Whereas there is irrefutable archeological, ethnographic and literary proof that Jews have inhabited Israel since time immemorial, there is no similar evidence of an ancient, indigenous Palestinian people. To compensate for their lack of historicity, the Palestinian Arabs deprecate the Jewish connection to Israel with lies and distortions that are often repeated by their supporters on the left.
They contend, for example, that the Jewish People originated in Europe and that the Temple never stood in Jerusalem. They claim that the Jews were complicit in the Crusades, although Jews suffered far worse than anyone else at the hands of the Crusaders. They argue that the archeological record, which is so rich in linguistic, cultural and architectural evidence of ancient Jewish life in Israel, is simply the product of Zionist propaganda. In so doing, they project their own lack of national bona fides onto the only people with a continuous link to the land.
When history fails they default to faith, attempting to lay superior religious claims that are not borne out even by their own scriptures. Despite the assertion that Jerusalem is the third holiest city in Islam, for example, it is not mentioned in the Quran and was considered an insignificant, provincial backwater during Ottoman times. The Jews’ ancient capital – the single holiest site in Judaism – became significant for Muslims only after the Jewish population began to grow during the early part of the last century, but this newfound importance was political, not scriptural.
That much of the Arab population originated elsewhere is indicated by the definition of “refugee” employed by the United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA), which applied the term to those Arabs who established residency within Mandate territory between June 1946 and May 1948, but who lost their homes and livelihoods when Israel was attacked by the Arab armies after declaring her independence.
Clearly, refugee status was not reserved for Arabs who were native-born or descended from aboriginal ancestors, which reflected the reality that the “refugee” population was neither uniform nor necessarily indigenous.