Was Israel Founded on Stolen Arab Land?

1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:07,260
Well, hey there. You know, a common accusation that is made against Israel is that it was

2
00:00:07,260 --> 00:00:14,940
founded upon stolen Arab land. If this is the case, then the very founding of Israel

3
00:00:14,940 --> 00:00:22,020
would be wrong. And why would Christians support this? So we need to take a closer look at

4
00:00:22,020 --> 00:00:27,340
this accusation and let's get to the bottom of things.

5
00:00:27,340 --> 00:00:33,820
Welcome to the Israel Answers series, Connecting Israel, the Bible, and You. Join Susan Michael

6
00:00:33,820 --> 00:00:38,680
as she explores timely issues and current events from a scriptural perspective to equip

7
00:00:38,680 --> 00:00:43,420
the Christian world with a balance and biblical response. Be sure to subscribe for future

8
00:00:43,420 --> 00:00:47,760
episodes which will ignite your faith and bring the Bible to life in your everyday

9
00:00:47,760 --> 00:00:54,760
world. Now let's join Susan with your Israel Answers.

10
00:00:54,760 --> 00:01:00,900
Well I remember a number of years ago speaking at a Christian conference and I was supposed

11
00:01:00,900 --> 00:01:06,980
to give a history of the founding of the state of Israel. And after my presentation, I remember

12
00:01:06,980 --> 00:01:13,220
this young, probably college age young man came up to me afterwards and he was literally

13
00:01:13,220 --> 00:01:21,160
scratching his head, so puzzled. And he said, but I thought Israel was founded on stolen

14
00:01:21,160 --> 00:01:29,300
Arab land. And I said, well obviously that's not the facts. The facts don't support that.

15
00:01:29,300 --> 00:01:36,540
So today I want to talk about two things, land and population. So first I want to go

16
00:01:36,540 --> 00:01:42,660
back to quote the famous travel writer named Mark Twain. You know, he was also the author

17
00:01:42,660 --> 00:01:52,700
of the Adventures of Tom Sawyer. He went to the Holy Land in 1867 and he documented what

18
00:01:52,700 --> 00:02:00,060
he found in his book called Innocence Abroad. Now I just want to read to you a couple of

19
00:02:00,060 --> 00:02:08,020
very brief quotes of what he said about the area there then known as Palestine. He says,

20
00:02:08,020 --> 00:02:15,740
there's no timber of any consequence in Palestine, none at all to waste upon fires. It is a

21
00:02:15,740 --> 00:02:25,540
hopeless, dreary, heartbroken land. Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes. Over it broods

22
00:02:25,540 --> 00:02:33,580
the spell of a curse that has withered its fields and fettered its energies. Well when

23
00:02:33,580 --> 00:02:40,540
Mark Twain was traveling through the Holy Land, it was still a part of the Ottoman Empire

24
00:02:40,540 --> 00:02:47,180
and it had been for almost 400 years. That's how long the Ottoman Empire lasted. And the

25
00:02:47,180 --> 00:02:55,060
land of Israel had been a part of one Islamic Empire after another, all in total almost

26
00:02:55,060 --> 00:03:02,700
1300 years. It was considered an out of the way little backwater area that no one really

27
00:03:02,700 --> 00:03:12,420
cared about. The larger population center was in Damascus. So the area a lot of times

28
00:03:12,420 --> 00:03:21,820
was considered Syria slash Palestine and Jerusalem was nothing. It wasn't of any significance

29
00:03:21,820 --> 00:03:29,340
whatsoever. The Ottoman Empire charged very high taxes and one of the ways that they taxed

30
00:03:29,340 --> 00:03:38,340
farmers was by taxing their actual properties and that included trees. So trees throughout

31
00:03:38,340 --> 00:03:46,180
the Holy Land had eventually been chopped down and either discarded or actually used

32
00:03:46,180 --> 00:03:54,020
to pay taxes. The taxes were overbearing and over time the small farmer there in the area

33
00:03:54,020 --> 00:04:01,100
had eventually gone into debt, had been taken advantage of by money lenders charging very

34
00:04:01,100 --> 00:04:07,380
high interest rates and eventually their land was taken over by larger landowners that lived

35
00:04:07,380 --> 00:04:16,180
in places like Damascus or Cairo, far away cities. So they were absentee landowners, maybe

36
00:04:16,180 --> 00:04:25,220
even Beirut or Kuwait. Now during this time Jerusalem was a majority Jewish city but all

37
00:04:25,220 --> 00:04:32,580
the Jews were squeezed into the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem. So Jerusalem was actually only

38
00:04:32,580 --> 00:04:38,180
what was inside the city walls. Today if you go with me to Israel, which I hope you will,

39
00:04:38,180 --> 00:04:46,020
you will see just how small that walled in area is. That was the city of Jerusalem for

40
00:04:46,020 --> 00:04:53,940
hundreds of years. And finally in the late 1800s it got so crowded for the Jewish population

41
00:04:53,940 --> 00:04:59,580
which even though they were the majority of Jerusalem they lived in the one quarter known

42
00:04:59,580 --> 00:05:06,140
as the Jewish quarter which was an Ottoman system. So they, a few families moved outside

43
00:05:06,140 --> 00:05:14,380
of the old city walls and started the first settlement known as Petok Tikva. And others

44
00:05:14,380 --> 00:05:20,780
moved across the hill and we began the neighborhoods outside of the old city walls there in the

45
00:05:20,780 --> 00:05:30,260
late 1800s. In the late 1800s we also had waves of Jews that began fleeing Russia because

46
00:05:30,260 --> 00:05:35,940
of the pogroms going on there and they moved to the Holy Land and they also began building

47
00:05:35,940 --> 00:05:41,620
settlements and they were farming communities. So what happened is that as Jews were moving

48
00:05:41,620 --> 00:05:48,820
there building these farming communities it was creating jobs and it was creating opportunities

49
00:05:48,820 --> 00:05:55,900
and an economy. And so the more Jews that moved into the area the more Arabs that moved

50
00:05:55,900 --> 00:06:07,940
in in order to take those jobs. So in the late 1800s early 1900s an unskilled Arab worker

51
00:06:07,940 --> 00:06:15,060
in the area known as Palestine could make five times as much as their relative in Cairo or

52
00:06:15,060 --> 00:06:22,900
in Iraq working the same type of job. Now let's look at population and then we're going to

53
00:06:22,900 --> 00:06:28,500
look at land. So the population as I said these two populations were increasing. So

54
00:06:28,500 --> 00:06:37,060
in 1922 the population of the whole area of today is known as Israel then Palestine was

55
00:06:37,060 --> 00:06:48,140
700,000 and over the next 23 years the next census 1945 it was up to 1,700,000 so it had

56
00:06:48,140 --> 00:06:56,780
more than doubled in size. The Muslims were the largest community and they had grown from

57
00:06:56,780 --> 00:07:05,980
589,000 to 1,000,000 which is 60% of the population in 1945. The Jews had grown from 83,000 to

58
00:07:05,980 --> 00:07:15,060
550,000 which means they made up 31%. The Christians were next at roughly 8% in 1945.

59
00:07:15,060 --> 00:07:22,180
So what does this mean? This means that the Muslim community had increased by 500,000

60
00:07:22,180 --> 00:07:29,700
and the Jews had increased by about 470,000. The only difference being here that the Muslims

61
00:07:29,700 --> 00:07:38,540
a lot of their increase was due to their high birth rate but also it was augmented by immigration.

62
00:07:38,540 --> 00:07:47,020
The Jewish increase was by and large more immigration less birth rate as compared to

63
00:07:47,020 --> 00:07:55,700
the Muslims but both communities were growing at a very similar rate. Now I want to talk

64
00:07:55,700 --> 00:08:04,980
about land. So as the Jews were moving into the area they began purchasing land. Most

65
00:08:04,980 --> 00:08:11,740
of the land that they purchased were through organizations and these organizations were

66
00:08:11,740 --> 00:08:17,340
collecting donations around the world in order to purchase the land on behalf of the Jewish

67
00:08:17,340 --> 00:08:26,780
community and they were largely buying tracks of land from these absentee land owners. Most

68
00:08:26,780 --> 00:08:34,940
of the land that they were buying was uncultivated. It was swampy, it was rocky and it was same

69
00:08:34,940 --> 00:08:41,740
sandy, it was not good land. However, once they started purchasing the land then the

70
00:08:41,740 --> 00:08:49,300
prices started going up and in a way there was price gouging just to give you a comparison

71
00:08:49,300 --> 00:08:58,260
that the Jews were paying roughly $1,000 an acre in Palestine for this arid and semi arid

72
00:08:58,260 --> 00:09:10,940
land while in the same year black rich soil of Iowa was being sold for $110 an acre. So

73
00:09:10,940 --> 00:09:18,060
that means it was costing 10 times as much to buy land that was uncultivated, that was

74
00:09:18,060 --> 00:09:27,540
desert land, it was arid, it was really price gouging but nevertheless that's how the Jewish

75
00:09:27,540 --> 00:09:35,820
community was purchasing the land. Now in 1948 when Israel was formed most of the land

76
00:09:35,820 --> 00:09:40,620
that became a part of the state of Israel was what's known as public land so they had

77
00:09:40,620 --> 00:09:48,180
been owned by the Ottoman Empire and had been passed on to the British under mandate until

78
00:09:48,180 --> 00:09:57,380
the British then transferred it legally to the new state of Israel in 1948. So 70% of

79
00:09:57,380 --> 00:10:04,900
the land that the state of Israel was born on was public land, it had never been owned

80
00:10:04,900 --> 00:10:12,500
by any Arabs, it had been owned by the Ottoman Empire and passed down to this new state of

81
00:10:12,500 --> 00:10:20,620
Israel. The remaining 30% was divided up between land that had been purchased by individual

82
00:10:20,620 --> 00:10:28,780
Jews and these Jewish organizations, land that had been owned or that was owned by Arabs

83
00:10:28,780 --> 00:10:35,300
and then there was a percentage of the land that had been abandoned by Arabs. So let me

84
00:10:35,300 --> 00:10:45,540
review, 30% of the land was these three types of land and I can't give you an exact percentage,

85
00:10:45,540 --> 00:10:50,860
it would take a lot more research, I found a little bit of conflicting numbers here but

86
00:10:50,860 --> 00:10:57,900
we know that large tracts of land had been purchased by the Jews and then the Arabs that

87
00:10:57,900 --> 00:11:07,660
stayed in Israel owned about 7% or 8% of that 30% or 7% or 8% of the land I should say.

88
00:11:07,660 --> 00:11:12,300
So really if you want to round it out, if you want to come up with some percentage, maybe

89
00:11:12,300 --> 00:11:19,340
10% of the land that Israel was born on was land that had been owned by Arabs and they

90
00:11:19,340 --> 00:11:29,140
had fled and abandoned the land and therefore it was taken over by Israel, by Jewish inhabitants.

91
00:11:29,140 --> 00:11:34,500
So that's the real issue here, it's not the land the Jews bought or that was transferred

92
00:11:34,500 --> 00:11:40,580
to Israel or even that the Arabs continued living there, the real bone of contention

93
00:11:40,580 --> 00:11:47,460
here is this small percentage of land that had been abandoned by its former Arab owners.

94
00:11:47,460 --> 00:11:52,340
So the question is, why did they abandon the land?

95
00:11:52,340 --> 00:11:54,900
And once again, there's several reasons.

96
00:11:54,900 --> 00:12:03,940
One is that the neighboring Arab countries and the Arab leaders had told them to flee

97
00:12:03,940 --> 00:12:09,780
because these Arab armies were going to come in, they were going to destroy the Jews, there

98
00:12:09,780 --> 00:12:15,020
was going to be blood in the streets and as soon as they had defeated the Jews, they would

99
00:12:15,020 --> 00:12:17,420
be able to return to their homes of course.

100
00:12:17,420 --> 00:12:23,220
So a lot of them fled expecting the armies to come in and the armies never came in and

101
00:12:23,220 --> 00:12:24,780
defeated the Jews.

102
00:12:24,780 --> 00:12:27,020
Secondly, it was a war zone.

103
00:12:27,020 --> 00:12:34,140
So just right now we have in the news about the crisis in Ukraine, it's a war zone.

104
00:12:34,140 --> 00:12:35,780
So what's happening?

105
00:12:35,780 --> 00:12:38,900
So far I think 10 million people have fled their homes.

106
00:12:38,900 --> 00:12:41,500
This is what happens when there's war.

107
00:12:41,500 --> 00:12:44,940
And so there were Arabs that fled their homes because it was war.

108
00:12:44,940 --> 00:12:48,900
They wanted to go where it was safer.

109
00:12:48,900 --> 00:12:57,540
And then there were a few instances, there were some instances where the Jewish forces

110
00:12:57,540 --> 00:13:03,180
actually forced an evacuation of an Arab village because of its location on the border.

111
00:13:03,180 --> 00:13:12,260
It was for security means and it wasn't that Jewish individuals were going and pushing

112
00:13:12,260 --> 00:13:15,060
Arabs out of their homes and taking them over.

113
00:13:15,060 --> 00:13:19,300
By and large it was a military operation for security.

114
00:13:19,300 --> 00:13:25,900
And what happened is that these Arabs that did flee their homes and abandoned their homes,

115
00:13:25,900 --> 00:13:31,540
what they thought was temporary, well because they lost the war they ended up on the other

116
00:13:31,540 --> 00:13:40,140
side of a boundary, of a ceasefire line, of a boundary for the nation of Israel and they

117
00:13:40,140 --> 00:13:41,460
weren't allowed back in.

118
00:13:41,460 --> 00:13:43,700
They were on the enemy side.

119
00:13:43,700 --> 00:13:48,820
They had in a way sided with the enemy by going into their territory.

120
00:13:48,820 --> 00:13:55,700
And so even if they had wanted to return to their homes, they weren't able to.

121
00:13:55,700 --> 00:13:58,820
So this is the abandoned land.

122
00:13:58,820 --> 00:14:03,540
It's a small percentage and it's even a smaller percentage of those that were actually

123
00:14:03,540 --> 00:14:06,660
forced out of their home.

124
00:14:06,660 --> 00:14:11,380
But there are real grievances we have to admit.

125
00:14:11,380 --> 00:14:13,460
In war terrible things happen.

126
00:14:13,460 --> 00:14:19,500
There are injustices in every war and there are injustices in this story and there were

127
00:14:19,500 --> 00:14:28,460
500,000 to 700,000 Arabs that did leave their homes, going to the surrounding Arab countries

128
00:14:28,460 --> 00:14:33,900
and became what we would call refugees.

129
00:14:33,900 --> 00:14:37,420
But there's another side to this story.

130
00:14:37,420 --> 00:14:46,020
There were also roughly 700,000 Jews who were living throughout these Arab countries that

131
00:14:46,020 --> 00:14:51,780
when Israel was founded, they became very persecuted and their lives were in danger.

132
00:14:51,780 --> 00:14:53,340
They had to flee.

133
00:14:53,340 --> 00:14:56,060
They also became refugees.

134
00:14:56,060 --> 00:14:59,580
They had to leave their homes, their properties, their businesses.

135
00:14:59,580 --> 00:15:02,020
They left with the code on their back.

136
00:15:02,020 --> 00:15:08,380
Some of them walked to the Holy Land and became refugees in Israel.

137
00:15:08,380 --> 00:15:14,820
But of course that was very temporary status because Israel absorbed all of the Jews coming

138
00:15:14,820 --> 00:15:16,180
there, made them citizens.

139
00:15:16,180 --> 00:15:17,580
They were able to build homes.

140
00:15:17,580 --> 00:15:20,340
They're no longer considered refugees.

141
00:15:20,340 --> 00:15:26,540
But the Arab refugees that had fled their homes into the Arab countries were not absorbed

142
00:15:26,540 --> 00:15:30,660
by the Arab countries, were kept in a refugee status.

143
00:15:30,660 --> 00:15:36,940
So in a future episode, I'm going to talk a little bit more about the refugee status.

144
00:15:36,940 --> 00:15:45,540
But for now, this clarifies that at least 90% of the land that the State of Israel was

145
00:15:45,540 --> 00:15:50,660
founded on was legally obtained one way or the other.

146
00:15:50,660 --> 00:15:58,460
And the other, let's say roughly 10%, it may be 5%, it may be 12%, but somewhere in there

147
00:15:58,460 --> 00:16:01,060
was abandoned property.

148
00:16:01,060 --> 00:16:07,220
And in any war, when this happens, other families move in.

149
00:16:07,220 --> 00:16:10,700
It happened all throughout Europe after World War II.

150
00:16:10,700 --> 00:16:13,860
Many Jewish homes were just taken over by others.

151
00:16:13,860 --> 00:16:15,860
It happened in the Arab world.

152
00:16:15,860 --> 00:16:17,260
It happened in Israel.

153
00:16:17,260 --> 00:16:24,020
But this clarifies that Israel as a state was not founded on stolen Arab land.

154
00:16:24,020 --> 00:16:31,980
It was founded on legally obtained land with a small percentage of what we might call disputed

155
00:16:31,980 --> 00:16:42,820
properties and the consequence of injustice that happens in war.

156
00:16:42,820 --> 00:16:48,100
So I hope that that helps you to understand about the populations and the land.

157
00:16:48,100 --> 00:16:53,340
Next week, we're going to talk about another serious accusation against Israel that Israel

158
00:16:53,340 --> 00:16:55,380
is a racist state.

159
00:16:55,380 --> 00:17:00,220
So until then, God bless, and I'll see you back here next week.

160
00:17:00,220 --> 00:17:02,620
Well, hey, give me one more minute.

161
00:17:02,620 --> 00:17:05,980
I have two very special offers for you.

162
00:17:05,980 --> 00:17:08,460
First is all you ladies out there.

163
00:17:08,460 --> 00:17:11,740
We have scheduled a women's tour to Israel.

164
00:17:11,740 --> 00:17:15,780
This November, November 2nd through the 12th.

165
00:17:15,780 --> 00:17:19,700
I invite you to go with me to the land of the Bible.

166
00:17:19,700 --> 00:17:20,980
Let's walk the land.

167
00:17:20,980 --> 00:17:22,300
Let's talk the Bible.

168
00:17:22,300 --> 00:17:28,820
Let's have our faith restored and ignited and strengthened for the days in which we live.

169
00:17:28,820 --> 00:17:34,500
To sign up, I want you to go down below into today's show notes and sign up for our tour

170
00:17:34,500 --> 00:17:35,940
interest list.

171
00:17:35,940 --> 00:17:38,900
We will send you all the information.

172
00:17:38,900 --> 00:17:49,500
Or if it's easier, just call our tour's department line at 866-393-5890.

173
00:17:49,500 --> 00:17:55,500
That's 866-393-5890.

174
00:17:55,500 --> 00:17:59,300
I want to travel Israel with you.

175
00:17:59,300 --> 00:18:06,820
Now my second offer is a free download that we have developed just for you called 10 Reasons

176
00:18:06,820 --> 00:18:09,820
for Christians to Support Israel.

177
00:18:09,820 --> 00:18:14,140
Over the coming weeks, I'm going to be talking about a lot of these reasons.

178
00:18:14,140 --> 00:18:19,940
But I want you to have this download so that you can be preparing yourself, that you can

179
00:18:19,940 --> 00:18:24,420
share it with your friends and colleagues and invite them to listen in each week as

180
00:18:24,420 --> 00:18:30,180
I will be going over some of these reasons and going a little bit farther into depth.

181
00:18:30,180 --> 00:18:38,260
So in today's show notes, we link directly to this downloadable 10 reasons why Christians

182
00:18:38,260 --> 00:18:40,460
should support Israel.

183
00:18:40,460 --> 00:18:49,020
Or you can go to the out-of-zion-show.com landing page, click on Resources, and we should

184
00:18:49,020 --> 00:18:51,620
have a link there for you as well.

185
00:18:51,620 --> 00:18:58,420
So take advantage of this free download and I will see you back here next week, fully

186
00:18:58,420 --> 00:19:01,500
informed, ready to learn some more.

187
00:19:01,500 --> 00:19:03,900
Until then, God bless.

188
00:19:03,900 --> 00:19:09,100
We hope you have enjoyed this episode of Out of Zion with Susan Michael.

189
00:19:09,100 --> 00:19:15,540
Be sure to subscribe to Out of Zion now on Apple Podcasts, CPNshows.com, YouTube, or

190
00:19:15,540 --> 00:19:17,820
wherever you like to listen and learn.

191
00:19:17,820 --> 00:19:30,020
Out of Zion with Susan Michael is a production of ICEJUSA, All Rights Reserved.