Arab hope of establishing a state upon Israel’s ruins.

 Nadene Goldfoot                                               

Sunday, October 10, 2021

                                             

     Jews and Arabs in British Mandate: Mandatory Palestine was a geopolitical entity established between 1920 and 1948 in the region of Palestine under the terms of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine

 During the interwar period, 2 populations struggle to lay claim to Eretz Yisrael.  By the end of the British Mandate‘s first decade, 1930, more that 162,000 Jews lived in Palestine, making up 17 percent of the country’s inhabitants. Of these, 37,000 lived on the soil, in 11 agricultural settlements totaling 700,000 dunams [approximately 175,000 acres]; 13 other Zionist agricultural schools and experimental stations were also functioning. Improved farming techniques were continually being devised. Citrus crops were growing in size and quality.                                       

        Palestine (Eretz Yisrael) about 1900

Arabs came into the former Israel ruins unknowingly.  To them, it was just a wasteland, free for the camping with occasional interferences from the Ottoman Empire men there to collect taxes. Arabs came from many areas.  Most were nomads.  A few had bought land and were farming.  That's where the taxes come in.  They were extremely high and unaffordable.  When a Jew came along and didn't haggle too hard, they quickly sold the land to them.  Jews did come along and buy land.  They didn't want to get this land any other way as it was precious and holy land to them.

Not once did these mostly Syrian-Palestinian Arabs think of creating their own country.  What for?  None were politicians.  They were enjoying their way of life and always were looking for a better one.  It was a great relief to them to be able to get rid of land that was tying them down by selling to the Jews.  That way they could go to France or Beirut, somewhere that was interesting.  Many said they were Syrian-Palestinians.  Our Jewish people were also called Palestinians.  They were in Palestine, a name the Romans had given the land in 135 after a battle with a Jewish general, Bar Kokhba, who gave them a very rough go of it for 3 years, wearing the Romans out before killing the general.

Jews, to them, were 2nd class citizens, lowly people in their former countries in the Middle East.  Jews had taken refuge from European countries that were harassing them in many ways.  Arabs had allowed them to enter their former countries but with stipulations.  They were okay in some of their lands, treated rather well, others were not so nice.

                                        

 Husseini at a Nazi concentration camp looking it over

Then along came Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Sherif of Jerusalem, a big-shot to himself, who stirred up all the Arabs to hate Jews, and they attacked them in 1929.1929 was a bad year in the USA with the stock market crash, and a bad year in Jerusalem.  

Haj Amin al Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem distributed leaflets to Arabs in Palestine and throughout the Arab world which claimed that the Jews were planning to take over the al-Aqsa Mosque. The leaflet stated that the Government was "responsible for any consequences of any measures which the Moslems may adopt for the purpose of defending the holy Burak themselves in the event of the failure of the Government...to prevent any such intrusion on the part of the Jews." A memorandum issued by the Moslem Supreme Council stated, "Having realized by bitter experience the unlimited greedy aspirations of the Jews in this respect, Moslems believe that the Jews' aim is to take possession of the Mosque of Al-Aqsa gradually on the pretence that it is the Temple," and it advised the Jews "to stop this hostile propaganda which will naturally engender a parallel action in the whole Moslem world, the responsibility for which will rest with the Jews.  In other words, they wanted the Jews to shut up about their history and the fact that the Temple Mount once held Solomon's Temple.  

This is the problem right here.  The Palestinians have been conditioned and educated to believe that Jews have no rights, no reason to be in Palestine at all by their petty leaders.  They have been brain-washed.  How does one fix brain-washing?  

Israel has tried many ways, by showing them a different side than what they've been told to believe.  I see teeny gains, but not enough to come to the point of allowing a 2-state solution.  They are still of mind, especially since the 1967 Khartoum Meeting in Africa and its 3 NOs, of that meeting.  There is hope, always hope that the Abrahamic Accords, with 4 counties on board joining the 2 of Jordan and Egypt, to start peeling away the hatred embedded in the Palestinian Arab mind.   

                                                            

During the 1929 Palestine riots, Jewish families at Jaffa Gate fleeing from the Old City of Jerusalem

The 1929 Palestine riots, Buraq Uprising was a series of demonstrations and riots in late August 1929 in which a longstanding dispute between Muslims and Jews over access to the Western Wall in Jerusalem escalated into violence.

The riots took the form, for the most part, of attacks by Arabs on Jews accompanied by destruction of Jewish property. During the week of riots, from 23 to 29 August, 133 Jews were killed by Arabs, and 339 Jews were injured, most of whom were unarmed. There were 116 Arabs killed and at least 232 wounded, mostly by the Mandate police suppressing the riots. Around 20 Arabs were killed by Jewish attackers and indiscriminate British gunfire. After the riots, 174 Arabs and 109 Jews were charged with murder or attempted murder; around 40% of Arabs and 3% of Jews were subsequently convicted. During the riots, 17 Jewish communities were evacuated.

The British-appointed Shaw Commission found that the fundamental cause of the violence, "without which in our opinion disturbances either would not have occurred or would not have been little more than a local riot, is the Arab feeling of animosity and hostility towards the Jews consequent upon the disappointment of their political and national aspirations and fear for their economic future", as well as Arab fears of Jewish immigrants "not only as a menace to their livelihood but as a possible overlord of the future.". With respect to the triggering of the riots, the Commission found that the incident that "contributed most to the outbreak was the Jewish demonstration at the Wailing Wall on 15 August 1929".                           

        1900 at Wailing Wall, a place where Jews could pray.  In 2021 it's the only place where Jews are allowed to pray at the Temple Mount.  

Western or Wailing Wall (Kotel Maaravi)of today, still as the only place where Jews can pray,  is part of the wall that enclosed Herod's Temple still standing in the Old City of Jerusalem.  Owing to the proximity to the Holy of Holies (where only the High Priest entered)  of Solomon's Temple, this part of the wall was regarded as sacred in popular belief as far back as the Talmudic period of 10th century.  

The Western Wall is one of the holiest of Jewish sites, considered by Jews to be a remnant of the ancient Second Temple compound destroyed in 70 CE. The Jews, through the practice of centuries, had established a right of access to the Western Wall for the purposes of their devotions. As part of the Temple Mount the Western Wall was under the control of the Muslim religious trust, the Waqf. Muslims consider the wall to be part of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in Islam, and according to Islamic tradition the place where Muhammad tied his horse, Buraq, before his night journey to heaven. There had been a few serious incidents resulting from these differences.

As a result of an incident, which occurred in September 1925, a ruling was made which forbade the Jews to bring seats and benches to the Wall even though these were intended for worshippers who were aged and infirm. The Muslims linked any adaptions to the site with "the Zionist project," and feared that they would be the first step in turning the site into a synagogue and taking it over.

Menachem Ussishkin (August 14, 1863 – October 2, 1941) In 1919, Ussishkin made aliyah to Palestine on board the ship Ruslan. In 1920 he was appointed head of the Zionist Commission in Palestine. In his pamphlet "Our Program" he advocated group settlement based on labour Zionism. Under his influence, the Zionist movement actively supported the establishment of agricultural settlements, educational and cultural institutions, and Jewish polytechnic - later the Technion.

In 1923 he was elected President of the Jewish National Fund which he headed until his death. Ussishkin was behind major land acquisitions in the Hefer, Jezreel and Beit She'an valleys.was a Russian-born Zionist leader and head of the Jewish National Fund.

Several months earlier when the 1929 riots occurred,  Zionist leader Menachem Ussishkin gave a speech demanding "a Jewish state without compromises and without concessions, from Dan to Be'er Sheva, from the great sea to the desert, including Transjordan." He concluded, "Let us swear that the Jewish people will not rest and will not remain silent until its national home is built on our Mt Moriah," a reference to the Temple Mount.

Avraham Sela described the riots as "unprecedented in the history of the Arab-Jewish conflict in Palestine, in duration, geographical scope and direct damage to life and property".  Up to now, things had been peaceful. 

                           

The Sherif of Jerusalem, appointed by a Jew in the British Administration, of course, had appointed him.  Arabs were still not of the mind to take over and create another Muslim country of the Middle East, not when there was Syria and Egypt,, but just of kicking the Jews out. Haj Amin was a big man in his own eyes, and didn't want to lose that status.                                                

Hebron's massacre of Jews was much much worse than the attack on the Capital building in Washington DC in January 2021 if you can imagine.  

The Hebron Massacre happened on 24 August 1929 in Hebron, Arab mobs attacked the Jewish quarter killing and raping men, women and children and looting Jewish property. They killed between 65 and 68 Jews and wounded 58, with some of the victims being tortured, or mutilated. Sir John Chancellor, the British High Commissioner visited Hebron and later wrote to his son, "The horror of it is beyond words. In one house I visited not less than twenty-five Jews men and women were murdered in cold blood." Sir Walter Shaw concluded in The Palestine Disturbances report that "unspeakable atrocities have occurred in Hebron.

                                    

Two horrible acts in August 1929 in Palestine; the Palestine Riots and the  Hebron Massacre, all brought about by Husseini who was working for the English mandated authorities.  One would have to be deaf, dumb and blind not to know what was brewing.  The British were complicit. 

This is where it all started with the Arab hope of establishing their own state, though not as important as chasing the Jews out of the neighborhood.  

Resource:

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1929_Palestine_riots

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menachem_Ussishkin  https://www.inn.co.il/news/527671

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lx5RLpvq2_U

https://www.science.org/news/2000/10/jews-and-arabs-share-recent-ancestry

 

Proof of a Very Empty Palestine

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                  

Abbas, leader of Fatah and PA, inventing Arab history -copycats of Jewish history. 
They were not all natives of the soil.  

Countering Zionism has meant for the Arab the time to invent an "identity" for the Palestinian Arabs and to do that they have attempted to match the Jewish history; fact for fact.  Since many Jews barely know their own history, much of this facade has been working and we see groups like J Street attracting Jewish people who seem to find more fault than accuracy about their own people.
                                                                         

Jews draining swamps in Palestine

Going back to the turn of the 19th century in the 1900s, Palestine was no longer the land of milk and honey but the land of weeds, thorns,  swamps containing mosquitoes, and deserts. It was part of the Ottoman Empire and was just a  very poor Ottoman province.    In the rare marshy plains were fens of Malaria from the mosquitoes which had decimated the sparse, semi-nomadic population who were living on the slopes and bare hills.  Along the Mediterranean coast and all of the southern half of the country was nothing but sand.
                                                                                 

Bedouins living in tents 1930

Much of this Muslim population that remained in the country was transient.  Most were Bedouins.  The Arab leader, Sherif Hussein, remarked in 1918 that,

"The resources of the country are still virgin soil and will be developed by the Jewish immigrants.  One of the most amazing things until recent times was that the Palestinian used to leave his country, wandering over the high seas in every direction.  His native soil could not retain its hold on him...."                                                                          

There had been a few Arabs that had tried farming.  Everything was against them.  First the farmer had to borrow money-but there weren't Jewish money lenders around.  They had to borrow from their own rich Arabs.  Their rate of interest was fantastic because the borrower was completely in the hands of the lender.  The fellah  couldn't make even a penny profit.  What would happen was that a Government official (from the Ottoman Empire in the past 400 years) and would demand a lot of money from the farmer.  He'll go and borrow money to pay the Government which comes with paying interest anywhere from 20% up to 40%.  If he can't bribe the tax collector and postpone the payment he will be taken to prison as a defaulter.  To get out of prison costs money-more than the charged interest.  If his grain or olive crop is a failure he won't be able to liquidate his debt, and the interest payments just keep on increasing.  There was no future in farming.

A French writer reported in 1870 that in order to buy seeds, a peasant had to pay an interest rate as high as 200 to 300 %.  It was impossible for the fellahin to do this.  Also, they had no rights to fall back on.  That's because the system was one of a high degree of feudal exploitation in the villages.
                                                                           

On top of that, if that wasn't enough of a problem, were the Arab raiders.  Nomads would ride into settled areas, terrorizing and exploiting the villagers which caused them to give up farming and leave.  The Ottoman Empire contained spoiled, debauched land at the end of the 18th century.  Peasants invaded each other's lands.  They would destroy the corn crop (durha), sesame and olive trees and carry off the sheep, goats and camels.  Bedouin camps were in the level country and were continually fighting with the authoritative Turks.  They'd attack each other, for that matter.  "The mutual devastation of the contending parties renders the appearance of this part of Syria more wretched than that of any other.  Because of tribal raiding, large parts of Palestine was not cultivated and hundreds of villages were depopulated.
                                                                     

Palestine Map 1867; Samaria is the Pink area in the middle.  Judea is south, in pink and green.  This is still the map of the 12 tribes of Israel and where each tribe lived.  

Mark Twain's, trip to Palestine confirmed these findings in his book, The Innocents Abroad.  He had taken an excursion to the Holy Land, Egypt, the Crimea, Greece and intermediate points of interest and left Brooklyn on February 1, 1867.  In his book he wrote that "Palestine is only from 40 to 60 miles wide.  The state of Missouri could be split into 3 Palestines, and there would then be enough material left for part of another--possibly a whole one.  From Baltimore to San Francisco is several thousand miles, but it will be only a 7 days' journey in the cars when I am 2 or 3 years older....Therefore, if we chance to discover that from Dan to Beersheba seemed a mighty stretch of country to the Israelites, let us not be airy with them, but reflect that it was and is a mighty stretch when one cannot traverse it by rail.

What was a farmer to do?  They sold their land to rich effendis who snatched up the land and also enterprising foreigners who saw the chance to reap the local profits.  It was buyers in Syrian villages who were usually agents of foreign merchants.  These were Arab profiteers, not Jewish settlers though a small number of native Jews and Yemenite Jewish immigrants were trying to develop and reclaim future farmland.  Most of the Palestinian Jews were still very poor themselves.  They eked out an existence in the towns and villages of the Holy Land and were helped by the pennies from American children who sent over the money to them.

Now, there weren't any so called Palestinian Arabs to run out of town when Jews came along.  These Palestinian Arabs had come in mostly from Syria, and also from all around the Holy Land to get jobs with the newly arrived Jews who came in from the Pale of Settlement and Russia, mainly.  Many were imported Muslim peoples from Turkey and other lands, whom the Turks, in many cases, had recently brought to protect against the wandering Bedouin tribes.  They were used as pirates who periodically attacked that settled multi-ethnic populace.  The land had experienced much repetition of conquest and destruction, driving away people.  Each new conqueror brought his own measure of the population with him as a protective force, while other thousands went in and out from lands as distant as the Caucasus.  A DNA test of all Palestinians would be most interesting and should show an abundance of different haplogroups and results.

The land called Palestine was NEVER considered a nation at all and so wasn't anyone's ancestral homeland except the Jews who were native to the soil.  The Arabs were mostly immigrants.  At the time these Russian Jews were entering on ships to reclaim and develop the land, it was so sparsely  populated that "Landlords were bringing in peasants and former semi-nomadic tribesmen " from other areas to work on their land.  The Turkish land laws enacted in 1858 had worked to the disadvantage of the peasant, but made it easy for landlords and speculators to gain control of disproportionately great areas of land.  When the peasants and semi-nomads fell prey to the usurer and lost their tenancies, they fled and were replaced by new immigrants.

The majority of real Arabs among the sparse population in the ruined country when the Jews began to buy land for restoration were Arabian tribal nomads.  There were very few multi-ethnic Arab peasants who had remained and they were so poor.  Jews were asked extremely high prices for the land, and they paid it, because the land meant so much to them.  It was their ancient homeland.  Their ancestors had come from there and all this was recorded in the Torah and in their Bible, the Tanakh.   Were the land owners happy to sell to the Jews!  It's like they hit the mother lode.  They raced to Paris and Beirut, places of life and thought that the Jews were really crazy to want that land.  Little did they know of all the pogroms and deaths the Jews had faced for the past 2,000 years to want to come back home when the time frame finally opened up to them,.

So the Arab leaders of today have accomplished the cynical rewriting of history which in turn can only result in a perversion of justice for the Jews.  They've filled the Palestinians' heads with stories of how they've been run out of "their" land and so there is this need to attack the Jews and drive "them" into the sea.

To accomplish this, from  1920 to 1921 were Arab riots and terrorism right at the beginning of the British mandated period when they accepted the responsibility from the League of Nations to help Jews create a Jewish Homeland within 30 years.  Instead, Haj Amin al-Husseini, called the Sherif of Jerusalem, one of those rich landlords who was raking in some money from the poor,  repeatedly fomented riots against Jews.  For instance, 6 Jews were killed and 200 wounded in 1920.  In 1921, 43 Jews were killed and 147 wounded.  In response, the Jews, who were not about to be driven out and had arrived in the 1880s  and those that were natives to the soil with ancestors who had never left, organized defensive forces that would later become the Haganah, the forerunner of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
                                                                       

1929 was not only the year of the stock market crashing in the USA.  It was a terrible year also in Palestine.  Mobs attacked Jews in Jerusalem, Safed, Jaffa and Kfar Darom, which was a kibbutz in the Gaza Strip.                                                                          

 Hebron, a Jewish community of the past 3,000 years where  Abraham had bought land so that he could bury Sarah, a part of Judah and only 18 miles south of Jerusalem,  was destroyed.  67 Jews were slaughtered in the attack.  British authorities reported incidents of rape, torture, beheadings of babies and mutilation.  The British High Commissioner, John chancellor, wrote, "I do not think that history records many worse horrors in the past few hundred years."  In total, 135 Jews were killed, and 350 were maimed or wounded.  

At this same time, Europe was beginning to feel the results of the stock market crash which had an effect world-wide.  Germany was beginning to rumble against Jews.
                                                                     

Husseini with Hitler plotting against the Jews

From 1936 to 1939  was a Great Arab Revolt.  With the support of Nazi Germany, Haj Amin al-Husseini led a 3 year rebellion against the British, the Jews and his political opponents.  He wanted to force an end to Jewish immigration to Palestine and land purchases by the Jews.  An estimated 415 Jews, 200 Britons and 5,000 Arabs were killed.    The Brits turned around and help more Arabs enter at this time while keeping out Jews, going against their mandate.  

Resource: From Time Immemorial by Joan Peters
Israel 101 by StandWithUs

https://www.commentarymagazine.com/2015/01/13/joan-peters-and-the-perils-of-challenging-the-palestinian-narrative-from-time-immemorial/