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.
Perhaps it is an interesting though probably unanswerable question as to how many of those Arabs who migrated in 1880-1940 were of families who had migrated out during the previous 200 years of Turkish misrule?
Don't get me wrong, I agree there is no such thing as "Palestinians" as defined today. Its as ephemeral as most modern so-called nationalities (what is a Belgian? - there is no such people who go by that name, just Walloons and Flemings). But there certainly were native Arab inhabitants throughout the country. What's more, the Arabs always considered what we now call Syria, Jordan, Paelstine, Israel, and Lebanon to be one country called Syria. Its disengenuous to say that Arabs moving from Syria to Palestine in 1930 aren't legitimate inhabitants of Palestine because the British and French arbitrarily drew some lines on maps 10 years previous in dividing up what was one country. This is like claiming that Americans cannot move between different states within the US.
What is irrelevant is the origins 100 years ago of the people living there today. Most of the present inhabitants (Jewish and Arab) were born between the Jordan and the Sea. Its as much their homeland as any land of immigrants like Australia, the US, Canada, or S. Africa. That is the relevant point, not the origin of some Jews in Poland 50 or 80 years ago, or the origin of some Arabs in what is now Syria 50 or 80 years ago.
If Jews and Arabs living there today cannot live together within one state in that area, then they need to figure out a way to partition the land into a Jewish State and an Arab state to make as many people as possible happy. The only other solution is a continuation of the past 50 years of war and terror. The rest of the world does not view that as a viable option.