"The Palestinians represent a bloodline whose claim to this area is at least as ancient as the Jews."

BECKY: Few people here know that the PA recently passed its constitution (2003). One of the provisions is that the PA is an Islamic state. So for all of you who froth at the mouth about "religious states" where is your protestation about the PA? Oh, and why don't you protest Sweden too, while you are at it, which has a state religion too ---Lutheran?

As for history:

Since Mohammed, the chief prophet for Islam wasn't even born until 570 AD. Abraham, Judaism's patriarch, "bought land" in Hebron c. 2000 BC. (read your Bible/Torah). My math indicates that the patriarch of Judaism --Abraham lived 2570 years before Mohammed. So the Jewish people lived in Israel 2600 years before the Muslims.

Mohammed never visited Jerusalem in his lifetime. The name Jerusalem is not in the Koran. Jerusalem is in the Torah over 700 times.

The Jewish religion is over 4,000 years old, making it the oldest of the major Western religions. Islam is a relative late-comer.

Most Palestinians in Israel are Jordanian. Many are ethnically Lebanese, Syrian, Saudi Arabian, and Egyptian. Claims of the Palestinians being the indigenous people have been largely oversold. David Meir-Levi has written a very detailed analysis of available census data for the land of Israel and he found that the Arab immigration tailed closely the Jewish immigration, spurred on by the jobs the Israelis created in agriculture and in industry.

Nor has this been anything but a boon to those Arabs who were drawn to settle in Israel.

Palestinian Arabs today enjoy a much higher level of education than any other Arab country.
Under Israeli occupation (1967 - 1993) Per income capita grew ten-fold with unemployment at 5%. Infant mortality rates plunged by 2/3. Women voted for the 1st time in Palestinian Arab history. Illiteracy dropped from 50% to 30%. Palestinian population has tripled since 1967.

The 1949 UNESCO ruling declared that any Arab who had lived in Israel for at least 2 years prior to 1948 "counted" as a Palestinian Arab. That means a very large percentage of Palestinian Arabs are not indigenous to the area at all. Ariel Sharon was born in Israel. Arafat was born in Egypt. Mustapha Bargouti was born in the USA. Edward Said, was born in Jerusalem to an American mother and an Egyptian father, and then was raised in Egypt. Not much of a connection with "Palestine."

By contrast, Jewish connection with the land of Israel (which has exact borders written in the Torah)go back 3,300 years. Not only did Israel rule for over a 1000 years in ancient times, there has been a continuous presence of Jews in the area for over 4000 years. Hebron was a Jewish city until 1929.

Palestinian nationhood or a national identity as Palestinians came quite late and AFTER a crushing defeat in 1967, a full 20 years AFTER Israel declared its independence. Prior to 1967, the Palestinians called themselves "Arabs".

So much for the "indigenous" Palestinians and the "colonialist" Israelis.