Reply #55: This is baseless nonsense devoid of anything factual and full of hyperbole

[Dick Dastardly]

Arab immigration was even higher than Jewish immigration as stated in various contemporary reports from the time such as the White Paper, The Hope Simpson report, The Haycraft report and the Peel Royal commission report. The reports refute everything you claim. Jewish immigrants bought land and displaced no one. They raised the standard of living in the whole area for everyone which attracted high numbers of Arab immigrants. Obviously you only have a problem with Jewish immigration and not Arab immigration which was higher.
You also know full well that the land west of the Jordan was to be partitioned and it was not as you said "just move to Jordan". The partition was along demographic lines and Jews were the majority in the area allotted to them but obviously you don't think Jews should have self determination.

The problem with using baseless claims and hyperbole as the body of your argument is that it is easily proved false and shows the lack of concern for truth when it clashes with an agenda.

Tons of info for you as well as links to the historic documents


By contrast, throughout the Mandatory period, Arab immigration was unrestricted. In 1930, the Hope Simpson Commission, sent from London to investigate the 1929 Arab riots, said the British practice of ignoring the uncontrolled illegal Arab immigration from Egypt, TTrans jordan and Syria had the effect of displacing the prospective Jewish immigrants.8


The British Governor of the Sinai from 1922-36 observed: “This illegal immigration was not only going on from the Sinai, but also from Transjordan and Syria, and it is very difficult to make a case out for the misery of the Arabs if at the same time their compatriots from adjoining states could not be kept from going in to share that misery.”9

The Peel Commission reported in 1937 that the “shortfall of land is...due less to the amount of land acquired by Jews than to the increase in the Arab population.”10


The Jewish population increased by 470,000 between World War I and World War II, while the non-Jewish population rose by 588,000.13 In fact, the permanent Arab population increased 120 percent between 1922 and 1947.14

This rapid growth was a result of several factors One was immigration from neighboring states by Arabs who wanted to take advantage of the higher standard of living the Jews had made possible.15 The Arab population also grew because of the improved living conditions created by the Jews as they drained malarial swamps and brought improved sanitation and health care to the region. Thus, for example, the Muslim infant mortality rate fell from 201 per thousand in 1925 to 94 per thousand in 1945 and life expectancy rose from 37 years in 1926 to 49 in 1943.16

The Arab population increased the most in cities where large Jewish populations had created new economic opportunities. From 1922-1947, the non-Jewish population increased 290 percent in Haifa, 131 percent in Jerusalem and 158 percent in Jaffa. The growth in Arab towns was more modest: 42 percent in Nablus, 78 percent in Jenin and 37 percent in Bethlehem.17
x


Despite the growth in their population, the Arabs continued to assert they were being displaced. The truth is that from the beginning of World War I, part of Palestine's land was owned by absentee landlords who lived in Cairo, Damascus and Beirut. About 80 percent of the Palestinian Arabs were debt-ridden peasants, semi-nomads and Bedouins.18


In 1931, Lewis French conducted a survey of landlessness and eventually offered new plots to any Arabs who had been "dispossessed." British officials received more than 3,000 applications, of which 80 percent were ruled invalid by the Government's legal adviser because the applicants were not landless Arabs. This left only about 600 landless Arabs, 100 of whom accepted the Government land offer.22

In April 1936, a new outbreak of Arab attacks on Jews was instigated by a Syrian guerrilla named Fawzi al*Qawukji, the commander of the Arab Liberation Army. By November, when the British finally sent a new commission headed by Lord Peel to investigate, 89 Jews had been killed and more than 300 wounded.23

The Peel Commission's report found that Arab complaints about Jewish land acquisition were baseless. It pointed out that "much of the land now carrying orange groves was sand dunes or swamp and uncultivated when it was purchased....there was at the time of the earlier sales little evidence that the owners possessed either the resources or training needed to develop the land."24 Moreover, the Commission found the shortage was "due less to the amount of land acquired by Jews than to the increase in the Arab population." The report concluded that the presence of Jews in Palestine, along with the work of the British Administration, had resulted in higher wages, an improved standard of living and ample employment opportunities.25



In his memoirs, Transjordan's King Abdullah wrote:


It is made quite clear to all, both by the map drawn up by the Simpson Commission and by another compiled by the Peel Commission, that the Arabs are as prodigal in selling their land as they are in useless wailing and weeping (emphasis in the original).26

Even at the height of the Arab revolt in 1938, the British High Commissioner to Palestine believed the Arab landowners were complaining about sales to Jews to drive up prices for lands they wished to sell. Many Arab landowners had been so terrorized by Arab rebels they decided to leave Palestine and sell their property to the Jews.27

The Jews were paying exorbitant prices to wealthy landowners for small tracts of arid land. "In 1944, Jews paid between $1,000 and $1,100 per acre in Palestine, mostly for arid or semiarid land; in the same year, rich black soil in Iowa was selling for about $110 per acre."28


By 1947, Jewish holdings in Palestine amounted to about 463,000 acres. Approximately 45,000 of these acres were acquired from the Mandatory Government; 30,000 were bought from various churches and 387,500 were purchased from Arabs. Analyses of land purchases from 1880 to 1948 show that 73 percent of Jewish plots were purchased from large landowners, not poor fellahin.29 Those who sold land included the mayors of Gaza, Jerusalem and Jaffa. As'ad el*Shuqeiri, a Muslim religious scholar and father of PLO chairman Ahmed Shuqeiri, took Jewish money for his land. Even King Abdullah leased land to the Jews. In fact, many leaders of the Arab nationalist movement, including members of the Muslim Supreme Council, sold land to Jews.30



At the time of the 1947 partition resolution, the Arabs did have a majority in western Palestine as a whole — 1.2 million Arabs versus 600,000 Jews.7 But the Jews were a majority in the area allotted to them by the resolution and in Jerusalem.



These boundaries were based solely on demographics. The borders of the Jewish State were arranged with no consideration of security; hence, the new state's frontiers were virtually indefensible. Overall, the Jewish State was to be comprised of roughly 5,500 square miles and the population was to be 538,000 Jews and 397,000 Arabs. The Arab State was to be 4,500 square miles with a population of 804,000 Arabs and 10,000 Jews.3a Though the Jews were allotted more total land, the majority of that land was in the desert.


http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths/mf2.html

The Peel Commission Report
(July 1937)
LEAGUE OF NATIONS

MANDATES
P A L E S T I N E
--------
REPORT
of the
PALESTINE ROYAL COMMISSION

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/peel1.html


Hope Simpson Commission report
http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_mandate_hope_simpson.php


The British White Paper
http://www.mideastweb.org/1939.htm