Question 1 – Jews and Palestinian beliefs for right to land.
The debate between Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs over who has the right to a country, now known as Palestine, has raged on for hundreds of years. The Jews were the early occupiers of the land at around 1000BC, with only a few Arabs living harmoniously in the same country. Problems began when the Roman Empire was at its height, Palestine was invaded and the Jews were expelled from their land. This lead to thousands of Jews fleeing to different countries around Europe. The Jews lived around Europe for hundreds of years however in the meantime, the Arab population in Palestine had grown and they eventually filled Palestine. By the 19th century, the Jews had decided to move back into Palestine, but the Jews rejected this as they had been living there for hundred of years. And so the conflict of who had the right to land began.
This is just the foundation to the argument of who has the right to the land, during my coursework I am going to investigate and consider some of each side’s belief about their right to land.
The Jews believe that they have the right to land because ‘they were there first’; they lived there for around 1000 years, until they were forced out by the Romans. Over the next 1900 years, Jews settled around Europe and America. However, in Europe they were given few rights; this was due to ‘Anti-Semitism’. Throughout the years, the Jewish population of Europe faced an increasing amount of Anti-Semitism (this was racism against Jews – in Europe Jews were given few rights, they were not allowed to vote or buy their own land). However, in 1896, an Austrian Jew, named Theodor Herzl, published a book entitled the ‘Jewish State’. In it he wrote how the Jews deserved ‘a portion of the globe large enough to satisfy the rightful requirements of a nation’. This lead to belief that the Jews needed a Jewish National Homeland, there were many followers of this belief, these were named ‘Zionists’. The Jews (or Zionists) decided to move back to Palestine, however, the Arabs rejected this as they had lived there for hundreds of years now, without and kind of Jewish inhabitant. However, the Jews believed that they had a right to the land as they were the first people to populate the country, and were driven out against their own will. They also argued that they were promised the land in the Bible, by Abraham and his descendants, on the fact that Palestine was the historical site of the Jewish Kingdom of Israel (destroyed by the Romans) However, the Arabs refused to forfeit their land to Biblical claims, and said that the promise of an ancient kingdom should not hold effect on modern countries. Despite this, between 1880 and 1914, 60,000 Zionists settled in Palestine.
