From Time Immemorial

From Time Immemorial

From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict over Palestine is a controversial 1984 book by Joan Peters about the demographics of the Arab population of Palestine and of the Jewish population of the Arab world before and after the formation of the State of Israel.

According to the book a large fraction of the Arabs of Palestine were not descendants of long-term residents of Palestine at the time of the formation of Israel in 1948, but had arrived in waves of immigration starting in the 19th century and continuing through the period of the British Mandate. At the same time a large number of Jews, equal in number, according to the author, to the Arabs fleeing Palestine, were driven out of the Arab countries and became refugees in Israel. Peters contends that what is referred to the Palestinian refugee problem is actually a population exchange that resulted from the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.