A little Historical perspective on the validity of "Palestinian" claims in Israel.

(((ping))))

I see the Pales not as a people but as a gang like the Cripes or the Bloods. I see Israel as the Homeowner's Association.

NOW YOU ARE COOOKING!! With the real stuff!

For a while there I thought I was reading a paraphrase of Fox's Book of Martyrs ... account after account of the exact same thing.

This time, I was reading the systematic destruction of the Jews and their land by the Ishmaelites.

Let the evidence speak for itself.

Thanx, Sabertooth.

Temple Mount

http://www.cmep.com/temple2.htm

The Islamic Claim to Temple Mount and to Israel.
Just look how desolate and neglected the Mosque and the Dome of the Rock were in 1875. Weeds growing. More proof of what a depopulated backwater Palestine was when the Zionists came.

To attempt to resolve the problem we examined Arab photographs taken about 1875 by the Bonfils out of Lebanon. The photographs are from a Lebanese WEB site whose address is: http://almashriq.hiof.no/general/700/770/779/historical/pcd0109.html, and http://www.lib.uchicago.edu:80/LibInfo/SourcesBySubject/MiddleEast/Photo/Jerusalem.html, and http://almashriq.hiof.no/general/700/770/779/historical/pcd0109/17.jpg

The photos were computer enhanced to build up contrast as they are old and faded.

We also added a photograph of the Western Wall, part of the same collection, to demonstrate Jewish use of the Wall.

Following are some of the description of the photographs:

17 Mosque of Omar [Dome of the Rock] and David's Judgment Seat, Jerusalem, Mosquee d'Omar et tribunal de David.
15 The Jews Wailing Place, a Friday, Mur des Juifs, un vebdredi.
19 Mosque of El-Aksa, Jerusalem, Jerusalem. Mosquee, El-Aksa.
20 Mosque of Omar [Dome of the Rock] from the South, Jerusalem.
Bonfils, ca. 1875. Mount labelled "119. Different cupolas on platform of Temple." Produced by the Bonfils Studio, Beirut, and sold by Charles Taber & Co., New Bedford, Mass. Albumen. Mounted. 11 x 8.5 inches. Acquisition number 43-85.
Bonfils, ca. 1875. Mount labelled "113. Mosque of Omar and Court of David." Produced by the Bonfils Studio, Beirut, and sold by Charles Taber & Co., New Bedford, Mass. Albumen. Mounted. 11 x 8.5 inches. Acquisition number 155-85.

Dome of the Rock Note overall disrepair and lack of use	Dome of the Rock Note missing tiles and condition of roof
Dome of the Rock, additional view	Cupolas on Temple Mount Note overall disrepair and lack of use
Al Aqsa Mosque Note overall disrepair and lack of use	The Western Wall In constant use since biblical times

For a while there I thought I was reading a paraphrase of Fox's Book of Martyrs ... account after account of the exact same thing.

Got a link or an excerpt you can post?
This would be a great thread on which to do it. Check out dennisw's post at #6. Thanks, dennis.

What a dump.

Think WEST Palestine which is pretty much the Israel of today.
The Zionists came to a depopulated land, a depressed land. Just look at the photos Temple Mount in 1875. The 3rd most holy site in Islam. WHAT A SCAM!

Many malarial swamps by the Mediterranean sea. Pretty much the same as the Boers and English found when they went to South Africa. Some natives in both places but thinly settled with many being nomadic.

For many centuries, Israel was a sparsely populated, poorly cultivated and widely-neglected expanse of eroded hills, sandy deserts and malarial marshes. Mark Twain, who visited Israel in 1867, described it as: "...[a] desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds--a silent mournful expanse...A desolation is here that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action...We never saw a human being on the whole route...There was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere. Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends of the worthless soil, had almost deserted the country."

As late as 1880, the American consul in Jerusalem reported the area was continuing its historic decline. "The population and wealth of palestine has not increased during the last forty years," he said.

Tel Aviv, 1909

The report of the palestine royal commission quotes an account of the Maritime Plan 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 [the Jewish village of] Yabna [Yavne]... 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 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.

Lewis French, the British Director of Development wrote of Israel:

We found it inhabited by fellahin who lived in mud hovels and suffered severely from the prevalent malaria... Large areas...were uncultivated... The fellahin, if not themselves cattle thieves, were always ready to harbor these and other criminals. The individual plots...changed hands annually. There was little public security, and the fellahin's lot was an alternation of pillage and blackmail by their neighbors, the bedouin.

Surprisingly, many people who were not sympathetic to the Zionist cause believed the Jews would improve the condition of the arabs. For example, Dawood Barakat, editor of the egyptian paper al-ahram, wrote: "It is absolutely necessary that an entente be made between the Zionists and arabs, because the war of words can only do evil. The Zionists are necessary for the country: The money which they will bring, their knowledge and intelligence, and the industriousness which characterizes them will contribute without doubt to the regeneration of the country."

Even a leading arab nationalist believed the return of the Jews to their homeland would help resuscitate the country. According to sherif Hussein, the guardian of the islamic holy places in arabia:

The resources of the country are still virgin soil and will be developed by the Jewish immigrants. One of the most amazing things until recent times was that the "palestinian" used to leave his country, wandering over the high seas in every direction. His native soil could not retain a hold on him, though his ancestors had lived on it for 1000 years. At the same time we have seen the Jews from foreign countries streaming to Israel from Russia, germany, austria, Spain, and America. The cause of causes could not escape those who had a gift of deeper insight. They knew that the country was for its original sons (abna'ihi'lasliyin), for all their differences, a sacred and beloved Homeland. The return of these exiles (jaliya) to their Homeland will prove materially and spiritually [to be] an experimental school for their brethren who are with them in the fields, factories, trades and in all things connected with toil and labor.

A Population Boom

As Hussein foresaw, the regeneration of Israel, and the growth of its population, came only after Jews returned in massive numbers. The Jewish population increased by 470,000 between World War I and World War II while the non-Jewish population rose by 588,000. In fact, the permanent arab population increased 120 percent between 1922 and 1947.

This rapid growth was a result of several factors. One was immigration from neighboring states-constituting 37 percent of the total immigration to pre-state Israel--by arabs who wanted to take advantage of the higher standard of living the Jews had made possible. The arab population also grew because of the improved living conditions created by the Jews as they drained malarial swamps and brought improved sanitation and health care to the region. Thus, for example, the muslim infant mortality rate fell from 201 per thousand in 1925 to 94 per thousand in 1945 and life expectancy rose from 37 years in 1926 to 49 in 1943.

The arab population increased the most in cities with large Jewish populations that had created new economic opportunities. From 1922-1947, the non-Jewish population increased 290 percent in Haifa, 131 percent in Jerusalem, and 158 percent in Jaffa. The growth in arab towns was more modest: 42 percent in nablus, 78 percent in jenin, and 37 percent in Bethlehem.

Jewish Land Purchases

Despite the growth in their population, the arabs continued to assert they were being displaced. The truth is from the beginning of World War I, part of Israel's Land was owned by absentee landlords who lived in cairo, damascus, and beirut. About 80 percent of the arabs were debt-ridden peasants, semi-nomads, and bedouins.

Jews actually went out of their way to avoid purchasing Land in areas where arabs might be displaced. They sought Land that was largely uncultivated, swampy, cheap and, most important, without tenants. In 1920, Labor Zionist leader David Ben-Gurion expressed his concern about the arab fellahin, whom he viewed as "the most important asset of the native population." Ben-Gurion said "under no circumstances must we touch Land belonging to fellahs or worked by them." He advocated helping liberate them from their oppressors. "Only if a fellah leaves his place of settlement," Ben-Gurion added, "should we offer to buy his Land, at an appropriate price."

It was only after the Jews had bought all of this available Land that they began to purchase cultivated Land. Many arabs were willing to sell because they were migrating to coastal towns and because they needed money to invest in the citrus industry.

When John Hope Simpson arrived in Israel in May 1930, he observed: "They [the Jews] paid high prices for the Land, and in addition they paid to certain of the occupants of those Lands a considerable amount of money which they were not legally bound to pay."

In 1931, Lewis French conducted a survey of landlessness and eventually offered new plots to any arabs who had been "dispossessed." British officials received more than 3,000 applications, of which 80 percent were ruled invalid by the government's legal adviser because the applicants were not landless arabs. This left only about 600 landless arabs, 100 of whom accepted the government Land offer.

In April 1936, a new outbreak of arab attacks on Jews was instigated by a syrian guerrilla named fawzi al-qawukji, the commander of the arab "liquidation" army. By November, when the British finally sent a new commission headed by lord peel to investigate, 89 Jews had been killed and more than 300 wounded.

The Peel commission's report found that arab complaints about Jewish Land acquisition were baseless. It pointed out that "much of the land now carrying orange groves was sand dunes or swamp-land and uncultivated when it was purchased... There was at the time of the earlier sales little evidence that the owners possessed either the resources or training needed to develop the Land." Moreover, the commission found the shortage was "due less to the amount of Land acquired by Jews than to the increase in the arab population." The report concluded that the presence of Jews in Israel, along with the work of the British administration, had resulted in higher wages, an improved standard of living, and ample employment opportunities.

In his memoirs, transjordan's king Abdullah wrote:

It is made quite clear to all, both by the map drawn up by the Simpson Commission and by another compiled by the Peel Commission, that the arabs are as prodigal in selling their land as they are in useless wailing and weeping (author's emphasis).

Even at the height of the arab revolt in 1938, the British high commissioner to palestine believed the arab landowners were complaining about sales to Jews, to drive up prices for Lands they wished to sell. Many arab landowners had been so terrorized by arab rebels they decided to leave Israel and sell their property to the Jews.

The Jews were paying exorbitant prices to wealthy landowners for small tracts of arid Land. "In 1944, Jews paid between $1,000 and $1,100 per acre in Israel, mostly for arid or semi-arid Land; in the same year, rich black soil in Iowa was selling for about $110 per acre."

By 1947, Jewish holdings in Israel amounted to about 463,000 acres. Approximately 45,000 of these acres were acquired from the mandatory government, 30,000 were bought from various churches, and 387,500 were purchased from arabs. Analyses of Land purchases from 1880 to 1948 show that 73 percent of Jewish plots were purchased from large landowners, not poor fellahin. Those who sold Land included the mayors of gaza, Jerusalem, and Jaffa. as'ad el-shuqeiri, a muslim religious scholar and father of plo chairman ahmed shuqeiri, took Jewish money for his Land. Even king Abdullah leased Land to the Jews. In fact, many leaders of the arab nationalist movement, including members of the muslim supreme council, sold Land to Jews.

Good propaganda post. I find the comment above an excellent summary of the Lynch Mob's beliefs...

"I see the Pales not as a people"

" Got a link or an excerpt you can post?"

Can Do

(((ping))))

From masada2000.org

1949 Armistice Lines Following 1st Arab-Israeli War

The end result of the 1948-49 Israeli War of Independence was the creation of a Jewish State slightly larger than that which was proposed by the United Nations two years before. What remained of that almost-created second Arab Palestinian State was gobbled up by Egypt (occupying the Gaza Strip) and by Trans-Jordan (occupying Judea-Samaria (the "West Bank" of the Jordan River) and Jerusalem. In the next year (1950) Trans-Jordan formally merged this West Bank territory into itself and granted all those Arabs living there Jordanian citizenship. Since Trans-Jordan was no longer confined to one side of the Jordan River, it renamed itself simply "JORDAN. In the final analysis, the Arabs of Palestine ended up with nearly 85% of the original territory of Palestine. But that was still not 100% and thus the conflict between Arab and Jew for "Palestine" would continue through four more wars and continuous Arab terrorist attacks upon the Israeli citizenry! It continues to this very day.
From 1948-67 when all of Judea-Samaria [West Bank] ... including Jerusalem!) ended up under Arab [Jordanian] control, no effort was EVER made to create a second Palestinian State for the Arabs living there. Surely you do not expect Israel to now provide these same Arabs with their own country when their fellow Arabs failed to do so! And isn't it curious how Arafat and his PLO (formed in 1964) discovered their "ancient" identity and a need for "self-determination" and "human dignity" on this very same West Bank ONLY AFTER Israel regained this territory (three years later in 1967) following Jordan's attempt attempt to destroy Israel! Why was no request ever made upon King Hussein of Jordan when he "occupied" the West Bank? Is it logical that the PLO was formed in 1964 to regain the lands they would lose three years later in 1967? This sort of logic makes sense only to those who who have not learned that the PLO was formed to DESTROY Israel. And that is STILL their goal! A cosmetic name change from PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) to PA (Palestinian Authority) does not change the spots on THIS tiger!

Could it be that the Arabs knew the only way to get good land was to steal it after the Jews had returned it to fertility?

The Jews and their great efforts made Israel what it is today. If it were up to the Arabs it would still be a wasteland.

You have a touching leftist style sympathy for a bunch of 3rd world misfits consumed by hatred. This is your heroic Palestinian people.

This book was discredited shortly after it was printed and was a total embarrassment to the author. a A better read would be "Encyclopedia of the Palestine Problem"

"I see the Pales as a people"

finish it

....but as a gang like the Cripes or the Bloods.

Could it be that the Arabs knew the only way to get good land was to steal it after the Jews had returned it to fertility?

Israel is world class expert in drip irrigation. Can even find drip irrigation items from Israel over here. They did with that depopulated wasteland what was beyond the Arabs.

Just look at what was Tel Aviv in 1909! Where a million live today. Talk about prime beach front property being neglected!

Tel Aviv, 1909

Any specifics? There are a ton of facts in this thread. CARE TO TRY AND DISPUTE A FEW?

Care to stick up for the Arab Muslim side of this history!

"I see the Pales not as a people"

finish it

....but as a gang like the Cripes or the Bloods.

This book was discredited shortly after it was printed and was a total embarrassment to the author. a A better read would be "Encyclopedia of the Palestine Problem"

I'd be interested to see some support for your statements. Not saying you can't, but this is the place to post it.

The Islamic Claim to Temple Mount and to Israel. Just look how desolate and neglected the Mosque and the Dome of the Rock were in 1875. Weeds growing. More proof of what a depopulated backwater Palestine was when the Zionists came.

The Islamic Claim to Temple Mount and to Israel.
Just look how desolate and neglected the Mosque and the Dome of the Rock were in 1875. Weeds growing. More proof of what a depopulated backwater Palestine was when the Zionists came.