FACTS AND SURPRISES

Without the Jews, without Israel, what would their land be now? Nothing. That's right--nothing.
It would be no different than the desolate, denuded and depopulated stretch of desert which Mark Twain described so vividly in Innocents Abroad.
When Twain published this book in 1870, there were no more then 250,000 people scratching out profoundly bare livings(if that) in what is today Israel proper PLUS Judea, Samaria and Gaza. Fifty years later, in 1920, the population had doubled. Now why would this have happened? The Arabs of 1920 were no better nourished (and, hence, more resistant to diseases) than those of 1870. Nor had Western medicine penetrated in what became the Palestine mandate. So--whence the increase?

Because the Jews had started coming back, that's why. And they brought jobs and business opportunities. Which, in turn, brought in Arab immigration as well. Also, the Jews started returning 15 years before Herzl's Congress of Basel in 1897.
So both the Arab and the Jewish populations increased by immigration--so that by 1920, Eretz Israel was populated by 500,000 'Arabs' and about 75,000 Jews. And between 1920 and 1948 (the 'Mandate' years) Arab immigration continued to be a bit more than Jewish immigration: 558,000 'Arabs'; 498,000 Jews. By 1948, the Palestine mandate contained 650,000 Jews and 1.2 million Arabs. Nearly all this population, both Jewish and Arab, had immigrated to Eretz Israel within the previous sixty years!! The 'Arab' population has no greater right to Eretz Israel than do the Jews and I for one say that the only way they have equal rights to the land is if they wake up and recognize the Jews as their brethren. For that, according to the work done by Tsvi Misinai in his Engagement Project, is exactly what they are!! Misinai has taken DNA samples from a large section of the 'Arab' population of Israel, etc. and found Jewish--not Edomite, not even ancient Hebrew or Israelite, but Jewish--DNA 'markers' on better than ninety percent of the 'Arab' population!!
Which gives rise to an interesting question: why did these 'Arabs' immigrate to 'Palestine' as opposed to their neighbors in Cairo, Damascus, Jiddah and so on? By the time they came to 'Palestine' they were, on the surface, indistinguishable from their Arab neighbors. When life came back into the Holy Land from Europe, was their something in these 'Arabs'' DNA or, more likely, their unconscious, which said, 'Time to go home'?
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day, so I hope I can venture even Mitt Romney was at least not wrong to say, 'Culture makes all the difference'. The 'Palestinians' (with the apparent exception of Salam Fayyad and his acolytes) are far more interested in murdering their brethren than in building their own institutions. I just pray (literally) the 'Palestinians' haven't been completely ruined by being part of such a death-deifying culture!
I expect this post to infuriate a large number of people on both sides for many different reasons. But allow me to ask this question, which is especially addressed to all those who have begun to walk with, and know, G-d: isn't one of the things He is at least likely to do is to bring enemies to a face-off and then somehow arrange for the 'masks' to be removed and have brethren rediscover each other as such? To me (and, not meaning to boast, G-d graciously walks with me) it is very much something the G-d I know would do: part of His ways is often to either stand our preconceptions on their heads OR to knock them ninety degrees askew. I also invite my readers to check my facts (they can all be googled) and also to look up Tsvi Misinai and the Engagement Project. It's all there; it's all true.
Finally, however unlikely it may seem, I'd advise the Israeli government to prepare to 'assimilate' as many 'Palestinians' as may be possible to do over any period of time. The Haredi population might prove of considerable help in this, I'll venture! Or, in an Israel that needs all the secularity it can get right now, would that prove counterproductive? I don't know, so I'll leave those judgments to those on the ground of Israel.