Who owned Palestine first the Jews or the Arabs?

Answer 1

Answer 1

The answer is in the question. The term Jew is much older than Arab in a political sense. Jews and any Jewish state existed much before the Arab group of peoples, politically. About 3000 BC was the time people called themselves Jews, Arabs were not considering themselves a people until about 700 AD. Earlier these people were anything from Assyrians to Nabateans to precursors of the Yemeni, etc., etc. This does nothing to answer the question who "owns" Palestine. Ownership comes with possession. British and French troops "possessed" this region in the first part of the last century. Their weak rule allowed a large group of Zionists, most of which were of the Jewish faith, to invade the region under a comprehensive and well organized plan, partly legitimized by the British Balfour Act of Parliament of 1929, rescinded 1941. Of course, they had no legitimate right to make any judgment re this territory as they were supposed to be the trustees for the current residents under a mandate from the very politically weak League of Nations. Currently the divided State of Israel (approximately 40% of the Israeli voters favor expulsion of non-Jewish, 40% favor inclusion of all peoples in the State, 20% desire a non-Jewish state; thusly the political, economic, and social instability of the region in part illustrated by such a "loaded" or unrealistic and naive question as this article attempts to address) owns much of Palestine through illegal occupation of many types, including illegal settlements. As there is no power or court that will enforce whatever judgments are made by the very politically weak United Nations or world Court, the State of Israel's occupation of "parts of "Palestine" is a fait accompli.

Answer 2

"Arabs" in this context, is the Israeli Propaganda word for Palestinians, and, as you might guess, Palestine belonged to the Palestinians long before anyone began changing the name on the maps to "Israel". Search for old maps and see for yourself.

Answer 3

The Levantine Arab identity, which is how the Palestinians, Jordanians, Lebanese, and Syrians self-identified prior to the 20th century, did not exist until the 1200s C.E. (The term "Palestinian" as an exclusive reference to those Arabs who lived in Mandatory Palestine, as opposed to both Jews and Arabs who lived in the Mandate, was not used until after 1948.) Prior to 1200 C.E. point, Palestine was made up of numerous different ethnic groups that had previously been Roman and Byzantine citizens. They were Phoenicians, Canaanites, Samaritans, Jews, Copts, etc., but not Arabs. Their ethnicity changed through the process of Arabization and their connection to the land similarly changed.

Therefore, if it can be established that the Jews possessed all or part of Palestine prior to 1200 C.E., then it can be said that Jews owned Palestine before Levantine Arabs ever existed. (Of course, it is worth mentioning that Levantine Arabs never ruled the Levant until the 20th century and were under Mesopotamian Arab, Arabian Arab, Egyptian Arab, and Turkish Occupation for centuries.) The Jews have several states that precede 1200 C.E. After having lived in Israel for over three hundred years in the era of the Judges, the oldest was the United Kingdom of Israel, which existed around 1000 B.C.E. (over 2000 years before the Levantine Arabs existed, let alone ruled themselves). The Kingdom of Judea, the successor state to the United Kingdom of Israel survived until 586 B.C.E. From 586 B.C.E. until 140 B.C.E., Palestine was under foreign occupation (Babylonian, Persian, Greek). In 140 B.C.E. the Jewish Hasmonean Dynasty took control and ruled the country for just over a century. At this point the Jews lost to the Romans and did not regain a state in their homeland until 1948.

So, Jews owned it first. Concerning Answer 2's advice to look at old maps, I second his urging; it would demonstrate perfectly that the Jews owned the land first. Concerning Answer 1, regardless of how you may feel about the Modern State of Israel, the question is asking about who owned it first; and Jews do not claim (and historians do not argue) that a Jewish connection to Palestine only began in 1948.