Jews in the land of Israel

Via Melanie Phillips, a new paper by archaeologist and historian Alex Joffe demolishes the idea, widespread on the left, of Israel as a settler colonialist state. Jews are, in fact, the indigenous population:

The executive summary:

The concept of “settler colonialism” has been applied with almost unique vehemence against Israel. But the fact that Jews are the indigenous population of the Southern Levant can be proved with ease. In contrast, historical and genealogical evidence shows Palestinians descend primarily from three primary groups: Muslim invaders, Arab immigrants, and local converts to Islam. The Muslim conquest of Byzantine Palestine in the 7^th century CE is a textbook example of settler-colonialism, as is subsequent immigration, particularly during the 19^th and 20^th centuries under the Ottoman and British Empires. The application of the concept to Jews and Zionism by Palestinians is both ironic and unhelpful.

From the body of the paper:

The idea of Jews as “settler-colonialists” is easily disproved. A wealth of evidence demonstrates that Jews are the indigenous population of the Southern Levant; historical and now genetic documentation places Jews there over 2,000 years ago, and there is indisputable evidence of continual residence of Jews in the region. Data showing the cultural and genetic continuity of local and global Jewish communities is equally ample. The evidence was so copious and so incontrovertible, even to historians of antiquity and writers of religious texts, some of whom were Judeophobes, that disconnecting Jews from the Southern Levant was simply not conceived of. Jews are the indigenous population....

Ironically, the same cannot be said for the Palestinian Arabs. A recent analysis by Pinhas Inbari reviewed the history of Palestine (derived from the Roman term Palaestina, applied in 135 CE as a punishment to a Jewish revolt). Most notably, he examines the origin traditions of Palestinian tribes, which continue even today to see themselves as immigrants from other countries. Inbari’s review, along with many additional sources of information he did not address, demonstrates that modern Palestinians are, in fact, derived from two primary streams: converts from indigenous pre-modern Jews and Christians who submitted to Islam, and Arab tribes originating across the Middle East who migrated to the Southern Levant between late antiquity and the 1940s. The best documented episodes were the Islamic conquests of the 7^th century and its aftermath, and the periods of the late Ottoman Empire and the British Mandate....

Echoing Inbari, it is not to be argued here that “there are no Palestinians” who thus do not deserve political rights, including self-rule and a state. To do so would be both logically and morally wrong. Palestinians have the right to define themselves as they see fit, and they must be negotiated with in good faith by Israelis. What Palestinians cannot claim, however, is that they are Palestine’s indigenous population and the Jews are settler-colonialists....

It is, then, the Palestinians who are the settler-colonialists, not the Jews or even the Zionists. Does this realization change anything? Does removing a term from the rejectionist toolbox bring the cause of negotiation and peace any closer? This seems unlikely. But in the longer term, facing certain truths will be necessary for Palestinians and Israelis alike. One is that rejection of Israel, at its core, is not a function of Palestinian nationalism and local identity but Islamic religious opposition to Jewish autonomy and sovereignty. Another is that tendentious categories like “settler-colonialism,” which ironically undermine Palestinian claims to indigenous status, should be dispensed with in favor of honest appraisals of history.

Comments

[Gibson Block]

This idea plays a significant role in the identification of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people but not a particularly strong one for the state itself. If only a small fragment of the people are present
in the land for over 1500 years that's not a continuous presence as some people claim. And if the Arabs are immigrants from the 7th century that's not the same as calling them recent immigrants. There are justifications for the creation of a state but they probably lie primarily in the role of a minority in the Christian and Muslim world.

[John the Drunkard]

Jumping from one time-frame to another should be seen as an obvious trick. Post Shoa immigrants really weren't all that rooted in the Levant.
But; the absolute cultural amnesia about Arab, Persian, and Turkish imperialism and colonialism makes 'Palestinian' anti-semitic absolutism a hideous joke.