Nadene Goldfoot
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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| 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 |
 |
| Bedouins living in tents 1930 |
"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.
 |
| 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. |
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).
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 |
Resource: From Time Immemorial by Joan Peters
Israel 101 by StandWithUs
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