Life as a dhimmi in pre-state Israel

One of the many enduring lies spread by the  "Israel is always wrong" team, is that Jews and Arabs got along swimmingly in the Arab world, and in particular, in the Holy Land, until those darn Zionists came and ruined everything.

Its blatantly false.

Maimonides writing in 1172 noted the suffering of his people under Arab hands, as quoted in Bostom's The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History:

God has hurled us in the midst of this people, the Arabs, who have persecuted us severely, and passed baneful and discriminatory legislation against us, as Scripture has forewarned us, "Our enemies themselves shall judge us" (Deut. 32:3 1). Never did a nation molest, degrade, debase, and hate us as much as they...

Albert M Hyamson, in his  1917 book Palestine, the rebirth of an ancient people  (online and fully digitized) describes life as a dhimmi, in pre-state Israel

P.63

The Jews here are still sorely oppressed by the Turks: they are robbed, injured and insulted, and have no appeal.  Every man doeth that which is right in his own eyes.   A Turk will enter a shop and demand so much money; if the poor man threatens to go to a judge, he is told, 'My sword is the judge- give or take the consequences!'  This has really happened since our return to a poor Jew and was told us by another Jew  

Quoting Benjamin II, 1847
Deep misery and continual oppression are the right words to describe the condition of the Children of Israel in the land of their fathers

They are entirely destitute of every legal protection and every means of safety.

Tax upon tax is levied upon them

P.64
In the strict sense of the word, the Jews are not even masters of their own property. They do not even venture to complain when they are robbed and plundered; for the vengeance of the Arabs would be sure to follow each complaint....

Their lives are taken into as little consideration as their property: they are exposed to the caprice of any one...Violence of every kind is a daily occurrence

Systematic violence against the Jewish people was rampant throughout the Arab world. This map 

from The Point of No Return, put to rest once and for all,  the myth of the Arab Jewish golden era of co-existence:

Massacres of Jews by Muslims before 1948

Are Arabs the Indigenous People of Palestine?

One of the reoccurring themes in the propaganda war against Israel is that the Palestinians are the indigenous people and that they are resisting a Jewish European colonial invasion.   Its part of an effort to frame the conflict in a way that presents the Palestinians as the victims, rather than the perpetrators of this conflict.

This myth flies in the face of the historic, linguistic and archaeological record. Although some Palestinian Arab families can trace their lineage back hundreds of years, the vast majority are recent economic migrants who arrived in pre-state Israel in recent years.

Our friend Daniel Grynglas  answers the question “Are Arabs the Indigenous People of Palestine?” in the Jewish Press. He highlights the fact that much of the Arab immigration to the Holy land was recent. Rather than  being the indigenous inhabitant of the land, the Arabs migrated to this land to take advantage of the economic opportunities offered by the Jewish population.

“The Arab population shows a remarkable increase ….. partly due to the import of Jewish capital into Palestine and other factors associated with the growth of the [Jewish] National Home..” The (Peel Commission Report – 1937)

“..in the Jewish settlement Rishon l’Tsion founded in 1882, by the year 1889, the forty Jewish families settled there,  had attracted more than four hundred Arab families….  Many other Arab villages had sprouted in the same fashion.” (Joan Peters – From Time Immemorial p. 252 – referenced further as: FTI)

British PM Winston Churchill said in 1939: “.. far from being persecuted, the Arabs have crowded into the country [Palestine]..”

 A young journalist reporting for the Boston Post from 1948 Palestine, also highlighted the influx of Arab immigration, writing,

The Jews point with pride to the fact that over 500,000 Arabs in the 12 years between 1932 and 1944, came into Palestine to take advantage of living conditions existing in no other Arab state. This is the only country in the Near and Middle East where an Arab middle class is in existence.

Read all of Robert F Kennedys' reports from Palestine here 

Arab immigration to pre-state Israel during the British Mandate period has also been well documented in the "Rape of Palestine" (1938) by William Ziff, who has written:

"We should expect to find an exodus of Arabs from lands where Jews are settled. But exactly the opposite is true: it is precisely in the vicinity of those Jewish villages that Arab development is most marked. Arab Haifa, profiting from the Jewish boom grew from 1922 to 1936 by 130%, Jaffa by 80% and Jerusalem by 55%...In the vicinity of the Jewish villages Arab workers earn twice the wage paid in other parts of Palestine.

Once the poorest , sorriest population in this whole section of poverty stricken masses, the Arabs of Palestine are now the richest per capita of their race"

And:

Soon at Petach Tikvah a thriving agricultural colony was established. Jewish resettlement had begun in dead earnest. By 1883, three thousand of these hardy dreamers had landed in Jaffa .

Progress continued quietly and steadily. Arabs attracted by the magnetizing vitality of the returning Jew began to drift in from impoverished Syria , from Egypt , and from the desert wastes. Palestine was making enormous strides.”

Although there are some Arab families that can trace their history back for hundreds of years, the vast majority of the ancestors of today’s Palestinians were immigrants to pre-state Israel in recent historic times. 

Read Daniel's article in its entirety here.

For more information on Arab immigration to pre-state Israel, see

Who are the Palestinians?

The Smoking Gun: Arab Immigration into Palestine, 1922-1931