The History Of Palestine

Jewish emigration to
Palestine

·       Emigration before the establishment of Israel

Palestine
that sacred and pure land is distinguished by its importance and its high
reverence in the eyes of Muslims, owing to its embracement of Al-Aqsa Masjid,
the first of the two Qiblah in Islam [Direction faced in prayer], towards which
the Muslims used to direct their faces during praying before the Ka’bah in
Makkah became their Qiblah. No Muslim anywhere would accept or consent to the
Jews’ control over the sanctities of Muslims, and over such sacred land, how
about if such an enemy was implanted by force and ruse inside the Arabic
Palestinian land? This would constitute a provocation, before which no Muslim
can stand still and acquiesce. Today we witness how Jewish extremists groups
threaten to demolish Al-Aqsa Masjid, which would bring about a real
catastrophe. The organized Jewish emigration from all over the world towards
Palestine constituted a main pillar to the success of the Zionist project in
Palestine, for the Zionist organizations and institutions that came to the
scene of events following the first Zionist conference worked with all their
might to finance the Jewish sneaking into the Palestinian lands, by preparing
circumstances and exploiting them to drive the Jews out of their native
countries around the world, and attract them to Palestine, which was the
destination of establishing the Hebrew state over its soil.

In
the year 1869, as a result of pressures exerted by the European countries over
the Ottoman State, due to its piled up debts and its weakness, the latter
issued a law, that allowed the foreigners, whether they were individuals,
institutions, or companies to have properties, and in all lands of the State,
whether inside cities or outside them. Thus such permission to the foreigners
to possess lands in Palestine was a source of anxiety to the peasants and the
people of the country, because it was the offset to the Jewish infiltration and
the buying of lands under the foreign protection and prerogatives. The Zionist
greed in buying lands started, where they began to tempt the peasants and big
feudal lords from the foreigners to sell their lands, the peasants began to
feel worried about the fate of their lands and lives. The Palestinian National
Information Center states that in the year 1837 the first Jewish settlement was
established in Palestine by the help of the wealthy British Jew Montfort, where
the number of inhabitants was then 1500 Jews, then the number of immigrants
increased to reach 10 thousands  in
the year 1840, and then mounted to 15 thousands in the year 1860, and by the
year 1881 the number of Jews reached 22 thousands. In the year 1882, throngs of
Russian Jewish immigrants started to flock to Palestine, despite the issuance
of the Ottoman authorities to a law that restricted emigration, the first
Jewish group that arrived at Palestine was 2000, then this number increased
till it reached 25 thousands Jews in the year 1903.

The
Jewish settlements in Palestine constituted the core of the Zionist
infiltration into the country, and that through the selling of the foreign
owners and non-Palestinian Arabs to their lands to the Jewish immigrants, hence
the number of Jewish settlements that were built at the end of the Ottoman Rule
since 1882 till 1913 reached 24 settlements in Palestine, which Doctor Mostafa
Al Dabbagh mentioned in the book (Biladona Falastin) “Palestine Our Country “ –
the first part, first section, Al-taliaa publishing house, Beirut 1965, he
dealt with such point exhaustively, and mentioned the date of building of each
settlement and the number of its population. As for the British Mandate period,
the British founded 253 settlements between the years 1920 till 1948, also
Doctor Hind Amin Al-Badiry has given full details about the date each
settlement was established and the number of its inhabitants in her research
“Palestinian lands” Arab League publications, 1981, she clarified in the same
research how the Jews had taken over the Palestinian lands till 1947, and that
through the following table:

This
table reveals the very small percentage of the lands that the Jewish
immigrants  took hold of since
their entrance to Palestine till the year 1947, and that compared to those
lands that were still under the Palestinians’ possession, this is attributed to
the fact that the Jews were newcomers to Palestine, and hence had few
properties there. Consequently, they couldn’t take hold of no more than 6.6% of
the lands.

By
the end of World War One, and the defeat of the Ottoman state, which marked the
downfall of an empire that extended for several centuries,  Palestine fell under the British
Mandate, where it appointed High Commissioners there to manage the affairs of
Palestine. Doctor Hind Amin Al-Badiry, the researcher, and member in
Palestinian Writers and Journalists Union, holder of B.A., History department,
Damascus University in Syria, and holder of M.A. and Ph.D from Ain Shams
university, Cairo, affirms in the historical magazine “Al-Fustat” that in the
period of the rule of the British High Commissioner Herbert Samuel, who was
Jewish, new laws were issued, while other Ottoman laws were changed in such a
way as to facilitate the transfer of ownership of lands to the Jews. The doctor
affirms this by saying: “In the year 1920, the administration of Samuel worked
persistently and actively to carry out the plans of the Zionist Committee, thus
the first step it took was to inaugurate departments to record lands, and
appointed the Zionist Norman Bentwich in charge of them. In the same year the
dangerous area law was passed, which Bentwich worked on immediately putting it
into practice, in order to confiscate lands. As a consequence to this, the
Ottoman Bank closed its doors (which was the sole bank that lent the peasants
at small interests). He then imposed high taxes on people, to the extent that
even the peasants, whose revenues were lower than any other class, used to pay
the highest tax rates. In addition to this, authorities changed laws, in a way
that turned things upside down, all this with the aim of cloaking the process
of usurping lands under the pretenses of legitimacy and in the name of law,
thus many unjust laws were passed to serve this aim. When the authorities
imported products similar to what the people cultivate, they faced a deadlock,
and many of them were ruined, owing to their continuous bankruptcy and the piling
up of debts, the percentage of inability to pay taxes among them reached 75%,
not to mention the harassment, persecution, imprisonment, public fees, and the
collective punishment that were practiced against them. Moreover the Jewish
Usurers (the only lending body that remained after the closing of the Ottoman
bank) played a role in driving the peasants to bankruptcy, where the rate of
interests over the debts reached 200%, which led to the forfeiture of the
mortgaged lands in payment of the debts, as they were sold in a public
auctions. These lands in specific are what Zionism  exploited to propagate that the Arabs sold their lands, in
addition to lands sold by the big Arab landlords, which is extremely small, and
doesn’t exceed 1%).” All the succeeding High Commissioners followed in the
footsteps of Herbert Samuel. Yediot Ahronot press had published in its issue
dated 14/7/1972 an article entitled “Blunder, Naivety, and Coloring” written by
the ex-Knesset member “Yash’yho Ben-Fort”, where he  justified this racial and vicious way of stealing lands from
its owners by saying: “The truth is that there can never be Zionism without
settlement, and there can never be a Zionist state without expelling the Arabs,
confiscating their lands, and fencing it.”

As
a result of all these circumstances, the process of Jews’ immigration to the
Palestinian lands was facilitated, and their number increased, owing to the
preservation of the emigration flow since 1850, namely at the end of the
Ottoman period as shown in the following table:

The
table shows clearly the continuity of the immigration flow, without any
interruption, which reveals that this immigration was organized and had
specific purposes, we know and touch its repercussions today represented in the
domination of the land of Palestine and the establishment of an extraneous state
that is known as Israel. The Palestinian National Information Center cites this
table that is found on its site, where it states that the Palestinian lands
subject to five consecutive Jewish immigration flows, following the successive
crises that occurred since the late 19^th century till World War II
in the areas where the Jews existed. The center has divided the immigration
process into the following phases:

1.      The First Immigration 1882 – 1903: It occurred in two groups,
where around 25 thousands Jews came to Palestine, most of them coming from
Romania and Russia. The immigration was financed by Lovers of Zion societies
and BILU movement, in addition to some of the colonizing figures and British
organizations.

2.     The Second Immigration 1904 – 1918: This immigration occurred
following the establishment of the Zionism movement. The number of immigrants
reached around 40 thousands most of them coming from Russia and Romania, they
were mainly from adventurous youngsters, who were recruited by the Zionist and colonizing
organizations. By the end of the Second immigration flow, and due to the
breaking out of World War One in 1914, the number of immigrants reached around
85 thousands Jews, and the number of lands they possessed reached 418 thousands
dunnum, and around 44 agricultural settlements.

3.     The Third Immigration 1919 – 1923:  During this phase the number of immigrants reached 35
thousand Jews, at the rate of 8 thousands immigrants annually, most of them
coming from Russia, Romania, and Poland, in addition to small numbers from
Germany and America.

4.     The Fourth Immigration 1924 – 1932: This phase started during the
British Mandate, where 80 thousands immigrants had flocked to Palestine most of
them from the middle class, especially from Poland, they exploited the small
sum of money they brought with them in making small projects of their own.

The
Zionist immigration reached its peak in 1925, where around 33 thousands Jews
had arrived at Palestine, compared to 13 thousands in 1924. Afterwards, the
number started to decrease once more till it reached 13 thousands in 1926. The
number of immigrants continued to recede in 1927, owing to the economic
hardships that the country was then facing, thus their number decreased to
three thousands and then to only two thousands in 1928. Hence by the end of
this phase, the total number of Jews, who arrived at Palestine reached around
175 thousands, of which 136 thousands among them settled in 19 civil
settlements, as for the rest, they spread in 110 agricultural settlements.

The Fifth Immigration 1933 – 1939:The number of immigrants
flocking to Palestine reached during that phase around 215 thousands, most of
them coming from Mid-Europe, which was affected by the Nazi Seizure of Power,
thus during that period about 45 thousands Jewish immigrants set towards
Palestine from Mid-Europe alone. In the year 1928 the percentage of Jews
immigrating from Germany to Palestine reached 52% of the total immigrating
Jews. In the year 1933, “The White Book” was issued, because of it, Britain limited
the Jewish immigration to 75 thousands within the coming five years; thus
minimizing as much as possible the huge number of immigrants traveling through
official means, while it opened the doors to unofficial immigration, thus the
number of immigrants reached its peak in 1935, where they reached a total of 62
thousands, then it started to decline owing to the eruption of revolution in
Palestine in the year 1936, as the Palestinians could no more tolerate, and
stand still in the face of the waves of immigrations that their lands were
subjected to.

Doctor
Muhammad Salamah Al-Nahal, expatiates on this subject in his book “The Policy
of British Mandate in The Arabic Palestinian Lands” – Occupied Palestine
publications, second edition-Beirut, page 74, 75, 76, where he clarifies the
number of Jews immigrating to Palestine through the following tables, which
carry the numbers: 1, 2, 3, 4, the following table shows details about such
exodus during the years (1920-1936):

Table 1

Doctor
Riyad Al-A’ylah mentioned in his research entitled “The Development of the
Palestinian Issue” (Historically, socially, and politically)second edition-May
1998, that during World War II, around 55 thousands Jews arrived to Palestine
through illegal ways, where the British fleet was charged with guiding the
ships carrying on board the immigrating Jews, in addition to supplying them
with water, provision, and fuel till they reached the Palestinian shores.
Moreover, between the years 1940-1948 around 120 thousands Jews entered the
country, and with the winding up of the British Mandate period the number of
Jews reached 625 thousands, in other word their number was equal to third the
country’s population.

The
following table, which is quoted from the same source as the pervious table,
shows the percentage of the Arabs and Jews population in Palestine during the
years 1918-1948.

Table 2

This
table clearly shows the increase in the number of Jews from 7,20% in the year
1918 to 31,48% in the year 1948. Such huge increase in the number of Jews
flocking to Palestine from all over the world in a period of 30 years only,
would certainly result in a gradual shifting of the balance of power in favor
of those intruders, who were new to this place, coming from all over the world,
after their hesitation in choosing the country on whose lands they would erect
their alien and occupying entity, as Argentina constituted a choice to them,
for it constituted at the beginning a target of their greedy goals, but they
finally chose Palestine, whose people drained by wars, were aspiring to
freedom, peace, and security, but they were instead faced with depression,
subjugation, pain and rage, from which the Palestinians and the Arabs suffer
till this very day.

The
following table clarifies the countries from where those intruders had come,
from the years 1919 till 1936:

Table 3

Immigration after the Creation of
Israel 1948-1967:

By
usurping Palestine and by declaring the creation of Israel in 1948 and the
expulsion of the Palestinian Arabs from their own land and country, Zionism
started to exert mighty efforts in facilitating the immigration of the Jews to
Palestine and it issued what is known as the law of “Return” that was ratified
in 1950 and dictated that every Jew has the right to return to the country as a
returning Jew. Immigration was carried through an immigrant visa. Also
the law of Israeli nationality was issued in 1952 whereby every Jewish citizen,
who immigrated to Israel, has the right to obtain the Israeli identity once he
enters the country, all this besides boosting the immigration by the Jewish
agency and organizing it and the attention paid to the immigrants  affairs upon their arrival in the
country which increased immigration. The following table discusses the Jewish
immigration to
Palestine during the years 1948-1967, obtained from the same source of the
three previous tables, i.e. from a study conducted by Muhammad Salamah
Al-Nahal:

Table 4

The
following points are noticed from the previous table:

First:
the increase of the number of the immigrating Jews to Palestine during the
first four years of the establishment of the state of the Zionist entity; about
700 000 immigrants entered during this period, whereas the number of the Jews
in Palestine amounted to 650 000 person approximately in 1948. The reasons that
caused this increase in the Jewish immigration are as follows:

1-The
Zionist Organizations transfer of the Jews who remained in the refugee camps
in Western Europe to Palestine after the Second World War.

2-The negotiations that the Israeli government has
conducted with the Romanian government in 1948 and led to the arrival of about
118 000 Romanian
immigrants during the four years 1948-1951.

3-Zionist exploitation of twisted and terrorist
schemes to realize its targets of immigration and especially in the countries
of the Middle East, particularly in Yemen, Iraq and Libya where the Jews
carried out bombings in Jewish districts to arouse terror, and hence demand
from them to immigrate to Palestine to rid themselves of terrorism, which
shapes an understanding of the roots of Zionist terrorism since the first of
the last century where they killed their fellow countrymen to force them to go
to Palestine.      

Second: the decrease of the number of immigrants
during the next three years 1952-1945 because of the economic crisis that
erupted in the country, caused by the increase of the number of immigrants and
the outbreak of unemployment. 

Third: continuity of immigration redoubled, compared
with the previous period during the three years (1955-1957) and its connection
with Hungarian events and the economic status in the country because of the
tripartite attack on Egypt and Gaza Strip.

Fourth: the obvious decrease of the number of
immigrants after 1957 as a result of the cessation of immigration from north
Africa and Egypt, where the Arab governments in Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt
encouraged the Jews to stay in the country through providing favorable living
conditions and security, especially after the Anglo-French Attack on the Suez
Canal, which has put an end to the Zionist agents and the terrorist acts they
executed.

Fifth:
the increase of the number of immigrants from 1961 until their rate reached 50
000 immigrants annually, which happened during the years from 1961 to 1965.

Based
on an Israeli source, namely the statistical Abstract of Israel, No.45(1994),p.43,  the following table clarifies the
numbers and the percent of immigrants to Palestine depending on the continent
of birth, 1882-1993 (percentages):

This table illustrates the continuation of the surge
of the Jewish immigration from different continents and demonstrates the
gradual rise of the number of immigrants since the beginning of the twentieth
century, where the number of immigrants did not exceed 55000 immigrants then we
find it escalating in 1955 to 166000 immigrants, then in 1990 to 199000
immigrants. This rising wave of the Jewish immigration to Palestine had toppled
the balance of power and deepened the disparities in Palestine between the
intruders and the genuine landowners, where it had imposed a Jewish prevalence
and consequently their mastery over Palestine.

The following table, taken from the general Israeli
guide – Palestinian Studies institute, Mahmmoud Miaary, population composition
p. 37-89 – shows that the Jews who were born outside Palestine formed the
majority of the Jews of Israel until the beginning of the seventies. Then the
percent of the Jews born in Israel or Palestine before 1948 began to increase,
thus composing the majority of the Jewish population of Israel (60.9% in 1993).

The inhabitants of Israel
based on the

country of origin

In this study ascribed to the previously stated
source, it becomes evident that the Israeli community is a community of
immigrants or settlers, where 39.1% from the Jewish inhabitants are still born
in places outside the country and 37.1% are born inside the country (Palestine
or Israel) but their fathers are born outside. And that 23.8% only from the
Jewish inhabitants and their fathers are born inside the country. The Jewish
population has grown fast, thus it has multiplied six-fold since the
establishment of Israel on 15^th May 1948 until the end of the year
1993. The scale of immigration, has generally contributed to half of the
population growth and the natural growth in the other half. The Palestinians in
Israel, excepting the inhabitants of Al-Qods, constitute 15.4% from the total
population. The Arab population has succeeded to preserve their proportion in spite
of the intensified Jewish immigration, through natural population growth whose
percent amounts to approximately double the percent of the natural growth of
the Jews. According to “the country of origin”, defined by the Israeli
statistics, i.e. based on the birthplace of the person or the birthplace of his
father, the Jewish inhabitants in Israel are divided into three main ethnic
groups:

1-Western Jews (or from western origins), born in
Europe – America.

2-Native-born Jews, of foreign-born fathers in Europe
– America.

3-Eastern Jews (or from eastern origins): born in Asia
– Africa – and native-born Jews, descendants of foreign-born fathers in Asia –
Africa.

In addition to all these figures related to
immigration to Palestine, the immigration of the Russian Jews from the former
Soviet Union is remarkable, for these immigrants to the occupied Palestinian
territories make up 10% from the total inhabitants therein, and their influence
and power steadily increase in the political life since the big immigration,
that carried the biggest number of them to Israel at the late eighties and the
earliest nineties. During four years (1990-1993), more than half a million
citizens immigrated from the former Soviet Union to Israel, which led to 10%
increase of its population. The majority among the adult immigrants were Soviet
university or technological academies graduates, also the major class among
them were engineers and architects. Many sources document this immigration
like, American Sephardi Federation, Jewish Agency for Israel and Center Bureau
of Statistics;
also, Ahmad Khalifah – “The Russian immigrants in Israel”, Palestinian studies
magazine, issue 38, spring 1999, p. 80 & 124. The following table
summarizes the details certified by these sources:

Immigration
to Israel from the former Soviet Union

After viewing all these figures, statistics and facts,
it is now crystal-clear that the Israelis were never the owners of the
Palestinian land, they are only colonizers who were backed by some subjugating
forces to control the destines of the Palestinian people and turn their life
into the hell we see today. It is noteworthy that the memory of the Muslim Arab
populations needs none of these figures or data to realize that the Zionists
are intruders, because the history of all Arab countries is common since
ancient times. The sad reality is that the true landowners live under the
pressure of the mightiest power in the world, to the extent that anyone who
defends his country – Palestine - is labeled as a “Terrorist”. They
paradoxically regard the daily slaughtering from which the Palestinians suffer
as a defense of Israel when in reality is only an imperialist power. Values and
standards are reversed to the extent that some people in the world defend the
colonizers and usurpers against their victims whose lands are usurped forcibly
and coercively by the power of arms. This biggest immigration in the history of
humanity towards Palestine has clearly shown that the inhabitants of what is
known today as Israel are aliens to the Arabic Palestine. Huge numbers of Jews
have occupied the small lands of Palestine, so where did the remaining
surviving Palestinians go after this extensive immigration to Palestine? Where
did the true owners of the lands seek refuge after the foreign usurpers have
occupied their land?