What was the impact of the Zionists on Palestine?

[abu afak]

Tinhead has stirred me to start another educational String.
That is a De-propagandizing one about the origins of the conflict

What was the impact of the Zionists on Palestine?
http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_early_palestine_zionists_impact.php

Tel Aviv Founding Ceremony, 1909
Photo: Azanne Research
(abu: Note all the Displaced arabs)

In the 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, a litany of Christian travelers – Siebald Rieter and Johann Tucker, Arnold Van Harff and Father Michael Nuad, Martin Kabatnik and Felix Fabri, Count Constantine Francois Volney and Alphonse de Lamartine, Mark Twain and Sir George Gawler, Sir George Adam Smith and Edward Robinson – found Palestine virtually empty, except for Jewish communities in Jerusalem, Safed, Shechem, Hebron, Gaza, Ramleh, Acre, Sidon, Tyre, Haifa, Irsuf, Caesarea, and El Arish, and throughout Galilee towns – Kfar Alma, Ein Zeitim, Biria, Pekiin, Kfar Hanania, Kfar Kana and Kfar Yassif. To stay, these Jews had submitted to innumerable conquerors, taxes, pogroms and degradation. But they stayed. In 1799, Palestine was still so much in need of people that Napoleon Bonaparte championed a full-scale return of Jews.

In the early 19th century, Palestine was a backward, neglected province of the Ottoman Empire. Travelers to Palestine from the Western world left records of what they saw there. The theme throughout their reports is dismal: The land was empty, neglected, abandoned, desolate, fallen into ruins.

In Jerusalem, all reports and journals of travelers, pilgrims and government representatives during these years, repeatedly record the poverty, filth and neglect and the desolate nature of the countryside. Early photographs show lepers in rags and dilapidated buildings. Jerusalem was surrounded by marauding bands of Bedouin Arabs and had to close her gates at nightfall and reopen them at first light, a practice that was similar in Biblical times.

Some quotes from the writings of these visitors before modern times:

Nothing there [Jerusalem] to be seen but a little of the old walls which is yet remaining and all the rest is grass, moss and weeds.
[English pilgrim in 1590]

The country is in a considerable degree empty of inhabitants and therefore its greatest need is of a body of population.
- [British consul in 1857]
(abu note his name was James Finn I believe)


There is not a solitary village throughout its whole extent [valley of Jezreel] — not for 30 miles in either direction…
One may ride ten miles hereabouts and not see ten human beings. …
For the sort of solitude to make one dreary, come to Galilee … Nazareth is forlorn … Jericho lies a moldering ruin …
Bethlehem and Bethany, in their poverty and humiliation… untenanted by any living creature…
A desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds … a silent, mournful expanse … a desolation …
We never saw a human being on the whole route … Hardly a tree or shrub anywhere.
Even the olive tree and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil had almost deserted the country …
Of all the lands there are for dismal scenery Palestine must be the prince. The hills barren and dull, the valleys unsightly deserts [inhabited by] swarms of beggars with ghastly sores and malformations.
Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes … desolate and unlovely …
[Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad, 1867]​

Remarkably, there are photographs dating to the 19th century and early 20th century that document the development of Palestine from the desolate, pre-Zionist landscape reported by travelers to the green and productive land that Jewish immigrants created there. This web site has 460 photographs and lithographs of the period, some never before available to the public. They show how the industrious Zionists made the lightly-populated land productive and able to support the great increases in Jewish and Arab numbers that came to Palestine in the following decades.

Winston Churchill was British Colonial Secretary when he visited the Middle East in the winter of 1920-1921. Anti-Semitic elements in the British government tried to assert that the Jews were not needed to develop Palestine. Churchill replied:

Left to themselves, the Arabs of Palestine would not in a thousand years have taken effective steps towards the irrigation and electrification of Palestine. They would have been quite content to dwell—a handful of philosophic people—in wasted sun-drenched plains, letting the waters of the Jordan flow unbridled and unharnessed into the Dead Sea.”

In 1924, a few months after becoming Commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Elwood Mead (namesake of Lake Mead behind Hoover Dam) published a highly favorable review of Jewish settlements in Palestine based on his visits there in 1923. His article, “New Palestine,” praised the Zionists accomplishments and plans, a publicity coup. Mead blamed Islam, Ottoman governance, and Arab culture for the demise of Roman irrigation systems that, according to Mead, once supported “lands flowing with milk and honey.” Mead was a consultant to Chiam Weizman offering his expertise to maximize the return on investment of the extensive investments in irrigation, land reclamation, and water supplies in the Zionist areas based on Mead’s extensive experience in the American West.

After the Arab riots in 1929, Mead wrote to the British High Commissioner that Jewish colonists had produced “a marvelous transformation” in the Palestinian landscape. Mead noted that in his visits to Palestine he had seen nothing “to indicate that the Arab was injured.” Moreover, the Jewish example of “what modern finance and equipment can do, coupled with the sympathetic interest of the government is bringing him out of the hopeless inertia that misgovernment and oppression of centuries past have created …. ” Jewish settlers in Palestine were not only reclaiming the land, they were elevating living standards for the Arab population and assisting the British government.

In his report to the League of Nations on the Administration of Palestine and Transjordan for the year 1925, the British High Commissioner wrote:

Fuel-power stations for the generation of electrical light and energy have been established at Haifa and Tiberias by the [Jewish] Palestine Electric Corporation, Limited. This increase in commercial activity, in building enterprise and new industrial developments is due almost entirely to Jewish capital and the entry during the year of an immigrant class with money to invest.​

During this period a significant shift of population took place as Arabs and others from All over the Middle East moved TO the areas of Zionist cultivation and development. The organizational and technical skills of the Jewish settlers, their access to outside capital, and their sheer hard work created an economic boom that created opportunity for Arab workers, particularly in contrast to the stagnant conditions elsewhere in the region. This has been documented by many, following the much-criticized but basically sound work of Joan Peters in her book From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab–Jewish Conflict Over Palestine. The central findings are that:

1. As far back as 1893, the Jews not only were already far from being a small minority in the areas where they had settled, but were the largest single group there (if one divides the non-Jewish population into Muslim and Christian), and

2. Substantial immigration of Arabs to Palestine took place during the first half of the twentieth century; from 1893 to 1947 while the Palestinian Arab population slightly more than Doubled in areas where no Jews were settled, it Quintupled in the main areas of Jewish settlement.
These findings are supported with an array of demographic statistics and contemporary accounts, the bulk of which have not been questioned by any reviewer.​

​

 

[P F Tinmore]

Winston Churchill was British Colonial Secretary

That says it all.

 

[CitizenPained]

Roads, irrigation, technology, universities, hospitals, schools, trade, homes, government, army, the ingathering of exiles and a new state that has more companies on NASDAQ than all of the UK and is responsible for things like ICQ and much of our satellite technology.

 

[Truthseeker420]

Monday, 21 September 2009
Website Review - Palestine Facts - Propaganda Alert
Palestine Facts

The website displayed above is a farce. It's a thinly disguised attempt to colour the Arab-Israeli conflict in the blue colours of Zionism and making it appear like this is the truth, at least from a Palestinian standpoint. The target audience for this website is people who are not very knowledgeable about the conflict and who don't know who to ask for information. However, even with zero facts, you will quickly discover the bias, as I will demonstrate below:

1-It's Anonymous

No one seems to want to claim responsibility for this website, as this paragraph quoted from the FAQ section demonstrates:


"There is no one individual editor. The site has been prepared by a team of writers and editors who are knowledgable of the history, politics, economics and military situation in the Middle East, based on information compiled from the best available sources. They have developed Palestine Facts to provide much-needed factual information to everyone who may be interested in the current situation in Israel, how it evolved to today's status, and what might be reasonable policies for the future."


I wonder how many of those "team of writers" are Zionist? or Arab?
Would you trust the opinion of someone without a name?

2- The nomenclature used is exclusively zionist:

For example, the Occupied West Bank is called Judea and Samaria which is a biblical name fanatic Zionists like to call Arab land that they believe belongs to them. No one (even the UN) uses such names except Israel. This is the same area where some Israeli soldiers refuse to serve on ethical grounds. The UN has issued numerous resolutions deeming Israeli settlements in that area illegal, and yet Israel continues to build on land that is not theirs.

3- Biased Maps:


"Invalid Palestinian Arab Maps.Anti-Israel forces have made an industry out of producing invalid maps that either deny the existence of Israel altogether or distort the history and modern situation."


Basically according to this "unbiased" website, any map that is pro-Palestinian is automatically anti-Israeli. What biased logic. The aim of this website is to delete Palestine from the world vocabulary. Interestingly, they do not mention anything about the Israeli Apartheid Wall which was unilaterally drawn by the Israelis and which clearly illegally annexes Arab land that does not belong to Israel.

Even Wikipedia acknowledges that: "Parts of the barrier are built on land seized from Palestinians", although their maps show a clear bias against the Palestinians by naming Arab land with Jewish names. Israeli West Bank barrier - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Unbiased websites such as this: Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign: Updated Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign Poster Map show the land grab graphically on accurate maps.

4- Biased Sources:

Any academic knows that the quality of your thesis is underpinned by the quality of your sources. This website uses exclusively Israeli sources to describe their supposed Palestinian viewpoint. It's like asking the KKK to abolish slavery. Their map references include:


The Department for Jewish Zionist Education, The Jewish Agency for Israel
State of Israel, Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Maps of Israeli Interests in Judea and Samaria, Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies
etc..


5- Denial of any Palestinian history or rights:

The site blatantly tries to argue everything for Israel's benifit, it even claims that the Occupied Territories are not such but they are "occupied territories" very much in the same way that Arabs try to deny Israel's existence by calling it "Israel".

There is a section called Arabian Fables that is as logical as a drunken alcoholic abusive rapist. For example:


"The "Palestinians". That is the fundamental myth.


Again, the use of the quotations to indicate that the Palestinians don't exist. Weird, because the word Palestine has been there since even before the Arabs came to Palestine, and is a Greek name in fact, more than 2000 years old. Another gaping hole in their logic especially since their website's name is Palestine Facts!

What about this:


"Josef Goebbels, the infamous propaganda minister of the Nazis, had it right. Just tell people big lies often enough and they will believe them."


Let's get it clear. This is a website full of anti-Palestinian propaganda. What is very ironic is that they use Nazi propaganda to claim that their propaganda is correct. Well two wrongs never made a right.

Let's never forget that it's Nazi Germany that killed the Jews and not Arab Palestinians. The holocaust is not an Arab problem but the Arabs have had to pay for it. Wouldn't it be fairer if we founded Israel inside Germany?

BuJ Al Arab: Website Review - http://www.palestinefacts.org/ - Propaganda Alert

 

[abu afak]

http://www.humanrightsinstitute.com/History_Versus_Arab_Claims.asp

"....Palestine was described by travelers as a desolate empty, ruined land.
Thomas Shaw (1738),
Volney (1783, 1784, 1785),
James Finn (1878),
Alphonse de Lamartine (1835) and
Mark Twain (1867) all wrote about it with Horror.

Volney described the "ruined" and desolate" country and estimated the total population of the much larger area he saw as no more than 50,000 to 100,000.

Lamartine wrote:

"Outside the gates of Jerusalem we saw Indeed no living object, heard no living object, heard no living sound, we found the same void the same silence…
as we should have expected before the entombed gates of Pompeli or Herculaneam…a complete eternal silence reigns in the town, on the highways in the country…the tomb of a whole people.
"(Recollections of the East, vol. 1, pp. 268, 308, London, 1815).
[........]
George Adam Smith, a geographer who visited Palestine in 1830 before the changes made by European Immigrants, described the country as
a mixture of barren, treeless land, and malarial weed-grown swamps.

Jews who bought this worthless land were called "children of death" because many of them did not survive. Now, almost a hundred years later,
Arafat labels these immigrants "invaders" and demands the right to take over their land.

Did these immigrants destroy the "indigenous culture" Arafat described as existing until European Jews came as immigrants? Or did they improve matters?

The old travelers and geographers found no indigenous culture. They told of isolated villages, each an enemy of the next, of Arab marauders, of incredible poverty, disease and beggars.

Mark Twain described mudhouses five to seven feet high, covered with discs of camel dung for fuel because there was no timber of any consequence in Palestine.
Tiberias was described in appalling terms by Twain.

Smith called it a "poor fevered place of less than 5,000 inhabitants."

Cunningham Geikie wrote of Galilee that "Tiberias and the wretched Magdala are the only inhabited places on the whole lake, although in the day of our Lord nine towns and many villages,
all populous were found on its shores or on the hillsides behind."

Jerusalem was described by Mark Twain as having "rags, wretchedness, poverty and dirt…. Lepers, cripples, the blind, and the idiotic, assail you on every hand,
and they know but one word of but one language apparently—the eternal "bucksheesh."

All travelers described Arabs and Jews living in these dreadful conditions. None saw a people called "Palestinians" who are said by Arafat to have lived in a verdant Palestine with an ancient culture.

Records such as the 1920 British Foreign Office Peace Handbooks (Mohammedan History) show that Arabs as well as Jews benefited from immigration of these European Jews to that desolate land.

All travelers made clear that Jews continued to live in the land.
There is no suggestion that Jews ever abandoned their claim to it. It was this continuity of Jewish presence in their land that Reverend James Parkes, writing in "Whose Land?"
considered to be the real title deeds of Jews to their land....."

http://www.humanrightsinstitute.com/History_Versus_Arab_Claims.asp
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[abu afak]

CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Jerusalem (After 1291)

"...5. Present condition of the City: (1907 edition)

Jerusalem (El Quds) is the capital of a sanjak and the seat of a mutasarrif directly dependent on the Sublime Porte. In the administration of the sanjak the mutasarrif is assisted by a council called majlis ida ra;
the city has a municipal government (majlis baladiye) presided over by a mayor. The total population is estimated at 66,000.
The Turkish census of 1905, which counts only Ottoman subjects, gives these figures:
Jews, 45,000; Moslems, 8,000; Orthodox Christians, 6000; Latins, 2500; Armenians, 950; Protestants, 800; Melkites, 250; Copts, 150; Abyssinians, 100; Jacobites, 100; Catholic Syrians, 50.
During the Nineteenth century large suburbs to the north and east have grown up, chiefly for the use of the Jewish colony. These suburbs contain nearly Half the present population...""

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Growth of Jerusalem 1838-Present

....... Jews Muslims Christians Total
1838 6,000 5,000 3,000 14,000
1844 7,120 5,760 3,390 16,270 ..... ..The First Official Ottoman Census (abu)
1876 12,000 7,560 5,470 25,030 .... .....Second """"""""""
1905 40,000 8,000 10,900 58,900 ....... Third/last, detailed in CathEncyc above
1948 99,320 36,680 31,300 167,300
1990 353,200 124,200 14,000 491,400
1992 385,000 150,000 15,000 550,000

http://www.testimony-magazine.org/jerusalem/bring.htm

Link expired but the Ottoman Census figures, which form it's backbone, and I noted were from the Ottoman counts, are not in dispute.
The later numbers widely available.
The first line/1838 probably approximated using regression analysis.
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[CitizenPained]

Tel Aviv, 1912.

Tel Aviv, 1920.

Tel Aviv, 1925.

Tel Aviv, modern times.

And let's not forget Eilat, which is home to one of my favorite photographs:

Today:

 

[Truthseeker420]

Tel Aviv, 1912.

Tel Aviv, 1920.

Tel Aviv, 1925.

Tel Aviv, modern times.

And let's not forget Eilat, which is home to one of my favorite photographs:

Today:

Say thank you to the dumb American taxpayers.

 

[abu afak]

History of Palestine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"...In the late 13th century, Palestine and Syria were the primary front for battles between the Egyptian Mamluks and the Mongol Empire. The pivotal battle was the Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260,
when the Mamluks, after having brokered a cautious neutrality with the Crusaders (who regarded the Mongols as a greater threat),
were able to advance northwards and achieve a decisive victory over the Mongols at Ain Jalut, near Galilee.
The Mongols were, however, able to engage into some brief Mongol raids into Palestine in 1260 and 1300, reaching as far as Gaza.

Due to the many earthquakes, the religious extremism and the black plague that hit during this era, the Population Dwindled to around 200,000.
It is during this period that the land began to have a Levantine Muslim majority and even in the traditional Jewish stronghold of Eastern Galilee, a new Jewish-Muslim culture began to develop.

The Mamluk Sultanate ultimately became a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire, in the wake of campaigns waged by Selim I in the 16th century.

Early modern period

In 1516 the Ottoman Turks occupied Palestine.[61] The country became part of the Ottoman Empire. Constantinople appointed local governors.
Public works, including the city walls, were rebuilt in Jerusalem by Suleiman the Magnificent in 1537. An area around Tiberias was given to Don Joseph Nasi for a Jewish enclave.
Following the expulsions from Spain, the Jewish population of Palestine rose to around 25%.... and Regained its former stronghold of Eastern Galilee.
That ended in 1660 when they were massacred at Safed and Jerusalem. During the reign of Dahar al Omar, Pasha of the Galilee, Jews from Ukraine began to resettle Tiberias.
[......]

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[CitizenPained]

Ah, Mount Carmel, right by my mother's birthplace (Haifa).

1894:

Today, Haifa is boomin':

Over 60,000 Jews came to Palestine in 1935. This is Haifa then:

Dare I say Zionists developed an economy and infrastructure that was independent from neighboring Arab countries (ones carved out by the British, I should add) ?

 

[P F Tinmore]

A British missionary who lived in Beirut and visited Palestine in 1859 described the southern coastal area as "a very ocean of wheat," and the British Consul in Jerusalem, James Finn, reported that "the fields would do credit to British farming."(5)

The German geographer Alexander Scholch concluded that between 1856 and 1882 "Palestine produced a relatively large agricultural surplus which was marketed in neighboring countries, such as Egypt and Lebanon, and increasingly exported to Europe. These exports included wheat, barley, dura, maise, sesame, olive oil, soap, oranges, vegetables and cotton. Among the European importers of Palestinian produce were France, England, Turkey, Greece, Italy and Malta."(6)

Lawrence Oliphant, who visited Palestine in 1887, wrote that Palestine's Valley of Esdraelon was "a huge green lake of waving wheat, with its village-crowned mounds rising from it like islands; and it presents one of the most striking pictures of luxuriant fertility which it is possible to conceive."(7) This Palestinian wheat had historically played an important part in international commerce. According to Paul Masson, a French economic historian, "wheat shipments from the Palestinian port of Acre had helped to save southern France from famine on numerous occasions in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries."(8)

Agricultural techniques in Palestine, especially in citriculture, were among the most advanced in the world long before the first Zionist settlers came to its shores. In 1856, the American consul in Jerusalem, Henry Gillman, "outlined reasons why orange growers in Florida would find it advantageous to adopt Palestinian techniques of grafting directly onto lemon trees."^ In 1893, the British Consul advised his government of the value of importing "young trees procured from Jaffa" to improve production in Australia and South Africa.(10)

Chapter 2: Encyclopedia of the Palestine Problem

 

[P F Tinmore]

Ah, Mount Carmel, right by my mother's birthplace (Haifa).

1894:

Today, Haifa is boomin':

Over 60,000 Jews came to Palestine in 1935. This is Haifa then:

Dare I say Zionists developed an economy and infrastructure that was independent from neighboring Arab countries (ones carved out by the British, I should add) ?

Isn't it amazing what can be done on stolen land with mooched money.

 

[CitizenPained]

Say thank you to the dumb American taxpayers.

False.

Zionist infrastructure was built by independent Jewish funds, group funds (eg, Jewish National Fund), and the World Zionist Congress in conjunction with the Jewish Agency.

Also...France was actually a better ally to Israel than the U.S. was after Independence.

 

[Truthseeker420]

Say thank you to the dumb American taxpayers.

False.

Zionist infrastructure was built by independent Jewish funds, group funds (eg, Jewish National Fund), and the World Zionist Congress in conjunction with the Jewish Agency.

Also...France was actually a better ally to Israel than the U.S. was after Independence.

lol yeah it's had nothing to do with the trillions in dollars from U.S. and money from other countries.

 

[CitizenPained]

Isn't it amazing what can be done on stolen land with mooched money.

Hey guess what! Jews aren't the victims of our European and Arab oppressors anymore. We have a state, we have good educations, wealth, political prosperity, a legitimate cause and we've won several wars against Arab nations. I understand Hollywood's love affair with Jews Who Lose stories, but that era is over.

We're doing okay.

Fucking deal with it.

 

[CitizenPained]

lol yeah it's had nothing to do with the trillions in dollars from U.S. and money from other countries.

It didn't. The U.S. was not giving Zionists aid in 1901, and most certainly not to the tune of trillions.

 

[abu afak]

Monday, 21 September 2009
Website Review - Palestine Facts - Propaganda Alert
......

BuJ Al Arab: Website Review - http://www.palestinefacts.org/ - Propaganda Alert

A "Propaganda alert" on "Palestine Facts" from "Buj al Arab Blogspot"!!

:^)

Are your from Yemen/an Arab or Conspiracist? Or Both?
We know the Conspiracist crap already.
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[P F Tinmore]

Say thank you to the dumb American taxpayers.

False.

Zionist infrastructure was built by independent Jewish funds, group funds (eg, Jewish National Fund), and the World Zionist Congress in conjunction with the Jewish Agency.

Also...France was actually a better ally to Israel than the U.S. was after Independence.

Israel has always been heavily subsidized by foreign donation and foreign aid.

The Palestinian improvements were paid for with retained earnings from profits that were more available when they were no longer taxed by the Ottoman Empire.

 

[P F Tinmore]

Monday, 21 September 2009
Website Review - Palestine Facts - Propaganda Alert
......

BuJ Al Arab: Website Review - http://www.palestinefacts.org/ - Propaganda Alert

A "Propaganda alert" on "Palestine Facts" from "Buj al Arab Blogspot"!!

:^)

Are your from Yemen/an Arab or Conspiracist? Or Both?
We know the Conspiracist crap already.
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Palestine Facts is a well known Israeli propaganda site.

 

[abu afak]

Israel has always been heavily subsidized by foreign donation and foreign aid.

The Palestinian improvements were paid for with retained earnings from profits that were more available when they were no longer taxed by the Ottoman Empire.

"Retained earnings"?
Tinhead, You are Brain-Dead IDIOT pulling words from your Man-porked ass.

The degree of palestine that was privately owned was owned by a FEW wealthy landowners many of whom sold to the Jews.
The vast bulk of Arabs were ASS-POOR tenant farmers.
There were NO "Retained earnings" you IDIOT!

And Already refuted in this string/The OP.
It was Zionist Money that transformed Palestine by ALL accounts.

Your post Empty claim with NO presentation/refutation of Facts.
Pure empty nonsense.

And in fact, The 'Palestinians' (whatever the hell that is) always flocked to wherever for Jobs.
This includes Tens of Thousands STILL to Israel especially pre-intifada.
They flocked to Kuwait too until 400,000 were kicked out.
And Iraq until another 50,000-100,000 were kicked out.
Palestinians/ARABS are Migrant workers for a century, NOT a people and have no "Retained earnings" You utter DOPE!
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