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Until recently this geographic-historical article was titled Palestine (region). I just noticed the link to Portal:Palestine, a political portal referring to the State of Palestine. I feel that this is unfair. I propose we either 1) remove it from here (as it is already linked from the article State of Palestine) or 2) add a link to Portal:Israel here as well. ← Humus sapiens ну? 03:46, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
More information is always better (within reason). Why not put both portal links here? Wachholder0 19:24, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
Deleted this: "However, the placing of the Transjordan area under the direct rule of the Emir Abdullah (who was not a Palestinian Arab), and later unilaterally granting it independence, was never approved by the League of Nations. [1], [2]". First, the installation of Abdullah as a leader under British tutelage happened before the Palestine Mandate came into effect and even before its contents were decided by the League of Nations. The phrase "never approved" hides the fact that it was never disapproved and is thus misleading. In fact, the League of Nations dealt continuously with the British as mandatory for Transjordan and never attempted to change the Britain-Abdullah arrangement significantly. This can be seen as effective approval, especially the Council's unanimous agreement in Sept 1922 that the Jewish Homeland provisions of the Mandate did not apply to Transjordan. As for "unilaterally granting it independence", Transjordan did not become independent until 1946 and its independence was unanimously approved by the League of Nations at its last session (Apr 18, 1946). Before that date, the coming independence of Transjordan was welcomed by the UNGA (on Feb 9, 1946) [3]. As for the two links, the first is good but does not support the text, and the second is an activist site of little interest. -- Zero talk 11:30, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
The fact that British terminology separated "Palestine" and "Transjordan" quite early is established on this Talk page already (look up). Here is an even earlier example that shows "Palestine" clearly ending at the Jordan River in the mind of an important British politician: "They [the Zionists] now talk about a Jewish State. The Arab portion of the population is well-nigh forgotten and is to be ignored. They not only claim the boundaries of the old Palestine, but they claim to spread across the Jordan into the rich countries lying to the east, and, indeed, there seems to be very small limit to the aspirations which they now form." Lord George Curzon, addressing the Eastern Committee on Dec 5, 1918; quoted in Doreen Ingrams, Palestine Papers 1917-1922 (Murray, 1972). As for the difficulty of finding "Palestine" used for the whole region by the British during the Mandate period, you are welcome to visit [6] and look for yourself. -- Zero talk 11:39, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
Is there an article called Partitions of Palestine or something like that? I'd like to read about the various plans to partition the post-WWI areas of the Middle East (centering around the Jordan River). I'm fairly sure that at one time or another, some or all of the entire area surrounding the Jordan was earmarked (or sought) for a predominantly Arab or Jewish state.
Also, there have been a confusing set of partition plans, dividing up the Middle East's unallocated lands into "mandates" and so forth. The term "Palestine" has been redefined so many times that I simply can't keep up.
You know, I'm a reader as well as a contributor, and I would simply like to know this:
One easy question is:
Another easy question (or it should be) is:
Now, a hard question:
A partial answer:
- Sangil 20:55, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
To Sangil: (1) Don't give us stuff from Myths and Facts unless you are prepared to accept material from its Arab equivalents such as Radio Islam. (2) The Balfour Declaration refers to a Jewish Homeland in Palestine, not comprising all of Palestine. This wording was completely deliberate, as the surviving documentation makes clear. In fact an early draft of the declaration appeared to indicate all of Palestine but this was changed in order to eliminate this interprettation. The British government also made it clear to the Zionists at the time that only the western part of Palestine was under consideration (for this, see the classic book on the Balfour Declaration by Leonard Stein). It is simply not true that Transjordan was ever included in any area promised to the Jews. -- Zero talk 08:24, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
Sorry - all wrong I'm afraid. The Balfour declaration (in it's final form, I'm unsure about the contents of earlier, unpublished drafts) is a carefully worded piece of political prose that was deliberately designed to be open to interpretation. It NEVER used the word 'Homeland'. The Blafour declaration talks of the establishment of a 'National home' for the Jewish people 'In Palestine'. Words like 'Homeland', 'State' and 'nation' were deliberately avoided. You may be looking at a translation, rather than the original document. 'National Home' was a deliberetely vague term, and may have been coined especially for the Balfour declaration. There was also NO specific piece of territory mentioned, just that it would be 'in Palestine' - and as we have seen, 'Palestine' can be interpreted in deifferent ways. The area west of the Jordan was NEVER declared as being intended as a 100% Jewish area, just that the area to the east would be a separate Arab Kingdom under the Hashemites (who had been allies of the British in WW1). Finally, the declaration says Jewish settlelment will happen without prejudicing the rights of Palestine's existing inhabitants - again with no explanation of what that means in practice. The British governemnt was both sympathetic to Zionism and Arab Nationalism - provided Britain played a paternal role in both. Balfour is a COMPROMISE - a vaguely-worded one - designed to give the go-ahead to Zionism whilst re-assuring the arabs that they would not lose as a result. We don't know if the British government of the time really thought it could square that circle - the small-scale ottoman-era Zionist settlelment had been peaceful, and perhaps the British hoped this would continue even if numbers rose dramatically. The league of Nations mandate for the area was agreed 5 whole years after the Balfour declaration. I'm not familiar with the full wording of the mandate, and whether it used the word 'Homeland'. If so, it may mark a slight policy shift. -- Indisciplined 16:51, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
I am deleting this: "This development also spurred a considerable immigration of Arabs from the surrounding lands to Palestine. (Refs: Arieh Avneri, The Claim of Dispossession, (Tel Aviv: Hidekel Press, 1984), p. 28; Yehoshua Porath, The Emergence of the Palestinian-Arab National Movement, 1918-1929, London: Frank Cass, 1974), pp. 17-18; John Hope Simpson, Palestine: Report on Immigration, Land Settlement and Development, (London, 1930), p. 126.) " According to policy, we are supposed to cite the place where we got the information from, not just copy citations from an intermediate place. Now I could be wrong about this, Sangil, but I doubt you actually consulted p126 of the Hope Simpson report for the simple reason that it does not contain any support for your claim. It does not support the claims made in its name by junk sources like Myths and Facts, either. In fact it is mostly about Jewish illegal immigration, which I know because I am looking at it. This report, like all the reports of British commissions and enquiries, regarded Arab immigration as a minor phenomenon. I also doubt your reference to Porath's book, since Porath in other places argues strongly against the massive-Arab-immigration claim. You may be right about Avineri's book, but did you really consult it? What does it say? -- Zero talk 08:02, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
Using sources with a strong bias, like AIPAC's "Myths & Facts" is one good way of ending up with an article such as this, which is full of inaccuracies. Avneri's "considerable immigration" of Arabs was in the 1930's, not the Ottoman period, and was definitely not "considerable" as a proportion of the population or in comparison to Jewish immigration. The Allied Supreme Council did not define the borders of Palestine at the San Remo Conference: the UK was not "assigned" a mandate by San Remo, it announced that it was prepared to accept a mandate under terms to be agreed at a later date by the League of Nations. The terms of the mandate were ratified in 1922 and came into effect in September 1923. There was no 1920-22 mandate under the terms described by this article. I'll rewrite this when I have the time. -- Ian Pitchford 12:17, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
For the earlier mandate period, McCarthy provides evidence that the 1922 census seriously undercounted women and children and that this was the main cause of the discrepancy between the 1922 and 1931 censuses (disagreeing with the British analysis). For the period after 1931, he writes:In considering Muslim immigration into Palestine one cannot reasonably avoid the so-called "desertification thesis," which holds that Palestine was largely a wasteland under the Ottomans and only became a truly living land after Jewish settlers arrived. The demographic component of the thesis is that when Jewish immigration began Palestine was an underpopulated area with few Arabs in residence, and that Arabs migrated to Jewish areas in Palestine because of the economic benefits of Jewish settlement. In other words, that the Arab refugees of 1948 were themselves immigrants, or the children of immigrants, and not inhabitants of the land "from time immemorial. [Here McCarthy links to a footnote that discusses From Time Immemorial and describes it as "demographically worthless".] ... First, real evidence for Muslim immigration into Palestine is minimal. Because no Ottoman records of that immigration have yet been discovered, one is thrown back on demographic analysis to evaluate Muslim migration. From analyses of rates of increase of the Muslim population of the three Palestinian sanjaks, one can say with certainty that Muslim immigration after the 1870's was small. Had there been a large group of Muslim immigrants their numbers would have caused an unusual increase in the population and this would have appeared in the calculated rate of increase from one registration list to another. For example, an increase of one-eighth of the population over a twenty-year period would have caused the observed yearly rate of increase to grow by 50%. [Here a footnote explaining the number 50%.] Such an increase would have been easily noticed; it was not there." (McCarthy, p16)
McCarthy's assertion that Bachi's analysis was the "only scholarly analysis" satisfies Slim's request for a source asserting what the scholarly consensus is. -- Zero talk 05:40, 14 April 2006 (UTC)There was a small but significant unrecorded Muslim immigration into Palestine from 1931 until the end of the Mandate. In the only scholarly analysis of the Arab immigration, Professor Roberto Bachi has concluded that this migration averaged 900 Muslims a year, a total of 13,500 for the period 1931 to 1945. [reference given] This figure does not include Arab workers who remained in Palestine for a brief time and then returned home. The results of Bachi's closely reasoned analysis have been applied here in estimates of the actual Arab population, and 900 Arabs per year have been added to the figures for the Arab population (table 2.15). The validity of analyses such as Bachi's has been denied in other sources [here another footnote citing From Time Immemorial and concluding "It is difficult to find a demographic basis for her assertions."], which posit a much larger unrecorded Arab immigration. [Then a page discussing the evidence, followed by:] The argument that Arab immigration somehow made up a large part of the Palestinian Arab population is thus statistically untenable." (McCarthy, pp33-34).
These references appear to have been copied from Jewish Virtual Library here: [12]. They have nothing to do with the "Ottoman Period" section in which they've been inserted. Avneri is cited for the 1922 census, which does indeed appear on page 28, Porath is also cited for the 1922 census and not the claim that "This development also spurred a considerable immigration of Arabs from the surrounding lands to Palestine", a claim he does not support [13]. Porath says 'As all the research by historians and geographers of modern Palestine shows, the Arab population began to grow again in the middle of the nineteenth century. That growth resulted from a new factor: the demographic revolution. Until the 1850s there was no "natural" increase of the population, but this began to change when modern medical treatment was introduced and modern hospitals were established, both by the the Ottoman authorities and by the foreign Christian missionaries. The number of births remained steady but infant mortality decreased... The Jews were amazed. In spite of the Jewish immigration, the natural increase of the Arabs—at least twice the rate of the Jews' — slowed down the transformation of the Jews into a majority in Palestine. To account for the delay the theory, or myth, of large-scale immigration of Arabs from the neighboring countries was proposed by Zionist writers.... No one would doubt that some migrant workers came to Palestine from Syria and Trans-Jordan and remained there. But one has to add to this that there were migrations in the opposite direction as well. For example, a tradition developed in Hebron to go to study and work in Cairo, with the result that a permanent community of Hebronites had been living in Cairo since the fifteenth century. Trans-Jordan exported unskilled casual labor to Palestine; but before 1948 its civil service attracted a good many educated Palestinian Arabs who did not find work in Palestine itself. Demographically speaking, however, neither movement of population was significant in comparison to the decisive factor of natural increase.'. This was the main reason for Arab population growth". Clearly, the references are not relevant here. -- Ian Pitchford 18:22, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
You may take notice of how UNRWA define a "refugee" - someone who have been in palestine for at least two(2) years prior to 1948. Why not use the standard definition of resident (which is 5 or even 10 years) ?????
This is logical, the country was blooming economically (because of the zioniost activity) and more and more workers came to work there from Syria, Jordan and even Sudan and Egypt.
Zeq 19:10, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
There is not the weeniest, tiniest, scrap of evidence that there was an influx of Arabs into Palestine during the period between June 1946 and May 1948 or in the period shortly before then. Does anyone even claim to present such evidence? Not only that, but as everyone knows (see
Palestinian Exodus), starting in November 1947 there was a steady flow of Arabs out of Palestine. By May 1948 they totalled several hundred thousand, but they are not included in UNRWA's definition of refugee. Why aren't the Pipes and Peters of this world lamenting that fact rather than restricting their attention to the imaginary hoardes who moved in the other direction?
Source: "a part of the total 1948 refugee population-professionals who had been living outside of Palestine from 1946 to 1948 and were unable to return, persons who chose to leave the Near East, and persons who fled Palestine with personal property or fled before May 1948-were not registered as refugees by UNRWA. (footnote: As a practical matter, however, it is not clear whether refugees who left before 15 May 1948 were actually distinguishable from those refugees who left Palestine after this date in the early days of registration.)" - Human Rights Quarterly, vol 16 (1994) p313, citing UNRWA documents. And why is this discussion here? This is not supposed to be an article on every topic related to Palestine. --
Zero
talk 01:26, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
Cut from article:
This is what "everyone knows", but is it true?
If it's true, then it should be easy to find a quotable source, in the form of:
I hope nobody's too offended at my silly examples. Try to glean the form from the fun, though: X said Y about Z. -- Uncle Ed 18:50, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
Zero's flexible interepration of the English language, as well as of plain mathematics, never ceased to amaze me. Some examples:
- Sangil 20:43, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
- Sangil 21:51, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
Hold the phone. I'm hearing two different things.
Is there any source (including the PLO) which says the Palestinian Arabs (or any other group called "Palestinians") has or ought to have a 'national identity' as "Palestinians"? That is, some sort of connection to the land around the Jordan River (or even just to the west of it) which gives them a claim or right to establish a sovereign nation there?
If so, is this anything different from the reasoning that entitiles Arabs or "Palestinian Arabs" indigenous to the lands east of the Jordan river ALSO to have an independent sovereign state (called Transjordan and then Jordan)?
Don't give your own opinion, I'm not trying to hold a debate here. Please provide sources, so that we can use those sources to write the darn article! Uncle Ed 00:46, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
I want to second what Ed wrote about about the need for sources, and for everyone to stop giving their personal opinion. We're not here to debate the issues. To the best of my knowledge, no one posting to this page has any academic qualifications in the history of the area (Palmiro and Ian, I'm not sure about you, so I apologize if you do). But even if we were all Oxford professors of mideast history, our personal opinions would still be irrelevant. Please, let's stick to A says X but B says Y. Also, please stop trashing sources just because they might support the Israeli position. It's getting too tiresome. SlimVirgin (talk) 02:03, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
Sangil wrote: "the Arab population in Palestine grew from 673.388 in 1922 to 861.211 in 1931" and this is supposed to be impossible. In fact it was perfectly possible. As you can calculate, assuming the censuses were exactly 9 years apart, that is a 2.8% per annum growth rate which is high but not exceptionally high. During the early 1960s, when Israel's borders were very firmly shut against illegal immigration, the natural rate of growth of the Israeli Arab population was more than 4.5% per annum (source: Friedlander, Population of Israel). The reason for the high rate of growth was that women had lots of babies (more than 7 births per adult woman during the mandate period combined with much lower infant mortality than earlier; source 1931 census etc). There was also some Arab immigration, but it was small compared to the natural growth. This is analysed over many pages of the 1931 census report, including a chapter devoted to illegal immigration. We can also find there (page 59) a direct count that the census made of people according to place of birth. Here are the percentages of people born outside Palestine: Moslems 2%, Christians 20%, Jews 58%. -- Zero talk 02:21, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
Cheers. -- Zero talk 06:46, 14 April 2006 (UTC)It is thus evident that Arabs are unemployed in at least considerable numbers, and that that fact is resulting in a distinct reduction of the standard of life among the Arab labouring classes. As has been pointed out, the Jewish Labour Federation is successful in impeding the employment of Arabs both in Jewish colonies and in Jewish enterprises of every kind. There is therefore no relief to be anticipated from an extension of Jewish enterprise unless some departurte from existing practice is effected. (Hope-Simpson report, page 135)
I just added something on current demographics based on what I could find on other wikipedia pages. Just thought I'd let you all know so that you can edit it if not correct. -- Horses In The Sky 12:23, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
Someone introduced a quotation and an alleged paraphrase from Schmelz, U. O. (1990) Population Characteristics of Jerusalem and Hebron Regions According to Ottoman Census of 1905, in Gar G. Gilbar, (ed.), Ottoman Palestine: 1800-1914 (Leiden: Brill), pp15-67, taken from an article of Gottheil. The effect is to make Schmelz appear like a supporter of the mass Arab immigration thesis for Ottoman times. This is quite incorrect. I'll treat the two statements separately.
By way of introduction, Uziel Schmelz was one of Israel's leading demographers until his death ca. 1992. If he believed in mass Arab immigration, we should take him seriously. On the other hand, Fred Gottheil is the economist who provided Joan Peters with the much-criticised population figures she used in From Time Immemorial. The widely-cited paper of Schmelz covers the Hebron and Jerusalem kazas of Palestine, which were fairly large regions including about a quarter of the population of Palestine. As well as Jerusalem and Hebron cities, they covered places like Bethlehem and Ramallah and a large number of villages.
In other words, especially in view of point 1, the study of Schmelz contradicts the mass Arab migration theory for the Ottoman period. -- Zero talk 16:10, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
I didn't manage to figure out who is arguing about what here, so I'll just say what I think. When Schmelz talks about "in-migrants" to a particular few villages, he is talking about people who moved to those villages but it is hard to say whether he is implying anything about where they came from. The meaning of "in-migration" in demography seems to vary a bit; see [27] [28] [29] [30] [31] for some sample definitions. These sources agree that it includes moving from another part of the same country, but they don't agree on whether it also includes moving from outside the country. The summary statistics that I quoted above for Schmelz's whole sample break the places of birth into 12 explicitly defined categories, so we don't need to know what "in-migration" means in that case. -- Zero talk 08:10, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
Ramallite said above:
I agree 100%. That's exactly the kind of sneaky stuff that an encyclopedia article should not do.
If the sources merely say, "We suspect that hordes of immigrants streamed into Western Palestine because the Jews made it so wonderful to live there" then let's quote that POV and be done with it.
But if there are sources that mention, say, 30 thousand Syrian Arabs migrating into (what is now called) the West Bank between 1937 and 1950 - then a substantial figure like this ousd be quoted (along with any other quotable source which denies it).
Anyway, the article should reflect the opinion of some governments or historians, etc. who endorse or oppose the idea that the Arab population increased in Palestine chiefly because of "natural increase" alone, i.e., birth rate far exceeded the death rate. I'd be interested in any facts and figures about why the death rate dropped. Was it due to improvements in economy, hygiene, or medicine? (Recall that the germ theory of disease was only discovered and popularized a few decades earlier!) -- Uncle Ed 18:21, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
You have yet to upload your modification. — Aiden 18:54, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
What is the relevance of this? Does it relate to the extent of the area called "Palestine" and how this has expanded and shrunk over the centuries? -- Uncle Ed 19:16, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
This area was not called "Palestine" and this article is not about the British Mandate of Palestine. I have corrected some of the dates and claims in the text and have included a map from a published source. I don't have time to correct the whole text today. -- Ian Pitchford 21:15, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
Are you guys arguing over whether the entire British Mandate should be called "Palestine"? I used to think so, and I used to think that Jordan was an " independent Palestinian state" and that therefore all the arguments that "Palestinians" deserve such a state can be countered with "go live in Jordan".
But let's try to stay on topic here. The extent of territory that ANYONE ever called "Palestine" is relevant to the Palestine and History of Palestine articles.
Okay, maybe also Definitions of Palestine and Palestinians. Once we straighten this out we might be able to do some merging. Who's with me on this? -- Uncle Ed 23:23, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
I think Ramallite's map is fine. Hey wait a minute- I'm Israeli and he's Palestinian, and we agree! Does this count as a miracle? - Sangil 01:42, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
The meaning of the word "Palestine" in European usage prior to the British Mandate is described at the start of the section "The 19th and 20th centuries" based on a paper by the Israeli geographer Biger (who seems to be a darling of the right-wing these days from what I see in the press) devoted entirely to that subject. -- Zero talk 04:35, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
I bring you quotations from two important Mandate period reports regarding Arab immigration. -- Zero talk 08:55, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
Here is the conclusion paragraph from Chapter X, Section 2, part (b), "Arab Illegal Immigration" from the report of the Peel Royal Commission (1937).
The dimensions of the volume of illegal immigration from neighbouring territories are not known. There is evidence that many of these illegal immigrants have land in the neighbouring territories and leave their wives and families in those territories while seeking to augment their livelihood by labour in Palestine. There is evidence also that this form of illegal immigration is seasonal. It is probable that seasonal immigration leaves a residue in Palestine of people who have decided to settle permanently in the country. There is no evidence available to show that this residue is so considerable as seriously to disturb the general economy of Palestine. (Peel report, p292) -- Zero talk 08:55, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
Here are the main parts of subsection "Arab Illegal Immigration" of Chapter VII of the Anglo-American Survey of Palestine (1946).
Arab illegal immigration is mainly of the types described in the first paragraph of this memorandum as casual, temporary and seasonal. It is illegal in the sense that the entry and the mode of entry do not conform with the provisions of the Immigration Ordinance and it is therefore not susceptible of statistical record. On the other hand, it is not illegal in the sense that the immigrants settle permanently in Palestine.
...
That some movement of this kind may lead to a residue of illegal permanent settlers is possible, but, if the residue were of significant size, it would be reflected in systematic disturbances of the rates of Arab vital occurrences. No such systematic disturbances are observed. It is sometimes alleged that the high rate of Arab natural increase is due to a large concealed immigration from the neighbouring countries. This is an erroneous inference. Researches reveal that the high rate of fertility of the Moslem Arab woman has remained unchanged for half a century. The low rate of Arab natural increase before 1914 was caused by (a) the removal in significant numbers of men in the early nubile years for military service in other parts of the Ottoman Empire, many of whom never returned and others of whom returned in the late years of life; and (b) the lack of effective control of endemic and epidemic diseases that in those years led to high mortality rates.
[Then paragraphs on the Transjordanian and Syrian borders.]
The conclusion is that Arab illegal immigration for the purposes of permanent settlement is insignificant. (Survey of Palestine, pp210-212) -- Zero talk 08:55, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
In another place, the Survey gives the following estimates:
out of a total number of 360,822 immigrants who entered Palestine between 1920 and 1942, only 27,981 or 7.8% were Arabs. (Survey of Palestine, p795) -- Zero talk 08:55, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
Here is the summary from the report of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (the committee which recommended the partition of Palestine in 1947).-- Zero talk 11:50, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
The Arab population has increased almost entirely as a result of an excess of births over deaths. Indeed, the natural rate of increase of Moslem Arabs in Palestine is the highest in recorded statistics, a phenomenon explained by very high fertility rates coupled with a marked decline in death rates as a result of improved conditions of life and public health.
One thousand five hundred and fifty-seven persons (including 565 Jews) who, having made their way into the country surreptitiously, were later detected, were sentenced to imprisonment for their offence and recommended for deportation.
Please start using the new reference method. Putting sources in brackets at the end of the sentence doesn't cut it. — Aiden 17:11, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
The current "Smoking Gun" article by Gottheil, which is being used as a source to argue that Schmelz's opinion was that there was 'mass Arab immigration' to Palestine, is unverifiable in my view. This paragraph, which is quoted in the article:
The above-average population growth of the Arab villages around the city of Jerusalem, with its Jewish majority, continued until the end of the mandatory period. This must have been due—as elsewhere in Palestine under similar conditions—to in-migrants attracted by economic opportunities, and to the beneficial effects of improved health services in reducing mortality—just as happened in other parts of Palestine around cities with a large Jewish population sector.
...has apparently been used numerous times in many propaganda (i.e. non-scholarly) articles that argue the same thing, and always quoting Gar G. Gilbar, ed., Ottoman Palestine: 1800-1914 (Leiden: Brill, 1990), pp. 32-3. There is absolutely no reference to what the paragraphs immediately above and below this statement consist of, plus, propagandists are obviously relying on the fact that the aformentioned book is out of print and thus hard to explore. Zero, regardless of what others think of him, has provided evidence here - from the same book - that clearly disputes that Schmelz held the idea that there was mass immigration of non-Palestinian Arabs into Palestine. The insistence on keeping an unverifiable paragraph, but reverting an explicit breakdown of numbers by the very same demographer, is not just POV pushing, it is acting in bad faith.
Oh - I regard the Gottheil piece (and the others like it) as unverifiable not because I question the existence of the above paragraph, which I don't, but because there is strong evidence that it is being maliciously used out-of-context given what else Schmelz clearly stated. And for those who may start accusing me of pushing my own POV, it is irrelevant, because I am completely and utterly apathetic to the fact that there was immigration to Palestine - it's a beautiful country in an economically strategic spot by the sea, why wouldn't people want to come? And their coming and going was irrelevant to the Nakba of '48, because that was a 'Nakba' only for the original natives of Palestine, not for any immigrants who could and did return from whence they came. Ramallite (talk) 17:33, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
Wrong. I have given plenty of other references apart from the population statistics (which by the way are supported by British documents- such as [32]). - the Hope-Simpson report for one. Zero on the other hand has provided lots of academic sources, but has intermingled his own opinions so often it's hard to tell the difference (SlimVirgin had pointed out one occurence, me another). Not to mention that Zero's numerous sources are at odds with each other. This is hardly as clear-cut as you portray it.
- Sangil 23:38, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
The Schmelz quote discussing 'in-migration" refers to the Ottoman period. At that time, there was no administrative or political entity called 'Palestine'. 'In-migartion' in the Ottoman empire could include someone moving from a Hebron-area village to the City of Jerusalem, or equally someone moveing from Beirut to Acre. Further, if we agree that according to Scmelz there was significant in-migration due to economic conditions, it would be quite a phenomena if this in-migartion would be limited to geographic areas which today belong to a different political entity, but at the time were indistinguishable from other geographies. There is no reason to believe that Hebronite villagers would move to Jerusalem to take advantage of the economic situation there, but that equidistant trans-Jordanian villagers would not.
Isarig 16:16, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
Editorial: Population Index, Vol. 4, No. 1. (Jan., 1938), pp. 2-3 (this was a demography newsletter published by Princeton University and the Population Association of America).-- Zero talk 04:19, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
the Jewish population has grown chiefly from migration, the Moslem, from natural increase. Indeed, from 1922 to 1938, migratory increase among the Moslems was less than 4 per cent, whereas among the Jews it was about 280 per cent.
J.P. Loftus, Features of the demography of Palestine, Population Studies, Vol 2, 1948, pp92-114. (This paper is a good illustration of how complex and difficult demographic calculations are.) -- Zero talk 04:19, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
In October 1944, after consultation with the military authorities, it was decided that the demand for unskilled labour was no longer acute and that Palestine's local man-power was adequate to meet both civil and military requirements. The period of emergency had passed and the time had arrived to put the law into force and to deport to their countries of origin the Syrian, Lebanese, Egyptian and other foreign labourers found to be illegally in Palestine. These illegal immigrants fell into two classes: (a) Those employed directly by the War Department and the Royal Air Force. [About 4400, of whom 2400 were repatriated and 2000 retained "for the time being"], (b) Those working for contractors engaged on military or R.A.F. construction or in other civil employment. When these foreign workers are discovered by the police they are repatriated. No precise figures of their number are available but a recent police estimate [totalled 9687]. [Later Loftus considers over many pages a claim that there was a large unrecorded immigration of Moslem females and concludes:] Nor is there any evidence of considerable illegal immigration of Moslem females of marriageable age.
Any mention of the many sudaneese that were broght by the British as slaves ? There are today many bedouins who are called members of the "Al-Ubied" caln (Ubied =slave in Arabic) they have VERY dark skin and look afaricans and claim to be sudaneese. They clearly are still here in Israel/palestine - any mention of them ? Zeq 05:48, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
Most arabs who came to work in Palestine settle near Jewish vilages . They did not came to live in Jerusalem and Hebron - so those figure are not a good indication of the immigration. Zeq 05:39, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
Zeq 17:29, 16 April 2006 (UTC)""30,000-36,000 Syrian migrants (Huranis) entered Palestine during the last few months alone" (La Syrie daily, August 12, 1934). Syrian rulers have always considered the area as a southern province of Greater Syria. "
http://www.mideastweb.org/palpop.htm - see their conclusions.
more sources: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/Summaries/V82I1P31-1.htm
Zeq 06:05, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
The thesis of mass Arab immigration into Ottoman and Mandate Palestine is one which, as has been shown above, is dismissed by the majority of scholars working in the field as not only having been shown to be unjustified but as a myth. Not only is the academic consensus that there was no such phenomenon, but its existence is not, in general, even a subject of serious debate or controversy in academic circles. Since there are all sorts of issues in the several thousand years of history dealt with here that the article does not deal with or summarises in a line or two, it seems completely out of proportion that a "myth", as Yehoshuah Porath puts it, would be the single largest topic of discussion in the article. The question needs to be considered in proportion to the rest of the article, and in proportion to its status as a thory which is not generally speaking a matter of serious academic debate. An in-depth treatment of it does not belong on this page; it might possibly belong on British Mandate of Palestine, but really considering the length it has already achieved, would probably be better served on a separate article. Palmiro | Talk 15:55, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
"known to the authorities was recorded" - exactly. These are the leagl ones but we all know tha migrant workers are not recorded. They came fro work either from Syria (which was considered Palestine to be part of Syria in pre-british time so no "migrtaion records" exist or they were ilegal. Bottom line it is impossible to detrmine how many came.
What we can do is look at pople who are there today, many of them know were they came from: Syria, Egypt, Sudan etc... Zeq 10:48, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
I think that would qualify as speculation so I don't know how admissible it really is.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 10:50, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
I think quite a few editors above from both sides are acting increasingly disrespectful towards each other and I think most uninvolved people are kinda put off by reading such rude comments.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk
To User:Isarig, do not assume I failed to "take the time" reading the article, and do take the time in looking at the passage more closely (i.e. according to whom is not clear, even though there's a ref at the end, refs go at the end of paragraphs, anyway – easily remedied, though). But beyond that, I suggest for you to cease inserting it until you are able to demonstrate the significant migration thesis you are promoting as per the guidelines I set out above. Let's see a worked formulation on the article space; please limit what is still being worked on to the talk page. El_C 05:51, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
There have been many claims that I personally, as well as other 'proponents' of the existence of Arab Immigration into Palestine, do not bring any sources to back our claims. Although I have no intention nor pretence of equaling Zero's vast knowledge and acquaintance with scholarly sources, and I myself have only limited time and resources available, I will present here a number of sources I came across. I believe I have brought here enough sources to prove that this idea is not some far-fetched pro-Israeli fanatical fantasy with no serious support, as some portray it, but rather that this controversy has two valid sides to it, and that both should be presented fairly. (Wheow what a long sentence..)
Note- since I do not reside inside the Library of Congress, some of the sources here are not cited directly, but rather by that method so abhorred by Zero- third-party citing. Since this is not the article itself, I believe this method is acceptable here.
My argument is composed of two parts. First-
They can be generally be divided into two groups:
The Arab rate of population growth, as derived from British census information, is 2.8% yearly (and this not my OR, it is mentioned in British documents, such as the table in chapter IV of the 1946 Anglo-American report). The sources that accept these figures, claim that the causes of the remarkably high rate are exclusively the Arab high birth rate and low death rate. This is problematic, because
The second group, of which McCarthy is a notable member, is even more problematic. The reason is that since they do not accept the accuracy of much of the conventional statistics, they are left with very little information. Since McCarthy has been cited so often in this Talk page, we will use him as an example. McCarthy chose to limit himself almost exclusively to the figures provided by Bachi, which he considers the "only scholarly analysis of the Arab immigration". However, as noted in an article by Fred M. Gottheil, McCarthy's use of Bachi's data is much less scholarly (this example is a bit long, but for us veterans of Palestine Talk page it should be a cinch)-
(Taken from Gottheil's article in the 'The Middle East Forum' website:
[33])
…And the Second-
British sources:
Hope Simpson Commission
Report to the Council of the League of Nations 1953
Contemporary sources:
Fred M. Gottheil, "Arab Immigration into Pre-State Israel: 1922-1931" in Curtis et al. eds., The Palestinians, p. 31.
Admittedly Gottheil does not unequivocally support the existence of such an immigration in this statement. Rather he says that basically "it's not possible to know"- as opposed to the confidence of such sources as McCarthy and Porath.
Erich and Rael Jean Isaac, "Whose Palestine?" p. 34.
By Government of Palestine statisticians, we arrive for 1945 at an unaccounted for addition, since 1920, of 126,000 persons for the Arab sector. Apart from mistakes and inaccuracies in the official vital statistics, which probably cancel out, the increase can be due only to immigration.
The Economic Consequences of Zionism, Rafael N Rosenzweig, p70
The divided economy of Mandatory Palestine, Jacob Metzer, p32
The Claim of Dispossesion, Arieh L Avneri, p32
Schmelz, U. O. (1990) Population Characteristics of Jerusalem and Hebron Regions According to Ottoman Census of 1905, in Gar G. Gilbar, (ed.), Ottoman Palestine: 1800-1914 (Leiden: Brill), pp15-67, taken from an article of Gottheil
In one of Schmelz's tables provided by Ramallite
[34], it can be seen that in Jerusalem (an example of a city with a large Jewish population), roughly 8% (40% of 20%) of the Arab population originates from Asia and Africa (excluding Turkey and Palestine - it is not clear whether Tranjordan is included in this definition). If this rate was similiar in other Jewish populated areas, such as the coastal plains and Izrael valley, than the Arab immigration in no way can be considered "negligible".
Final word- I think it is by now clear to everyone that there was a considerable (to some degree or other) immigration of Arabs into Palestine. The problem is that (1) no one is sure just how many entered (both legally and illegally), and - (2) no one is sure how many actually stayed and settled, as opposed to returning to their place of origin. I think this issue should be presented in a way that makes this clear. And those of you who think that I will accept statements like "Gotthiel and Avneri are not serious academic sources" just because you say it's so, are very optimistic indeed.
- Sangil 23:27, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
A number of authors have maintained that Muslims migrated to Jewish areas because of better economic conditions, etc. (Footnote: See the citations in Peters, From Time Immemorial, chapters 11 to 13, especially the articles by Moshe Aumann, L. Shimony, Fred Gottheil, and Moshe Braver.) The answer is to be found in the economic history of the Eastern Mediterranean in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Some areas of Palestine did experience greater population growth than others, but the explanation for this is simple. Radical economic change was occurring all over the Mediterranean Basin at the time. Improved transportation, greater mercantile activity, and greater industry had increased the chances for employment in cities, especially coastal cities. At the same time, a population increase, fueled by the same improved security that had contributed to a better economy, had caused the presence of "spare manpower," which could go to the cities for work. Differential population increase was occurring all over the Eastern Mediterranean, not just in Palestine.
The increase in Muslim population had little or nothing to do with Jewish immigration. In fact, the province that experienced the greatest Jewish population growth (by .035 annually), Jerusalem Sanjak, was the province with the lowest rate of growth of Muslim population (.009). The province that experienced the highest Muslim growth, Acre Sanjak (by .020), showed no effect of the supposed drawing power of Jewish immigration. The kaza of Acre, which had little Jewish immigration, had almost the same rate of increase of the Muslim population as did the kaza of Haifa, which was the center of Jewish immigration (.017 per year for Acre as opposed to .018 per year for Haifa, seen by comparing the figures in Census I and in the 1330 Nufus). The major Jewish centers of the kazas of Tiberias and Safad actually experienced lower rates of Muslim population growth than the kaza of Nazareth, which had almost no Jews. (McCarthy, pp16-17) -- Zero talk 08:50, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
It is apparent that the presence of a high proportion of the non-Muslim population (Christian, Jewish and foreign) was not a necessary condition for the development of the coastal towns. Gaza, for example, which was overwhelmingly Muslim, developed despite the paucity of its non-Muslim population; the same is true of Jaffa, in which two-thirds of the population was Muslim. At the same time there was a very high proportion of non-Muslims in Haifa. (Kark p74) -- Zero talk 08:50, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
Sorry about that
Sangil, please restore the comments you accidentally deleted (I'd do it myself but I'm pressed for time), then you may delete this notice. Thanks. El_C 19:33, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
I'm going overseas in a couple of hours and may not be able to edit for a week or two. In the meanwhile, I stand by everything I wrote above ;-). -- Zero talk 02:51, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
Why is nearly every bit of this article concerned solely with demographics? What about administrative styles, forms of government, economic activity, culture, trade, etc.? It seems to me that a lot of people want nothing to be said except for "Jews immigrated here..." "More Jews..." "Oh, there's some more immigrant Jews..." "Here be Jews..." That's not all this article should be about. There is a rich history in Palestine that is not as much concerned with this. — Aiden 06:31, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
Ian, I only responded to the addition of one-sided material by other editors. That said, and I haven't checked the history, whoever organized the Demographics section did a good job and I think it is near-NPOV. Nice work. — Aiden 19:34, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
Sangil and Ramallite were discussing harmony before the British came. I reckon that the whole pre-Mandate region was fairly harmonious until (1) Jews got the idea they could grab a hunk of it for the State of Israel and (2) Arabs and Nazis decided this was a Very Bad Idea.
Strangely enough, I like Arabs of all stripes; East European and Palestinian Jews; and most Germans (Jewish or otherwise). I'm kind of a culture hound that way. 1001 Nights, Fiddler on the Roof, Havah Nagila, Beethoven und Bach. No accounting for taste, I guess!
Now can we try to describe the people of the region and how they got there without any more fighting, please? -- Uncle Ed 21:38, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
Actually 1001 nights is originally Persian, not Arab. But my colleagues at the Palestinian Society for Coconut Engraving (a private institute subsidized in part by the Ministry of National Procrastination and also by the Government of the Philippines) are working on an Arabic translation of "If I Were a Rich Man" to perform later this year in Bnei Brak. But since they are counting on not getting Israeli permits to cross the wall, they are not taking rehearsals seriously, and are actually arguing on how to translate the 'daba daba deeba dum' part of the song into Arabic. What I was talking about is merely listening to stories from my grandparents, how continued to have Jewish Israeli friends throughout their lives based on what they said was the harmonious relationships between Arab and Jew prior to foreign intervention. I do not know how successful Zionism would have been had it not been for British intervention (both initial support and later obstruction, which only enhanced the zeal of the Zionists). But something my Israeli friends (those who I can only meet abroad now, unfortunately) and I have in common is the similar stories of peaceful coexistence before the European concept of 'Nationalism' came to our shores, which is what caused all hell to break loose on the only spot on earth where at least two prophets are thought to have ascended to heaven. Go figure. Ramallite (talk) 14:42, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
Lots of people came to Palestine (or the greater region thereabouts, e.g., eastern shores of the Jordan River. As Ian just said, Jewish immigration was encouraged (by the British). I just want to know if Arab immigration was also encouraged, facilated, allowed, winked at, etc.
Can we name a few of these scholars, please?
This may be off topic, but...since you guys now accept Israel as the modern day version of Palestine, perhaps my case for adding the following table [36] could now be reconsidered. I also had other useful info, such as growth rate, literacy, etc. Bless sins 03:41, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
since the West Bank and Gaza Strip are considered as beng the actual country of Palestine. In addition, Palestine was a country and not a region. Robin Hood 1212 13:53, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
The Muslim and arab point of view is missing from this article. It refers to Egyptian references but fails to mention that at time of Abraham arrival from Ur it was already populated by its native people. 04:37, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
The user Humus sapiens writes Partially RV OR/POV: maybe Siddiqui's other additions are fixable, but this one is totally wrong. There are other quotes from Bible that don't need fixing but my quote needs it. All quotes from Bible should be allowed or none. The anti-Semitism and holocaust occurred in Europe committed by Europeans against the European Jews. Palestinian did not play any part in it but were punished by taking away their land. The European colonial powers gave the land to the Jews without the consent of its native population and opposition from other Arab and Muslim nations, most of them were under colonial rule. That is the view of 1 billion Muslim and Arab people.
Siddiqui 06:47, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
Siddiqi, you must read WP:NOR and WP:V and conform with those policies. Otherwise your edits have no hope of staying, because they violate Wikipedia policy. Jayjg (talk) 14:45, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
I Added a paragraph describing the causes for the withdrawal of the British and the end of the Mandate. I tried to keep it short, but I thought it was necessary because to me it seemed odd the article just "jumps" from the mandate to the UN resolution, without explaining why the British decided to leave (and they had a great many reasons to want to stay).
As always, comments are welcome.
- Sangil 19:26, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
RE: Demographics during the Ottoman period
<<In 1900, Palestine (according to Ottoman statistics) had a population of about 600,000 of which 94% were Arabs.[17]>>
It should be noted that in 1900 "Palestine" was comprised of TransJordan AND what is today Israel, the above line is very misleading, because other statistics point out that in 1892 there were only 295,000 people living in Palestine (referring to Israel and the territories, not Jordan)
http://www.aish.com/jewishissues/middleeast/Arab-Israeli_Conflict_1_Pre-State_Palestine.asp
The whole article is written from Zionist point of view. The whole article is hijacked and any addition of Muslim and Arab view is consistingly removed. My addition from Bibles were deleted so were view view of Palestinian and Muslim nations on eve of UN partition plan. This is clear example censorship by Zionist Wikipedians. Siddiqui 03:48, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
I edited away the reference to United Monarchy which according to the Bible existed in Palestine, as according to modern historiography it never existed. Also, I edited away other Bible-based refernces, as this is not a Jewish Encyclopaedia, to the best of my understanding. Israel Shamir
This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Until recently this geographic-historical article was titled Palestine (region). I just noticed the link to Portal:Palestine, a political portal referring to the State of Palestine. I feel that this is unfair. I propose we either 1) remove it from here (as it is already linked from the article State of Palestine) or 2) add a link to Portal:Israel here as well. ← Humus sapiens ну? 03:46, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
More information is always better (within reason). Why not put both portal links here? Wachholder0 19:24, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
Deleted this: "However, the placing of the Transjordan area under the direct rule of the Emir Abdullah (who was not a Palestinian Arab), and later unilaterally granting it independence, was never approved by the League of Nations. [1], [2]". First, the installation of Abdullah as a leader under British tutelage happened before the Palestine Mandate came into effect and even before its contents were decided by the League of Nations. The phrase "never approved" hides the fact that it was never disapproved and is thus misleading. In fact, the League of Nations dealt continuously with the British as mandatory for Transjordan and never attempted to change the Britain-Abdullah arrangement significantly. This can be seen as effective approval, especially the Council's unanimous agreement in Sept 1922 that the Jewish Homeland provisions of the Mandate did not apply to Transjordan. As for "unilaterally granting it independence", Transjordan did not become independent until 1946 and its independence was unanimously approved by the League of Nations at its last session (Apr 18, 1946). Before that date, the coming independence of Transjordan was welcomed by the UNGA (on Feb 9, 1946) [3]. As for the two links, the first is good but does not support the text, and the second is an activist site of little interest. -- Zero talk 11:30, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
The fact that British terminology separated "Palestine" and "Transjordan" quite early is established on this Talk page already (look up). Here is an even earlier example that shows "Palestine" clearly ending at the Jordan River in the mind of an important British politician: "They [the Zionists] now talk about a Jewish State. The Arab portion of the population is well-nigh forgotten and is to be ignored. They not only claim the boundaries of the old Palestine, but they claim to spread across the Jordan into the rich countries lying to the east, and, indeed, there seems to be very small limit to the aspirations which they now form." Lord George Curzon, addressing the Eastern Committee on Dec 5, 1918; quoted in Doreen Ingrams, Palestine Papers 1917-1922 (Murray, 1972). As for the difficulty of finding "Palestine" used for the whole region by the British during the Mandate period, you are welcome to visit [6] and look for yourself. -- Zero talk 11:39, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
Is there an article called Partitions of Palestine or something like that? I'd like to read about the various plans to partition the post-WWI areas of the Middle East (centering around the Jordan River). I'm fairly sure that at one time or another, some or all of the entire area surrounding the Jordan was earmarked (or sought) for a predominantly Arab or Jewish state.
Also, there have been a confusing set of partition plans, dividing up the Middle East's unallocated lands into "mandates" and so forth. The term "Palestine" has been redefined so many times that I simply can't keep up.
You know, I'm a reader as well as a contributor, and I would simply like to know this:
One easy question is:
Another easy question (or it should be) is:
Now, a hard question:
A partial answer:
- Sangil 20:55, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
To Sangil: (1) Don't give us stuff from Myths and Facts unless you are prepared to accept material from its Arab equivalents such as Radio Islam. (2) The Balfour Declaration refers to a Jewish Homeland in Palestine, not comprising all of Palestine. This wording was completely deliberate, as the surviving documentation makes clear. In fact an early draft of the declaration appeared to indicate all of Palestine but this was changed in order to eliminate this interprettation. The British government also made it clear to the Zionists at the time that only the western part of Palestine was under consideration (for this, see the classic book on the Balfour Declaration by Leonard Stein). It is simply not true that Transjordan was ever included in any area promised to the Jews. -- Zero talk 08:24, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
Sorry - all wrong I'm afraid. The Balfour declaration (in it's final form, I'm unsure about the contents of earlier, unpublished drafts) is a carefully worded piece of political prose that was deliberately designed to be open to interpretation. It NEVER used the word 'Homeland'. The Blafour declaration talks of the establishment of a 'National home' for the Jewish people 'In Palestine'. Words like 'Homeland', 'State' and 'nation' were deliberately avoided. You may be looking at a translation, rather than the original document. 'National Home' was a deliberetely vague term, and may have been coined especially for the Balfour declaration. There was also NO specific piece of territory mentioned, just that it would be 'in Palestine' - and as we have seen, 'Palestine' can be interpreted in deifferent ways. The area west of the Jordan was NEVER declared as being intended as a 100% Jewish area, just that the area to the east would be a separate Arab Kingdom under the Hashemites (who had been allies of the British in WW1). Finally, the declaration says Jewish settlelment will happen without prejudicing the rights of Palestine's existing inhabitants - again with no explanation of what that means in practice. The British governemnt was both sympathetic to Zionism and Arab Nationalism - provided Britain played a paternal role in both. Balfour is a COMPROMISE - a vaguely-worded one - designed to give the go-ahead to Zionism whilst re-assuring the arabs that they would not lose as a result. We don't know if the British government of the time really thought it could square that circle - the small-scale ottoman-era Zionist settlelment had been peaceful, and perhaps the British hoped this would continue even if numbers rose dramatically. The league of Nations mandate for the area was agreed 5 whole years after the Balfour declaration. I'm not familiar with the full wording of the mandate, and whether it used the word 'Homeland'. If so, it may mark a slight policy shift. -- Indisciplined 16:51, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
I am deleting this: "This development also spurred a considerable immigration of Arabs from the surrounding lands to Palestine. (Refs: Arieh Avneri, The Claim of Dispossession, (Tel Aviv: Hidekel Press, 1984), p. 28; Yehoshua Porath, The Emergence of the Palestinian-Arab National Movement, 1918-1929, London: Frank Cass, 1974), pp. 17-18; John Hope Simpson, Palestine: Report on Immigration, Land Settlement and Development, (London, 1930), p. 126.) " According to policy, we are supposed to cite the place where we got the information from, not just copy citations from an intermediate place. Now I could be wrong about this, Sangil, but I doubt you actually consulted p126 of the Hope Simpson report for the simple reason that it does not contain any support for your claim. It does not support the claims made in its name by junk sources like Myths and Facts, either. In fact it is mostly about Jewish illegal immigration, which I know because I am looking at it. This report, like all the reports of British commissions and enquiries, regarded Arab immigration as a minor phenomenon. I also doubt your reference to Porath's book, since Porath in other places argues strongly against the massive-Arab-immigration claim. You may be right about Avineri's book, but did you really consult it? What does it say? -- Zero talk 08:02, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
Using sources with a strong bias, like AIPAC's "Myths & Facts" is one good way of ending up with an article such as this, which is full of inaccuracies. Avneri's "considerable immigration" of Arabs was in the 1930's, not the Ottoman period, and was definitely not "considerable" as a proportion of the population or in comparison to Jewish immigration. The Allied Supreme Council did not define the borders of Palestine at the San Remo Conference: the UK was not "assigned" a mandate by San Remo, it announced that it was prepared to accept a mandate under terms to be agreed at a later date by the League of Nations. The terms of the mandate were ratified in 1922 and came into effect in September 1923. There was no 1920-22 mandate under the terms described by this article. I'll rewrite this when I have the time. -- Ian Pitchford 12:17, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
For the earlier mandate period, McCarthy provides evidence that the 1922 census seriously undercounted women and children and that this was the main cause of the discrepancy between the 1922 and 1931 censuses (disagreeing with the British analysis). For the period after 1931, he writes:In considering Muslim immigration into Palestine one cannot reasonably avoid the so-called "desertification thesis," which holds that Palestine was largely a wasteland under the Ottomans and only became a truly living land after Jewish settlers arrived. The demographic component of the thesis is that when Jewish immigration began Palestine was an underpopulated area with few Arabs in residence, and that Arabs migrated to Jewish areas in Palestine because of the economic benefits of Jewish settlement. In other words, that the Arab refugees of 1948 were themselves immigrants, or the children of immigrants, and not inhabitants of the land "from time immemorial. [Here McCarthy links to a footnote that discusses From Time Immemorial and describes it as "demographically worthless".] ... First, real evidence for Muslim immigration into Palestine is minimal. Because no Ottoman records of that immigration have yet been discovered, one is thrown back on demographic analysis to evaluate Muslim migration. From analyses of rates of increase of the Muslim population of the three Palestinian sanjaks, one can say with certainty that Muslim immigration after the 1870's was small. Had there been a large group of Muslim immigrants their numbers would have caused an unusual increase in the population and this would have appeared in the calculated rate of increase from one registration list to another. For example, an increase of one-eighth of the population over a twenty-year period would have caused the observed yearly rate of increase to grow by 50%. [Here a footnote explaining the number 50%.] Such an increase would have been easily noticed; it was not there." (McCarthy, p16)
McCarthy's assertion that Bachi's analysis was the "only scholarly analysis" satisfies Slim's request for a source asserting what the scholarly consensus is. -- Zero talk 05:40, 14 April 2006 (UTC)There was a small but significant unrecorded Muslim immigration into Palestine from 1931 until the end of the Mandate. In the only scholarly analysis of the Arab immigration, Professor Roberto Bachi has concluded that this migration averaged 900 Muslims a year, a total of 13,500 for the period 1931 to 1945. [reference given] This figure does not include Arab workers who remained in Palestine for a brief time and then returned home. The results of Bachi's closely reasoned analysis have been applied here in estimates of the actual Arab population, and 900 Arabs per year have been added to the figures for the Arab population (table 2.15). The validity of analyses such as Bachi's has been denied in other sources [here another footnote citing From Time Immemorial and concluding "It is difficult to find a demographic basis for her assertions."], which posit a much larger unrecorded Arab immigration. [Then a page discussing the evidence, followed by:] The argument that Arab immigration somehow made up a large part of the Palestinian Arab population is thus statistically untenable." (McCarthy, pp33-34).
These references appear to have been copied from Jewish Virtual Library here: [12]. They have nothing to do with the "Ottoman Period" section in which they've been inserted. Avneri is cited for the 1922 census, which does indeed appear on page 28, Porath is also cited for the 1922 census and not the claim that "This development also spurred a considerable immigration of Arabs from the surrounding lands to Palestine", a claim he does not support [13]. Porath says 'As all the research by historians and geographers of modern Palestine shows, the Arab population began to grow again in the middle of the nineteenth century. That growth resulted from a new factor: the demographic revolution. Until the 1850s there was no "natural" increase of the population, but this began to change when modern medical treatment was introduced and modern hospitals were established, both by the the Ottoman authorities and by the foreign Christian missionaries. The number of births remained steady but infant mortality decreased... The Jews were amazed. In spite of the Jewish immigration, the natural increase of the Arabs—at least twice the rate of the Jews' — slowed down the transformation of the Jews into a majority in Palestine. To account for the delay the theory, or myth, of large-scale immigration of Arabs from the neighboring countries was proposed by Zionist writers.... No one would doubt that some migrant workers came to Palestine from Syria and Trans-Jordan and remained there. But one has to add to this that there were migrations in the opposite direction as well. For example, a tradition developed in Hebron to go to study and work in Cairo, with the result that a permanent community of Hebronites had been living in Cairo since the fifteenth century. Trans-Jordan exported unskilled casual labor to Palestine; but before 1948 its civil service attracted a good many educated Palestinian Arabs who did not find work in Palestine itself. Demographically speaking, however, neither movement of population was significant in comparison to the decisive factor of natural increase.'. This was the main reason for Arab population growth". Clearly, the references are not relevant here. -- Ian Pitchford 18:22, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
You may take notice of how UNRWA define a "refugee" - someone who have been in palestine for at least two(2) years prior to 1948. Why not use the standard definition of resident (which is 5 or even 10 years) ?????
This is logical, the country was blooming economically (because of the zioniost activity) and more and more workers came to work there from Syria, Jordan and even Sudan and Egypt.
Zeq 19:10, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
There is not the weeniest, tiniest, scrap of evidence that there was an influx of Arabs into Palestine during the period between June 1946 and May 1948 or in the period shortly before then. Does anyone even claim to present such evidence? Not only that, but as everyone knows (see
Palestinian Exodus), starting in November 1947 there was a steady flow of Arabs out of Palestine. By May 1948 they totalled several hundred thousand, but they are not included in UNRWA's definition of refugee. Why aren't the Pipes and Peters of this world lamenting that fact rather than restricting their attention to the imaginary hoardes who moved in the other direction?
Source: "a part of the total 1948 refugee population-professionals who had been living outside of Palestine from 1946 to 1948 and were unable to return, persons who chose to leave the Near East, and persons who fled Palestine with personal property or fled before May 1948-were not registered as refugees by UNRWA. (footnote: As a practical matter, however, it is not clear whether refugees who left before 15 May 1948 were actually distinguishable from those refugees who left Palestine after this date in the early days of registration.)" - Human Rights Quarterly, vol 16 (1994) p313, citing UNRWA documents. And why is this discussion here? This is not supposed to be an article on every topic related to Palestine. --
Zero
talk 01:26, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
Cut from article:
This is what "everyone knows", but is it true?
If it's true, then it should be easy to find a quotable source, in the form of:
I hope nobody's too offended at my silly examples. Try to glean the form from the fun, though: X said Y about Z. -- Uncle Ed 18:50, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
Zero's flexible interepration of the English language, as well as of plain mathematics, never ceased to amaze me. Some examples:
- Sangil 20:43, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
- Sangil 21:51, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
Hold the phone. I'm hearing two different things.
Is there any source (including the PLO) which says the Palestinian Arabs (or any other group called "Palestinians") has or ought to have a 'national identity' as "Palestinians"? That is, some sort of connection to the land around the Jordan River (or even just to the west of it) which gives them a claim or right to establish a sovereign nation there?
If so, is this anything different from the reasoning that entitiles Arabs or "Palestinian Arabs" indigenous to the lands east of the Jordan river ALSO to have an independent sovereign state (called Transjordan and then Jordan)?
Don't give your own opinion, I'm not trying to hold a debate here. Please provide sources, so that we can use those sources to write the darn article! Uncle Ed 00:46, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
I want to second what Ed wrote about about the need for sources, and for everyone to stop giving their personal opinion. We're not here to debate the issues. To the best of my knowledge, no one posting to this page has any academic qualifications in the history of the area (Palmiro and Ian, I'm not sure about you, so I apologize if you do). But even if we were all Oxford professors of mideast history, our personal opinions would still be irrelevant. Please, let's stick to A says X but B says Y. Also, please stop trashing sources just because they might support the Israeli position. It's getting too tiresome. SlimVirgin (talk) 02:03, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
Sangil wrote: "the Arab population in Palestine grew from 673.388 in 1922 to 861.211 in 1931" and this is supposed to be impossible. In fact it was perfectly possible. As you can calculate, assuming the censuses were exactly 9 years apart, that is a 2.8% per annum growth rate which is high but not exceptionally high. During the early 1960s, when Israel's borders were very firmly shut against illegal immigration, the natural rate of growth of the Israeli Arab population was more than 4.5% per annum (source: Friedlander, Population of Israel). The reason for the high rate of growth was that women had lots of babies (more than 7 births per adult woman during the mandate period combined with much lower infant mortality than earlier; source 1931 census etc). There was also some Arab immigration, but it was small compared to the natural growth. This is analysed over many pages of the 1931 census report, including a chapter devoted to illegal immigration. We can also find there (page 59) a direct count that the census made of people according to place of birth. Here are the percentages of people born outside Palestine: Moslems 2%, Christians 20%, Jews 58%. -- Zero talk 02:21, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
Cheers. -- Zero talk 06:46, 14 April 2006 (UTC)It is thus evident that Arabs are unemployed in at least considerable numbers, and that that fact is resulting in a distinct reduction of the standard of life among the Arab labouring classes. As has been pointed out, the Jewish Labour Federation is successful in impeding the employment of Arabs both in Jewish colonies and in Jewish enterprises of every kind. There is therefore no relief to be anticipated from an extension of Jewish enterprise unless some departurte from existing practice is effected. (Hope-Simpson report, page 135)
I just added something on current demographics based on what I could find on other wikipedia pages. Just thought I'd let you all know so that you can edit it if not correct. -- Horses In The Sky 12:23, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
Someone introduced a quotation and an alleged paraphrase from Schmelz, U. O. (1990) Population Characteristics of Jerusalem and Hebron Regions According to Ottoman Census of 1905, in Gar G. Gilbar, (ed.), Ottoman Palestine: 1800-1914 (Leiden: Brill), pp15-67, taken from an article of Gottheil. The effect is to make Schmelz appear like a supporter of the mass Arab immigration thesis for Ottoman times. This is quite incorrect. I'll treat the two statements separately.
By way of introduction, Uziel Schmelz was one of Israel's leading demographers until his death ca. 1992. If he believed in mass Arab immigration, we should take him seriously. On the other hand, Fred Gottheil is the economist who provided Joan Peters with the much-criticised population figures she used in From Time Immemorial. The widely-cited paper of Schmelz covers the Hebron and Jerusalem kazas of Palestine, which were fairly large regions including about a quarter of the population of Palestine. As well as Jerusalem and Hebron cities, they covered places like Bethlehem and Ramallah and a large number of villages.
In other words, especially in view of point 1, the study of Schmelz contradicts the mass Arab migration theory for the Ottoman period. -- Zero talk 16:10, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
I didn't manage to figure out who is arguing about what here, so I'll just say what I think. When Schmelz talks about "in-migrants" to a particular few villages, he is talking about people who moved to those villages but it is hard to say whether he is implying anything about where they came from. The meaning of "in-migration" in demography seems to vary a bit; see [27] [28] [29] [30] [31] for some sample definitions. These sources agree that it includes moving from another part of the same country, but they don't agree on whether it also includes moving from outside the country. The summary statistics that I quoted above for Schmelz's whole sample break the places of birth into 12 explicitly defined categories, so we don't need to know what "in-migration" means in that case. -- Zero talk 08:10, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
Ramallite said above:
I agree 100%. That's exactly the kind of sneaky stuff that an encyclopedia article should not do.
If the sources merely say, "We suspect that hordes of immigrants streamed into Western Palestine because the Jews made it so wonderful to live there" then let's quote that POV and be done with it.
But if there are sources that mention, say, 30 thousand Syrian Arabs migrating into (what is now called) the West Bank between 1937 and 1950 - then a substantial figure like this ousd be quoted (along with any other quotable source which denies it).
Anyway, the article should reflect the opinion of some governments or historians, etc. who endorse or oppose the idea that the Arab population increased in Palestine chiefly because of "natural increase" alone, i.e., birth rate far exceeded the death rate. I'd be interested in any facts and figures about why the death rate dropped. Was it due to improvements in economy, hygiene, or medicine? (Recall that the germ theory of disease was only discovered and popularized a few decades earlier!) -- Uncle Ed 18:21, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
You have yet to upload your modification. — Aiden 18:54, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
What is the relevance of this? Does it relate to the extent of the area called "Palestine" and how this has expanded and shrunk over the centuries? -- Uncle Ed 19:16, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
This area was not called "Palestine" and this article is not about the British Mandate of Palestine. I have corrected some of the dates and claims in the text and have included a map from a published source. I don't have time to correct the whole text today. -- Ian Pitchford 21:15, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
Are you guys arguing over whether the entire British Mandate should be called "Palestine"? I used to think so, and I used to think that Jordan was an " independent Palestinian state" and that therefore all the arguments that "Palestinians" deserve such a state can be countered with "go live in Jordan".
But let's try to stay on topic here. The extent of territory that ANYONE ever called "Palestine" is relevant to the Palestine and History of Palestine articles.
Okay, maybe also Definitions of Palestine and Palestinians. Once we straighten this out we might be able to do some merging. Who's with me on this? -- Uncle Ed 23:23, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
I think Ramallite's map is fine. Hey wait a minute- I'm Israeli and he's Palestinian, and we agree! Does this count as a miracle? - Sangil 01:42, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
The meaning of the word "Palestine" in European usage prior to the British Mandate is described at the start of the section "The 19th and 20th centuries" based on a paper by the Israeli geographer Biger (who seems to be a darling of the right-wing these days from what I see in the press) devoted entirely to that subject. -- Zero talk 04:35, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
I bring you quotations from two important Mandate period reports regarding Arab immigration. -- Zero talk 08:55, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
Here is the conclusion paragraph from Chapter X, Section 2, part (b), "Arab Illegal Immigration" from the report of the Peel Royal Commission (1937).
The dimensions of the volume of illegal immigration from neighbouring territories are not known. There is evidence that many of these illegal immigrants have land in the neighbouring territories and leave their wives and families in those territories while seeking to augment their livelihood by labour in Palestine. There is evidence also that this form of illegal immigration is seasonal. It is probable that seasonal immigration leaves a residue in Palestine of people who have decided to settle permanently in the country. There is no evidence available to show that this residue is so considerable as seriously to disturb the general economy of Palestine. (Peel report, p292) -- Zero talk 08:55, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
Here are the main parts of subsection "Arab Illegal Immigration" of Chapter VII of the Anglo-American Survey of Palestine (1946).
Arab illegal immigration is mainly of the types described in the first paragraph of this memorandum as casual, temporary and seasonal. It is illegal in the sense that the entry and the mode of entry do not conform with the provisions of the Immigration Ordinance and it is therefore not susceptible of statistical record. On the other hand, it is not illegal in the sense that the immigrants settle permanently in Palestine.
...
That some movement of this kind may lead to a residue of illegal permanent settlers is possible, but, if the residue were of significant size, it would be reflected in systematic disturbances of the rates of Arab vital occurrences. No such systematic disturbances are observed. It is sometimes alleged that the high rate of Arab natural increase is due to a large concealed immigration from the neighbouring countries. This is an erroneous inference. Researches reveal that the high rate of fertility of the Moslem Arab woman has remained unchanged for half a century. The low rate of Arab natural increase before 1914 was caused by (a) the removal in significant numbers of men in the early nubile years for military service in other parts of the Ottoman Empire, many of whom never returned and others of whom returned in the late years of life; and (b) the lack of effective control of endemic and epidemic diseases that in those years led to high mortality rates.
[Then paragraphs on the Transjordanian and Syrian borders.]
The conclusion is that Arab illegal immigration for the purposes of permanent settlement is insignificant. (Survey of Palestine, pp210-212) -- Zero talk 08:55, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
In another place, the Survey gives the following estimates:
out of a total number of 360,822 immigrants who entered Palestine between 1920 and 1942, only 27,981 or 7.8% were Arabs. (Survey of Palestine, p795) -- Zero talk 08:55, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
Here is the summary from the report of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (the committee which recommended the partition of Palestine in 1947).-- Zero talk 11:50, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
The Arab population has increased almost entirely as a result of an excess of births over deaths. Indeed, the natural rate of increase of Moslem Arabs in Palestine is the highest in recorded statistics, a phenomenon explained by very high fertility rates coupled with a marked decline in death rates as a result of improved conditions of life and public health.
One thousand five hundred and fifty-seven persons (including 565 Jews) who, having made their way into the country surreptitiously, were later detected, were sentenced to imprisonment for their offence and recommended for deportation.
Please start using the new reference method. Putting sources in brackets at the end of the sentence doesn't cut it. — Aiden 17:11, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
The current "Smoking Gun" article by Gottheil, which is being used as a source to argue that Schmelz's opinion was that there was 'mass Arab immigration' to Palestine, is unverifiable in my view. This paragraph, which is quoted in the article:
The above-average population growth of the Arab villages around the city of Jerusalem, with its Jewish majority, continued until the end of the mandatory period. This must have been due—as elsewhere in Palestine under similar conditions—to in-migrants attracted by economic opportunities, and to the beneficial effects of improved health services in reducing mortality—just as happened in other parts of Palestine around cities with a large Jewish population sector.
...has apparently been used numerous times in many propaganda (i.e. non-scholarly) articles that argue the same thing, and always quoting Gar G. Gilbar, ed., Ottoman Palestine: 1800-1914 (Leiden: Brill, 1990), pp. 32-3. There is absolutely no reference to what the paragraphs immediately above and below this statement consist of, plus, propagandists are obviously relying on the fact that the aformentioned book is out of print and thus hard to explore. Zero, regardless of what others think of him, has provided evidence here - from the same book - that clearly disputes that Schmelz held the idea that there was mass immigration of non-Palestinian Arabs into Palestine. The insistence on keeping an unverifiable paragraph, but reverting an explicit breakdown of numbers by the very same demographer, is not just POV pushing, it is acting in bad faith.
Oh - I regard the Gottheil piece (and the others like it) as unverifiable not because I question the existence of the above paragraph, which I don't, but because there is strong evidence that it is being maliciously used out-of-context given what else Schmelz clearly stated. And for those who may start accusing me of pushing my own POV, it is irrelevant, because I am completely and utterly apathetic to the fact that there was immigration to Palestine - it's a beautiful country in an economically strategic spot by the sea, why wouldn't people want to come? And their coming and going was irrelevant to the Nakba of '48, because that was a 'Nakba' only for the original natives of Palestine, not for any immigrants who could and did return from whence they came. Ramallite (talk) 17:33, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
Wrong. I have given plenty of other references apart from the population statistics (which by the way are supported by British documents- such as [32]). - the Hope-Simpson report for one. Zero on the other hand has provided lots of academic sources, but has intermingled his own opinions so often it's hard to tell the difference (SlimVirgin had pointed out one occurence, me another). Not to mention that Zero's numerous sources are at odds with each other. This is hardly as clear-cut as you portray it.
- Sangil 23:38, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
The Schmelz quote discussing 'in-migration" refers to the Ottoman period. At that time, there was no administrative or political entity called 'Palestine'. 'In-migartion' in the Ottoman empire could include someone moving from a Hebron-area village to the City of Jerusalem, or equally someone moveing from Beirut to Acre. Further, if we agree that according to Scmelz there was significant in-migration due to economic conditions, it would be quite a phenomena if this in-migartion would be limited to geographic areas which today belong to a different political entity, but at the time were indistinguishable from other geographies. There is no reason to believe that Hebronite villagers would move to Jerusalem to take advantage of the economic situation there, but that equidistant trans-Jordanian villagers would not.
Isarig 16:16, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
Editorial: Population Index, Vol. 4, No. 1. (Jan., 1938), pp. 2-3 (this was a demography newsletter published by Princeton University and the Population Association of America).-- Zero talk 04:19, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
the Jewish population has grown chiefly from migration, the Moslem, from natural increase. Indeed, from 1922 to 1938, migratory increase among the Moslems was less than 4 per cent, whereas among the Jews it was about 280 per cent.
J.P. Loftus, Features of the demography of Palestine, Population Studies, Vol 2, 1948, pp92-114. (This paper is a good illustration of how complex and difficult demographic calculations are.) -- Zero talk 04:19, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
In October 1944, after consultation with the military authorities, it was decided that the demand for unskilled labour was no longer acute and that Palestine's local man-power was adequate to meet both civil and military requirements. The period of emergency had passed and the time had arrived to put the law into force and to deport to their countries of origin the Syrian, Lebanese, Egyptian and other foreign labourers found to be illegally in Palestine. These illegal immigrants fell into two classes: (a) Those employed directly by the War Department and the Royal Air Force. [About 4400, of whom 2400 were repatriated and 2000 retained "for the time being"], (b) Those working for contractors engaged on military or R.A.F. construction or in other civil employment. When these foreign workers are discovered by the police they are repatriated. No precise figures of their number are available but a recent police estimate [totalled 9687]. [Later Loftus considers over many pages a claim that there was a large unrecorded immigration of Moslem females and concludes:] Nor is there any evidence of considerable illegal immigration of Moslem females of marriageable age.
Any mention of the many sudaneese that were broght by the British as slaves ? There are today many bedouins who are called members of the "Al-Ubied" caln (Ubied =slave in Arabic) they have VERY dark skin and look afaricans and claim to be sudaneese. They clearly are still here in Israel/palestine - any mention of them ? Zeq 05:48, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
Most arabs who came to work in Palestine settle near Jewish vilages . They did not came to live in Jerusalem and Hebron - so those figure are not a good indication of the immigration. Zeq 05:39, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
Zeq 17:29, 16 April 2006 (UTC)""30,000-36,000 Syrian migrants (Huranis) entered Palestine during the last few months alone" (La Syrie daily, August 12, 1934). Syrian rulers have always considered the area as a southern province of Greater Syria. "
http://www.mideastweb.org/palpop.htm - see their conclusions.
more sources: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/Summaries/V82I1P31-1.htm
Zeq 06:05, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
The thesis of mass Arab immigration into Ottoman and Mandate Palestine is one which, as has been shown above, is dismissed by the majority of scholars working in the field as not only having been shown to be unjustified but as a myth. Not only is the academic consensus that there was no such phenomenon, but its existence is not, in general, even a subject of serious debate or controversy in academic circles. Since there are all sorts of issues in the several thousand years of history dealt with here that the article does not deal with or summarises in a line or two, it seems completely out of proportion that a "myth", as Yehoshuah Porath puts it, would be the single largest topic of discussion in the article. The question needs to be considered in proportion to the rest of the article, and in proportion to its status as a thory which is not generally speaking a matter of serious academic debate. An in-depth treatment of it does not belong on this page; it might possibly belong on British Mandate of Palestine, but really considering the length it has already achieved, would probably be better served on a separate article. Palmiro | Talk 15:55, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
"known to the authorities was recorded" - exactly. These are the leagl ones but we all know tha migrant workers are not recorded. They came fro work either from Syria (which was considered Palestine to be part of Syria in pre-british time so no "migrtaion records" exist or they were ilegal. Bottom line it is impossible to detrmine how many came.
What we can do is look at pople who are there today, many of them know were they came from: Syria, Egypt, Sudan etc... Zeq 10:48, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
I think that would qualify as speculation so I don't know how admissible it really is.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 10:50, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
I think quite a few editors above from both sides are acting increasingly disrespectful towards each other and I think most uninvolved people are kinda put off by reading such rude comments.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk
To User:Isarig, do not assume I failed to "take the time" reading the article, and do take the time in looking at the passage more closely (i.e. according to whom is not clear, even though there's a ref at the end, refs go at the end of paragraphs, anyway – easily remedied, though). But beyond that, I suggest for you to cease inserting it until you are able to demonstrate the significant migration thesis you are promoting as per the guidelines I set out above. Let's see a worked formulation on the article space; please limit what is still being worked on to the talk page. El_C 05:51, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
There have been many claims that I personally, as well as other 'proponents' of the existence of Arab Immigration into Palestine, do not bring any sources to back our claims. Although I have no intention nor pretence of equaling Zero's vast knowledge and acquaintance with scholarly sources, and I myself have only limited time and resources available, I will present here a number of sources I came across. I believe I have brought here enough sources to prove that this idea is not some far-fetched pro-Israeli fanatical fantasy with no serious support, as some portray it, but rather that this controversy has two valid sides to it, and that both should be presented fairly. (Wheow what a long sentence..)
Note- since I do not reside inside the Library of Congress, some of the sources here are not cited directly, but rather by that method so abhorred by Zero- third-party citing. Since this is not the article itself, I believe this method is acceptable here.
My argument is composed of two parts. First-
They can be generally be divided into two groups:
The Arab rate of population growth, as derived from British census information, is 2.8% yearly (and this not my OR, it is mentioned in British documents, such as the table in chapter IV of the 1946 Anglo-American report). The sources that accept these figures, claim that the causes of the remarkably high rate are exclusively the Arab high birth rate and low death rate. This is problematic, because
The second group, of which McCarthy is a notable member, is even more problematic. The reason is that since they do not accept the accuracy of much of the conventional statistics, they are left with very little information. Since McCarthy has been cited so often in this Talk page, we will use him as an example. McCarthy chose to limit himself almost exclusively to the figures provided by Bachi, which he considers the "only scholarly analysis of the Arab immigration". However, as noted in an article by Fred M. Gottheil, McCarthy's use of Bachi's data is much less scholarly (this example is a bit long, but for us veterans of Palestine Talk page it should be a cinch)-
(Taken from Gottheil's article in the 'The Middle East Forum' website:
[33])
…And the Second-
British sources:
Hope Simpson Commission
Report to the Council of the League of Nations 1953
Contemporary sources:
Fred M. Gottheil, "Arab Immigration into Pre-State Israel: 1922-1931" in Curtis et al. eds., The Palestinians, p. 31.
Admittedly Gottheil does not unequivocally support the existence of such an immigration in this statement. Rather he says that basically "it's not possible to know"- as opposed to the confidence of such sources as McCarthy and Porath.
Erich and Rael Jean Isaac, "Whose Palestine?" p. 34.
By Government of Palestine statisticians, we arrive for 1945 at an unaccounted for addition, since 1920, of 126,000 persons for the Arab sector. Apart from mistakes and inaccuracies in the official vital statistics, which probably cancel out, the increase can be due only to immigration.
The Economic Consequences of Zionism, Rafael N Rosenzweig, p70
The divided economy of Mandatory Palestine, Jacob Metzer, p32
The Claim of Dispossesion, Arieh L Avneri, p32
Schmelz, U. O. (1990) Population Characteristics of Jerusalem and Hebron Regions According to Ottoman Census of 1905, in Gar G. Gilbar, (ed.), Ottoman Palestine: 1800-1914 (Leiden: Brill), pp15-67, taken from an article of Gottheil
In one of Schmelz's tables provided by Ramallite
[34], it can be seen that in Jerusalem (an example of a city with a large Jewish population), roughly 8% (40% of 20%) of the Arab population originates from Asia and Africa (excluding Turkey and Palestine - it is not clear whether Tranjordan is included in this definition). If this rate was similiar in other Jewish populated areas, such as the coastal plains and Izrael valley, than the Arab immigration in no way can be considered "negligible".
Final word- I think it is by now clear to everyone that there was a considerable (to some degree or other) immigration of Arabs into Palestine. The problem is that (1) no one is sure just how many entered (both legally and illegally), and - (2) no one is sure how many actually stayed and settled, as opposed to returning to their place of origin. I think this issue should be presented in a way that makes this clear. And those of you who think that I will accept statements like "Gotthiel and Avneri are not serious academic sources" just because you say it's so, are very optimistic indeed.
- Sangil 23:27, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
A number of authors have maintained that Muslims migrated to Jewish areas because of better economic conditions, etc. (Footnote: See the citations in Peters, From Time Immemorial, chapters 11 to 13, especially the articles by Moshe Aumann, L. Shimony, Fred Gottheil, and Moshe Braver.) The answer is to be found in the economic history of the Eastern Mediterranean in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Some areas of Palestine did experience greater population growth than others, but the explanation for this is simple. Radical economic change was occurring all over the Mediterranean Basin at the time. Improved transportation, greater mercantile activity, and greater industry had increased the chances for employment in cities, especially coastal cities. At the same time, a population increase, fueled by the same improved security that had contributed to a better economy, had caused the presence of "spare manpower," which could go to the cities for work. Differential population increase was occurring all over the Eastern Mediterranean, not just in Palestine.
The increase in Muslim population had little or nothing to do with Jewish immigration. In fact, the province that experienced the greatest Jewish population growth (by .035 annually), Jerusalem Sanjak, was the province with the lowest rate of growth of Muslim population (.009). The province that experienced the highest Muslim growth, Acre Sanjak (by .020), showed no effect of the supposed drawing power of Jewish immigration. The kaza of Acre, which had little Jewish immigration, had almost the same rate of increase of the Muslim population as did the kaza of Haifa, which was the center of Jewish immigration (.017 per year for Acre as opposed to .018 per year for Haifa, seen by comparing the figures in Census I and in the 1330 Nufus). The major Jewish centers of the kazas of Tiberias and Safad actually experienced lower rates of Muslim population growth than the kaza of Nazareth, which had almost no Jews. (McCarthy, pp16-17) -- Zero talk 08:50, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
It is apparent that the presence of a high proportion of the non-Muslim population (Christian, Jewish and foreign) was not a necessary condition for the development of the coastal towns. Gaza, for example, which was overwhelmingly Muslim, developed despite the paucity of its non-Muslim population; the same is true of Jaffa, in which two-thirds of the population was Muslim. At the same time there was a very high proportion of non-Muslims in Haifa. (Kark p74) -- Zero talk 08:50, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
Sorry about that
Sangil, please restore the comments you accidentally deleted (I'd do it myself but I'm pressed for time), then you may delete this notice. Thanks. El_C 19:33, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
I'm going overseas in a couple of hours and may not be able to edit for a week or two. In the meanwhile, I stand by everything I wrote above ;-). -- Zero talk 02:51, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
Why is nearly every bit of this article concerned solely with demographics? What about administrative styles, forms of government, economic activity, culture, trade, etc.? It seems to me that a lot of people want nothing to be said except for "Jews immigrated here..." "More Jews..." "Oh, there's some more immigrant Jews..." "Here be Jews..." That's not all this article should be about. There is a rich history in Palestine that is not as much concerned with this. — Aiden 06:31, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
Ian, I only responded to the addition of one-sided material by other editors. That said, and I haven't checked the history, whoever organized the Demographics section did a good job and I think it is near-NPOV. Nice work. — Aiden 19:34, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
Sangil and Ramallite were discussing harmony before the British came. I reckon that the whole pre-Mandate region was fairly harmonious until (1) Jews got the idea they could grab a hunk of it for the State of Israel and (2) Arabs and Nazis decided this was a Very Bad Idea.
Strangely enough, I like Arabs of all stripes; East European and Palestinian Jews; and most Germans (Jewish or otherwise). I'm kind of a culture hound that way. 1001 Nights, Fiddler on the Roof, Havah Nagila, Beethoven und Bach. No accounting for taste, I guess!
Now can we try to describe the people of the region and how they got there without any more fighting, please? -- Uncle Ed 21:38, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
Actually 1001 nights is originally Persian, not Arab. But my colleagues at the Palestinian Society for Coconut Engraving (a private institute subsidized in part by the Ministry of National Procrastination and also by the Government of the Philippines) are working on an Arabic translation of "If I Were a Rich Man" to perform later this year in Bnei Brak. But since they are counting on not getting Israeli permits to cross the wall, they are not taking rehearsals seriously, and are actually arguing on how to translate the 'daba daba deeba dum' part of the song into Arabic. What I was talking about is merely listening to stories from my grandparents, how continued to have Jewish Israeli friends throughout their lives based on what they said was the harmonious relationships between Arab and Jew prior to foreign intervention. I do not know how successful Zionism would have been had it not been for British intervention (both initial support and later obstruction, which only enhanced the zeal of the Zionists). But something my Israeli friends (those who I can only meet abroad now, unfortunately) and I have in common is the similar stories of peaceful coexistence before the European concept of 'Nationalism' came to our shores, which is what caused all hell to break loose on the only spot on earth where at least two prophets are thought to have ascended to heaven. Go figure. Ramallite (talk) 14:42, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
Lots of people came to Palestine (or the greater region thereabouts, e.g., eastern shores of the Jordan River. As Ian just said, Jewish immigration was encouraged (by the British). I just want to know if Arab immigration was also encouraged, facilated, allowed, winked at, etc.
Can we name a few of these scholars, please?
This may be off topic, but...since you guys now accept Israel as the modern day version of Palestine, perhaps my case for adding the following table [36] could now be reconsidered. I also had other useful info, such as growth rate, literacy, etc. Bless sins 03:41, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
since the West Bank and Gaza Strip are considered as beng the actual country of Palestine. In addition, Palestine was a country and not a region. Robin Hood 1212 13:53, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
The Muslim and arab point of view is missing from this article. It refers to Egyptian references but fails to mention that at time of Abraham arrival from Ur it was already populated by its native people. 04:37, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
The user Humus sapiens writes Partially RV OR/POV: maybe Siddiqui's other additions are fixable, but this one is totally wrong. There are other quotes from Bible that don't need fixing but my quote needs it. All quotes from Bible should be allowed or none. The anti-Semitism and holocaust occurred in Europe committed by Europeans against the European Jews. Palestinian did not play any part in it but were punished by taking away their land. The European colonial powers gave the land to the Jews without the consent of its native population and opposition from other Arab and Muslim nations, most of them were under colonial rule. That is the view of 1 billion Muslim and Arab people.
Siddiqui 06:47, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
Siddiqi, you must read WP:NOR and WP:V and conform with those policies. Otherwise your edits have no hope of staying, because they violate Wikipedia policy. Jayjg (talk) 14:45, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
I Added a paragraph describing the causes for the withdrawal of the British and the end of the Mandate. I tried to keep it short, but I thought it was necessary because to me it seemed odd the article just "jumps" from the mandate to the UN resolution, without explaining why the British decided to leave (and they had a great many reasons to want to stay).
As always, comments are welcome.
- Sangil 19:26, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
RE: Demographics during the Ottoman period
<<In 1900, Palestine (according to Ottoman statistics) had a population of about 600,000 of which 94% were Arabs.[17]>>
It should be noted that in 1900 "Palestine" was comprised of TransJordan AND what is today Israel, the above line is very misleading, because other statistics point out that in 1892 there were only 295,000 people living in Palestine (referring to Israel and the territories, not Jordan)
http://www.aish.com/jewishissues/middleeast/Arab-Israeli_Conflict_1_Pre-State_Palestine.asp
The whole article is written from Zionist point of view. The whole article is hijacked and any addition of Muslim and Arab view is consistingly removed. My addition from Bibles were deleted so were view view of Palestinian and Muslim nations on eve of UN partition plan. This is clear example censorship by Zionist Wikipedians. Siddiqui 03:48, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
I edited away the reference to United Monarchy which according to the Bible existed in Palestine, as according to modern historiography it never existed. Also, I edited away other Bible-based refernces, as this is not a Jewish Encyclopaedia, to the best of my understanding. Israel Shamir