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Welcoming Strangers: Early Refugees and the Changing Landscape of 1940s Palestine

How Palestinians opened their homes to new arrivals—Armenians and Jews alike—before the mass immigration and the violent establishment of the colonial Jewish apartheid settler state of Israel

This is the story of how Palestinians opened their homes to new arrivals—Armenians and Jews alike—long before mass immigration led to the violent establishment of a colonial apartheid settler state.

Armenian-American journalist Ana Kasparian has shared how her mother, fleeing hardship, was warmly welcomed and supported by Palestinians in Haifa during the 1940s. A similar warmth was extended to the first Jewish refugees of that era; Palestinians even shared their own homes with these early arrivals.

However, attitudes understandably shifted as it became clear that large-scale immigration—totaling hundreds of thousands of newcomers—was driven by an explicit goal to establish a separate state on their land. Supported by British Mandate authorities, this movement brought a surge in land displacement and theft. The breaking point arrived when the very people Palestinians had once invited into their homes eventually shut them out, claiming the property as their own.

Having lived in Egypt, visited Palestine, and conducted business across the Gulf, Israel, and Lebanon, I am deeply familiar with both Zionist narratives and the ongoing plight of the Palestinian people.

THIS VIDEO captures scenes of peaceful daily life in Palestine in 1945—just three years before the establishment of the colonial Jewish apartheid settler state of Israel, which was accompanied by significant violence and displacement. The harm experienced by the native population did not subside; in fact, it intensified.

Meanwhile, in Germany, a new strain of hostility and antisemitism emerged—this time directed toward Palestinians, who are themselves a Semitic people, as I discuss in the article linked here: https://shorturl.at/s6dmM

P.S. On my Lixplore YouTube channel someone left this comment:

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Felix Abt is an entrepreneur, author and travel blogger living in Asia.

With his articles, he tries to make a modest contribution to debunking the omnipresent propaganda of the mainstream media for those who don’t have the time (and that’s most people) to do the research to see through it.

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