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Comment by wqaatwt | Hacker News Reader

> economic role that they chose to assume

The only choice they had which would have allowed them assume any other role was conversion to Islam.

> no evidence that this ever happened

There is obviously evidence and there several major Jewish or Samaritan revolts until the Romans lost Palestine in the 600s with the last revolt being quite brutal.

Of course the scale of expulsions, forced conversions and massacres is not really known but the region was almost certainly majority Christian by the time the Muslims got there

> there was a huge jewish diaspora before that revolt and even before the 1st century revolt

There is no strong evidence of that either (depending on how one defines “huge” of course)

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Islam allowed jews to own land, just like how it allowed christians to own land.

if there were several jewish revolts until the 600s that is evidence that they did not result in significant expulsions. the fact that the region became majority christian is not evidence of a major expulsion of jews and subsequent replacement by christians, likely they mostly converted just like how most christians would end up converting to islam. In any case it wasn't muslims who expelled them so they can't take it out on the indigenous muslims of the west bank.

there are records of jewish presence across the medditerranean region and the near east for centuries prior to the first roman jewish war

> evidence that they did not result in significant expulsions

I don’t quite get how you come to this conclusion?

Ireland for instance continued having rebellion despite and after significant expulsions starting hundreds of years prior to 1916…

i am arguing against the idea that the romans kicked out all or most of the jews from palestine. I am not suggesting that no jews were ever expelled or sent away as slaves. I think the historical record is clear that the jewish diaspora would have existed even if not a single jew were ever forcefully removed from palestine. I also don't understand how it is relevant to the israel palestine conflict, palestinians aren't romans, they're the native inhabitants of the land, whatever really happened to jews in palestine 1500+ years ago is hardly relevant to any political disputes ongoing today. The fact of the matter is that palestinians can trace their ancestry to the land as far back as they can trace their ancestry, meanwhile most israeli jews arrived in palestine within the past 100 years, and before that their line was living elsewhere as far back as they could trace. There are palestinians that were kicked out in the nakba that are still alive today and hold the keys to their homes that they were dispossessed of. Did the zionists have that kind of verifiable and particular claim to the land when they came over?

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