Originally Posted by EagleKeeper
What about the fact that there were Jews that purchased the land and improved on it.
What exactly about that fact do you believe supports your position here?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_land_purchase_in_Palestine
http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_early_palestine_zionists_land.php
http://www.ourjerusalem.com/news/story/jewish-group-to-blame-for-possible-division-of-jerusalem.html
The Jewish National Fund, or JNF, purchased the land now up for possible Israeli withdrawal using Jewish donor funds for the specific purpose of Jewish settlement.
or we could look at it this way --
Jews did not buy land in any "palestine". Jews bought land in Judea, Samaria, Israel. Jerusalem is a part of Judea and Jews were a majority in Jerusalem since the end of the 17th century. So, they did not need to buy land in Jerusalem
or --
Jerusalem was overwhelmingly majority Jewish until Jews were ethnically cleansed and their property seized by Jordan (which was created by the UK in 1946 out of 80% of Palestine). In fact, many of the Jewish villages were created by Jews leaving Jerusalem because there was no more room.
Appendix 2 117
2
Land Ownership in Palestine, 1880-1948
by Moshe Aumann
A great deal has been spoken and written over the years on the
subject of land ownership in Israelor, before 1948, Palestine.
Arab propaganda, in particular, has been at pains to convince the
world, with the aid of copious statistics, that the Arabs "own"
Palestine, morally and legally, and that whatever Jewish land
ownership there may be is negligable. From this conclusions have
been drawn (or implied) with regard to the sovereign rights of
the State of Israel and the problem of the Arab refugees.
The Arab case against Israel, in the mat ter of Jewish land
purchases, rests mainly on two claims: (1) that the Palestinian
Arab farmer was peacefully and contentedly working his land in
the latter par t of the 19th century and the early par t of the 20th
when along came the European Jewish immigrant, drove him off
his land, disrupted the normal development of the country and
created a vast class of landless, dispossessed Arabs; (2) that a small
Jewish minority, owning an even smaller proportion of Palestinian
lands (5 per cent as against the Arabs' 95 per cent ) , illegally made
itself master of Palestine in 1948.
Our purpose in this pamphlet is to set the record straight by
marshalling the facts and figures pertaining to this very complex
subject, on the basis of the most reliable and authoritative information
available, and to trace the history of modern Jewish resettlement
purely from the point of view of the sale and purchase of land.
Pre-1948 Conditions in Palestine
A study of Palestine under Turkish rule reveals that already at
the beginning of the 18th century, long before Jewish land purchases
and large-scale Jewish immigration started, the position of the
Palestinian fellah (peasant) had begun to deteriorate. The heavy
burden of taxation, coming on top of chronic indebtedness to
money-lenders, drove a growing number of farmers to place themselves
under the protection of men of wealth or of the Moslem
religious endowment fund (Waqf), with the result that they were
eventually compelled to give up their title to the land, if not their
actual residence upon and cultivation of it.
Unt i l the passage of the Turkish Land Registry Law in 1858,
there were no official deeds to attest to a man' s legal title to a parcel
of land; tradition alone had to suffice to establish such title and
usually it did. And yet, the position of Palestine's farmers was a
precarious one, for there were constant blood-feuds between families,
clans and entire villages, as well as periodic incursions by rapacious
118 The Case for Israel
Bedouin tribes, such as the notorious Ben Sakk'r, of whom H. B.
Tristram (The Land of Israel: A Journal of Travels in Palestine,
Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London, 1865) wrote
that they "can muster 1,000 cavalry and always join their brethren
when a raid or war is on the move. They have obtained their
present possessions gradually and, in great measure, by driving out
the fellahin (peasants), destroying their villages and reducing their
rich corn-fields to pasturage." (p. 488.)
Tristram goes on to present a remarkable and highly revealing
description of conditions in Palestine on both sides of the Jordan
River in the middle of the 19th centurya description that belies
the Arab claim of a tranqui l , normally developing Palestinian rural
economy allegedly disrupted by Jewish immigration and settlement.
A few years ago, the whole Ghor was in the hands of the fellahin, and
much of it cultivated for corn. Now the whole of it is in the hands of the
Bedouin, who eschew all agriculture, except in a few spots cultivated
here and there by their slaves; and with the Bedouin come lawlessness
and the uprooting of all Turkish authority. No government is now
acknowledged on the east side; and unless the Porte acts with greater
firmness and caution than is his wont . . . Palestine will be desolated
and given up to the nomads.
The same thing is now going on over the plain of Sharon, where, both
in the north and south, land is going out of cultivation, and whole villages
rapidly disappearing from the face of the earth. Since the year
1838, no less than 20 villages have been thus erased from the map and
the stationary population extirpated. Very rapidly the Bedouin are encroaching
wherever horse can be ridden; and the Government is utterly
powerless to resist them or to defend its subjects. (p. 490)
Fo r descr ipt ions of o t h e r p a r t s of t h e count ry, we a r e i n d e b t e d to
the 1937 Report of the Palestine Royal Commissionthough, 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 Mari t ime 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.
T h e Hu l e h bas in, be low t h e Syr i a n borde r , i s descr ibed a s
" i n c l u d i n g a n umb e r of Ar a b vi l lages a n d a l a rge p a p y r u s swamp
d r a i n i n g sout h int o La k e Hu l e h . . . a t r i a n g u l a r s t r i p o f l a n d some
Appendix 2 119
44 sq. miles in area. . . . Thi s tract is irrigated in a very haphazard
manner by a network of small, primitive canals. It is, owing to overirrigation,
now the most malarious tract in all Palestine. It might
become one of the most fertile."
Wi th regard to yet another region in Palestinethe Beisan (Beit
Shean) areawe quote from the report of Mr . Lewis French,
Director of Development appointed by the British Government in
1931:
We found it inhabited by fellahin who lived in mud hovels and suffered
severely from the prevalent malaria. . . . Large areas of their lands were
uncultivated and covered with weeds. There were no trees, no vegetables.
The fellahin, if not themselves cattle thieves, were always ready to harbour
these and other criminals. The individual plots of cultivation
changed hands annually. There was little public security, and the fellahin's
lot was an alternation of pillage and blackmail by their neighbours
the Bedouin.
This, then, was the picture of Palestine in the closing decades of
the 19th century and up to the First World War : a land that was
overwhelmingly desert, with nomads continually encroaching on
the settled areas and its farmers; a lack of elementary facilities and
equipment ; peasants wallowing in poverty, ignorance and disease,
saddled with debts (interest rates at times were as high as 60 per
cent) and threatened by warlike nomads or neighbouring clans.
Th e result was a growing neglect of the soil and a flight from the
villages, with a mounting concentration of lands in the hands of a
small number of large landowners, frequently residing in such
distant Arab capitals as Beirut and Damascus, Cairo and Kuwait.
Here, in other words, was a social and economic order that had all
the earmarks of a medieval feudal society.
Who Dispossessed the Palestinian Peasant?
The Palestinian peasant was indeed being dispossessed, but by
his fellow-Arabs: the local sheikh and village elders, the Government
tax-collector, the merchants and money-lenders; and, when he was
a tenant-farmer (as was usually the case), by the absentee-owner.
By the time the season's crop had been distributed among all these,
little if anything remained for him and his family, and new debts
generally had to be incurred to pay off the old. Then the Bedouin
came along and took their "cut", or drove the hapless fellah off
the land altogether.
Thi s was the "normal" course of events in 19th century Palestine.
It was disrupted by the advent of the Jewish pioneering enterprise,
which sounded the death-knell of this medieval feudal system. In
this way the Jews played an objective revolutionary role. Small
wonder that it aroused the ire and active opposition of the Arab
sheikhs, absentee landowners, money-lenders and Bedouin bandits.
120 The Case for Israel
Jewish Land Purchases
It is important to note that the first enduring Jewish agricultural
settlement in modern Palestine was founded not by European refugees,
but by a group of old-time families, leaving the overcrowded
Jewish Quar ter of the Old City of Jerusalem. (According to the
Turkish census of 1875, by that time Jews already constituted a
majority of the population of Jerusalem and by 1905 comprised
two-thirds of its citizens. The Encyclopaedia Britannica of 1910
gives the population figure as 60,000, of whom 40,000 were Jews.)
In 1878 they founded the village of Petah Tikva in the Sharon
Plaina village that was to become known as the "Mother of
Jewish Settlements" in Palestine. Four years later a group of
pioneering immigrants from Russia settled in Rishon le-Zion. Other
farming villages followed in rapid succession.
When considering Jewish land purchases and settlements, four
factors should be borne in mind:
(1) Most of the land purchases involved large tracts belonging to
absentee owners. (Virtually all of the Jezreel Valley, for
example, belonged in 1897 to only two persons: the eastern
portion to the Turkish Sultan, and the western par t to the
richest banker in Syria, Sursuk "the Greek".)
(2) Most of the land purchased had not been cultivated previously
because it was swampy, rocky, sandy or, for some other reason,
regarded as uncultivable. Thi s is supported by the findings of
the Peel Commission Repor t (p. 242) : "The Arab charge that
the Jews have obtained too large a proportion of good land
cannot be maintained. Much of the land now carrying orange
groves was sand dunes or swamp and uncultivated when it
was purchased . . . there was at the time at least of the earlier
sales little evidence that the owners possessed either the resources
or training needed to develop the land. " (1937)
(3) While, for this reason, the early transactions did not involve
unduly large sums of money, the price of land began to rise
as Arab landowners took advantage of the growing demand for
rural tracts. The resulting infusion of capital into the
Palestinian economy had noticeable beneficial effects on the
standard of living of all the inhabitants.
(4) The Jewish pioneers introduced new farming methods which
improved the soil and crop cultivation and were soon emulated
by Arab farmers.
The following figures show land purchases by the three leading
Jewish land-buying organizations and by individual Jews between
1880 and 1935.
Appendix 2 121
JEWISH LAND PURCHASES, 1880-1935 (in dunams*)
Organization
Total
land
acquired
Government
concessions
From
private
owners
Large tracts**
Percent
Dunams (approx.)
PICA (Palestine Jewish
Colonization
Assoc.) 469,407 39,520 429,887 293,545 70
Palestine Land
Development Co. 579,492 66,513*** 512,979 455,169 90
Jewish National
Fund**** 836,396
Until 1930 270,084 239,170 90
1931-1947 566,312 50
Individual Jews 432,100 432,100 50
* 4 dunams = 1 acre.
** The large tracts often belonged to absentee landlords.
*** Land situated in the sandy Beersheba and marshy Huleh districts.
**** ". . . created on December 25, 1901, to ensure that land would be purchased
for the Jewish workers who were to be personally responsible
for its cultivation.
"Since the J.N.F. was as concerned with conforming to socialist ideals
as with intensive economic exploitation of land, its Char ter was
opposed to the use of lands purchased by it as private property. The
J.N.F. retained the freehold of the lands, while the people working
it are only life tenants. . . .
"The capital of the Jewish National Fund was essentially raised from
small regular donations from millions of Jewish craftsmen, labourers,
shop-owners and intellectuals in Central and Eastern Europe where the
shadow of genocide was already apparent, who felt concerned about
the return of Jews to Zion. . . .
"Contrary to colonialist enterprises, which were seeking an exorbitant
profit from land extorted from the colonized peoples, Zionist
settlement discouraged private capital as its enterprise was of a
socialist nature based on the refusal to exploit the worker." (Kurt
Niedermaler, Colonisation without Colonialism, Youth and Hechalutz
Dept., Jewish Agency, Jerusalem, 1969).
F r o m t h e above t abl e i t will be seen t h a t t h e p r o p o r t i o n of l a n d
purchased from large (usually absentee) owners ranged from about
50 to 90 per cent.
"The total area of land in Jewish possession at the end of June
1947," writes A. Granott in The Land System in Palestine (Eyre
and Spottiswoode, London, 1952, p. 278), "amounted to 1,850,000
dunams, of this 181,100 dunams had been obtained through concessions
from the Palestinian Government, and about 120,000
dunams had been acquired from Churches, from foreign companies,
from the Government otherwise than by concessions, and so
forth. It was estimated that 1,000,000 dunams and more, or 57
122 The Case for Israel
per cent, had been acquired from large Arab landowners, and if to
this we add the lands acquired from the Government, Churches,
and foreign companies, the percentage will amount to seventy-three.
From the fellaheen there had been purchased about 500,000
dunams, or 27 per cent, of the total acquired. The result of Jewish
land acquisitions, at least to a considerable part , was that properties
which had been in the hands of large and medium owners were
converted into holding of small peasants."
The League of Nations Mandate
When the League of Nations conferred the Mandat e for Palestine
upon Great Britain in 1922, it expressly stipulated that "The
Administration of Palestine . . . shall encourage, in cooperation
wi th the Jewish Agency . . . close settlement by Jews on the land,
including State lands and waste lands not acquired for public
purposes" (Article 6) , and that it "shall introduce a land system
appropriate to the needs of the country, having regard, among other
things, to the desirability of promoting the close settlement and
intensive cultivation of the land." (Article 11)
British policy, however, followed a different course, deferring to
the extremist Arab opposition to the above-mentioned provision of
the Mandate. Of some 750,000 dunams of cultivable State lands,
350,000, or nearly half, had been allotted by 1949 to Arabs and
only 17,000 dunams to Jews. This was in clear violation of the
terms of the Mandate. Nor, ironically enough, did it help the Arab
peasants for whose benefit these transactions were ostensibly carried
out. The glaring examples of this policy are the case of the Besian
lands and that of the Huleh Concession.
Beisan Lands
Under the Ghor -Mudawwar r a Agreement of 1921, some 225,000
dunams of potentially fertile wasteland in the Besian (Beit Shean)
area were handed over to Arab farmers on terms severely condemned
not only by Jews but also by such British experts as Lewis
French and Sir John Hope-Simpson. More than half of the land
was irrigable, and, according to the British experts, eight dunams
of irrigated land per capita (or 50-60 dunams per family) were
sufficient to enable a family to maintain itself on the land. Yet
many farmers received far more than that : six families, of whom
two lived in Syria, received a combined area of about 7,000 dunams;
four families (some living in Egypt) received a combined area of
3,496 dunams ; another received 3,450 and yet another, 1,350.
Thus the Ghor -Mudawwar r a Agreement was instrumental in
creating a new group of large landowners. Possessing huge tracts,
most of which they were unable to till, these owners began to sell
the surplus lands at speculative prices. In his 1930 Report, Sir
Appendix 2 123
Hope-Simpson wrote of the Agreement that it had deprived the
Government of "the control of a large area of fertile land
eminently suited for development and for which there is ample
water for irrigation," and that "the grant of the land has led to
speculation on a considerable scale."
Huleh Area
For twenty years (from 1914 to 1934) the Huleh Concession
some 57,000 dunams of partly swamp-infested but potentially highly
fertile land in north-eastern Palestinewas in Arab hands. The
Arab concessionaires were to drain and develop the land so as to
make additional tracts available for cultivation, under very at tractive
terms offered by the Government (first Turkish, then British).
However, this was never done, and in 1934 the concession was sold
to a Jewish concern, the Palestine Land Development Company,
at a huge profit. The Government added several onerous conditions
concerning the amount of land (from the drained and newly
developed tracts) that had to be handed overwithout reimbursement
for drainage and irrigation coststo Arab tenant-farmers in
the area.
All told, hundreds of millions of dollars were paid by Jewish
buyers to Arab landowners. Official records show that in 1933
£854,796 was paid by Jewish individuals and organizations for
Arab land, mostly large estates; in 1934 the figure was £1,647,836
and in 1935, £1,699,488. Thus, in the course of only three years
£4,202,180 (more than 20 million dollars at the prevailing rate of
exchange) was paid out to Arab landowners (Palestine Royal
Commission Report, 1937).
To understand the magni tude of the prices paid for these lands,
we need only look at some comparative figures. In 1944, Jews paid
between $1,000 and $1,100 per acre in Palestine, mostly for arid
or semi-arid land; in the same year rich black soil in the state of
Iowa was selling for about $110 per acre (U.S. Depar tment of
Agriculture).
Effects on Arab Population
In those instances where as a result of such transactions Arab
tenant-farmers were displaced (on one year's not ice), compensation
in cash or other land was paid, as required by the 1922 Protection
of Cultivators Ordinance; the Jewish land-buying associations often
paid more than the law required (Pollack and Boehm, The Keren
Kayemeth Le-Israel). Of 688 such tenants between 1920 and
1930, 526 remained in agricultural occupations, some 400 of them
finding other land (Palestine Royal Commission Report , 1937,
Chapter 9, para. 61) .
124 The Case for Israel
Investigations initiated in 1931 by Mr . Lewis French disposed of
the charge that a large class of landless or dispossessed Arab
farmers was created as a result of Jewish land purchases. According
to the British Government report (Memoranda prepared by the
Government of Palestine, London 1937, Colonia No. 133, p. 37) ,
the total number of applications for registration as landless Arabs
was 3,271. Of these, 2,607 were rejected on the ground that they did
not come within the category of landless Arabs. Valid claims were
recognized in the case of 664 heads of families, of whom 347
accepted the offer of resettlement by the Government. The
remainder refused either because they had found satisfactory employment
elsewhere or because they were not accustomed to irrigated
cultivation or the climate of the new areas (Peel Report , Chapter 9,
para. 60) .
Purchases of land by Jews in the hill country had always been
very small and, according to the investigations by Mr . French, of
71 applications by Arabs claiming to be landless, 68 were turned
down.
Arab Population Changes Due to Jewish Settlement
Another Arab claim disproved by the facts is that Zionist
"colonialism" led to the disruption and ruin of the Arab Palestinian
society and economy.
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. The Royal Commission Report makes these
interesting observations:
The shortage of land is, we consider, due less to the amount of land
acquired by Jews than to the increase in the Arab population, (p. 242)
Appendix 2 125
We are also of the opinion that up till now the Arab cultivator has
benefited, on the whole, both from the work of the British administration
and from the presence of Jews in the country. Wages have gone u p ; the
standard of living has improved; work on roads and buildings has been
plentiful. In the Maritime Plains some Arabs have adopted improved
methods of cultivation. (p. 241)
Jewish development served as an incentive not only to Arab entry
into Palestine from Lebanon, Egypt, Syria and other neighbouring
countries, but also to Arab population movements within the
countryto cities and areas where there was a large Jewish concentration.
Some idea of this phenomenon may be gained from the
following official figures:
Changes in towns: The Arab population in predominantly Arab
towns rose only slightly (if at all) between the two World Wars: in
Hebronfrom 16,650 in 1922 to 22,800 in 1943; Nablusfrom
15,931 to 23,300; Jeninfrom 2,737 to 3,900; Bethlehemfrom
6,658 to 8,800. Gaza's population actually decreased from 17,426
in 1922 to 17,045 in 1931.
On the other hand, in the three major Jewish cities the Arab
population shot up during this period, far beyond the rate of
natural increase: Jerusalemfrom 28,571 in 1922 to 56,400 (97
per cent); Jaffafrom 27,437 to 62,600 (134 per cent); Haifa
from 18,404 to 58,200 (216 per cent).
Changes in rural areas: The population of the predominantly
Arab Beersheba district dropped between 1922 and 1939 from
71,000 to 49,000 (the rate of natural increase should bave resulted
in a rise to 89,000). In the Bethlehem district the figure increased
from 24,613 to about 26,000 (after falling to 23,725 in 1929). In
the Hebron area it went up from 51,345 to 59,000 (the natural
increase rate dictated a rise to 72,000).
In contrast to these declines or comparatively slight increases in
exclusively Arab-inhabited areas, in the Nazareth, Beit Shean,
Tiberias and Acre districtswhere large-scale Jewish settlement and
rural development was underwaythe figure rose from 89,600 in
1922 to some 151,000 in 1938 (by about 4.5 per cent per annum,
compared with a natural increase rate of 2.5-3 per cent).
In the largely Jewish Haifa area the number of Arab peasants
increased by 8 per cent a year during the same period. In the Jaffa
and Ramla districts (heavily Jewish populated), the Arab rural
population grew from 42,300 to some 126,000an annual increase
of 12 per cent, or more than four times as much as can be
attributed to natural increase (L. Shimony, The Arabs of Palestine,
Tel-Aviv, 1947, pp. 422-23).
One reason for the Arab gravitation toward Jewish-inhabited
areas, and from neighbouring countries to Palestine, was the incom126
The Case for Israel
parably higher wage scales paid there, as may be seen from the
following table.
DAILY WAGE SCALES, 1943
(in mils)
Palestine
Egypt
Syria
Iraq
Unskilled
labour
220-250
30-50
80-100
50
Skilled
labour
350-600
70-200
150-300
70-200
Source: A. Khoushy, Brit Poali Eretz-Israel, 1943,
p. 25.
The capital received by Arab landowners for their surplus holdings
was used for improved and intensive cultivation or invested in
other enterprises. Turning again to the Report of the Palestine
Royal Commission (p. 93), we find the following conclusions: "The
large import of Jewish capital into Palestine has had a general
fructifying effect on the economic life of the whole country. . . .
The expansion of Arab industry and citriculture has been largely
financed by the capital thus obtained. . . . Jewish example has done
much to improve Arab cultivation. . . . The increase in Arab
population is most marked in areas affected by Jewish development."
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.
Land Ownership in 1948
The claim is often made that in 1948 a Jewish minority owning
only 5 per cent of the land of Palestine made itself master of the
Arab majority, which owned 95 per cent of the land.
In May 1948 the State of Israel was established in only part of the
area allotted by the original League of Nations Mandate. 8.6 per
cent of the land was owned by Jews and 3.3 per cent by Israeli
Arabs, while 16.9 per cent had been abandoned by Arab owners who
imprudently heeded the call from neighbouring countries to "get
out of the way" while the invading Arab armies made short shrift of
Israel. The rest of the landover 70 per centhad been vested in
Appendix 2 127
the Mandatory Power, and accordingly reverted to the State of
Israel as its legal heir. (Government of Palestine, Survey of Palestine,
1946, British Government Printer, p. 257.)
The greater part of this 70 per cent consisted of the Negev, some
3,144,250 acres all told, or close to 50 per cent of the 6,580,000
acres in all of Mandatory Palestine. Known as Crown or State
Lands, this was mostly uninhabited arid or semi-arid territory,
inherited originally by the Mandatory Government from Turkey.
In 1948 it passed to the Government of Israel.
These lands had not been owned by Arab farmersneither under
the British Mandate nor under the preceding regime. Thus it is
obvious that the contention that 95 per cent of the landwhether
of Mandatory Palestine or of the State of Israelhad belonged to
Arabs has absolutely no foundation in fact.
* *
There is perhaps no better way of concluding and summing up
this study than to quote from an article entitled Is Israel a Thorn
or a Flower in the Near East? by Abdul Razak Kader, the Algerian
political writer, now living in exile in Paris (Jerusalem Post, Aug. 1,
1969):
"The Nationalists of the states neighbouring on Israel, whether
they are in the government or in business, whether Palestinian,
Syrian or Lebanese, or town dwellers of tribal origin, all know that
at the beginning of the century and during the British Mandate
the marshy plains and stone hills were sold to the Zionists by their
fathers or uncles for gold, the very gold which is often the origin
of their own political or commercial careers. The nomadic or seminomadic
peasants who inhabited the frontier regions know full well
what the green plains, the afforested hills and the flowering fields
of today's Israel were like before.
"The Palestinians who are today refugees in the neighbouring
countries and who were adults at the time of their flight know all
this, and no anti-Zionist propagandapan-Arab or pan-Moslem
can make them forget that their present nationalist exploiters are
the worthy sons of their feudal exploiters of yesterday and that the
thorns of their life are of Arab, not Jewish, origin."
