CLAIM: The Jewish people are the sole indigenous people of Palestine, since they’re the oldest group to have maintained self-identity and a presence in Palestine.
RATING:
False
At first glance there are superficial issues with this argument:
1) The ancient Canaanites predate the ancient Israelites in the region of Palestine. So the ancient Israelites are not the “first people” of the land. It’s likely that other ethnic groups predated even the Canaanites.
2) Egypt had some colonies in the lower Levant (near the modern-day Gaza Strip) in the bronze age before the emergence of the ancient Kingdom of Israel. Egyptians have also “maintained an identity” through the ages, thus doing so for what appears to be a longer time than the Israelites.
But the deeper problem is this: “maintaining a group identity” or “maintaining a presence” in a given geographical region (such as historic Palestine) does not determine ownership of that entire region. Where is the law that says that a large geographical area is yours and yours alone, indefinitely, as long as at least one of your ancestors has “maintained a presence” on a small fraction of this larger area? If that was how land ownership worked, it would create tremendous chaos—Italians born in America, for instance, could at any time immigrate back to Italy and evict any non-Italians, even if these non-Italians had legally acquired their property.
One reply on “Israel-Palestine Mega Fact Check!”
Keep trying to invent history. The palis didn’t exist until the mid 1960s.
One other fun fact – every group, every political organization, and every government that has ever tried to destroy the Jews has been destroyed. Fun fact #2 Israel has never been stronger.