Regarding "empty Palestine" ...
While certainly many areas were somewhat desolate (especially the Negev and the areas south and west of Jerusalem and Hebron), its difficult to term the rest of the area the same way without willfully ignoring the facts.
The Turkish Census from around the turn of the century found around 55,000 dwellings present in the Sanjaks which now constitute Israel/Palestine. These were located within many hundreds of settled villages and towns. Most major towns like Jaffa, Acre, Hebron, Nabulus, etc. had about 10,000 inhabitants. Jerusalem was the leading city with around 40,000 inhabitants. The total area of what was then termed Palestine was around 10,000 square miles, with the 1909 Encyclopedia Britannica estimating a population of around 650,000 circa 1900, or 65 people per square mile. I believe about 5% of this popualtion would have consisted of Jews at that time. The overhwelming majority of the native Arabs at that time were Christians, as also in Lebanon and the Syrian littoral.
If you do the math each settlement (a village or town), when you exclude the wastes of the Negev Desert, had an area of about 10 square miles about it, putting the distance between them at approximately 3 miles. This is a density of settlement comparable to most parts of the American midwest.
Obviously the land was capable of holding many more people, because it has around 8 million+ today. That does not mean it was an uninhabited waste.
The vast blooming of the population from an influx of both Arabs and Jews was a self-feeding phenomena. As more and more people moved into Palestine, bringing more and more money and talent, the economy increased ever faster requiring more and more laborers, thus bringing in more settlers of both ethnicities. There was no sinister plot to feed Arabs into the territory.
Obviously the land was capable of holding many more people, because it has around 8 million+ today. That does not mean it was an uninhabited waste. The vast blooming of the population from an influx of both Arabs and Jews was a self-feeding phenomena. As more and more people moved into Palestine, bringing more and more money and talent, the economy increased ever faster requiring more and more laborers, thus bringing in more settlers of both ethnicities. There was no sinister plot to feed Arabs into the territory.
I never said that there was a sinister plot to feed Arabs into the territory.
What I said was that there was a large influx of illegal immigration and in-migrants in to the Mandate after the Jews came. These illegal immigrants and in-migrants, who's whole time in the land could be 30 years at most, are now described by Arafat as an indigenous population thrown off their land... the land they owned since time immemorial to make room for the invading Jews. This same population, which now equals 5,000,000 displaced Palestinians have a right to return to their homes.
This statement is utter folly. Even your own post says that Volney, Twain, et al were correct when they said the land was desolate and void of population.
The Mandate never said that the Arabs had to leave to make room for the Jews. The Jews never said that the Arabs had to leave to make room for them. In fact, in 1947, the Jews are on record imploring the Arabs to stay put.
Today, if a Palestinian can make a claim of property in Israel, the government makes restitution.
its difficult to term the rest of the area the same way without willfully ignoring the facts.
No it is not diffult and it is not done willfully ignoring the facts.
The land was desolate, under populated, and able to sustain an influx of Jews... The Arabs came looking for work. You can't blame them. But you cannot call them indigenous population.
Even the UN says that a Palestinian is anyone who had been in Palestine before 1946. Hardly indigenous.
If you do the math each settlement (a village or town), when you exclude the wastes of the Negev Desert, had an area of about 10 square miles about it, putting the distance between them at approximately 3 miles. This is a density of settlement comparable to most parts of the American midwest.
This is just a huge fallicy. In the 1281 years the Arab controlled this land, they only built one new village - Ramle. One new village.
The 1909 Encycloped Britannica withstand, the overwhelming evidence proves that the land was desolate, void, barren, devoid of population, and in desperate need of people. Twain, Volney, etc. had no political agenda when they wrote what they did. They had no reason to lie.
ACtually, the British began to reduce Jewish immigration in the late 1920's.
Between 1890 and 1945, more Arabs than Jews immigrated.
