Many miss the point that the land west of Jordan was never given to the Arabs. The Balfour Declaration assigned both sides of the Jordan as a Jewish Homeland after the Ottoman Empire collapsed masada2000.org and the borders of countries from the Himalayas to the Atlantic Ocean in Africa were drawn under the British France and Russian in Sykes Picot Agreements, as Israel became a nation in 1312B.C.E., two thousand years before the rise of Islam!
Seven hundred and twenty-six years later in 586 B.C. these first ancient Jews were overrun and its First Jewish Temple (on Jerusalem's Old City Temple Mount) was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, king of ancient Babylon. Many of the Jews were killed or expelled; however many were allowed to remain. These Jews along with their progeny and other Jews who would resettle over the next 500 years, rebuilt the Nation of Israel and also a Second Temple upon the Temple Mount.
Only later in 1923, the British decided to give the part east of the Jodan River to the Arabs. masada2000.org
From 1517-1917 Turkey's Ottoman Empire controlled what is today Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine. During World War I (1914-1918), Turkey supported Germany. When Germany was defeated, so were the Turks. In 1916 control of the southern portion of their Ottoman Empire was "mandated" to France and Britain under the Sykes-Picot Agreement, which divided the Arab region into zones of influence. Lebanon and Syria were assigned to France... and "Palestine" (today's Jordan, Israel and "West Bank") was assigned to Great Britain.
Because no other peoples had ever established a national homeland here since the Jews had done it 2,000 years before, the British "looked favorably" upon the creation of a Jewish National Homeland throughout ALL of Palestine. The Jews had already begun mass immigration into Palestine in the 1880's in an effort to rid the land of swamps and malaria and prepare the rebirth of Israel. (There was never any attempt to "rid" the area of what few Arabs there were!) This Jewish effort to revitalize the land attracted an equally large immigration of Arabs from neighboring areas who were drawn by employment opportunities and healthier living conditions.
As such the Arabs immigrated into Palestine as most of them are from neighboring countries as far as Sudan and Iraq. Many Arabs were outlaws or outcasts expelled from their comunities. Many Palestinians are descendants of Egyptian, Sudanese, Syrian and Lebanese migrants, who settled in the current boundaries of Israel during 1830-1945. . . . . Migrant workers were imported by the Ottomans and (since 1919) by the British authorities . . . . Illegal Arab laborers were also attracted by the relative boom, stimulated by Jewish immigration, which expanded labor-intensive enterprises (construction, agriculture, etc.). The (1831-1840) conquest, by Egypt's Mohammed Ali, was solidified by thousands of Egyptians settling empty spaces between Gaza and Tul-Karem up to the Hula Valley. . . . .30,000-36,000 Syrian migrants (Huranis) entered Palestine
According to Western travelers identified over 15 Arab nationalities who settled in Jaffa. Libyan migrants and refugees settled in Gedera, south of Tel Aviv. Algerian refugees (Mugrabis), escaping the French conquest of 1830, settled in Safed, Tiberias and other parts of the Galilee. Circassian refugees, fleeing Russian oppression (1878), Moslems from Bosnia, Turkomans, Yemenite Arabs (1908) and Bedouin tribes from Jordan (escaping wars and famine) diversified Arab demography there.
According to Mark Twain, There is not a solitary village throughout its whole extent [valley of Jezreel] — not for 30 miles in either
direction. . . . One may ride 10 miles hereabouts and not see 10 human beings.
For the sort of solitude to make one dreary, come to Galilee . . . Nazareth is forlorn . . . Jericho lies a
moldering ruin . . . Bethlehem and Bethany, in their poverty and humiliation . . . untenanted by any living
creature . . . .
A desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds . . a silent, mournful
expanse . . . a desolation . . . . We never saw a human being on the whole route . . . . Hardly a tree or
shrub anywhere. Even the olive tree and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost
deserted the country . . . .
Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes . . . desolate and unlovely . . . . — Mark Twain, The Innocents
Abroad, 1867
In 1923, the British divided Palestine into two administrative districts. Jews would be permitted only west of the Jordan river. In effect, the British had "chopped off" 75% of the originally proposed Jewish Palestinian homeland to lay the seeds of what would become in 1946 the Arab Palestinian Nation of "Trans-Jordan," meaning "across the Jordan River." The Palestinian Arabs now had THEIR "Arab Palestinian" homeland. The remaining 25% of Palestine (now WEST of the Jordan River) was to be the Jewish Palestinian homeland. However, sharing was not part of the Arab psychological makeup then nor now and they were determined to get ALL of that remaining 25%.
Encouraged and incited by growing Arab nationalism throughout the Middle East, the Arabs of that small remaining Palestinian territory west of the Jordan River launched never-ending murderous attacks upon the Jewish Palestinians in an effort to drive them out. Most terrifying were the Hebron slaughters of 1929 and later the 1936-39 "Arab Revolt." The British, at first tried to maintain order but soon (due to the large oil deposits being discovered throughout the Arab Middle East) turned a blind eye. It became obvious to the Palestinian Jews that they must fight the Arabs AND drive out the British. At the start of Jewish resettlement around 1870, the entire population west of the Jordan River was barely 120,000 to 140,000.
Further There was NO "Arab Palestinian" history before the Arabs created one somewhat after 1948 but especially after the June 1967 Arab-Israeli War! worldnetdaily.com
Archeological sites to this very day continue to yield artifacts with Hebrew writing, not some fictitious "Palestinian" or Arabic text! The so-called "Palestinian" Arabs were simply then, as they are now, Arabs no different culturally, historically or ethnically from other Arabs living in any other of the 24 Arab countries from which they emigrated and came into "Palestine!" Had the Chinese come to the area, they too would be called "Palestinians!" And had not the Arabs continued to brainwash generation upon generation into believing this HISTORICAL HOGWASH about some ancient "Arab Palestinian" ties to the Holy Land, most could have gotten themselves a real life by now with much less bloodshed and suffering for everyone concerned!
For over 3,300 years of history, Jerusalem (founded by King David) has been a capitol city for only the Jewish People. Jews have always lived in Jerusalem, except when they were massacred or driven out. There has, however, been a nearly unbroken Jewish presence in Jerusalem for the past 1,600 years. And since the early 1800's, the population of Jerusalem has been predominantly Jewish. Even when the Jordanians captured and occupied Jerusalem from 1948-67, they (the Jordanians) never sought to change it to their capital (replacing Amman) nor make it the capital of any "Arab Palestinian" people. In fact, Arab leaders from other Arab countries hardly ever bothered to visit Jerusalem! Only to the Jews has Jerusalem ever held special meaning!
Another myth deals with the issue of Jerusalem and its Temple Mount. The myth is that Jerusalem is really an Arab city and that it is a central focus of Islam. The truth is that the Arabs expressed very limited interest in the Temple Mount before 1967. Besides, Mecca and Medina (both in Saudi Arabia) are Islam's holiest cities!
One more thing about Jerusalem in general and its Temple Mount in particular. Jerusalem appears in the Jewish Bible 669 times and Zion (which usually means Jerusalem, sometimes the Land of Israel) 154 times, or 823 times in all. The Christian Bible mentions Jerusalem 154 times and Zion 7 times. Islam's Holy(?) Koran mentions Mecca hundreds of times. It mentions Medina countless times. It never mentions Jerusalem and with good reason. There is no historical evidence to suggest Mohammad ever visited Jerusalem! And if he did visit Jerusalem, it could not have been until 6 years after his death. Therefore, the notion that Mohammed ascended to Heaven from a rock in Jerusalem (today's Dome of the Rock) is even more ridiculous!
From 1948 to 1967, when East Jerusalem and the Temple Mount were under Jordanian rule, they were ignored by the Arab world. No Arab leader ever paid a visit, not even to pray at the al-Aqsa Mosque or the Dome of the Rock (both located on the JEWISH Temple Mount). Even the Arabs of "Palestine" placed so low a priority on Jerusalem that the PLO's founding charter, the Palestinian National Covenant of 1964, made no reference whatsoever to it. Only when the Jews recaptured it after the 1967 "Six Day War" (initiated by the Arabs) did the Arab world SUDDENLY grow very passionate about Jerusalem!
In truth, the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa mosques are just but two of hundreds of thousands of Muslim mosques around the world. When a Jew prays from anywhere in the world, he faces the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. When a Moslem prays, even while IN Jerusalem, he faces Mecca (in Saudi Arabia).
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