Gość: ralph
IP: 168.103.126.*
05.12.01, 20:09
5
The Seizure of the Land
It is appropriate to review the pervasiveness of this murderous policy and its
consequences. In the territory which came under Israeli occupation after
Partition there were approximately 950,000 Palestinian Arabs. They inhabited
nearly 500 villages and all the major cities, which included Tiberias, Safed,
Nazareth, Shafa Amr, Acre, Haifa, Jaffa, Lydda, Ramle, Jerusalem, Majdal
(Ashqelon), Isdud (Ashdod) and Beersheba.
After less than six months only 138,000 people remained. (Figures vary from
130,000 to 165,000.)The great majority of Palestinians were killed, forcibly
expelled or fled in panic before slaughtering bands of Israeli army units.
Having thus eliminated most of the Palestinian inhabitants from the land of
Palestine, the Israeli government undertook the systematic destruction of their
homes and possessions. Nearly 400 villages and towns were razed to the ground
during 1948 and 1949. More followed in the 1950's.
Moshe Dayan, former Chief of Staff and Minister of Defense, was uninhibited in
his summary of the nature of Zionist colonization before students at the Israel
Institute of Technology (The Techniyon):
"We came here to a country that was populated by Arabs, and we are building
here a Hebrew, Jewish state. Instead of Arab villages, Jewish villages were
established. You do not even know the names of these villages and I do not
blame you, because these geography books no longer exist. Not only the books,
but also the villages do not exist.
"Nahalal was established in place of Mahalul, Gevat in place of Jibta, Sarid in
the place of Hanifas and Kafr Yehoushu'a in the place of Tel Shamam. There is
not a single settlement that was not established in the place of a former Arab
village." [64]
The following table was prepared by Israel Shahak, Chairperson of the Israeli
League for Human and Civil Rights, under the heading " Arab Villages Destroyed
in Israel." [65]
Destruction of Palestinian Arab Villages
Name of the District Number of Villages
Before '48 1988 Destroyed
Jerusalem 33 4 29
Bethlehem 7 0 7
Hebron 16 0 16
Jaffa 23 0 23
Ramle 31 0 31
Lydda 28 0 28
Jenin 8 4 4
Tulkarm 33 12 21
Haifa 43 8 35
Acre 52 32 20
Nazareth 26 20 6
Safad 75 7 68
Tiberias 26 3 23
Bisan 28 0 28
Gaza 46 0 46
Total 475 90 385
Shahak stresses that this documented list is incomplete because it is
impossible to find numerous Arab communities and "tribes." Israeli official
data characterize, for example, 44 Bedouin villages and towns as "tribes," to
reduce, by census contrivance, the number of permanent Palestinian communities.
"Absentee" Property
With the expulsion of the Palestinians and the destruction of their towns and
villages, vast amounts of property were seized under the rubric of
the "Absentee Property Law" (1950).
Until 1947, Jewish land ownership in Palestine was some 6%. By the time the
state was formally established, it had sequestered 90% of the land:
"Of the entire area of the state of Israel only about 300,000 to 400,000 dunums
[67,000-89,000 acres] ...are state domain which the Israeli government took
over from the Mandatory regime [British Mandate] [2%]. The J.N.F. (Jewish
National Fund) and private Jewish owners possess under two million dunums [
10% ]. Almost all the rest [i.e., 88% of the 20,225,000 dunums (4,500,000
acres) within the 1949 armistice lines] belongs in law to Arab owners, many of
whom have left the country." [66]
The value of this stolen property was over $300 million - over thirty years
ago. (Arab League estimates are ten times this amount.) In current dollars,
this figure would have to be quadrupled.
"The U.N. Refugee Office estimated the value of Arab abandoned orchards, trees,
movable and immovable property in the territory under Israeli jurisdiction was
about 118-120 million Pounds Sterling, an average of £130 [$364] per refugee."
[67]
The seizure of Palestinian property was indispensable to make Israel a viable
state. Between 1948 and 1953, 370 Jewish towns and settlements were
established. Three hundred fifty were on "absentee" property. By 1954, some 35%
of Israel's Jews lived on property confiscated from absentees and some 250,000
new immigrants settled in urban areas from which Palestinians had been
expelled. Entire cities had been emptied of Palestinians, such as .Jaffa, Acre,
Lydda, Ramle, Bisan and Majdal (Ashqelon).
This plunder embraced 385 towns and villages in their entirety and large
sections of 94 other cities and towns, containing 25% of all buildings in
Israel. Ten thousand businesses and retail stores were handed over to Jewish
settlers.
From 1948 to 1953 - the period of greatest immigration - the economic
importance to Israel of seized Arab property was decisive. The amount of
cultivatable land seized from Palestinians driven from their country by
massacre was two and one half times the total area of land granted the Zionists
with the end of the mandate.
Virtually all citrus groves of Palestinians were seized - consisting of more
than 240,000 dunums [53,000 acres]. By 1951, 1.25 million boxes of citrus from
seized Arab groves were in Israeli hands - 10% of the country's hard currency
profits from export.
By 1951, 95% of all Israel's olive groves came from seized Palestinian land.
Olive produce from stolen Palestinian groves represented Israel's third largest
export - after citrus and diamonds.
One third of all stone production came from 52 seized Palestinian quarries.
[68]
Zionist mythology includes the claim that Zionist industry, dedication and
skill transformed an otherwise barren desert land, neglected by its primitive
nomadic Arab custodians, into a garden - making the desert bloom. Palestinian
orchards, industry, rolling stock, factories, houses and possessions were
pillaged after slaughtering conquest - the Ship of State a vessel of pirates,
its proper flag a skull and crossbones.
"Judaizing" the Land
The Jewish National Fund secured its first land in 1905. Its objectives were
defined as the acquisition of land "for the purpose of settling Jews on such
lands."[69] In May 1954, the Keren Kayemeth le-Israel, "Perpetual Fund for
Israel," was jncorporated in Israel and acquired all the assets of the Jewish
National Fund.
In November 1961, the J.N.F. and the Israeli government sjgned a covenant based
on legislation adopted in July 1960. It established the Israel Lands
Administration. A uniform policy was legally in force on the 93% of the land in
Israel under the aegis of the state, which was bound by the policies of the
Keren Kayemeth le-Israel and the J.N.F.[69a]
As Prime Minister Levi Eshkol declared to the Knesset (Israelj Parliament) upon
proposing that the state of Israel adopt the J.N.F.'s exclusive land
policies: "The principle established as the basis of the Jewjsh National
Fund ...will be established as a principle applying to state lands." [69b]
The Jewish National Fund is explicit on this point. It declared in J.N.F.
Report 6:
"Following an agreement between the government of Israel and the J.N.F., the
Knesset in 1960 enacted the Basic Law: Israel-Lands whjch gives legal effect to
the ancient tradition of ownership of the land in perpetuity by the Jewish
people - the principle on which the J.N.F. was founded. The same law extends
that principle to the bulk of Israel's state domains." [69c]
Any relationship to this land was governed by the following condition spelled
out in all leases pertaining to property:
"The lessee must be Jewish and must agree to execute all works connected with
the cultivation of the holding only with Jewish labor. " [70]
The consequence is that land cannot be leased to a non-Jew, nor can the lease
be subleased, sold, mortgaged, giv
