|
Sir,
I would like
to respond to SAB’s
letter “Israel’s
destruction no solution to Palestinian issue”, and Matthai Varkki’s letter “Why
this venom towards Israel?”.
I do not
know where SAB is getting his information from, but he really should get his
facts straight. He states :” Israel was created in an area of the Middle East
that already had a clear Jewish majority living in it.” Let me give him the
population figures at the time of partition according to the Supplement to a
Survey of Palestine (Jerusalem: Government Printer, June 1947), subsequently
published as United Nations map no. 93(b) in August 1950, which speak for
themselves.
Distribution
of population by subdistrict, with percentages of Jews and Palestinians, 1946:
|
Subdistrict |
Jews |
Palestinians |
|
|
in %
of population |
|
Acre |
4 |
96 |
|
Safed |
13 |
87 |
|
Haifa |
47 |
53 |
|
Nazareth |
16 |
84 |
|
Tiberias |
33 |
67 |
|
Beisan |
30 |
70 |
|
Jenin |
0 |
100 |
|
Tulkarm |
17 |
83 |
|
Nablus |
0 |
100 |
|
Jaffa |
71 |
29 |
|
Ramallah |
0 |
100 |
|
Ramleh |
22 |
78 |
|
Jerusalem |
38 |
62 |
|
Gaza |
2 |
98 |
|
Hebron |
less
than 1 |
99+ |
|
Beersheba |
less
than 1 |
99+ |
|
Bedouins in the Negev |
|
100 |
On 29
November 1947, the partition plan was passed by the UN General Assembly without
the vote of Arab delegates, who had walked out in protest. So the “signing of a
pen” happened without the agreement of the very people who were to be affected
most. The partition plan allocated 47% of the land to the 70% Palestinian
population who owned 90% of the land.
Before the
1948-49 war, in the territories that had come under Israeli rule including the
occupied territories at the end of that war, some 900’000 Palestinian Arabs
lived. Of these, only 150’000 remained after.
The
depopulation (read ‘ethnic cleansing’) of Palestinian villages within
territories given to Israel by the partition, was carried out in four waves from
December 1947 to November 1948 (Benny Morris: “The Birth of the Palestinian
Refugee Problem 1947-1949”. Cambridge University Press, 1987). According to a
later study by Walid Khalidi (“All That Remains: the Palestinian Villages
Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948”, Institute for Palestine Studies,
Washington, D.C., 1992), as well as the latest and most comprehensive study by
Dr. Salman Abu Sitta (Palestinian Right to Return. 2nd rev. ed. 1999.
London: The Palestinian Return Centre) 531 villages had been ‘depopulated’.
In fact, all
1948 Palestinian Arab refugees and internally displaced persons are legislated
in Israel as ‘absentees’ through the Absentees’ Property Law of 1950. All of the
approx. 4 million 1948 Palestinian refugees outside the ‘Green Line’ today have
been denied all rights to Israeli citizenship, the right to their lands and
properties in Israel. There are about 250’000 internally displaced Palestinian
Arabs, living in Israel, who are called ‘present absentees’ [this absurdest of
terms deserves a medal!] inside of Israel are likewise denied all rights to
their pre-1948 properties inside Israel.
None of the
Palestinian refugees, inside or outside of Israel has ever received any
compensation for property lost, including orchards, trees, movable and immovable
property. The estimates of the value of such property by the UN Refugee Office
in late 1950 amount to 118-120 billion Pounds Sterling. To illustrate the
importance of the ‘lost’ Palestinian property rights: In 1949, olive produce
from Palestinian Arab groves ‘taken over’ by Israel was Israel’s third largest
export, ranking after citrus and diamonds.
In
crass contrast to the treatment of the Palestinian Arab refugees, the 8500
illegal Israeli settles who where removed from the Gaza strip in September 2005
were compensated with hundreds of thousands of US Dollars (USD 150’000-400’000
per family) and were given a bonus of USD 30’000 if they would [illegally!]
resettle in the West Bank.
Both letter
writers depict Israel as a true western-style democracy. This may look so on
first glance. The fact is that Palestinian Arabs and all other non-Jewish
citizens of Israel are excluded by law
from the development and settlement of the country via a unique two-tier legal
system. In the absence of a constitution, this system has given all legislation
and implementation thereof in the area of immigration, settlement and land
development into the hands of two ‘NGOs’, the World Zionist Organisation and the
Jewish Agency with the “WZO/JA for the Land of Israel (Status) Law, 1952”. These
two special organisations are strictly for Jews only, thus excluding
Palestinians and other non-Jewish citizens from benefitting from their
programmes and policies. These two organisations are fully in charge of all
Israeli government land, as well as the land disappropriated from Palestinians
(e.g. all the land taken from the West Bank to build the Separation Wall). For a
better and detailed understanding of the two-tiered legal system of Israel and
it’s impact on the citizens please refer to Dr. Uri Davis’ Apartheid Israel:
Possibilities for the Struggle Within. London: Zed Books, 2003.
The
statement: ”There is an active and progressive Supreme Court who forwards the
causes of equal rights and human rights for all Israelis. It is one of the few
courts in the world to declare illegal all forms of torture including non-lethal
torture as was used in Gitmo and Abu Gharib by the Americans” is grossly
misleading as well. Just to give one example of how Israel is guarding Human
Rights:
According to
documentation collected by ‘Defence for Children International/Palestine Section
(DCI/PS)’, at least 720 Palestinian children have been killed since the start of
the Second Intifada and hundreds more left permanently disabled by injuries they
sustained at the hands of the Israeli military. In the past five years, over
3,000 children have been arrested by Israeli forces and some 300 remain
incarcerated – the majority held in prisons inside Israel in direct
contravention of international law. Since the Intifada began, education in the
OPT has become a daily struggle rather than a basic right. Israeli policies such
as curfews and closures as well as military bombardments have systematically
targeted the Palestinian education system, forcing children across the West Bank
and Gaza to miss hundreds of school days. Such actions not only disrupt the
lives of students but have a devastating impact on the future development of
Palestinian society as a whole.
There seems
to be a correlation between international pressure on Israel and the withdrawal
of the illegal Israeli settlers in Gaza and from some insignificant illegal
settlements in the West Bank. These ‘concessions’ were made in the face of
strengthening calls among Palestinians for a one-state solution, in the face of
a “viable Palestinian state” all but disappearing through further annexation of
Palestinian land and accelerated growth and construction of illegal (according
to international law) Israeli settlements in the West Bank. This one-state
solution would result in one country Palestine/Israel, which then would loose
its exclusive ‘Jewish character’ and could be a truly democratic state on the
basis of ‘one man/woman, one vote’, with a constitution based on human rights,
as has happed in South-Africa. |
Newer
Back