Talk:Palestinian exodus
From Academic Kids
I got the opposite feeling after reading it: it's pro-palestinian. Danibo
This article seems, at least at first glance, pro-Israeli. Let's take a closer look and try to balance it out. --Ed Poor
- I agree. Uri suggested to merge this article with Palestine refugee (equally biased), which I support, so we have to work on two articles. Suggestion of an outline:
- short abstract what happened (carefully worded)
- a little bit of historical details about the war 1948 with the different flight and expulsion movements (If I trust Morris there happened both: spontaneous flight and direct expulsion)
- what happened after the war, confiscation of the property, conference of Lausanne, right of return, UN-resolutions, creation of UNRWA etc.
- at the end of the article a resumee of the ongoing debate:
- Israeli view: flight encouraged by Arab leadership and surrounding Arab countries, mention of "New historians".
- Arab view: systematic expulsion
- Arab demand: granting of right of return
- Israeli fear of the demographic consequences for Israel as a Jewish state
- second refugee wave 1967...
And as a basis for rewriting the article, I think we should adopt a view that it is totally normal human behaviour for civilians to move out of an area in a war. This is directed against extremist views and arguments on both sides "total systematic expulsion" vs. "but they left on their own free will!" which I consider both as rubbish and which should be clearly marked as views. In history there is no "one single truth". --Elian
Well, certainly. People who flee a war zone are usually called "refugees" because they are seeking refuge from danger. But I don't know if the "exodus" and "refugee" articles ought to be completely merged, as this would blur the distinction (if any) between non-combatants fleeing a battle zone and migrants lured by politicians' promises.
It might be easier to say how many people went, where they started from and ended up, and when all this happened -- then to account for why they moved.
- I tried one time to find this out and ended up with "there is no one single true answer". I think we should avoid a discussion of the "why". --Elian
As for who has a "right of return", that is another kettle of fish (hm, I shoudn't have skipped breakfast - it's another food metaphor!). I propose right of return as a separate article. --Ed Poor
I support Elian's proposal, it is realistic and sensible to all sides. I think that we should leave right of return, though, as it'll make no sense to re-write the whole introduction about who Palestinian refugees are. --Uri
- I wrote a short paragraph in Right of return. If nobody objects we could regard the article as finished and work on merging exodus and refugees. Maybe it would also be a good idea to protect pages where all parties agree as non-biased, so we don't have to do the sisyphus-work of removing and rewriting over and over new added biased statements. What do you think about it? --Elian
The quote from Le Monde Diplomatique is quite interesting in the regard that it conveys only a part of Benny Morris's conclusions. Elsewhere, he writes that exiling Arabs was never a leadership policy. I therefore opt for the shortening of the quote and adding mentioning of his conclusions from the Righteous Victims. --Uri
The article makes apprearance of that the Israeli version is the commonly agreed upon version. That is, the propaganda that says the Palestinians was called out by Arabs. That is not right. --BL
added quite a lot. now the other side is at least represented. --BL
This is one of Martha's edits that I'm going to leave. It seemed considerably POV before, maybe less so now. -- Zoe
I removed the section quoting this webpage (http://mondediplo.com/1997/12/Palestine). It seems a bit beyond fair use to quote so much -- sannse 07:04 Mar 29, 2003 (UTC)
- Soon after the cease fire Israel adopted a unique law that allows it to take over land if the owner is vacant for a certain amount of years (it is the only country in the world with such a law). This allowed Israel to settle the millions of immigrants arriving.
-- That's not true, two different things are being confused. One is that a type of land holding inherited from the Ottoman system (called miri) was a type of perpetual lease where the land reverted to the state if it wasn't worked for a three consecutive years. That was not a new Israeli law though much land was seized using it (a practice that continues in the West Bank). The other thing was the Israeli "Absentee Property" law which passed the property of "absentees" to a state official (effectively making it available for Jewish use). An absentee was defined as anyone not in their normal place of residence in Palestine on a particular date, even if they were just in a nearby village. I'll correct this part of the page after I check a reference book or two for the details. -- zero UTC 14:00 7 Aug 2003
Shouldn't this page be combined with the one on Palestinian refugees? They seem to be precisely the same topic. Also, this article makes it seem as if all Israeli historians suddenly have decided that Israeli is almost totally at fault for the large Arab exodus However, these Israel "new historians", many of whom have a leftist political agenda, are not the sole voice of Israel academia, and some of them have been accused of bad scholarship on occasion as well. Let us be careful, and not fall for the standard Wikipedia bias - being politically left-wing doesn't make one automatically right, and being centrist or right-wing doesn't make on automatically wrong. I would like to look into this issue further. RK 22:56, 21 Aug 2003 (UTC)
This page is about the creation and reasons behind the creation of the 750,000 Palestinians in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Palestinian refugees is more about that group of people and the second and smaller refugee wave in 1967. Both topics are so broad that they deserve separate articles imho. You are welcome to mention other Israeli historians, provided they are printed in other languages then Hebrew ofcourse. :-) BL 23:49, 21 Aug 2003 (UTC)
I replaced the Morris quotation by a longer version, and also mentioned Rabin's famous admission that the Arabs of Lydda and Ramle were expelled by force. (Morris quoted the actual expulsion order, btw). I also slightly cleaned up the part about abandoned property but it is still pretty sketchy--I'm not sure if it belongs on this page. I also deleted "Recent studies have showed that 80-90% of the refugees from arabic villages were expelled by the israeli army while the remaining 10-20% fled because of the fightings." because it has no source and I think every contentious thing on this page should be sourced. Finally, I don't like the last paragraph but didn't try changing it yet. The actual situation is more complex than that. -- zero 12:38, 24 Aug 2003 (UTC)
In regards to all issues relating to Israel and Arab nations, and especially with regards to Palestinians, there is a tendency to hold that Israel's "New Historians" are somehow to be much more trusted than others. Just a reminder - the same rules of scrutiny that applied to traditional historians, also should apply to historians on the left. Consider the article Benny Morris and the Reign of Error (http://www.meforum.org/article/466), by Efraim Karsh, professor of Mediterranean studies at King's College, University of London, and editor of Israel Affairs. In regards to israeli "New Historian" Benny Morris, he writes:
- So successful has this effort been that what began as propaganda has become received dogma. It is striking to see how popularity has widely come to be equated with veracity, as if the most commonly held position must by definition be the correct one. I personally learned this when some critics rejected my exposure of the New Historians methods not on scholarly grounds but because my work ran counter to the popular view. Thus Joel Beinin of Stanford University questioned my conclusions on the grounds that "many of the arguments of the `new historians' are widely accepted today in liberal Israeli intellectual circles." ...I shall focus on a key charge: the claim by Benny Morris of Ben-Gurion University, a leading New Historian, that the Zionist and Israeli establishments have systematically falsified archival source material to conceal the Jewish state's less-than-immaculate conception...Morris engages in five types of distortion: he misrepresents documents, resorts to partial quotes, withholds evidence, makes false assertions, and rewrites original documents.
- Benny Morris and the Reign of Error (http://www.meforum.org/article/466)
- Interestingly, Benny Morris is no longer anti-Zionist (if he ever was one), and he no longer holds to the rosy view of the Palestinian Authority he once had. He has repudiated many of his old views on this subject.
- Israel's Freedom Fight (http://faculty.biu.ac.il/~steing/conflict/oped/israelsfreedomfight.htm)
The stuff just added (which I am going to revert when I complete these comments) is nothing other than a standard set of discredited propaganda distortions that has been going around for decades. I am confident that this anon editor has never seen any of the sources he claims to be quoting. Nor have any of the hundreds of web pages and assorted articles and books (just don't call them history books) that present them.
I'll illustrate the nature of these "quotations" using the example from Edward Atiyah. The sentence in Roman text is what was quoted and the part in italics is what immediately follows in the same source.
- This wholesale exodus was due partly to the belief of the Arabs, encouraged by the boastings of an unrealistic Arabic press and the irresponsible utterances of some of the Arab leaders that it could be only a matter of weeks before the Jews were defeated by the armies of the Arab States and the Palestinian Arabs enabled to reenter and retake possession of their country. But it was also, and in many parts of the country, largely due to a policy of deliberate terrorism and eviction followed by the Jewish commanders in the areas they occupied, and reaching its peak of brutality in the massacre of Deir Yassin.
- There were two good reasons why the Jews should follow such a policy. First, the problem of harbouring within the Jewish State a large and disaffected Arab population had always troubled them. They wanted an exclusively Jewish state, and the presence of such a population that could never be assimilated, that would always resent its inferior position under Jewish rule and stretch a hand across so many frontiers to its Arab cousins in the surrounding countries, would not only detract from the Jewishness of Israel, but also constitute a danger to its existence. Secondly, the Israelis wanted to open the doors of Palestine to unrestricted Jewish immigration. Obviously, the fewer Arabs there were in the country the more room there would be for Jewish immigrants. If the Arabs could be driven out of the land in the course of the fighting, the Jews would have their homes, their lands, whole villages and towns, without even having to purchase them. And this is exactly what happened.
--Atiyah, The Arabs, p183.
Reading the whole passage makes it clear that Atiyah's opinion was actually close to the opposite of what we were intended to believe. Whoever extracted the first sentence alone (not this anon editor who never thought to check the source) did so with the deliberate intention of deceiving his or her readers.
More of this comment to come later. --Zero 03:12, 18 Oct 2003 (UTC)
All true, but please do not just revert it. Those quotations has to be confronted and there has to be some kind of "myth debunking" section or something. I'm not sure how to write that NPOV but otherwise those quotes will just return every two weeks. BL 14:02, 19 Oct 2003 (UTC)
I don't like myth debunking sections because they attract people who want to add to them endlessly and in the end the article starts to look like a chat-room transcript. In the interests of "NPOV" people will want to add counter-quotes and counter-debunkings. For example, someone might want to add things like this:
- I don't suggest that we should trample on others' rights, but one must call a spade a spade: Zionism and rights don't always go hand-in-hand. The very establishment of this state is an affront to the Arabs' rights. Arabs lived in Jaffa. They didn't leave; they were expelled. We went into the villages and said 'Get out.' And they got out. Yes, it's important for me and others that this state be a democratic one, but you still have to consider the difference between ourselves and the other countries and remember that democracy is not an end in itself but rather an instrument. Zionism takes precedence over everything.
-- Limor Livnat, member of the Likud Central Committee, quoted in Tikkun, Sep/Oct 1991, p14.
Sorry, couldn't resist;-). But seriously, we should stomp on this idea that history can be reduced to a series of carefully selected quotations. I want to record here what is wrong with these particular quotations so that the explanation can be referred to easily in the future. Incidentally, one of the quotations is going to stay with some modifications because it raises a serious issue that needs an answer; can you guess which one? --Zero 14:16, 19 Oct 2003 (UTC)
Ok let me rephrase what I meant. In itself quotes like "We will smash the country with our guns..." not very relevant. They don't tell anything about what actually happened. But I don't think writing about history is just writing about what happened but also write about what others have written happened. Otherwise the article shouldn't even need to mention the "called out-theory". If you google for some of the quotes you'll find hundreds of pages defending the Israeli thesis by using them, even some governmental sites. That is, I think, interesting and worthy of a whole topic on itself imho. And I'll be damned if the quote in the question isn't King Abdullah's. :-) BL 05:45, 20 Oct 2003 (UTC)
Next, a quick look at what Habib Issa said in the New York Lebanese paper, Al Hoda (June 8, 1951). Who is Habib Issa? The answer is that I don't know, and it seems that nobody else knows either. Some web sites claim he was Azzam Pasha's successor - he wasn't. Years ago I looked in the indexes of about 100 books of Middle East history and none of them mentioned "Habib Issa". Presumably Al Hoda identified him, but the collector of this "quotation" chose to remove that information. If he isn't anyone significant, why is his testimony of what Azzam Pasha is supposed to have said interesting? Anyway, why is there no contemporary evidence of what Azzam is supposed to have said? Why do we need to quote from some unknown person in an American Lebanese newspaper years later? Enough said! --Zero 14:09, 20 Oct 2003 (UTC)
One more quotation for today, Monsignor Hakim:
Monsignor George Hakim, a Greek Orthodox Catholic Bishop of Galilee told the Beirut newspaper, Sada al Janub (August 16, 1948): "The refugees were confident their absence would not last long, and that they would return within a week or two. Their leaders had promised them that the Arab armies would crush the 'Zionist gangs' very quickly and that there was no need for panic or fear of a long exile."
Read it carefully and you will realise that the quotation says nothing about why the refugees left. All it says is that the refugees hoped that they could return soon with the help of the Arab armies. They were mistaken. Hakim has confirmed this interpretation and clarified his opinion of why the refugees left:
- There is nothing in this statement to justify the construction which many propagandists had put on it...
At no time did I state that the flight of the refugees was due to the orders, explicit or implicit, of their leaders, military or political, to leave the country... On the contrary, no such orders were ever made... Such allegations are sheer concoctions and falsifications.
The truth is that the flight was primarily due to the terror with which the Arab population of Palestine were struck in consequences of atrocities committed by the Jews... These brutalities were the cause of the flight of the inhabitants of Haifa, Jaffa and Jerusalem.
But as soon as hostilities began between Israel and the Arab States, it became the settled policy of the Government to drive away the Arabs...
- George Hakim, Archbishop of Galilee, quoted in E. B. Childers, The Wordless Wish, in I. Abu-Lughod (ed) Transformation of Palestine, Northwestern University Press (1971), 197-198.
In 1947, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri is quoted as having said, "We will smash the country with our guns and obliterate every place the Jews seek shelter in. The Arabs should conduct their wives and children to safe areas until the fighting has died down."
-- That one is supposed to appear in a book published in Arabic in 1952. I'm not going to try locating it, because it is perfectly likely that Nuri Said said something like that. However, just suggesting to someone to move their families to a safe place is sensible advice and irrelevant to this issue. I don't think he would have said "safe areas" if he meant "other countries" anyway. --Zero 14:56, 22 Oct 2003 (UTC)
- Incidentally, this same 1952 book is the first printed source for the claim that there was a major massacre of Arabs at Tantura. --Zero 11:43, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Jordan's King Abdullah,
writing in his memoirs, blamed Palestinian leaders for the refugee problem: "The tragedy of the Palestinians was that most of their leaders had paralyzed them with false and unsubstantiated promises that they were not alone; that 80 million Arabs and 400 million Muslims would instantly and miraculously come to their rescue."
--This does not appear in the edition of Abdullah's memoirs that I have (American Council of Learned Societies, 1954), but it's plausible that extra material might be in the 1978 Longman edition. The meaning of the quotation (assuming it is genuine) is clear from the memoirs. Adbullah is scathing in his attack on the other Arab states, who he says "looked idly on" in 1948 rather than giving full support to the military effort. He blames the Arab states for the refugee problem in the sense that the Palestinians would not have been "uprooted" if the Arab states had united in a serious effort to stop the "Jewish aggression" by military force. The "false and unsubstantiated promises" were that the Arab states would do what they said they would do. This is hardly the interprettation that the collector of this quotation wanted us to make. --Zero 14:56, 22 Oct 2003 (UTC)
| Contents |
Open questions
How many were there in 1890
About 431,800 arabs and 42,900 jews and 57,400 Christians. (unsigned by 67.130.2.26, Aug 9)
How many were there in 1920
In 1915, approximately 83,000 Jews lived in Palestine among 590,000 Muslim and Christian Arabs. According to the 1922 census, the Jewish population was 84,000, while the Arabs numbered 643,000. Thus, the Arab population continued to grow exponentially even while that of the Jews stagnated. However, throughout the British occupation, 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, Transjordan and Syria had the effect of displacing the prospective Jewish immigrants. 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.” 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.” (unsigned by 67.130.2.26, Aug 9)
The figures for 1915 are incorrect. See McCarthy "The Population of Palestine". For 1914: 602,000 Muslims, 81,000 Christians, 38,700 Jewish Ottoman subjects and 20,000 or slightly more Jews who were not Ottoman subjects. The claim attributed to the Hope Simpson report does not appear there. In fact all the many British reports that considered Arab illegal immigration concluded that it was very small. The last sentence is irrelevant to the immigration question. --Zero 02:13, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)
In response this text was copied from the Hope Simpson report (End of chapter X):
(Start Quote) Importation of other than Jewish labour.—Further, it is clear that if unemployment is a valid reason for preventing Jewish immigration, it is also a reason for preventing importation of labour of other nationalities. At the time of writing, even with marked unemployment among Arabs, Egyptian labour is being employed in certain individual cases, and its ingress has been the subject of adverse comment in the Press.
Prevention of illicit immigration.—Finally, in closing the front door, steps should be taken to ensure that the backdoor should not be kept open for would-be immigrants into Palestine. The Chief Immigration Officer has brought to notice that illicit immigration through Syria and across the northern frontier of Palestine is material. This question has already been discussed. It may be a difficult matter to ensure against this illicit immigration, but steps to this end must be taken if the suggested policy is adopted, as also to prevent unemployment lists being swollen by immigrants from Trans-Jordania.
Arab unemployment as a political pawn.—The question of un-employment and immigration has been treated solely from the economic standpoint. It has immediate political repercussions with which this enquiry is not concerned, but which must receive consideration from His Majesty's Government in arriving at a decision. Two of these repercussions will require particular attention :
First, Arab unemployment is liable to be used as a political pawn. Arab politicians are sufficiently astute to realise at once what may appear an easy method of blocking that immigration to which they are radically averse, and attempts may and probably will be made to swell the list of Arab unemployed with names which should not be there, or perhaps to ensure the registration of an unemployed man in the books of more than one exchange. It should not prove difficult to defeat this manoeuvre.
Article 6 of the Mandate and its effect on immigration.—Second, there is the repercussion on the policy of the Jewish National Home. It is evident that any interference with freedom of immigration is a limitation to the admission of Jews who desire to take part in the local constitution of that Home. Article 6 of the Mandate, how-ever, directs that the rights and position of other sections of the population shall not be prejudiced by Jewish immigration. Clearly, in cases in which immigration of Jews results in preventing the Arab population obtaining the work necessary for its maintenance, it is the duty of the Mandatory Power, under the Mandate, to reduce, or, if necessary, to suspend, such immigration, until immigration will not affect adversely the opportunities of the Arab for employment. Elsewhere in this report the exclusion of Arab labour from the land purchased by the Jewish National Fund has been discussed, and it is pointed out that this exclusion is liable to confirm a belief that it is the intention of the Jewish authorities to displace the Arab population from Palestine by progressive stages. This belief, which, however unfounded it may be, is unfortunately very widely held, will be confirmed when it is realised that the immigration of Jewish labour is permitted while the Arab cannot earn his daily bread. On general grounds, therefore, as well as in order to carry out the terms of Article 6 of the Mandate, it is necessary that the existence of Arab unemployment should be taken into considera-tion when determining the number of Jews to be admitted at the time of preparation of the Labour Schedule. (End Quote)
From here it would seem the that immigration/population game was being played by both sides. The Palestinian exodus article only mentions one side of it. (unsigned by 67.130.2.26, Aug 9)
Nothing in the extract above says that Arab immigration was large, nor that it was of significant economic consequence. The symmetry you speak of did not exist. The illicit immigration across land borders was mostly Jewish. The "front door" is immigration by sea which was almost entirely Jewish. The report is saying that if Jewish immigration by sea is restricted then other avenues will have to be closed as well. Only as an afterthought does it add that controlling the other borders will have the added advantage of restricting Arab immigration from Transjordan. As I said before, all the British reports that investigated Arab immigration concluded that it was a minor issue, quite unlike Jewish immigration. Take the Peel Report for example: "... unlike the Jewish, the rise [of Arab population] has been due in only a slight degree to immigration" [page 125]. --Zero 02:59, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
So you would say that this page of articles The Refugees (http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths/mf14.html) has little or no merit to it. I think that it is well documented and gives a better and clearer picture of what actually did happen. The same applies to the rest of the site. (unsigned by 67.130.2.26, Aug 11)
Some of the articles at www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org are quite good. The page you mention, on the other hand, is one of the worst I've seen. All full of strawmen and distortions. --Zero 01:37, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)
How many people left?
between 1,000 and 1,000,000 -- everyone agree with this range?
- Depending on estimate, 700-850,000.
Why did they leave?
- Forced at gunpoint (immediate danger)
- Yes
- Scared of being caught in crossfire (future danger)
- Yes
Where did they go?
- Gaza
- 25%
- West Bank
- 39%
- Jordan
- <10%
- other - please specify
- Lebanon 13%. A smaller amount came to Iraq, Egypt and Transjordan. Mostly middle and upper-class families that had money to spend on travel. Most refugees fled by foot and therefore didn't get very far. Numbers from my head so dont take it to seriously.
How have they lived?
- lives of splendor and freedom - no one says THIS, right?
- Some has ofcourse. There was not only poor people in Palestine. Jordan's king's wife, for example, is a Palestinian refugee.
- ordinary lives, but they'd rather go back
- It seems that most does very much want to go back. See the guestbooks on www.allthatremains.com for examples.
- hard lives, but they have schools and jobs and property
- Depends on where they ended. Most of Gaza is a refugee camp and so is also southern Lebanon. The West Bank is a "real society", atleast it was 10 years ago.
- squalid tents, malnutrition, disease
- Yes.
- (unsigned addition by 67.130.2.26, Aug 9, 2004): (They lived like that before, and they continue to live that way. This manner of living is not limited to Israel either. The living conditions of the arab populations in other arab states is the same.)
BL 15:45, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Usually I don't make full reverts since such things often ignite edit wars. But in this case I think it was the best thing to do:
...events surrounding the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.
The name "1948 Arab-Israeli War" is a subtle POV name. First of all the war lasted from 1947 to 1949. And it wasn't "Arab-Israeli" before May 15, 1948 when Jordan, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon invaded Palestine. And it certainly wasn't "Israeli" before that point either.
Perhaps not other war in history has produced such a long lasting refugee problem as the events surrounding the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Therefore other factors must have played a role forming and preserving the refugee problem.
The "preservation" of the refugee problem is off topic for this article that deals with the refugee flight 1947-1949. And even though other wars has produced numerically larger refugees, no other wars (that I know of) produced sugh a massive refugee flight compared to the population (90-95%).
yet areas such as Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and its surroundings a Jewish majority was established by 1931.
The city Jerusalem had a Jewish majority, the Jersualem district had not. BL 20:47, Feb 3, 2004 (UTC)
Regarding recent edits:
- Writing "Palestine", with the quotes is a cheap propaganda ploy.
- It was not sparseley populated and underdeveloped. In comparsian to other Arab countries it was densely populated and well developed. The main reason for that was that the British invested alot of money in Palestine due to its strategic location.
- 12 counted cases of rape. Historians therefore assume that many, many more took place because both the perpeutrator and the victim would prefer the crime to remain unknown.
- I thought we had dealt with the "the Arabs told them to leave" myth properly before. Guess I was wrong.
BL 14:26, Apr 21, 2004 (UTC)
Nakba
While this page is protected, a parallel page Nakba is being written up about the same subject. An initial attempt to turn it into a redirect was reverted. Can this be discussed?? JFW | T@lk 01:03, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)
The Arabs never developed the land, they wouldn't fight for the land. The independence war was fought primarily with Israel's neighbors not with the Arabs who lived there. Also, a lot of them had recently come for work and so then left when things got too hot. It doesn't sound like they ever had much ties and therefore claim to the land.
The most important issue is from whom did all the Arabs who did own land in Israel buy it from? I would like to see deeds of sale from all the Jews who owned the land before the Romans expelled them.
(unsigned by 67.130.2.26, Aug 9)
Expelled? The truth is the left for similar reasons that the Palestinians did. The difference being this was about 2000 years ago whereas the Palestinians left about 50 years ago. The Jews made a successful living in many other countries. Which is something the Palestinians have not been able or willing to do.
Sadly, for a number of reasons, they were massacared by the Nazis during WW2. It is perhaps understadably that they want to form there own land. However it is not acceptable for them to steal land from others in doing do. Unfortunetely, this happened and Israel clearly should not be destroyed now. There are clearly two options. Give a decent amount of land back and pay them for the lost land, houses and property or leave and find a new land. No one can deny that the Arabs who fought Israels creation were doing it for xenophobic and racist reasons. However, similarly no one can deny that the Israelis took land which already belong to others in the formation of Israel.
Unprotected
I've unprotected the page. I encourage everybody to discuss changes, avoid revert wars, be civil, and try to reach consensus so that the page does not need to be protected again. Snowspinner 14:12, Aug 12, 2004 (UTC)
Arab Immigration
According to the figures of the official Ottoman Turk census in 1882 there were only 141,000 Muslims, both Arab and non-Arab, in the entire land. By 1922, it skyrocketed to 650,000 Arabs—a 450% increase in only 40 years. By 1938, this shot up to over 900,000—an 800% increase in only 56 years! Where did all these Arabs come from? Clearly, it was not due to natural births; a natural growth rate such as this would be impossible. The historical answer is that the empirical evidence shows that they came from the neighboring states of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt.
- Any sort of nonsense can be proved by starting with phoney data. Joan Peters' lies notwithstanding, the population of Palestine in 1880 was approximately 399,000 Muslims, 14,700 Jews, and 42,800 Christians. This is from Ottoman statistical data with slight adjustments for undercounting according to standard methods. See J. McCarthy, The Population of Palestine. --Zero 13:12, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Zero,
Fine. You take the ideological stance of Norman Finklestien on Joan Peters' book.
Daniel Pipes states:"Granting all this, the fact remains that the book presents a thesis that neither Professor Porath nor any other reviewer has so far succeeded in refuting. Miss Peters's central thesis is that a substantial immigration of Arabs to Palestine took place during the first half of the twentieth century. She supports this argument with an array of demographic statistics and contemporary accounts, the bulk of which have not been questioned by any reviewer, including Professor Porath."
If the professional critics cant refute the statistical findings, I doubt you csn either.
Guy Montag 23:46, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)
- I am not taking an ideological stance at all. I know that the book is crap from my own study of it. Above I told you what the best available data is regarding 1882 population from the leading Ottoman demographer (with the possible exception of Kemal Karpat, who also gave similar figures). Whether you like it or not is of no concern to me. As for Pipes, his claim "have not been questioned" is nonsense. In fact this "evidence" has been repeatedly examined and dismissed starting in 1931 (when the census report had a whole chapter on it that I challenge you to find a mention of in Peters' book). --Zero 02:26, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)
The British Governor of the Sinai stated in 1922 that "illegal immigration was not only going on from the Sinai, but also from Transjordan and Syria." In 1930, the British Mandate-sponsored Hope-Simpson Report noted that "unemployment lists are being swollen by immigrants from Trans-Jordania" and that "illicit immigration through Syria and across the northern frontier of Palestine is material." The Governor of the Syrian district Hauran, Tewfik Bey el Hurani, himself admitted in 1934 that in one instance 30,000 Syrians moved to the land of Israel in a span of only a few months. Winston Churchill said in 1939, "...far from being persecuted, the Arabs have crowded into the country and multiplied." Malcolm MacDonald, a contemporary of Churchill, and one of the chief authors of the British White Paper—a document which actually restricted Jewish immigration into the land— admitted that if it weren't for the presence of the Jews, the Arab population would have been about half of what it was.
- More Joan Peters lies, compounded by additional distortions. Why didn't you quote the remainder of Churchill's sentence "...till their population has increased more than even all world Jewry could lift up the Jewish population" and then wonder how Churchill could be wrong by more than a factor of 10? --Zero 13:12, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Also this. [1] (http://www.mideastweb.org/palpop.htm) I will use this link as a source.
- That is all very nice, and I am aware of this theory about Arab immigration, but it is far from being an accepted one. As you can read in the link you have gracefully provided yourself, Ottoman figures are unreliable. The article you refer to cites several figures for 19th century population, all of which are sifnificantly higher than your figure. During the mandate years, the growth from 650,000 to 900,000 in 16 years corresponds to 2.1% per year, which is not high by Palestinian standards. And the various quotes you have provided are interesting impressions, but nevertheless provide no record of immigration. According to the 1945 Survey of Palestine estimate of illegal Arab immigration, it was insignificant compared to Jewish immigration, and so was the legal immigration as the figures your link cites show. This is an interesting debate, which may be worth an article in its own right, but since there is no record of significant Arab immigration and no widely-accepted estimate, to claim that Arab immigration was greater than Jewish immigration, or even that it was significant, is questionable at best, many would say false, and has no place in an encyclopedia.--Doron 18:34, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)
- And another thing - even with your (undoubtably false) figure of the 1882 population, the annual growth is only 4%, which may be very high for the period (it's higher than todays Gaza Strip growth rate), but still does not by any means provide proof of immigration. All the figures cited in the link you have provided give annual growth of less than 2%, which is perfectly plausible as (mainly) natural growth. And again, Wikipedia is no place for such debate, you can do your own research, have it published, have it gain universal acceptence and only then post it in Wikipedia.
It appears that no one here can provide any evidence since entire history is marred with ideological fog! Does anyone actually want to take a critical look into this, or are we just going to continue in our ignorance of the truth?
This is similiar to the claim that from 700,000 thousand Palestinian Arabs, that left Israel, there are now 6 million refugees. Everyone just nods silently even though there is something wrong here. Sooner or later it passes into legitimacy no matter the logical wounds that such data leaves.
Lets take a look into this please.
Guy Montag 23:46, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Have you considered that the problem may be that the original 700,000 estimate is too low?AndyL 03:35, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)
- The official UN estimate was 711,000. A couple of years later, after an estimated 30,000 births a year, and a great deal of fraud, the estimated number of registered refugees was around 875,000. Jayjg (talk) 04:52, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)
- Don't know where did the 6 million number come from, but this is a different discussion. Going back to the immigration question, does anyone have actual proof of significant non-Jewish immigration to Palestine over the last 150 years? Anything besides controversial theories? --Doron 23:24, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
5.5-6.5 million palestinians?
It doesn't make any since to me that the original refugees and their descendants amount to 5.5-6.5 million. Concerning the fact that this article says there were originally 520,000 to 1,000,000 refugees, a 500%-1200% growth in their number (during a 50 years period) just doesn't make any sense, considering the only factor affecting this number is natural growth. 62.0.152.184 18:45, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)
- If memory serves me, according to UNWRA there are about 3 million "refugees" --Doron 02:00, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Who says there are 6 million refugees and their descendants? Anyway, let me correct an error in calculation that I think I detect. Suppose we have 710,000 refugees initially and they have a natural growth rate of 3%. Then after 50 years, there are 710,000 x 1.0350 = 3.1 million people, right? Wrong! The calculation assumes there was only breeding within the group. Especially in the WB, Gaza, and Jordan, the refugees mixed with the existing population. The number of people with at least one refugee ancestor then grows faster than 3%, since it takes on average less than 2 existing refugee descendants to make each extra refugee descendant. That is, the number of descendants of a subset of a population grows faster than that of the whole population. Clearer than mud, I hope. --Zero 23:46, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)
- Clear but troubling, in that we now have people classed as refugees who descend from non-refugee parents as well, and may well have grown up in the ancestral homes of those non-refugee parents. This is a problem with the unique definition of refugee in the case of Palestinians. Jayjg (talk) 23:48, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)
- It isn't so simple, because the UNRWA definition only covers descendants in the male line. Whether that is always adhered to in practice, I don't know. It means that the number of refugees and descendants is a different statistic from the number of UNRWA-eligible persons. Another contribution to the difference is those people who move to a country (eg USA) not covered by UNRWA. I haven't researched numbers, but can imagine there being a million or two people difference between the two counts. --Zero 00:08, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)
- The UNWRA claims there are over 4 million Palestinian refugees. Palestinians claim as many as 8 million Palestinians. They don't substantiate it in any meaningful way that I can see. Jayjg (talk) 23:18, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
- Then I don't see the point in discussing them (except for the fun of it).--Doron 23:28, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
- According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (http://www.pcbs.org), it appears that the total number of Palestinians world-wide is 9.7 million, which corresponds to a growth rate of 3.6% per year from 1.3 million in 1948. Dunno what this means. Also note that "refugees" may also refer to those internally displaced within Israel, those living in refugee-camps in the occupied territories, those displaced in 1967, and as Zero has pointed out, the descendants of at least one refugee ancestor.--Doron 23:59, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
- The UNWRA claims there are over 4 million Palestinian refugees. Palestinians claim as many as 8 million Palestinians. They don't substantiate it in any meaningful way that I can see. Jayjg (talk) 23:18, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
- No, Jayjg, this refers to the total number of Palestinians world-wide, i.e., those that are descendants of the original non-Jewish population of Palestine, which numbered 1.3 million in 1948.
- Part of the reason for this is the very broad definition the UN has specifically for Palestinian refugees, as opposed to other types of refugee. Palestinians were counted as refugees even if they had only lived in Palestine for 2 years before 1948, even if they only moved from one part of Palestine to another, and regardless of their reason for leaving (normally the reason has to be a "well-founded fear of being persecuted").--steveajg 16:50, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
POV Tag
In light of the vigorous consensus-building and dispute resolution attempts in Talk sections of articles related to the Arab-Israeli conflict, I am removing the POV tags. If someone has a any further problems not already covered in Talk then by all means restore the tag but please start a new section and bring forth your concerns for consensus building. These perpetual NPOV tags are unreasonable.--A. S. A. 09:17, Mar 20, 2005 (UTC)
palestenians have lots of children. It is not unusual to find 15 or 16 children in one family.
Expulsions
Leifern wants to change "actual expulsions" to "isolated expulsions" and wonders whether there were more than 3 examples. Leifern might read a history book, such as that of Morris cited on the page, where there is an expulsion documented from Israeli archives every couple of pages. --Zero 11:01, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Problems with Finkelstein insertion
Problems with the Finkelstein insertion include:
- He's not a historian, he's a polemicist expressing his opinion.
- His work is a derivative re-working of real historians, like Morris.
- The quotes themselves, even if relevant, are overlong, particularly as they are just expressing personal opinions, and should (at best) be briefly summarized.
- The quotes are not even relevant to the section into which they have been inserted.
I know it's sometimes very exciting for editors when they get hold of a particular narrative (in this case the anti-Zionist one of Chomsky, Finkelstein et al), and then try to slant articles to conform to that POV, but that's not really what Wikipedia is about. --Jayjg (talk) 19:06, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Problems with Jayig's Problems
- Finkelstein is an assistant professor of politics at DePaul in Chicago, but his work (inevitably) deals extensively with historical matters; he has served as an academic in history; his academic background is in history.
- All contributions draw on the work of others, but those making an original and publishable contribution to knowledge cannot be classed as derivative.
- Assessments based on expert knowledge are not simply expressions of personal opinion; either the facts support the assessment or they don't.
- The quotations included are directly relevant, being an assessment of the nature of the expulsions of Arabs against both the background of the facts as established by Morris and others and the history and theory of Zionism of which Finkelstein is a scholar.
- Finkelstein is one of the most prominent of Morris's academic critics and there is no reason why the Wikipedia article should defer to Morris' position.
- I don't particularly object to Jayig's personal remarks, but they are quite inappropriate, some would perhaps use harsher terms.
--Ian Pitchford 19:47, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Problems with Ian Pitchford's Problems with Jayjg's Problems
- Finkelstein is a political scientist notorious for having a particular agenda.
- Historical works which rely exclusively on the works of other authors are, by definition, derivative.
- Finkelstein is not a recognized historian of the 1948 War, so he clearly does not have "expert knowledge" in this area.
- The quotations have nothing to do with the section they were inserted in; please re-read the title of (and information covered in) the section.
- Finkelstein's "prominence" as a critic of Morris comes solely through his popularity among non-academics as an anti-Zionist Jew, not through critical approval of historians, and there is no evidence that this article is deferring to Morris's position. Furthermore, editors attempting to seek "balance" should not be inserting one-sided and misleading narratives into Wikipedia articles, particularly of complex historical events (e.g. [2] (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1982_Invasion_of_Lebanon&diff=14784538&oldid=14743770)).
- I don't particularly object to Ian Pitchford's personal remarks in describing my edits as "vandalism", but it was quite inappropriate, some would perhaps use harsher terms.
--Jayjg (talk) 20:21, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Final comment on Jayig's comments
- Finkelstein is an academic with a reputation based on his scholarship and published works - something easily checked.
- Finkelstein's academic and PhD status can only be attained through original research, i.e, its non-derivative status is a fact.
- Finkelstein's expert knowledge is directly relevant to the assessment of the questions with which the article deals - indeed I don't see how expulsions of the Arabs could be understood without such knowledge.
- Finkelstein's reputation is based on his published research.
- Deleting an appropriate and properly-referenced contribution is not constructive and surely qualifies as "vandalism"; a claim of vandalism is not personal comment. As you're anonymous I have no idea who you are or what your motives are.
- Criticism and revision is appropriate; complete deletion is not - you've now deleted all reference from this and the article on the 1982 Invasion of Lebanon to stated policy goals accepted and adopted by a succession of Israeli leaders - precisely those goals discussed by Finkelstein and articulated by Ben-Gurion in the quotations provided.
--Ian Pitchford 20:55, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Reply
- Finkelstein's popular and academic reputation are entirely different things.
- Finkelstein did not obtain his academic and PhD status because of the work in question, which is derivative.
- If Finkelstein's opinion is indeed relevant, it's certainly not relevant where it was placed, nor were the overlengthy quotes appropriate.
- I haven't deleted your references here, and in any event doing so would not qualify as "vandalism" in Wikipedia terms; see Wikipedia:Vandalism.
- A statement in a speech made by David ben Gurion in 1937 does not qualify as "stated policy goals accepted and adopted by a succession of Israeli leaders", and reference to it in an article discussing the 1982 Invasion of Lebanon is original research at best, POV-pushing at worst (which, by the way, was deleted by another editor).
--Jayjg (talk) 21:13, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
WP:POINT
Ian, please don't delete relevant information in order to make a point. A historical figure describing the events that were happening at that time from the Arab POV is not the same a political scientist 60 years later promoting his opinions as to why certain events happened. Jayjg (talk) 20:30, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
- I'm deleting this quotation for the following reasons: 1. It's a non-English source that cannot be verified 2. It's personal opinion 3. It states something research by Morris and others has proven to be false 4. The only reference I can find to it is in the Joan Peters hoax volume 5. It's irrelevant, not being connected with the real reasons for the Palestinian expulsion and 6. it qualifies as original research and is not appropriate to Wikipedia and 7. the majority of Google hits point back to Wikipedia, which means that the encyclopedia is being used to authenticate the quotation, i.e., it's being used for propaganda purposes [3] (http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=mozclient&num=50&scoring=d&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&q=%22al-Dar+al+Muttahida+lil-Nashr%22), and 8. the aforementioned are good reasons for suspecting that the quotation is fake. --Ian Pitchford 20:46, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
1. The source is referenced in English sources. 2. The opinion of the PM of Syria, who was involved in the events, is quite relevant. 3. It states something that has not been proven to be false. 4. Peters volume is tendentious and misleading, but not a hoax. 5. It's quite relevant, and your claim that it is unrelated to the "real reason for the Palestinian expulsion" indicates severe bias. 6. It does not qualify as Original Research at all; please explain what has misled you into making this claim. 7. Not everything is found on the internet, it exists in the real world - that does not make it propaganda. 8. A well respected (and I might add, typically pro-Palestinian) editor has stated that it is real and he has the original. 9. Disrupting Wikipedia to make a point is not a good way to edit, and if pursued typically leads to sanctions of some sort; I highly recommend that you adopt a more collegial approach instead. 10. Please make sure you don't violate the Wikipedia:Three revert rule. Jayjg (talk) 21:16, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I first saw this quotation in English in Maurice Roumani, The Case of the Jews from Arab Countries, which is a fairly polemic book but not in the Peters category. In order to check it, I got hold of the original Arabic memoirs and sent the relevant pages to an academic with Arabic as a first language and a good knowledge of the subject. He verified the translation except for a few words that he regarded as not exactly right. The only example appearing in the excerpt here is that the original translation said "made them leave it". However, the Arabic uses Hamalnahum, not Ja'alnahum, and so indicates a lesser degree of responsibility than "made them". Al `Azm does not provide any evidence for his claims, at least within a few pages of this passage. As for the meaning of all this, I think the key is that Syria was in political turmoil at this time, with serial coups, etc.. Al `Azm was apparently during what every politician in power does: blame the country's troubles on the previous administration; but this is speculation. --Zero 07:21, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Ian Pitchford 10:26, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC) adds
- I've added qualifiers to indicate that the source is an untranslated Arabic work, which appears to have different translations; is questionable, and has different interpretations. As a compromise, if the scan of the original is made available to me I will make it available for download, although I think it's irrelevant for all of the reasons given.
- I've changed the reference to Morris to indicate that the revised opinion given is from an interview, not the book, and that the book gives a different conclusion.
- I've added Porath's questioning of this quotation.
- I've added Morris' conclusions from the 2003 book.
- I've added Morris' explanations of the al-Azm quotation.
- I've formatted the references and provided links to the ISBNs.
- As a general point I don't think its persuasive or appropriate for editors, anonymous or otherwise, to claim expert judgement of work by published authors.
- I don't think that collegiality is inspired by thinly veiled threats from anonymous editors pushing strong POV claims.
--Ian Pitchford 10:26, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)
- I agree that collegiality is not inspired by "editors pushing strong POV claims".
- Good edits, thanks.
