Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

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Leyla Shen
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Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Post by Leyla Shen »

NOTE: THIS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS (WIP) - MOST RECENT ADDENDA POSTED IN THIS COLOUR


16/05/1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement

Dissection of the Ottoman Empire territory, & agreement between France & GB with the Arabs (in exchange for fighting against the Ottomans) to recognise & protect an independent Arab state/confederation, inclusive of the modern political Israel and Lebanon but excluding Jerusalem (which was, as the Holy City to all, to be recognised as independent international territory). (See annexed maps to Agreement).

HISTORIC BACKDROP - THE CENTRAL & ALLIED POWERS

1789-1799 The French Revolution—the people rise up against the Bourbon Monarchy that clearly for imperial purposes (damaging the British Empire) supported the American Revolution (as well as many other wars) in a domestic revolution of their own. Of particular interest to the core revolutionary questions of rising nationalism and liberalism is the abolishment of the Peerage of France (privileges for the aristocracy - and fiefdom; inheritance of revenue producing land/property granted by a lord to a vassal in exchange for military support - and the Roman Catholic clergy).

1799-1815 Napoleonic Revolution. Map Napoleonic Empire, 1812

30 May 1814 Treaty of Paris (to end war between France of the one part & GB, Russia, Austria, Sweden, Portugal & Prussia of the other part). Bourbon Monarchy reinstated in France. Reapportionment of territories after Napoleonic Revolutions.

Nov 1814 - Jun 1815 The Congress of Vienna convenes to settle the future boundaries of Europe as agreed in the 1814 Treaty of Paris. Primary negotiators: Austria, Prussia, Russia, GB & France. The German Confederation comprises 39 states, internally independent, with war between the states forbidden, and consent of the Confederacy necessary for war against foreign states.

The German Confederation (1815-1866)—dominated by Austria

1843-1844 Bauer & Marx on the "emancipation" of Jews—“On the Jewish Question” Marx, 1844
[…] Bauer has posed the question of Jewish emancipation in a new form, after giving a critical analysis of the previous formulations and solutions of the question. What, he asks, is the nature of the Jew who is to be emancipated and of the Christian state that is to emancipate him? He replies by a critique of the Jewish religion, he analyzes the religious opposition between Judaism and Christianity, he elucidates the essence of the Christian state – and he does all this audaciously, trenchantly, wittily, and with profundity, in a style of writing what is as precise as it is pithy and vigorous.

How, then, does Bauer solve the Jewish question? What is the result? The formulation of a question is its solution. The critique of the Jewish question is the answer to the Jewish question. The summary, therefore, is as follows:

We must emancipate ourselves before we can emancipate others. […]

The Jewish question acquires a different form depending on the state in which the Jew lives. In Germany, where there is no political state, no state as such, the Jewish question is a purely theological one. The Jew finds himself in religious opposition to the state, which recognizes Christianity as its basis. This state is a theologian ex professo. Criticism here is criticism of theology, a double-edged criticism – criticism of Christian theology and of Jewish theology. Hence, we continue to operate in the sphere of theology, however much we may operate critically within it.

In France, a constitutional state, the Jewish question is a question of constitutionalism, the question of the incompleteness of political emancipation. Since the semblance of a state religion is retained here, although in a meaningless and self-contradictory formula, that of a religion of the majority, the relation of the Jew to the state retains the semblance of a religious, theological opposition.

Only in the North American states – at least, in some of them – does the Jewish question lose its theological significance and become a really secular question. Only where the political state exists in its completely developed form can the relation of the Jew, and of the religious man in general, to the political state, and therefore the relation of religion to the state, show itself in its specific character, in its purity. The criticism of this relation ceases to be theological criticism as soon as the state ceases to adopt a theological attitude toward religion, as soon as it behaves towards religion as a state – i.e., politically. Criticism, then, becomes criticism of the political state. At this point, where the question ceases to be theological, Bauer’s criticism ceases to be critical. […]

The political emancipation of the Jew, the Christian, and, in general, of religious man, is the emancipation of the state from Judaism, from Christianity, from religion in general. In its own form, in the manner characteristic of its nature, the state as a state emancipates itself from religion by emancipating itself from the state religion – that is to say, by the state as a state not professing any religion, but, on the contrary, asserting itself as a state. The political emancipation from religion is not a religious emancipation that has been carried through to completion and is free from contradiction, because political emancipation is not a form of human emancipation which has been carried through to completion and is free from contradiction.

The limits of political emancipation are evident at once from the fact that the state can free itself from a restriction without man being really free from this restriction, that the state can be a free state [pun on word Freistaat, which also means republic] without man being a free man. Bauer himself tacitly admits this when he lays down the following condition for political emancipation:
“Every religious privilege, and therefore also the monopoly of a privileged church, would have been abolished altogether, and if some or many persons, or even the overwhelming majority, still believed themselves bound to fulfil religious duties, this fulfilment ought to be left to them as a purely private matter.” [The Jewish Question, p. 65] It is possible, therefore, for the state to have emancipated itself from religion even if the overwhelming majority is still religious. And the overwhelming majority does not cease to be religious through being religious in private.

But, the attitude of the state, and of the republic [free state] in particular, to religion is, after all, only the attitude to religion of the men who compose the state. It follows from this that man frees himself through the medium of the state, that he frees himself politically from a limitation when, in contradiction with himself, he raises himself above this limitation in an abstract, limited, and partial way. It follows further that, by freeing himself politically, man frees himself in a roundabout way, through an intermediary, although an essential intermediary. It follows, finally, that man, even if he proclaims himself an atheist through the medium of the state – that is, if he proclaims the state to be atheist – still remains in the grip of religion, precisely because he acknowledges himself only by a roundabout route, only through an intermediary.
Post Austro-Prussian War (1866). North German Confederation in RED (& Southern, now political independents, in Yellow) (1867-1871)—dominated by Prussia & Post 1871 Franco-Prussian War—North German Confederation (NGC) annexes then French territory (pale orange—Alsace-Lorraine) & Southern states (yellow) join NGC to become the German Empire.

Weizmann & Balfour—match made in the lab; an instant chemistry.
In 1904, Chaim Weizmann was a chemistry professor at Manchester University in England trying to make synthetic rubber. He was looking for a microbe that would produce the necessary butyl alcohol. Weizmann was a Russian-born Jew who was active in the Zionist movement which advocated the creation of a homeland for Jews in Palestine. During his stay (?) in England, he became a leader of the international Zionist movement.[...]

The British turned to other parts of the British Empire and to their allies for a fermentable carbohydrate. Consequently, in 1916, the Weizmann process was moved to a distillery in Toronto (Canada) and another was built in India. In 1917, a plant was set up to ferment corn in Indiana (U.S.).

After the war [sic], when British Prime Minister Lloyd George asked what honors Weizmann might want for his considerable contributions, Weizmann answered, "There is only one thing I want. A national home for my people." Lord Balfour then gave Weizmann 15 minutes to explain why that national homeland should be Palestine. Weizmann was an eloquent spokesman and convincingly stated his case. The result was the Balfour Declaration, which affirmed Britain's commitment to the establishment of a Jewish homeland. [...]
And the linked article ends off with the perennial question:
From microbiologist to President, Weizmann illustrates not only the persistence necessary in both research and politics, but the strange and interesting ways research and politics interact. What further developments will the products of biotechnical research inspire?
October 1917 Bolsheviks in power after abdication of Nicholas II. The Bolsheviks were a faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, irreconcilably split from the Mensheviks in 1903. The Bund being the Zionist faction.

2/11/1917 A Dissenting Note on the Balbour Declaration—Lord Montague to the House. (Note: Balfour thus edited the declaration initially issued in August and referred to by Lord Montagu as the August declaration, ostensibly in the attempt to curtail such criticism.)
[...] Zionism has always seemed to me to be a mischievous political creed, untenable by any patriotic citizen of the United Kingdom. If a Jewish Englishman sets his eyes on the Mount of Olives and longs for the day when he will shake British soil from his shoes and go back to agricultural pursuits in Palestine, he has always seemed to me to have acknowledged aims inconsistent with British citizenship and to have admitted that he is unfit for a share in public life in Great Britain, or to be treated as an Englishman. I have always understood that those who indulged in this creed were largely animated by the restrictions upon and refusal of liberty to Jews in Russia. But at the very time when these Jews have been acknowledged as Jewish Russians and given all liberties, it seems to be inconceivable that Zionism should be officially recognised by the British Government [Emphasis & NOTE ADDED: see 8/02/1920 Exhibit A], and that Mr. Balfour should be authorized to say that Palestine was to be reconstituted as the "national home of the Jewish people". I do not know what this involves, but I assume that it means that Mahommedans and Christians are to make way for the Jews and that the Jews should be put in all positions of preference and should be peculiarly associated with Palestine in the same way that England is with the English or France with the French, that Turks and other Mahommedans in Palestine will be regarded as foreigners, just in the same way as Jews will hereafter be treated as foreigners in every country but Palestine. Perhaps also citizenship must be granted only as a result of a religious test.

I lay down with emphasis four principles:

1. I assert that there is not a Jewish nation. The members of my family, for instance, who have been in this country for generations, have no sort or kind of community of view or of desire with any Jewish family in any other country beyond the fact that they profess to a greater or less degree the same religion. It is no more true to say that a Jewish Englishman and a Jewish Moor are of the same nation than it is to say that a Christian Englishman and a Christian Frenchman are of the same nation: of the same race, perhaps, traced back through the centuries - through centuries of the history of a peculiarly adaptable race. The Prime Minister and M. Briand are, I suppose, related through the ages, one as a Welshman and the other as a Breton, but they certainly do not belong to the same nation.

2. When the Jews are told that Palestine is their national home, every country will immediately desire to get rid of its Jewish citizens, and you will find a population in Palestine driving out its present inhabitants, taking all the best in the country, drawn from all quarters of the globe, speaking every language on the face of the earth, and incapable of communicating with one another except by means of an interpreter. I have always understood that this was the consequence of the building of the Tower of Babel, if ever it was built, and I certainly do not dissent from the view, commonly held, as I have always understood, by the Jews before Zionism was invented, that to bring the Jews back to form a nation in the country from which they were dispersed would require Divine leadership. I have never heard it suggested, even by their most fervent admirers, that either Mr. Balfour or Lord Rothschild would prove to be the Messiah.

I claim that the lives that British Jews have led, that the aims that they have had before them, that the part that they have played in our public life and our public institutions, have entitled them to be regarded, not as British Jews, but as Jewish Britons. I would willingly disfranchise every Zionist. I would be almost tempted to proscribe the Zionist organisation as illegal and against the national interest. But I would ask of a British Government sufficient tolerance to refuse a conclusion which makes aliens and foreigners by implication, if not at once by law, of all their Jewish fellow-citizens.

3. I deny that Palestine is to-day associated with the Jews or properly to be regarded as a fit place for them to live in. The Ten Commandments were delivered to the Jews on Sinai. It is quite true that Palestine plays a large part in Jewish history, but so it does in modern Mahommendan history, and, after the time of the Jews, surely it plays a larger part than any other country in Christian history. The Temple may have been in Palestine, but so was the Sermon on the Mount and the Crucifixion. I would not deny to Jews in Palestine equal rights to colonisation with those who profess other religions, but a religious test of citizenship seems to me to be the only admitted by those who take a bigoted and narrow view of one particular epoch of the history of Palestine, and claim for the Jews a position to which they are not entitled.

If my memory serves me right, there are three times as many Jews in the world as could possible get into Palestine if you drove out all the population that remains there now. So that only one-third will get back at the most, and what will happen to the remainder?

4. I can easily understand the editors of the Morning Post and of the New Witness being Zionists, and I am not in the least surprised that the non-Jews of England may welcome this policy. I have always recognised the unpopularity, much greater than some people think, of my community. We have obtained a far greater share of this country's goods and opportunities than we are numerically entitled to. We reach on the whole maturity earlier, and therefore with people of our own age we compete unfairly. Many of us have been exclusive in our friendships and intolerant in our attitude, and I can easily understand that many a non-Jew in England wants to get rid of us. But just as there is no community of thought and mode of life among Christian Englishmen, so there is not among Jewish Englishmen. More and more we are educated in public schools and at the Universities, and take our part in the politics, in the Army, in the Civil Service, of our country. And I am glad to think that the prejudices against inter-marriage are breaking down. But when the Jew has a national home, surely it follows that the impetus to deprive us of the rights of British citizenship must be enormously increased. Palestine will become the world's Ghetto. Why should the Russian give the Jew equal rights? His national home is Palestine. Why does Lord Rothschild attach so much importance to the difference between British and foreign Jews? All Jews will be foreign Jews, inhabitants of the great country of Palestine. [...]
2/11/1917 Balfour Declaration
“...views with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people [editor’s note: there is a distinct political difference between the terms and meanings of “national home for the Jewish people” and a Jewish “nation-state.” More on this later.]

"His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a National Home for the Jewish People, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish Communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other Country."
3/01/1919 Faisal-Weizmann Agreement—the Zionist and Arab imperial attempt to create a strictly Jewish proletariat to the exclusion of the indigenous Palestinian Arabs by agreement between the said parties.
Article I
The Arab State and Palestine in all their relations and undertakings shall be controlled by the most cordial goodwill and understanding and to this end Arab and Jewish duly accredited agents shall be established and maintained in their respective territories.
In other words, only Jews and no Arabs except - Jew Arabs - in Palestine (to make way for “Israel”).

More sleight-of-hand smoke and mirrors:
Article II
Immediately following the completion of the deliberations of the Peace Conference, the definite boundaries between the Arab State and Palestine shall be determined by a Commission to be agreed upon by the parties hereto.
Faisal had (the Arab State known as) Syria but, as he was to fully realise later, only on paper. (See Treaty of Sevres, below.)

Now it gets really interesting:
Article III
In the establishment of the Constitution and Administration of Palestine all such measures shall be adopted as will afford the fullest guarantees for carrying into effect the British Government's Declaration of the 2nd of November, 1917.
Viz: Palestine being intended and understood even here as Israel, deport the non-Jew native population to Syria and keep them there, without their consent, to make way for mass Jewish settlement. So, we see here what Zionism saw as the “fullest guarantees for carrying into effect” the Declaration amount to, notwithstanding the Declaration itself!

3/02/1919 Statement of Zionist Organisation re. Palestine. Zionists push the demarcation of territory through the Peace Conference for the establishment of Israel. [Wait, what? All this BEFORE Hitler for the most killed and deported religious peoples on Earth? “The Holocaust”: lest we retroactively forget…]

28/04/1919 Covenant (est. of) The League of Nations

29/08/1919 King-Crane Commission (Syria, Palestine & Iraq)
“E. We recommend, in the fifth place, serious modification of the extreme Zionist programme for Palestine of unlimited immigration of Jews, looking finally to making Palestine distinctly a Jewish state.”
8/02/1920 EXHIBIT A: Churchill, 1920
There is no need to exaggerate the part played in the creation of Bolshevism and an the actual bringing about of the Russian Revolution: by these international and for the most part atheistic Jews. It is certainly a very great one; it probably outweighs all others. With the notable exception of Lenin, the majority of the leading figures are Jews. Moreover, the principal inspiration and driving power comes from the Jewish leaders. Thus Tchitcherin, a pure Russian, is eclipsed by his nominal subordinate Litvinoff, and the influence of Russians like Bukharin or Lunacharski cannot be compared with the power of Trotsky, or of Zinovieff, the Dictator of the Red Citadel (Petrograd), or of Krassin or Radek -- all Jews. In the Soviet institutions the predominance of Jews is even more astonishing. And the prominent, if not indeed the principal, part in the system of terrorism applied by the Extraordinary Commissions for Combating Counter-Revolution has been taken by Jews, and in some notable cases by Jewesses.

The same evil prominence was obtained by Jews in the brief period of terror during which Bela Kun ruled in Hungary. The same phenomenon has been presented in Germany (especially in Bavaria), so far as this madness has been allowed to prey upon the temporary prostration of the German people. Although in all these countries there are many non-Jews every whit as bad as the worst of the Jewish revolutionaries, the part played by the latter in proportion to their numbers in the population is astonishing.
"International" and "for the most part atheistic"?

10/08/1920 Treaty of Sevres (the Principle & Allied Powers of the one part and Turkey of the other part):
SECTION VII.

SYRIA, MESOPOTAMIA, PALESTINE.

ARTICLE 94.

The High Contracting Parties agree that Syria and Mesopotamia shall, in accordance with the fourth paragraph of Article 22.
Part I (Covenant of the League of Nations), be provisionally recognised as independent States subject to the rendering of administrative advice and assistance by a Mandatory until such time as they are able to stand alone.

A Commission shall be constituted within fifteen days from the coming into force of the present Treaty to trace on the spot the frontier line described in Article 27, II (2) and (3). This Commission will be composed of three members nominated by France, Great Britain and Italy respectively, and one member nominated by Turkey; it will be assisted by a representative of Syria for the Syrian frontier, and by a representative of Mesopotamia for the Mesopotamian frontier.

The determination of the other frontiers of the said States, and the selection of the Mandatories, will be made by the Principal Allied Powers.

ARTICLE 95.

The High Contracting Parties agree to entrust, by application of the provisions of Article 22, the administration of Palestine, within such boundaries as may be determined by the Principal Allied Powers, to a Mandatory to be selected by the said Powers. The Mandatory will be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 2, 1917, by the British Government, and adopted by the other Allied Powers, in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.

The Mandatory undertakes to appoint as soon as possible a special Commission to study and regulate all questions and claims relating to the different religious communities. In the composition of this Commission the religious interests concerned will be taken into account. The Chairman of the Commission will be appointed by the Council of the League of Nations.

ARTICLE 96.

The terms of the mandates in respect of the above territories will be formulated by the Principal Allied Powers and submitted to the Council of the League of Nations for approval.
10/03/1921 Faisal Memorandum to British Foreign Ministry (substance of Faisal’s proviso in Faisal-Weizmann Agmt of 3/01/1919)
I have submitted therefore on behalf of His Majesty King Hussein that this Conference should reconsider the treatment meted out to the Arabs by the Treaty of Sevres. I stand here on behalf of the Arabs and solemnly ask for that independence and unity for which we fought, and for which many thousands of my countrymen laid down their lives. We wish to maintain the friendly relations with the Allied Powers that existed between us while we were brother nations in arms; we wish to do no detriment to the legitimate interests of any foreign Power; but above all we wish, with the passionate patriotism that we share with other people, to be free to order our own national life so that our race, inspired by its great history, may once again develop its genius and contribute as in the past to the common stock of human civilization. Until this desire is satisfied, peace, which is one of the main objectives of this Conference can never be established in the Arab provinces.
30/07/1921 Interim Report on the (British) Civil Administration of Palestine
“This pronouncement was received with the warmest gratitude and enthusiasm by the mass of the Jewish people throughout the world. After the occupation of Palestine, a Zionist Commission was sent there, with the approval of the Government, to concert measures for carrying into effect the policy of the Declaration.

Meanwhile, however, a section of native opinion in Palestine was becoming disturbed as to the meaning of British policy. Welcoming release from Turkish misgovernment, anxious to accept the benefit of British assistance in securing an efficient administration, it was uneasy as to the implications of the Balfour Declaration. To instal the Jews in Palestine might mean the expulsion of the Arabs. If there were an unlimited Jewish immigration and finally a Jewish majority in the population, how could the safeguards embodied in the second half of the Declaration be enforced? The ownership by the Arabs of their lands and homes would be imperilled. The Moslem Holy Places, and particularly the Haram-esh-Sherif on Mount Moriah, might be taken from them. Quotations from the speeches and writings of Zionist leaders, which were said to justify these forebodings, were translated into Arabic and circulated by the press among the people. An organization was formed, with branches in many parts of the country, to combat the application of the Zionist policy. Individuals or groups, in Palestine or elsewhere, who had some interest in causing embarrassment to the Administration, stimulated the agitation. The wildest stories as to the intentions of the Jews and the fate awaiting the Arabs were circulated in the towns and villages, and were often believed by a credulous people. Among a section of the Arabs, who had all previously lived on excellent terms with the Jewish population, a bitter feeling was evoked against the Jews. It was fostered and developed until it culminated in a serious outbreak in the streets of Jerusalem in April, 1920, when a number of Jews were killed and wounded and Jewish shops were looted.

Many men of education and enlightenment among the Arabs took no part, however, in this antagonism. They recognised that the fears that had been expressed were illusory. They realised that Jewish co-operation was the best means, perhaps the only means, of promoting the prosperity of Palestine, a prosperity from which the Arabs could not fail to benefit. They desired the maintenance of peace and order, and they had confidence that the British Government would permit no injustice, even if injustice were intended. And among the mass of the population there were large numbers who, taking no interest in politics, thinking only of the needs of daily life, made no response to the agitation that sought to arouse their fears and inflame their passions.

Such was the economic condition of the country, and such was the political atmosphere, when on July 1st, 1920, by order of His Majesty's Government a Civil Administration was established in Palestine.”
1922 Census Data—Palestine
The last census was taken in 1922, and showed the total population as being 757,182, of whom 590,890 were Mohammedans, 83,794 Jews and 82,498 Christians and others. The division between the town and agricultural population was as follows :

Town areas
Mohammedans 139,074; Jews 68,622; Christians and others 56,621

Rural areas
Mohammedans 451,816; Jews 15,172; Christians and others 25,877
1930 Dept of Health statistics—Palestine
Mohammedans 692,195; Jews 162,069; Christians and others 91,727 - Total: 945,991

(iii) THE EFFECT OF THE JEWISH SETTLEMENT ON THE ARAB.

P.I.C.A.'s relations with the Arab.

In discussing the question of the effect of Jewish Settlement on the Arab it is essential to differentiate between the P.I.C.A. colonisation and that of the Zionist Organisation.
In so far as the past policy of the P.I.C.A. is concerned, there can be no doubt that the Arab has profited largely by the installation of the colonies. Relations between the colonists and their Arab neighbours were excellent. In many cases, when land was bought by the P.I.C.A. for settlement, they combined with the development of the land for their own settlers similar development for the Arabs who previously occupied the land. All the cases which are now quoted by the Jewish authorities to establish the advantageous effect of Jewish colonisation on the Arabs of the neighbourhood, and which have been brought to notice forcibly and frequently during the course of this enquiry, are cases relating to colonies established by the P.I.C.A., before the KerenHayesod came into existence. In fact, the policy of the P.I.C.A. was one of great friendship for the Arab. Not only did they develop the Arab lands simultaneously with their own, when founding their colonies, but they employed the Arab to tend their plantations, cultivate their fields, to pluck their grapes and their oranges. As a general rule the P.I.C.A. colonisation was of unquestionable benefit to the Arabs of the vicinity.

It is also very noticeable, in travelling through the P.I.C.A. villages, to see the friendliness of the relations which exist between Jew and Arab. It is quite a common sight to see an Arab sitting in the verandah of a Jewish house. The position is entirely different in the Zionist colonies.

Zionist colonisation: the Arab.

In the Memorandum submitted by the Jewish agency attempts were made to establish that the purchase of the villages in the Esdraelon valley and their settlement by the Jews had not had the effect of causing the previous tenants to join the landless class. A list of the ejected tenants was submitted as an annex to the Memorandum, giving the subsequent employment of each one of these tenants in so far as they could be traced. The annex dealt with 688 tenants. The following is an extract from the Memorandum :

" . . . . Very few traced belong to the landless class; 437 are continuing farming58 as harraths; 89 are shepherdsthey were all shepherds before the evacuation, farming being with them a merely subsidiary occupation; 4 are craftsmen, 14 are merchants; 50 are urban labourers; 4 are vegetable vendors; 10 are camel drivers; 2 are milkmen; 37 died; 41 whereabouts unknown. In addition, out of the 688 not less than 154 have became property ownersthat is, they now possess a house and lot of their own."

In explanation of the above statement it must be pointed out that a " harrath " is a farm servant; he is not a tenant farmer. The real result of this enquiry is to establish that of 688 Arab families which cultivated in the villages in the Vale of Esdraelon which were purchased and occupied by the Jews, only 379 are now cultivating the land. Three hundred and nine of these families have joined the landless classes. In the cases described as " died " it is not the family that is extinguished, but the head of the family who has died. Presumably, the descendants are still alive and earning their bread in some other walk of life than agriculture. It is also to be recorded that the number, 688, does not by any means include all the families who were displaced. According to the records of the Area Officers at Nazareth and Haifa, the number of " farmers " displaced from those villages was 1,270, nearly double the number accounted for in the Memorandum. In addition to farmers, there are, of course, many other residents who, though not in occupation, have interests in the land. With reference to these the District Commissioner, Northern District, writes :

" .... It appears quite clear that the persons who claimed, or at any rate who received compensations, by no means included all those who had interests in land, who according to the census figures amounted to 4,900. The census figures are usually taken as being about 20 per cent, below the truth, owing to the objections to a census which was connected with military service . . . ." […]

Zionist policy in regard to Arabs in their colonies.

The abovequoted provisions sufficiently illustrate the Zionist policy with regard to the Arabs in their colonies. Attempts are constantly being made to establish the advantage which Jewish settlement has brought to the Arab. The most lofty sentiments are ventilated at public meetings and in Zionist propaganda. At the time of the Zionist Congress in 1921 a resolution was passed which '' solemnly declared the desire of the Jewish people to live with the Arab people in relations of friendship and mutual respect, and, together with the Arab people, to develop the homeland common to both into a prosperous community which would ensure the growth of the peoples." This resolution is frequently quoted in proof of the excellent sentiments which Zionism cherishes towards the people of Palestine. The provisions quoted above, which are included in legal documents binding on every settler in a Zionist colony, are not compatible with the sentiments publicly expressed.

The same remark applies to the following extract from the Memorandum submitted by the General Federation of Jewish Labour to the " Palestine Commission of Enquiry " (i.e., the Commission on the Palestine disturbances of August, 1929) :

" The Jewish Labour Movement considers the Arab population as an integral element in this country. It is not to be thought of that Jewish settlers should displace this population, nor establish themselves at its expense. This would not only be impossible both from the political and economic standpoint, but it would run counter to the moral conception lying at the root of the Zionist movement. Jewish immigrants who come to this country to live by their own labour regard the Arab working man as their compatriot and fellow worker, whose needs are their needs and whose future is their future."

The effect of the Zionist colonisation policy on the Arab.

Actually the result of the purchase of land in Palestine by the Jewish National Fund has been that land has been extraterritorialised. It ceases to be land from which the Arab can gain any advantage either now or at any time in the future. Not only can he never hope to lease or to cultivate it, but, by the stringent provisions of the lease of the Jewish National Fund, he is deprived for ever from employment on that land. Nor can anyone help him by purchasing the land and restoring it to common use. The land is in mortmain and inalienable. It is for this reason that Arabs discount the professions of friendship and good will on the part of the Zionists in view of the policy which the Zionist Organisation deliberately adopted.
Last edited by Leyla Shen on Wed Nov 26, 2008 1:15 pm, edited 11 times in total.
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brokenhead
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Post by brokenhead »

Hey Leyla -the title of your thread is

Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Yet you left off 1n 1921. A lot has happened in the last 87 years. What's your point?
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Post by Dan Rowden »

Broke, Leyla wrote in declaring the thread:
The new thread will be a referenced opening post containing excerpts for discussion as desired. I will add to it until it is entirely up-to-date.
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Post by brokenhead »

Dan Rowden wrote:Broke, Leyla wrote in declaring the thread:
The new thread will be a referenced opening post containing excerpts for discussion as desired. I will add to it until it is entirely up-to-date.
Okay. Obviously that was in a thread I haven't been following.
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Post by brokenhead »

History shows that American Jews found their political voice during the WWII when the stories of the concentration camps began to filter out of Europe. Roosevelt was by no means pro-Zionist, but Truman lacked his political base and needed the well-organized American Jewish lobby in New York, Pennsylvania, and Illinois and other swing states. Truman needed Jewish support for a reelection bid in 1948. It was his political backing that pushed through the original partition plans in the UN in November, 1947. Ben Gurion proclaimed the new state the following May.

It was an enormously controversial development from the start. The US oil companies bitterly resented that the Jewish lobby was influencing matters of state and, in their view, damaging American prestige overseas. Truman's own state department was vocally against him.

Most Western powers were against granting statehood based on religious and racial claims. It was Russia who recognized Israel and furnished the new state with Czech weaponry. It was the new era of Realpolitik - the Soviet goal was to destabilize Britain's hold on the region. Without Czechoslovakia pouring arms into Tel Aviv in 1948, the new state of Israel would not have been able to survive militarily. Stalin perhaps believed the new Jewish State would be a socialist one; at any rate, his support was short-lived if historically crucial.

In doing a little research on this period, I was able to come up with a largely ignored fact in all this. The original partition by the UN gave the Jews only 5,500 square miles. The Zionists accepted this. The Arabs did not. The proposed state would have had some 538,000 Jews and 397,000 Arabs. As many as 30,000 Arabs fled Palestine prior to the military hostilities in 1948. They were among the well-to-do and influential, and they fully expected to come back after Israel was overwhelmingly defeated by Arab forces in the region.

The ensuing hostilities showed that the Arab forces were neither well-trained nor fighting as one. The same cannot be said of the Jews. Churchill's formation of the 25,000 member Jewish Brigade in 1944 was the basis of the Haganah. I don't want to go into the details of the fighting, but it is important to note that in the aftermath, at least half a million Arabs had fled Palestine, and as many Jews from ten different Arab nations were forced to flee their homes, and many went to Israel. This in effect doubled the original Jewish population of the original partition scheme.

But even before WWII, some 60,000 German Jews were "encouraged" by the Nazis to emigrate to Palestine. Thus the 1930s saw an influx of Jewish wealth into the area, and the consequent establishment of an economic infrastructure.
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Post by Leyla Shen »

FIRST ADDENDA
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Post by brokenhead »

At the time of Balfour, Palestine is 93% Arab.
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Post by Leyla Shen »

SECOND ADDENDA
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Post by Steven Coyle »

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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Post by Leyla Shen »

Thanks, Dan. Most helpful.
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Post by Alex Jacob »

Two things:

Perhaps I'm paranoid, but when I look at your avatar, Leyla, I see a giant claw reaching down for some fellow trying to escape running...

And I can't make hide nor hair of Aesop Rock. The only song I felt I understood was the 'shroomin' one. Does someone publish a manual of interpretation?
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Post by guest_of_logic »

Leyla,

I'm a little curious as to why two of your posts in this thread contain nothing but the words "FIRST ADDENDA" and "SECOND ADDENDA" - are they meant to be placeholders for the eventual content?
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Post by Alex Jacob »

I can answer that: those are two important songs by Aesop Rock...
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Post by brokenhead »

guest_of_logic wrote:Leyla,

I'm a little curious as to why two of your posts in this thread contain nothing but the words "FIRST ADDENDA" and "SECOND ADDENDA" - are they meant to be placeholders for the eventual content?
Guest -
Leyla is adding to her first post in the thread as she goes along. The "ADDENDA" posts are just notices that she has made another addition. It had me a little confused until Dan cleared it up.
Last edited by brokenhead on Sat Nov 22, 2008 8:41 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Post by brokenhead »

Alex Jacob wrote:Perhaps I'm paranoid, but when I look at your avatar, Leyla, I see a giant claw reaching down for some fellow trying to escape running...
Wait until Leyla becomes proficient with PhotoShop. Then the giant claw will be reaching for a six-pointed star...
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Post by guest_of_logic »

brokenhead wrote:Guest -
Leyla is adding to her first post in the thread as she goes along. The "ADDENDA" posts are just notices that she has mad another addition. It had me a little confused until Dan cleared it up.
Doh! I'm not as smart as I thought I was. :-P Thanks for explaining, broke. Right, well, I'm off to read the additions...
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Post by Steven Coyle »

Aesop deduction requires two things: both hemisphere sync and a mind that can float.
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Post by Leyla Shen »

Man, you really are feeling attention deprived. There's a whole thread dedicated to music links, Steven. Actually say something relevant to the fucking topic at hand, or stay off.
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Post by brokenhead »

For those interested in Zionism, it is worthwhile to read Wikipedia's brief bio on Theodor Herzl. Many believe him to the the "father of Zionism." Certainly, he was instrumental in making it a political movement in the late nineteenth century. He is noted for his role in the Basel, Switzerland Zionist Congress conferences, among many other things.

This quote from the bio shows the talks about a Jewish homeland were more than mere rhetoric:
...[Herzl] received, through L. J. Greenberg, an offer (August 1903) on the part of the British government to facilitate a large Jewish settlement, with autonomous government and under British suzerainty, in British East Africa. At the same time, the Zionist movement being threatened by the Russian government, he visited St. Petersburg and was received by Sergei Witte, then finance minister, and Viacheslav Plehve, minister of the interior, the latter of whom placed on record the attitude of his government toward the Zionist movement. On that occasion Herzl submitted proposals for the amelioration of the Jewish position in Russia. He published the Russian statement, and brought the British offer, commonly known as the "Uganda Project," before the Sixth Zionist Congress (Basel, August 1903), carrying the majority (295:178, 98 abstentions) with him on the question of investigating this offer, after the Russian delegation stormed out.
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

What keeps surprising me when reading the story about Herzl is his total lack of connection with Judaism and traditional Jewry, added to his obsession with the famous spy case the 'Dreyfus Affair' as some pure antisemitic affair - which in my view it barely was, if at all at bottom. So basically the lack of any deep Jewish roots in the history of Zionism. In that way it fits perfectly in the 20th century, age of uprooting!
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Post by brokenhead »

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:What keeps surprising me when reading the story about Herzl is his total lack of connection with Judaism and traditional Jewry, added to his obsession with the famous spy case the 'Dreyfus Affair' as some pure antisemitic affair - which in my view it barely was, if at all at bottom. So basically the lack of any deep Jewish roots in the history of Zionism. In that way it fits perfectly in the 20th century, age of uprooting!
You have to remember that nationalism doesn't date back much further than the 18th century. Zionism was the Jewish answer to the rise of nationalism in Europe in the 19th century. Its birth is actually the birth of a desire to establish roots, even as Russia and Germany and Poland explored how to deal with the Jewish population, which seemed to resist the nationalistic trends of the non-Jewish citizenry. Russia in particular favored an enforced assimilation of Jews into mainstream culture. As people began to identify themselves with nations, the beginning of the idea of a state in which the Jews could set down roots and follow the same historical trend was a natural development among well-to-do, educated Jews. Of course, I am speaking of Jews outside of Palestine, as the Jewish emigration into Palestine had not yet begun. That is to state the obvious, I guess - that Zionism was born outside of Palestine.
Last edited by brokenhead on Mon Dec 01, 2008 12:44 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

Agreed. And much what was perceived as antisemitism in that period [but also for example during the Spanish Inquisition] was the result of doubting the loyalties of Jews during conflicts, as their interests and loyalty were normally extended beyond the local, toward Jews in other territories and ultimately their religion or tradition. So cross-border information exchange was typically a Jewish thing at the time. In the Dreyfus Affair it was even the Jewish aspect combined with his origin from a German-speaking area at the border which made him the number one candidate, as well as his initial and handwriting similarities with the much later caught real spy.

In general I think the idea of some mythical or real historical homeland is crucial to most forms of nationalism; it could be called its main religious icon. In case of Israel it happens to be as well the main theme of Judaism although in my view the approach is radically different, depending on which fundamentalist one speaks.
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Post by Leyla Shen »

Diebert wrote:In general I think the idea of some mythical or real historical homeland is crucial to most forms of nationalism; [...]
But this is only operative in the absence of or after the civil state has failed. Ethnic partition (in the form of the constant creation of nation-states based on the inherent traits of “a people”) is doomed to fail since it so obviously does nothing but establish the ultimate inter-ethnic catalyst for war—religion.

I can think of many “peoples” who might share similar traditions and cultures, but I cannot think of any two ethnic peoples yet who have shared the same religion when defining their ethnicity outside of anything on the order of a successful civil state, matters of territory notwithstanding.

One might venture to argue that, for example, the cause of all conflicts today is Islamic fundamentalism fostered by radical Islamic states. Such a one, however, is utterly and sometimes even willfully ignorant of history and how and why those particular nation-states came about and the fundamentals upon which they were created.

Religious dogmatism is a symptom of ignorance—and, as Marx so astutely observed, an opiate of the masses—not a cause.
...In case of Israel it happens to be as well the main theme of Judaism although in my view the approach is radically different, depending on which fundamentalist one speaks.
The problem with Jews is religion is conflated with supposed race and, on top of that, an inseparable and essential part of their identity. No other religion (or, in Jewish terms, religio-race...) or race has this problem. So, what do you get flourishing in the end with Israel? Why, religious dogmatism, of course!
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Post by brokenhead »

Leyla Shen wrote:Religious dogmatism is a symptom of ignorance—and, as Marx so astutely observed, an opiate of the masses—not a cause.
Not a cause of what? Everything is causal. Do you mean "should not be a cause to fight for"? Because if Marx said religion has not been a cause of conflict throughout history, then he was evidently no historian.
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Post by Shahrazad »

Not a cause of what?
Not a cause of ignorance, broken.

Ignorance causes dogmatism, and not the other way around.
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