Myth and Reality

Jews who visit Israel are entitled to a propaganda barrage, including the tidbit that Arabs didn't live in Palestine before Zionism. Arun has up a film shot in Palestine in 1896, likely the first film shot there*. Whether or no, it gives a realistic picture of Palestine 115 years ago - one that does not match the propaganda.

It's true, of course, that the population of Palestine was much smaller and more rural in those days, but that's true of the rest of the world as well. At no time before 1948 did Jews outnumber Muslims in Palestine, even in the orginal Israel. The war and large scale ethnic cleansing changed that.
*So far as I can tell the film is authentic, one of a large number shot around the world by the company of the Lumieres brothers.

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