Yet, in spite of the Roman expulsions, some Jews remained in the Land, particularly in Galilee, and continued their Jewish way of life. As the centuries passed, more and more migrated back. In ‘the four holy cities of Judaism’ – Jerusalem, Hebron, Tiberias and Safed – there has been continuous Jewish settlement since Biblical times. As successive conquerors came and went – Byzantines, Arabs, Crusaders, Mamelukes, Ottomans, British – those Jews, sometimes tolerated, often persecuted, survived. Throughout most of this period, from the 1st to the 19th centuries AD, the Land was largely desolate. Palestine was, in fact, not a country as such; and there was no such thing as a Palestinian people. Arabs and Jews simply lived alongside each other, generally at peace.

In view of the current situation, which involves so much antagonism between Muslims and Jews, we are bound to ask what effect the rise of Islam (the Muslim religion) had in the 7th century AD. Initially, Jews continued to have reasonably good relations with Arabs – many Jews in fact lived and prospered in Muslim lands, including Arabia. At some stage, the prophet Muhammad had said, “Two religions may not dwell together on the Arabian Peninsula”; and there are passages in the Koran which incite Muslims to rise up against Jews. Nevertheless, for nearly 1,300 years, Jews and Arabs in the Middle East tolerated one another. During the same period, it has to be said that Jews suffered more at the hands of so-called “Christians”, particularly during the Crusades.

Zionism and the Jewish ‘return’

In the 19th century, there was a fresh wave of Jewish immigration to the Holy Land, and the end of that century saw the significant rise of Zionism. In the early 20th century, Britain took an interest in the idea of a homeland for Jews and the Balfour Declaration was issued. The following is an extract from that Declaration:

“His Majesty’s government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a National Home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine …”

After the First World War, the League of Nations appointed Britain as the Mandatory Power for Palestine – and by the term “Palestine” they meant, not just the area west of the Jordan but a much more extensive region, from the Mediterranean to Arabia and present-day Iraq, and from Egypt to Lebanon and Syria. In 1921, however, Britain – in a gesture designed to win Arab favour – gave the territory east of the Jordan (initially called Transjordan) to Sheikh Abdullah. Subsequently this was to become the Kingdom of Jordan. Jordan also gained the West Bank, so that the territory which, in 1948, finally became the State of Israel was a small fraction of the originally intended Jewish homeland.

These developments led to a highly significant change in the use of the terms “Palestine” and “Palestinians”. Up to then, “Palestinians”, in the eyes of most people, would have been Jews, or perhaps Jews and Arabs, living in the Land. From now on, and especially when a Jewish state was established called Israel, “Palestine” came to be used exclusively in connection with non-Jews. Moreover, at least up to 1948 when the State of Israel was proclaimed, Jordanian rulers (and others) were content to see the territory east of the Jordan as the obvious homeland for Arab Palestinians. That solution, however, has since been rejected – with the consequences we see today.

Continuing with the history of the Land after World War One, the migration of Jews to the mandated area gathered pace; so did the influx of non-Jewish peoples, including Arabs, from other countries. To begin with, the various groups worked together, co-operating in the development of agriculture and industry and sharing in the prosperity. Sadly, and not unexpectedly, tension did eventually surface; and by the time proposals were being made for the formal establishment of a Jewish state, serious conflict began. When the British left in 1948, there was all-out war between Jews and Arabs, and the decades which followed have seen successive outbreaks of hostility.

The Palestinian claim to the Land

Christadelphians do not take sides in the Arab-Israeli dispute, nor do we wish in this booklet to promote political views. We are, however, bound to take notice of evidence that not all the arguments of the Palestinians are well founded. Independent research shows that not all of those at present in the towns and villages of the Occupied Territories, or in the refugee camps of Gaza and the West Bank, can legitimately claim a centuries-old association with the soil of Palestine. There is clear documentation that many are from families who came to Palestine during the period of the British Mandate, between World Wars One and Two, or even more recently; they were mostly economic migrants – and not just Arabs, but speaking (it is said) up to 50 different languages. There were indeed a few hundred thousand people dispossessed from their properties in what is now Israel – but certainly not the whole Palestinian population, as is often implied.