Arabization and Ethnic Cleansing (the fairy tale of "indigenous Palestinians" exposed (my title))
"At the beginning of the conquest....the conquered populations of the Orient were still using their national languages: Aramaic (Iraq, Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine), Coptic (Egypt), and Pahlavi (Persia), and the foundations of Arab power were still weak. Consequently, notwithstanding their repugnance, the caliphs and their governors had to resort to the services of local Christian or Jewish administrators, a situation which risked jeopardizing the performance of their power. It therefore became imperative to consolidate Islamic politico-military domination by a demographic increase in Arab numbers and by Muslim legislation to stabilize the situation....These two phases, which roughly corresponded to the period of Arabization under the Umayyads [661-750 A.D.] and of Islamization under the Abbasids [750-1517 A.D.] , defintitely ensured the Arab-Muslim hold on the conquered lands and population.
In fact, the postconquest period was a time of intensive Arab colonization dictated by strategic requirements. For whereas pursuit of the ongoing jihad procured considerable booty and cemented Islamic solidarity, these battles in far-off lands weakened the Arab military presence in the conquered countries. To mitigate this danger, Umar, and particularly Uthman, adopted a policy of Arab colonization pursued by their successors.
The continuous migration of whole tribes with their flocks---tribes originating from different regions of Arabia and often hostile to one another---not only created problems of settlement in towns and country areas that were among the most fertile and most highly populated, it also gave rise to difficulties regarding subsidies and cohabitation with the native population, the nomads being adverse to agricultural and urban occupations.
The flow of migration, duly controlled by the Arab military administration, was directed toward specific regions. Certain tribes joined up with military population centers: Basra and Kufa in Iraq, Fustat in Egpt for example: others received the vast domains farmed by the native inhabitants reduced to slavery or bond service (Iraq, Egypt, Spain, the Maghreb). In Palestine and Syria, tribes from Yemen and nomads from Hijaz settled in the towns and countryside where they took over houses and lands...
This Arabization had disastrous effects on the native populations, as the confiscation of lands by the invaders and the appropriation of houses and villages did not take place without plundering and abuse. This emigration had four major consequences. First, the total area of the conquered lands was seized by a tribe originating from Mecca, who exercised their military authority through nomadic Arab tribes. Second, the massive Arab emigration engendered endemic anarchy in countries where hitherto, in comparison with the native population, they had only constituted tiny minorities on the desert fringes.....Moreover, during this period of Arabization in the Near East, the caliph Abd al-Malik (685-705) forbade the use of native languages in the adminsitration, replacing them with Arabic. Thus emigration into countries of settled civilization by nomads, who were strengthened in their bellicose habits by the ideology of jihad and by their victories, increased the instability, while plundering turned cultivated areas into deserts." (Bat Ye'or, The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam (1996)pp.58-60).
Your history excerpt is very interesting, but so are the figures for the 1918 census:
Muslim Arabs 512,000
Christian Arabs 61,000
Jews 66,000
Those numbers seem a good deal more pertinent to today's world than a potted history lesson re. 1300 years ago.
Further proof why Palestine national ambitions must be recognised (along and in conjunction with Israel's of course) comes from Vladimir Jabotinsky, who I imagine is a poster boy of yours for his militarism. Jabotinsky said of the palestinians:
"They are not a rabble but a nation, perhaps somewhat tattered but still living." I could provide other quotes but I'm leaving for a wedding and don't have time to transcribe them. You no doubt know them anyway.
It's fashionable to dismiss Jabotinsky, of course, as Ben-Gurion (born David Grien) did when he called him "Vladimir Hitler." But Gurion also had some similar thoughts:
"We shall organise...an elite army.....and then I am sure we shall not be prevented from settling in other parts of the country, whether through mutual understanding with our Arab neighbors, or by other means."
Now, remember, I'm a moderate. But if Israel and indeed the world is ever to get any peace, Israel's origins can't be simply denied. There are people living in squalor and another groupo of people living in a constant state of defiant fear.
There can be no either/or solution. It has to be a viable compromise.
Now you can begin calling me a Jew-hater.