What the heck, I’m not doing anything else at the moment...
“For descriptions of other parts of the country, we are indebted to the 1937 Report of the Palestine Royal Commission—though, for lack of space, we can quote but the briefest passages. In Chapter 9, para. 43 the Report quotes an eye-witness account of the condition of the Maritime Plain in 1913:
The road leading from Gaza to the north was only a summer track suitable for transport by camels and carts . . . no orange groves, orchards or vineyards were to be seen until one reached Yabna village. . . . Not in a single village in all this area was water used for irrigation. . . .Houses were all of mud. No windows were anywhere to be seen. . . .The ploughs used were of wood. . . . The yields were very poor. . . .The sanitary conditions in the village were horrible. Schools did not exist. . . . The rate of infant mortality was very high. . . .
The area north of Jaffa . . . consisted of two distinctive parts. . . . The eastern part, in the direction of the hills, resembled in culture that of the Gaza-Jaffa area. . . . The western part, towards the sea, was almost a desert. . . . The villages in this area were few and thinly populated. Many ruins of villages were scattered over the area, as owing to the prevalence of malaria, many villages were deserted by their inhabitants....
Statistics published in the Palestine Royal Commission Report (p. 279) indicate a remarkable phenomenon: Palestine, traditionally a country of Arab emigration, became after World War I a country of Arab immigration. In addition to recorded figures for 1920-36, the Report devotes a special section to illegal Arab immigration. While there are no precise totals on the extent of Arab immigration between the two World Wars, estimates vary between 60,000 and 100,000. The principal cause of the change of direction was Jewish development, which created new and attractive work opportunities and, in general, a standard of living previously unknown in the Middle East.
Another major factor in the rapid growth of the Arab population was, of course, the rate of natural increase, among the highest in the world. This was accentuated by the steady reduction of the previously high infant mortality rate as a result of the improved health and sanitary conditions introduced by the Jews.
Altogether, the non-Jewish element in Palestine’s population (not including Bedouin) expanded between 1922 and 1929 alone by more than 75 per cent....
During World War II, the Arab population influx mounted apace, as is attested by the UNRWA Review, Information Paper No. 6 (September 1962):
A considerable movement of people is known to have occurred, particularly during the Second World War, years when new opportunities of employment opened up in the towns and on military works in Palestine. These wartime prospects and, generally, the higher rate of industrialization in Palestine attracted many new immigrants from the neighbouring countries, and many of them entered Palestine without their presence being officially recorded.
https://lessons.myjli.com/survival/index.php/2017/03/26/land-ownership-in-palestine-1880-1948/
My point is NOT that there were no Arabs there at all, but that when the Jews started improving the land and increasing wages, there were a lot of Arabs who moved to the region - AFTER 1900.
There is a reason why the UN counted Arab refugees who had been there for 10 years or less.
But did you know your posted that in a thread
What food safety experts say they won't order when dining out at restaurants?