Sorry about the delay, real life, yada yada.
And, incidentally, what makes the Arabs "indigenous"? Their ancestors haven't lived there for thousands of years. Their ancestors came from Arabia 1400 years ago and seized it from the Byzantines, i.e., the Romans, whose ancestors seized it from the Jews, whose ancestors seized it from the Canaanites, whose ancestors seized it from the [many seizures skipped], whose ancestors seized it from the descendants of the first H. sapiens sapiens to live there, who seized it from the Neanderthals. "Indigenous" is a word that means whoever the speaker wants it to mean.]
That is factually incorrect on nearly all counts...
Good argument.
both Arab and Jewish Palestinians have ancient ancestral ties to the land, that's a major reason for the present vicious conflict.
Is that you stipulating that the Israelis are just as "indigenous" as the Palestinian Arabs so Arctish's explanation for why it's the Palestinian Arabs' land doesn't work?
by the imposition of an entirely artificial state on their land ever since it happened.
Why is it "their" land? Because the robbers they succeeded to it from were the 37th nation that stole it rather than the 38th?
Because indigenous people have a Right to call the place where they and their ancestors have lived for thousands of years "their" homeland.
... If you mean it is their land by right because it's the place where they and their ancestors have lived for thousands of years, then that sounds like you're answering "Yes." to my question -- it's because the robbers they're successors to were the 37th nation that stole it rather than the 38th. If that sounds to you like a knock-down moral endorsement of the justice of their claim, feel free to explain your peculiar theory of justice.
[And, incidentally, what makes the Arabs "indigenous"? Their ancestors haven't lived there for thousands of years. Their ancestors came from Arabia 1400 years ago and seized it from the Byzantines, i.e., the Romans, whose ancestors seized it from the Jews, whose ancestors seized it from the Canaanites, whose ancestors seized it from the [many seizures skipped], whose ancestors seized it from the descendants of the first H. sapiens sapiens to live there, who seized it from the Neanderthals. "Indigenous" is a word that means whoever the speaker wants it to mean.]
At least they do in modern societies. Some folks that still hold to the 'might makes right' way of thinking believe if you can take land from people unable to fight you off, you get to keep it
Isn't that exactly your justification for claiming it's the Arabs' land? That they took it from Byzantines unable to fight them off so they get to keep it?
Or do you mean it wasn't they who took it from the Byzantines -- that was their ancestors in 637 AD? The 1948 Palestinians got it honestly, from their parents?
You are confusing governments with people.
The Romans, Byzantines, Ottomans, etc., ruled the
indigenous people of Palestine. They did not replace them with people from Italy or Greece or Turkey,
You are confusing governments with ruling committees of the Enlightenment-era and later, committees who mostly give a hoot about human rights or at least about appearing to. For thousands of years before the modern era it was common practice for conquering armies to slaughter the men and sell the women and children into slavery.
According to
Wikipedia,
"... The military defeats of the Jews in Judaea in 70 CE and again in 135 CE, with large numbers of Jewish captives from Judea sold into slavery and an increase in voluntary Jewish emigration from Judea as a result of the wars, meant a drop in Palestine's Jewish population was balanced by a rise in diaspora numbers. Jewish prisoners sold as slaves in the diaspora and their children were eventually manumitted and joined local free communities.[67] It has been argued that the archaeological evidence is suggestive of a Roman genocide taking place during the Second revolt.[68] A significant movement of gentiles and Samaritans into villages formerly with a Jewish majority appears to have taken place thereafter. ...
... In the 5th century, the collapse of the Western Roman Empire resulted in Christian migration into Palestine and the development of a firm Christian majority. ... The 7th century saw the Jewish revolt against Heraclius, which broke out in 614 during the Byzantine–Sasanian War. ... Jewish rebels aided the Persians in capturing Jerusalem, where the Jews were permitted autonomous rule until 617, when the Persians reneged on their alliance. After Byzantine Emperor Heraclius promised to restore Jewish rights, the Jews aided him in ousting the Persians. Heraclius subsequently went back on his word and ordered a general massacre of the Jewish population, devastating the Jewish communities of Jerusalem and the Galilee. As a result, many Jews fled to Egypt. ...
... In 638, Palestine came under Muslim rule with the Muslim conquest of the Levant. ... The land gradually came to have an Arab majority as Arab tribes migrated there. Jewish communities initially grew and flourished. Umar allowed and encouraged Jews to settle in Jerusalem. It was the first time in about 500 years that Jews were allowed to freely enter and worship in their holiest city. In 717, new restrictions were imposed against non-Muslims that negatively affected the Jews. Heavy taxes on agricultural land forced many Jews to migrate from rural areas to towns. Social and economic discrimination caused significant Jewish emigration from Palestine, and Muslim civil wars in the 8th and 9th centuries pushed many Jews out of the country. ...
... During the First Crusade, Jews in Palestine, along with Muslims, were indiscriminately massacred and sold into slavery by the Crusaders. The majority of Jerusalem's Jewish population was killed during the Crusader Siege of Jerusalem and the few thousand survivors were sold into slavery. Some of the Jews sold into slavery later had their freedom bought by Jewish communities in Italy and Egypt, and the redeemed slaves were taken to Egypt. ...
... The Mamluks severely oppressed the Jews and greatly mismanaged the economy, resulting in a period of great social and economic decline. The result was large-scale migration from Palestine, and the population declined. The Jewish population shrunk especially heavily, as did the Christian population. ..."
That's history. The cumulative effect on populations can be read off of modern DNA sequences.
"The authors also found a strong correlation between religion and apparent ancestry in the Levant:
all Jews (Sephardi and Ashkenazi) cluster in one branch; Druze from Mount Lebanon and Druze from Mount Carmel are depicted on a private branch; and Lebanese Christians form a private branch with the Christian populations of Armenia and Cyprus placing the Lebanese Muslims as an outer group. The predominantly Muslim populations of Syrians, Palestinians and Jordanians cluster on branches with other Muslim populations as distant as Morocco and Yemen."
So yes, to a large extent the Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Europeans, Ottomans, etc., did replace the locals with people from all over the place. The Palestinians are descendants primarily of immigrants more recent than the Jewish-Roman Wars, same as the Israelis.
unlike the founders of the State of Israel who did replace the Palestinians with immigrants unless they were Jewish.
Oh please. There are 1.7 million Muslim Israelis, mostly Palestinian Arabs. The degree of population replacement is nowhere near what the Romans et al. did to the Jews.
Likewise, when people in the region accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior, or when they came to believe there was One True God and Mohammed was His Prophet, they did not suddenly become non-indigenous. They weren't Jews anymore (if they had been Jews; not everyone from there followed the Jewish faith) but the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea was still their ancestral homeland.
That's a rose-tinted view of the past. History is bloodier than people like to think about. If conversion were the primary mechanism by which Palestine's dominant religion changed from Judaism to Christianity to Islam then modern Palestinians would speak Aramaic and their genes would cluster with Jews' genes.
your link said:
Understanding the term “indigenous”
Considering the diversity of indigenous peoples, an official definition of “indigenous” has not been adopted by
any UN-system body. Instead the system has developed a modern understanding of this term based on the
following:
• Self- identification as indigenous peoples at the individual level and accepted by the community as their
member.
I.e., it means whoever the speaker wants it to mean.
• Historical continuity with pre-colonial and/or pre-settler societies
There is no such thing as a pre-colonial pre-settler society. Everybody's ancestors colonized and settled.
• Strong link to territories and surrounding natural resources
Everybody who won't agree to be kicked out of his country evidently has a strong link to territories and surrounding natural resources.
• Distinct social, economic or political systems
• Distinct language, culture and beliefs
Is this one of those "Swedes have no culture" things?
• Form non-dominant groups of society
So we can all agree that African-Americans are indigenous here, then?
• Resolve to maintain and reproduce their ancestral environments and systems as distinctive peoples and
communities.
Looks like the Israelis have that one in spades...
