Why did Arabs go to Palestine?

Answer 1

Answer

The Arab Rashidun Caliphate conquered the Levant in 634-638 C.E. The Arabs who led this conquest did so because they could (see "Right to Conquest" below) and they perceived that doing this was their duty as pious Muslims.

However, not many Arabs actually moved to Palestine during the Caliphate period. Egypt and Mesopotamia were far more attractive for those Arabs who wished to leave Arabia, and those who wished to leave Arabia (and abandon what their families had known for generations) were rare anyway. Those who did go usually went in order to perform bureaucratic or government functions. During the period of Arab Caliphates, non-Arab peoples in Palestine, such as Phoenicians, Canaanites, Samaritans, etc. began to convert to Islam and consider themselves Levantine Arabs. In this way, the Arabs did not move to Palestine en masse, but the masses in Palestine chose to become Arabs.

More recently, during the late 1800s in Ottoman Palestine up through the British Mandate period, the increasing Immigration of Zionist Jews led to increasing number of nascent business, improved hygiene, and increased carrying capacity of Palestine. This drew in Levantine Arabs from surrounding areas as well as permitting the indigenous population to multiply.

Discussion on "Right to Conquest"

Historically, there was the "Right to Conquest" which was a pervasive idea in political thought. The idea was that it was natural for any country or state to grow and control more territory as it grew stronger. This allowed weaker states to dissolve in place of ones that were better run, a bureaucratic version of "survival of the fittest". The "Right to Conquest" prevailed as the dominant theory of nation-building until the mid-1800s when people started bringing up the concept of self-sovereignty and ethnic nationalism, which held the idea that people should govern themselves even if they are not the most powerful in the world. This view of state sovereignty has become dominant today and the Right to Conquest is seen as incorrect.

Since the Caliphates existed well within the Right to Conquest Period, the Caliphs did not have to assert a reason to conquer neighboring territories in Southwest Asia. It was their natural prerogative

Answer 2

Answer 1

The land originally belongs to Arabs, Arabs have lived in Israel long before Jews took over the land.

Answer 2

When the Islamic Caliphate under 'Omar expanded into the Levant, Arabs began to Arabize the native population of Levant, by marrying with them and supervising their general conversion to Islam. This is what created the Arabs living in what would eventually become the British Mandate of Palestine. The vast majority of Jews had been exiled from the territory nearly 500 years prior and only a small minority remained by the time the Arab Shamite Identity (which would become the Palestinian Identity) took hold over the majority of the inhabitants. The Arabs did not specifically move to the former British Mandate of Palestine because of its Jewish heritage.