weberc2 ☕️Reflecting on the #israelpalestine conflict, ethnic land claims are a strange thing. #jews have a strong claim to the land having deep roots in the area including the more than 50% of #israeli Jews who never left the #levant. #palestinian land claims mostly revolve around rejecting their #arab -ness i.e., the Palestinian people’s ancestors inhabited the region and eventually adopted the language and culture of their oppressors/colonizers (to use the verbiage of Israel’s critics).
Moreover, no ethnicity has “pure” regional ancestry. Both the #jewish and #palestinian gene pools have varying degrees of admixture as they interacted with other peoples. Many Jews were exiled into #europe where they mixed to a degree with Southern #europeans and Palestinians and #sephardic Jews mixed with #arabs #byzantines #crusaders and so on. How do you litigate land claims when #ethnicity is so very mercurial, ephemeral, arbitrary?