at what point did i claim that the israelis were innocent of any shenanigans? "restraint" was described in comparison to the regional traditions,, and yes,, in that region telling 140,000 out of nearly 4 MILLION palestinians that they are no longer welcome to return to israeli controled areas is RESTRAINT, in fact it's goddamned GENEROUS in when compared the the usual reaction to an indignant minority group in that area of the world.
ben gurion was a soldier fighting for his natiuon's survival,, and the pallies were potential saboteurs and spies in his midst. of course around this same time, the japanese "internees" of FDR's regime were finally being released from their ACTUAL APARTHEID! and were being allowed to go back and look at all the shit they lost during their time in the joint under FDR's personal orders...
also 140,000 pallies not being given the option of returning could easily be the israelis legitimately refusing the re-entry of pallies who were members of hamas, hezzboilla, al aqsa martyrs brigade, fatah, or the PLO. but the author doesnt mention WHY the individuals were denied, the author simply shouts the number of 140,000 between 1948 and 1993 ZOMG!! JUST LIKE THE HOLOCAUST! excepth the "victims" arent dead. they are told to GTFO.
your citations do not invalidate or disprove my comments, most of the residents of the british mandate were TENANTS and when the landlords sold the land to various and sundry jewish persons and groups those jews naturally assumed they would be moving into their new lands... too bad for the tenants and squatters. they gots to leave.
copy and paste party:
"Despite the growth in their population, the Arabs continued to assert they were being displaced. From the beginning of World War I, however, 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.
[SUP]18[/SUP]
Jews actually went out of their way to avoid purchasing land in areas where Arabs might be displaced. They sought land that was largely uncultivated, swampy, cheap and, most important, without tenants. In 1920, Labor Zionist leader
David Ben-Gurion expressed his concern about the Arab
fellahin, whom he viewed as “the most important asset of the native population.”
Ben-Gurion said “under no circumstances must we touch land belonging to
fellahs or worked by them.” He advocated helping liberate them from their oppressors. “Only if a
fellah leaves his place of settlement,”
Ben-Gurion added, “should we offer to buy his land, at an appropriate price.”
[SUP]19[/SUP]
It was only after the Jews had bought all of the available uncultivated land that they began to purchase cultivated land. Many Arabs were willing to sell because of the migration to coastal towns and because they needed money to invest in the citrus industry.
[SUP]20[/SUP]
When
John Hope Simpson arrived in Palestine in May 1930, he observed: “They [Jews] paid high prices for the land, and in addition they paid to certain of the occupants of those lands a considerable amount of money which they were not legally bound to pay.”
[SUP]21[/SUP]
In 1931, Lewis French conducted a survey of landlessness for the British government and 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.
[SUP]22[/SUP]
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.
[SUP]23[/SUP]
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.”
[SUP]24[/SUP] 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.
[SUP]25[/SUP]" ~
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths3/MFmandate.html#5
“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” ~ Transjordan’s King Abdullah
