~by Israel Kasnett

While the Arab-Israeli conflict today is a diplomatic and military one, it is also composed of a third element - the media. Not being confined, the media debate has spread throughout the internet, online newspapers, online journals and of course, blogs.

Although contributors to online blogs and threads often offer nothing more than rubbish and repartee, there exists a lively and healthy debate on the Arab-Israeli conflict. One of the main points of contention on most blogs and discussions I have seen center around one issue. Pro-Palestinian writers claim that in 1948, Israel appropriated Palestinian lands and villages to create their own cities and agricultural communities. Pro-Israel writers offer good counterpoints but these are often insufficient to properly negate the argument and win the debate.

Debaters from both sides of the argument often use sources gleaned from political, left or right-wing sources and this damages the quality of the argument since the proofs brought are often nothing more than the biased views of extreme groups. When making an argument, it is important to find credible information from sources that cannot be attributed to a specific political slant.

The first part of the argument that Zionists stole Palestinian land can refer to the British Mandate period before the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. Arab absentee landowners owned most of the land eventually used by the UN to create the State of Israel and their willingness to sell the land to Jews demonstrates evident disinterest in maintaining ownership over it.

Furthermore, Arab governments displaced their own populations in far greater numbers than the Jews displaced Palestinian Arabs up until the 1930’s. Jews were careful not to buy land in areas that would cause Arab displacement and instead bought uncultivated land in remote areas. Israeli leaders at the time discouraged Jews from displacing Arabs and placed heavy importance on a continued Arab presence in the land.

In January of 1937, Ben Gurion testified before the Palestine Royal Commission in which he said, “We will work it out together, and we will see to it that not a single Arab cultivator is displaced, but he should not only remain, but his conditions should be improved, and, by intensification, new room should be created for new Jewish settlers.”

However, even with this proposed cooperation, Arabs often sold their land to Jews when they decided to move elsewhere or when they needed the money to invest in promising Jewish-owned business projects.

The Peel Commission of 1937 found Arab claims that Jews stole their land as baseless. Land shortages were due more in part to massive Arab immigration to Palestine from other Arab countries than to Jewish land purchases. Chapter IX of the Peel Commission states,

“The shortage of land is due less to purchase by Jews than to the increase in the Arab population. The Arab claims 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 swamps and uncultivated when it was bought.”

Whereas the British resigned much of Palestine to be “uninhabitable,” the Jews took this “barren wasteland,” drained the swamps and “made the desert bloom.” Many of the Jewish-owned citrus groves at the time were situated on sand dunes viewed by the British as “uncultivable.”

It is without doubt that the Jews, in their quest to purchase and acquire more land, did not take any land from Arabs unlawfully. Furthermore, Arab absentee landlords living elsewhere and real estate brokers sold their land to Jews at an inflated cost.

As of today, not a single person representing the pro-Palestinian view has been able to contradict this reality using any official documentation, land data or historical records.

Furthermore, the Peel Commission admitted that Arabs on the whole, benefited from a growing Jewish presence in the land as they brought economic prosperity and stability to Palestine and its inhabitants.

“The Arab population shows a remarkable increase since 1920, and it has had some share in the increased prosperity of Palestine. Many Arab landowners have benefited from the sale of land and the profitable investment of the purchase money. The fellaheen are better off on the whole than they were in 1920. This Arab progress has been partly due to the import of Jewish capital into Palestine and other factors associated with the growth of the National Home. In particular, the Arabs have benefited from social services which could not have been provided on the existing scale without the revenue obtained from the Jews.”

Up until 1948, the Palestinian Arab population grew approximately 120 percent. This population growth occurred in tandem with Palestinian Jewish population growth and for reasons often overlooked. Jewish immigration and subsequent economic growth in Palestine led to increased Arab immigration from other countries by those seeking economic opportunity. Many Arabs at the time wandered around the Middle East seeking sustenance and a means to support their families.

Arab claims that they were displaced from their homes after living there generation after generation for thousands of years were baseless and fabricated. Most Arabs living in Palestine prior to 1948 had come from Arab lands in search of subsistence and had not been in Palestine for more than a few years.

In addition, the Jews cleared unused land, drained swamps in the Jezreel Valley and surrounding areas and in doing so, helped rid the country of its widespread malaria problem. They established medical clinics, improved water supplies and developed better solutions to deal with sanitation. All this, directly led to better health, higher standard of living, longer life expectancy and a lower infant mortality rate.

It is clear that Arab complaints against Jews were, for the most part, politically motivated, and did not reflect the reality in Palestine at the time. In comparison to their lives in Arab countries or the situation in Palestine before massive Jewish immigration, Arabs saw a consistently increased improvement in their standard of living, overall health and improved economic stability - all while cultivating their own land.

From 1922 through 1928 the relationship between Jews and Arabs in Palestine was relatively peaceful. However, in late 1928 a new phase of violence began with minor disputes between Jews and Arabs about the right of Jews to pray at the Western Wall (Kotel) in Jerusalem.

These arguments led to an outbreak of Arab violence in August 1929 when Haj Amin al-Husseini, Mufti of Jerusalem, fomented Arab hatred by accusing the Jews of endangering the mosques and other sites holy to Islam. Observers heard Husseini issue the call: Itback al-Yahud “Slaughter the Jews!”

On August 22, 1929 the leaders of the Yishuv met with the British Deputy High Commissioner to alert him of their fears of a large Arab riot. The British officials assured them that the government was in control of the situation. The following day the Riots of 1929 erupted throughout the Palestine Mandate, lasting for seven days.

On Friday, August 23, Arab mobs attacked Jews in Jerusalem, Motza, Hebron, Safed, Jaffa, and other parts of the country. The Old City of Jerusalem was hit particularly hard. By the next day, the Haganah was able to mount a defense and further attacks in Jerusalem were repulsed. But, the violence in Jerusalem generated rumors throughout the country, many carrying fabricated accounts of Jewish attempts to defile Muslim holy places, all to inflame the Arab residents. Villages were plundered and destroyed by Arab mobs. While attacks on Jews in Tel Aviv and Haifa were thwarted by Jewish defenses, there were Jewish deaths in Hebron, where 67 Jewish men and women were slaughtered and Safed, where 18 Jews were killed, as well as scattered other losses totaling 133 Jewish deaths, with more than 300 wounded.

The Arab violence in Hebron was one of the worst atrocities in the modern history of Israel. On the afternoon of Friday, August 23, 1929 Jerusalem Arabs came to Hebron with false reports of Jews murdering Arabs during the rioting there, even saying thousands of Arabs had been killed. Despite the fact that Jews and Arabs in Hebron had been on good terms, a mass of frenzied Arab rioters formed and proceeded to the Hebron Yeshiva where a lone student was murdered. The next day, the Jewish Sabbath, the killing continued as an Arab mob of hundreds surrounded homes where Jews sought refuge, broke in and murdered scores of Jews in a bloody rampage.

The dead Jews that day included Eliezer Dan Slonim, a man highly esteemed by the Arabs. He was the director of the local English-Palestine bank whose many clients were Arabs, and was the sole Jewish member of the Hebron Municipal Council. He had many friends among the Arab elders, who had promised to protect him. Twenty-two people died in Slonim’s house that day including his wife and two young children.

By the end of the riot, during which the British police did nothing to protect the Jews or stop the violence, sixty-seven Jews were dead and hundreds wounded. The survivors were isolated in a police station for three days while the Arabs rampaged through their houses, stealing and destroying Jewish property, unmolested by the British authorities. At the end of the three days the Jews were sent to Jerusalem, exiled from their homes for the crime of being a victim of the Arab riot. Hebron’s ancient Jewish quarter was empty and destroyed. For the next 39 years no Jew lived in Hebron, not until after it was liberated by the Israeli military during the Six Day War in 1967.

The British Colonial Secretary, Lord Passfield, announced the formation of a Commission of Inquiry, which began its investigation of the riots in September 1929. (see Shaw Commission of Inquiry) A British expert was engaged to study the matter (the Hope-Simpson Report), and a new policy whitepaper was issued by Lord Passfield (the 1930 White Paper)

~from PalestineFacts.org

by Dennis Wright

Israel’s military action in recent days, seeking to stem the rain of missiles from Gaza aimed at Israeli towns, has attracted criticism from the EU and the UN on the grounds of proportionality. They did both also call for the cessation of the missile fire into Israel.

The EU’s words:

“The Presidency condemns the recent disproportionate use of force by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) against the Palestinian population in Gaza”

And UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon sharply condemned Israel’s incursion into the Gaza Strip as “disproportionate and excessive”.

One question then is what would have been acceptable as “proportionate”.

Tit for tat

For example, should Israel fire rockets with specifications similar to Qassam missiles from Sderot back into similarly populous civilian regions in Gaza? Daily, at an average rate of about 5 or 6 a day. That would be just about as proportionate as you could get. Of course the death and injury toll might not be the same on both sides. It would be a matter of (bad) luck. Israeli missiles might happen to hit more people than Palestinian ones and Israel might still be accused of failing the proportionality test.

The Quota System

Israel could send troops and tanks into Gaza looking for missiles. Hamas fighters would obviously try to stop them so a battle would ensue. Once the number of Hamas fighters killed equalled the number of Israelis killed by Qassams then the operation would stop, irrespective of the number of missiles taken out of action, and the IDF would withdraw.

That’s proportional. Or is it? Is it not more legitimate to kill terrorist fighters than civilians? This leads to a variant on the theme:

The Civilian Quota System

Israel could send troops and tanks into Gaza looking for missiles. Hamas fighters would obviously try to stop them so a battle would ensue. Israel would use its superior fire-power but as Hamas terrorists are wont to fire from civilian areas there is the risk of Palestinian civilian casualties. Israeli soldiers would stop every now and again to examine rubble and bodies, and try to assess whether any of the dead Palestinians were civilians. Once the number of Palestinians killed deemed to be civilian equalled the number of Israeli civilians killed by Qassams then the operation would stop, irrespective of the number of missiles taken out of action, and the IDF would withdraw.

That’s perfectly workable isn’t it?

Or …

Live With It

Should Israel just put up with the missiles day in day out? Because any other nation would do just that, wouldn’t they?

Note: This article was written with a deliberately flippant tone to make a serious point. The casualties in Gaza and Israel are real and not taken lightly.