People love clean slogans. “Palestine is Arab land.” “Jews were always there.” But the truth is older, messier, and layered with too many footprints to fit into one banner.
A Land of Many Names and Masters
Before Islam, Palestine was already a crossroads. Canaanites, Israelites, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines — each ruled and left their imprint. Jews built temples, Christians raised churches, and locals prayed in Aramaic long before Arabic came.
So when we ask “was Palestine an Arab land?” the answer depends on when we are looking. By the 7th century, yes, it became largely Arab in culture and language. But before that, it was a patchwork of faiths and peoples, layered like the stones of Jerusalem itself.
Why Arabs Conquered It
In 636 CE, Muslim armies under Caliph Umar defeated the Byzantines at Yarmouk. Jerusalem soon surrendered. This was not about Palestine alone. It was part of a larger expansion, where Islam spread on the ruins of two exhausted empires: Rome’s Byzantines and Persia’s Sassanids.
The Arab tribes did not invent conquest. They joined a long line of powers who claimed the land before them. But they brought something lasting — Arabic language, Islamic law, and a sense of belonging that still defines the region.
What About the Jews of Medina and Khaybar?
Long before, inside Arabia itself, Jewish tribes lived in Medina (then Yathrib) and Khaybar. They farmed, owned land, grew dates, and signed treaties with the Prophet Muhammad. But alliances cracked.
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Banu Qaynuqa and Banu Nadir were expelled after disputes.
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Banu Qurayza, accused of siding with enemies in wartime, faced execution.
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In Khaybar, Jews surrendered in 628 CE but stayed on as tenant farmers, giving Muslims half the harvest. Eventually Caliph Umar expelled them entirely.
Yes, they owned land. Yes, they lost it. Conquest in the 7th century was not polite.
The Trouble With Labels
So when people say “Palestine is Arab land,” they mean it became Arab after the Islamic conquest and stayed that way for centuries. But others point to the Jewish presence before, or the Christian Byzantines, or even older civilizations. Everyone has a piece of the story.
Think of a Palestinian farmer in Gaza today, standing by a patch of dry soil near Rafah where tomatoes barely grow. His grandfather once had an orchard in Jaffa, filled with citrus trees. The keys to that old house still hang in his family’s living room, though the house itself is gone.
Now think of a Jewish family in Tel Aviv, telling their children how their grandmother walked barefoot out of Lodz after the Holocaust. For them, Israel is not a conquest but a refuge — the only place they believe will not turn them away.
Both hold memory like it is property. Both say, “This land is ours.”
My Thought
It seems dangerous when modern politics tries to reduce this history into one-line slogans. Both Arabs and Jews can point to centuries of roots. Both can point to centuries of displacement. And when we forget the layers, we end up shouting past each other instead of learning why the soil feels sacred to so many.
Maybe the only honest answer is this: Palestine has always been many people’s land, which is why it keeps breaking hearts.
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