I find this whole argument (immigrant vs aborigninal) from both sides as useless, stupid and unproductive! Instead of trying to be self-righteous and wasting our time discussing useless history in a selfish attempt to margenlize each other, why aint we all sit togather and try to figure out how to LIVE togather side by side in peace and harmony?! Do we still have the luxury of discussing useless history while innocent people are dying and suffering from both sides??!! Its time to grow up i believe.

it's about time the truth be told. While the Palestinians continue to take any and everything for granted the truth must be told about the history of Israel and how the historical timeline impacts the modern-day Arab narrative.

hazak baruh

Brilliant and insightful.

Mr. Wohl, Referring to Pharoe's mentioning of "Israelites" being present in Eretz Israel is a very nice quotation. But it is of no relevance: The "Israelites" of the bible who were present in this land then hardly left. Lists by the Assyrians and Babylonians regarding the number of exiled Israelites mention conspicuously small numbers. The "Israelites" never left. They converted over the years to Christianity and later to Islam. The last massive conversion occurred when the Jewish revolt against the Byzantines failed(614AD). Over half a million Jews converted to Christianity, and later to Islam. The "Israelites" you are talking about are called today "Palestinians", and many of them were first disposessed in 1948, and not by the Babylonians. Read Yitzhak Ben Tzvi's books. We, the Ashkenazi Jews, who constitute the majority of the Jews in the world are descendents of proselytes. Are you uncomfortable with that? Kafr Qara, where Mr. Zahalka is from, had been populated in continuity since the Roman Era. Mr. Zahalka is probably closer (genetically) to the early Hebrews (the area was densely populated by Samaritans) than you and me.

Before the exodus the land was populated by others, not Jews as we've come to be known. And in our history G-d punished us first the 10 tribes by the assyrians and then we lost Jerusalem to the Babylonians with our own G-d's blessing due to our wickedness. G-d abandonned us to the Romans fulfilling our prophet daniel's writings of a vision from G-d. Two temples taken away each by our own G-d. Who are we to execute judgement, we need to first make peace ourselves with our own G-d.

Finally, Ynet prints something I totally agree with!

My children study things like Theater, and business administration. They also have a thorough education about the recent and ancient history of Eretz Yisroel, painfully so, at that. They watch reality shows, but they served in the IDF, and my only son, in combat. Please do not blame my children for the blatant misbehavior of Arab MKs taking advantage of our country's democracy. In Gaza, I believe, dissenters are killed by Hamas.

There have been quite a few historians who know that in reality the present day Palestinians are in the majority the descendants of the ancient Hebrews. The Arab armies that invaded Palestine in the 8th century encountered a settled population of Jews, Christians and pagans living in towns and villages. Most of them were farmers. A small part of the Arab army remained and was absorbed into the general population. Jews and Christians were considered "people of the Book" and were allowed to continue to practice their religions. But they had to pay a poll tax. In the long run it was of more benefit to Jews and Christians to convert to Islam, which as a monotheistic religion was pretty close to the former two anyway. Although ancient Palestine was invaded many times the population in general absorbed these waves. Even Ben Gurion and his fellow Zionist Yithzhak Ben Zvi wrote in their earlier years a book about "Eretz Yisrael" in which they acknowledged that the Palestinian Arab fellaheen (farmers) were in all likelihood descendants from the ancient Hebrews. Initially the Zionist leaders were inclined to integrating these "primitive" Jews into the Jewish state they proposed to create. The indigenous inhabitants though considered the Zionist colonists as invaders and Ben Gurion gave up on the idea of coopting them. In stead Zionist propaganda began to see the Palestinian peasants as "alien invaders" or "arab usurpers" of the "ancient homeland". And since Joan Peters came with her phony thesis in the early 1980s most Palestinians are now coming from Syria and other surrounding Arab countries at the end of the 19th century, attracted by the economic prosperity created by the Zionists! Classical colonialim!

This is a piece of blinkered ill advised ill expressed bigotry. It shames us that an ostensibly intelligent and educated Jewish Israeli should stoop to this level of bombast. All he's done is to fool himself and I can already imagine the response from the 'usual suspects' to this in the Talkback column.

... and boring and does not solve even one problem. It is just a populist tool to silence political debate by demagogy. If Wohl tries to beat the Arabs MK's comments with the same logics they use, he just shows that he is not a tiny bit smarter than them and spreads the very same kindergarden style babble like they do.

If Jews are ignorant, just imagine loud-mouth twits who are totally removed from the situation. In a world were Sarah Palins and Britney Spears run the show, justice scarcely has a prayer in the face of hand-wringing, crocodile-tear propaganda.

Should be required reading for all Israeli students tomorrow morning! All foreigners, Arabs and especially President Obama should have to read it , too. Our ignorance is inexcusable! Thank you, Assaf Wohl.

A Christian writer –Reland- chronicling his trip in the land of Israel in 1695/6 confirms : No settlement in the land of Israel has a name of Arabic extraction. The names of settlements are mostly of Hebrew extraction; some of Greek or Latin-Roman. In fact, no Arab settlement (except for Ramla) has had an original Arabic name to this day. Most names of Arab settlements are of Hebrew or Greek extraction which have been impaired and replaced by meaningless names in Arabic. There is no meaning in Arabic for the names Acre, Haifa, Jaffa, Nablus, Gaza or Jenin and the names of cities, such as Ramallah, El-Halil and El-Kuds have no historical or philological roots in Arabic. In the year 1696, the year in which the tour was taken, Ramallah, for example, was called Beit El, Hebron was called Hebron and Mearat HaMachpelah was called El Chalil (a name for Abraham of the Bible). For additional information : http://xrl.us/bi5c6

This is unbelievable argument. Everyone conquered the land. Jews from Jebosites and Cannanites, Romans from Jews, Muslims from Christians ...etc. You can't claim being here first. Just because you conquered it at one point doesn't make it your land alone. You ignore the fact that we are stuck here together. either you counter the hatred of Tibi with more hatred or you find a different way to a solution. You use the exact way of argument of the two arab members. Anger, name calling (you arabs) and self righteousness. This is what some call fools fighting fools and we all will fall together because of such naivete

The Palestinians are indigenous as indicated by their genome. Fifty percent of Palestinian Muslim males have ychromesome that is identical to seventy percent diaspora males. Another thirty percent have a closely related y. Just google " Jew Palestinian y-chromosome" and read the scholarly articles especialy from Hebrew university. Palestinian Arabs started out as ancient israleite converted to Christianity. Ok they started Christianity. Then converted to Islam. You claim to know history but you repeat the lie that all Jews and all Israelites were dispersed by romans. Not true. Written history follows the Jewish people and their descendants in Palestine. And the genome does not Lie. Palestinians are indigenous. They are not immigrants. This is an ignorent propaganda motivated assertion. It is also a lie used to justify everything Israel does.

We are just about ALL of us immigrants. But we work and save and maybe buy a little piece of property. Then some big idea type settler comes along, waving "legal" documents and "historical facts", and takes it from me. Does anyone even care about peace anymore?

I was wondering if you might share the e-mail address of the author of this excellent op-ed piece, so that I might ask him where to look to further research Arab emigration patterns into Palestine in the 20th Century. Thank you and keep up the good work. As an American Jew who wishes to keep informed, I read your paper almost daily.

that the mosques in Israel were built only in the last 300 years by the Turks. and that includes the Beer sheva mosque, in the famouse battle of Beer sheva the Turks use the minirate to target the Anzak troops.

The "sources" you cite have discredited as being frauds. The group of people called "Palestinans" today are just Arabs who immigrated to Israel from Arabia. Jews were actually the first tpeople o be called "Palestinians." You need an education in the history of the Middle East, ignoramus.

..when history is not on your side. as for peaceful cohabitation, ask your dotted kind why is it that everyting in islam is about hate. but hey, don't go too deep, for allah might just loose another soul.

Jewish children need to learn their heritage and be proud of it

Historians write History on the basis of standards of objectivity. Op-ed columnists like Wohl selectively manipulate History to display their subjective opinions. Just to keep things accurate, Tibi has a medical doctorate and not a Ph.D, but Wohl, after all is not a historian, so little facts are not important for him.

Abraham came to Canaan from Southern Mesopotamia?

first of all islam is the most religion where other belivers can live within .. jews, crhistians lived for centuries with muslims without being harmed and they were treated just like the muslims , otherwise how you can justify the jewish and crehstian comunities in palestine although its been 14 centuries since islam ruled ??? in 1929 only 5% of palestine population was jewish and suddenly they became the majority ??? how is that ??? isnt that immigration and land steeling ?? you can manipulate the history as you wish but the fact stays a fact no matter how you try to cover it with your PR

And I have pretty much the same mitochondrial DNA that is shared by all living women and Lucy, a hominid who lived approximately 3.6 million years ago. DNA doesn't lie. Your point?

the fact is that those mk's you are refering to have a long family history in the palestine, most israelis are second generation at best.

historians - Pappe, Finkelstein etc - it is no wonder you think that.