Palestine and Britain's Mishandling of Mandate

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                                

        
The Brits, led by General Allenby,  occupied Jerusalem in December 1917 during World War I.

After World War I, the Middle East, an Ottoman Empire possession, went to the winners of the war.  Britain was given the mandate for Palestine which was to last for 30 years.  They were to police the land and help the Jews create their Jewish Homeland, as Palestine was to go to the Jews.  Jews  had lost their land, Judea and Israel to the Romans in 70 CE  and had been homeless for 2,000 years.  They had been suffering from anti-Semitism wherever they went, so this had been legally arranged.

The Brits, in order to carry out this mandate, chose High Commissioners to govern Palestine.  They were Chief executive officials.  The first man to be appointed was a Jew, Sir Herbert Samuel (1870-1963) whose time ran from 1920 to 1925.  This appointment evoked great hopes among the Jews, especially as he was known to be a supporter of Zionism.  Samuels was the first Jew to be a member of a British cabinet and did so by 1909.  He had held office in the Liberal government from 1905 to 1916.  After being a High Commisioner in Palestine, he was in the national government from 1931 to 1932.  His memorandum to the Cabinet in 1914 influenced the Balfour Declaration.  He became the leader of the Liberal Party in the House of Commons from 1931 to 1935 and in the House of Lords from 1944 to 1955.

His initial task was complicated by the delay in confirming the Mandate and by Arab violence.  He suspended Jewish immigration, the very thing he was to allow and help to happen.  Why?  Arab violence had started in 1921.  Why did they riot?
                                                                           

One of the first things Samuel did, obviously to get in tight with the Arabs who probably scared him, was to appoint Haj Mohammed Amin el-Husseini (1893-1974) as the Grand Mufi of Jerusalem and if that wasn't enough, also the head of the Supreme Moslem Council in 1921.  Husseini therefore had the title of Sherif of Jerusalem and The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.  Samuel showed Husseini much benevolence.  Was it because he came from a long standing Jerusalemite Arab family that had traced their genealogy back to the grandson of Mohammad?    Why did he do this when he knew that in 30 years it was all to become a Jewish state?
                                                                               

Emir Feisal (1883 Mecca, Saudi Arabia-1933 Switzerland)third son of Hussein bin Ali, the Grand Sharif of Mecca, later King of Syria in 1920, then King of Iraq from 1921-1933, member of Hashemite Kingdom like today's King of Jordan, a descendant from Mohammad

Husseini was in direct opposition and competition with Emir Feisal, who was THE spokesman for all the Arabs.  He was for the Jews' return and had high hopes that they would be able to improve his people just by living there and showing them more modern ideas and ways.                                                                                                                                                                        

Chaim Weizmann

Chaim Weizmann, Emir Feisal 

Emir Faisal's delegation at Versailles, during the Paris Peace Conference of 1919

Feisal had had meetings with Chaim Weizmann (1874 Belarus-1952 Israel).  Chaim had helped the English to win the war with his invention that made ammunition far better than the enemy had, and so was being rewarded for this by being heard.  It was all agreed upon.  All except the stone in the mix; Husseini,  who didn't want to give up his position as a very important man in Jerusalem and was afraid this would happen once more Jews moved there  and become a Jewish city once again.  He instigated riots in 1921.

This may have brought about the White Paper in June 1922. which followed a statement by Winston Churchill who was the present day secretary for the colonies.  It stated that the aim of the Balfour Declaration was to establish a Jewish National Home, but not Jewish domination.  He said that the Jews were there by right and not on sufferance.  It also made Jewish immigration into Palestine dependent on absorptive  capacity.  As a direct result of the White Paper, Transjordan was affected.   It detached Transjordan from Palestine and came as a large disappointment to the Jews.  The Balfour Declaration had included the area of  Transjordan.

The Balfour Declaration was part of the legal complexities that Jews had been wading through in order to be able to go back to their original land of Israel and Judea legally.  It was an official statement issued on November 2, 1917 at the end of World War I by the British secretary, Arthur James BALFOUR.  It had declared that the British government favored the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people and would use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that NOTHING shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country (thinking of the Jews of England who would not like to be rooted up from their homes and shipped off to this home.) such as Samuel.  Actually, this was setting up an unrealistic but idealistic Garden of Eden where Arabs would step aside for returning Jews.

This Declaration came about after LONG negotiations initiated by Chaim Weizmann, Nahum Sokolow and others shortly after the outbreak of World War I, with the support of Herbert Samuel, Chief Rabbi J.H. Hertz, the Haham Moses Gaster, and others.  There was much discussion on the formula of the Declaration and its timing.  Balfour visited the USA in Spring of 1917 and met with President Wilson who supported the efforts of the American Zionists who were headed by Louis Brandeis which expedited the final decision of the British government.

We had Jews at that time who were afraid of it happening and were against the idea.  They were the presidents of the Board of Deputies of British Jews and of the Anglo-Jewish Association.  DL Alexander and CG Montefiore issued a statement that the Zionist aspirations were calculated to endanger the Jewish position in all countries.  All countries meant the Western of USA and England, evidently, for pogroms and anti-Semitism were going great in France and Russia.  All this rebuttal made Britain even more cautious, so they didn't accept the wording from the Zionists that said:
1. To recognize Palestine as "the national home of the Jewish people"
2. For providing a "Jewish National Colonizing Corporation" for the resettlement and economic development of the country.

The Declaration, after having finally been approved by the British cabinet, was sent to Lord Walter Rothchild who was asked to convey it to the Zionist Federation.  It was approved by other Allied governments and incorporated in the Mandate in 1922.

Samuel did a few helpful things such as erecting the structure of the new Palestine, creating a solid governmental machinery and turning a chaotic country into an organized state, good for England but not for the future of the Jews.  The foundations of the Jewish National Home were  firmly laid down during his term of office.

Lord Plumer was the 2nd High Commissioner from 1925 to 1928.  He, on the other hand, refused to restrict Jewish immigration and displayed much administrative energy.  Under his rule, Palestine citizenship provisos were laid down.  A water supply for Jerusalem was installed.  Public works schemes were inaugurated to meet the threat of unemployment.

Sir John Chancellor was the 3rd High Commissioner from 1928 to 1931.  1929 was a year of much rioting and deaths of Jews, instigated again by the Grand Mufti.  Chancellor condemned the 1929 Arab massacres in outspoken terms.  They had happened when he was away on leave, but later was inclined to temporize.

Sir Arthur Wauchope was the 4th High Commissioner from 1931 to 1937.  He was sympathetic to Jewish aspirations while being scrupulously fair to the Arabs.   I note that Nazis were gaining power in Germany at this time, and by 1937, things were terrible for Jews living there.  They were trying to emigrate from Germany and many wanted to come to Palestine and found it difficult to get in there or to the USA.  During Wauchope's period of office, the stream of immigrants rapidly increased, naturally.

This led to Arab restiveness which he tried to pacify by promising a Legislative Council.  He failed to quell the Arab revolt of 1936, again led by the Grand Mufti and this led to the end of his position.  In 1936, Husseini was chairman of the Arab Supreme Council so  had organized the Palestine disturbances for which he was sentenced to exile in 1937.  He fled to Lebanon.
                                                                             

Grand Mufti meeting with Hitler in Germany-November 1941

Sir Harold MacMichael (1882-1969)  was the 5th High Commissioner from 1938 to 1944. He was 56 when he took the post.  These were the war years.  He was the man in office during the war who refused to admit Jewish refugees from Europe.  This made him very unpopular with the Jewish population.  He was blamed for sending at least 768 Jewish refugees aboard MV Struma to their deaths. It was an "illegal" immigrant ship which left Romania in 1941 for Palestine and reached Istanbul, Turkey but were turned back.  It was MacMichael who had refused them entry into Palestine. The boat floundered in the Black Sea with the loss of all on board.  Seven unsuccessful attempts, mainly by Lehi (Stern Gang/Stern Group) , were undertaken to assassinate him during his sojourn in Palestine. In the last, both he and his wife narrowly escaped death in an ambush Lehi mounted on 8 August 1944 on the eve of his replacement as High Commissioner.

Viscount Gort was the 6th High Commissioner from 1944 to 1945.  He was sympathetic for the Jews, but was unable to make a fundamental change in the British government's policy.

Sir Alan Cunningham was the 7th and last High Commissioner from 1945 to 1948.  On May 14, he and his soldiers left.  He governed the country throughout the eventful happenings which culminated in the British withdrawal from Palestine.  By 1946, the population of Jerusalem reached 165,000 of whom 100,000 were Jews.  The city expanded and the Hebrew University was erected on Mt. Scopus.  This was a period of Jewish resistance to the  British Mandatory government.  The UN partition resolution of November 29, 1947 provided for the creation of an independent area of Jerusalem under the UN administration.  Arab outbreaks which were exactly like warfare were between the Haganah and the Arabs who had developed into the Arab Legion of Transjordan  seemed to put an end to this international scheme.  During that time, the Jewish quarter in the Old City had to be evacuated and was destroyed.  The rest of Jerusalem fell into Jewish hands.  The Arab Legion was shelling and starving the Jews in trying to get them  to surrender, but that was foiled by the fortitude of the Jews and by the opening of the Burma Road which restored the connection between Jewish Jerusalem and the coast.

Husseini, the Grand Mufti,  participated in Rashid Ali's pro-Axis coup in Iraq during World War II before he went to Europe, where he assisted Hitler and was largely responsible for the liquidation of the Jews in the Moslem areas of Bosnia.  In 1946 he escaped to Egypt.  Now we see Gaza was also affected by him.  After 1948, he set up a Palestine Government in Gaza, but it was short-lived.  Later, he set one up in Cairo, Egypt.  All this power was given to him by Samuel.  Evidently Samuel didn't vet him.

Ressource: The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haj_Amin_al-Husseini
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faisal_I_of_Iraq
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/muftihit.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_MacMichael

Muhammad's Knowledge of Jews-But Palestinians Never Heard of Us

Nadene Goldfoot                                               Moses 

High-ranking PA figures claim that the Jews do not have religious or historical claims to the Holy Land.  

The fact is that Muhammad recognized that Jews were "people of the book."  "The Book" was the Bible or Torah.  They were given a special status along with Christians; also people of the book, as Dhimmis.  They could not be killed, but had to pay a higher tax than the rest of the people, sort of like paying for "protexia, protection.  They had a lot of other abominable things heaved on their shoulders as well, things they couldn't do because of their inferior status.  Dhimmitude was like being a 2nd or 3rd class citizen.  

 Palestinian Arabs such as the PA  don't want to believe or have anyone else know the history of Jews in Palestine. Yet  Muslims have our prophets as their prophets.  They regard Moses as a prophet.  Where to they think they came from?  Do they realize that prophets were Jews?  
                                                                       

Our Torah ( 5 Books of Moses) and Tanach (Old Testament to Christians)  is our record as Jews of being in Palestine.and before it was dubbed "Palestine." Its ancient names were Israel and Judah.    It's a book filled with our genealogy and the geography of the land.  It's so interesting to everyone that they've even made movies about episodes.  It's graphic in descriptions and details.  This is our record of our history.  Yet they deny it.

How anyone can listen to such statements with a straight face is unbelievable or take them seriously.  Even archaeology has proved our existence there.  

In Albert's interview,  he discovered that the Muslims think that if they recognize Israel as a Jewish state,  it would mean accepting the end of their own history and ties and right to Palestine.  Of course!  They have created a myth about being there for 2,000 years, convincing other Muslims far and wide of this.  Such a rumor has traveled as far as Pakistan and Afghanistan, India and who knows where else.  Now they feel they can't lose face by admitting it was all make believe.  
                                                                        

                               King David of Israel (1010-970 BCE) 

Actually, the Palestinian history  in Israel really started with the return of Russian Jews and others around 1880 in the 1st Aliyah movement.  They came in droves after them looking for jobs as they heard they were building.  When asked, most said they were Syrians in those days.  They found some jobs in Tel Aviv.  

There were also some Jews there that had never left the land but had converted to Islam in order to survive in the Ottoman Empire, and possibly even earlier. They're part of the Palestinian Muslims of today.   Remnants of their history are being preserved by Israeli researchers who have discovered this.  One has but to examine the homes they live in to see the star of David and other mementos of Jews  having lived there long ago.  
                                                                         

                                        King Solomon

There were some Arabs  who had purchased land but never used it for much.  They in turn sold it to Jews at very high prices and left for better places such as Damascus or Cairo or even Paris.  

They need to find their own history and will if they dig deep enough and do some good research on census records and such.  They would find living in the neighboring states as part of their heritage and all the history that would go with that.  However,  there is no history of a Palestinian people.  They were not a people.  They are families that have been living in what was initially called Palestine by the Romans who chose that word as an eraser:  They wanted to erase the history of the Jews as well.  It was easier to break Jews with, like horses, to make them obey, to be slaves, to take away their spirit.  That's what the Romans did to people who had been strong.  They took away the name of their country and renamed it.  

Jews were also called Palestinians before the birth of Israel on May 14, 1948.  The land had been in the Ottoman Empire's hands up to WWI for 400 years.  They were on the side of the Germans during WWI, and lost the war, and by doing so, they lost their empire.  This is something that the Arabs do not want to accept, but then they fought on the British side.  Because of that, they were rewarded by the British who helped them enter Palestine illegally and didn't record it, and by giving them 80% of the Jewish Homeland that was set aside for the Jews to have when the British mandate came to its 30 year end.  
                                                                     
So when they insist that there were never a Jewish people, you'd better check first to see if they even know how to read.  They are denying Muhammad who knew Jews in Medina and who read aloud on the streets for all to hear the stories from the Torah.  According to their own Koran, he even flew there on his flying horse, Buraq,  before he died which was in 632 CE.  He never used the word-Jerusalem, though, but said he went to the farthest mosque.  However, the Koran is full of some insights of his relationship with Jews.  

So, aren't they besmirching Emir Feisal's good name who had agreed to the Jews returning to Palestine and building their state?  By denying that the Jews came from the Holy Land, aren't they in effect calling Muhammad a liar?  

Resource: Albert Benamou's "From an interview in Asharq al-Awsat of Palestinian Arab foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki: http://www.seder-olam.info/seder-olam-g48-sion.html
http://www.aawsat.net/2014/01/article55327533    interview of Riyad Al-Maliki
Joan Peters Book-From Time Immemorial
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buraq
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prophets_in_Islam

SAMARIA; PAST AND PRESENT FOR JEWS; Dealing with Rock Throwing Arabs

                            A view of the Kana Nature Reserve, Karnei Shomron. In Biblical times, 
               the Kana Stream (center) divided the tribal portions of Ephraim and Manasseh.                                    
Nadene Goldfoot
Samaria,founded way after King Solomon had died in 920 BCE,  also called Shomron, Capital of the northern kingdom of Israel, founded in 880 BCE by King Omri (887-876 BCE) on a hill bought from Shemer.  It's cited in I Kings 16:24)  It fell in 721 BCE to Sargon II of Assyria.  He brought in another population while taking ours away.  It is where the ancient Jewish tribes of Judah, Benjamin, Ephraim and part of Menasseh lived, Judah being the largest of the 12 tribes.  It is the very heartland of our ancient Eretz Yisrael (Israel).  Leave it to the British who held the mandate after WWI.  They did not know enough to include this territory into the National Jewish Homeland possibly because our friend, Emir Feisal, wanted to create Transjordan at the same time.  He was friendly with us as long as he got his fair share of land for having fought with the British against the Ottoman Empire.  But what a piece!  Our heartland!

"The world declares that the Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria are illegal and must be destroyed and the Jews relocated. They base their claim on either the Geneva Convention, UN General Assembly Resolution 181, UN Security Council Resolution 242, or any number of other documents. The facts, however, prove otherwise. The Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria are, in fact, quite legal, under the provisions set forth in the previously mentioned documents and others, including the Balfour Declaration and the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine."

Are we Jews in Samaria illegally?  We think not.  "According to Eugene Rostow, a former Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs in the Johnson Administration, Resolution 242  gives Israel a legal right to be in the West Bank. The resolution “allows Israel to administer the territories” it won in 1967 “until 'a just and lasting peace in the Middle East' is achieved,” Rostow wrote in The New Republic (10/21/91). During the debate on the resolution, he added, “speaker after speaker made it clear that Israel was not to be forced back to the 'fragile' and 'vulnerable' [1949] Armistice Demarcation Lines.”"  Rostow is not alone.  There are many international lawyers who are in agreement with him.

"Perhaps the most significant of these decisions was the San Remo Resolution of 1920, which recognized the exclusive national rights of the Jewish People to the Land of Israel on the strength of their historical connection to the territory then known as Palestine. The outcome of this resolution was the 1922 Mandate for Palestine, an historical League of Nations document that formally established the legal right for Jews to settle anywhere in western Palestine, between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. This includes  all of Judea and Samaria."

Maayana Miskin writes of an attack that happened to a Bitons, a Jewish family driving along in their car in Yakir, Samaria by rock-throwing Arabs. The town was near Ariel. Ariel  is one of 5 large cities in Samaria.  It is only 10.3 miles away from the Green Line established after the 1967 attack on Israel.  Ariel was established in 1978 and now has a population of 18,000. It is 21 miles west of the Jordan River.   "It is composed of veterans and young Israelis, English-speaking immigrants, and immigrants from the former Soviet Union with an additional influx of 10,000 students.  It is the fourth largest Jewish city in the West Bank,  Yakir is a town with 260 families and the population is about 1,300. It was developed in 1981 and is an Orthodox Jewish community about 35 km (21 miles)  east of Tel Aviv.    Their two-year-old girl was critically wounded in a rock attack  on Thursday night and remains in extremely serious condition.

The girl, Adelle Biton, was in a car along with her mother and two older sisters, 6-year-old Naama and 4-year-old Avigail.  Adelle was most seriously hurt. Her mother suffered moderate-to-serious injuries and the two  girls are in moderate condition.All four were wounded when Arab men hurled rocks at a truck traveling the opposite direction, causing it to veer off course and hit their car.

“The two-year-old toddler is in critical condition,” a doctor at Beilinson hospital said. “We aren’t giving up, we’re doing everything we can to save her. We’re optimistic.”

Just minutes before the attack in which the family was injured, terrorists carried out a similar attack targeting a car driven by a man from Eli. That attack wounded a one-year-old baby boy. The child suffered light injuries and is expected to recover.

A former MK’s wife was hurt in a third rock attack Thursday. Aviva Hazan, who lives in Ariel, was hit in the eye by broken glass when terrorists hurled stones at a bus headed for Tel Aviv, breaking its windows.
The attacks Thursday led to renewed calls for the army to take rock attacks seriously and to change the rules of engagement to encourage soldiers to fire on rock-throwers. The IDF has since arrested 10 suspects in one of the attacks.

By 1973 almost a million Arabs lived in the administered area.  640,600 of them lived in both Judea and Samaria which is 5,900 sq km or 2,270 sq miles.  The population of the areas was predominantly Moslem.  It was also called the West Bank of the Jordan, now spoken of as "West Bank" incorrectly.  Between 1948 and 1967 it was ruled by Jordan, which annexed it in 1950.  By 67 it was under Israel's administration.

Israel administered Judea-Samaria and local affairs were administered by the local population.  Open bridges on the Jordan allowed movement in either direction between the areas and the Arab States.  Arabs and Israelis, who until 1967 had lived in mutual separation and estrangement, began after 1967 to enjoy the beginnings of a peaceful and fruitful co-existence.  The hope was that this would contribute towards a transformation of Arab-Israeli relations from conflict into cooperation.

As of February 14, 2013 the Jewish population numbers 360,000 of both Judea and Samaria.  It has had its problems.    Arab leaders, Fatah and Hamas have had other ideas. They want Judea, Samaria, Gaza and East Jerusalem as their Palestine and it is to be Judenrein, free of all Jews.  They want all Jews to move out.  Yet, at the same time, Fatah is broke.  They do not have money on their own but must depend on the other Arab states to give them money.  At the same time they teach their population through schools and TV programs to hate the Israelis.  This rock throwing is a good example of the ethics they are learning.

 The rock throwers show their true goals of not accepting Israelis. However,  " Miri Maoz-Ovadia, spokesperson for the Binyamin Council, the largest council in Judea and Samaria, told Tazpit News Agency that the increase in the Jewish population growth rate is evidence of the prosperity of the region. “This prosperity has been supported by a development of joint industrial areas, shopping centers  open to all populations and an increase of tourism throughout the region. We hope that the development continues for the benefit of all residents living in Judea & Samaria.”"  Today's presence of an Arab population in Samaria should not in any way detract from the time-honored Jewish rights to this land.  

Resource: Arutz Sheva: http://www.israelnationalnews.com article by Maayana Miskin
Facts about Israel

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Peace/settlements.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariel_(city)

http://emetnews.org/analysis/are_settlements_illegal.php
http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/opinions/what-judea-samaria-mean-to-the-jewish-people/2013/01/17/#

http://www.algemeiner.com/2013/02/14/jewish-population-in-judea-and-samaria-on-the-rise/

http://shomroncentral.blogspot.com/p/5-legal-rights-to-samaria.html

Jews Cheated Out of Land to be Jewish Homeland: Facts of History of Palestine and Israel

                                                                                                                                                                                   
Nadene Goldfoot
All of Palestine was designated as a "Jewish National Home."  This was done legally through international law at the end of WWI in the Balfour Declaration on November 2, 1917.  What happened and how come the Jews wound up with only 20% of land to be theirs once again?  The Jews even had the agreement of King Feisal, king of Iraq and Syria  that it would work out for the Jews to return to their land.  He was one of the leaders who fought against the Ottomans.

"Understanding that Jews and Arabs would have to live together in the Land of Israel, Weizmann strove to create peaceful coexistence between the two peoples. Thus he met in Aqaba with Emir Faisal, leader of the Arab national movement. Faisal expressed sympathy for the Zionist cause, which he felt was similar to the Arabs’ national aspirations."  Weizmann was influenced by Theodore Hertzl, a secular Jewish Austrian reporter  who envisioned a Utopia for Jews.  Hertzl had written "Der Judenstaat" (The State of the Jews) outlining his ideas.

The British held the mandate and were trusted to follow out the rules.  Instead, they gave state domain lands, allocated for the "Jewish National Home,"  to those Arabs who were landless.  They did not own any land, but they claimed they were being "displaced by Jews" in Western Palestine.  The outcome was that land outside the limited Jewish-settled area of Western Palestine was then treated as "Arab" land which was more than 80% of the promised to the Jews' land.

These same Arabs did not think of themselves or even call themselves "Palestinians."  The bulk of all the Arab peasantry in the area came from East Palestinian, Syrian, Iraqi, Egyptian and other neighboring states and had been landless due to the feudal-like societal structures of their own native-born people.  That, along with natural disasters, heavy taxation and corrupt loan sharks kept them poor.  It was not the Jews who were native to the land or the Jews who arrived in the 1880's that who made the Arabs landless.

The traditional land of Palestine included land both east and west of the Jordan River.  The few Arabs that lived there thought of themselves as Ottomans or Turks, as the land had been held by the Ottomans for the past 400 years.  Some also thought of themselves as southern Syrians or as Arab people..  None said they were Palestinians.

They were imbued with religious prejudice, and erupted into anti-Jewish violence often whenever their Muslim leaders would incite them.  This happened way before Israel was created in 1948.   After 1917 with the British in the area, they were referred to by the British as being "Nationalistic"-which was in truth subterfuge  to be  anti-Semitic.  The effendis and the Mufti tried to also incite this "nationalism" which meant attacks on Jewish civilians.  T.E. Lawrence did his part also in creating nationalistic feelings among the Muslims, a leftover from inspiring them to fight with him.

The charges from Palestinian leaders of today that the Palestinian people have had an identity with the land that goes back thousands of years is false.  A few nomadic people lived in the land in the 1860's (note Mark Twain's book "The Innocents Abroad".)  It was he and his friends who were the innocents, wanting to visit Palestine who answered the flier saying to join the excursion to the Holy Land and Egypt, the Crimea, Greece, and intermediate points of interest starting in Brooklyn, February 1, 1867.  They took a first-class steamer that would hold 150 passengers.  He gave an excellent description of what he saw.

The charge that alien Jews returned after 2000 years in 1948 to "displace" the Arabs in the new Jewish state is not true.  First of all, Jews hadn't all left in 70 CE.  There were a remnant who remained and were there to greet newcomers who returned throughout the 2,000 years.  Secondly, the plans Chaim Weizmann drew up for Israel included Arabs who were on the land at the time.  It was to be a state second to none as a Utopia. Instead, they were consistently greeted with gunfire.

Palestinians charge that there was no place for them in 1948.  The land to which Arab refugees moved in 1948 included lands that many Arab refugees had only recently left in order to gain the economic  advantages of the small Jewish region within Palestine.  These homelands where they originated included Jordan.  Those who deprived these Arab refugees of homes were the Arab-Muslim leaders.  Neighboring Arab states refused to grant citizenship to those they called their Arab brothers, so they wound up in camps where they reside today.  .  Arab who did not leave when their leaders told them to became citizens of Israel.

Unfortunately, the British treated the land designated to be the Jewish National Home as Arab Land.  The Jews who tried to immigrate during WWII before and after were brutally restricted while the Brits allowed illegal Arab immigration to enter.  Therefore the Brits violated the International League of Nations Mandate by facilitating Arab settlement onto Jewish-settled land and treating the Jews terribly.  (Read "Exodus" by Leon Uris).  They helped to build up the Arab population this way.
                                                           Weizmann and King Feisal

Perhaps King Feisal was not alone in his ability to see that Jews re-entering and developing their homeland would be good for Arabs as well, but these good people have been overcome by religious zealots who have pieced out the anti-Semitic clauses in the Koran and uphold them more than even the Arab countries that hosted Jews for the past 2,000 years as Dhminnis.  All good intentions of Weizmann and other Zionists of his day have been attacked by hatred from the Arab people, except that we see 1.4 million Arabs living as citizens in Israel today and living far better than their neighbors.    Weizmann and Feisal's dreams are working.

Resource: book:  From Time Immemorial by Joan Peters page 392-393.
The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain
http://www.eretzyisroel.org/~samuel/feisal1.html  about King Feisal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration
http://www.mygen.com/users/ufo/Israel_gets_the_Bomb.html
http://suite101.com/article/theodor-herzl-the-dreyfus-affair-and-modern-zionism-a407378