And I began to find out about the barbaric methods used to rid the fledgling state of as many Palestinians as possible. The world recoils today at the thought of bacteriological warfare, but Israel was probably the first to actually use it in the Middle East.
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In 1880 Jews were ONLY 5.3% of the total population of Palestine (and had been this percentage of the population (or less) for more than a thousand years). In 1946 the Jewish population was almost entirely comprised of recent immigrants (people who had been in the country less than twenty years). This group of recent immigrants were publicly claiming that the (entire) land belonged to them (apparently they believed that some god had given it to them). These wild claims made non-Jews who lived in Palestine (we will call them Palestinians) very nervous, especially since the Jews claimed to want an ethnically pure state. These non-Jews were (very) afraid that they would be kicked out of any new entity that claimed to be a Jewish state.
The fears of the non-Jews who lived in Palestine were well founded. That in 1948 all but 155,000 of the 873,600 Palestinians living in the area that became Israel, were ethnically cleansed from the newly formed Jewish state. This ethnic cleansing was extremely brutal (and has been well documented). Quoting Naeim Giladi. And I began to find out about the barbaric methods used to rid the fledgling state of as many Palestinians as possible. The world recoils today at the thought of bacteriological warfare, but Israel was probably the first to actually use it in the Middle East. In the 1948 war, Jewish forces would empty Arab villages of their populations, often by threats, sometimes by just gunning down a half-dozen unarmed Arabs as examples to the rest. To make sure the Arabs couldn't return to make a fresh life for themselves in these villages, the Israelis put typhus and dysentery bacteria into the water wells.
The houses, and property that was destroyed had been owned by those Palestinians killed, or forced to flee, by the barbaric tactics of the Jews. These destroyed towns and villages were rebuilt (with new Jewish names) as Jewish only towns and villages. The Palestinians who had been forced to leave were not allowed back. They were not even allowed back into the Jewish state, let alone back to their (now destroyed) towns and villages.
Palestine's Population During The Ottoman And The British Mandate Periods.
And now lets examine the claim that the Jews bought all the land and thus "now owned it" and were thus "entitled" to ethnically cleanse Palestine. IN 1946 THE JEWS OWNED APPROXIMATELY And even this 7% (more precisely 6.66%) of the land is contested. Much of the land was bought from people who had registered the land in their name, but who did not in any sense own the land, but that is another story. The point is that owning 7% of the land (about 20% of the farmland) does not entitle a minority to claim the entire land (even if they claim that some god gave it to them). Listing and Map of Land Ownership In Palestine As In 1947. In all this the Jews just acted as a bunch of thieves and criminals.
These figures are from the UNISPAL website. And here are some official estimates of the numbers of Palestinian ethnically cleansed by the Jews:
1 "The Problem of Arab Refugees from Palestine," U.S. Government Report of the Subcommittee on the Near East and Africa (Foreign Relations Committee, 24 July 1953). The West Bank refugees are added to those of Jordan. 2 PROFO371-754196 E2297/1821/31 3 United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine: Report of the UN Economic Survey Mission for the Middle East, UN Document A/AC.25/6, p. 18; Annual Report of the Director General of UNRWA, Director's Report, UN Document 5224/5223, 25 November 1952. 4 Morris, Benny, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1989, p. 297. 5 Khalidi, Walid et al., eds., All that Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948, 1992, Appendix III, p. 582. 6 Said, Edward et al., A Profile of the Palestinian People, Third Ed, 1990, p. 6; Abu-Lughod, Janet, "The Demographic Transformation of Palestine," in Ibrahim Abu-Lughod, ed., The Transformation of Palestine, 1971, pp. 139-63. 7 Hagopian, Edward and A.B. Zahlen, "Palestine's Arab Population," Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. III, Walid Khalidi et al., eds., 1974, pp. 32-73. |