Look. In 1948 the Jews wanted the Arabs to stay in Israel, and keep their homes. Nobody made the Arabs leave. The Arabs were not refugees. The Arabs left of their own accord, because they "knew" that the upcoming Arab attack on Israel would destroy Israel. Then the Arabs could go back and possess Jewish property, as well as their own homes. The Arabs rolled the dice on what they thought was a sure thing, and lost. Therefore, they have absolutely no right to the property they left behind, and no right to even return. Liberal Profs. like the above, have infected societies with their self indulgent pomp, and created the foundations for most of the bloodshed in the last century.

How many "Palestinians" have proof of ownership that would stand up in court? Compared to Jews, very few. A recent Hebrew University study showed that most Arab-owned land in Mandate Palestine was owned by a dozen or so families, generally absentee landowners who didn't even live in Palestine. Put the claims of the expelled Jewish refugees into the mix and this is an issue the Arab League will stifle the Palestinians on--since the Jewish claims run into the tens of billions of dollars, while the Arab claims don't even reach $2 billion. You also ignore the fact that several thousand Arab claims for "restitution" have been handled by the courts since 1950. Tell the whole truth or refrain from commenting at all, please. Half-truths just don't make it.

The Arabs were giving the land legally at the time and have had title to it for over 60yrs, the Jews who had owned the land should have been compensate back then. Since Israel is now controlling the land it should have to pay compensate not the land owners but political that is impossible. The world see this as Jewish control with Jewish laws imposed on the non-Jewish people. If land titles are questioned 60yrs later then will Israel's land claims be judge illegal at some point in the future.

I think in the spirit of co-existance, the residents of North Tel-Aviv, that had pre-1948 been the site of an Arab village, volunteer to move out and return the entire area to the original owners. Prof Arie Arnon should be the first to do so.

What the state is doing is arbitrary and capricious, not to mention racist and ipso facto unfair. It deprives us of some of the moral high ground we (justifiably) so often claim. While this type of practice may appeal to an exiguous section of the Israeli polity (though mostly to the armchair fieldmarshals thousands of miles away, q.v. comment #1), in reality it only creates unnecessary problems and confrontation.

It's very simple. They started the war. We won and they lost. They are still our enemies and we should deal with them appropriately. We set the rules. Deal with it.

One who is only interested in redressing the grievances of the enemy! Are there no Zionists left at Ben Gurion University? Only supporters of the enemy?

I love all you so-called educated people, professors, doctors l, lawyers, etc. You think because you hav e a title before your name that makes you omnipotent to give opinions. If you're so worried about the Arabs why don't you go live with them?

One more anti Israel professor from Ben Gurion! This people receive salaries from the State of Israel, this University receives funds from Zionist people nall over the world. I believe that they are free to let anybody teach hate against Israel if it's what they want, just one small point: With their own money!!! No more funds from Israel, no more donors from abroad. You will see how they change their minds!!!

Jews have always been living in Israel. There have been successive foreign occupiers - but now the land is liberated. Occupiers can leave - they have plenty of lands in Arabistan.

Thanks to Arie Arnon for his impressive words of wisdom. His article is a breath of fresh air compared to the stale bigotry of Yair Gabai ("Justice in Sheikh Jarrah").

Professors and those with agendas (am I making an oxymoron here?) have a habit of trying to paint complicated situations with a generalizing brush to come to some conclusion. If we did that with people, we'd be called racists and intolerant, but with situations Academia is more than happy to do it. Maybe Prof. Arnon has an agenda, maybe he can only see a situation through his myopic prism, or maybe he simply can't extrapolate enough to include ALL of the issues here to make a more accurate conclusion. He certainly does enjoy the crowd of Arabs who make claims on Israel but with facts coming from 1967, never before. Or the claims made by Leftists who see the world as black and white (if a citizen has a gun, then so should a criminal...to be fair). Same too with Sheik Jarrah. Arnon ignores the fact that "Palestinians" rejected UNR194 and started a genocidal war in 1948, where as Jews ethnically cleansed from E. Jerusalem were done so because of racist intentions, not because they were involved in violent activities. There is a difference - and until people like Arnon admit to the grey-scale of life, no real honest solution could ever be reached. However, when a solution is reached, one can't write books or gain notoriety on it anymore...and Prof. Arnon know this.

I have several other documents relating to the low-private ownership in Turkish Ottoman period, and the illegal immigration of Arabs during the 1930s without land sales. I would love to add the HU study to my portfolio. Thanks Williamgel@gmail.com

They never admitted to that and historians admitted that Jordan took Jewish land and rented it out. If Jordanians kept it until 1967, and Israel took ownership from then on but never gave them the deed....how can you make that claim? Your assumptions do not create facts. You really should keep your hubris in a box before you comment here. The same standards that people like you are trying to push on Israel, like returning some Galilee land from a Jew who's been there for 60 years to an Arab that claims ownership but can't show proof, you're not even willing to allow Jews to use on their property that was stolen from them. Is this the world you choose to live in...a blatantly discriminatory one? If anything, the Jewish family could ask for rent rather than replace the tenants, but if they did, no doubt Arabs would destroy the house in revenge.

When Arabs use laws against Israel and Jews, you're the first to support them. When Israel and Jews use laws against Arabs, you decry them as racists and are greedy. If you want to play the "black and white" game, them you must give the same rights to both sides. To do anything less is racist...which is the very game Leftists love to play. "All are equal, but the one's we support are more equal".

I am paraphrasing your intentions via post#11. Apparently, and you follow the Leftist war cry well, you belittle everyone whom you disagree with. So Yair Gabai is a "bigot" because you disagree with his position, yet his facts are strong and backed up by law....a law that mimics civil/State laws in countries all over the world. I contend that it is you who are the bigot - who admonishes a person and curses them for not agreeing wit you, like Carter who called people racists when they disagreed with Obama's Healthcare plan. Because it annoys you such, and your last feigned attempt at rebuttal is a curse (as is most Leftists), I KNOW that Gabai is on to something good.

First that over 90% of the Arabs DIDN'T own any land at all. They rented it stupid. That has been proven by Ottoman and British records. Second - After the birth of every nation in history those that sided against that formation and lost also lost everything. The Loyalists of the American colonies including the son of Benjamin Franklin were deported and stripped of American citizenship and all their property. Guess they chose the wrong side - too bad too sad. Stupid people lose.

...nice to read you by the way.

...and not before then. This is established fact. Using your logic, American Indians would be able to forcefully kick out white Europeans based on claims going back thousands of years. As a Cherokee, I can tell you that your logic is ludicrous. Israel needs to return back behind its internationally recognized borders and be satisfied with getting 78% of the original mandate. By the way there is no such place as "Arabistan" - do you have to be so juvenile?

...he spearheaded the effort to squash the Jerusalem municipal master plan slated for approval this year that had been in the works for ten years, the first since 1959. All because he believes that only Jews should be able to live in East Jerusalem. You are not really in Israel are you?

He is telling his readers something clear, simple and logical. If property from which Jews were ethnically cleansed in 1948 can be restituted to them in East Jerusalem, but the same thing cannot happen with property in West-Jerusalem from which Palestinians were ethnically cleansed, then this is a basic injustice, which is clear for all to see apart for bigots. First of all there is no doubt that Palestinians were ethnically cleansed from Palestine in 1948. They were driven out of Palestine through the medium of violence and terror or they did what civilians do: they flee war and fighting with their families until it is safe to return. What did people in Sderot do? Palestinians were never told to flee. This is Zionist propaganda for which there is NO factual evidence, as Israeli historians like Simha Flapan and many others have pointed out. And even if they would have been told to flee, the civilian population had the right to return after hostilities had died down. That is why the UN accepted resolution 194 in December 1948, which the Palestinians DID accept (it contains the clause regarding the right of return of the Palestinian civilian population). It was indeed Israel, that refused to implement UN resolution 194. This was the condition under which it would be admitted to the UN. I think btw that in post 13 you got 194 confused with UNGAR 181 (the partition resolution), which the Palestinians DID refuse to accept. After all you do not partition your own country. Btw. many Palestinians do have ownership documentation regarding the properties they were forced to leave behind, often Ottoman documents. The UN vaults and the British library also contain very detailed records of land ownership. Michael Fischbach has written a book about it "Records of Dispossession". The same Fischbach interestingly also made an inventory of properties Arab Jews were forced to leave behind. Of course I do support the right of return of Arabl Jews to the places where they came from and the restitution of their properties OR if they do not want to use the right of return they should have the right to financial compensation. Again, Professor Arnon in his article is trying to be fair to both parties. That's why I like his article. For Mr Gabai on the other hand there is a restititution law that Jews can use, but not Palestinian Arabs. That is the mark of a bigot.

cannot hide your poor knowledge of Ottoman land tenure. The only fact is that by 1948 Jewish land ownership was not more than 4% of the Palestine Mandate area, mostly concentrated in the coastal areas. The vast majority of this land had been acquired by Zionist agents from unscrupulous absenteee landowners, like the Sursouks in Beirut. The vast majority of the land however was in Arab ownership. You may wish it was different, and over the years Zionist propaganda has dreamt up a series of fancy explanations to make it look as if Palestinian peasants had no claim to the land, but reality is quite different. Why else did the Zionist State have to come up with quasi-legal constructions like the Absentee Property Law? They were greeted with dismay and hostility by many, even within Israel. Liberals and some centrists in Israel decried the law for confiscating the land of Arabs who until quite recently had been fellow citizens of Palestine, NOT enemy aliens. Knesset member J. Klebanoff of the General Zionists urged his fellow legislators to consider the impact of legislation that essentially relegated the refugees to the status of enemy whose land could be seized: "We are not dealing with enemy property, but with the property of a substantial part of the population of our country, who have and must have very important rights - people who can come to us with very serious claims, financial and moral. We cannot treat their property as enemy property." (Knesset Proceedings II, pp. 911-12). Israel's professed acceptance of the Partition resolution meant that the Palestinian poulation of the villages and towns in the area earmarked for the Jewish state could stay where they were. Also Israel's acceptance into the UN was conditioned on it carrying out UN resolution 194, which allowed the Palestinian civilians to return in peace to their towns and villages. Israel not only refused to carry out these conditions, but continues to this very day under various guises (quasi legal or not) to rob the Palestinians of their land. You should read Sami Hadawi "Palestinian Rights & Losses in 1948" and Michael Fischbach "Records of Dispossession" to get at least some perspective, a perspective that professor Arnon is trying to give to you, but one that you refuse to take in.

At that time, only 70.000 Arabs had left the jewish state's territory, most of them upper class and their servants, to shelter their money in secure places like Beirut and Cairo. During the siege of Jerusalem, from november 47 to may 48, which was much more drastic than the present Gaza blocade, letting not a single pound food, water or medicine through, the remaining Arabs had no reason to starve like their neighbors, and left their homes, sure they would be back soon and seize jewish properties they had previously earmarked. After the ultimate locks of the blockade, Dir Yassin and Qastel were opened, and after the Jewish population of the Old City, Etzion, Sheikh Jarrah was slain or expelled, like 1 million other Jews from arab countries, resolution 194 became void as the jewish refugees were not taken in account. Palestinian refugees did not show any enthusiasm to return under jewish rule, which was an insult to Sharia. Thus the those intertwined questions remain open as long as Arabs deny the Jews any right to sovereignty, and the jewish refugees equal rights to Palestinians.

...you are also mistaken about the Arab world. On offer from the Arabs since March 2003 has been the Arab Peace Initiative. By simply following UN resolutions and international law, Israel could have everything it claims it has always wanted. When you equally acknowledge the Nakba, and become a little better educated on the history of the region, perhaps your claims will have a little more truth to them.

my son you do not know any thing about the conflect .. just i laugh about the upper class and their servants ... god bless the soul of hajjah zeenab .she was from jafa i hope that she will be in paradise as she said jafa was the paradise that she wanted to live in ... she was not only a poor woman lived in a camp

Actually, Prof. Arnon, like so many pro-Arabs, confuses the cause and the consequence: It were Arabs that started (ob)using Israel's (and the world's) legal system to get what they want. Where was Prof. Arnon when Arabs petitioned the HCJ to stop a military operation in Gaza in order to spare Arab houses? Where was he when the same court forced rerouting of the security barrier, claiming that the Jewish life is less important than Arabs' right of free movement? Etc. I guess it was all moral in his opinion? But when Jews go to courts and win, it suddenly becomes immoral? No, Mr. Arnon, your double standards are immoral!

Thank you. Your opinion piece is wise, just and courageous.