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

The Truth About Palestinian Refugees

Nadene Goldfoot

1800's -Jews started returning to Eretz Israel and had to drain the land as so much was swampy. They planted eucalyptus trees to soak up the water. Trees are continuallyy being planted. Never has so much been done to such undeveloped impossible land. They've invented scientific ways of farming this impossible land which they now have passed on to other undeveloped countries.

1880-1947 Arabs came into Palestine from surrounding areas such as Greece and neighboring Arab areas seeking work with Jews who were building a country.

1945 End of World War II leaving about 100,000 Jewish refugees.
EXODUS by Leon Uris is a story about getting to Israel. It was also made into a movie. “Exodus” is the story of Kitty Fremont, a Christian nurse, and her love for Ari Ben Canaan, a leader of the Jewish underground set against the background of the struggle for a Jewish homeland in Israel. They meet when he comes aboard a ship filled with refugee Jewish children trying to run a British blockade to reach Palestine in order to organize a hunger strike.

1947 The United Nations partitioned mandated Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state. The Arabs rejected this. Israel is now a little smaller than New Jersey. Israel absorbed all Jewish refugees from WWII.

1948 Birth of Israel and immediate War of Independence: 7 Arab states started the war to drive Jews into the sea. They were Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Transjordan (now called Jordan).

200,000 to 570,000 to 630,000 Arabs left Palestine's area so they would not be in the way of the victorious Arab armies in their planned massacre of the Jewish defenders. Many were told by their leaders to leave.

Arab armies lost war; Arabs who fled did not return, also on advice of their leaders but settled in refugee camps. This was INTENTIONAL NOT TO BE ABSORBED OR INTEGRATED INTO ARAB LANDS. The lost war was used as a club against Israel.

They are the only refugee group in the world that has never been absorbed or integrated into their own people's lands.

British counted Arabs and kept the records. If Arabs had only been in Palestine for 2 years they were called "refugees". Most were new immigrants to Israel. Only a few had been their previously with any history, and then most had not owned land but had been more migratory.

Arab countries kicked out 700,000 Jews who came into Palestine-same number of Arabs who left. This number was more than Arabs who left Palestine.

160,000 Arabs stayed in Israel. Many of the successful Palestinian Arabs are the Christians who live in Haifa. They are not terrorists.

1949 Israel's border now left 9 miles between the eastern border and the Mediterranean Sea. The distance from Gresham to Portland's Ladd's Addition is about that. From my house in Gresham to SE 12th and Division is about 12 miles.

1956 The Suez War: Israel again attacked.

1967 Six Day War: Israel won again and gained the Gaza Strip, Sinai Peninsula and Golan Heights, repossessed the provinces of Judea and Samaria (The West Bank) and the eastern part of Jerusalem which had been occupied by the Jordanians 19 years earlier when they invaded Israel in 1948.

1973 Yom Kippur War: Egypt and Jordan, the closest Arab neighbors, begrudgingly accepted Israel's presence, much to the horror of their Arab brothers.

1979 Israel signed a peace treaty with Egypt returning the Sinai Desert to them

1980-1985 I moved to Israel. Two weeks before I moved, a rocket landed behind an apartment building in Safed " Zfat" in the upper Galilee where I was going to live.

1981-1982 Christian Lebanese were in trouble. Israel had good relations with them. Major Hadad, Christian leader, came to Israel for R&R to our hospital. We have agreement to care for his family. Arab income is the highest in Israel compared to the rest of the Arab world.
1982 Lebanon War: Lebanon Muslims had been attacking Northern Israel. Sharon of Israel had allowed Major Hadad's Christian Militia to go into the camps of Muslims and didn't know they meant to slaughter them. Sharon was held responsible. I lived very close to the action in Safed and witnessed our army going up the hill to Safed and how our army was deployed.

Israel has given the Palestinians most of the West Bank and autonomy under the Palestinian authority and has supplied their police and security forces with weapons. Sharon was Prime Minister of Israel but had a stroke, so Olmert took over. His convergence plan means the evacuation of tens of thousands of Jewish settlers from the West Bank and the establishment of new borders between Israel and the Palestinians by the year 2010. Olmert means to relocate isolated West Bank settlements in existing large settlement blocs closer to the pre-1967 border between Israel and the West Bank. 50,000 to 80,000 settlers will be affected in the move. This is to create a separation between Israelis and Palestinians with Israelis to the west of the barrier so that it's easier for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to defend. IF Israel does this alone, we would still need international approval for the new lines it sets on its own. This plan is different from Sharon's "Disengagement" as the scale is much larger.

The evacuation of Gaza of all Jews affected about 9,000 settlers. Olmert had to decide on either full withdrawal as Gaza had or continued presence as in the northern West Bank. A continued military presence in the evacuated area could make it easier to fight terror and to minimize firing of rockets across the border.

A one state solution was decided to be out of the question as the Palestinians would become a majority. We cannot allow a situation such as a terrorist government which rejects Israel like Hamas or a weak Palestinian leader like President Mahmoud Abbas. We need a clear-cut Jewish majority in a smaller Israel. Palestinians and the Arab states all strongly oppose the Convergence plan. They fear they could be marginalized and left facing a fait accompli which serves Israeli rather than their interests. Jordan and Egypt do not want war to come into their territories which might happen. Jordan's King Abdulla complained that the plan could sound the death knell for the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Settlers are strongly resisiting. The disengagement plan could cost Israel as high as $18 billion dollars.

2005 Israel gave up Gaza Strip. Terrorists have used it to fire Kassam rockets against Israel.

2006 On May 23, 33 visiting Oregonians were on a ridge overlooking the strip and witnessed an attack. Earlier that day the rockets had hit a school in Sderot, an Israeli town near the Gaza border. The classroom was empty because the children were in another room saying their morning prayers. Other rockets landed outside the town and two people were treated for shock. Israel did not initiate any attacks.

Palestinians are demanding a full right of return of Palestian refugees who have been living in refugee camps from 1948. They practice polygamy and have multiplied many times over. They want full control of East Jerusalem or now, all of Jerusalem.. They want the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. we keep making offers and they keep refusing but then asking for more.
2008 Operation Cast Lead War December 27th Israel attacked Gaza Hamas terrorists after years of being shelled by them. They previously warned them and the world what the results of their constant shelling would lead to. Southern Israel took thousands of rockets, especially the town of Sderot. Far more Palestinians died than Israelis. Again, this is being used against Israel who works at trying to protect it's people, both IDF and civilians. Thousands of Israelis now suffer from PTSD from the constant bombardment. This was inevidable war as the constant shelling had to be stopped by Israel. No American community could take such treatment for so long. One shelling would be sufficient anywhere else.

Lest We Forget Our Jewish Refugees

Nadene Goldfoot

One of the second groups of people to enter "Palestine" were Jewish refugees from the 2nd World War, the survivors of the Nazi Holocaust. Many just got off a boat only to find themselves handed a gun in the stuggle to live. All these Jews were undernourished people from the German camps that were used to gas and then cremate Jews. They survived long enough to help establish Israel. The book, "Exodus", by Leon Uris tells of the stuggle to get to Eretz Yisrael. This epic is about an Israeli freedom fighter involved in the birth of Israel which was in the midst of enemies. We're still surrounded by the same enemies and finding out that force is the only thing our enemies respect. This book as been made into a movie.

Palestinians have not been the only refugees in the world. Their predicament was created by their own decision to leave their homes, thinking the Arabs would win the fight and they would return to take over all the Jews' homes. When little Israel won the fight, their leaders chose to keep them in camps to gain pity. If they couldn't win one way, they'd try another.

When Israel was created in 1948 by the United Nations' vote, 820,000 of our Jewish brethren living in Arab countries were forced to flee without their belongings between the years of 1947 and 1949. They have never been compensated by Arab governments for their losses. They came to Israel as refugees.

Besides that, those living in Arab countries were upheld as of dminni status, second class citizens with the results of not having priviledges of true citizens. Often many times they even had to pay taxes for things others did not have to do. This is why Israel was created in the first place; as a place to Jews to come to when the world turned against them.

The Arab countries would not take in the Palestinian refugees. All seemed to think it best they stay in refugee camps. Finally, many did get into Jordan, and the two groups had a bloody war with each other. Now Jordan is made up mostly of Palestinians. The king even married a Palestinian girl. The same did not happen with the other countries.

Russia is a country without G-d. It seems that they prohibited people from attending church or synagogue. Israel has taken in many of these Jews and their descendants who were not permitted to know about their own religion. While I lived in Israel, I was in an Ulpan with many other Russians. My own grandparents were Russian and were immigrants to the states. In a class of 40 people, about 3/4 were Russian English teachers. My husband and I and other American and English teachers made up the other quarter. While we Americans did not give up our American citizenship, Russia did not allow dual citizenship, so they were there to stay, and hopefully never wanting to return, anyway. The problem is that they give up the chance of seeing family, and that's hard to do.

The world has had many refugees, but none have lasted as long as the Palestinians. They still are receiving handouts from the United Nations, paid mostly with money from the United States. Usually the Arab countries are in arrears to pay their fair share of the money for them. These refugees are not seeking a better life, but are being encouraged by other Arabs to stay in this position. It curries hatred for Israel, which is their goal in life.