The claim that Arabs, or so-called “Palestinians,” have national historical rights to the Land of Israel is false, and its purpose is to destroy the Jewish State.

Despite occupation in our homeland and persecution in the lands of exile, the Jewish People maintained their presence in Palestine-Eretz Israel (the Land of Israel) while enduring hardship and death in their efforts to return. The Jews prayed daily and constantly for Palestine-Eretz Israel and for their return to the Jewish Homeland.

Ibn Khaldun, an Arab historian, wrote in 1377: “Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel extended over 1400 years…It was the Jews who implanted the culture and customs of the permanent settlement.”

In 1695 the Dutch scholar, philologist and cartographer Hadriani Relandi visited the Holy Land and wrote: “The names of settlements were mostly Hebrew…No settlement had an original Muslim-Arab name with a historical root in its location. Most of the inhabitants of the cities were Jews, the others were Christians…”

Despite constant Jewish efforts to live in and return to their home, the Land of Israel remained largely empty until the Jews were finally able to return in greater numbers starting in the mid 1800’s.

In 1867, Mark Twain wrote: “There is not a solitary village throughout its whole extent; not for thirty miles in either direction… A silent, mournful expanse…”

Until recently, there were not many Arabs living in the Jewish Holy Land. The majority of Arabs in Israel are indigenous to over 20 countries, but not to Israel.

In 1882 there were only 141,000 Arabs in Palestine according to French geographer Vital Cuniet.

“In 1882, there were fewer than 150,000 Arabs in the land,” and “the Arab population of Palestine was small and limited until Jewish resettlement restored the barren lands and drew to it Arabs from neighboring countries.” This was recorded by Dr. Carl Hermann Voss, Chairman of the American Christian Palestine Committee, in 1953.

In the 1920s, the World Powers returned to its original inhabitants the land in the Middle East that had been occupied by the Ottoman Empire. Palestine was returned to the Jews and recognized under international law as the homeland of the Jews, while the Arabs were given over 96% of the land occupied by the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East. Key legal documents included the San Remo Resolution, the Franco-British Boundary Convention, and the Mandate for Palestine, which was unanimously approved by the League of Nations in 1922.

As well, the UN Charter Article 80 protects forever the legal rights contained in the Palestine Mandate. These rights include not ceding any land from the Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea – including Judea and Samaria (the “West Bank”) — to anyone because it belongs to the Jewish People. Part of what was intended to be included in the Jewish Homeland (Palestine), east of the Jordan River, had already been removed before the final boundaries were set – to make an Arab state in Palestine called Jordan.

Massive Illegal Arab Immigration

The British Mandate required the facilitation of Jewish immigration to Palestine. Instead the British illegally allowed huge numbers of Arabs to enter Palestine and then to claim they were natives. “This illegal immigration was not only going on from the Sinai, but also from Transjordan and Syria,” stated the British Governor of the Sinai (1922-1933) in the Palestine Royal Commission Report.

Syrian governor Tawfik Bey el-Huarani.testified that in a period of only 3-4 months in 1933, 30,000-36,000 Arabs illegally entered Palestine from Syria.

These recent illegal Arab immigrants claimed they had been in Israel – then known as Palestine-Eretz Israel – for generations! To this false claim, they added violence. The violence and the false claim of historical roots were used by the British to justify the illegal act of curtailing Jewish immigration.

Land that had been returned to the Jewish People under international law instead became illegally occupied by this huge number of illegal Arab immigrants. Land that the Jews had cleared and given their lives to preparing for other Jews was instead occupied by these illegal Arab immigrants.

The League of Nations and the world in general allowed the British to betray the sacred trust and legal obligation stated in the Mandate, which was to facilitate the return of the Jews to Palestine for the stated purpose of reconstituting the Jewish National Homeland there. As well, during the early years of WW2, the Germans agreed to the Arab demand that the only destination for Jewish emigration from Nazi controlled lands could be North and South America. The Mufti demanded this of Hitler in order to break the ties of the Jews to Palestine once and forever. However the millions of Jews were not able or allowed to enter North and South America. In large part, for this reason, the Nazis instituted the Final Solution according to Nazi Dieter Wiscliceny. This Nazi leader – in his meetings with the underground Rescue “Working Group” – identified the Mufti as “one of the main people responsible for the Final Solution.”

Six Million Jews Denied Jewish Homeland

Six million Jews who had the biblical, historical and legal right to come to live in the Jewish homeland, then called Palestine, instead were murdered in Europe, while huge numbers of illegal Arab were allowed to enter and steal the land and benefit from the work that the Jews had done to prepare the land for their brethren.

Since that time, the world has been forcing Israel to give up more and more of the tiny Jewish land to the Arab illegal occupiers. The expansion of illegal Arab Occupation in Judea and Samaria and elsewhere is now being funded by the EU, Arabs and other countries.

The Arab claim that they have national historical rights to the Land of Israel is false, and its purpose is to destroy the Jewish State.

Article by Renanah Goldhar-Gemeiner

Renanah Goldhar-Gemeiner is a well-known pro-Israel activist in Toronto, Canada, and co-founder of Canadian Jews and Friends of Yezidis.