historian Howard Sachar [252]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: There was no state to rob. No independent Arab or Palestinian state ever existed in Palestine.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: After Rome conquered the Jewish state in 135 AD, successive empires ruled the area for the next 1900 years and Palestine ceased to be a distinct political entity.
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "The Ottoman Empire, which ruled Palestine from 1517 to 1917-18 …never made it a separate, distinct administrative district." Its boundaries kept shifting. Parts of it were attached to Damascus, parts to Beirut and parts were independent. [253]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Palestine was not a state but simply "a geographical name of rather loose application…." It did not have " a boundary by which Palestine can be separated exactly from the rest of Syria in the north, or from the Sinaitic and Arabian deserts in the south…" Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed., 1911 p. 600).
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "The Arabs maintained that their country belonged to themselves and that they had been masters in it for fourteen centuries. Great Britain, in authorising the establishment of a National Home, had disposed of a country which did not belong to it. This claim was particularly open to refutation. It was not in accordance with most elementary facts of ancient history in Palestine. It would be enough to point out that Palestine had belonged before the war to the Ottoman Empire. The country had been conquered, not by Arabs of Palestine, but by the Allies, and had finally been ceded to the Allies and not to the Arabs. Since 1517, Palestine had been under the rule of the Turks. There could be no reference, therefore, to an Arab nation in Palestine, nor could it be claimed that the territory formed part of the patrimony of that nation." Minutes of the Permanent Mandates Commission, 16th (Extraordinary) Session June 30 1930 [254]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: Arab leaders did not recognize the existence of a distinctive Palestinian political entity let alone a state.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "There is no such country [as Palestine]. Palestine is a term the Zionists invented!….Our country for centuries was part of Syria." Local Arab leader Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi, to the Peel Commission in 1937. [255]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "There is no such thing as 'Palestine' in history. Absolutely not." Arab-American historian Philip Hitti of Princeton University, Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry,. 1946.
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "Palestine was part of the Province of Syria….politically, the Arabs of Palestine were not independent in the sense of forming a separate political entity." Representative of the Arab Higher Committee to the UN, submitted to the General Assembly in May 1947.
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "It is common knowledge that Palestine is nothing but southern Syria." Ahmed Shuqeiri, later chairman of the PLO, to the UN Security Council, May 31 1956. [256]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: Palestinians had never had a sense of national identity or unity.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "In the course of the 18th and 19th centuries Palestine was essentially repopulated by foreigners, some coming from great distances. Egyptians arrived in a number of waves, with an especially large one from 1832 to 1840. Sudanese pioneered successfully in the swampy marshlands. Entire tribes of Bedouin from as far away as Libya settled on the coastal plane. Abandoned villages in the Galilee were resettled by Lebanese Christians. Coastal towns attracted Armenians, Syrians, Turks. The French expansion in North Africa resulted in waves of refugees coming to Palestine; many of the followers of the Algerian resistance leader Abd el Kader went to the Galilee where they founded a number of villages…Russian expansion into the Caucasus led to the emigration of its Muslim people (Circassians and Georgians)…many of these made their way to Palestine, where they founded their own villages. Similarly, the Austrian advance into the Balkans led to the emigration of Bosnian Muslims to Palestine. Turkomans from Russian Central Asia and Kuyrds coplete this roster of "Canaanites." Ironically, the only surviving 'Canaanite' culture is that of the Jews, who everywhere still pray, and in Israel also speak, in a Canaanite language." [257]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Palestinian-American historian Rashid Khalidi reported that only after WWI was there "the emergence of a Palestinian identity where a few decades before no such thing existed" and even then, it developed only slowly among the upper classes." [258]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "Most serious historians point …to the 1920s and 1930s as the time when the Arabs of Palestine began thinking of themselves as a people separate from those of Syria, Lebanon, and Transjordan…." But "Palestinian "nationalism" was propounded in a narrow circle of educated upper-class and middle-class families…." Historian Benny Morris 2003 [259]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: The Mandate Authorities investigated the reasons for the 1920, 1921 and 1929 riots against the Jews, and concluded they were not driven by a general sense of nationalism, but by Arab elites who resented losing their power and privilege. "On this original cause had been grafted the fears, not of the mass of the population, but of the same governing classes, for their personal social and material interests, which they felt, not without reason, to be threatened by the gradual rise in the standard of living in the country as an inevitable consequence of the activities of the Jews." Minutes of the Permanent Mandates Commission, 16th (Extraordinary) Session June 30 1930 [260]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: As late as 1911, the Encyclopedia Brittanica reported that the area known as Palestine had so many "ethnological groups" that it was hard to write concisely about the area's ethnology because "no less than 50 languages were spoken." [261]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Customs between Arab areas were similar enough such that the First Congress of Muslim-Christian Associations adopted a resolution that stated: "We consider Palestine as part of Arab Syria, as it has never been separated from it at any time. We are connected with it by national, religious, linguistic, natural, economic and geographical bonds." 1919 [262]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "[T]he sympathy of the Palestinian Arabs with their kinsmen in Syria had been plainly shown….Both peoples clung to the principle that Palestine was part of Syria and should never have been cut off from it." Peel Commission Report 1937 [263]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: Even at the time of the Partition Resolution, Palestinians still had not developed a sense of national identity or unity.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "The Palestine Arabs have at present no will of their own. Neither have they ever developed any specifically Palestinian nationalism. The demand for a separate Arab state in Palestine is consequently relatively weak." Count Folk Bernadotte, UN Envoy to Palestine, 1948 [264]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "By 1947, much of the Palestine Arab population had only an indistinct, if any, idea of national purpose or statehood…..[O]n the whole, save for the numerically small circle of the elite, the Palestinians were unready for the national message…Palestine Arabs, still caught up in a village-centered…political outlook, by and large completely lacked…a clear concept of the nation and of national belonging….Most Palestine Arabs had no sense of separate national or cultural identity to distinguish them from, say, the Arabs of Syria, Lebanon or Egypt." Historian Benny Morris. [265]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism." Zahir Muhsein, PLO executive committee member. Interview March 31, 1977 in the Dutch newspaper Trouw [266]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: Unlike their Zionist neighbors, the Palestinian Arabs made no effort to create the institutions for a state during the Mandate period.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "During the entire mandatory period, Arab leaders had refused to cooperate with the British in any scheme of national autonomy as long as the Jews were similarly included…The Arabs possessed nothing comparable to the Jewish quasi-state. At no time had the Supreme Moslem Council or the Arab Higher Committee ever served as more than organs for propaganda or violence. Neither organization had provided administrative training or governmental experience." Historian Howard Sachar [267]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "[T]he Arabs complained of the fact that, although they had enjoyed under Turkish rule a certain autonomy, no form of self-government had as yet been instituted. The Shaw Commission dealt with this grievance on pages 127, 128 and 131 of its report…. The Commission admitted, however (on page 128), that all the efforts of the Government with a view to satisfying the Arabs had been of no effect owing to the fact that the Arabs would only agree to autonomy in a form which would render the international obligations assumed by Great Britain null and void." Minutes of the Permanent Mandates Commission, 16th (Extraordinary) Session June 30 1930 [268]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "As regards the parts of Palestine under Arab control, no central authority exists and no independent Arab State has been organized or attempted….The Partition Plan presumed that effective organs of state government could be more or less immediately set up in the Arab part of Palestine. This does not seem possible today in view of the lack of organized authority springing from Arab Palestine itself…. There now exists in Palestine a form of partition, though an Arab State for which the Partition Plan provided has not materialized…." UN Conciliation Commission for Palestine, Secretariat General Report July 30, 1949. [269]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: Arab refusal to compromise cost them the state they were offered.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: In "the parts of Palestine under Arab control….no independent Arab state has been organized or attempted. This situation may be explained….by Arab unwillingness to undertake any step which would suggest even tacit acceptance of partition…." UN Conciliation Commission for Palestine, Secretariat General Report. July 30, 1949 [270]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "The Governments of the Arab States emphasize, on this occasion, what they have already declared before the London Conference and the United Nations, that the only solution of the Palestine problem is the establishment of a unitary Palestinian State…" Statement by the Arab League States, May 15, 1948 [271]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "The Arab world is not in a compromising mood. It's likely…that [the plan for compromise] is rational and logical, but the fate of nations is not decided by rational logic. Nations never concede; they fight…You can, perhaps, get something, but only by the force of your arms. We shall try to defeat you." Arab League Secretary Azzam Pasha [272]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Palestinians don't have a state because they have had "an all or nothing policy," unlike the Zionists. "The Zionists never demanded the impossible….Our leadership….enabled the Zionists to succeed at every opportunity…by rejecting every proposal for compromise, rejecting proposals to give it a state on most of the land of Palestine…" Tawfiz Abu Bakr, Palestinian columnist, 2003 [273]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Because of "this irrational nihilist behavior [of Palestinians about accepting compromise], "Haj Amin Al-Husseini…rejected the settlement offered him by the Peel Commission in 1937…Then, he repeated his mistake by rejecting the Partition Plan that this time would have given 55% to the Jews and the rest to Palestine…." Al-'Afif Al-Akdhar, Tunisian columnist, 2002 [274]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "The mania for armed struggle….is the cause for [us] missing …historical opportunities since 1937 to 2000, with…pristine excuses such as 'we have the right[s] on our side…" Al-'Aff Al-Akhdar, Tunisian columnist, 2002 [275]
      
      
• POINT 20: The world community agreed to establish a Jewish state in 1947 only because of its guilt about the Holocaust.
  
  
  • COUNTERPOINT: The Holocaust had not yet occurred when the world community originally committed to reestablishing the Jewish homeland.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: The Balfour Declaration was issued in 1917; the League of Nations Palestine Mandate, committed to reconstituting the Jewish homeland in 1920, twenty years before the rise of Nazism, WWII and the Holocaust.
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: The world community endorsed a Jewish homeland in 1947 for the same reasons it had endorsed the idea in the 1937 Peel Commission report, before WW II and the Holocaust had begun: Jews and Palestinian Arabs "have their historic roots in Palestine…" and the Zionists had, "all the…attributes of statehood." UN Investigating Committee, 1947 Peel Commission Report 1937.
      
      
• POINT 21: Palestinians were not responsible for the Holocaust. We should not have had to pay the price by giving up our homeland.
  
  
  • COUNTERPOINT: Palestinians did not have to pay a price or give up their homeland. For the first time in their history, they were given the opportunity to create a state. They rejected this offer.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "Palestine within its present borders, following a transitional period of two years from I September 1947, shall be constituted into an independent Arab State, an independent Jewish State, and the City of Jerusalem…." UNSCOP Report 1947 Part A # 1 [276]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "The Arabs rejected the United Nations Partition Plan so that any comment of theirs did not specifically concern the status of the Arab section of Palestine under partition but rather rejected the scheme in its entirety." ….." UN Conciliation Commission for Palestine, Secretariat General Report, July 30, 1949. [277]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: Palestinians were partially responsible for the Holocaust. Their leader, the Mufti of Jerusalem, actively collaborated with Hitler's efforts to liquidate world Jewry.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: In 1941, the Mufti of Jerusalem fled to Germany where he served as a consultant on the "Jewish Question." He tried to persuade Hitler and other Nazi leaders to extend their anti-Jewish program to the Arab world. After visiting Auschwitz, he expressed his hope to "employ the same method" to "solve the problems of the Jewish element in Palestine and other Arab countries." [278]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: The Mufti of Jerusalem received millions of dollars from Nazi Germany and Italian fascists for his violence against the Jews between 1936 and 1939. The German SS provided financial and logistical support for anti-Semitic programs in Palestine. [279]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "Our fundamental condition for cooperating with Germany was a free hand to eradicate every last Jew from Palestine and the Arab world. I asked Hitler for an explicit undertaking to allow us to solve the Jewish problem in a manner befitting our national and racial aspirations and according to the scientific methods innovated by Germany in the handling of its Jews. The answer I got was: 'The Jews are yours.'" Mufti of Jerusalem, Memoirs [280]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: Palestinians were partially responsible for the Holocaust. They widely supported the efforts of the Nazis and the Mufti to liquidate world Jewry.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: When the Prophet Mohammed's birthday was celebrated in May 1937 with German and Italian flags on display, Arab newspapers hailed this demonstration as a "significant gesture of sympathy and respect…with the Nazis and Fascists in their trials at the hands of Jewish intrigues and international financial pressure…" [281]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Haj Amin al-Husseini's "popularity among the Palestinian Arabs and within the Arab states actually increased more than ever during his period with the Nazis," according to his biographer. In 1948, the National Palestinian Council elected him Chairman though he was then a wanted war criminal. [282]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Edward Said, America's foremost spokesman for the Palestinian cause, believes that the Mufti "…represented the Palestinian consensus, had the backing of the Palestinian political parties that functioned in Palestine and was recognized in some form by Arab governments as the voice of the Palestinian people." [283]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: Palestinian leaders were indirectly responsible for the number of Jewish deaths during the Holocaust. They repeatedly used terrorism and political pressure on the British Mandate authorities to close Palestine to Jewish immigration. The British effectively yielded to their demands in the 1939 White Paper, sealing the fate of death for millions of Jews in Europe.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "[A]ccording to their [Arab] demands, Palestine was to become an Arab state immediately, no more Jewish immigrants were to enter the country, the status of every Jew who had immigrated since 1918 was to be reviewed."1939 [284]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: The White Paper "sealed off Palestine as a haven for all but an insignificant fraction of Jewish refugees, and this at the moment when European Jewry faced a mortal threat to its continued physical survival…Only a minority of the Arab leaders, Abdullah among them, publicly admitted that Britain's concessions to Arab demands were acceptable-indeed, even more than they had dared anticipate." Historian Howard Sachar [285]
      
      
• POINT 22: Israel's admission to the UN was conditional on its acceptance of relevant UN resolutions including 194, which called for the Palestinian right of return.
  
  
  • COUNTERPOINT: This claim is an effort to rewrite history. Israel's admission to the UN was NOT conditional nor was it dependent on Israel's acceptance of Resolution 194. Like every other nation admitted to the UN, Israel was admitted on the basis of Article 4 of the Charter (To see the Arab arguments against Israel's admission and Israel's counter-arguments, which were accepted, go to UN records, Application of Israel for admission to membership in the United Nations (A/818), A/AC.24/SR.45, May 5 1949 at http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/85255a0a0010ae82852555340060479d/1db943e43c280a26052565fa004d8174!OpenDocument#Mr.%20EBAN%20(Israel)%20understood%20tha)
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: The UN accepted Israel as a member on the basis of Article 4 of the Charter, which was the same criterion it used to admit all other new members. "Nothing but the provisions of Article 4 were relevant in the consideration of an application for membership. That conviction, based on the spirit and the language of the Charter, had been confirmed by the General Assembly resolution of 8 December 1948 (197 (III)), which stated that juridically no State was entitled to make its consent to the admission of an applicant dependent on conditions not expressly provided by paragraph 1 of Article 4 of the Charter…. Israel held no views and pursued no policies on any questions which were inconsistent with the Charter or with the resolutions of the General Assembly and the Security Council." Abba Eban Record of the 45th Meeting of the General Assembly on the "Application of Israel for Membership," May 5 1949 [286]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: The Resolution accepting Israel as a member explicitly stated that it was admitted because of its adherence to the principles and obligations of the UN Charter, not specific resolutions."The General Assembly, Acting in discharge of its functions under Article 4 of the Charter and rule 125 of its rules of procedure.

      1. Decides that Israel is a peace-loving State which accepts the obligations contained in the Charter and is able and willing to carry out those obligations;" UN General Assembly Resolution 273 (III) May 11, 1949 [287]
      
      

    • Supporting Evidence: Even the Arab spokesman opposed to Israel's admission admitted that new states only had to meet criteria of Article 4 of the Charter. He tried to make an exception in the case of Israel but was rejected by the UN. "The General Assembly had to determine first of all the criterion on which to base its decision to admit Israel. Ordinarily, applicant States were merely required to comply with the conditions laid down in Article 4 of the Charter. However, in so far as Israel had actually been created in November 1947 by a resolution of the General Assembly (181 (II)), the Assembly had first to consider the cardinal question of whether the new State in its present structure conformed to the previous decisions affecting it which had been adopted by the United Nations itself." Mr. C. Malik of Lebanon, Record of the 45th Meeting of the General Assembly on the "Application of Israel for Membership," May 5 1949 [288]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Legal scholars emphasize that Israel's admission to the UN did not require it to implement Resolution 194: "As to the claim that Israel, upon its admission to membership in the UN allegedly undertook to implement [Resolution 194], a careful scrutiny of the text of Israel's application for membership and of the discussions that took place in the Ad Hoc Political Committee and in the plenary session of the General Assembly show that no such commitment was made; nor did the General Assembly's Resolution on the admission of Israel impose upon her an obligation to implement that Resolution, and a fortiori did not require such implementation as a condition for admission." Law Professor Ruth Lapidoth. [289]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: It is unlikely the UN would have made Israel's admission dependent on acceptance of any UN resolutions. No other new member state had been required to specify its position on UN resolutions precisely because General Assembly resolutions are recommendations, not binding or enforceable, as Arab states repeatedly emphasized at the time.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "No one can say that compliance is imperative or that the States which do not comply with Assembly recommendations are acting against the Charter or undermining the structure of the United Nations. No one can speak of the General Assembly's resolutions as if they were obligatory decisions ... the Charter and the United Nations will not crumble, will not fall apart if one or more of the General Assembly's resolutions is not put into effect." Egyptian Foreign Minister, 1947 [290]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "On 24 February 1948 the [UN] representative of Syria had said that 'in the first place, the recommendations of the General Assembly are not imperative on those to whom they are addressed' ... The General Assembly 'only gives advice, and the parties to whom the advice is addressed accept it ... when it does not impair their fundamental rights.'" Record of the 45th Meeting of the General Assembly on the "Application of Israel for Membership," May 5 1949 [291]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "On 19 March 1948, [the UN representative of Syria] had said that "not every State which does not apply, obey or execute such recommendations would be breaking its pledges to the Charter." Record of the 45th Meeting of the General Assembly on the "Application of Israel for Membership," May 5 1949 [292]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "Referring to Arab opposition to the application of Israel, Mr. Eban stated that the Arab States which now advocated [that Israel's admission to the UN be dependent on] compliance with General Assembly resolutions had in the past assaulted the very foundations of the United Nations by attempting to overthrow a General Assembly resolution by force. The threats they had uttered in various bodies of the United Nations, and which had been translated in destruction and slaughter [the 1948 War], had rested upon the doctrine of the optional character of the resolutions of the General Assembly." Abba Eban, Record of the 45th Meeting of the General Assembly on the "Application of Israel for Membership," May 5 1949 [293]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: Although Israel's admission was not dependent on its acceptance of Resolution 194, the UN body was satisfied that Israel in fact accepted and was complying with the Resolution whose overriding purpose was to set up a Conciliation Commission to help bring peace to the Middle East.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: The UN General Assembly Resolution admitting Israel as a member state explicitly mentioned it accepted Israel's positions on Resolutions 181 and 194. "Recalling its resolutions of 29 November 1947 [Resolution 181] and 11 December 1948 [Resolution 194] and taking note of the declarations and explanations made by the representatives of the Government of Israel before the Ad Hoc Political Committee in respect of the implementation of the said resolutions, The General Assembly (1) Decides that Israel is a peace-loving State which accepts the obligations contained in the Charter and is able and willing to carry out those obligations;" UN General Assembly Resolution 273 (III) May 11, 1949 [294]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: In the debates about Resolution 194, the majority of members agreed that its overriding purpose was to set up a Conciliation Commission and that "three basic objectives underlay the efforts of both the General Assembly and the Security Council: (1) the establishment and maintenance of peace in Palestine; (2) the early attainment of a constructive political settlement which would itself contribute to stability and to economic well-being throughout the Middle East; and (3) reconciliation between the Arab and Jewish communities." Summary of debates and amendments preceding UN acceptance of Resolution 194. Yearbook of the United Nations, 1948-1949, December 31 1949 [295]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: The first substantive paragraph in Resolution 194 stated that the body "Establishes a Conciliation Commission consisting of three States members of the United Nations which shall have the following functions:" The subsequent 13 paragraphs spelled out the functions of the Commission and the issues it needed to resolve.UN Resolution 194, December 11 1948 [296]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: Resolution 194 did not mention, let alone establish, the principle of a right of return, nor did it establish the right of Palestinian Arab refugees to return to Israel. The Resolution recommended resettlement in neighboring countries OR repatriation.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: Resolution 194 was established principally to facilitate peace negotiations between the warring parties, and only incidentally addressed the refugee issue in a minor paragraph-number 11. UN Resolution 194, December 11 1948 [297]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: The only section of Resolution 194 that deals with refugees is Paragraph 11. Nothing in its wording mentions or suggests a right of return. "The General Assembly ... resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible." General Assembly Resolution, Paragraph 11 [298]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: The resolution does not suggest a right of return. Rather it states that "refugees wishing to return to their homes…should be permitted to do so." General Assembly Resolution, Paragraph 11 [299]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: The resolution does not suggest either a "right of return" nor does it consider repatriation the only alternative. It clearly states that resettlement is also an option for those who do not wish to return. General Assembly Resolution, Paragraph 11 [300]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: It does not mention a right of return. In fact, it places a restriction on those who can return. They must "be willing to live at peace with their neighbors." General Assembly Resolution, Paragraph 11 [301]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: The resolution does not even claim that Israel must be the nation to pay compensation for refugees who choose not to return. Rather, it uses the plural, recommending that the "governments or authorities responsible" should pay compensation. It did not name Israel as responsible. It implied that those responsible for causing the war that created the refugee problem might need to assume responsibility for compensating the refugees.
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: When Israel was admitted to the UN in 1949, the UN accepted Israel's position that there had to be a regional solution to the refugee problem. The Arab states, who had created the problem by starting the 1948 War, had to share responsibility for resolving it. "[R]esponsibility lay with the Arab States which, by virtue of having proclaimed and initiated the war which had rendered those refugees homeless, were under moral obligation to take a full share in the solution of their problem…. the Government of Israel contended that resettlement in neighbouring areas should be considered as the main principle of solution. Israel, however, would be ready to make its own contribution to a solution of the problem." " Abba Eban, Record of the 45th Meeting of the General Assembly on the "Application of Israel for Membership," May 5 1949 [302]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: The interpretation of Paragraph 11 as a wholesale right to repatriation "does not seem warranted: the paragraph does not recognize any "right", but recommends that the refugees "should" be "permitted" to return. Moreover, that permission is subject to two conditions - that the refugee wishes to return, and that he wishes to live at peace with his neighbours…. The return should take place only "at the earliest practicable date." The use of the term "should" with regard to the permission to return underlines that this is only a recommendation." Ruth Lapidoth, Professor of Law, Journal of International Peace and Organization 2001 [303]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: The UN clearly did not intend that Resolution 194 establish the principle of a 'right of return' nor did it consider repatriation the only or most desirable solution to the refugee problem. Resolution 194 also recommended resettlement in neighboring countries, a position the UN would repeat in multiple resolutions for the next two decades. International groups also advocated resettlement of the refugees: they did not mention a 'right of return.'
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: Britain did not consider repatriation a feasible option. "Acquainted with Palestine's background, the British had realized the futility of repatriation as an option, since the outset of the mass exodus…Britain advocated extending immediate aid to the refugees and ultimately settling them in the Arab countries….Behind the scenes at the UN General Assembly….the British did not discuss the question of their return at all. Historian Yoav Gelber [304]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "[T]he US Consul in Jerusalem, and other American diplomats in the Middle East, shared these [British views about resettlement] views and sent similar appraisals to the State Department." Historian Yoav Gelber [305]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: The United Nations itself came to accept the idea that most Palestinian Arabs would have to be resettled elsewhere. In "paragraph 14 of [its second progress] report, the Conciliation Commission fully accepted the principle that the refugees would be distributed among various countries in the Near East, and stated that "in the long run the final solution of the problem will be found within the framework of the economic and social rehabilitation of all the countries in the Near East" Abba Eban, Record of the 45th Meeting of the General Assembly on the "Application of Israel for Membership," May 5 1949 [306]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: The Conciliation Commission for Palestine (CCP) believed that "an unrestricted repatriation of refugees was neither a feasible option nor a preferred one. The CCP's view was that since 1948 the physical conditions in this area have changed considerably. Therefore, every decision on return must be coordinated with the Israeli government rather than imposed on it, and that there should be an upper limit to the number of refugees whose return would be sought." Law Professor Eyal Benvenisti [307]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: The UN General Assembly resolution in 1952 called upon the Arab nations to integrate and resettle the refugees and offered a development fund to help them do so: The General Assembly Urges the governments of the countries in the area to assist, with due regard to their constitutional processes, in the carrying out of this programme and to extend to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency… their co-operation in the elaboration of specific projects and in the general performance of its functions; Invites the United Nations Relief and Works Agency to explore with the governments concerned arrangements looking towards their assuming administration of reintegration projects at the earliest possible date;" UN Resolution 513 (VI) January 26 1952 [308]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: The UN General Assembly continued to pass multiple resolutions reaffirming its call for "repatriation OR resettlement" of the refugees in Arab countries. They never alluded to a "right of return."

      • Article 4 of Resolution 393 (V) of December 1950; (*)

      • Article 3 of Resolution 818 (IX) of December 4 1954; (**)

      • Resolution 916 (X) of December 3 1955 (***)

      • Resolution 1018 (XI) of February 28 1957 (****)

      • Article 5 of Resolution 1191 (XII) of December 12 1957 (*****)

      • Resolution 2154 (XXI) of November 17 1966 "Notes with deep regret… that no substantial progress has been made in the programme endorsed in paragraph 2 of resolution 513 (VI) for the reintegration of refugees either by repatriation or resettlement…" (******) [309]
      
      

    • Supporting Evidence: "No large scale refugee problem has ever been solved by repatriation, and there are certainly no grounds for believing that this particular problem can be so solved…..The facts we must face force us to the conclusion that for most of the world refugees the only solution is integration where they are." Elfan Rees, Advisor on Refugees to the World Council of Churches, 1957 [310]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: Ironically, Arab states voted against Resolution 194 because it required them to recognize and make peace with Israel and because it did not stipulate a right of return.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: Record of the UN vote on Resolution 194: "Against: Afghanistan, Byelorussian SSR, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Ukrainian SSR, USSR, Yemen, Yugoslavia." UN Res 194 vote Yearbook of the United Nations, 1948-1949, December 31 1949 [311]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "[T]he fact is that Palestinians and Arab states voted against UN Resolution 194 when it was adopted 50 years ago.They preferred to keep the refugees outside Israel." Dan Kurtzer, US Ambassador to Israel, July 6 2004 [312]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "The truth of the matter is that we are not all content with the implementation of UN decisions. And if the Arab statesmen have found a diplomatic and tactical way out of their embarrassment at the UN rostrum and at press conferences, the Arab peoples will not be embarrassed to declare: We shall not be satisfied except by the final obliteration of Israel from the map of the Middle East." Muhammad Salah al-Din, Egyptian Foreign Minister, 1954 [313]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "Contrary to the myth that surrounds it, that resolution [194] does not proclaim a "right of return." It must be remembered that the Arab bloc at the United Nations actually voted against the resolution. The Palestinian leadership rejected it precisely because it called for peace and reconciliation with Israel." Daniel Ayalon, Israeli Ambassador to the US, August 24 2003 [314]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: http://www.gamla.org.il/english/article/2001/april/b2.htm [315]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "An agreement concerning populations exchange between citizens of Greece and Bulgaria was secured in the Bulgaria-Greece Treaty of Neuilly of November 27, 1919, which provided for the relocation of 46,000 Greeks from Bulgaria and 96,000 Bulgarians from Greece." Law Professor Eyal Benvenisti [316]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: After the Greek-Turkish War of 1922, "the two enemy countries, provided in their peace treaty for a mutual exchange of populations. Under the treaty, about 2 million Greeks, who had formerly been Turkish citizens, and about 500,000 Turks, who had formerly been Greek citizens, left or were forced to leave for the other side." Law Professor Eyal Benvenisti [317]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "It may be asserted that as a result of the exchange the problem of the protection of minorities between the two countries [Greece and Turkey] has disappeared, to the great advantage of peaceful relations between the two countries and of greater stability." Stephen P. Ladas, The Exchange of Minorities: Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey, (1932)
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "The architects of the post-World War II world order were impressed by the [Greek-Turkey] solution and decided to repeat it with respect to about 15 million Germans who had lived in Eastern Europe…which was allotted after the war to Poland. The Potsdam Declaration, issued by the Allied Powers at the end of World War II, provided for the transfer to Germany of German populations remaining in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Austria…." Law Professor Eyal Benvenisti [318]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: The dispute between Hindus and Muslims in British India was also resolved through partition into two states (Pakistan and India) and the transfer of populations. "Estimates of the number of relocated people run between 12 million to more than 30 million." Law Professor Eyal Benvenisti [319]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: It is unlikely that the UN would have established a right of return. In this historical era, transfer of populations was considered a reasonable way to resolve ethnic and religious conflict and was even specified in peace treaties between warring states.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: Record of the UN vote on Resolution 194: "Against: Afghanistan, Byelorussian SSR, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Ukrainian SSR, USSR, Yemen, Yugoslavia." UN Res 194 vote Yearbook of the United Nations, 1948-1949, December 31 1949 [311]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "[T]he fact is that Palestinians and Arab states voted against UN Resolution 194 when it was adopted 50 years ago.They preferred to keep the refugees outside Israel." Dan Kurtzer, US Ambassador to Israel, July 6 2004 [312]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "The truth of the matter is that we are not all content with the implementation of UN decisions. And if the Arab statesmen have found a diplomatic and tactical way out of their embarrassment at the UN rostrum and at press conferences, the Arab peoples will not be embarrassed to declare: We shall not be satisfied except by the final obliteration of Israel from the map of the Middle East." Muhammad Salah al-Din, Egyptian Foreign Minister, 1954 [313]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "Contrary to the myth that surrounds it, that resolution [194] does not proclaim a "right of return." It must be remembered that the Arab bloc at the United Nations actually voted against the resolution. The Palestinian leadership rejected it precisely because it called for peace and reconciliation with Israel." Daniel Ayalon, Israeli Ambassador to the US, August 24 2003 [314]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: http://www.gamla.org.il/english/article/2001/april/b2.htm [315]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "An agreement concerning populations exchange between citizens of Greece and Bulgaria was secured in the Bulgaria-Greece Treaty of Neuilly of November 27, 1919, which provided for the relocation of 46,000 Greeks from Bulgaria and 96,000 Bulgarians from Greece." Law Professor Eyal Benvenisti [316]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: After the Greek-Turkish War of 1922, "the two enemy countries, provided in their peace treaty for a mutual exchange of populations. Under the treaty, about 2 million Greeks, who had formerly been Turkish citizens, and about 500,000 Turks, who had formerly been Greek citizens, left or were forced to leave for the other side." Law Professor Eyal Benvenisti [317]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "It may be asserted that as a result of the exchange the problem of the protection of minorities between the two countries [Greece and Turkey] has disappeared, to the great advantage of peaceful relations between the two countries and of greater stability." Stephen P. Ladas, The Exchange of Minorities: Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey, (1932)
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "The architects of the post-World War II world order were impressed by the [Greek-Turkey] solution and decided to repeat it with respect to about 15 million Germans who had lived in Eastern Europe…which was allotted after the war to Poland. The Potsdam Declaration, issued by the Allied Powers at the end of World War II, provided for the transfer to Germany of German populations remaining in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Austria…." Law Professor Eyal Benvenisti [318]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: The dispute between Hindus and Muslims in British India was also resolved through partition into two states (Pakistan and India) and the transfer of populations. "Estimates of the number of relocated people run between 12 million to more than 30 million." Law Professor Eyal Benvenisti [319]
      
      
• POINT 23: Palestine was an independent state with a national identity, political institutions and culture before the Zionists came.
  
  
  • COUNTERPOINT: No independent Arab or Palestinian state ever existed in Palestine.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: After Rome conquered the Jewish state in 135 AD, successive empires ruled the area for the next 1900 years and Palestine ceased to be a distinct political entity.
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "The Ottoman Empire, which ruled Palestine from 1517 to 1917-18 …never made it a separate, distinct administrative district." Its boundaries kept shifting. Parts of it were attached to Damascus, parts to Beirut and parts were independent. Historian Benny Morris [320]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Palestine was not a state but simply "a geographical name of rather loose application…." It did not have " a boundary by which Palestine can be separated exactly from the rest of Syria in the north, or from the Sinaitic and Arabian deserts in the south…" (Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed., 1911 p. 600).
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "The Arabs maintained that their country belonged to themselves and that they had been masters in it for fourteen centuries. Great Britain, in authorising the establishment of a National Home, had disposed of a country which did not belong to it. This claim was particularly open to refutation. It was not in accordance with most elementary facts of ancient history in Palestine. It would be enough to point out that Palestine had belonged before the war to the Ottoman Empire. The country had been conquered, not by Arabs of Palestine, but by the Allies, and had finally been ceded to the Allies and not to the Arabs. Since 1517, Palestine had been under the rule of the Turks. There could be no reference, therefore, to an Arab nation in Palestine, nor could it be claimed that the territory formed part of the patrimony of that nation." Minutes of the Permanent Mandates Commission, 16th (Extraordinary) Session June 30 1930 [321]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: Arab leaders did not recognize the existence of a distinctive Palestinian political entity let alone a state.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "There is no such country [as Palestine]. Palestine is a term the Zionists invented!….Our country for centuries was part of Syria." Local Arab leader Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi, to the Peel Commission in 1937. [322]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "There is no such thing as 'Palestine' in history. Absolutely not." Arab-American historian Philip Hitti of Princeton University, Testimony to the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Palestine, 1946.
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "Palestine was part of the Province of Syria….politically, the Arabs of Palestine were not independent in the sense of forming a separate political entity." Representative of the Arab Higher Committee to the UN, submitted to the General Assembly in May 1947.
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "It is common knowledge that Palestine is nothing but southern Syria." Ahmed Shuqeiri, later chairman of the PLO, to the UN Security Council. May 31 1956. [323]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: Palestinians had never had a sense of national identity or unity.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: Palestinian-American historian Rashid Khalidi reported that only after WWI was there "the emergence of a Palestinian identity where a few decades before no such thing existed" and even then, it developed only slowly among the upper classes." [324]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "Most serious historians point …to the 1920s and 1930s as the time when the Arabs of Palestine began thinking of themselves as a people separate from those of Syria, Lebanon, and Transjordan…." But "Palestinian "nationalism" was propounded in a narrow circle of educated upper-class and middle-class families…." Historian Benny Morris 2003 [325]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: As late as 1911, the Encyclopedia Brittanica reported that the area known as Palestine had so many "ethnological groups" that it was hard to write concisely about the area's ethnology because "no less than 50 languages were spoken."
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Customs between Arab areas were so similar that the First Congress of Muslim-Christian Associations adopted a resolution that stated: "We consider Palestine as part of Arab Syria, as it has never been separated from it at any time. We are connected with it by national, religious, linguistic, natural, economic and geographical bonds." 1919 [326]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "[T]he sympathy of the Palestinian Arabs with their kinsmen in Syria had been plainly shown….Both peoples clung to the principle that Palestine was part of Syria and should never have been cut off from it." Peel Commission 1937 [327]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: Even at the time of the Partition Resolution, Palestinians still had not developed a sense of national identity or unity.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "The Palestine Arabs have at present no will of their own. Neither have they ever developed any specifically Palestinian nationalism. The demand for a separate Arab state in Palestine is consequently relatively weak." Count Folk Bernadotte, UN Envoy to Palestine, 1948 [328]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "By 1947, much of the Palestine Arab population had only an indistinct, if any, idea of national purpose or statehood…..[O]n the whole, save for the numerically small circle of the elite, the Palestinians were unready for the national message…Palestine Arabs, still caught up in a village-centered…political outlook, by and large completely lacked…a clear concept of the nation and of national belonging….Most Palestine Arabs had no sense of separate national or cultural identity to distinguish them from, say, the Arabs of Syria, Lebanon or Egypt." Historian Benny Morris. [329]
      
      
• POINT 24: The establishment of Israel involved the unjust and illegal usurpation of Muslim and Christian land and rights.
  
  
  • COUNTERPOINT: This is an odd argument. There was no reason Muslims or Christians should dominate the area that became Israel. Jews also had rights and claims to the land. They were indigenous to the region. The return of exiled Jews to the land had been one of the prominent features of the region's history for 2,000 years. By 1858-long before modern Zionism-they were once again the majority in Jerusalem and by the end of World War I, they had built a thriving community.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: Mainstream scholars agree that the Jews, an indigenous tribe, settled in present-day Israel approximately 3000 years ago, established independent kingdoms and "for more than 1600 years formed the main settled population." Historian Martin Gilbert.
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Throughout the millennia, "individual migration [of Jews] to Palestine never ceased; it reached a new height with the arrival of groups of Hassidim in the late eighteenth century." Historian Walter Laqueur [330]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: In 1492, 8,000 Spanish Jews returned after their expulsion from Spain, others returned after expulsions from Lithuania (1495), Portugal, Sicily and Sardinia (1497), Rhodes (1502) and Naples (1541). Their return was followed in subsequent centuries by immigration from eastern and central Europe and Middle Eastern countries like Yemen, a return that was often contingent on the tolerance of those who ruled Palestine. [331]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: By 1858, the British consul in Jerusalem reported that the Jews were the majority of the population in the city and that Muslims "scarcely exceeded one quarter of the whole population." [332]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "When it is asked what is meant by the development of the Jewish National Home in Palestine, it may be answered that it is not the imposition of a Jewish nationality upon the inhabitants of Palestine as a whole, but the further development of the existing Jewish community, with the assistance of Jews in other parts of the world…." Winston Churchill. [333]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: The establishment of Israel did not involve the unjust and illegal usurpation of Muslim and Christian land and rights in the Middle East. It allowed one of the region's oppressed minorities, Jews, to create a small state. After World War I, when nations were carved out of the Middle East, Muslims received 99.92% of the land. Arabs were even awarded 80% of the land in the Palestine Mandate when the League of Nations set up Jordan in 1922 though this land had also been allotted to the Jewish homeland.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: British officials "saw no incompatibility between furthering both Zionist and Arab aspirations. The Jews, they reasoned, would receive only a small slice of the former Ottoman domains, Palestine; the Arabs would not mind, as they would be receiving the vast reaches of Arabia and Greater Syria (including parts of Mesopotamia)." Historian Benny Morris [334]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "No race [the Arabs] has done better [in the post war settlements] out of the fidelity with which the Allies redeemed their promises….Owing to the tremendous sacrifices of the Allied Nations…the Arabs have already won independence in Iraq, Arabia, Syria, and Trans-Jordania, although most of the Arab races fought throughout the war for the Turkish oppressors….The Palestinian Arabs [in particular] fought for Turkish rule." Prime Minister Lloyd George [335]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: The establishment of Israel did not involve the unjust and illegal usurpation of Muslim and Christian land. The UN Partition Resolution was based precisely on the principle of population majorities. With Partition, one state in Palestine would have a Jewish majority; the other an Arab majority.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: The proposed Jewish state included 583,000 Jews and 397,000 Arabs; the 100,000 Jews who made up the majority of Jerusalem were excluded because Jerusalem was to become an international city. [336]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: Israel is a democratic, pluralistic state where Muslims and Christians have the same rights and protections as Jews. Their rights have not been usurped.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "Israel is the only country in the region that permits citizens of all faiths to worship freely and openly." Bill Bennett, Jack Kemp and Jeanne Kirkpatrick. Memorandum April 24, 2002. [337]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Israel has greater religious pluralism than the USA. 20% of Israelis are not Jewish. Of those, 15% are Muslim and 2% are Christian. In contrast, in the US only 17% of the population is not Christian, and only 4% of the population adheres to a non-Christian religion. The other 13% don't adhere to any religion. [338]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Each religious community in Israel (Christian, Jewish, Moslem)has the same human, civil and political rights, and each religion is allowed to have jurisdiction over the marriage, divorce and burial of its members, and representatives of each of each religion are state officials. [339]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Israel gave the Druze, a group "traditionally persecuted by Moslem Arabs," the status of an official religious community, with their own religious council and courts [340]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "The highest body of the Baha'i faith…declared the Israeli port city of Haifa the `Mecca' for the religion's five million members" in 1992 in part because of Israel's tolerance and the persecution the Baha'is faced in other Middle Eastern states. [341]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: The Christian population in Israel has quadrupled in the last forty years while it is precipitously declining in the Middle East and particularly in the Palestinian Authority. Israel's Christian population has grown from 51,000 in 1961 to over 137,000 today . [342]
      
      
• POINT 25: The UN Partition Resolution was unjust because it denied the Arabs in Palestine a right to self-determination, the democratic principle that prevailed after World War I. The UN arbitrarily divided up other people's land.
  
  
  • COUNTERPOINT: Just the reverse is true. The Partition Resolution adhered closely to the principle of self-determination. It in fact offered the Palestinian Arabs their own state and it offered the Jews their own state. The Arabs rejected the offer.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "Palestine within its present borders, following a transitional period of two years from I September 1947, shall be constituted into an independent Arab State, an independent Jewish State, and the City of Jerusalem…." UNSCOP Report 1947 Part A # 1 [343]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "The Arabs rejected the United Nations Partition Plan so that any comment of theirs did not specifically concern the status of the Arab section of Palestine under partition but rather rejected the scheme in its entirety." ….." UN Conciliation Commission for Palestine, Secretariat General Report July 30, 1949. [344]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "Our position is clear, and has been proclaimed on every occasion. It is never to allow the creation of a Jewish State in Palestine and to exclude partition. And our object is to cooperate with the other Arab States in her deliverance." Prime Minister of Transjordan to the Political Committee of the League of Arab States, 1948 [345]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: Just the reverse is true. The Partition Resolution allowed both the Arab and the Jewish national movements to realize their fulfill aspirations for self-determination. The need for a compromise based on partition had been recognized even ten years before the UN Partition Resolution by Britain's Peel Commission Partition in 1937.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "It was relatively easy to conclude… that since both groups steadfastly maintain their claims, it is manifestly impossible, in the circumstances, to satisfy fully the claims of both groups, while it is indefensible to accept the full claims of one at the expense of the other." United Nations Special Committee on Palestine Report 1947 [346]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "Both of these people have their historic roots in Palestine…The basic conflict…is a clash of two intense nationalisms…who are dissimilar in their ways of living and….political interests which render difficult full and effective political cooperation. Only by partition can these conflicting national aspirations find substantial expression…." UN Investigating Committee, 1947 [347]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "An irrepressible conflict has arisen between two national communities within the narrow bounds of one small country…..Their national aspirations are incompatible….Neither of the two national ideals permits of combination in the service of a single State…. "Peel Commission Recommendation, 1937 [348]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "No fair-minded statesman can think it right either that 400,000 Jews,….should be handed over to Arab rule, or that, if the Jews should become a majority, a million Arabs should be handed over to their rule. But while neither race can fairly rule all Palestine, each race might justly rule part of it. " Peel Commission Recommendation, 1937 [349]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: Just the reverse is true. The Partition Resolution met the principle of self-determination. It divided up the land according to population density. The Jews were awarded a Jewish-majority area; the Arabs were awarded an Arab-majority area in accord with the principle of self-determination.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: Jews formed 1/3 of the population (1,200,000 Arabs and 650,000 Jews), a significant minority that warranted the division into two states.
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: The proposed Jewish state included 583,000 Jews and 397,000 Arabs; the 100,000 Jews who made up the majority of Jerusalem were excluded because Jerusalem was to become an international city. [350]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: The world community believed that the Arab people's' rights to self-determination would not be compromised by a Jewish homeland. The area that had been under the Ottoman Empire was all awarded to Arabs, except for the small area of Palestine.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: In the Middle East, which had not had a history of nation states, 22 Arab nations were established. They still exist today.
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: British officials "saw no incompatibility between furthering both Zionist and Arab aspirations. The Jews, they reasoned, would receive only a small slice of the former Ottoman domains, Palestine; the Arabs would not mind, as they would be receiving the vast reaches of Arabia and Greater Syria (including parts of Mesopotamia)." Historian Benny Morris [351]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "No race [the Arabs] has done better [in the post war settlements] out of the fidelity with which the Allies redeemed their promises….Owing to the tremendous sacrifices of the Allied Nations…the Arabs have already won independence in Iraq, Arabia, Syria, and Trans-Jordania, although most of the Arab races fought throughout the war for the Turkish oppressors….The Palestinian Arabs [in particular] fought for Turkish rule." Prime Minister Lloyd George [352]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "When it is asked what is meant by the development of the Jewish National Home in Palestine, it may be answered that it is not the imposition of a Jewish nationality upon the inhabitants of Palestine as a whole, but the further development of the existing Jewish community, with the assistance of Jews in other parts of the world…." Winston Churchill. [353]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: The world community believed that the Arab people's' rights to self-determination would not be compromised by a Jewish homeland. Arabs had already been granted the vast majority of the land of the original Palestine Mandate in what became Jordan.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: Britain severed 77% of the Mandate's original territory and gave it to Arabs in 1922. This became the Protectorate of Transjordan and in 1946 the Kingdom of Jordan.
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Britain agreed that Jordan was to be settled exclusively by Arabs though this agreement undermined the Mandate's stipulation to "encourage close settlement of the Jews on the land." Instead, it did not permit Jews to live there. [354]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "In terms of territory, Transjordan represented a full four-fifths of the original Mandatory Palestine… [the British hoped] the Arabs would now waive their claim to the remaining fifth." Historian Benny Morris [355]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: It was the Arabs, not the UN, that renounced the principle of self-determination. The Arab states renounced that principle by refusing to agree to a compromise solution that allowed both national movements to realize their aspirations.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: In "the parts of Palestine under Arab control….no independent Arab state has been organized or attempted. This situation may be explained….by Arab unwillingness to undertake any step which would suggest even tacit acceptance of partition…." UN Conciliation Commission for Palestine, Secretariat General Report. July 30, 1949 [356]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "The Governments of the Arab States emphasize, on this occasion, what they have already declared before the London Conference and the United Nations, that the only solution of the Palestine problem is the establishment of a unitary Palestinian State…" Statement by the Arab League States, May 15, 1948 [357]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "The Arab world is not in a compromising mood. It's likely…that [the plan for compromise] is rational and logical, but the fate of nations is not decided by rational logic. Nations never concede; they fight…You can, perhaps, get something, but only by the force of your arms. We shall try to defeat you." Arab League Secretary Azzam Pasha [358]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "We are solidly and permanently determined to fight to the last man against the existence in our country of any Jewish state, no matter how small it is…If such a state is to be established, it can only be established over our dead bodies." Jamal al-Husseini, Vice President of the Arab Higher Committee, the effective government of the Palestinian Arabs. November 1947 [359]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Palestinians don't have a state because they have had "an all or nothing policy," unlike the Zionists. "The Zionists never demanded the impossible….Our leadership….enabled the Zionists to succeed at every opportunity…by rejecting every proposal for compromise, rejecting proposals to give it a state on most of the land of Palestine…" Tawfiz Abu Bakr, Palestinian columnist, 2003 [360]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Because of "this irrational nihilist behavior [of Palestinians about accepting compromise], "Haj Amin Al-Husseini…rejected the settlement offered him by the Peel Commission in 1937…Then, he repeated his mistake by rejecting the Partition Plan that this time would have given 55% to the Jews and the rest to Palestine…." Al-'Afif Al-Akdhar, Tunisian columnist, 2002 [361]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "The mania for armed struggle….is the cause for [us] missing …historical opportunities since 1937 to 2000, with…pristine excuses such as 'we have the right[s] on our side…" Al-'Aff Al-Akhdar, Tunisian columnist, 2002 [362]
      
      
• POINT 26: Israel stole Arab land. Arabs had owned 90% of present-day Israel. Israel simply transferred the land to itself after the 1948 War.
  
  
  • COUNTERPOINT: This claim grossly distorts the facts. Arabs did not own 90% of present-day Israel before the 1948 War. They owned barely 20% of it.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: 60% of what became Israel was the Negev Desert, considered uninhabitable and uncultivable. It was not owned. It belonged to the sovereign power-the Ottomans and later the Palestine Mandate. Sparse numbers of Bedouin lived there. [363]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Arabs who became Israelis owned 3.3% of the land. [364]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: The Arabs who left Israel during the war owned 16.9% of the land. [365]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: The majority of the land, over 70% of it, had belonged to the Ottoman government, passed to the hands of the Mandatory Government, and, when the Mandate ended, much of it passed to the new government created out of the Mandate, Israel. Government of Palestine, Survey of Palestine, (cited in Mitchell Bard, Myths and Facts, 2001, p. 56)
    
    
  • COUNTERPOINT: The land that Jews owned before the 1948 War had been bought from willing Arab sellers, often for exorbitant prices.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: Of the 463,000 acres that Jews owned in 1947, they had bought 387,500 from Arabs (84%), 30,000 acres from various churches and received 45,000 from the British Mandate authorities. [366]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "It is made quite clear to all…that the Arabs are as prodigal in selling their land as they are in useless wailing and weeping." King Abdullah of Jordan [367]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Arab nationalists "in daylight were crying out against Jewish immigration and in the darkness of the night were selling lands to the Jews." Dr. Heinrich Wolff, German Consul in Jerusalem [368]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Some anti-Zionist Arab newspapers stressed the theme that "large Arab landowners were involved in sales of land to the" Zionists, and one writer, Najib Nassar, "wrote that those who should be leaders themselves are selling their country cheaply." Another newspaper from the period "leaves its reader with the unmistakable impression that Arab complacency, disunity, greed and self-interest were more important reasons for Zionist success and Arab failure than the strength of the settler movement itself." Historian Rashid Khalidi [369]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Large landowners who sold land to Zionists included the mayors of Gaza, Jerusalem and Jaffa, As'ad el-Shuqeiri (father of the first PLO Chairman) and members of the Muslim Supreme Council. Even King Abdullah leased land to Jews. [370]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: The Jewish National Fund reported on the "constant stream of Arab offers to sell," and that it was "flooded…with more offers than it could accommodate" in the 1930's. [371]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "They (Jews) paid high prices for the land, and in addition, they paid to certain occupants of those lands a considerable amount of money which they were not legally bound to pay." John Hope Simpson, Simpson Report 1930 [372]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "In 1944, Jews paid between $1,000 and $1,100 per acre in Palestine, mostly for arid or semiarid land; in the same year, rich black soil in Iowa was selling for about $110 an acre." [373]
      
      
• POINT 27: The Zionist Movement considered establishing the Jewish homeland in Africa and Argentina, but they settled on Palestine.
  
  
  • COUNTERPOINT: This claim distorts history. Zionists did not raise the possibility of settling in Africa or Argentina instead of returning to their homeland in Palestine. But the British did raise the idea in 1903. Zionists initially dismissed the idea out of hand.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: When the British Colonial Secretary, Joseph Chamberlain, suggested the Jews settled in Uganda, "Herzl brushed the idea aside. The Jewish base would have to be near Palestine." Historian Walter Laqueur [374]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: Zionists did briefly consider the possibility of settling in Uganda out of sheer desperation. Persecution and pogroms against Eastern European Jews had been mounting. They needed to emigrate somewhere immediately. But the Ottoman Empire was resisting Jewish settlement in Palestine and the dream of returning to the homeland looked remote. Uganda was seen as a possible temporary destination and a stopgap measure. It was never seen as a permanent alternative to reestablishing the Jewish homeland in Palestine.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "[I]n 1898, [Theodore Herzl] had noted in his diary that the Jewish masses needed immediate help and could not wait until Turkey was so desperate as to give the Zionists what they wanted." Historian Walter Laqueur [375]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "[Theodore] Herzl made it clear in his opening speech [to the Zionist Congress] that Uganda was not and could never become Zion. It was envisaged as an emergency measure, to help those Jews forced to emigrate immediately, to prevent their scattering all over the world…." Historian Walter Laqueur [376]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Zionist leader, Max Nordau, "used the phrase Nachtasyl-a temporary shelter-for the hundreds of thousands of Jews who could not as yet enter Palestine, a shelter which would provide a political training ground…but Zion would always remain the final aim." Historian Walter Laqueur [377]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Though the Zionist Congress passed a resolution in 1903 authorizing a commission to investigate the feasibility of Uganda as a destination, the very idea of abandoning Palestine, even temporarily, almost destroyed the unity of the Zionists. "There was a real danger that the movement would split." Historian Walter Laqueur [378]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: The very insinuation that the Zionists choice of Palestine for their homeland was arbitrary, that they would have been as happy with another location, defies reality and displays tremendous ignorance about Jewish history and the roots of Zionism. To the Jews, Zion-Palestine-was their homeland.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "[T]he severance of Judaism from its territorial roots encouraged…an idealization of the homeland [whose] restoration was much more marked [among them] than among other [exiled] peoples…." Sociology professor Anthony D. Smith [379]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "[T]he cause, the concept of Zion, has been present throughout Jewish history. A survey of the origins of Zionism must take at its starting point the central place of Zion in the thoughts, the prayers, and the dreams of the Jews in their dispersion…The longing for Zion manifested itself in the appearance of many messiahs….in the meditations of generations of mystics. Physical contact between the Jews and their former homeland was never completely broken…." Historian Walter Laqueur [380]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "Throughout all the centuries of Jewish dispersion [Jews] displayed a uniform preoccupation with the Holy Land. Poets, philosophers, mystics, liturgists in Spain, North Africa and Europe traditionally vied with one another in expressing the yearning of the people of Israel for the ravished cradle of its nationhood." Historian Howard Sachar [381]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "The longing for Zion manifested itself in the appearance of many messiahs, from David Alroy in the 12th century to Shabtai Zvi in the 17th century," who promised they would lead Jews back to the Holy Land. Shabati Zvi inspired and mobilized "multitudes" of Jews across the Middle East and Europe who sold their belongings to follow him back to Palestine. [382]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: For millennia, in their daily liturgy, Jews prayed "Return in mercy to Jerusalem, your City and dwell therein as You have promised….Blessed are You Lord who rebuilds Jerusalem." Daily Prayer Book At the end of their yearly Passover service, Jews proclaim "Next Year in Jerusalem." [383]
      
      
• POINT 28: The 1947 Partition Resolution was unjust because it awarded Palestinians only 45% of what was originally theirs."
  
  
  • COUNTERPOINT: This claim makes no sense. The Palestine Mandate lands did not originally belong to the Arabs who lived in what became the Mandate. No independent Arab or Palestinian state ever existed in Palestine. The people who lived there had no history of sovereignty over the land.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: After Rome conquered the Jewish state in 135 AD, successive empires ruled the area for the next 1900 years and Palestine ceased to be a distinct political entity.
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "The Ottoman Empire, which ruled Palestine from 1517 to 1917-18 …never made it a separate, distinct administrative district." Its boundaries kept shifting. Parts of it were attached to Damascus, parts to Beirut and parts were independent. Historian Benny Morris [384]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Palestine was not a state but simply "a geographical name of rather loose application…." It did not have " a boundary by which Palestine can be separated exactly from the rest of Syria in the north, or from the Sinaitic and Arabian deserts in the south…" (Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed., 1911 p. 600).
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "The Arabs maintained that their country belonged to themselves and that they had been masters in it for fourteen centuries. Great Britain, in authorising the establishment of a National Home, had disposed of a country which did not belong to it. This claim was particularly open to refutation. It was not in accordance with most elementary facts of ancient history in Palestine. It would be enough to point out that Palestine had belonged before the war to the Ottoman Empire. The country had been conquered, not by Arabs of Palestine, but by the Allies, and had finally been ceded to the Allies and not to the Arabs. Since 1517, Palestine had been under the rule of the Turks. There could be no reference, therefore, to an Arab nation in Palestine, nor could it be claimed that the territory formed part of the patrimony of that nation." Minutes of the Permanent Mandates Commission, 16th (Extraordinary) Session June 30 1930 [385]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: Arab leaders did not recognize the existence of a distinctive Palestinian political entity let alone a state.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "There is no such country [as Palestine]. Palestine is a term the Zionists invented!….Our country for centuries was part of Syria." Local Arab leader Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi, to the Peel Commission in 1937. [386]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "There is no such thing as 'Palestine' in history. Absolutely not." Arab-American historian Philip Hitti of Princeton University. 1946.
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "Palestine was part of the Province of Syria….politically, the Arabs of Palestine were not independent in the sense of forming a separate political entity." Representative of the Arab Higher Committee to the UN, submitted to the General Assembly in May 1947.
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "It is common knowledge that Palestine is nothing but southern Syria." Ahmed Shuqeiri, later chairman of the PLO, to the UN Security Council. May 31 1956. [387]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: This claim makes no sense. The Palestine Mandate lands did not originally belong to the Arabs who lived in what became the Mandate.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: Arabs who became Israelis owned 3.3% of the land. [388]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: The Arabs who left Israel during the war owned 16.9% of the land. [389]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: The majority of the land, over 70% of it, had belonged to the Ottoman government, passed to the hands of the Mandatory Government, and, when the Mandate ended, it passed to the new governments that took over the Mandate: Israel and Jordan. [390]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: This claim makes no sense. The Arabs who lived in the Mandate were not deprived of their right to self-determination. The Partition Resolution allowed both the Arab and the Jewish national movements to their fulfill aspirations for self-determination. The need for a compromise based on partition had been recognized even ten years before the UN Partition Resolution by Britain's Peel Commission Partition in 1937.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "It was relatively easy to conclude… that since both groups steadfastly maintain their claims, it is manifestly impossible, in the circumstances, to satisfy fully the claims of both groups, while it is indefensible to accept the full claims of one at the expense of the other." United Nations Special Committee on Palestine Report 1947 [391]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "Both of these people have their historic roots in Palestine…The basic conflict…is a clash of two intense nationalisms…who are dissimilar in their ways of living and….political interests which render difficult full and effective political cooperation. Only by partition can these conflicting national aspirations find substantial expression…." UN Investigating Committee, 1947 [392]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "An irrepressible conflict has arisen between two national communities within the narrow bounds of one small country…..Their national aspirations are incompatible….Neither of the two national ideals permits of combination in the service of a single State…. "Peel Commission Recommendation, 1937 [393]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "No fair-minded statesman can think it right either that 400,000 Jews,….should be handed over to Arab rule, or that, if the Jews should become a majority, a million Arabs should be handed over to their rule. But while neither race can fairly rule all Palestine, each race might justly rule part of it. " Peel Commission Recommendation, 1937 [394]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: This claim makes no sense. Most of the non-Jews who lived in the Palestine Mandate had immigrated there during the same time period that Jews had. Why should their rights trump the rights of Jews?
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: As late as 1911, the Encyclopedia Britannica reported that the area known as Palestine had so many "ethnological groups" that it was hard to write concisely about the area's "ethnology" where "no less than 50 languages were spoken."
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: In the 19th century, "[T]he Ottoman authorities-in an effort at Islamization-transferred tens of thousands of Muslims from the empire's northern and Balkan peripheries (Bukhara, the Caucasus, Albania and Bosnia) to its Levantine core, including Lebanon, Syria and Palestine. This increased the Muslim proportion of the population and, perhaps, intensified Islamic consciousness as well." Historian Benny Morris [395]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: During Egypt's rule of Palestine (1831-1840), the ruler, Mohammed Ali, "sent new settlers to consolidate his rule. The Egyptian settlers scattered to many urban and rural points, appropriated large tracts of land, and lent variety and numbers to the existing population….In a number of villages….there are hundreds of families of Egyptian origin who accompanied the conquering forces….Similarly, in the cities of Samaria and Judea there are hundreds of families which, to this day, are named Masri. The origin of all of them is traceable to those who left Egypt at the time of …" Mohammed Ali. [396]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Moslems from Algeria and other parts of North Africa (Berbers, called Mugrabis) fled to Palestine seeking asylum from the French after 1830. In some areas, travelers would find "a colony of Algerian Arabs, refugees, who still wear the Algerian bournous, and built the gourbis of Mount Atlas. They cordially responded to me when addressed in the patois of North Africa." H.B. Tristam, The Land of Israel: A Journal of Travels Through Palestine, London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1865, p. 590
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Circassian refugees settled in Palestine after 1878; Turkoman tribes from Iraq arrived in the same period; Arab Yemenites settled in the Jaffa area in 1908. [397]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "The German Templars began their colonization project for religious reasons in 1869." [398]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: European companies that contracted to build railroads hired Egyptian, Syrian and Lebanese laborers in the late 19th century. After World War I, the British Army of Occupation brought in thousands of Egyptians for police duties and building projects. [399]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "Berl Repetur, a board member of the Center for Aliya and Labor, recalls that the case made with the representatives of British rule was that the Palestine Government (the British) employed 15,000 foreigners as against only 500 permanent Jewish residents of the country." [400]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Britain brought 30,000 foreign Arab workers into Palestine to assist in the war effort during World War II, at a time when it had closed off immigration to Jews. Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry [401]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: This is an odd argument. There was no reason Arabs in Palestine should dominate the area that became Israel. Jews also had rights and claims to the land. They were indigenous to the region. The return of exiled Jews to the land had been one of the prominent features of the region's history for 2,000 years. By 1858-long before modern Zionism-they were once again the majority in Jerusalem and by the end of World War I, they had built a thriving community.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: Mainstream scholars agree that the Jews, an indigenous tribe, settled in present-day Israel approximately 3000 years ago, established independent kingdoms and "for more than 1600 years formed the main settled population." Historian Martin Gilbert.
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Throughout the millennia, "individual migration [of Jews] to Palestine never ceased; it reached a new height with the arrival of groups of Hassidim in the late eighteenth century." Historian Walter Laqueur [402]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: In 1492, 8,000 Spanish Jews returned after their expulsion from Spain, others returned after expulsions from Lithuania (1495), Portugal, Sicily and Sardinia (1497), Rhodes (1502) and Naples (1541). Their return was followed in subsequent centuries by immigration from eastern and central Europe and Middle Eastern countries like Yemen, a return that was often contingent on the tolerance of those who ruled Palestine. [403]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: By 1858, the British consul in Jerusalem reported that the Jews were the majority of the population in the city and that Muslims "scarcely exceeded one quarter of the whole population." [404]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "When it is asked what is meant by the development of the Jewish National Home in Palestine, it may be answered that it is not the imposition of a Jewish nationality upon the inhabitants of Palestine as a whole, but the further development of the existing Jewish community, with the assistance of Jews in other parts of the world…." Winston Churchill. [405]
      
      
• POINT 29: I am a Palestinian Christian and I know what Christianity is. I am a descendant of the first Christians in the world, and Jesus Christ was born in my country, in my land. Bethlehem is a Palestinian town." "Jesus Was a Palestinian"
  
  
  • COUNTERPOINT: Such claims attempt to deny the Jews' historical ties to present day Israel and the Territories. They literally attempt to rewrite biblical and ancient history. In fact, there was no place called Palestine during Jesus' lifetime in the 1st century. The land was known as Judea, the country of the Jews, and Bethlehem was in ancient Judea. The Roman Emperor Hadrian renamed the land Palestine in 135 AD, a century after the death of Jesus, after savagely putting down the Jewish revolt.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "Although Hadrian's coins had so recently honored 'Judaea,' the Romans now decided [135 AD] to eliminate this hazardous name altogether. They renamed the province 'Syria-Palaestina,' thus reviving a name, not specifically associated with the Jews or their nationalism, which went back to the Philistines…." Historian Michael Grant [406]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: Such claims attempt to deny the Jewish origins of Christianity and the Jews historical connection to the Holy Land. In fact, Jesus himself and the first Christians were Jews. Even the Gospels underscore Jesus' Jewish roots. Christians did not separate into a distinct religious group until a century after Jesus' death.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "For this was the time [1st century] when the Jewish religion, in addition to achieving new forms of its its own…gave birth to the Christians: a body of Jews who, unlike the majority of their nation, believed that, in the not so very distant past, the awaited Messiah had already come….Within a century after the date ascribed to his death, his followers had become completely independent of world Jewry." Historian Michael Grant [407]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: The New Testament says Jesus was born a Jew in Judea, was circumcised (Luke 2.21), had the Jewish name Yehosuha, (Matthew 1.21) and lived according to Jewish law (Luke 2.39).
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Matthew (1:16 )and Luke (3:26) stress Jesus' Jewish genealogy, especially "that through Joseph, the husband of his mother Mary, Jesus belonged to the house of [the Jewish King] David, which according to tradition would provide the earthly Messiah." Historian Michael Grant [408]
      
      
    • Question: Given the fact that the New Testament says Jesus was born a Jew in Judea, was circumcised (Luke 2.21), had the Jewish name Yehosuha, (Matthew 1.21) and lived according to Jewish law (Luke 2.39), that the area would not be called Palestine until 100 years after Jesus' death-why do you distort the facts? Why can't you rely on your own history to make your case of Palestinian nationhood without hijacking someone else's historical narrative?
      
      
    • Question: Why do you need to deny historical facts to justify the right of Palestinians to a homeland? If these historical facts are true, would it mean Palestinians would recognize the legitimacy of the Jews' rights to a homeland in Israel?
      
      
    • Question: (To Hanan Ashrawi or other Christians) As a Christian, how do you reconcile the claims you make for political reasons and the text that is the core of your faith which refers repeatedly to the Jews and the "Land of Israel" and incorporates the Old Testament narrative?
      
      
• POINT 30: Israel was established by force, violence and terrorism.
  
  
  • COUNTERPOINT: This claim defies the historical record. The Jews who settled in Palestine both before and after the Palestine Mandate was established came peacefully. They were unarmed refugees who came for religious reasons or because they were fleeing from persecution in Middle Eastern and European countries.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: Anti-Semitism "is a remnant of the Middle Ages, which civilized nations do not even yet seem able to shake off, try as they will….[O]ur presence produces persecution…We have honestly endeavored everywhere to merge ourselves in the social life of surrounding communities….We are not permitted to do so….In countries where we have lived for centuries we are still cried down as strangers, often by those whose ancestors were not yet domiciled in the land where Jews had already had experience of suffering….." The only solution: "[T]he restoration of the Jewish state." Theodore Herzl, The Jewish State, 1896. [409]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "Most of them [earlier settlers] were animated by religious motives; they came to pray and to die in the Holy Land, and to be buried in its soil. After the persecutions in Russia forty years ago, the movement of the Jews to Palestine assumed larger proportions. Jewish agricultural colonies were founded…. The success of these agricultural colonies attracted the eager interest of the masses of the Jewish people scattered throughout the world. In many countries they were living under the pressure of laws or customs which cramped their capacities and thwarted their energies; they saw in Palestine the prospect of a home in which they might live at ease." Interim Report on the Civil Administration of Palestine to the League of Nations, 1921. [410]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "Here you have a small race originally inhabiting a small country…at no time in its history wielding anything that can be described as material power…yet maintaining a continuity of religious and racial tradition of which we have no parallel elsewhere. That in itself, is sufficiently remarkable, but consider-it is not a pleasant consideration, but it is one that we cannot forget-how they have been treated during long centuries, during centuries which in some parts of the world extend to the minute and the hour in which I am speaking; consider how they have been subjected to tyranny and persecution…" Lord A.J. Balfour, 1922 [411]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: In the 1930's, "Germany was hardly alone…in disgorging its Jews by the tens of thousands. Government-sponsored anti-Semitism was no less invidious a fact of life in the successor-states of Eastern Europe. By 1939, therefore, as 275,000 Jews fled the "Greater Reich," approximately the same number of Polish, Hungarian and Rumanian Jews departed their countries. Immigration quotas in other lands were severely limited…accordingly, not less than a third of these fugitives made their way to Palestine." [412]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "During the period of the British mandate (1922-48), the Yishuv grew from 50,000 to 600,000 people. Most of the new immigrants were refugees from Nazi persecution in Europe." MSN Encarta Encyclopedia [413]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: This claim defies the historical record. The Jews who settled in Palestine came peacefully and legally. The international community had set up the legal mechanisms for their return in the Palestine Mandate in 1920. Regardless of one's views about the Palestine Mandate, it was the internationally recognized legal government of the area, and Jews followed its stipulations.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "[R]ecognition has…been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstitution of their national home in that country…" Preamble. League of Nations Palestine Mandate. [414]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "The Mandatory shall be responsible for placing the country under such…conditions as will secure the establishment of the Jewish national home…" Article 2 League of Nations Palestine Mandate. [415]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: The Mandatory powers "shall facilitate Jewish immigration…and shall encourage…close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes." Article 6 League of Nations Palestine Mandate. [416]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: The Mandatory powers shall "facilitate the acquisition of Palestinian citizenship by Jews who take up their permanent residence in Palestine." Article 7 League of Nations Palestine Mandate. [417]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: This claim distorts the historical record and the documentary evidence. The Jews did not use force to claim and settle on land in Palestine. They legally bought the land that they settled on and developed.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: Before World War I and the establishment of the Mandate, anti-Zionist Arab newspapers stressed the theme that "large Arab landowners were involved in sales of land to the" Zionists, and one writer, Najib Nassar, "wrote that those who should be leaders themselves are selling their country cheaply." Another newspaper "leaves its reader with the unmistakable impression that Arab complacency, disunity, greed and self-interest were more important reasons for Zionist success and Arab failure than the strength of the settler movement itself." Historian Rashid Khalidi [418]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: After the Mandate was established, Arab nationalists "in daylight were crying out against Jewish immigration and in the darkness of the night were selling lands to the Jews." Dr. Heinrich Wolff, German Consul in Jerusalem [419]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "It is made quite clear to all…that the Arabs are as prodigal in selling their land as they are in useless wailing and weeping." King Abdullah of Jordan [420]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: The Jewish National Fund reported on the "constant stream of Arab offers to sell," and that it was "flooded…with more offers than it could accommodate" in the 1930's. [421]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "They (Jews) paid high prices for the land, and in addition, they paid to certain occupants of those lands a considerable amount of money which they were not legally bound to pay." John Hope Simpson, Simpson Report 1930 [422]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "In 1944, Jews paid between $1,000 and $1,100 per acre in Palestine, mostly for arid or semiarid land; in the same year, rich black soil in Iowa was selling for about $110 an acre." [423]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: Of the 463,000 acres that Jews owned in 1947, they had bought 387,500 from Arabs (84%), 30,000 acres from various churches and received 45,000 from the British Mandate authorities. [424]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: This claim defies the historical record and the documentary evidence. When Palestinian Arabs complained to British authorities, they never charged that the Jews were using force or violence. Their grievances were about Jewish immigration and Jewish land purchases, not about force, violence or terrorism.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: 1921 riots: "…a section of native opinion in Palestine was becoming disturbed as to the meaning of British policy…it was uneasy as to the implications of the Balfour Declaration. To install the Jews in Palestine might mean the expulsion of the Arabs. If there were an unlimited Jewish immigration and finally a Jewish majority in the population, how could the safeguards embodied in the second half of the Declaration be enforced…"." Interim Report on the Civil Administration of Palestine to the League of Nations, 1921. [425]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: 1929 riots: "[D]isturbances of the same kind had occurred on two previous occasions -- in April 1920 and May 1921 -- at times when Jewish immigration was much less intensive than it was in August 1929 and when the area of the lands purchased by the Jews was much smaller, though these were the two factors which, according to the Commission, played a considerable part in the matter." Permanent Mandates Commission, Minutes of the 17th (Extraordinary) Session, June 21 1930 [426]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "The autumn of 1935 had been marked by considerable political disquiet and by demonstrations of Arab discontent over Jewish immigration and the sales of Arab lands to Jewish buyers. Arab spokesmen conducted a vigorous campaign against those accused of facilitating the transfer of Arab lands to Jewish ownership." League of Nations, Report on the Administration of Palestine and Transjordan for the year 1936 [427]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: 1937: "The underlying causes of the disturbances of 1936 were--(1) The desire of the Arabs for national independence; (2) their hatred and fear of the establishment of the Jewish National Home. These two causes were the same as those of all the previous outbreaks and have always been inextricably linked together." League of Nations Mandate Report, Report of the Royal Commission, the Peel Commission Report, November 30 1937 [428]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: When violence did occur, as it did in 1920, 1921, 1929, and 1936-39, British investigative commissions consistently found that Arab groups had initiated the violence and terrorism. When Jews did use violence, they did so only to defend themselves.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: 1929 riots: The Commission of Enquiry "drew attention, in the first place, to the fact that the disturbances were characterised from the beginning by Arab attacks against the Jews (paragraphs 1 and 3)…. )….The evidence itself showed the correctness of the Commission's interpretation." Permanent Mandates Commission, Minutes of the 17th (Extraordinary) Session, June 21 1930 [429]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: 1937: "These disturbances….were similar in character to the four previous outbreaks, although more serious and prolonged. As in 1933, it was not only the Jews who were attacked, but the Palestine Government….." League of Nations Mandate Report, Report of the Royal Commission, the Peel Commission Report, November 30 1937 [430]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: 1937: "During the year covered by this Report, public security in Palestine was seriously disturbed by a campaign of murder, intimidation, and sabotage conducted by Arab law breakers, which on a few occasions provoked Jewish reprisals.,,,The terrorist campaign took the form of isolated murder and attempted murder; of sporadic cases of armed attacks on military, police and civilian road transport; on Jewish settlements and on both Arab and Jewish private property; while in the autumn there was a revival of lawlessness and violence by armed Arab bands which persisted until the end of the year." Mandate for Palestine. Report of the Mandatory to the League of Nations, December 31 1937 [431]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "The principal task of the Palestine Government…has been that of maintaining public security and waging incessant war--I am afraid that the word "war" is scarcely an exaggerated description--against terrorism, lawlessness and intimidation.… whereas everybody must agree that the balance of criminality was overwhelmingly on the Arab side, there had nevertheless been cases of reprisals on the side of the Jews." (Our italics) League of Nations, Permanent Mandates Commission, Minutes of the Thirty-Fourth Session, June 1938 [432]
      
      
  • COUNTERPOINT: The Zionists did not create their state by aggressive force. They were always willing to compromise. When the UN recommended partitioning Palestine so both Jews and Arabs could have their own states (UN Resolution 181 in 1947), the Zionists accepted. Palestinian Arabs and the Arab states did not. Instead, they launched a bloody war against the young state of Israel, hoping to nullify the UN recommendation.
    
    
    • Supporting Evidence: "[W]e would rather die than accept minority rights" in the portion that was to become a Jewish state." Hajj Amin al-Husseini. 1947
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "We are solidly and permanently determined to fight to the last man against the existence in our country of any Jewish state, no matter how small it is…If such a state is to be established, it can only be established over our dead bodies." Jamal al-Husseini, Vice President of the Arab Higher Committee, the effective government of the Palestinian Arabs. November 1947 [433]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: If the Partition Resolution passed, the Arabs would drench "the soil of our beloved country with the last drop of Arab blood." Jamal Husseini, the Arab Higher Committee's spokesman. 1947 [434]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "The Arabs are determined to wage war with the same determination and force as during the Crusades." King Ibn Saud Message to President Truman 1947 [435]
      
      
    • Supporting Evidence: "You will achieve nothing with talk of compromise or peace. For us there is only one test, the test of strength….We will try to rout you. I am not sure we will succeed, but we will try. We succeeded in expelling the Crusaders, but lost Spain and Persia, and may lose Palestine. But it is too late for a peaceable solution." Abd al-Rahman Azzam, Secretary General of the Arab League, to delegation of Zionists. September 1947 [436]
      
      

[1] Martin Gilbert, The Routledge Atlas of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 7th edition, 2002, p. 1

[2] “Jews” World Book Encyclopedia, 1979, Vol. 11, pp. 99-101

[3] Peter Stearns, World History in Brief,” 1998, p.27

[4] Clayton Miles Lehmann, “Palestine,” http://www.usd.edu/erp/Palestine/history.htm

[5] Mark Tessler, A History of the Israeli-Palestine Conflict, 1994 p.13

[6] Professor William G. Dever, “Archeology, Ideology, and the Quest for an ‘Ancient” or ‘Biblical’ Israel,” Near Eastern Archeology 61:1 (1998), p. 43

[7] Marshall J. Breger, “Understanding Jerusalem,” Middle East Quarterly, 1997 at http://www.meforum.org/article/343

[8] Document available on line at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/roman-jews.html

[9] http://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/titus/titus.html

[10] (*) http://www.pastornet.net.au/jmm/aasi/aasi0431.htm (**) http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/myths/mf20.html

[11] Cited in Ronald Sanders, The High Walls of Jerusalem: A History of the Balfour Declaration and the Birth of the British Mandate for Palestine, 1983, p. 618

[12] (*) The Palestine Mandate, 1920, at http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/mideast/palmanda.htm

[13] Cited in Benny Morris, Righteous Victims, 2001, p. 74

[14] (Morris, Righteous Victims, p. 99)

[15] Cited in Benny Morris, Righteous Victims, 2001, p. 37

[16] Cited in Ahron Cohen, Israel and the Arab World, 1970, p. 97

[17] Cited in Samuel Katz, Battleground—Fact and Fantasy in Palestine 1977, p.55

[18] (Cited at http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/myths/mf20.html

[19] Benny Morris, “The Rejection,” The New Republic 4/21/03 at http://www.tnr.com/docprint.mhtml?l=20030421&s=morris042103

[20] Professor William G. Dever, “Archeology, Ideology, and the Quest for an ‘Ancient” or ‘Biblical’ Israel,” Near Eastern Archeology 61:1 (1998), p. 39, p. 50

[21] Marshall J. Breger, “Understanding Jerusalem, Middle East Quarterly March 1997 at http://www.meforum.org/article/343

[22] http://www.mideastweb.org/plocha.htm

[23] Michael Grant, The Jews in the Roman World, 1973, p.19

[24] Excerpt at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/roman-jews.html

[25] Michael Grant, The Jews in the Roman World, 1973, p.19

[26] Tacitus, The Complete Works of Tacitus, Library College edition, translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb, 1942, p.662 and p.664

[27] http://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/titus/titus.html

[28] http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/myths/mf20.html

[29] Cited in F. E. Peters, Jerusalem, Princeton University Press, 1985, pp. 180-181

[30] Cited in F. E. Peters, Jerusalem, Princeton University Press, 1985, p. 195

[31] (Cited at http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/myths/mf20.html" TARGET="_blank">http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/myths/mf20.html)

[32] Anthony J Tomasino, “Inter-Jewish Conflict and the Passion of Jesus,” The Bible and Interpretation, April 2004 at http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/Tomasino_Conflict_and_Passion.htm

[33] Michael Grant, The Jews in the Roman World, 1973, p.ix

[34] Bernard Lewis, “The Palestinians and the PLO,” Commentary, January 1975. p. 32

[35] Michael Grant, The Jews in the Roman World, 1973, p.255

[36] Bernard Lewis, “The Palestinians and the PLO,” Commentary, January 1975. p. 32

[37] Why do you need to deny historical facts to justify the right of Palestinians to a homeland? If these historical facts are true, would it mean Palestinians would recognize the legitimacy of the Jews’ rights to a homeland in Israel?

[38] Ziony Zevit, “Three Debates about Bible and Archeology,” Biblica (83) 2002 at http://fontes.lstc.edu/~rklein/Documents/zevit.htm

[39] Professor William G. Dever, “Archeology, Ideology, and the Quest for an ‘Ancient” or ‘Biblical’ Israel,” Near Eastern Archeology 61:1 (1998), p. 39, p. 50

[40] Marshall J. Breger, “Understanding Jerusalem, Middle East Quarterly March 1997 at http://www.meforum.org/article/343

[41] http://www.mideastweb.org/plocha.htm

[42] Ziony Zevit, “Three Debates about Bible and Archeology,” Biblica (83) 2002 at http://fontes.lstc.edu/~rklein/Documents/zevit.htm

[43] Professor William G. Dever, “Archeology, Ideology, and the Quest for an ‘Ancient” or ‘Biblical’ Israel,” Near Eastern Archeology 61:1 (1998), p. 43

[44] Ong Kar Khalsa, “The Debate Over the Historicity and Chronology of the United Monarchy in Jerusalem,” Media Sense june 10 1998 at http://www.mediasense.com/athena/jerusalem.html

[45] J. Maxwell Miller, “History or Legend? Digging into Israel’s Origins,” Christian Century, February 24 2004, archived at http://articles.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1058/is_4_121/ai_113648958

[46] Jews” World Book Encyclopedia, 1979, Vol. 11

[47] Professor William G. Dever, “Archeology, Ideology, and the Quest for an ‘Ancient” or ‘Biblical’ Israel,” Near Eastern Archeology 61:1 (1998), p. 43

[48] Tacitus, The Complete Works of Tacitus, Library College edition, translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb, 1942, p 659, p. 665

[49] http://www.us-org/jsource/Archeology/archtoc.html and http://www.cjnews.com/pastissues/98/aug6-98/front2.htm

[50] http://www.meforum.org/article/389

[51] Dr. Uzi Dahari, Deputy Director of the Israeli Antiquities Authority, Letter to the World Archeological Congress, January 13 2003 at http://www.israntique.org.il/article.html

[52] Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs report at http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Foreign%20Relations/Israels%20Foreign%20Relations%20since%201947/1947-1974/10%20Jordanian%20Annexation%20of%20West%20Bank-%20Resolution%20A and Teddy Kollek, Jerusalem (1990, p 15)

[53] http://www.biu.ac.il/Spokesman/News-Briefs/Dec_27_1999.htm

[54] Dore Gold, “Jerusalem in International Diplomacy,” Jerusalem Viewpoints, February 1 2001 at http://www.jcpa.org/jl/vp447.htm

[55] Amy Dockser Marcus, “Where Brotherhood is Buried,” Wall Street Opinion Journal, October 14 2000 at http://www.opinionjournal.com/taste/?id=65000418

[56] Bernard Lewis, “Muslim Anti-Semitism,” Middle East Quarterly, June 1998 at http://www.meforum.org/pf.php?id=396

[57] Interview in Die Welt Magazine. Available at http://www.adl.org/Anti_semitism/arab/temple_denial.asp

[58] http://www.memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP12200

[59] http://www.adl.org/Anti_semitism/arab/temple_denial.asp

[60] Transcript at http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,50830,00.html

[61] Michael Grant, The Jews in the Roman World, 1973 p. 256

[62] Michael Grant, The Jews in the Roman World, 1973 p. 258

[63] Howard Sachar, A History of Israel, 2000, pp 18-20; Alan Dershowitz, The Case for Israel, pp. 17-21

[64] Cited in Samuel Katz, Battleground: Fact and Fantasy in Palestine, 2002, pp. 90-91

[65] Howard Sachar, A History of Israel, 2000, pp 18-20; Alan Dershowitz, The Case for Israel, pp. 17-21

[66] Cited in Arie Morgenstern, “Dispersion and the Longing for Zion: 1240-1840,” Azure, Winter 2002 at http://www.azure.org.il/12-mor.htm

[67] Cited in Martin Gilbert, Exile and Return: The Struggle for a Jewish Homeland, 1978 p. 19

[68] (*) Samuel Katz, Battleground: Fact and Fantasy in Palestine, 2002, p. 93 (**) Howard Sachar, A History of Israel, 2000, pp 18-20; Alan Dershowitz, The Case for Israel, pp. 17-21

[69] (*) Cited in Cited in F. E. Peters, Jerusalem, Princeton University Press, 1985, p 484

[70] Walter Lacquer, A History of Zionism, 1989, p. 42

[71] Reported in A.H. Hyamson, ed. The British Consulate in Jerusalem, 2 vols., 1939-1941, vol. 2, p. 331

[72] Anthony D. Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nations, 1988, p. 117

[73] Walter Laqueur, A History of Zionism, 1989 p. 42

[74] Howard Sachar, A History of Israel, 2000, p. 5

[75] Walter Laqueur, A History of Zionism, 1989 p. 40; “Nova Online,” PBS program at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/israel/losttribes2.html , “A Short History of the Jewish People” at http://learn.jtsa.edu/topics/reading/bookexc/scheindlin_shorthistory/chap6.shtml

[76] R.P. Michael Naud, Voyage Nouveau de la Terre-Sainte, Paris 1702, pp. 58, 563

[77] Siddur Tehillat Hashem, 1978, p. 56

[78] Interim Report of the Civil Administration of Palestine to the League of Nations, 1921, archived at http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/349b02280a930813052565e90048ed1c!OpenDocument

[79] (*) Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, The Exiled and the Redeemed, 1961, pp 44-45 (**)Howard Sachar, A History of Israel, 2000, p. 19

[80] Arie Morgenstern, “Dispersion and the Longing for Zion: 1240-1840,” Azure, Winter 2002 at http://www.azure.org.il/12-mor.htm

[81] Hans Eberhard Mayer, The Crusades, 2nd edition, 1990, tr. John Gillingham, p. 157

[82] Arie Morgenstern, “Dispersion and the Longing for Zion: 1240-1840,” Azure, Winter 2002 at http://www.azure.org.il/12-mor.htm

[83] Arie Morgenstern, “Dispersion and the Longing for Zion: 1240-1840,” Azure , Winter 2002 at http://www.azure.org.il/12-mor.htm

[84] Howard Sachar, A History of Israel, 2000, pp 18-20; Alan Dershowitz, The Case for Israel, pp. 17-21, Martin Gilbert, The Routledge Atlas of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 7th edition, 2002

[85] Cited in F. E. Peters, Jerusalem, Princeton University Press, 1985, p. 488

[86] Arie Morgenstern, “Dispersion and the Longing for Zion: 1240-1840,” Azure, Winter 2002 at http://www.azure.org.il/12-mor.htm

[87] Arie Morgenstern, “Dispersion and the Longing for Zion: 1240-1840,” Azure, Winter 2002 at http://www.azure.org.il/12-mor.htm

[88] Henry Finn letter to Earl of Clarendon, January 1, 1858, cited in Alan Dershowitz, The Case for Israel, pp. 17-21 and David S. Landes, “Palestine Before the Zionists,” Commentary, February 1975

[89] Martin Kabatnik (Prague). Quoted in Michael Ish-Shalom, Masaei Notzrim Beeretz Yisrael (Tel Aviv, 1965), p. 265.

[90] R.P. Michael Naud, Voyage Nouveau de la Terre-Sainte, Paris 1702, pp. 58, 563

[91] Cited in K. Wilhelm, Roads to Zion: Four Centuries of Travelers’ Reports, 1946, pp.95-97. Also cited in F E Peters, Jerusalem: The Holy City in the Eyes of Chroniclers, Visitors, Pilgrims and Prophets from the Days of Abraham to the Beginnings of Modern Times, Princeton University Press, 1985, pp. 533-534

[92] James Finn, Stirring Times, 1878 Vol. II, p. 63, cited in David S. Landes, “Palestine Before the Zionists,” Commentary, February 1975

[93] David S. Landes, “Palestine Before the Zionists,” Commentary, February 1975

[94] Cited in Alan Dershowitz, The Case for Israel, p.20

[95] Arie Morgenstern, “Dispersion and the Longing for Zion: 1240-1840,” Azure, Winter 2002 at http://www.azure.org.il/12-mor.htm

[96] Arie Morgenstern, “Dispersion and the Longing for Zion: 1240-1840,” Azure, Winter 2002 at http://www.azure.org.il/12-mor.htm

[97] Specific citations from the 19th century recorded in David S. Landes, “Palestine Before the Zionists,” Commentary, February 1975

[98] Pierre Loti, Jerusalem, Paris 1895, pp. 128, 183-184, cited in David S Landes, “Palestine Before the Zionists,” Commentary, February 1976

[99] http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/a47250072a3dd7950525672400783bde/5f21f8a1ca578a57052566120067f658!OpenDocument

[100] Howard Sachar, A History of Israel, 2000, pp. 22-23

[101] Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand, Chateaubraind: Oeuvres romanesques et voyages, 1969 ed, Vol. 2, pp. 1119-1121, cited in F. E. Peters, Jerusalem, Princeton University Press, 1985, pp 545-546

[102] Cited in Benny Morris, Righteous Victims, 2001, p. 19

[103] Howard Sachar, A History of Israel, 2000, p. 19

[104] Arie Morgenstern, “Dispersion and the Longing for Zion: 1240-1840,” Azure, Winter 2002 at http://www.azure.org.il/12-mor.htm

[105] Howard Sachar, A History of Israel, 2000, pp 18-20; Alan Dershowitz, The Case for Israel, pp. 17-21, Martin Gilbert, The Routledge Atlas of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 7th edition, 2002

[106] Walter Laqueur, A History of Zionism, 1989, p. 42

[107] Arie Morgenstern, “Dispersion and the Longing for Zion: 1240-1840,” Azure, Winter 2002 at http://www.azure.org.il/12-mor.htm

[108] Henry Finn letter to Earl of Clarendon, January 1, 1858, cited in Alan Dershowitz, The Case for Israel, pp. 17-21 and David S. Landes, “Palestine Before the Zionists,” Commentary, February 1975

[109] Howard Sachar, A History of Israel, 2000, pp. 22-23

[110] Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand, Chateaubraind: Oeuvres romanesques et voyages, 1969 ed, Vol. 2, pp. 1119-1121, cited in F. E. Peters, Jerusalem, Princeton University Press, 1985, pp 546-547

[111] John Lewis Burckhardt, Travels in Syria and the Holy Land, (1822) reprinted 1983, p. 299

[112] Alphonse de Lamartine, Reflection of the East, Vol. I, London, 1845, pp. 268, 308

[113] Arieh L. Avneri, The Claim of Dispossession: Jewish Land Settlement and the Arabs 1878-1948, 2002 edition, p. 20

[114] Cited in Samuel Katz, Battleground: Fact and Fantasy in Palestine, 1977, p.128

[115] Erich Isaac and Rael Jean Isaac, “Whose Palestine?” Commentary, July 1986, p. 31

[116] “Palestine,” Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition, 1911

[117] Benny Morris, Righteous Victims, 2001, p. 13

[118] Arieh L. Avneri, The Claim of Dispossession: Jewish Land Settlement and the Arabs 1878-1948, 2002 edition, pp. 14-15

[119] Arieh L. Avneri, The Claim of Dispossession: Jewish Land Settlement and the Arabs 1878-1948, 2002 edition, pp. 16-18

[120] Arieh L. Avneri, The Claim of Dispossession: Jewish Land Settlement and the Arabs 1878-1948, 2002 edition, p. 24

[121] Arieh L. Avneri, The Claim of Dispossession: Jewish Land Settlement and the Arabs 1878-1948, 2002 edition, pp. 27-29

[122] Cited in Arieh L. Avneri, The Claim of Dispossession: Jewish Land Settlement and the Arabs 1878-1948, 2002 edition, p. 30

[123] Erich Isaac and Rael Jean Isaac, “Whose Palestine?” Commentary Magazine, July 1986, p. 36

[124] Anglo-American Committee, Survey, vol. 1, p. 212

[125] Benny Morris, Righteous Victims, 2001, p. 41

[126] Palestine Mandate Charter at http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/mideast/palmanda.htm

[127] Palestine Mandate Charter at http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/mideast/palmanda.htm

[128] Palestine Mandate Charter at http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/mideast/palmanda.htm

[129] Palestine Mandate Charter at http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/mideast/palmanda.htm

[130] Hague Conventions archived at http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/lawofwar/hague02.htm#art55

[131] http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/a47250072a3dd7950525672400783bde/5f21f8a1ca578a57052566120067f658!OpenDocument

[132] http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/a47250072a3dd7950525672400783bde/5f21f8a1ca578a57052566120067f658!OpenDocument

[133] League of Nations Charter at http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/leagcov.htm

[134] RR Palmer, A History of the Modern World Since 1865, 1984, p. 691-694

[135] Peel Commission Report, cited in Alan Dershowitz, The Case for Israel, p. 36

[136] Report available at UNISPAL at http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/181c4bf00c44e5fd85256cef0073c426/fd4d250af882632b052565d2005012c3!OpenDocument

[137] RR Palmer, A History of the Modern World Since 1865, 1984, pp. 741-743

[138] Faisal letter in the New York Times, March 5, 1919

[139] “Agreement Between Emir Feisal and Dr. Weizmann,” January 3 1919, archived at http://www.iap.org/feisal.htm

[140] Interim Report of the Civil Administration of Palestine to the League of Nations, 1921, archived at http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/349b02280a930813052565e90048ed1c!OpenDocument

[141] Benny Morris, Righteous Victims, 2001 p 73

[142] David Lloyd George, Memoirs of the Peace Conference, 2 Vols, 1939 pp. 723-4. Cited in David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace, 1989, p. 401

[143] “Feisel-Frankfurter Correspondence, March 3 1919, reproduced in Samuel Katz, Battleground: Fact & Fantasy in Palestine, 2002 p. 305

[144] Reported at 17th session of Palestine Commission, June 21 1930 at http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/a47250072a3dd7950525672400783bde/5f21f8a1ca578a57052566120067f658!OpenDocument

[145] http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/colonialism

[146] The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th edition, Volume 6 p. 227

[147] Feisel letter to Chaim Weizmann, in Walter Laquer and Barry Rubin, The Arab-Israeli Reader: 6th edition, 2001, p 19. Also cited in Dershowitz, The Case for Israel, p.38

[148] Walter Lacquer, A History of Zionism, and Howard Sachar, A History of Israel, 2000, Chapters 1 and 2.

[149] Howard Sachar, A History of Israel, 2000, p. 44

[150] The Jewish State, Introduction, at http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/6640/zion/judenstchpt1.html

[151] Cited in Walter Laqueur, A History of Zionism, 1989, p. 45

[152] Cited in Laqueur, A History of Zionism, 1989, pp. 49, 50

[153] Cited in Benny Morris, Righteous Victims, 2001, pp. 16-17

[154] Walter Laqueur, A History of Zionism, p. 58

[155] Walter Laqueur, A History of Zionism, 1989, pp 41-42

[156] (*)v Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, The Exiled and the Redeemed, 1961, pp 44-45 (**) Howard Sachar, A History of Israel, 2000, p. 19

[157] Arie Morgenstern, “Dispersion and the Longing for Zion: 1240-1840,” Azure, Winter 2002 at http://www.azure.org.il/12-mor.htm

[158] Howard Sachar, A History of Israel, 2000, pp 18-20; Alan Dershowitz, The Case for Israel, pp. 17-21, Martin Gilbert, The Routledge Atlas of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 7th edition, 2002

[159] Walter Laqueur, A History of Zionism, 1989, p. 42

[160] Paul Johnson, Modern Times: The World from the Twenties to the Nineties, 1983, p. 485

[161] Walter Laqueur, A History of Zionism, 1989, p. 131

[162] Cited in Benny Morris, Righteous Victims, 2001, p.74

[163] Peel Commission Report, cited in Alan Dershowitz, The Case for Israel, p. 36

[164] Interim Report of the Civil Administration of Palestine to the League of Nations, 1921, archived at http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/349b02280a930813052565e90048ed1c!OpenDocument

[165] Abraham Granott, The Land System in Palestine, 1952, p. 278

[166] King Abdullah of Jordan, My Memoirs Completed (1978) pp 78-9

[167] Benny Morris, Righteous Victims, 2001, p 123

[168] Rashid Khalidi, Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness, 1997, pp. 129-130

[169] Cited in Mitchell Bard, Myths and Facts, based on research by historians Arieh Avneri, The Claims of Dispossession, 1984 and Yehosuha Porath, The Emergence of the Palestinian-Arab National Movement 1918-1929, 1974.

[170] Kenneth W. Stein, “The Jewish National Fund: Land Purchase Methods and Priorities 1924-1939,” Middle Eastern Studies, April 1984

[171] John Hope Simpson, Palestine: Report on Immigration, Land Settlement and Development 1930, p. 51

[172] Moshe Auman, “Land Ownership in Palestine 1880-1948,” in Michael Curtis et al, The Palestinians, 1975, p. 25

[173] Cited in Alan Dershowitz, The Case for Israel, p. 26

[174] Howard Sachar, A History of Israel, 2000, p. 167.

[175] “An Interim Report on the Civil Administration of Palestine to the League of Nations, June, 1921 at http://www.eretzysiroel.org/~jkatz/herbert.html

[176] http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/History/peel1.html

[177] At http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/globalconnections/mideast/timeline/text/ http://www.travelnet.co.il/israel/TelAviv/History.htm

[178] Benny Morris, Righteous Victims, 2001, p 123

[179] Benny Morris, Righteous Victims, p. 123 and Alan Dershowitz, The Case for Israel, p. 25

[180] http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/a47250072a3dd7950525672400783bde/5f21f8a1ca578a57052566120067f658!OpenDocument

[181] Ernst Main, Palestine at the Crossroads, 1937 pp. 193-194

[182] Cited at http://www.yahoodi.com/peace/palestine.html

[183] Rashid Khalidi, Palestinian Identity, pp. 112-113

[184] http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/a47250072a3dd7950525672400783bde/5f21f8a1ca578a57052566120067f658!OpenDocument

[185] http://www.yahoodi.com/peace/palestine.html#werent

[186] Rashid Khalidi, Palestinian Identity, pp. 112-113

[187] Cited in Mitchell Bard, Myths and Facts, based on research by historians Arieh Avneri, The Claims of Dispossession, 1984 and Yehosuha Porath, The Emergence of the Palestinian-Arab National Movement 1918-1929, 1974.

[188] Cited in Shabati Teveth, Ben Gurion and the Palestinian Arabs: From Peace to War 1985, p 32

[189] Kenneth W. Stein, “The Jewish National Fund: Land Purchase Methods and Priorities, 1924-1939,” Middle Eastern Studies, April 1984.

[190] Cited in Alan Dershowitz, The Case for Israel, p. 26

[191] Howard Sachar, A History of Israel, 2000, p. 167.

[192] “An Interim Report on the Civil Administration of Palestine to the League of Nations, June, 1921 at http://www.eretzysiroel.org/~jkatz/herbert.html

[193] http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/History/peel1.html

[194] At http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/globalconnections/mideast/timeline/text/

[195] Benny Morris, Righteous Victims, 2001, p 123

[196] http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/a47250072a3dd7950525672400783bde/5f21f8a1ca578a57052566120067f658!OpenDocument

[197] Benny Morris, Righteous Victims, 2001, p. 123

[198] Kenneth W. Stein, “The Jewish National Fund: Land Purchase Methods and Priorities, 1924-1939,” Middle Eastern Studies, April 1984.

[199] Benny Morris, Righteous Victims, p. 253

[200] Kenneth W. Stein, “The Jewish National Fund: Land Purchase Methods and Priorities, 1924-1939,” Middle Eastern Studies, April 1984

[201] Daniel Pipes, Greater Syria, Oxford U Press, p. 179

[202] http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/History/peel1.html

[203] Howard Sachar, A History of Israel 2000, p. 178-9

[204] A History of Zionism, 1989, p. 510

[205] Arieh Avneri, The Claim of Disposession, 1984, p.28 and Aharon Cohen, Israel and the Arab World, 1970, p. 60

[206] Howard Sachar, A History of Israel, 2000, p 163

[207] Howard Sachar, A History of Israel, 2000, p. 167 and 156; Yehoshua Porath, Palestinian Arab National Movement: From Riots to Rebellion: 1929-1939, Vol. 2, 1977, pp 17-18, 39, cited in Mitchell Bard, Myths and Facts, 2001, p. 43. Approximately 363,000 Jews immigrated in the same time period.

[208] Cited in Fred M. Gottheil, “The Smoking Gun: Arab Immigration into Israel 1922-1931” Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2003 at http://www.meforum.org/article/522

[209] A History of Israel, 2000, p. 168,

[210] Martin Gilbert, Churchill, vol. 5, p. 1072 cited at http://www.eretzyisroel.org/~jkatz/return.html#24!OpenDocument

[211] http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/a47250072a3dd7950525672400783bde/5f21f8a1ca578a57052566120067f658!OpenDocument

[212] Howard Sachar, A History of Israel, 2000, p. 127 and http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/mideast/brwh1922.htm

[213] http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/a47250072a3dd7950525672400783bde/5f21f8a1ca578a57052566120067f658!OpenDocument and Howard Sachar, A History of Israel, 2000, p. 176

[214] http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/mideast/brwh1939.htm

[215] Cited in Howard Sachar, A History of Israel, 2000 p. 264

[216] “Minutes of the thirty-Fourth Session” of the League of Nations Permanent Mandates Commission June 18 1935 at http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/ea08ec2300e1e17c052565ef006425ba!OpenDocument

[217] “Minutes of the thirty-Fourth Session” of the League of Nations Permanent Mandates Commission June 18 1935 at http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/ea08ec2300e1e17c052565ef006425ba!OpenDocument

[218] “Minutes of the thirty-Fourth Session” of the League of Nations Permanent Mandates Commission June 18 1935 at http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/ea08ec2300e1e17c052565ef006425ba!OpenDocument

[219] “Minutes of the thirty-Fourth Session” of the League of Nations Permanent Mandates Commission June 18 1935 at http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/ea08ec2300e1e17c052565ef006425ba!OpenDocument

[220] Howard Sachar, A History of Israel, 2000, p 163

[221] Howard Sachar, A History of Israel, 2000, p. 167 and 156; Yehoshua Porath, Palestinian Arab National Movement: From Riots to Rebellion: 1929-1939, Vol. 2, 1977, pp 17-18, 39, cited in Mitchell Bard, Myths and Facts, 2001, p. 43. Approximately 363,000 Jews immigrated in the same time period.

[222] Cited in Fred M. Gottheil, “The Smoking Gun: Arab Immigration into Israel 1922-1931” Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2003 at http://www.meforum.org/article/522

[223] Anglo-American Committee, Survey, vol. 1, p. 212.

[224] Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress, US Country Studies at http://countrystudies.us/pakistan/14.htm

[225] “German Expulsion after World War II” at http://www.fact-index.com/g/ge/german_expulsion_after_world_war_ii.html

[226] “United Nations,” Encyclopedia Britannica, 1979, Vol. 20, p. 40c

[227] Charter at http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/un/unchart.htm

[228] Cited in Howard Sachar, A History of Israel, 2000, p. 279

[229] Charter available at http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/un/unchart.htm

[230] http://www.mideastweb.org/unscop1947.htm

[231] Cited in Alan Dershowitz, The Case for Israel, p. 64

[232] “Discussion of the report of the First Committee on the establishment of a special committee on Palestine (documents A/307 and A/307/Corr. 1)”, UN Plenary Meeting, May 14 1947 archived at http://www.princeton.edu/~xzhu/documents/gromyko47.html

[233] http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/History/peel1.html

[234] http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/History/peel1.html

[235] Howard Sachar, A History of Israel, 2000 p. 292

[236] Benny Morris, Righteous Victims, 2001, p. 100

[237] Alec Kirkbride, A Crackle of Thorns, 1956, pp 19-20

[238] Efraim and Ina Karsh, Empires of the Sand: The Struggle for Mastery in the Middle East, 1999, Chapter 20 and Palestine Mandate text at http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/mideast/palmanda.htm

[239] Benny Morris, Righteous Victims, 2001, p 100

[240] R.R. Palmer, A History of the Modern World, 1978, p. 511

[241] Cannistraro and Reich, The Western Perspective: A History of Civilization in the West, Vol. II, 1999, p. 817

[242] Survey of Palestine, 1946, British Mandate Government. Cited in Mitchell Bard, Myths and Facts, 2001, p 56

[243] Survey of Palestine, 1946, British Mandate Government. Cited in Mitchell Bard, Myths and Facts, 2001, p 56

[244] Cited in Benny Morris, Righteous Victims, 2001, p 100

[245] Cited in Benny Morris, Righteous Victims, 2001, p 100

[246] Howard Sachar, A History of Israel 2000, p. 127

[247] “Minutes of the thirty-Fourth Session” of the League of Nations Permanent Mandates Commission June 18 1935 at http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/ea08ec2300e1e17c052565ef006425ba!OpenDocument

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[252] Howard Sachar, A History of Israel 2000, p. 285

[253] Benny Morris, Righteous Victims, 2001, p. 7

[254] http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/a47250072a3dd7950525672400783bde/5f21f8a1ca578a57052566120067f658!OpenDocument

[255] Peel Commission Report, cited in Bard, Myths and Facts, p. 26

[256] Cited in Marie Syrkin, “Palestinian Nationalism: Its Development and Goal,” in Michael Curtis et al, eds., The Palestinians: People, History, Politics, 1975, p. 201

[257] Erich Isaac and Rael Jean Isaac, “Whose Palestine?” Commentary, July 1986, p. 31

[258] Rashid Khalidi, Palestinian Identity, p 150

[259] Benny Morris, “The Rejection,” The New Republic, 4/21/03 at http://www.tnr.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20030421&s=morris042103

[260] http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/a47250072a3dd7950525672400783bde/5f21f8a1ca578a57052566120067f658!OpenDocument

[261] “Palestine,” Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition, 1911

[262] Yehoshua Porath: Palestinian Arab National Movement: From Riots to Rebellion 1929-1939, Vol. 2, p81-82

[263] Benny Morris, cited in Alan Dershowtiz, The Case for Israel, p. 46

[264] Count Folke Bernadotte, To Jerusalem (diary)

[265] Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem 1947-1949, 1998, pp. 17-18.

[266] Cited at http://www.mission4israel.com/ppdne.htm

[267] Howard Sachar, A History of Israel, 2000, p. 309

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[272] Cited in David Horowitz, State in the Making, 1953, p 233

[273] Al-Ayyam (Palestinian newspaper) September 3, 2003, translated at MEMRI at http://www.memri.org/bin/opener_latest.cgi?ID=SD57303

[274] Al-Hayat, London, July 14, 2002. Translated at MEMRI at http://www.memri.org/bin/opener.cgi?Page=archives&ID=SP40102

[275] “Why an Even More Difficult Future Awaits Us, Palestinians and Arabs,” Al-Hayat (London) July 21, 2002, at MEMRI http://www.memri.org/bin/opener.cgi?Page=archives&ID=SP40402

[276] http://www.mideastweb.org/unscop1947.htm

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[278] Cited in Alan Dershowitz, The Case for Israel, p 55

[279] Benny Morris, Righteous Victims, 2001, p133; Howard Sachar, A History of Israel, 2000, pp. 227-229

[280] Cited in Sarah Honig, “Fiendish Hypocristy II: The Man from Klopstock St.,” Jerusalem Post, April 6, 2001

[281] Cited in Howard Sachar, A History of Israel, 2000, p. 211

[282] Zvi Elpeleg, The Grand Mufti, 1993, p. 100 cited in Dershowitz, The Case for Israel, p 56

[283] Edward Said and Christopher Hitchens, Blaming the Victims, 2001 p. 248

[284] Cited in Walter Laqueur and Barry Rubin (eds), The Israel-Arab Reader: A Documentary history of the Middle East Conflict, 1987

[285] Howard Sachar, A History of Israel, 2000, p. 223

[286] UN records, Application of Israel for admission to membership in the United Nations (A/818), A/AC.24/SR.45, May 5 1949 at http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/85255a0a0010ae82852555340060479d/1db943e43c280a26052565fa004d8174!OpenDocument#Mr.%20EBAN%20(Israel" TARGET="_blank">http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/85255a0a0010ae82852555340060479d/1db943e43c280a26052565fa004d8174!OpenDocument#Mr.%20EBAN%20(Israel)%20understood%20tha

[287] http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/go.asp?MFAH00xq0

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[289] Ruth Lapidoth, "The Right of Return in International Law, with Special Reference to the Palestinian Refugees," Israel Yearbook on Human Rights, Vol. 16, 1986)

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[294] http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/go.asp?MFAH00xq0

[295] Archived at the UN website on Palestine, UNISPAL at http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/2dac0ed54bcd6af68525629f00718b98!OpenDocument

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[303] Ruth Lapidoth, "Legal Aspects of the Palestinian Refugee Question," Journal of International Peace and Organization, 76: 2001, pp. 2-3, pp. 211-240, archived at http://www.jcpa.org/jl/vp485.htm

[304] Yoav Gelber, Palestine 1948: War, Escape and the Emergence of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 2001, p. 265

[305] Yoav Gelber, Palestine 1948: War, Escape and the Emergence of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 2001, p. 265

[306] UN records, Application of Israel for admission to membership in the United Nations (A/818), A/AC.24/SR.45, May 5 1949 at http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/85255a0a0010ae82852555340060479d/1db943e43c280a26052565fa004d8174!OpenDocument#Mr.%20EBAN%20(Israel" TARGET="_blank">http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/85255a0a0010ae82852555340060479d/1db943e43c280a26052565fa004d8174!OpenDocument#Mr.%20EBAN%20(Israel)%20understood%20tha

[307] Eyal Benvenisti*, "The Right of Return in International Law: An Israeli Perspective," Stocktaking Conference on Palestinian Refugee Research, Ottawa Canada, June 17-30 2003 at http://network.idrc.ca/uploads/user-S/10576079920Session_2_Eyal_Benvinisti_paper.doc

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[311] Archived at the UN website on Palestine, UNISPAL at http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/2dac0ed54bcd6af68525629f00718b98!OpenDocument

[312] Cited in "Kurtzer Slams Settler Movement," Ha'aretz, July 6 2004 at http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=237407&contrassID=2&subContrassID=1&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y

[313] Al-Misri (Egyptian newspaper), April 12, 1954, cited in Y. Harkabi, Arab Attitudes To Israel, tr. Misha Louvish, 1974, p. 28

[314] Daniel Ayalon, "Israel's Right to Be Israel," Washington Post, August 24 2003 at http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A34480-2003Aug22¬Found=true

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[316] Eyal Benvenisti*, "The Right of Return in International Law: An Israeli Perspective," Stocktaking Conference on Palestinian Refugee Research, Ottawa Canada, June 17-30 2003 at http://network.idrc.ca/uploads/user-S/10576079920Session_2_Eyal_Benvinisti_paper.doc

[317] Eyal Benvenisti*, "The Right of Return in International Law: An Israeli Perspective," Stocktaking Conference on Palestinian Refugee Research, Ottawa Canada, June 17-30 2003 at http://network.idrc.ca/uploads/user-S/10576079920Session_2_Eyal_Benvinisti_paper.doc

[318] Eyal Benvenisti*, "The Right of Return in International Law: An Israeli Perspective," Stocktaking Conference on Palestinian Refugee Research, Ottawa Canada, June 17-30 2003 at http://network.idrc.ca/uploads/user-S/10576079920Session_2_Eyal_Benvinisti_paper.doc

[319] Eyal Benvenisti*, "The Right of Return in International Law: An Israeli Perspective," Stocktaking Conference on Palestinian Refugee Research, Ottawa Canada, June 17-30 2003 at http://network.idrc.ca/uploads/user-S/10576079920Session_2_Eyal_Benvinisti_paper.doc

[320] Benny Morris, Righteous Victims, 2001, p. 7

[321] http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/a47250072a3dd7950525672400783bde/5f21f8a1ca578a57052566120067f658!OpenDocument

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[323] Cited in Marie Syrkin, “Palestinian Nationalism: Its Development and Goal,” in Michael Curtis et al, eds., The Palestinians: People, History, Politics, 1975, p. 201

[324] Rashid Khalidi, Palestinian Identity, p 150

[325] Benny Morris, “The Rejection,” The New Republic, 4/21/03 at http://www.tnr.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20030421&s=morris042103

[326] Yehoshua Porath: Palestinian Arab National Movement: From Riots to Rebellion 1929-1939, Vol. 2, p81-82

[327] Benny Morris, cited in Alan Dershowtiz, The Case for Israel, p. 46

[328] Count Folke Bernadotte, To Jerusalem (diary)

[329] Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem 1947-1949, 1998, pp. 17-18.

[330] Walter Laqueur, A History of Zionism, 1989, p. 42

[331] Howard Sachar, A History of Israel, 2000, pp 18-20; Alan Dershowitz, The Case for Israel, pp. 17-21, Martin Gilbert, The Routledge Atlas of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 7th edition, 2002

[332] Henry Finn letter to Earl of Clarendon, January 1, 1858, cited in Alan Dershowitz, The Case for Israel, pp. 17-21 and David S. Landes, “Palestine Before the Zionists,” Commentary, February 1975

[333] Peel Commission Report, cited in Alan Dershowitz, The Case for Israel, p. 36

[334] Benny Morris, Righteous Victims, 2001 p 73

[335] Cited in Benny Morris, Righteous Victims, 2001, p. 82

[336] Howard Sachar, A History of Israel, 2000 p. 292

[337] Available at http://www.aish.com/jewishissues/middleeast/20_Facts_about_Israel_and_the_Middle_East.asp

[338] http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/beliefnet_poll_010718.html and http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vie/viearrive.html

[339] Howard Sachar, A History of Israel, 2000, pp. 361-362

[340] Howard Sachar, A History of Israel, 2000, p. 532

[341] http://www.watchman.org/reltop/bahai.htm and http://www.geocities.com/freethoughtmecca/bahai.html

[342] http://www.bridgesforpeace.com/publications/dispatch/signoftimes/Article-14.html and http://www.nclci.org/news_middle_east_news.htm

[343] http://www.mideastweb.org/unscop1947.htm

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[346] http://www.mideastweb.org/unscop1947.htm

[347] Cited in Alan Dershowitz, The Case for Israel, p. 64

[348] http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/History/peel1.html

[349] http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/History/peel1.html

[350] Howard Sachar, A History of Israel, 2000 p. 292

[351] Benny Morris, Righteous Victims, 2001 p 73

[352] Cited in Benny Morris, Righteous Victims, 2001, p. 82

[353] Peel Commission Report, cited in Alan Dershowitz, The Case for Israel, p. 36

[354] Efraim and Ina Karsh, Empires of the Sand: The Struggle for Mastery in the Middle East, 1999, Chapter 20 and Palestine Mandate text at http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/mideast/palmanda.htm

[355] Benny Morris, Righteous Victims, 2001, p 100

[356] http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/561c6ee353d740fb8525607d00581829/4ecbf3578b6149c50525657100507fab!OpenDocument

[357] http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/History/alpart.html

[358] Cited in David Horowitz, State in the Making, 1953, p 233

[359] Cited in Efraim Karsh, The Palestine War 1948, 2002, p. 8

[360] Al-Ayyam (Palestinian newspaper) September 3, 2003, translated at MEMRI at http://www.memri.org/bin/opener_latest.cgi?ID=SD57303

[361] Al-Hayat, London, July 14, 2002. Translated at MEMRI at http://www.memri.org/bin/opener.cgi?Page=archives&ID=SP40102

[362] “Why an Even More Difficult Future Awaits Us, Palestinians and Arabs,” Al-Hayat (London) July 21, 2002, at MEMRI http://www.memri.org/bin/opener.cgi?Page=archives&ID=SP40402

[363] http://dfp.dartmouth.edu/index.php?action=displayarticle&id=431&title=Letters%20to%20the%20Editorial%20Board,%202.9

[364] Government of Palestine, Survey of Palestine, cited in Mitchell Bard, Myths and Facts, 2001, p. 56

[365] Government of Palestine, Survey of Palestine, cited in Mitchell Bard, Myths and Facts, 2001, p. 56

[366] Abraham Granott, The Land System in Palestine, 1952, p. 278

[367] King Abdullah of Jordan, My Memoirs Completed (1978) pp 78-9

[368] Benny Morris, Righteous Victims, 2001, p 123

[369] Rashid Khalidi, Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness, 1997, pp. 129-130

[370] Cited in Mitchell Bard, Myths and Facts, based on research by historians Arieh Avneri, The Claims of Dispossession, 1984 and Yehosuha Porath, The Emergence of the Palestinian-Arab National Movement 1918-1929, 1974.

[371] Kenneth W. Stein, “The Jewish National Fund: Land Purchase Methods and Priorities 1924-1939,” Middle Eastern Studies, April 1984

[372] John Hope Simpson, Palestine: Report on Immigration, Land Settlement and Development 1930, p. 51

[373] Moshe Auman, “Land Ownership in Palestine 1880-1948,” in Michael Curtis et al, The Palestinians, 1975, p. 25

[374] Walter Laqueur, A History of Zionism, 1989, p. 122

[375] Walter Laqueur, A History of Zionism, 1989, p. 120

[376] Walter Laqueur, A History of Zionism, 1989, p. 127

[377] Walter Laqueur, A History of Zionism, 1989, p. 128

[378] Walter Laqueur, A History of Zionism, 1989, p. 129

[379] Anthony D. Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nations, 1988, p. 117

[380] Walter Laqueur, A History of Zionism, 1989 p. 42

[381] Howard Sachar, A History of Israel, 2000, p. 5

[382] Walter Laqueur, A History of Zionism, 1989 p. 40; “Nova Online,” PBS program at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/israel/losttribes2.html , “A Short History of the Jewish People” at http://learn.jtsa.edu/topics/reading/bookexc/scheindlin_shorthistory/chap6.shtml

[383] Siddur Tehillat Hashem, 1978, p. 56

[384] Benny Morris, Righteous Victims, 2001, p. 7

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[386] Peel Commission Report, cited in Bard, Myths and Facts, p. 26

[387] Cited in Marie Syrkin, “Palestinian Nationalism: Its Development and Goal,” in Michael Curtis et al, eds., The Palestinians: People, History, Politics, 1975, p. 201

[388] Government of Palestine, Survey of Palestine, cited in Mitchell Bard, Myths and Facts, 2001, p. 56

[389] Government of Palestine, Survey of Palestine, cited in Mitchell Bard, Myths and Facts, 2001, p. 56

[390] Government of Palestine, Survey of Palestine, cited in Mitchell Bard, Myths and Facts, 2001, p. 56

[391] http://www.mideastweb.org/unscop1947.htm

[392] Cited in Alan Dershowitz, The Case for Israel, p. 64

[393] http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/History/peel1.html

[394] http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/History/peel1.html

[395] Benny Morris, Righteous Victims, 2001, p. 13

[396] Arieh L. Avneri, The Claim of Dispossession: Jewish Land Settlement and the Arabs 1878-1948, 2002 edition, pp. 14-15

[397] Arieh L. Avneri, The Claim of Dispossession: Jewish Land Settlement and the Arabs 1878-1948, 2002 edition, pp. 16-18

[398] Arieh L. Avneri, The Claim of Dispossession: Jewish Land Settlement and the Arabs 1878-1948, 2002 edition, p. 24

[399] Arieh L. Avneri, The Claim of Dispossession: Jewish Land Settlement and the Arabs 1878-1948, 2002 edition, pp. 27-29

[400] Cited in Arieh L. Avneri, The Claim of Dispossession: Jewish Land Settlement and the Arabs 1878-1948, 2002 edition, p. 30

[401] Anglo-American Committee, Survey, vol. 1, p. 212.

[402] Walter Laqueur, A History of Zionism, 1989, p. 42

[403] Howard Sachar, A History of Israel, 2000, pp 18-20; Alan Dershowitz, The Case for Israel, pp. 17-21, Martin Gilbert, The Routledge Atlas of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 7th edition, 2002

[404] Henry Finn letter to Earl of Clarendon, January 1, 1858, cited in Alan Dershowitz, The Case for Israel, pp. 17-21 and David S. Landes, “Palestine Before the Zionists,” Commentary, February 1975

[405] Peel Commission Report, cited in Alan Dershowitz, The Case for Israel, p. 36

[406] Michael Grant, The Jews in the Roman World, 1973, p.255

[407] Michael Grant, The Jews in the Roman World, 1973, p. ix

[408] Michael Grant, The Jews in the Roman World, 1973, p.106

[409] The Jewish State, Introduction, at http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/6640/zion/judenstchpt1.html

[410] Interim Report of the Civil Administration of Palestine to the League of Nations, 1921, archived at http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/349b02280a930813052565e90048ed1c!OpenDocument

[411] Lord A.J. Balfour, “Defense of the Palestine Mandate,” 1922 in Modern History Sourcebook, archived at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1922balfour.html

[412] Howard Sachar, A History of Israel, 2000 p. 197

[413] http://ca.encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761576458/Zionism.html

[414] Palestine Mandate Charter at http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/mideast/palmanda.htm

[415] Palestine Mandate Charter at http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/mideast/palmanda.htm

[416] Palestine Mandate Charter at http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/mideast/palmanda.htm

[417] Palestine Mandate Charter at http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/mideast/palmanda.htm

[418] Rashid Khalidi, Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness, 1997, pp. 129-130

[419] Benny Morris, Righteous Victims, 2001, p 123

[420] King Abdullah of Jordan, My Memoirs Completed (1978) pp 78-9

[421] Kenneth W. Stein, “The Jewish National Fund: Land Purchase Methods and Priorities 1924-1939,” Middle Eastern Studies, April 1984

[422] John Hope Simpson, Palestine: Report on Immigration, Land Settlement and Development 1930, p. 51

[423] Moshe Auman, “Land Ownership in Palestine 1880-1948,” in Michael Curtis et al, The Palestinians, 1975, p. 25

[424] Abraham Granott, The Land System in Palestine, 1952, p. 278

[425] Interim Report of the Civil Administration of Palestine to the League of Nations, 1921, archived at http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/349b02280a930813052565e90048ed1c!OpenDocument

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[427] Report on the Administration of Palestine and Transjordan to the League of Nations for the Year 1936, archived at http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/fd4d250af882632b052565d2005012c3!OpenDocument

[428] Peel Commission Report to the League of Nations, archived at http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/08e38a718201458b052565700072b358!OpenDocument

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[433] Cited in Efraim Karsh, The Palestine War 1948, 2002, p. 8

[434] JC Hurewitz, The Struggle for Palestine, 1976, p. 308

[435] Cited in Efraim Karsh, The Palestine War 1948, 2002, p. 20

[436] Cited in Efraim Karsh, The Palestine War 1948 2002, p. 20