Third Excellent Comments on Dore Gold

1. blackton

Ali, too funny. For heaven's sake, do you know the Arab population of Israel in the 20's and 30's? Are you aware that during the time of the Ottomans there were few people in the region, and that the Ottomans invited Jews to build up the region, in fact many, many Arabs moved into the region in the 1880's. Zionist settlement between 1880 and 1948 did not displace or dispossess Palestinians. Every indication is that there was net Arab immigration into Palestine in this period, and that the economic situation of Palestinian Arabs improved tremendously under the British Mandate relative to surrounding countries. By 1948, there were approximately 1.35 million Arabs and 650,000 Jews living betwe ... view full comment

Ali, too funny. For heaven's sake, do you know the Arab population of Israel in the 20's and 30's? Are you aware that during the time of the Ottomans there were few people in the region, and that the Ottomans invited Jews to build up the region, in fact many, many Arabs moved into the region in the 1880's. Zionist settlement between 1880 and 1948 did not displace or dispossess Palestinians. Every indication is that there was net Arab immigration into Palestine in this period, and that the economic situation of Palestinian Arabs improved tremendously under the British Mandate relative to surrounding countries. By 1948, there were approximately 1.35 million Arabs and 650,000 Jews living between the Jordan and the Mediterranean, more Arabs than had ever lived in Palestine before, and more Jews than had lived there since Roman times. Analysis of population by sub-districts shows that Arab population tended to increase the most between 1931 and 1948 in the same areas where there were large proportions of Jews. Therefore, Zionist immigration did not displace Arabs.

I mean, c'mon, try to go with some facts next time. Study the census from the Ottoman empire and the British Mandate sometime.


2. roidubouloi

I would put it differently. Palestine was a colonial conquest made by the Arabs in the 7th century, along with all of North Africa and much of the Middle East. In most of that territory, the population was converted to Islam and became a part of the Moslem world. In Israel, although many of the native inhabitants were dispersed due to colonial conquest dating back to the Romans, the Jewish population was not absorbed into Islam or completely displaced.

The end of World War I saw a process of decolonization and disassembling of empire that resulted in the creation of many of the current Arab and Moslem states that had never existed before in history, as there had never been any Moslem state ... view full comment

I would put it differently. Palestine was a colonial conquest made by the Arabs in the 7th century, along with all of North Africa and much of the Middle East. In most of that territory, the population was converted to Islam and became a part of the Moslem world. In Israel, although many of the native inhabitants were dispersed due to colonial conquest dating back to the Romans, the Jewish population was not absorbed into Islam or completely displaced.

The end of World War I saw a process of decolonization and disassembling of empire that resulted in the creation of many of the current Arab and Moslem states that had never existed before in history, as there had never been any Moslem state of Palestine or a Palestinian people. Palestinian Arabs are but that portion of the larger Arab population living in the land of the Jews, named Palestina by the Romans centuries before Arabs or Moslems appeared there. In most cases, the decolonization relieved Arabs of their colonial masters. In the case of Israel, it relieved the Jews of their colonial masters.

Contra nayyer_ali, it is of absolutely no importance whatsoever whether the Arab colonizers of Israel agreed to the partition and the creation of Israel or not. Nor is it any of the business of the Arab colonizers that the Jews chose to welcome their own dispersed people back to their land or whether those people returned from Europe, China, or as was the case for a very large portion, from Arab lands. As for the authority of the UN to make these decisions, it is the same authority that resulted in the decolonization of the rest of the colonial world, including the Arab world. But for that authority, the Arab world would still belong to Britain and France. So, unless nayyer_ali would like to turn the Arab world back over to its former colonizers, now ejected from their colonial possessions, there is not the slightest reason in the world why Israel should be turned over to its former colonizers, the Arabs, now ejected from their colonial possession.

Arab self-determination in the places that are the home of the Arab peoples does not require the consent of the English or the French. Jewish self-determination in the one small home of the Jewish people on earth does not require the consent of the Arabs. Whether they now consider themselves Palestinians or the southern Syrians that they were makes no difference.

The refugee problem is a different matter, but that debt has been paid. More Jews who were refugees from Arab lands were absorbed into Israel than Arabs who lost their place in Israel as a result of Arab aggression in 1948. More land land belonging to Jews in Arab lands was confiscated than the area of the entire State of Israel. The proper grievance of Palestinian Arabs is with the rest of the Arab world that first made them refugees and then refused to make room for them.

There is no legitimate Palestinian Arab claim to the land of Israel. Not 1,400 years ago, not 150 years ago, not 60 years ago, and not now. Israel is no more a Jewish colony than England is a colony of the Angles, Jutes and Saxons, indeed rather less so. Israel is the land of the Jews as far back as human history extends.

3. J.P.Katz

blackton: "Every indication is that there was net Arab immigration into Palestine in this period, and that the economic situation of Palestinian Arabs improved tremendously under the British Mandate relative to surrounding countries."

blackton is undoubtedly right that Arab immigration into Palestine was essentially unrestricted throughout the Mandate period. One of the conclusions of the 1930 Hope-Simpson Commission (sent from London to investigate the 1929 Arab riots) was that the Mandatory's practice of ignoring the uncontrolled illegal Arab immigration from Egypt, Transjordan. Syria and North Africa had the effect of displacing the prospective Jewish immigrants. The British Governor of the Sinai from 1922-36 observed: "This illegal immigration was not only going on from the Sinai, but also from Transjordan and Syria, and it is very difficult to make a case out for the misery of the Arabs if at the same time their compatriots from adjoining states could not be kept from going in to share that misery."

By the late 1930s, Palestine was essentially closed to the Jews of Europe but not to thousands of illegal Arab immigrants, who poured into Palestine from other parts of the Middle East, attracted by the superior economic conditions created by the Zionists

Responding to this nonsense:

nayyer_ali

The fact remains that modern Israel is not the return of ancient Israelites, they are long dead and gone. It is the result of the movement of a large number of Europeans into Palestine who claimed a cultural/genetic link to the ancient Jews of 2000 years ago. Why is that link so compelling as to allow the displacement and dispossession of the Palestinians, and any critical thinking leads to the obvious conclusion that realizing the Zionist project was going to displace the Palestinians? Herzl himself stated the obvious in his diary, when he called for the ethnic cleansing of the Arabs. Even in 1948, Jews made up only 30% of Palestine, and a plebiscite would have resulted in a single stat ... view full comment

The fact remains that modern Israel is not the return of ancient Israelites, they are long dead and gone. It is the result of the movement of a large number of Europeans into Palestine who claimed a cultural/genetic link to the ancient Jews of 2000 years ago. Why is that link so compelling as to allow the displacement and dispossession of the Palestinians, and any critical thinking leads to the obvious conclusion that realizing the Zionist project was going to displace the Palestinians? Herzl himself stated the obvious in his diary, when he called for the ethnic cleansing of the Arabs. Even in 1948, Jews made up only 30% of Palestine, and a plebiscite would have resulted in a single state, not partition. Who gave the UN the right to partition Palestine? Why did the wishes of the majority of PAlestine, which rejected partition, not count? The native Palestinians are just as if not more genetically connected to the inhabitants of 2000 years ago as the Jews are, DNA testing shows that. Israel is the product of European Jews animated by an ideology, Zionism, that grew out of a European context, it was not the creed or view of the Jews living in Palestine in 1863. In that sense it is a colonial settler state no different than the other European offshoots, except that it justifies its existence through an appeal to religious/cultural attachments that give it greater legitimacy to do what they did. What the UN or various other states "recognized" about the Jews and Palestine is irrelevant, they have no right to decide the matter, it should have been up to the inhabitants of Palestine to decide whether they agreed to the Zionist project or not. Israel was created without the consent of the Palestinians, and that was possible because of the shield of British imperial control. Without that, Israel would never have happened.