Introduction
One of the most persistent accusations levelled against Israel and the Jewish people is that they “stole Arab land.” This claim has become a cornerstone of modern anti-Zionist rhetoric and is frequently repeated as an unquestioned moral premise in international discourse. Yet when examined historically, the accusation collapses. Far from reflecting the actual sequence of events, it inverts the historical record and obscures a far more complex – and uncomfortable – truth.
We combat lies about Israel with truth and logic. In this case I put forward historical facts; I could also argue from a biblical perspective but will refrain from that in this article.
The narrative of Jewish land theft was largely constructed in the mid-20th century by a convergence of Soviet “zionology,” Arab nationalist propaganda, and later Palestinianist activism. Its purpose was not historical clarity but political delegitimization: to portray the Jewish state as a colonial usurper rather than as the product of indigenous return, legal land purchase, and survival in the face of aggression.
When history is examined chronologically, it becomes evident that the largest and most systematic land thefts in the region were perpetrated not by Jews against Arabs, but by Arab nationalists and Islamist regimes against Jewish communities – both in the Land of Israel and throughout the wider Muslim world.
Jewish Presence and Dispossession Before 1948
Long before the establishment of the State of Israel, Jews lived continuously in cities such as Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed, Tiberias, and Gaza. These were not European colonies or modern “settlements,” but ancient communities rooted in the land for many centuries, and in many cases millennia.
In 1929 – nearly two decades before Israel’s independence and almost forty years before any Jewish settlement activity in what is now called Area C of the West Bank – Arab nationalist violence led to the ethnic cleansing of Jews from Hebron and Gaza. (Ref: https://unpacked.education/video/the-hebron-massacre-of-1929/) In Hebron, a Jewish community that traced its presence back thousands of years was massacred and expelled. Survivors were forcibly removed, and their homes and property were lost. In Gaza, Jews were likewise driven out under threat of violence.
These expulsions were not the result of war with a Jewish state, nor of territorial disputes over sovereignty. They occurred under British rule and were motivated by rising Arab nationalism and religious incitement against Jews as Jews. The land vacated by these expelled Jewish communities was not “returned” later – it was violently taken by Arabs.
The 1948 War and Arab Initiated Displacement
The 1948 Arab-Israeli War (ref: https://israeled.org/the-arab-israeli-war-of-1948-a-short-history/) is often portrayed as a story of unilateral Jewish aggression and Arab victimhood. In reality, the war began when five Arab armies invaded the newly declared State of Israel with the explicit aim of destroying it. Arab leaders made clear their intention to prevent any form of Jewish sovereignty in the region.
It was this war – initiated by Arab states – that led to the displacement of many Arab residents of Mandatory Palestine. Some fled active combat zones, some were urged to leave temporarily by Arab leaders who promised a swift victory, and others were expelled while fighting. However tragic these displacements were, they were the result of a war launched by the Arab side, not an unprovoked campaign of ethnic cleansing by Jews.
At the same time, far less attention is paid to what happened to Jewish communities in the territories conquered by Arab forces.
Jordan’s Illegal Occupation of Judea and Samaria
When the Arab Legion of Transjordan invaded Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) in 1948, it completed the ethnic cleansing that had begun earlier. Every Jewish community in the region was destroyed or expelled. Jews who had lived for generations in places such as Gush Etzion, the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem, and other towns were forcibly removed. Some were killed; the rest were expelled.
By the end of Jordan’s invasion, not a single Jew remained in Judea and Samaria. Their land, homes, synagogues, and cemeteries were confiscated or destroyed. The Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem – an area literally named for its Jewish inhabitants – was depopulated of Jews, its synagogues demolished, and the area rebranded under Jordanian rule.
This occupation, which lasted from 1948 to 1967, was never internationally recognized as legal. Yet during this period, Jews were barred entirely from living in or even visiting their holy sites, including the Western Wall.
If land theft is to be identified, it is difficult to find a clearer example.
The Mass Expulsion of Jews from the Muslim World
Perhaps the greatest act of collective land theft and ethnic cleansing in the modern Middle East occurred not in Israel at all, but across the broader Muslim world. (ref: https://www.worldjewishcongress.org/en/news/the-expulsion-of-jews-from-arab-countries-and-iran–an-untold-history)
In the years following Israel’s independence, approximately 850,000 to one million Jews were expelled or forced to flee from Arab and Muslim-majority countries. These Jews – Sephardic, Mizrahi, Persian, and Babylonian – had lived in places such as Iraq, Egypt, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, and North Africa for centuries, often long before the Arab Islamic conquests.
In Iraq alone, Jews had lived continuously since the Babylonian Exile more than 2,500 years ago. A century ago, roughly one-third of Baghdad’s population was Jewish, as was a significant portion of Mosul’s. In 1950–51, the Iraqi government passed laws stripping Jews of citizenship, confiscating their property, freezing their assets, and legalizing their expulsion. Homes, businesses, synagogues, and communal property were seized by the state.
Similar processes unfolded across the Arab world. This was not accidental displacement – it was systematic, state-sanctioned ethnic cleansing carried out as collective punishment for Arab defeat in the 1947-48 war.
The descendants of these refugees today make up a substantial portion – indeed, a majority – of Israel’s Jewish population.
A Telling Demographic Contrast
One fact alone exposes the moral inversion at the heart of the “stolen land” accusation: today, there are more Arab citizens of Israel living with full civil rights than there are Jews left in the entire Muslim world.
Arab Israelis vote, serve in parliament, sit on the Supreme Court, work in every sector of society, and retain citizenship in their ancestral homeland. By contrast, ancient Jewish communities across the Middle East have been virtually erased.
If Israel were truly engaged in ethnic cleansing or systematic land theft, this demographic reality would be impossible.
Conclusion: History Turned Upside Down
The claim that Jews “stole Arab land” is not a conclusion derived from history – it is a political slogan imposed upon it. When the historical record is examined honestly, a very different picture emerges: one in which Jewish communities were repeatedly dispossessed, expelled, and stripped of land long before and long after Israel’s independence.
None of this denies the suffering of Arab refugees or the complexity of the conflict. But historical honesty demands symmetry and accuracy. The Middle East did not witness a one-sided act of dispossession; it witnessed a regional war, followed by the near-total erasure of Jewish life from lands where it had existed for millennia.
To speak of stolen land without acknowledging this history is not merely selective – it is a profound distortion of reality.
Finally, I am a Zionists! What does that mean?
Simply: Zionism is a movement for (originally) the re-establishment and (now) the development and protection of a Jewish nation in their traditional homeland of Eretz Israel.
We all should be Zionists.
