Posted on 11/16/2001 1:16:15 PM PST by ExiledInTaiwan
Now that you have totally demolished their first piece of nonsense when can we expect part 2
Maybe a group effort in a separate thread is in order and we can recruit those of the IFC who have enough background knowledge to contribute and fill the gaps other's might have.
So while I'm on about gaps - I have been trying to get a handle on Mamalukes & Selujics (sp? for both) - can anyone reading this point me in the right direction. Google has got me nowhere of substance.
Given that the bulk of the land was State Lands and passed from government to government it can't be considered "stolen".
As to your question of where did the refugees come from - in relation to "stolen" land the short answer is that the vast majority didn't own any land. The fellahin were landless peasants working on land they rented or simply squatted on when they could get away with it. Many Arabs didn't run away and it was usually those who in fact owned land that stayed to protect it. At the very least if they were forced to move they didn't go far.
A large number of the people referred to as "refugees" in fact went back to their own countries. For example the population of trans-Jordan was 350,000 in 1921 but just a few years later it was down to 150,000 (British commissioner's figure). The bulk of the missing in fact had crossed the river to get jobs on the other side taking their families with them. When things got hot in the 1948 war they simply picked themselves up, crossed the river again and registered themselves with the UN as refugees and have lived on UN handouts ever since.
The same applies to those who headed for Lebanon amd Syria - they were just going back home. But the Arab governments forced them into camps to use them for political purposes.
Any Arab who has a legitimate claim to land and property is able to make claim in Israeli courts for compensation. A few in fact do and are compensated. When the British set up a compensation system for Arabs who had been forced off their land for reasons of public works or other reasons such as the land they rented having been sold by absentee landlords there were 8000 claims of ownership but only 200 were found valid. The land registers from the 1860's onward are available and all legitimate claims can be proven.
And before I get flamed I know that there are other issues in relation to land ownership but I just used these points as examples only to make the point that the simple claim of "stole" land is not as simple as it sounds.
This is exactly what the anti-Zionist New Historians engage in. Begin and Ben-Gurion are favorite targets of the truncated quotations. Tom Segev wrote a book sometime ago called The Seventh Million which was full of misquotes and fabrications whole-cloth concerning the Zionists, the Holocaust, and Ben Gurion. It was completely debunked by Shabtai Teveth in, Ben-Gurion and the Holocaust, where Teveth chronicles many of the outright fabrications of Segev and some other "New Historians".
In the leadup to the '67 war Israel sent emissaries to Hussein pleading for him to stay out of it - by 1973 he'd learned his lesson and wisely did so - pity, coz Israel could have whipped his a&& as well and Jordan would be Palestine today. And Arafat would be King Yasser the first.
Now dem's da facts.
The Arab nations (with all their oil wealth) didn't lift a finger to help their own - in fact quite the opposite they forced the Arabs to stay refugees for generations and live off the handouts from the UN.
The other point is to consider it as a populatioin exchange - not an uncommon thing post WWII. $hit happens and life goes on - my parents were refo's from WWII, they didn't find it easy starting from scratch, but they got on with their lives - so I speak from the experience of being directly affected by it. And don't give me the stuff that the Arabs had lived their for generations etc., most of them "fled" back to their homelands in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt. Its their own governments that kept them as reugees. Israel didn't force them over the borders, that's where they elected to go. Most Arabs who were indigenous or owned property stayed and if they needed temporary refuge they could have found it on parts of the West Bank where there was no fighting in 1948.
Worse still, when there was an opportunity for some to return to Israel the Arab governments prohibited them from doing so. You won't find that sort of information at the Intifada websites you visit.
As ususual Arafat missed the opportunity with Willie and if he sticks to his maximalist ways he'll miss whatever he could get from this administration.
I came across a European diplomat's comment to an Arab diplomat. It went something like "your idea of negotiation is give me all I want first then we'll discuss the rest".
But I'll stay for a while yet as I seem to learn something new here every day - thanks guys (and gals).
Deleted by the time I got there - must of been pretty hot.
Has to do with the nomadic traditions there. The vast bulk of land that Israel started with on the day they declared independence, before they were attacked by Arab armies, is this publicly owned land. First owned by Ottoman Turks then the Brits.
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