As I was reading this supposed "enlightened" UN BS
artist’s article by Ynet and as per usual UN representatives like Falk do not
check into fact before spread the lies of the “Falestinians”. Let us review his
statement Falk said "that more than 11,000 Palestinians had lost their
right to live in Jerusalem since
1996 due to Israel
imposing residency laws favoring Jews and revoking Palestinian residence
permits." And that Israel
is practicing “Ethnic Cleansing” So what are the real facts?
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| View of the two large Synagogues in the Old City prior to their destruction by the Jordanians in 1948 |
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| Arab respect for the Jewish Synagogue Tiferet Yisrael in 1948 |
Hmm first of all Mr Falk before spreading lies one should
know facts. As to “Ethnic Cleansing” I would love to have the answer to the
question; “Where was the UN when the Jewish Quarter of the Old
City and the Jews from the
settlements of the Gush Etzion Block who were ethnically cleansed by the
invading Jordanians in 1948?? Also where was the UN during the entire illegal Jordanian
Occupation of the “West Bank” from 1947- 1967?
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| Ethnic Cleansing of Jews from Jerusalem and Gush Etzion |
It is a recorded fact that between 100,000 to 200,000 of the
Arabs of the Mandated Area moved to the Mandated Area in the years of
prosperity during the British Mandate. What is not mentioned, is that most of them
were not land owners but only those renting or leasing of homes. Property
disputes have always existed, especially since the first land registration
-Tabu - law was promulgated from the days of the Turks in 1858. It is a historical
and documented fact that most of those Arab inhabitants do not have actual ownership
/ title to the land they claim is theirs.
“A few months after my family and I moved to Shiloh
in 1981, I witnessed a
microcosm of the land problem between Jews and Arabs. A
section of land was
to be put aside for security purposes and, as the legal
procedure dictated,
the mukhtars of nearby villages were informed and asked to
make sure that
any resident claiming private ownership rights should show
up on a certain
day to stake his claim.
Sure enough, at the appointed hour, seven Arabs walked onto
the area and
then were asked to stand on what each claimed as his private
plot. Within
minutes a difficult situation developed when two villagers
stood on the same
fertile section, insisting that each owned it. A minute
later and they were
throwing stones at each other.
We, the residents of Shiloh, the IDF
officers and legal officials all stood
around amazed. In the end, with no documents, no tax
receipts, no maps nor
any other reliable proof of ownership, the land was
confirmed as "state
land" and assigned to its new use.” Yisrael Medad, THE JERUSALEM
POST Nov. 22, 2006
The Turks and later the British attempted to register land
ownership -by census - but only those who paid taxes could get ownership.
Therefore many Arab inhabitants hid or lied to not have to pay taxes and
thereby did not admit to ownership. Many -whole primarily Moslem -villages were
virtual "serfs" or indentured servants to wealthy absentee land
owners residing in Beirut or Damascus.
And it is well known that most Arabs of the area immigrated to the Mandatory
Areas after the Liberation in 1918 and establishment of the Mandate. So in
essence they are squatters and as in most civilized countries of the world you
cannot stay on land that is not legally yours.
Jews had purchased 6 to 8 percent of the total land area of Palestine.
This was about 20% of the land that could be settled and cultivated. About 46%
of the land was registered in the tax registers to Arab villages, to Arabs
living on the land, or absentee owners, and about the same amount was
government land. However, most of this land was not privately owned. The Arabs
of Palestine had received much of their land in leases conditional upon
cultivation or used land that was part of village commons.
During the Turkish census according to Beinin and Hajjar
there was no administrative district of Palestine. Turkish census figures were
for various districts, including the Jerusalem,
Acco and Nablus districts for
example. The Acre district included areas in Lebanon,
outside the modern borders of Palestine
in which there were no Jews. So the figure for the Turkish census for 1878
which listed 462,465 Turkish subjects in the Jerusalem,
Nablus and Acre
districts: 403,795 Muslims (including Druze), 43,659 Christians and 15,011
Jews. Simply cannot represent the population of the Arabs of the Mandated
areas.Prior to the British conquest in 1917 of the city of Jerusalem
it had a Jewish majority of 70%. since about 1896 - The city of Jerusalem
itself there was a Jewish majority since about 1896, but probably not before.
The district of Jerusalem (as opposed to the city) comprised a very wide area
in Ottoman and British times, in which there was a Muslim majority. This
included Jericho, Bethlehem
and other towns. Within the Jerusalem
district, there was a sub district of Jerusalem that includes many of the
immediate suburbs such as Ein Karem, Beit Zeit etc. In that sub district, the
Jews remained a minority, with only about 52,000 out of 132,000 persons in 1931
for example.
Population of Jerusalem
until 1945
Year
|
Total
|
Muslim
|
Jewish
|
Christian
|
% Jews
|
1841
|
15,510
|
5,000
|
7,120
|
3,390
|
45.9
|
1876
|
25,030
|
7,560
|
12,000
|
5,470
|
47.9
|
1896
|
45,420
|
8,560
|
28,112
|
8,748
|
61.9
|
1922
|
52,081
|
13,411
|
33,971
|
4,699
|
65.2
|
1931
|
90,451
|
19,894
|
51,222
|
19,335
|
56.6
|
1945
|
164,330
|
33,680
|
99,320
|
31,330
|
60.4
|
1. This figure is quoted widely on the Web and is apparently
the Ottoman census figure. It is given for example here.
2. John Oesterreicher and Anne Sinai, eds., Jerusalem,
(NY: John Day, 1974), p. 1
3. British Mandate Census of 1922 and 1931
4. Anglo American Survey, 1945
There are those who place the population of the Arabs of the
“Mandated Area” in 1893 before the arrival of the waves of Zionist Aliyah at 410,000
Arab Muslims and Christians in Palestine because both Arabs and Jews avoided
the Turkish census. Foreigners who were without residence permits did not want
to make their presence known. Arabs wished avoid taxes and in the 19th century,
only Muslims were subject to the draft, and accordingly, Muslims tended to
avoid the census. The British carried out only two censuses - in 1922 and 1931.
The Bluebook figures were apparently last compiled in 1945 and reflect figures
from 1944 or 1945. The Report of the Anglo American Committee of Inquiry used
those figures and others to estimate the population of Palestine
at the end of 1946, by projecting birth rates apparently. Between 1946 and the
announcement of partition in November 1947, there was significant emigration of
Arabs from Palestine.
After the creation of the British Mandate for Palestine,
the Jewish population increased due to immigration, especially in the 1930s. The
population of the Arabs of the “Mandated Area” also increased at an exceptional
rate. When there were more or less reliable records we can see that about
18,000 non-Jews entered Palestine
between 1930 and 1939 while in the same period, about 5,000 non-Jews left. This
does not count illegal immigration of course, or immigration prior to
1930. Economic analyses show that by the
1930s the standard of living of Arabs of the “Mandated Area” was approximately
twice that of Arabs in surrounding countries, whereas in Ottoman Turkish times
it was lower than in surrounding countries.
Some of the farm population may have suffered economic
hardship, characteristic of any industrializing and urbanizing society, but in
the main, the standard of living improved, and it improved much faster than it
did in surrounding countries. There is no doubt that this improvement in
conditions was an attractant for immigrants as well as resulting in improved
health and larger families. Additionally, British activity in building the port
of Haifa during the 1920s and in
operating it during WW II undoubtedly attracted new Arab workers from outside
of the Mandate. However, there is no hard evidence to show that the actual
figure of the Arabs of the “Mandated Area” prior to 1948 numbered between 700,000
to 800,000. It is impossible to determine the exact number since economic
conditions did not improve until mandatory times, it is unlikely that the bulk
of the immigration occurred under Turkish administration.
"The area was under populated and remained economically
stagnant until the arrival of the first Zionist pioneers in the 1880's, who
came to rebuild the Jewish land. The country had remained "The Holy
Land" in the religious and historic consciousness of mankind, which
associated it with the Bible and the history of the Jewish people. Jewish
development of the country also attracted large numbers of other immigrants -
both Jewish and Arab. - The report of the British Royal Commission, 1913
In the book "Palaestina ex monumentis veteribus
illustrata" - a detailed geographical survey of Palestine in 1696
written in Latin by Adriaan Reland published by Willem Broedelet, Utrecht, in
1714. It states that residents of the REGION mainly concentrated in
cities: Jerusalem, Acre,
Safed, Jaffa, Tiberias and Gaza.
In most cities, the majority of residents are Christians, Jews and
others, very few Muslims who generally are Bedouin, seasonal workers who
came to serve as Seasonal workers in agriculture or building.
Nablus: 120
Muslims, 70 Samaritans
Nazareth: 700
people - all Christians
Umm al-Fahm: 50 people-10 families, ALL Christian
Gaza: 550
people- 300 Jews,250 Christian(Jews engaged in agriculture ,Christians
deal with the trading and transporting the products) note* (no
Muslims in Gaza)!
Tiberias: 300 residents, all Jews.
Safed: about 200 inhabitants, all Jews
Jerusalem : 5000
people, most of them (3,500) Jews, the rest - Christian (1000) Muslim (500)
 |
| Shiloah Jerusalem from the south 1930 |
Jewish Yemenite migration to the Land of Israel took place in 1881-1882 when a group of Jews of Yemen arrived by foot to Jerusalem. They belonged to no "Zionist movement." They returned out of an age-old religious fervor to return to Zion. The new immigrants settled on Jewish-owned property in the Shiloah Village outside of the Old City walls of Jerusalem. The Jews of Shiloah were the targets of anti-Jewish pogroms during the anti-Jewish riots in 1921 and again during the 1936-39 Arab revolt when they were evacuated by the British authorities. These Jewish families returned to Silwan/Shiloah after Israel reunited the city of Jerusalem in 1967 to reclaim the Jewish-owned property.
 |
| Shiloah/Silwan Today |
Joan Peters, in her book "From Time Immemorial,"
argues that most of the increase in Arab population was in fact due to illegal
Arab immigration. Her figures are not accepted by most demographers and
historians, including Zionists. Norman Finkelstein and others have criticized
her thesis and shown evidence of poor scholarship. Finkelstein's analysis also
shows that the largest increases of Palestinian Arab population occurred close
to Jewish population centers in Palestine,
which would argue against the Palestinian contention that the Zionists were
dispossessing Arabs. We do not know if this increase was due to population
shifts in Palestine or immigration
from outside Palestine. It is certain that there was at least some
illegal Palestinian-Arab immigration, as noted in British mandatory reports.
Immigration from Transjordan was not illegal, and was
not recorded as immigration at all until 1938. Beginning in the 1920s when they
built Haifa port, and especially
during and just prior to World War II,
the British recruited Arab workers from the Houran in Syria
and elsewhere. Arabs also came to Palestine
before the war, attracted by higher wages. However, since much of the depletion
of Palestinian population that had occurred in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries was due to migration to neighboring countries, many of these
returning Arabs may have been families returning to Palestine.
Falk and his bosses at the UN ignore the historical fact and
International Law that the "West Bank" territory,
was part of the "Mandated Area" given to the British to control in
1919. This area was offered to and refused by the "Arabs of the Mandated
Areas" in the partition plan of 1948 that opted for open combat in
defiance of the Partition Agreement of the UN. This disputed area refused by
the "Arabs of the Mandated Areas" was illegally captured by the
"Trans-Jordanian" Army in 1948 and occupied by the Hashemite Kingdom
of Jordan until their defeat in 1967. With the establishment of the border,
between Israel
and Jordan in
the negotiated 1995 peace accords, the "West Bank"
officially became Israeli territory as per Der Jure International Law.
Justice Stephen M. Schwebel, who spent 19 years as a judge
of the International Court of Justice at The Hague
including three years as President. explained; "...modifications of the
1949 armistice lines among those States within former Palestinian territory are
lawful (if not necessarily desirable), whether those modifications are, in
Secretary Rogers's words, "insubstantial alterations required for mutual
security" or more substantial alterations - such as recognition of Israeli
sovereignty over the whole of Jerusalem.." and in a footnote he added
"It should be added that the armistice agreements of 1949 expressly preserved
the territorial claims of all parties and did not purport to establish
definitive boundaries between them". Therefore the 1949 Armistice lines are
not fixed, as purported by the Palestinians and their supporters.
In fact in 1948 The Jordanian Government Army invaded the Palestinian
Mandated Territory
and at the end of the fighting illegally annexed the “West Bank”
and East Jerusalem, a move which was recognized only by Britain
and Pakistan. In
terms of international law, between 1948 and 1967 the entire area of what remained of the Palestinian Mandated Territory in the
“West Bank” was terra nullius, or "land belonging to no
one" over which sovereignty may be acquired through occupation. The
concept of terra nullius is well recognized in international law. Therefore the
“Palestinians” never had sovereignty over the “West Bank”
or East Jerusalem. Justice Schwebel concluded that
since Jordan,
the prior occupying power of the “West Bank” and East
Jerusalem had seized that territory unlawfully in 1948; Israel
which subsequently took that territory in the lawful exercise of self-defense
in 1967 has better title to it.
With the negotiated peace treaty between Jordan and Israel
in 1995 the "Mandated Area" for the Jewish Homeland (Article 8
Mandate for Palestine) was returned and therefore the "West Bank"
officially became Israeli territory as per International Law termed;
Uti
possidetis juris or uti possidetis iuris (Latin for "as you possess under
law") is a principle of international law that states that newly formed
sovereign states should have the same borders that their preceding dependent
area had before their independence. So legally there is no need to annex since
neither the Jordanians nor the "Falestinians" never claimed sovereignty according
to International Law. Thereby reinforcing Justice Schwebel's claim of “terra nullius”, or "land belonging to no one".
In fact during negotiations for the 1995 peace agreement signed between
Israel
and
Jordan, the
Jordanian government made no claim to it. And as
East Jerusalem
came into
Israel's
possession in the course of a defensive war,
Israel
was entitled to annex it and create a united
Jerusalem.
Consequently, the Jerusalem City Council has jurisdiction over building
approvals for Jewish and Arab resident in any part of the city.
