The following comment was left on YouTube by Kurtlane. I'd love to see this left here and would be able to reward it.
Jews didn't kick out half the indigenous population.
What really happened is that the land was practically all deserts and malarial swamps, with very small population consisting of Arabs and Jews, and others (Turks, Copts, Berbers, Druze, Baha'i, Greeks, Armenians, etc.). There was always a trickle of Jews, mostly elderly, returning to the Holy Land. In 1833, Sir Moses Montefiore visited the place, Jerusalem in particular, and saw the poverty. He organized building of a series of workshops in Jerusalem. These workshops provided better lives for the Jewish community. Other philanthropists helped later, and the Jewish community began to grow. All that without anyone kicked out. Later groups like Hovevei Zion and others from Russia, Persia, Yemen (mostly fleeing for their lives) came and settled. With appearance of Zionism (a whole other story, about which you know nothing) more and more came. But without kicking anyone out or destroying anything. Very scrupulously, every bit of land was bought and paid for.
This immigration of Jews created new opportunities. Through tremendous effort, deserts were planted and malarial swamps were drained (and also planted). Cities grew. New cities were founded on bought land. (One of them was Tel Aviv, founded in 1909 by Jews from nearby Jaffa, who were tired of Arabs throwing rocks and shooting at them.)
As opportunities increased, Arabs from all the neighboring places came. From Algeria, Libya, Egypt (which is why name "Masri" i.e. "Egyptian" is so common among Palestinians), Syria, etc. These are the overwhelming majority of Palestinians today. They came at the same time as Jews, and are certainly not more indigenous than Jews.
True, there is a small minority of Palestinians whose ancestors were on this land much longer, some even since 638, when it was conquered by Umar al-Khattab. But this is also true of Jews. Jews have lived on this land continuously for about 3300 years.
So what is there to make Palestinians privileged over Jews? What makes them more "genuine, more "indigenous" and more privileged than Jews? What makes them "owners of the house" and Jews "illegal occupiers?" Nothing.
The very name "Palestine" was used by Jews until Israel re-appeared. "Palestine Company" is now "Bank Leumi," "Palestine Symphony Orchestra" is "Israel Philharmonic," "The Palestine Post" is "The Jerusalem Post," etc.
And Arabs? Arabs had no notion of Palestine. To them, it was just a part of a greater entity they called "Syria."
Which is why Ahmed Shuqeiri, future chairman of the PLO, no friend of Zionists, said, "It is common knowledge that Palestine is nothing but southern Syria."
And why local Arab leader Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi said to the Peel Commission in 1937: "'Palestine' is a term the Zionists invented!"
And why the Grand Mufti Hajj Amin al-Husseini, friend of Hitler and Eichman, worked for Jerusalem paper "Suriyya al-Janubiyya" ("Southern Syria").
The whole "Palestinian cause" is a bunch of lies.
This was left by Ronald B.
I've got into trouble before for expressing this view, but I don't care. I agree the White Boers of South Africa represent a unique and indigenous culture. They are divergent from the Dutch stock in language and methods of farming. They therefore have a unique indigenous culture that developed on their new lands, they're not the same as the Dutch from whence they came.
It's also very obvious that there were very few if any native Africans in the areas they settled and that most of the tribes now in South Africa have migrated there in much the same way that Arabs moved into Israel.
Indigenous status, rights and corresponding claims of longstanding presence are a complex field but I've long thought of White South Africans as having a very strong claim to indigenous status that is unfairly denied by the majority of the world.
Eek, not only do you discount the suffering inflicted on poor Palestinians by the terrorist state of Israel, you dare to rewrite the history of Apartheid South Africa, too?! Sigh
I see how hate attracts hate, and why you are standing up for that criminal Robinson.