Jewish People are Indigenous to Israel

According to World Bank, indigenous people are defined as:

“distinct social and cultural groups that share collective ancestral ties to the lands and natural resources where they live, occupy or from which they have been displaced. The land and natural resources on which they depend are inextricably linked to their identities, cultures, livelihoods, as well as their physical and spiritual well-being. They often subscribe to their customary leaders and organizations for representation that are distinct or separate from those of the mainstream society or culture. Many Indigenous Peoples still maintain a language distinct from the official language or languages of the country or region in which they reside.”

Every archaeological discovery in and out of modern-day Israel shows a clear Jewish presence that has been in and around Jerusalem for thousands of years. They predate Islam and Christianity. To be indigenous, one must have ancient claims to the land, which is only the Jewish people.

When it comes to who is indigenous among different groups claiming to be the first, the evidence matters. Indigenous is who has been on the land the longest or has older ancestral ties, since it includes people who have been displaced.

From CNN on October 30, 2008, Archeologist finds 3,000-year old Hebrew text:

“Carbon dating of the ostracon, along with pottery analysis, dates the inscription to time of King David, about a millennium earlier than the famous Dead Sea Scrolls, the university said.”

The language found was clearly Hebrew, which is one of the only languages used by the Jewish people then and now. To put the time in context, it was before the splitting of Israel into two kingdoms, which predates the Assyrians scattering ten tribes.

There have been numerous pottery fragments dating back thousands of years with Hebrew writing showing a consistent Jewish presence in modern-day Israel.

Numerous scrolls predating Islam and Christianity have been found showing Hebrew as a common language over a long period of time. Just like the pottery, scrolls provide evidence of an ancient Jewish people living in and around what is modern-day Israel.

Ancient coins have been discovered going as far back as the 4^th Century BCE/BC right through the Crusaders. The coins prove a consistent Jewish people who have lived there. They all have Hebrew writing to show consistency of a people who predate everyone else.

The Jewish Virtual Library has links to each of the coins to show the varying dates.

A group of people do not need to live in the land for them to be considered indigenous, since it includes those who have been displaced. Ethiopian Jews who continue to flee to Israel have similar beliefs and customs as those who lived in Israel without ever leaving who go back thousands of years. By definition, the Ethiopian Jews are indigenous to Israel.

The Jewish people who were scattered throughout Europe and ruthlessly persecuted when they weren’t being slaughtered in pogroms and death camps, can prove ancestral origin lies in Israel. The written language of Hebrew never changed.

Anyone else claiming to be indigenous that is not Jewish has no evidence to support their claim. No one, other than the Jewish people, can prove their ancestry goes back even close to those who descended from the Ancient Israelis.

When it comes to claims of whose people has lived on given land the longest, since time does matter to be indigenous, no one else has the records to prove any claim to the land of Israel that predates the Jewish people.

The Jewish people, which includes every tribe of ancient Israel, are the indigenous people to what is modern-day Israel. By the very definition of indigenous and vast archaeological evidence to support it, there can be no other peoples in the modern world who can prove they predate the Jewish people as having a greater claim to ancestral land in Israel. That makes the Jewish people the only indigenous people of Israel.

Those who deny the vast amount of evidence for who is truly indigenous when they attack Israel and Jewish people, who do not even live in Israel based on the claims that others are indigenous, do so out of hatred for the Jewish people and despise the very existence of Israel as the world’s only Jewish nation. They do not care about evidence, since hatred has no logic behind it. It is a strong emotion where reason does not exist.

There can be only one indigenous people in Israel, and they are the Jewish people.