I’ll be blunt. Yes JEWS were absent from their indigenous lands of development for 2000years. Yes of course surrounding Arabs moved in to fill the void. They’d be crazy not too. Yes populations shift, evolve, replace. In any case JEWS flooded back at their weakest. Done. Arabs had three chances and blew it. Permanently. Jews secured their foothold and maintain their security with uncompromising terrible impositions. But untenable and poisonous to all. Sadly necessary. Would Palestinians prefer the Muslim tyrant reality of mass grave pits? Lucky their enemies aren’t brethren arabs. 70 years ISRAEL outdoes its neighbours in every measure. 1400 years of “true revelation” oppression and voilà - 22 unstable, dysfunctional corrupt backward outdoor Mediaeval museum-display-nations swallowing 98.5% of the Middle East - all underpinned by sharia brutality & 66%illiteracy. As if the planet needs a 23rd. 22 are more than enough.

Dear Plantagenet,

«The State of Israel is the main, legal and most effective representative of the Jewish people in the Middle East.»

Still, a significant proportion of the Jews which it claims to represent, forming a significant minority in the Middle East and the majority of Jews overall, do not wish to be represented by the State of Israel.

While the State of Israel is the legitimate representative of its citizens (including non-Jews), there is currently no legitimate representative of the Jews as such.

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Dear Paddo_on,

«JEWS were absent from their indigenous lands of development for 2000years»

False. Jews were continuously present in Israel, nor were they exiled by the Romans (as the common myth goes - they were only exiled for a while from the city of Jerusalem). Jews were in the majority until the 4th century and mid that "2000 years" period, Jews fought alongside Muslims to defend themselves and Jerusalem from the crusaders. Their numbers dwindled gradually down to the 16th century when only ~2000 were left, then grew again, but one Jewish family remained the whole time in the village of Peki'in.

In any case, a large proportion of the "Arabs" who are now erroneously called "Palestinians", are descendants of the original Jewish population. While they were regrettably forced to convert into Islam around the 9th century, they never left their indigenous land.

But should you claim that it is religion rather than ethnicity which defines who is a Jew, then the majority of "Jews" in Israel (including PM Netanyahu) are secular and do not follow the commandments of their religion. According to the bible, their ownership of the land of Israel is conditional on their observance of the biblical commandments.

Yuyutsu, you missed my point by splitting yarmulkas and then created one from a wrong assumption.
My point was yes JEWS were there in some national form with numbers to sustain their development and ownership, and then they weren’t (isolated pockets continuously but no longer a nation, until 1947 when the nation of Jewish people was reestablished with an increasing ability to hold and protect it. Permanently. In between squatters understandably moved in. Now they have to go.
So: JEWS were there, then they weren’t. Squatters moved in. Their allies tried three times to massacre every pesky returned Jew and blew it. Dismally. All over rover. There comes a time after several attempts to wipe out your enemy who moved back into his long vacant now crumbling house you’d been enjoying (but not repairing), kicked you out but didn’t kill you (like your brothers and cousins would have) and you get walloped each time instead, that maybe you stop claiming your defeats are victories and you still deserve and demand the spoils. You admit defeat, get out and get on with life elsewhere. THAT has to happen now. Jews are back and they ain’t going nowhere again as a people.

40%of Jews are agnostic or atheist. 90% support a secular enlightened state. It’s only Quasi-taliban extremist crazies who try to coerce everyone into obeying their particular tyranny.

Dear Paddo_ron,

For any meaningful conversation, you need to define who are these JEWS, those whom you presume, were there, then weren't, then are there again.

Is Jewishness determined by race, or by religion?
And who is to judge - the Nazis? The Rabbis? The Torah? The United-Nations?

Unless you claim that "a Jew" is anyone who considers themselves as such, the current citizens of Israel have only a slight overlap with the original people who lived in Israel in biblical times. This doesn't make them illegitimate (as some here claim) - it just means that they cannot automatically inherit the privileges of former inhabitants.

Yuyutsu: ok cool. I can incorporate a shift in focus despite the fact of the irrelevance of any non-Jew’s opinion defining Jewishness. Even moreso then using that opinion as a springboard to determine land title validity by genetic co-efficient measure of Jewishness.
Jews are a people. As they have defined themselves as being born of a Jewish mother, born Jewish or converted in a manner accepted by the broader Jewish community. The brilliance of course being you ALWAYS know who the mother is. That’s why paternal claims have never defined Jewishness.
So whether these 2000 years generations of mothers had non Jewish liaisons each offspring is equally Jewish and accepted as such by the Jewish community. Yes Judaism was the religion embraced by the Hebrews and carried forward. But as most ethnically distinct nations and especially as Jews there’s no monolith. Some believe in god. Some don’t. They are equally Jewish. (And no a person is not Jewish by claiming so. The community defines itself.

As for claim to the land, it’s never been ceded, not treatied away. Emotional-spiritual ownership and love remained unbroken in every diaspora Jews heart for two thousand years. And the Jews who are there HAVE IT. Period. They have REclaimed and REoccupied those lands. THEIR lands. The proof is in the pudding. Try to take those lands away and you’ll be absolutely clear who owns them for real whether you or anyone else likes it or not.

Dear Paddo_ron,

Alright, you selected the Rabbinical definition.

According to this legendary view, the Jewish people were formed when they received the Torah at Mt. Sinai and since then maintained the same constitution, including its memberships conditions and the religious nature of conversion. Accordingly, it was then when the group entered a covenant with God, which also gives them the land of Israel, conditional on observing God's commandments.

Critical historical science tells us that this event at Mt. Sinai never occurred, also that the Jewish people were only formed towards the end of the 7th century B.C., never mind.

By this definition, most of today's Jews are matrilineal descendants of Caucasian converts from the kingdom of Khazaria, converted around the 8th century, while another significant group of Jews consists of the majority of "Palestinian" farmers (as opposed to nomad Bedouins), with an even longer Jewish matrilineal chain, who now happen to mostly follow Islam.

One problem with this approach is the conflict with an earlier biblical covenant:
"In the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates" [Genesis 15:18].

- "Unto thy seed" includes most Arabs, "Palestinians" and Sepharadic Jews, but not the Caucasian converts. All this is written in the Torah, the very book which converts to Judaism are supposed to accept and revere.

So what then grants the land of Israel to the Jews?

1) God's promise? No. If you believe in this, then you face the above conflict, as well as the problem of non-observance.
2) Continuous longing? Not for the majority who converted long after, nor for the many who left Israel over the centuries for economic reasons.
3) Sheer force, just HAVING IT? Perhaps, but unacceptable by modern standards. This is no better than China. ALSO, the current owner of the land of Israel is the State of Israel, which is only 75% Jewish.

Israel belongs to the Israelis, not to the Jews... or perhaps you like to try a different definition?