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Arrr Bee's avatar

Excellent piece. My “favorite” excuse for Palestinian terrorism that happened decades before the state of Israel is that there was no room for Jewish refugees escaping the antisemitic violence and persecution in the Arab World and Europe. In 1880 there were 300K people living in the entire land of Israel. Today there are 15 million Jews and Arabs in the same space with room for more. Terrorism against Jews is Israel was always about Arab supremacy and the Arab desire to commit genocide and ethnic cleansing against Jews.

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Jonah's avatar

I recently witnessed a professor wear a kafiyyeh before class started, then taking it off and lecturing a completely libelous, one-sided history of the Middle East with all sorts of slurs against Israel and stories without context. (To hear him talk, Israel woke up one morning in 1967 and decided to attack Egypt, Syria and Jordan in the six day war for land acquisition and never gave it back ... because I guess in his world Camp David never happened. Oh, and Jews didn't immigrate to Israel. Only "Zionists" did.)

Academia supported the Nazis in the 1940s and hasn't changed.

Oh. And did I mention this class is supposedly on American History?

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J. Crohn's avatar

What school?

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Jonah's avatar

Gonna go through proper channels in my complaint and I don't think they would appreciate me embarrassing them on the internet.

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J. Crohn's avatar

I think you might want to ready your backup forces. The Proper Channels are almost certainly going to pat you on the head and do nothing meaningful.

If you haven't already, find the internet group (and now nonprofit) Mothers Against College Antisemitism and join it to share and read information about what's been going on at various universities around the US and how it is being dealt with. People there often recommend legal and other resources. Also join the action group End Jew Hatred, which sends out hundreds of well written, footnoted emails every week aimed at antisemitic professors, presentations, incidents of discrimination against Jews, etc. I think you can send them a description and evidence of your situation and they may be able to assist in the event you don't get anywhere on your own.

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Jonah's avatar

Interesting. I'll keep them in mind.

What I really wish is the Jewish students would do some pro-Israel activism. That's what I did 20 years ago. They're as quiet as church mice.

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Frau Katze's avatar

And don’t forget the eradication of malaria in the 1920s by Jews. This attracted both Jews and Arabs to the area.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaria_in_Mandatory_Palestine

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Thomas L.'s avatar

This is, without question, the most well researched and well reasoned discussion of the population history of Israel that I have ever read. Bravo! Thanks so much for sharing this crucially overlooked information with the world. 🇮🇱

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Elyse Wien's avatar

Thank you so much, I really appreciate it!

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Bruce's avatar

Would someone please answer this-

Why do archaeologists only find Jewish items with Hebrew or paleo Hebrew inscriptions when they dig is Israel and Jordan?

Surely they would find lots of evidence of the ancient Palestinians had they existed-

They didn’t exist then, they don’t exist now!

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J. Crohn's avatar

They do exist now. They didn't exist as a distinct people before the mid 20th century.

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Bruce's avatar

The, “Palestinian Arab” nation only exists in the minds of people who want to, “put an end to that which G-d cherishes”.

Their nationality was fabricated with one goal in mind - the Islamically mandated eradication of the Jews from the earth in order that the Islamic, “Messiah” the Mahdi should come.

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ryan's avatar

They must have the distinction to be the only national group to develop an identity based on opposition to another national identity program.

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Bruce's avatar

Not really true. Just by saying something exists or is real doesn’t make it so.

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Daniel Clarke-Serret's avatar

A must read.

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Nachum Kaplan's avatar

Very good piece!

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Vicki Greene's avatar

Excellent.

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ToTheZ's avatar

This is exasperating to explain in person (though I cannot do it as articulately as done here) because of the left’s capture of the western academy, and how that has tapped into student’s dormant anti-semitism, which their parents and grandparents had only recently and superficially paused.

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Beatrice Nora Caflun's avatar

Wonderful article, you have set the record straight, definitely.....it should be published everywhere and should be teaching about Jewish history en every school and universities. Precisely to avoid having another generation distorting and lying about Zionism , Israel and the Jewish people !!!....Am Israel Chai.....

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Elyse Wien's avatar

Thank you so much!

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Steve S's avatar

Excellent essay which displays immense research. I lived in Israel for three months in the Spring of 1982, shortly before the war with Lebanon. I recall visiting a museum in Jerusalem which exhibited various census taken by the Ottomans in Jerusalem throughout their rule and into the 20th Century. Each census showed significant Jewish presence and in some years, Jews making up more than 50% of the population.

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Elyse Wien's avatar

Do you remember which museum that was in? I would love to visit. I did not realize how extensive the Ottoman census's were until working on this piece. Thanks for the info!

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Steve S's avatar

Apologies but that was 42 years ago and my museum visit was spontaneous as I was walking around Jerusalem. I was a student at the time, living as a volunteer at Kibbutz Lohamei Hageta'ot between Acre and Nahariya, traveling around Israel when I could and staying with friends I met while there, including one week picking watermelons at a moshav in the Negev near Jordan. It was a small museum with an exhibit of the various census taken by the Ottomans while the area of Palestine was under their control.

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Sandra's avatar

Wow, phenomenal history. Thank you!

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Steven Brizel's avatar

There never was an indigenous Palestinian Arab population nation it state in the Land of Israel at any time prior to 1948

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Alfred Harder's avatar

Exactly! Palestinians are a fictional nation! Remnants of Arab illegal invaders into Israel!

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ryan's avatar

the pro Palestine keffiyah mob loves to quote an alleged Dayan address to the IDF, along the theme of no one remembers or knows the Arab villages that were where our Kibbutzim now are....a recent piece targeting the ecoside of "Palestine" in SALON repeats the canard that a people without a land for a land without a people was a Zionist slogan....never was. There was a fellahin peasant class, some small merchant class, and the Bedouin, the Druze. The bottom were the Jews. Muslims were favored. They were enabled. Not so the Jews. Claiming that the Jewish population of 1880 when it was tiny was the "natural" population vs the authentic inhabitants is victim (the Jews) blaming. So Jewish repopulation of a largely barren land, marsh lands, malarial lands....bought at inflated prices was hardly the "colonization" of peoples with a metropole in Europe. The Left take over of Mid East Studies makes it a meaningless pursuit unless you sign on for Saidism/ Orientalism.

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Mark Urho's avatar

David HaMelech bought over 3000 years ago Mount Moriah for the Temple because the Tabernacle ( Mishkan) was only in a tent and David lived in the cedar tree Palace. David HaMelech has Kiriat-arba (nowadays Hebron ) capital for his capital seven years and after that David HaMelech made Jerusalem his capital . David was king 40 years and David was allowed to build the foundation of the Temple, but his son Solomon build the First Temple. The Third Temple and the Kingdom of Israel ( Davidic Dynasty) are eternal and Sanhedrin will be also in the Third Temple on Mount Moriah in Jerusalem Very Soon Baruch HaShem. The final peace will come only after Shechinah is dwelling in the Third Temple in Jerusalem Very Soon Baruch HaShem.

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