Forced migration and Nakba denial

The Israeli's are extremely sensitive about Holocaust denial, and rightly so. It was a crime of incomprehensible magnitude that only the most vile and inhuman minds could envisage, plan and execute. Having said that, one must expect that they would be amenable and understanding, about how the Palestinian people feel about the tragic events of 1948. The methods utilised by the Israeli's in that year are akin to ethnic cleansing. Very few towns and villages were abandoned by the Arabs voluntarily, only upon Arab orders, issued to avoid a massacre, did that take place. The other factor that acted as a catalyst, was the influence of a nearby town's fall. This would be immediately taken advantage of by the Haganah of that period by a whispering campaign instigating a psychological campaign i.e. "...the Haganah/IDF are coming to rape your daughters..." etc. The other villages abandoned by the Arabs would occur because of the fear of being caught up in the fighting by defenceless villagers. However, the majority of towns and villages were by expulsion via the IDF and the Haganah, military assaults by the following main method:

An armed column of Jewish forces would arrive at the targeted village and surround it on three sides, leaving a fourth side open. The three surrounded sides by the Jews would begin to advance, forcing the inhabitants to flee through the unguarded side.
Whichever reasons are accepted and embraced by whomever, the facts remain. It suited the British,"...The panic flights of Arabs from the Jewish occupied areas of Palestine has presented a very serious immediate problem but may possibly point the way to a long term solution of one of the greatest difficulties in the way of a satisfactory implementation of partition, namely the existence in the Jewish state of an Arab community very nearly equal in numbers to the Jewish one...Previous examinations of this problem have always led to the rejection of transference of populations as a solution...for the reason that the number of Arabs to be transferred from the Jewish state was 40 times greater than the number of Jews to be transferred from the Arab state...Now that the initial difficulty of persuading the Arabs of Palestine to leave their homes has been overcome by Jewish terrorism and Arab panic..." The preceding quote is from an analysis sent in a report to the British Foreign Office by the London Middle East Intelligence centre, based in Cairo. It is publicly accessible from the Public Record Office, Kew, London, BMEO to FO, 3 August 1948, PRO FO 816\139.

The Americans took a similar view,"...Despite the attendant suffering...it is felt security in the long run will be served best if the refugees remain in the Arab states and Arab Palestine instead of returning to Israel. Since the US has supported the establishment of a Jewish State, it should insist on a homogeneous one which [sic] will have the best chance of stability. Return of the refugees would create a continuing "minority problem" and form a constant temptation both for uprisings and intervention by neighbouring Arab states." The Americans got it wrong as usual. Several wars occurred because of their ignorance, again, the whole document can be obtained from the PRO, Kew, London; Burdett (Jerusalem) to Secretary of State, 5 February 1949, PRO FO 371-75420.

The Jews, through their master architect of displacing the Palestinians, viewed it thus,"...We must expropriate...spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our country...both the process of expropriation and removal of the poor must be carried out discretely and circumspectly." The whole rationale behind this can be read in , The Complete Diaries of Theodore Hertzl, I, page 88.

In yesterday's New York Times, the comment page (editorial) was given over to the editor of Haaretz, a national Israeli newspaper. Highly unusual, but when taken into consideration, the amount of mass media in Jewish hands and that of their supporters, not surprising. He lamented that President Obama will not come to Israel and talk to the Israeli people. Hardly surprising that the risk of assassination is the highest in Israel for President Obama, after all, Israel cannot even protect it's own prime ministers from assassination.

In conclusion, a law must be passed in all the Arab countries, making it a criminal offence to deny the Nakba and international pressure made to bear upon Israel, to allow the Palestinians, the right to mourn 1948, through the marking of el-Nakba.

Acknowledgements and courtesies to Professor Benny Morris
THE BIRTH OF THE PALESTINIAN REFUGEE PROBLEM REVISITED.
Cambridge University Press, CAMBRIDGE, 2004

Bulldozing, Arafat, el-Nakba and forced migration

ISRAELI BULLDOZING AND WAS YASSER ARAFAT POISONED
The furore surrounding Farouk Kaddoumi and the subsequent expulsion of al-Jazeera from the Occupied West Bank has caused controversy in the media. The heading of this posting has not been chosen lightly; there are unfortunately, a lot of unanswered questions. The most important one being, who would gain by the death of Yasser Arafat? Qui Bono ?
In the immortal words of the legendary Professor Ilan Pappe,...”the Oslo agreement , accorded the Palestinian people, a lot of salata (honours) but without sulta (authority).” The late 1980’s saw the appearance of Islamic movements in Palestine and Israel. The main entities were Shuahada al-Aqsa (the Martyrs of al-Aqsa) who were closely aligned with the Fatah movement and the Battalions of Izz al-Din al-Qassam, the preacher affiliated to the Hamas. Hamas and Islamic Jihad took root in the Occupied territories and in southern Lebanon. Political Islam was a fairly new term in those days, replacing Islamic Fundamentalism but explaining the same phenomenon. In general, the term is a scholarly attempt to assess the impact of religion on politics in the Arab world and beyond. Like all the other Islamists in the late 20th century, those in Palestine and Israel were anti-American and opposed to American brokered peace deals. It was the failure of the PLO that drove the people into the arms of political Islam. The Oslo accords were not for the benefit of the Palestinian people, more for the self-aggrandizement of Clinton who is still under the delusion that he offered a golden opportunity to Arafat.
The Israeli army uses yellow Caterpillar D9 bulldozers. They are ubiquitous in the Occupied Territories but the one that arrived in the city centre of Ramallah in early April 2002 caused quite a stir. This particular one aroused interest because it was heading directly for the Muqata compound, Arafat’s headquarters, after the Oslo accords. This particular D9 Caterpillar arrived at Arafat’s headquarters in tandem with an armed excavator, a gargantuan, behemoth of a bulldozer. This one was equipped with a customized augur, similar to a massive corkscrew that exposes the foundations of a building and demolishes it within minutes. After the demolition, Arafat was confined to a small corner of the remnants of the building and besieged for two years.
His health deteriorated during this time, probably due to food poisoning. His food would be handled by the numerous Israeli checkpoints adjacent and handled disrespectfully for want of better words. It was during this period that various Palestinian sources believe that their leader was poisoned by the Israelis. In October 2004, he was airlifted to France and hospitalised. He died in the beginning of November from what his doctors called “a mysterious disease.” He was buried on the 12th of November 2004, aged 75. Directly after his death, with the support of the Israelis, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) was appointed leader. Abbas lacked depth and understanding and did not have the experience that Arafat did. This enabled the Israelis to successfully splinter the solidarity of the Palestinian people and their movement for freedom and basic human rights. Why has the cause of death not been declared and the results of the autopsy made public?

Courtesy and acknowledgements to professor Ilan Pappe
A HISTORY OF MODERN PALESTINE
Pappe, I. Cambridge University Press,
second edition Cambridge 2006

A COMPARISON BETWEEN ISRAEL AND GAZA; AND ISRAEL AND THE OCCUPIED WEST BANK

Too many “bloggers” and so called experts publish postings without citing sources or a bibliography, when it comes to reporting emotive issues. The following comparisons are courtesy of the CIA, the United Nations and U.S. governmental agencies. The full list is at the bottom of the page.
Israel has a geographical property area of 8019 square miles.
Gaza has a geographical property area of 139 square miles.
Occupied West Bank has a property area of 2263 square miles.
Population of Israel is 6.93 million. Occupied West Bank is 4.2 million. Gaza has 1.55 million
The total population of the Palestinians=5.75 million. Israelis=6.93 million.
Israel has 883 people per square mile. Gaza has 11,165 people per square mile.
The Occupied West bank has 1,845 people per square mile.
The population growth figures for Israel are 1.88% per annum.
The population growth figures for Gaza are 3.42% per annum.
The growth figures for the Occupied West Bank; 3.21 per annum
Life expectancy for Israeli’s is 80.7 years.
For the people of Gaza it is 73.4 years.
For the Occupied West Bank it is 74.5 years.
The meridian age for Israeli’s is 28.9 years.
For Gaza the meridian age is 17.2 years.
Occupied West Bank is 20.2 years.
The GDP for Israel is $162 billion per annum.
The GDP for Gaza is $768 million per annum.
Occupied West Bank is $5.458 billion per annum.
GDP per capita for Israel is $19,280 per annum.
GDP per capita for Gaza is $2,900 per annum.
Occupied West Bank’s is $1,129 per annum.
Real growth figures for Israel are 4.898% per annum.
For Gaza it is 0.8% per annum and Occupied West Bank is 4.909%.
Inflation rate for Israel is minus 0.194% per annum
For Gaza it is 3.6% per annum, Occupied West Bank is 11.3% per annum.
Unemployment runs at 6.1% in Israel and 41.3% in Gaza.
The occupied West Bank’s runs at 16.3% per annum.
It is worth noting, in the immortal words of Benny Morris,”...at the end of the 1948 War, Israel had a population of some 750,000 Jews and 150,000 Arabs. By the year 2002, Israel’s Arab minority still constituted some 20% of the country’s population (just over one million as compared with some five million Jews) –and this despite the fact that the Jews’ natural increase had been supplemented during this 50-year period by the arrival of some two and a half million new immigrants.
Sources: United States Central Intelligence Agency,” The World Factbook” 2009
United Nations Statistics Division UNdata.
United Nations,”National Accounts Main Aggregates Data Base. U.N. Statistics Division.
United States Census Bureau, International Data Base (IDB) 2008
United States Geological Survey
University of California, Berkeley, Global Administration Areas, 2008.
World Health Organisation, Mortality Database Tables, 2009.

Amnesty:Israel guilty of war crimes.

The Israeli Transport Minister, Yisrael Katz has proposed replacing all English and Arabic place names on road signs. Katz claims, it will halt the confusion inflicted upon drivers. Yeshaayahou Ronen, from the Transportation Planning Department said," The lack of uniform spelling on signs has been a problem for those speaking foreign languages, citizens and tourists alike. However, Transport Minister Yisrael Katz was more enlightening," Some Palestinian maps still refer to the Israeli cities by their pre-1948 names. I will not allow that on our signs." Seems Katz has disappeared so far up his own arse that either end is indistinguishable.

In further developments, Israel has been found guilty of war crimes by Amnesty International. The report confirms that 1400 Palestinians were kiled in the 22 day Israeli offensive, between December the 27th 2008 and January the 17th 2009, which is similar to Palestinian figures. Of these, 900 were civilians including 300 children and 115 women.

The 117-page report by Amnesty International states that many of the hundreds of civilian deaths,"..cannot simply be dismissed" as,"collateral damage incidental to otherwise lawful attacks-or as mistakes." "..disturbing questions..." remain unanswered as to why children playing on roofs and medical staff attending the wounded were killed,"...by highly accurate missiles whose operators had detailed views of their targets."
The use of white phospherous has been confirmed. The destruction of homes, businesses and public buildings is referred to as,"... wanton and deliberate...could not be justified on the grounds of military necessity." The report reiterates," All of these things occurred on a scale that constitutes pattern-and constitutes war crimes." The following link will take you to the report in full:

www.news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/02_07_09_gaza_report.pdf

Jewish Colonisation & Illegal Settlements

JEWISH COLONISATION AND ILLEGAL SETTLEMENTS
INTRODUCTION

In the late 19th Century, Palestine was divided into three northern Sancaks (Beirut, Acre and Balqa) which were part of the larger Vilayet of Beirut. Jerusalem was an independent Sancak of its own in the south. In those days, Palestine was neither large nor prosperous. It had a population of 500,000 Arabs. The late 1880’s saw the beginning of Jewish colonisation, spurred on by persecution of Jews in Eastern Europe and Russia and the genesis of the Zionist movement in Western Europe.
In 1918 there were 644,000 Arabs (92% of the total population) and 56,000 Jews (8%) with the Jews establishing their settlements in the lowlands, on approximately 2% of the land. This was facilitated via moshavot, privately owned villages and collective farms, known as kibbutzim. These were the prototypes for building illegal settlements on Arab land.
Together with the Arabs, the British drove out the Ottomans in 1920 and The League of Nations mandated Britain to govern Palestine with the proviso of establishing a national home in Palestine for the Jews, in accordance with the Balfour Declaration of November 1917 (see previous postings). The Palestinian Arabs understandably resented this, especially in the 1930’s, when massive numbers of Jews began arriving from Germany. The futile efforts by the British to stop this mass immigration were in vain and land transfer to the Jews, likewise. In May 1948, Jewish ownership of the land had increased to 6% from the 2% of 1918. The boundaries with Lebanon were drawn up in 1920 and agreed in an Anglo-French Convention; the boundary delimited in 1923. The boundary with Transjordan was delimited in 1922 and the boundary with Egypt remained unchanged. This meant that Palestine consisted of 25,900 square kilometres. This is not coterminous with Biblical Palestine or the former Ottoman districts.

The conflict of May 1948, resulted in Israeli control of 77% of the former Palestine, contrary to the 56% given to the Jews under the United Nations partition plan of 1947. 600,000 Arabs were forced to flee from Israel, leaving only 160,000 Arabs inside the new State of Israel. In 1948 Israel’s population had increased to 915,000. 83% were Jews and 17% Arab. The 1967 Arab-Israeli war left Israel in possession of Sinai and Gaza, the West Bank and the Golan Heights. All three were colonised; 22 settlements of 4,000 Jewish settlers in Sinai, a source of revenue through tourism, the Gulf of Aqaba and Rafah plundered for its rich agriculture and 100,000 Syrians fled for their lives from the Golan Heights. The West Bank, occupied since 1967, is the Arab land most coveted by Israel, because of its importance and natural position, to be a heartland for any future Palestinian State; Jerusalem being its natural capital.
Illegal Israeli settlement policies pursued the template of the Alon (sometimes called Allon) plan, establishing moshavim and kibbutzim along the Jordan Valley,until 1977 and ran parallel with a campaign of forced migration by Bush Emunin through terrorism. The group became famous for a failed attempt to blow up the Dome of the Rock and the massacre at the Islamic College of Hebron, a revenge attack for the murder of a Jewish student. The group (a terrorist organisation) sprayed machine-gun fire into the college and tossed in a hand grenade, killing three students and wounding thirty-three more. They were sentenced to life imprisonment in 1983 but had their sentences commuted a total of four times resulting in their release in 1990, by Chaim Herzog.

In 1980, the restrictions on Jews purchasing private land were lifted and the Jewish West Bank population rose from 12,000 in 1980 to 45,000 in 1985. Long-term plans were drawn up for dozens more villages and a half-dozen towns to accommodate 100,000 Jews. In 1997, Matitiyahou Drobless, head of The World Zionist Organisation Settlement Division, prepared his first comprehensive plan for establishing colonies throughout the West Bank and beyond. The majority of these were built on the central mountain ridge and around Palestinian population centres. Drobless proposed high volume traffic arteries to connect Israel to the West Bank and beyond. The Jews ultimate goal was explained to Time Magazine, March 1980 by the economic editor of the Jerusalem Post, Meir Merhav,”...is to be carved up by a grid of settlements and strongholds into a score of little Bantustans so that [The Palestinians] shall never coalesce again into a contiguous area that can support autonomous, let alone, independent existence.”
The majority of Jewish settlements are of a “community” type known as yishuv kehillati focussing on light industrial entrepreneurships and involve commuting daily to Israeli urban centres with very little agricultural activity. The systematic repeating of these communities through illegal settlements has led to a network of new roads, water and electric supplies servicing the Jewish settlements but neglecting the Arab ones instead, affecting them adversely; with cases of Israeli sewage infecting the Arab water supply. Israeli capital investment in the Jerusalem suburbs is increasing daily, the prospect of the return of these suburbs to the Arabs seems highly unlikely.

Sources: Blake, G. Dewdney, J. Mitchell, J. THE CAMBRIDGE ATLAS of the MIDDLE EAST & NORTH AFRICA. Cambridge University Press CAMBRIDGE 1987

THE NEW YORK TIMES, 27th December 1990, Section A; page 3

www.p4d.org/settlements/glossary.html

JEWS OF ARAB CULTURE CONFERENCE 1948-2009. CAMBRIDGE 22-24 JUNE 2009
ORGANISED BY THE CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF MUSLIM-JEWISH RELATIONS
IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE CENTRE FOR MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
It was a qualitative conference, with never more than sixty people present in the lecture room, including speakers. HRH Prince Hassan of Jordan formally opened the conference with his introduction. He thanked Cambridge University, CJMR and CEMEIS and commented that the Israeli blogosphere had already begun to criticise the conference before it had even started, as an exercise in Israeli bashing. There was mention of the silent majority that had been silenced, a majority that had its voice stolen; The Palestinian Diaspora. HRH spoke eloquently of the troubles plaguing the region and acknowledged the fact that “democracy cannot land in our region by parachute and perform miracles overnight.” The Diaspora of the remnants of the Ottoman Empire was touched upon briefly, having been given its own terminology, the “Turkos” and the fact that it took three World Wars, the Prussian-Franco”, WWI and WWII for the Europeans to establish the Erasmus Programme. HRH commented on the conference,”...That this meeting was a process for those setting out on the journey, towards reconciliation between two peoples...it took several decades after meeting Golda Meir, in the sixties, for me to realise the importance of dignity of all creeds and human beings was vital.”
“Judaism, in relation to the “Other” meant that they were connected but apart, separate but together.” On Jerusalem itself, he commented that “...it was ideally suited to establish a moral authority...that rises above politics via management of a Holy space through...fifteen Churches of the Eastern Communion involved in this space.” HRH explained about the different emotions he invokes amongst different people. This concerned the differing attitudes embraced surrounding him,”...I am often accused of being a closet Jew by some in the Arab world, and of being the Goebbels of the Arab world by the Israelis.”
The situation in present day Iraq was referred to because his country has so many refugees from that benighted and plundered land due to the wretched situation of the Iraqi refugee children in Jordan. Jordanian psychologists are having to treat eighty percent of them because they are suffering from trauma. HRH was visibly moved by their plight and one can only commend Jordan for benevolence shown to Iraqi refugees.
HRH moved on to the prospect of peace in the Middle East, and emphasised that it would only happen under certain circumstances and political conditions given the difficult nature of the situation,”...reconciliation will take place eventually but only when each side recognises the other...by building bridges we can overcome conflict and the only way to achieve this is to transcend loyalties by hope and that this series of talks will culminate in the realisation of Jews of Arab culture, and Arabs of Jewish culture to move forward; that the emancipation of women reflects the globalisation of the financial market...”
The full speech may be obtained from : The Woolf Institute of Abrahamic Faiths
Wesley House, Jesus Lane Cambridge CB5 8BJ

Total Number of Palestinian Refugees Today

The total number of Palestinian refugees is estimated at over 8 million dispersed around the world, most of them home in host Arab countries. 4.6 million are registered with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNWRA) 1.3 million of these are in 58 camps dispersed across three Arab countries and the Occupied Territories.

"You don't simply bundle people onto trucks and drive them away...I prefer to advocate a positive policy, to create, in effect, a condition that in a positive way will induce people to leave." Ariel Sharon, 24th of August 1988

Sources: Journal of Palestine Studies. Institute for Palestine Studies. University of California Press. Volume 38 pp 77-78

The Times (London) August 24 1988 page 7

Conclusion of the Balfour Declaration

There were four different drafts regarding the Declaration. A Zionist draft, a shorter, curt draft by Balfour, a Milner draft and a Milner-Amery draft. The authoritative voice was that of Claude Montefiore, one of the most respected contributors to Anglo-Jewry as a communal leader,philanthropist, prolific author and radical theoligian (Kessler). He wrote," The phrase" a national home for the Jewish race appears to assume and imply that Jews generally constitute a nationality. Such an implication is extremely prejudicial to Jewish interests, as it is intensely obnoxious to an enormous number of Jews...A national home for the Jews on the score of the oppressed condition of the Jews is no longer necessary...The Polish-Jewish question will, with the co-operation of the Allies, be doubtless settled as favourably as the larger Russian Jewish problem has already been settled. The Rumanian Government will also not be able to resist the pressure of events..For the true well-being of the Jewish race emancipation and liberty in the countries of the world are a thousand times more important than a "home"...It is very significant that anti-Semites are always very sympathetic to Zionism. It is no wonder...I and my friends do not desire to impede colonisation and immigration into Palestine...Whoever is the Suzerain power of Palestine may be, we are in favour of the Jews, when their numbers permit it, ultimately obtaining the power which any large majority may justly claim...The words "who are contented with" ill express the facts. When thousands of Jews are fighting with passion and ardour for their respective countries, they are not merely contented with their nationality. It is bone of their bone and spirit of their spirit....If the present words of the draft declaration are, for some reason or reasons unknown to me, believes by His Majesty's Government to be in the interest of British policy, and if His Majesty's Government is anxious to publish this formula for the sake of this country as well as for the Jews, I would of course, subordinate my Jewish feelings, wishes and interests of England and the Empire..." (Stein, p525)

In summary it must be said that the present situation in Palestine and Israel, can be attributed to the British Government of that time. Britain was vying for control of the region against France and applying it's formula of control by colonisation, this time by manipulating the Jewish peoples.

The year 1949, was when the refugee tally of the Palestinian peoples came to be assessed. Arab officials spoke of a total of 900,000 or a million. Israeli spokesmen(in public) referred to about 520,000. UNWRA, United Nations Relief and Works Agency, put the figure at 726,000. The estimates vary according to the appraiser. The British, in February 1949 put the figure at 810,000: 210,000 in the Gaza Strip; 320,000 in the West Bank; 280,000 in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan (East Bank)The Director General of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, Walter Eytan, in a private letter (that still exists) to Daniel Sirkis (Hatzofe) said the UNWRA figure of 720,000 as "meticulous" but thought the real number was 800,000. However,officially, Israel stuck to the low figure of 520,000-530,000 for the following, simple reason: "If people became accustomed to the large figure and we are eventually obliged to accept the return of the refugees, we may find it difficult, when faced with hordes of claimants, to convince the world that not all of these formerly lived in Israeli territory...It would, in any event, seem desirable to minimise the numbers...than otherwise."

Sources: Stein L. The Balfour Declaration. VALENTINE & MITCHELL:London 1961.

Morris, B THE BIRTH OF THE PALESTINIAN REFUGEE PROBLEM REVISITED. Cambridge University Press, 2004

Dr. Edward Kessler
www.muse.jhu.edu/journals/shofar/v022/22.3kessler.html accessed 03/07/09