About the map that Peter Tatchell showed. And which Alan Dershowitz demolished, in the Oxford Union debate, above.
It is highly misleading.
In 1948, just as the State of Israel was created, by the newly-formed United Nations, where were Jews and Muslims living in the land. Tatchell's map makes it seem that there were only Muslim Arabs, that the Jews were only a tiny minority, in a few tiny pockets of land.
That's simply not true.
As Dershowitz says, a large part of the land was owned by the State. At the time, that State was British Mandatory Palestine.
Jews were all over that land, as they had been for over 3,000 years. The Muslims only there since they'd raided and looted the land in the 7th Century, 2,300 years later than the Jews.
"Palestinians" were not known as Palestinians then, but as Arabs, or as Levantine Arabs. They were late comers. Either from the earlier colonialist invasions by Muslim Arab armies from the East, or from incoming Levantine Arab settlers that came to work on Jewish lands. (there were lots of those).
The Jews that were there had either already owned the land since time immemorial, or they'd bought the land from absentee landlords, mostly in Turkey, some in Syria. The latter were happy to sell to Jews, by the way, as the Jews paid good prices. (for which they were hammered -- of course! -- for being "opportunistic" and "exploitative". Had they simply taken the land, they would have been "thieves" and "genocidal", so there's no winning on that one).
To paint this whole area as being "Palestinian", as does Tatchell, and anyone who waves this map around, is hugely misleading. It would be like painting the whole of the United States as white, because most of its population are caucasian. But there are plenty of other ethnicities as well. Such a pic would be misleading. We'd call it out. But the Tatchell map, it fits the narrative of "Israel horrid", so dupes like Tatchell are quite happy to wave it around.
In what is present day Israel, there were Jews and there were Muslims. In some places more Jews than Arabs, in others the reverse. But to paint it all as one ethno-religion, Arab Muslim, is to eradicate all the Jews that were there at the time.
And, come the time of Independence, the Jews were offered a small slice of this land, the Arabs a much larger slice. Something close to the actual numbers at the time. The Jews accepted their share, even as they believed it was unfair. The Arabs did not. And began a war. Which they lost. And have been losing ever war since.
That's the story.
