Palestinian loss of land 1946 to 2000...

[Little Star]

The Map: A Palestinian Nation Thwarted & Speaking Truth to Power
By Juan Cole
Jul. 13, 2014

The map is useful and accurate. It begins by showing the British Mandate of Palestine as of the mid-1920s. The British conquered the Ottoman districts that came to be the Mandate during World War I (the Ottoman sultan threw in with Austria and Germany against Britain, France and Russia, mainly out of fear of Russia).

But because of the rise of the League of Nations and the influence of President Woodrow Wilson’s ideas about self-determination, Britain and France could not decently simply make their new, previously Ottoman territories into mere colonies. The League of Nations awarded them “Mandates.” Britain got Palestine, France got Syria (which it made into Syria and Lebanon), Britain got Iraq.
http://www.juancole.com/2014/07/palestinian-thwarted-speaking.html

[elleng]

1. This is impressive.

A DUer said, some days ago, that it has been 'debunked.'

[Little Star]

2. For now I think I'll trust Juan Cole.

[elleng]

3. Yes.

[4now]

4. Who wouldn't fight back

against that happening to their land?

[Little Star]

5. Seems to me like they are given no other choice.

[JDPriestly]

54. Palestine shrunk because of the fighting.

They should get more serious about peace. They have won only misery by fighting.

[Ultra_Blue]

56. They are one in a very long line of claimants it seems...

[malthaussen]

6. Eh, there has never been a time when Palestine has been state.

And incidentally, who was it that started the war after the state of Israel was proclaimed by the UN? And further incidentally, can we think of many countries where the land hasn't been wrested with violence from the people living on it at the time? Including our own? Yet further incidentally, which countries still refuse to recognize the State of Israel? Yet even further incidentally, who was it that fled the State of Israel with the intention of coming back in arms and annihilating the population? ("Drive them into the sea," I believe the rhetoric went)

I'm no longer as big a fan of Israel as I once was -- I tend to find fascism a downer -- but I do still find it intriguing that citizens of countries drenched in genocide are so quick to insist that different rules should apply to Israel. Ah, but of course -- that was then, this is now.

-- Mal

[questionseverything]

11. who started it?

King David Hotel bombing
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
King David Hotel Bombing
Part of Jewish insurgency in Palestine
KD 1946.JPG
The hotel after the bombing
Location Jerusalem, Mandatory Palestine
Date July 22, 1946
12:37pm (UTC+2)
Target King David Hotel
Attack type
Bombing
Deaths 91
Non-fatal injuries
46
Perpetrators Irgun
The King David Hotel bombing was an attack carried out on Monday July 22, 1946 by the militant right-wing Zionist underground organization, the Irgun, on the British administrative headquarters for Palestine, which was housed in the southern wing[1] of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem.[2][3][4] 91 people of various nationalities were killed and 46 were injured.[5]

The hotel was the site of the central offices of the British Mandatory authorities of Palestine, principally the Secretariat of the Government of Palestine and the Headquarters of the British Forces in Palestine and Transjordan.[5][6] The attack initially had the approval of the Haganah (the principal Jewish paramilitary group in Palestine). It was conceived as a response to Operation Agatha (a series of widespread raids, including one on the Jewish Agency, conducted by the British authorities in the British Mandate of Palestine) and was the deadliest directed at the British during the Mandate era (1920–1948).[5][6] The explosion caused more casualties than any subsequent bombing carried out in the Arab-Israeli conflict.[7]

The Irgun planted a bomb in the basement of the main building of the hotel, whose southern wing[8] housed the Mandate Secretariat and a few offices of the British military headquarters. Warnings were sent by telephone, including one to the hotel's own switchboard, which the hotel staff decided to ignore, but none directly to the British authorities.[6] A possible reason why the warning was ignored was that hoax bomb warnings were rife at the time.[6] From the fact that a bomb search had already been carried out, it appears that a hoax call or tip-off had been received at the hotel earlier that day.[5] Subsequent telephone calls from a concerned Palestine Post staff member and the police caused increasing alarm, and the hotel manager was notified. In the closing minutes before the explosion, he called an unknown British officer, but no evacuation was ordered.[6] The ensuing explosion caused the collapse of the western half of the southern wing of the hotel.[6] Some of the inflicted deaths and injuries occurred in the road outside the hotel and in adjacent buildings.[6] Controversy has arisen over the timing and adequacy of the warnings and the reasons why the hotel was not evacuated.[6]

[malthaussen]

17. My question refers to the war against Israel, not criminal acts.

You'd be better citing Genesis et seq, and the original genocide by which Israel took control of Palestine from the indigenous population.

And since the data cited state that the King David bombing was "conceived as a response to Operation Agatha," wouldn't that push the "start" back to Agatha? But then, surely that would simply lead to an infinite regression, finally ending with "In the Beginning was the Word."

We can argue about whether the UN had any right to declare a State of Israel in Palestine, but once they did, the war which has led to the current unpleasantness is rooted in the desire of the surrounding nations to exterminate said State, and their invasion of it.

-- Mal

[econoclast]

7. Requires a backstory

Very little Jewish land in 1946 because, fir the most part, it was ILLEGAL to sell land or a Jew under the Ottomans.

To have had the portion illustrated under the 1947 UN Partition all Palestinians had to do was sit down, shut up and play nice. But no. They, and their Arab supporters tried to get the whole loaf by force if arms.... 3 times.

And lost most of it. Sad. But ... Their own fault.

[Karmadillo]

14. Or maybe the far more accurate backstory provided by Cole.

http://www.juancole.com/2014/07/palestinian-thwarted-speaking.html

<edit>

The second map shows the United Nations partition plan of 1947, which awarded Jews (who only then owned about 6% of Palestinian land) a substantial state alongside a much reduced Palestine. Although apologists for the Zionist movement say that the Zionists accepted this partition plan and the Arabs rejected it, that is not entirely true. Zionist leader David Ben Gurion noted in his diary when Israel was established that when the US had been formed, no document set out its territorial extent, implying that the same was true of Israel. We know that Ben Gurion was an Israeli expansionist who fully intended to annex more land to Israel, and by 1956 he attempted to add the Sinai and would have liked southern Lebanon. So the Zionist “acceptance” of the UN partition plan did not mean very much beyond a happiness that their initial starting point was much better than their actual land ownership had given them any right to expect.

The third map shows the status quo after the Israeli-Palestinian civil war of 1947-1948. It is not true that the entire Arab League attacked the Jewish community in Palestine or later Israel on behalf of the Palestinians. As Avi Shlaim has shown, Jordan had made an understanding with the Zionist leadership that it would grab the West Bank, and its troops did not mount a campaign in the territory awarded to Israel by the UN. Egypt grabbed Gaza and then tried to grab the Negev Desert, with a few thousand badly trained and equipped troops, but was defeated by the nascent Israeli army. Few other Arab states sent any significant number of troops. The total number of troops on the Arab side actually on the ground was about equal to those of the Zionist forces, and the Zionists had more esprit de corps and better weaponry.

<The nascent Israeli military deliberately pursued a policy of ethnically cleansing non-combatant Palestinians from Israeli-held territory, expelling about 720,000 of them in 1947-48, then locking them outside, bereft of their homes and farms and penniless.

<edit>

There is nothing inaccurate about the maps at all, historically. Goldberg maintained that the Palestinians’ ‘original sin’ was rejecting the 1947 UN partition plan. But since Ben Gurion and other expansionists went on to grab more territory later in history, it is not clear that the Palestinians could have avoided being occupied even if they had given away willingly so much of their country in 1947.

[Indydem]

24. "Their country"?

The "Palestinians" have never HAD a country.

There has never been an independent "Palestine." Ever.

The closes that they have ever come to being an actual state was in 2000.

They flushed that away, and now we are here.

"Their county"? Juan Cole needs a fucking history lesson.

[Karmadillo]

35. Doesn't "their country" refer to the proposed Arab nation in the UN partition? The

article's title, "The Map: A Palestinian Nation Thwarted & Speaking Truth to Power", suggests Cole is well aware the Palestinians have never had a county.

[Indydem]

38. Then why des he keep acting as if they are a real country?

And one that ever had a government or was recognized as one?

Acting as if the "Palestinians" are an invaded people is part of the problem in this whole mess.

[Blue Meany]

53. What makes Israel a "real" country and Palestine

not a "real" country. They were both created by the same mandates, as were Lebanon and iraq. Are none of these nations "real."

But let's stipulate that you are right. Palestine is not a nation, it a territory that has been occupied by Israel for decades, and is under its de-facto control. It has, in effect, been incorporated into Israel, but its residents have not been given rights of citizenship and have not had their rights under international law protected.

If so, then the ethnic cleansing they have been engaging in--starting with the forced march of thousands of Palestinians off of their land and out of Israeli territory, and all of the subsequent land siezures and acts of oppression--are still war crimes. I don't see how the fact the Palestinians have never been able to function as a nation-state--a reality generated mostly by Israel's own actions--makes any difference.

[sabrina 1]

58. That is a ridiculous right wing argument. No one, by that standard ever had a country. Land was

taken, mostly by invasions and force throughout history then claims were made and 'countries' established. The US is a perfect example. I suppose the Indians 'never had a country' either, by WESTERN COLONIAL standards. But this was there land and we did to them pretty much what Israel is doing to the Palestinians. And who gave these European 'countries' the right to divvy up other people's land? They have a long history of their own wars and then establishing 'countries'.

Imposing Western culture on the whole world was the evil European/Colonialist practice, in the ME, in Africa and HERE.

Go read a history of Colonialism, tribal people didn't live by OUR standards, and looking at the state of the world right now our standards don't seem to be working out very well for ANYONE.

Putting forth the notion that the Colonial European nations had ANY right to land THEY themselves stole by force, is simply ridiculous.

Who do we think we are, really?

[Igel]

45. You're shifting definitions and don't know it.

That means your text is incoherent.

Look, I look at a map of the US. That's "United States land." Right?

Who owns the land? Gee, it's US land, that means the US owns it. Uh, no. It's permitted for foreign nationals to own land in the US.

The partition of Palestine under the UN mandate was in terms of state sovereignty over the territory, legal jurisdiction. No land deeds would have been affected. State-owned land would have gone from "Palestinian" control to Israeli, meaning Jews would have been in control of it through the government.

However, for the most part the "Palestinian controlled" lands weren't controlled by Palestinians. They were controlled by the British. There was no Palestinian state. Even the state lands were of several kinds--that controlled by the local community, waqf, and that owned by the Sultan.

At the onset Jews would have have been a minority. However, in the interim there'd be an influx of Jews that would give them a majority. And it's unheard of for somebody to vote for a person outside of their ethnic group, apparently (we still have that kind of thinking today, and only sometimes call it racist). The main idea was there'd be a territory that would be open to unrestricted Jewish immigration, and the Palestinians (and other Arabs) really disliked that idea.

A chunk of land was nominally owned by Jewish groups before the war. In many cases it had been sold with the intent of deeming the sale illegal and defrauding Jews. Those deeds are deemed binding today.

The real loss of Palestinian land had nothing to do with political sovereignty, which is easy and fairly meaningless if Israel was going to be a democracy. The real loss was when 700k or so Palestinians fled and wound up on the wrong side of the border. Their land was considered forfeit and confiscated by the state.

Even the last map, showing little Palestinian land, has areas where all the land is Palestinian owned shown as "Israeli." Because it's a political map showing political control, not a map showing ownership or population. It's the kind of thing that can change quickly and easily.

[Karmadillo]

51. Cole's text is incoherent, but yours is a model of clear thinking. If you say so.

[rhett o rick]

19. It was "their own fault" is always the justification of bullies. nm

[hack89]

8. Choosing war in 48 obviously was not the wise choice. nt

[Adsos Letter]

12. +1

[Ken Burch]

16. For either side.

The destruction of a town of non-combatants like Deir Yassin was also a bad choice.

[Scootaloo]

25. Sigh.

[hack89]

26. I know you just want to wish it away

But history is history. 48 was the first of many times the Palestinians were stabbed in the back by their Arab brethren. I fully understand that they were pawns caught in the cross fire of bigger powers but they are not innocent victims either.

[Scootaloo]

30. History is indeed history.

And history doesn't line up with the narrative you are trying to sell. Sorry, hack.

[hack89]

46. So let me guess. The Jews were the aggressors attacking the peaceful Arabs

Who wanted nothing more than to live in peaceful coexsistance with their fellow Semites? Is that the proper narrative?

[WatermelonRat]

9. The map is highly misleading.

For starters, if this is referring to land owned by national entities, then the first map should be entirely marked as "British land" and the the third map should have Gaza marked as "Egyptian" and the WB as "Jordanian".

If the map purports to show ethnic ownership, it is still wrong, as huge swaths of map 1 were directly owned by the British as state land (particularly uninhabited parts). Furthermore, map 2 would see little change in the amount of green, as under the partition plan private landowners would retain their property no matter which side of the border they ended up on. There would also still need to be green colored land in Israel to reflect the land owned by Israeli Arabs.

[hack89]

10. The West Bank was not Palestinian before 67

It was part of Jordan - who hated Palestinians and tried to massacre them in 1970.

[Mosby]

13. the map that lies

OK, let's go over this for the thousandth time.

First panel - the "jewish" areas is land that zionists bought, usually for an exorbitant price. The green areas by contrast is where locals lived, including Jews but without deeds etc. Calling it Palestinian land is disingenuous.

Panel two - this one pretty well represents the partition plan before the Palestinians and Arabs started a war of genocide against the Jewish Zionists.

Panel three - this one and the next are the most dishonest, because between 49 and 67 both Jordan and Egypt annexed the west bank and Gaza. So until the Israelis liberated the west bank and Gaza while defending themselves from the Arab states second attempt to commit genocide against the Jews there was no Palestinian land at all, it was Jordanian and Egyptian.

Panel four - this is a map taken from what is referred to as Oslo II, it simply reflects areas a and b where the Palestinians have control. The rest of the west bank (inside the line but shown as white) is still Palestinian land but Israel has military and administrative control.

[Chathamization]

15. This infographic seems a bit better

[Archae]

18. What did these Palestinians do with the land, before 1946?

Easy answer: Nothing.

The Palestinians were driven out of Syria, where they have their roots.

Syria refuses to let them back in, based on what they did in Jordan.

Israel is surrounded by countries that want Israel to be obliterated.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

20. Well that's certainly a familiar argument.

That's pretty much what American 'settlers' said about Native Americans as they exterminated them and drove them off their lands.

That the Indians weren't doing anything with the land, and therefore it should be free for them to grab.

[Karmadillo]

21. Nothing?

http://www.thehypertexts.com/Michelle%20Cohen%20Corasanti.htm

These are the lessons the Holocaust taught me: We must never be bystanders to human suffering. “Never again” means never again for any people ever again. When the horrors of the Holocaust were uncovered, there was a need to find a place for the survivors to go. The west, didn’t want us so they were happy to give us Palestine. And they were happy to buy the fallacy that Palestine was “a land without a people for a people without a land”, and that we made the desert bloom. Let’s be honest, Palestine already had a people, the Palestinians, and the vast majority of whom were not Jewish. Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Acre, Haifa, Nazareth, Jaffa and many more cities were already well-developed. These cities were made of stone and contained universities, hospitals, schools tea houses and hotels. There were trains, sea ports and international trade and travel. The desert we brought to bloom was the land on which we built Tel Aviv in 1909, and that’s it. In 1947, when the UN proposed to partition Palestine into a Jewish and a Palestinian state, the Palestinians objected to the partition plan and instead argued for the creation of a secular democracy where Jews, Christians and Muslims would live together with equal rights. As you know, the west rejected their proposal for democracy.

[7962]

22. Here's Israels loss of land from the thousand years or so prior to '46

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel#mediaviewer/File:Kingdom_of_Israel_1020_map.svg

This Juan Cole map doesnt even show Jordan as part of "Palestine". The Jordanians are always conveniently left out when there is talk of giving land to the Palestinians.

[Indydem]

28. Or 3000.

11th century BCE to 1946 is a lot more than 1000 years.

With that said, I agree with what you are saying.

We should be blaming the Romans for all of this mess.

[7962]

52. Yes.

[MisterP]

23. the map clearly shows they're fighting over theological differences!

honestly, I really don't understand how otherwise-informed people can seriously kick that old can down the road: it's a damn lazy punchline that never should have gotten off the ground in the first place

[killbotfactory]

27. Quibble about the precise details of the map all you want

The map attracted so much ire and controversy not because it is inaccurate but because it clearly shows what has been done to the Palestinians, which the League of Nations had recognized as not far from achieving statehood in its Covenant. Their statehood and their territory has been taken from them, and they have been left stateless, without citizenship and therefore without basic civil and human rights. The map makes it easy to see this process. The map had to be stigmatized and made taboo. But even if that marginalization of an image could be accomplished, the squalid reality of Palestinian statelessness would remain, and the children of Gaza would still be being malnourished by the deliberate Israeli policy of blockading civilians. The map just points to a powerful reality; banishing the map does not change that reality.

http://www.juancole.com/2014/07/palestinian-thwarted-speaking.html

[Indydem]

29. Why don't the "Palestinians" have a state?

Because they won't stop picking a fight with Israel long enough to make a bargain for one. Re: 2000 Camp David Accords.

[killbotfactory]

33. Israel provokes them constantly

Like rounding up 800 palestinians and killing many of them, after the death of 3 teenagers.

If Mississippi officials rounded up 800 black people after 3 white kids got murdered, I would bet you would be justifiably outraged about that.

[Indydem]

36. HA HA HA HA

Your "facts" are horseshit.

They arrested 350 people, and killed 5 who resisted authorities.

Hamas started shooting rockets.

That's the actual timeline.

800? Killed many?

[killbotfactory]

37. Sorry got confused with last nights death count

my apologies

[Douglas Carpenter]

43. The Myth of the Generous Offer: Distorting the Camp David negotiations

The Myth of the Generous Offer
Distorting the Camp David negotiations

By Seth Ackerman

link:

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1113

"The annexations and security arrangements would divide the West Bank into three disconnected cantons. In exchange for taking fertile West Bank lands that happen to contain most of the region’s scarce water aquifers, Israel offered to give up a piece of its own territory in the Negev Desert--about one-tenth the size of the land it would annex--including a former toxic waste dump.

Because of the geographic placement of Israel’s proposed West Bank annexations, Palestinians living in their new “independent state” would be forced to cross Israeli territory every time they traveled or shipped goods from one section of the West Bank to another, and Israel could close those routes at will. Israel would also retain a network of so-called “bypass roads” that would crisscross the Palestinian state while remaining sovereign Israeli territory, further dividing the West Bank.

Israel was also to have kept "security control" for an indefinite period of time over the Jordan Valley, the strip of territory that forms the border between the West Bank and neighboring Jordan. Palestine would not have free access to its own international borders with Jordan and Egypt--putting Palestinian trade, and therefore its economy, at the mercy of the Israeli military.

Had Arafat agreed to these arrangements, the Palestinians would have permanently locked in place many of the worst aspects of the very occupation they were trying to bring to an end. For at Camp David, Israel also demanded that Arafat sign an "end-of-conflict" agreement stating that the decades-old war between Israel and the Palestinians was over and waiving all further claims against Israel"

snip:"In April 2002, the countries of the Arab League--from moderate Jordan to hardline Iraq--unanimously agreed on a Saudi peace plan centering around full peace, recognition and normalization of relations with Israel in exchange for a complete Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders as well as a "just resolution" to the refugee issue. Palestinian negotiator Nabil Sha'ath declared himself "delighted" with the plan. "The proposal constitutes the best terms of reference for our political struggle," he told the Jordan Times (3/28/02)."

read full article:

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1113

[Indydem]

44. Bill Clinton puts the blame on Arafat.

You can quote "Seth Ackerman" (whoever the fuck that is) all you want. I'll take the Democratic President.

[Douglas Carpenter]

48. I don't share your paternalistic view of politicians when it conflicts with the historic record -

Even the former Israeli Foreign Minister Israeli Foreign Minister Schlomo Ben-Ami has said very clearly that he would have rejected the Camp David offer if he had been Palestinian -

It was not until the very final days of the Barak Labor government and under tremendous pressure from President Clinton did the Israeli government get serious about a credible offer.

Unfortunately with Mr. Sharon who was widely expected to win the election pledging that he would not honor the agreement and then Mr. Barak deciding to distance himself from the Taba negotiations, Israel--not the Palestinians unilaterally withdrew from the Taba talks on January 28, 2001. It must be said in fairness that Israel was just a couple weeks away from the election at that point:

Here is a link to the European Union summary document regarding the Taba talks first published in Haaretz on February 14, 2001:

"Moratinos Document" - The peace that nearly was at Taba

"In the current reality of terror attacks and bombing raids, it is hard to remember that Israel and the Palestinians were close to a final-status agreement at Taba only 13 months ago."

By Akiva Eldar

Ha'aretz
14 February 2002

snip" This document, whose main points have been approved by the Taba negotiators as an accurate description of the discussions, casts additional doubts on the prevailing assumption that Ehud Barak "exposed Yasser Arafat's true face." It is true that on most of the issues discussed during that wintry week of negotiations, sizable gaps remain. Yet almost every line is redolent of the effort to find a compromise that would be acceptable to both sides. It is hard to escape the thought that if the negotiations at Camp David six months earlier had been conducted with equal seriousness, the intifada might never have erupted. And perhaps, if Barak had not waited until the final weeks before the election, and had instead sent his senior representatives to that southern hotel earlier, the violence might never have broken out."

link to the rest of Mr. Eldar's analysis as well as complete summary documents known as the "Moratinos Document:

&quot Israeli negotiator Yossi)Beilin stressed that the Taba talks were not halted because they hit a crisis, but rather because of the Israeli election. At the time, the two sides were discussing arranging a Barak-Arafat meeting in an effort to close the gaps; they had also discussed continuing the talks the day after the election, independent of the outcome."

http://prrn.mcgill.ca/prrn/papers/moratinos.html

Here is a neutral and dispassionate examination of what led to the break down at Camp David in 2000 and Taba in January 2001:

Vision of Collision: What Happened at Camp David and Taba" by Professor Jeremy Pressman:

http://www.samed-syr.org/CampDavidAndTaba.pdf

[NutmegYankee]

31. That's the penalty of starting and losing wars.

The Germans would know. Only difference is they finally stopped and made peace.

[Indydem]

40. Spot on.

Excellent point and graphic to hit it home.

[seveneyes]

42. Exactly

Why so many, who should know better, continue to blast Israel for defending themselves against those trying to exterminate them, is beyond belief. Those trying to eliminate Israel can stop anytime.

[killbotfactory]

49. Now justify the expansion of settlements. nt

[NutmegYankee]

50. None would exist if statehood had been accepted decades ago.

But instead it's all or nothing and so far it's been a whole painful lot of nothing. The extremists on the Israeli side really make things suck with their settlements.

[stranger81]

55. Right -- if they had just surrendered all their homes and land immediately,

we wouldn't have had to take it from them piece by piece over the last 70 years.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

32. "History supplies little more than a list of people who have helped themselves to the property of

"History supplies little more than a list of people who have helped themselves to the property of others." - Voltaire

[ErikJ]

34. This is the map that blows my mind

[blkmusclmachine]

39. ,

,

[Botany]

41. That map and the pictures of Israelis cutting down olive groves that had been there for .....

..... generations show that it was not an "empty land" that was built into something good by the Israeli
people.



With every new home built the Israelis push peace further and further away.

[thesquanderer]

47. Good thread. Rec'ing more for the discussion here than the OP. (n/t)

[maced666]

57. As others already pointed out, this 'map' is not useful and not accurate.

For one, the West Bank was not part of an unrecognized at the time Palestine pre-1967. It was part of Jordan.