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A challenge to the popular narrative of Palestinian history, arguing that population records, demographic data, and genetic studies undermine claims of ancient, uninterrupted Arab indigeneity while affirming continuous Jewish ties to the land.

Legacy media, being fed by anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, and antisemitic actors, keep publishing manufactured lies about the land of Israel and the Palestinians.

For decades, one of the most effective propaganda victories in modern history has been the idea that Palestine was a kind of frozen civilisation: an ancient, unchanging Arab population sitting in the same villages for a thousand years until, suddenly, foreign Jews arrived from Europe and disrupted paradise.

It’s an astonishingly dishonest version of history, and yet millions believe it. We need to correct the lies.

For clarity, what is Zionism?

Simply, Zionism is a movement for (originally) the re-establishment and (now) the development and protection of a Jewish nation in its traditional homeland of Eretz Yisrael (Land of Israel).

The Myth of a “Frozen” Palestine

Palestine was never an isolated, timeless Arab village. It was part of the Ottoman Empire, a vast imperial system with fluid borders, constant migration, and diverse populations. People moved freely across regions that bear little resemblance to today’s national boundaries. Jews, Arabs, Armenians, Circassians, Greeks, and others lived, travelled, intermarried, and resettled throughout the Levant.

Arabs came into Palestine from Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Transjordan, and beyond. Others left Palestine and moved throughout the region and beyond. Population movement was normal, not an anomaly.

Yes, Arabs lived in Palestine before modern Zionism. So did Jews. And yes, much of the later Arab population boom came from natural increase. But the idea that the Arab population of 19th‑century Palestine was ancient, static, and indigenous in the modern political sense is simply not supported by historical records.

What the Records Actually Show

Travellers in the 18th and 19th centuries, including Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), described Palestine as sparsely populated, neglected, and often desolate. Ottoman census data, British Mandate records, and demographic studies all show that the dramatic rise in the Arab population occurred after Jewish immigration began in the late 19th century.

Twain’s The Innocents Abroad is available through Project Gutenberg.

British Mandate archives are publicly accessible through the UK National Archives.

Jewish capital, Jewish agricultural development, and Jewish new employment opportunities drew waves of Arab migrants into the region. British officials noted this openly. Winston Churchill himself remarked in 1939 that Arabs had “crowded into the country.”

Memoranda prepared by the (British) Government of Palestine for the use of the Palestine Royal Commission 1936. This document, created by the (British) government of Palestine in 1936, 11 years before the state of Israel gained its independence, is mind-blowing.

It covers many topics, and one of them is the use of the term Eretz Israel. According to the document, page 158, Memorandum no. 33, use of the name ‘Eretz-Israel’, Eretz Israel is a name by which Palestine is known to practically all Jews throughout the world, whatever their language. It means “land of Israel”. This does not erase Arab presence in the land. It simply clarifies that the majority of today’s Palestinian Arab population descends from relatively recent migrants, not from a mythical, uninterrupted 1,000‑year lineage.

In 1850, there were about 105,700 settled Muslims ( not necessarily from the same ethnicity, but let’s play along) in the area that became British Mandatory Palestine.

Using the same population growth rates as neighbouring Egypt and Syria at the time, assuming no Muslim immigration into the area, in 2015 the Muslim ‘Arab’ population would gave been 453,000.

In 2015 the actual Muslim Arab population, from the river to the sea, was 10,523,715.

That means almost 96% of the Arab Muslim population descended from recent immigrants!

The Political Invention of “Palestinians”

Before the mid‑20th century, the term “Palestinian” referred almost exclusively to Jews. The Palestine Post, Palestine Airways, the Palestine Symphony Orchestra, are all Jewish institutions.

Historical newspapers from the era can be browsed at the National Library of Israel.

Arab nationalism in the region was real, but the specific identity “Palestinian” was politically constructed in the 1960s, particularly with the founding of the PLO in 1964 under Egyptian (Yasser Arafat) and Soviet KGB influence. It was part of a broader strategy to frame the Arab–Israeli conflict as an anti‑colonial struggle rather than a regional war against the Jewish national home. In fact, pre-1948, the word Palestinian meant Jewish.

Here are a series of quotes from Palestinians on claims to a Palestinian land and identity:

“The truth is that Jordan is Palestine and Palestine is Jordan.”
– King Hussein I of Jordan, newspaper interview November 26th 1981

“The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of the 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.”- Zuheir Mohsen, Leader of the Ba’athist As-Sa’iqa faction of the PLO

“There is no such country as Palestine. Palestine is a term the Zionists invented. Palestine is alien to us. Our land was for hundreds of years a part of Syria.”
– Auni Bey Abdul Hadi, cofounder of the Young Arab Society, in his 1937 testimony to the Peel Commission

“It’s common knowledge there is no such thing as Palestine in history.”
– Philip Hitti, 1946, Princeton’s Arab professor of Middle East history

“The question of borders doesn’t interest us…From the Arab standpoint, we mustn’t talk about borders. Palestine is nothing but a drop in an enormous ocean. Our nation is the Arabic nation that stretches from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea and beyond it…..The PLO is fighting Israel in the name of Pan-Arabism. What you call “Jordan” is nothing more than Palestine.”
– Yasser Arafat, 1970, Leader of the PLO

“On June 4th, 1967 I was a Jordanian. On June 5th, 1967 I became a Palestinian. All of a sudden, we were Palestinians. We removed the star from the Jordanian Flag and all at once we had a Palestinian flag. When I finally realized the lies and myths I was taught, I felt it was my duty as a righteous person to speak out.”
– Walid Shoebat, Former PLO Terrorist

“We Palestinians don’t have anything concrete to support our existence as a nation.”
– Mosab Hassan Yousef, son of Hassan Yousef – cofounder of Hamas

The Double Standard of “Indigeneity”

Here is where the modern narrative becomes truly absurd.

Somehow, Palestinian ancestry is treated as if it comes with a 1,000‑year certificate of authenticity, even when the historical evidence shows a dynamic, mixed, and migratory population.

Meanwhile, a Jew whose people originated in that exact land, whose civilisation was born there, whose scriptures, language, and culture are rooted in its soil, and whose ancestors maintained a continuous presence for over 3,000 years, that Jew is branded a “foreign settler.”

For readers wanting archaeological and historical evidence of continuous Jewish presence, the Israel Antiquities Authority provides extensive documentation.

The irony is staggering.

An Arab can immigrate to America or Europe and immediately call himself American, British, French, or German. No one questions his legitimacy.

Yet a Jew can return to the land where the Jewish people formed, where Jewish kings ruled, where Jewish prophets walked, where Jewish temples stood, and where Jewish communities lived continuously, buy land, build a home, and still be called a “foreign settler”.

This is not history. It is political mythology.

One Other Trope – European Jews are Not Really Ethnic Jews

Some try to say that Ashkenazi (European) Jews are not originally from Eretz Yisrael. Let’s check the DNA.  The DNA evidence destroys a major anti-Israel argument that so-called European colonisation after World War II did not involve real ethnic Jews.

We need to also note that the vast majority of Jews in Israel are from those ejected from Arab countries in 1948/49 (850,000+), i.e. Mizrachi and Sephardic.

Here are some of the peer-reviewed papers:

• Abraham’s children in the genome era: major Jewish diaspora populations comprise distinct genetic clusters with shared Middle Eastern Ancestry
• A genome-wide genetic signature of Jewish ancestry perfectly separates individuals with and without full Jewish ancestry in a large random sample of European Americans

In this video, Dr Ron Cantor walks through two decades of peer-reviewed population genetics research, including the landmark work of Dr Harry Ostrer, Dr Doron Behar, and Dr Almut Nebel, showing that Ashkenazi, Sephardic, and Mizrahi Jews all carry significant Levantine ancestry tracing back to the Iron Age land of Israel. Three exiles, three diaspora communities, one shared point of origin.

The Ridiculous Rule Behind the Myth

The entire narrative rests on one bizarre, inconsistent rule:

• Every Arab is presumed indigenous, no matter where he immigrates to.
• Every Jew is presumed foreign, even in the land where the Jewish people originated.

This rule is not historical. It is purely an ideological lie.

Why This Matters

The modern conflict is not just fought with armies. It is fought with narratives. Delegitimising Jewish indigeneity is central to the political project of portraying Israel as a colonial intrusion rather than the restored homeland of an indigenous people.

But history, real history, tells a different story:

• Palestine was never an isolated Arab nation-state.
• Its population was never static.
• Jews are not newcomers.
• Arabs are not uniquely indigenous; in fact, they are the colonisers.
• The Arab “Palestinian people” as a national identity is modern (1964), not ancient.

Political identity is not the same as ancient indigeneity, and it should not be weaponised to erase Jewish history or justify the delegitimisation of Israel.

So, what to make of this?

The question of who is “indigenous” to Palestine is not solved by slogans or propaganda. It is answered by history, a history that shows a land shaped by movement, migration, and diversity.

Jews are indigenous to the land of Israel. Arabs have some roots in the region, albeit mostly by immigration in the last 100+ years and the remnants of previous waves of colonisation.

But the myth that Arabs are the sole ancient inhabitants while Jews are foreign settlers is not just false, it is a deliberate distortion designed to rewrite the past and manipulate the present.

History deserves better than political mythology. And so does the truth.

Let’s Pray

The Peace of Jerusalem

• Scripture: Psalm 122:6-7 “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: ‘May those who love you be secure. May there be peace within your walls and security within your fortresses.'”
• Prayer: Lord, we ask You for lasting peace and stability for Jerusalem and all of Israel. Protect the vulnerable, restrain violence, and let safety rest within Your holy city.

Divine Protection and Help

• Scripture: Psalm 121:4-8 “Indeed, He who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep… The Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.”
• Prayer: Father, we ask that You would be a shield and fortress for the people of Israel. Guard families, children, and elders from harm, and watch over the nation day and night.

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