One of the most frequently repeated falsehoods about the entire Palestinian issue is that neither Britain nor the UN had any right to divide Palestine and that the act of such division meant theft of land owned by Arabs and giving it to the Jews.
This is entirely a lie.
First of all, the topics of land ownership and statehood or political administration are completely unrelated.
Arabs did, indeed, own vast majority of land in Palestine (Jews had only 7% in late 1940s) but they never had their own country.
For a few hundred years it was a part of the Ottoman Empire, which local Arabs were the subjects of, before administration was transferred to the British after the Empire's collapse following World War I. In other words, quite regardless of who was in charge, they still had their property.
The mandate to govern Palestine by the British, finalized by the League of Nations by 1922, compelled them i.a. to create a Jewish homeland in the territories limited to the west of the Jordan river.
At the same time, however, it did not state that any property would or should be transferred between different ethnic groups.
The subsequent Partition Plan for Palestine, passed as Resolution 181 by the United Nations in 1947, after World War 2, specifically stipulated in point no. 8 that: "No expropriation of land owned by an Arab in the Jewish State (by a Jew in the Arab State) shall be allowed except for public purposes. In all cases of expropriation full compensation as fixed by the Supreme Court shall be paid previous to dispossession."
In other words, while the plan laid out creation of two separate states, Arabs would still own most of the land in newly founded Israel. They would effectively be the landlords of Jews, who would have to purchase or rent property from them at fair, market value.
Nobody wanted to steal anything from private Arab owners and give it to Jews.
In fact, the plan greatly favoured Arabs. Not only would they have their own, ethnically homogeneous country, they would also form a significant percentage of the population in the Jewish state AND would continue to own most of the land in both, as well as independently governed Jerusalem.
Unfortunately, they boycotted the UN talks entirely, refused to cooperate with the international mission visiting Palestine, collecting documentation and testimonies, and chose to start a war against Jews right after the document was passed by the United Nations.
It was only in the aftermath of this war – that the Arabs started, lost and were forced to flee to safety – that they lost their land.
So, really, their claims of being robbed are really rather ridiculous.
It's as if your neighbour came to your house trying to murder your family, but was successfully chased away – only to now return and say "I'm not at all sorry I tried to kill you, I don't think you have any right to exist but can I have my land back?".
What?
AND YET, despite this, Israel has actually been ready to compensate displaced Arabs ever since the war ended (and it remains an issue that is to be resolved).
It did, however, maintain conditions that Palestinians have to provide documentation of ownership of property and that Arab claims would have to be settled against Jewish claims from hundreds of thousands of Jews who were chased out of Arab countries leaving their property behind before – not something that you hear often in the news.
So, really, the tale of "oppression", "theft" and "displacement" of Palestinians is really a story of self-inflicted harm, little else.
