#22 with the silly nickname, you are just a typical 'dot' in israel, as the author likes to refer to Zahalka. You are the ignoramus sir, not Jack, people like Jack and many others in the previous TB's know exactly what they are talking about...Sarah however never fails to show us her level of hatred, even with such a lousy piece of ignorance in history. Honestly Sarah, how can someone like you, a highly educated Jew, buy into such a useless article! I understand your zionist background and how much you hate arabs, but not to the extent of lowering your intelligence to such a level of foolish, pathetic, lame article...this is sad, very sad.

this is very ,very NAHON but i do have an other question-WHY ARE THERE IN KNESET ARAB MEMBERS?????????????? it is like having the spys in your home and your worst anemy making fun of you ! IN our parlament people who say out loud -GO AWAY THIS IS NOT YOU HOME JEWS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Even the DEMOCRATIE has a limit of what you can do or not HOW CAN YOU HAVE A PARLAMENT MADE OF MEMBERS THAT ARE AGAINST THE COUNTRY dont you think something is very bed in the kneset low?

:) lol if your read the history and not left winger you will find it shoking that old city had protecting walls like Haifa that r 400 years old, but since his village never had walls it only meand it was built by Muslims in the last 250 years or less. such ashame you relay on personal left wing opinion and invent facts while relaying on some left wing opinion, BTW the only 2 Arab Villages from Roman time were the Chritian Catholic villages in North Israel, the villages don't built like the other Arab Villages I saw, and many so Call Arabs r not local, the majority of them R bedoins offsprings. much like the famous Dar Al Omar, so in conclution Avi go back to school cause you failed history.

100yrs ago there was only 30,000 Jews in area and about 150,000 non-Jews. Many Jews have some European blood and many Palestinians have some Arab, Egyptian, Syria, Turk, Canaanite and Jewish blood. Canaanites, Phoenicians and Egyptians have lived in present day Israel for over 3500yrs, Moses may have meet some of them when he lead the Jewish people from Egypt in to Canaan. The Jewish people needed a home land after WW2 and Israel was always their dream but both sides handled the creation of the state of Israel poorly and refuse to back down. Both sides are wrong on some level but fighting over this area has been going on for over 4000yrs.

I also wanted to know the accurate history of the area, so instead of looking up other people's interpretations, I went into "Google" and "Yahoo" and looked up "Middle East Documents". These are bona-fide agreements that began even before Napolean's time. It gives you a good picture of the complexities involved and an understanding of the misunderstandings that have been fomented into hate, on both sides. There is also an organization that is impartial and working for peace in the middle east. It's good.

I believe you are the one who need a lesson in history....coz what u just said is related to science fiction and not history......u r mentioning the so called jewish histoy in this land...and u never mentioned more than 500 palestinian villages that were destroyed by israel....these villages were there before your state was created by a UN resolution....(ironically ur country never recognized a UN resolution related to t he Palestinian Issue). They were destroyed coz people like u can fake the history and claim what u just claimed.

Before the UN resolution, in 1947, arabs as you enjoied the british colony, no-arab wanted a state, no-arab wanted a capital, no-arab used local-money. You started to think about a "people" called palestines after 1948, when you lost the war, and then the other wars....the 67 borders you reclaim is a pretext to keep on the killing of jews BEFORE WWI, you can fool no-body any longer. You aren't immigrants, you are foreing people who will have to go back to your legitim land: Jordania, Egypt, Syria and/or Arabia...

so I woudn't count on your info much. cause there was also UN resolution in 1947 but you turn it down, so in other words like your selective memory it's un valid. :)

in the 90's not the 1947, palis got selective memory, they forget events that they made historical errors.

Tibi, like all good Palestinians lives on lies, by lies and for a lie. Being the his type are, , he lives off the very being he seeks to destroy. For all his yelling, he does not leave Israel. For he and his sick scum ilk know that it is only in a "degenerate" democracy will he have the good life. Why does not live in Gaza ? or Iran ? Because there he would not have the luxury of beautiful secretaries and other comforts that he has grown fat on.

No, the "Palestinians" can't trace their presence in the land to the Canaanites or the Philistines. No, Ashkenazi Jews are not descended from the Khazars, a Turkic people that adopted Judaism as a state religion in the 9th century, but disappeared by the 10th. Jewish communities were already in existence across the older Roman Empire, continuing into the Byzantine and Islamic eras. The first mention of "Palestinian Arabs" appears only in British Mandate times, a time of active Arab immigration from surrounding lands, attracted by the economic opportunities provided by the Jews. (JEWISH immigration was, at the same time, restricted.) Arabs seem to have no problem with *their* conquest of the land, *their* imposition of rule over non-Muslims, but can't deal with Jews returning to and REgaining their hold over the land. Hypocrites.

Tibi doesn't live in Gaza or Iran simply because he was born in, guess where, Tayibe!!! His Parents, grand parents and great grandparents lived there too! Accordingly, Nathan the indian, his home is there, whatever his point of view is, he has the full right to remain there, get it? You will eventually get it if you have an IQ higher than that of the average indian...Stick to eating curry will you and stop sticking your nose into issues that do not concern you.

Here the word "People" is used as in the context of the political and legal doctrines of (1) aboriginal rights and (2) the self-determination of Peoples. It is well known that individual Jews have entered/left Israel for more than 3,000 years. But, whatever the movement of individual Jews, the great Jewish People is undeniably indigenous to the Middle East where large numbers of Jews have always lived. This includes some Jews who, in each and every century since pre-Bibilical times, lived in their ancestral homeland stretching from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River. Of all extant Peoples, the Jewish People has the best claim to be aboriginal there. Though until recently Jews had ceased to be a majority of the population there, the Jewish People never stopped affirming it cultural, religious and demographic connection with the lands around the Jordan River. These aboriginal rights of the Jewish People were finally embedded in international law between 1917 and 1922, by a series of consistent declarations, treaties and international enactments that finally created "a national home for the Jewish People" stretching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. The similarly ancient Greek People also kept affirming its aboriginal rights to a Greek homeland where it had also become a minority by the early 19th century. And, today, common law courts have recognized the aboriginal rights of other native Peoples in countries like Canada and Australia. Whether they self-identify as "Muslim" or "Arab" or "Palestinian," the rights of local Arabs "as a People" are subject to the prior rights of the Jewish People. This means that there must be a peaceful process to reconcile such subsequent Arab rights with the prior rights of the Jewish People which is legitimately "at home" between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Such a reconciliation of rights would likely affirm that a newly-emerged "Palestinian" People now has rights to self-determination and some territory. However, the aboriginal rights of the Jewish People mean that the Palestinian People has no right to wage a war of national self-determination against the Jewish People whose prior rights include the right of Jews there not to be killed by their Arab neighbours. On all sides things would be better if there is a deeper understanding of the moral, political and legal implications of the aborignal rights of the Jewish People.

the author is an idiot. Unless the author can show a deed from King David or a Maccabee, or someone who lived at the time, the Arab MK's are correct. The Jews (zionists) are recent interlopers who have stolen land and brutalized the indigenous natives, while claiming a mythical deed. Try reading history rather than attempting to fictionalize it. Bu the way, eeven according to your 'history' the Canaanites are the original inhabitants of the land. So, the Jews are the original thieves reclaiming their right to originally stolen land.

My parents were born in TA in the 1930s in what was then British Palestine. "Palestine" referred to a territory not people. There were both jews and arabs living in Palestine. The arabs were not called Palestinians, they were called arab residents of Palestine, just like the jews were called - the jewish residents of Palestine. The arabs who lived in Palestine didn't have a name or a national identity sepatated from the arabs living in what are now Jordan, Syria, Egypt or Lebanon. They adopted the name "Palestinians" only after the British mandate in Palestine ended, the state of Israel was established and the arabs refused to establish their own state on the territoy given to them by the UN. So when you say that it is ironic that the 1947 UN resolution was passed in regard to the Palestinian issue, as if that to say that this resolution was originally aimed at solving solely the status of the ARAB population in Palestine, you basically show that you don't know what you're talking about....

The Palestinians shouldn't be there at all given they NEVER had sovereignty in that area...

'In the Book of Raids, early Muslim historian and biographer Waqidi described Muhammads stay in the village of Jiranah a few miles outside Mecca. He wrote: The Prophet arrived in Jiranah on Thursday, and remained 13 nights. He then departed Jiranah after praying at the Al-Aqsa Mosque located on the shore of the river bed. The Prophet used to pray there whenever he came to Jiranah.' The Islamic claim to Jerusalem is false - There were no mosques in Jerusalem in 632 c.e. at the death of Muhammad... Jerusalem was [then] a Christian-occupied city In the days of Muhammad, who died in 632 of the Common Era, Jerusalem was a Christian-occupied city within the Byzantine Empire. Jerusalem was captured by caliph Omar only in 638 c.e., six years after Muhammad's death. Throughout all this time there were only churches in Jerusalem, and a church stood on the Temple Mount, called the Church of Saint Mary of Justinian, built in the Byzantine architectural style

You need to be first in line because you are either totally ignorant or just a racist liar. Your choice. No one single historian of any note has ever made the moronic claim that the 'Palestinians' are descendants of anybody. Inventing claims and quotes doesn't make them any more factual than the rest of claims. And having the largest colonial power in the entire world calling us colonial is very funny. Your country OCCUPIES the Malvinas Islands which were populated by the Spain and ethnically cleansed by the US and colonized by the British. So how much aid do you give to Argentina? Any, ever? End Limey imperialism!

I believe that's simply a translation error. I'm pretty sure the original article (in Hebrew) said Dr.

It is a joy to read people like you, who obviously know what they are talking about. Mr Wohl's reasoning that the present day Palestinians are descendants from Mohammed's conquering Arab armies coming out of the desert peninsula is very peculiar indeed. By this logic it appears that the whole Middle East - Palestine notably made up the western partt of the Fertile Crescent - was empty before the Arab armies came out of the desert peninsula! The reality was - of course - quite different. A relatively small, but highly motivated army conquered a vast area of land in a relatively short space of time. These Arabs wanted to spread Islam. When they arrived in Palestine they did find a local, mostly sedentary population in villages and towns. Places like Ramle were indeed founded by the Arab conquerors, but most of the ancient places were already there. The large majority of the local population (Jews, Christians and pagans) over time converted to Islam. Shlomo Sand's book "The Invention of the Jewish People" discusses this issue in detail. You mentioned Ben Gurion's/Yitzhak Ben-Zvi's book in which they agreed that the Palestinian fellaheen in all likelood descended from the ancient Hebrews and converted in majority to Islam after the arrival of the Arab armies. Views like these were actually quite common, as they should be. For instance Jewish archaeologist Ilene Beatty, who worked for the American School of Oriental Research (now the Allbright Institute in East Jerusalem), published a book in 1956 "Arab and Jew in Canaan" (still available from amazon.com) in which she explained that the Palestinian peasants are descendants from the ancient inhabitants: "But all these (different peoples who had come into Canaan) were additions, sprigs grafted onto the parent tree...And that parentry was Canaanite...(The Arab invaders of the 7th century AD) made moslem converts of the natives, settled down as residents and intermarried with them, with the result that all are now so completely Arabised that we cannot tell whether Canaanites leave off and the Arabs begin.."

You say that the Palestinians are the true decedents of the Israelites. If so, wouldn't the Palestinians have some reverence for the Temple, for the ancient synagogues, and for the artifacts of Israel, even if they were no longer Jews? How do you explain the destruction by the Palestinians of the ancient synagogue of Jericho and of Temple Mount artifacts? Is that a sign love for their own heritage? Or is it hatred for the heritage of another people? Explain, if you can.

Is there any documentation about mass conversions or even gradual conversions of Jews to Islam that you are talking about? It’s doubtful. Throughout the world, a percentage of Jews did occasionally convert to Christianity under force (e.g. Spanish Jews). But their families continued to practice Jewish rituals even to this day and sometimes even as they have moved from country to country. Do these Palestinian Muslims you talk about have any memory of Judaism? Do they have any Jewish objects in their homes? Is there any evidence at all that their families were once Jewish? If they remained on the same land for centuries, as you claim, where is the proof either inside their homes or in the objects they possess that they were once Jewish? If there is no evidence, not even a trace, you need to explain. Also, please explain why they have no reverence for the Temple and the synagogues where you claim their ancestors once worshiped and why they instead continue to destroy ancient artifacts of the land they supposedly love. Finally, please explain why their surnames are the same as those of the the Arab countries that surround Israel. I'm eagerly waiting to see if you have even a little knowledge about the history of the Palestinians.

Would like to know what resources Assah Wohl drew from that outline the history of many of these Arab communities. This is a valuable research that I'd like to get a hold of.

Ben, what do u know about Ancient Israel? Don't you knwo that the Land O Israel has been colonised by successive foreign powers , uncluding Ottoman and British empires? Perhaps it is because there is an Islamic invasion of the UK, inlcuding Wales, that you are pandering to their view. When they takeover the UK by immigration and high birthrate, you can also write their offical history for them, denying the Celtic history of Wales (which in itself was occupied by the English).

the conflict. While the Palestinians see Israel and the jews as their mortal enemies, driven by hate to Arabs and Muslims, and conspiring against everything muslim, the truth of the matter is, Israelis don't really care about arabs\muslim enough to hate them. They just... don't care about them. at all. they care more about who's on their Facebook and Iphone and who's out on 'the big brother' . And that's really what it is. Arabs on the other hand, are convinced, and pass on the others the notion that just as much as they hate Israelis, the Israelis hate them. But that just not true. Israelis are more than indifferent to arabs. Spend time with an Israeli, and never mention the arab-israeli conflict to him, and he'll probably never mention it to you. Spend time with a Palestinian, and it won't take a week before he would bring up the subject on his own. And there lies the real difference.

Now, not only Rome is a new Jerusalem and Christians are the new 'chosen people' but the Arab/'Palestinians ' are the real Hebrews. No wonder the Arab/'Palestinians' and Jordan demand the handing over to them of the 'Dead Sea Scrolls.' After all they are the 'New Hebrews'. That the anti-Jews are popping out here with all nice Jewish names and Israeli addresses is even better. Well folks, Jews are who they claim to be and have been since the time of Abraham, even after 2000 years of diaspora. And Arabs/'Palestinians' even if they happen to have a drop of a Jewish blood in them retained neither Hebrew language, tradition, morality, custom -- nothing. They're just Arabs with perhaps some Jewish genetic material mixed into it; just like anti-Semitic Spaniards have, or Britons, or Poles or Germans or Italians. None of the critics here yet addressed the facts stated in the article that the Arab/'Palestinian' villages were established in the 18 and 19 centuries and not 6th or 7th. You always recognize Arab and far Left attackers by their verbal vitriol, personal attacks and complete absence of verifiable facts in their arguments. I thank the author of this article and for the facts he presented and will forward this article to my friends who without a doubt were as unaware of them as was I.

Interestingly enough, when the Arabs talk of Jerusalem, they don't consider it "useless history." The only time someone labels it "Useless" is when it pertains to Jews. Just remember, the territory now called "Jordan," was also part of Israel. Therefore you are nothing more than an interloper.

Neither is she ignorant. As a matter of fact, I haven't heard her making any of the mind boggling mistakes exhibiting total lack of general knowledge as our Colombia and Harvard educated President has. Sarah Palin is not a problem, semi-educated, credentialed phonies who usurped to themselves authority to tell all others the 'facts' in order to educated them, are ( Thomas Friedman comes to mind.) I have noticed many times Arab propagandists on about every TV station making blatantly false statements without ever being challenged by the 'experts' or the hosts of the program (the rare exception being most of the time Laura Ingram and always Thomas Sowell and Alan Keys.)