Jeffrey Sachs

That's ours.

That's part of the promised land.

That's not theirs, even though...

the palestinian people were living there for well over a thousand years probably incidentally according to some historical studies and interpretations perhaps jews who converted to islam in the 7th century

When Islam swept across the Eastern Mediterranean and North Africa in its foundational moments, the Islamic societies,

Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates enabled Jews and Christians to live within the Islamic lands and to live peacefully and to govern themselves primarily, but to pay a tax.

And so as a way to avoid taxes, many people converted.

We know this.

And probably today's Palestinians, many of them are, you know, descendants from across centuries of Jews who were the settlers, you know, who were living there before the seventh century sweep of Islam across the land.

That's a footnote.

Even David Ben-Gurion, the so-called founder of the State of Israel, held that view in the 1930s and 40s, calling the Palestinians really the original Jews of the land who probably converted and became the Palestinians.

But today... Wait, Ben-Gurion said that?

Yeah, the idea was Jews are, instead of a religion, in their view, these were not religious people, by the way.

They didn't consult with the rabbi, so it's all very ironic.

But in their view, Jews are not a religion.

They are a people.

And in the ideology of Europe of the late 19th century, a people needs a state.

And so, yeah.

The idea was there should be a Jewish state.

That was the name of the founder of Jewish Zionism, Theodor Herzl's first book, The Jewish State.