Start with the seizure of the territories in the Levant by the Ottoman Empire, that's the background that sets up the Balfour Declaration.
And pay attention to the waves of immigrants into what is now the State of Israel and the West Bank and Gaza from the collapsing Ottoman Empire, not only the returning Jewish Diaspora, but refugees from what is now Iraq, Syria, and further off.
Of course there was a continuous Jewish presence in what became the Palestine mandate going back to ancient times, so there's that. It can be much trickier that you might think to figure out who had legal title to the lands Zionist immigrants bought and settled, the Ottoman Empire's record keeping has serious gaps.
In any event, claiming that Jews and only Jews had and have no right to a national homeland in the Palestine Mandate, is often met with the rejoinder that since the Palestine Mandate divided up the land with some 83% going to the predominantly Arab populations, and 17% to Jews and minorities like Orthodox Christians, Druze, Roman Catholics, and others in what is now Israel and parts of Lebanon and Syria, there is already a Palestinian state - it's called "Jordan."
There are absolutely no uncontested points in any narrative about who has clear and fair legal title to most of the land, and it's a monumental conceptual blunder to start off with a rather Manichean division between the "deserving indigenous peoples" and the "undeserving settlers," again, in part because so many "Native Palestinians" arrived in the region in the early 20th century, as the Ottoman Empire fell apart - one of the defeated warring nations in World War 1.
Probably doesn't help the Palestinians any that the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem helped recruit for Hitler, even had their recruitment for a Waffen SS division:
His opposition to the British peaked during the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine. In 1937, evading an arrest warrant, he fled Palestine and took refuge successively in the French Mandate of Lebanon and the Kingdom of Iraq, until he established himself in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. During World War II he collaborated with both Italy and Germany by making propagandistic radio broadcasts and by helping the Nazis recruit Bosnian Muslims for the Waffen-SS (on the grounds that they shared four principles: family, order, the leader and faith).[15] On meeting Adolf Hitler he requested backing for Arab independence and support in opposing the establishment in Palestine of a Jewish national home. Upon the end of the war he came under French protection, and then sought refuge in Cairo to avoid prosecution for war crimes.
The seizure of territories in the Levant by the Ottoman Empire was the background for the Balfour Declaration?? Since the Ottomans conquered the Levant in the early 16th century and the Balfour Declaration was made about 400 years later, that seems a stretch. I also seem to recall that a major impetus behind the Balfour Declaration was antisemitism in Europe and especially pogroms in eastern Europe and Russia.
Good idea. Shall we start with the Balfour Declaration (1917)?
Start with the seizure of the territories in the Levant by the Ottoman Empire, that's the background that sets up the Balfour Declaration.
And pay attention to the waves of immigrants into what is now the State of Israel and the West Bank and Gaza from the collapsing Ottoman Empire, not only the returning Jewish Diaspora, but refugees from what is now Iraq, Syria, and further off.
Of course there was a continuous Jewish presence in what became the Palestine mandate going back to ancient times, so there's that. It can be much trickier that you might think to figure out who had legal title to the lands Zionist immigrants bought and settled, the Ottoman Empire's record keeping has serious gaps.
In any event, claiming that Jews and only Jews had and have no right to a national homeland in the Palestine Mandate, is often met with the rejoinder that since the Palestine Mandate divided up the land with some 83% going to the predominantly Arab populations, and 17% to Jews and minorities like Orthodox Christians, Druze, Roman Catholics, and others in what is now Israel and parts of Lebanon and Syria, there is already a Palestinian state - it's called "Jordan."
There are absolutely no uncontested points in any narrative about who has clear and fair legal title to most of the land, and it's a monumental conceptual blunder to start off with a rather Manichean division between the "deserving indigenous peoples" and the "undeserving settlers," again, in part because so many "Native Palestinians" arrived in the region in the early 20th century, as the Ottoman Empire fell apart - one of the defeated warring nations in World War 1.
Probably doesn't help the Palestinians any that the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem helped recruit for Hitler, even had their recruitment for a Waffen SS division:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amin_al-Husseini
EXCERPT:
His opposition to the British peaked during the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine. In 1937, evading an arrest warrant, he fled Palestine and took refuge successively in the French Mandate of Lebanon and the Kingdom of Iraq, until he established himself in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. During World War II he collaborated with both Italy and Germany by making propagandistic radio broadcasts and by helping the Nazis recruit Bosnian Muslims for the Waffen-SS (on the grounds that they shared four principles: family, order, the leader and faith).[15] On meeting Adolf Hitler he requested backing for Arab independence and support in opposing the establishment in Palestine of a Jewish national home. Upon the end of the war he came under French protection, and then sought refuge in Cairo to avoid prosecution for war crimes.
The seizure of territories in the Levant by the Ottoman Empire was the background for the Balfour Declaration?? Since the Ottomans conquered the Levant in the early 16th century and the Balfour Declaration was made about 400 years later, that seems a stretch. I also seem to recall that a major impetus behind the Balfour Declaration was antisemitism in Europe and especially pogroms in eastern Europe and Russia.