James Veverka: Arabs lived uninterrupted for over 10,000 years in the region

To The Daily Sun,

Sheila Kufert claims that Israel is not a settler-colonialist project. Its founders said it was. In 1896, founder Theodor Herzl wrote that Zionism is doing "important experiments in colonization". In a 1902 letter to Cecil Rhodes, he described the Zionist project as "something Colonial". In 1905, Zionism's co-founder, Max Nordau, said, "Zionism rejects on principle all colonization on a small scale, and the idea of 'sneaking' into Palestine". Ze'ev Jabotinsky, whose Revisionist Zionist Party was inspired by Benito Mussolini's fascism, supported the violent expulsion of the Arabs from Palestine. He claimed, "Zionism is a colonization adventure". Major organizations central to Israel's foundation owned their colonizing identity in their names or departments, such as the "Jewish Colonization Association", "The Jewish Colonial Trust", and The Jewish Agency's "Colonization Department".

Ms. Kufert claims that Palestine "was desert" when Jews were escaping the Holocaust. False. Look at these topographical and village maps before 1948: plands.org/en/maps-atlases/maps/palestine-features. According to the 1946 British Mandate government study for the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine, Palestinians harvested 690,548 tons of grains, vegetables, fruits, Olives, and Melons on 1.4 million acres in 1945. See palestineremembered.com/Acre/Palestine-Remembered/Story665.html. See also "Making the Desert Bloom: A Myth Examined" at palestine-studies.org/en/node/38553.

Ms. Kufert says, "Jews were in the region for almost 2,000 years before Islam even existed". Irrelevant. Jews and Arabs both share original Canaanite DNA going back over 10,000 years. About half of Canaanite DNA is linked to early farmers who settled in the Levant around 10,000 years ago. The other half is attributed to migrants from the Zagros Mountains of Iran, arriving 6,600 to 3,550 years ago. Arabs, descendants of Canaanites like Jews, extend back, living uninterrupted, for over 10,000 years in the region.

James Veverka

Laconia