Sure, except Moses and the Jewish people were on the land around 1500 BC, and the Islamic religion didn't start until after 500 CE. So the Jewish people got there at least 2000 years earlier, so if we are doing the "who ethnically cleansed who" game, I think the Jewish people appear to be at most, reversing the previous ethnic cleansing? Or is there some kind of moral "expiry date" on ethnic cleansing?
This is a pretty heated thread, and I’m not trying to fan any flames: the Assyrians and Sumerians were there before that. It always seemed a bit arbitrary to me to claim land based on whose religion started first — although not quite as arbitrary as “my God said it’s mine, so there.” Plus I believe they claimed that Ashur promised the land to them.
I think we can all agree that the ancient Roman and Byzantine empires were not exactly gold standards in protecting human rights. However, the fact that something was done to the Jews thousands of years ago does not make it acceptable to do the same to another population today.
The birth of Islam did not cause a whole new race of people to spring from the ground, some of their ancestors lived in the region as well. And according to the Torah the Jewish people who came to that region with Moses during the exodus had to fight off the caananites and philistines before they could settle, so apparently itd been occupied for a while- not that I'd put too much stock in the ancient history thats come down to us, certainly not enough to enforce modern territorial claims
