Jews are not foreigners to the Land of Israel. Jewish peoplehood, civilisation and national memory originated there.
Key points
What to understand first
Israelite and Judahite societies and kingdoms are documented beyond the Bible.
Jerusalem was a Jewish national and religious centre many centuries before Islam emerged.
Conquest ended sovereignty for long periods but never erased Jewish peoplehood or attachment.
Jewish communities remained in the land, and return preceded modern political Zionism.
Israel restored the Jewish people’s ability to govern, defend and welcome Jews in their homeland.
Chronology
The chronology matters
A people called Israel
The Merneptah Stela provides the earliest widely accepted extra-biblical reference to Israel in Canaan. 20
Israel and Judah
Hebrew-speaking societies and kingdoms develop, with Jerusalem central to Judah. 4177980
Assyria conquers northern Israel
Assyria defeats the northern kingdom and deports part of its population. 4
Babylon destroys Jerusalem
Babylon conquers Judah, destroys the First Temple and deports part of the population. 417
Return under Persian rule
Persian policy permits Judean return and restoration while diaspora communities also continue. 417
Hasmonean Jewish sovereignty
A Jewish dynasty governs after revolt against Seleucid rule. 17
Rome destroys the Second Temple
Jewish national life suffers a profound rupture, but Jewish presence and memory continue. 5
Bar Kokhba revolt
Severe Roman repression brings destruction, restrictions and further displacement. 518
Arab Muslim conquest
Arab Muslim armies take Jerusalem from Byzantine rule many centuries after ancient Jewish statehood. 82
Dome of the Rock
The landmark Islamic shrine is completed on the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif. 83
Connect the events
Before Islam: a civilisation already rooted in the land
Jewish kingdoms
Israel and Judah form part of the documented ancient Near Eastern world. 417
Jerusalem and Hebrew culture
Jerusalem becomes Judah’s capital and Hebrew its national language. 8081
Exile and return
Conquest disperses part of the population; return and rebuilding follow under Persian rule. 4
Second Temple and Hasmonean sovereignty
Jewish religious and political life is renewed for centuries. 17
Roman Judaea and Jewish revolts
Rome suppresses Jewish sovereignty but does not erase Jewish life or memory. 518
Diaspora and continuing presence
Jewish communities persist while a dispersed people retains Jerusalem at its centre. 32223
Arab Muslim conquest centuries later
Islamic rule begins in the seventh century and adds another major religious history to Jerusalem. 8283
A world of Jewish communities
Many diasporas. One shared destination.
Ancient communities
Middle East
Iraq · Iran · Yemen · Syria · Egypt
Communities carried liturgy, scholarship, music and deep regional traditions into Israeli life. 3774
Sephardi and Mizrahi worlds
North Africa & Mediterranean
Morocco · Tunisia · Libya · Turkey · Balkans
Distinct languages, customs and institutions became central parts of modern Israel. 3774
Ashkenazi diasporas
Europe
Poland · Russia · France · Germany and beyond
Political organising, Hebrew renewal and institution-building joined older traditions of return. 1974
Diverse Jewish homelands
Africa & Asia
Ethiopia · Central Asia · India
Their return demonstrates the worldwide breadth of Jewish peoplehood and the ingathering of exiles. 74
Jews and Muslims are not equivalent categories
Judaism is a religion, but Jews are also a historic people with shared cultural, linguistic, historical and national traditions. Islam is a universal religion practised by many peoples and nations. The historically useful comparison is therefore between Jewish peoplehood and other national peoples, while recognising that Judaism, Christianity and Islam each attach religious significance to Jerusalem.
The archaeological evidence does not depend on the Bible
The historical case does not require treating scripture as an archaeology textbook. The Merneptah Stela names a people called Israel in Canaan around 1208 BCE. The ninth-century BCE Tel Dan Stele refers to the “House of David.” Assyrian royal records name Judah, King Hezekiah and Jerusalem, while Hebrew inscriptions illuminate administration and literacy in ancient Judah. 20798081
Museums and scholars continue to debate the scale and exact chronology of particular reigns and events. Yet ancient Israelite and Judahite societies, Hebrew culture and Jewish kingdoms in the land are established historical subjects—not inventions of modern Zionism. 41781
Jerusalem was Jewish before it was Muslim
Jerusalem was the capital of Judah and the centre of Jewish national and religious life centuries before Christianity or Islam existed. The First and Second Temples stood on the site known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif. Rome destroyed the Second Temple in 70 CE. 517
Islam emerged in the seventh century, and Arab Muslim armies took Jerusalem from Byzantine rule in the 630s. The Dome of the Rock was completed in 691–692, and Jerusalem became deeply sacred in Islamic tradition. Muslim religious significance does not erase the much older Jewish connection. 8283
Jews did not disappear
There was no single moment when every Jew left. Conquest, deportation, enslavement, migration and persecution changed Jewish demography repeatedly, yet communities remained or re-formed across the centuries. 345
The Old Yishuv—the long-established Jewish population before the First Aliyah—was especially associated with Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed and Tiberias. Modern Zionist immigrants joined an existing Jewish presence rather than creating the first Jewish community in the land. 319
Exile changed where Jews lived. It did not erase where Jewish civilisation came from.
Diaspora did not dissolve Jewish peoplehood. Communities shared Hebrew texts, festivals, historical memory, law and networks across continents. They faced Jerusalem in prayer, mourned its destruction, invoked it in the Amidah, ended Passover with “Next year in Jerusalem,” and marked weddings with remembrance of the city. 2223
The Land of Israel remained built into Jewish religious practice and collective identity. Political Zionism transformed that inherited attachment into organised return, institution-building and sovereignty.
Why historical connection matters
The Jewish case is stronger than a slogan about who arrived first. Jewish peoplehood originated in the land; Jewish sovereignty existed there; Jewish communities endured there; diaspora culture preserved attachment to it; Jews repeatedly returned; modern Jewish society developed there before statehood; and Israel restored national self-determination there. 3121920
The Jewish people came home from many lands
Some Zionist immigrants came from Europe; many Jews did not. Communities in Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Syria, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Turkey, the Balkans, Ethiopia, Central Asia and India preserved distinct Jewish traditions alongside a shared orientation toward Jerusalem and the Land of Israel. Israel is the national home of a globally dispersed people, not an extension of one foreign country. 3774
The argument is that Jews belong
The evidence establishes a clear historical foundation: Jewish civilisation developed in the land; Jewish kingdoms existed there; Jerusalem stood at the centre of Jewish life long before Islam; conquest and diaspora did not erase Jewish identity; communities remained; return continued; and Zionism restored national self-determination.
For Zionism, the essential proposition remains: the Jewish people have the right to national self-determination in the land where their peoplehood, language, history and national civilisation originated.