Reply To: Who as here [Israel] first Jews or the Palestinians?

There is in fact a village near Hevron whose residents are known to be descendants of converted Jews. Amateur historian Tsvi Misinai even claims that 85% of all Arabs in EY are descendants of Jews. However, it seems more likely that the vast majority are descendants of Arabs who came from Lebanon and Syria to take advantage of economic opportunities opened up by Zionist settlement (Arab workers were widely used both because they were willing to accept lower wages and because it made necessary Shabbat violations, such as milking cows, possible. Later the British ym”s opened up the land to Arab immigration while severely limiting Jewish immigration. Mark Twain wrote in “The Innocents Abroad” that when he was here EY was a desolate, depopulated land. Other travelers wrote similar descriptions. See “Palestine, a land virtually laid waste with little population” taken from Joan Peters’ book “From Time Immemorial”.