Responding to Zionists' claim that Jews are the original inhabitants of Palestine.
One regular claim that Zionists make to justify their stealing of Palestinian land is that they owned the land more than 2,000 years ago.
According to this argument, Israelis are not robbing Palestinians of their land. They are simply retaking what was theirs.
It is a silly argument to justify dispossession. But let us scrutinise that claim.
Are the Israelis really the original owners of the land?
Source of claim
The source of the claim is the historical/ religious narrative that the children of Israel (Bani Israel) were given the land by God. Israel is another name for the Prophet Yakub (Jacob), the son of Prophet Ishaq (Isaac).
According to the Qur’an and the Bible, the Bani Israel were severely oppressed in Egypt. The Prophet Musa (Moses) was instructed to lead them out of Egypt. He was then instructed to command the Israelis to enter a land and fight the local population. The locals were known as Canaanites.
The Bani Israel refused. And for their refusal, they were made to wander the desert for 40 years. They were only able to enter the land when most of those who left Egypt (including Moses) had died.
We accept that Moses and his followers were commanded by God to enter the land. It is a holy land.
So were the Israelites the first?
As can be seen from every source, whether Biblical, Qur’anic or archaeological, the Israelites were not the first tribe to live in the land of Palestine.
There was already a functioning ethnic group known as the Canaanites living in that land. The land was known as the Land of Canaan.
Zionists argue that the name “Israel” is the old name for Palestine. But here again, that is not true. The name Canaan predates Israel. Together with the Canaanites was another group known as Philistines. The land was also (concurrently and after the Canaanites) known as Palestine.
Historically, the Israelites were not the first group to live in Palestine. The Canaanites lived on that land before them.
But are there still Canaanites today?
The origin of today’s Palestinians
In their study of “The Origin of Palestinians and Their Genetic Relatedness With Other Mediterranean Populations”, authors Arnaiz-Villena et al argued that Palestinians today are related to the Jewish people but are also descendants of people who predates the Jews.
According to the authors,
The present day concept based in archaeology is that most original Palestinians were already in Canaan and some tribes were agglutinated by Egyptian garrisons, left to their own fate in Canaan…. Also, the bulk of Jewish people probably came from ancient autochthonous Canaanites
Both Jews and Palestinians share a very similar HLA genetic pool that support a common ancient Canaanite origin.
Both, the Palestinians and Jews are descendants of the Canaanites. The Palestinians seem to be Canaanite and Egyptian soldiers who were in Canaan more than 3,000 years ago while the Jews maybe Canaanite and Bani Israel.
The common claim that Israelis like to make, that they have lived on Palestinian land prior to modern day Palestinians is not true. Palestinians are descendants of the Canaanites with ancient Egyptian blood mixed in.
That is a history that predates the Jews.
Did God really give the land to the Jews?
No God did not.
What we often forget is that not all Jews followed Moses out of Egypt. In fact, Jewish scholars argued (read here) that the majority of Jews did not follow Moses.
More than 80% of Jews remained in Egypt.
We can assume that the Jews who remained in Egypt did not accept the Prophethood of Moses. They rejected his commands.
Those who were told to enter the Land of the Canaan were Jews who followed the religion of Moses.
And just like Prophet Abraham, Prophet Joseph and all the prophets before him…
The Prophet Moses believed in Allah.
He was a Muslim.
And so were his followers.
References:
Arnaiz-Villena, Antonio, et al. "The origin of Palestinians and their genetic relatedness with other Mediterranean populations." Human Immunology 62.9 (2001): 889-900.