First of all, Palestine is the size of New Jersey so even at a population of 400k, assuming that is right which I doubt, that's a fairly dense population. However, your number at the end of WWI, of whom the vast majority were Arabs, insures that densities were fairly high at least by that time, and suggests that the population was higher than 400k in Palestine during the latter part of the 19th century.
Look, you can argue with the facts all day long. The area normally referred to as "Palestine" is actually somewhat bigger than Vermont, not the size of NJ. And frankly, the population density at the turn of the century was not that different from Vermont's today.
More important, however, is the fact that the area called Palestine was dead. Useless. Only the Zionist movement made it anything.
It was certainly not anyone's "homeland" as we traditionally use the term. There was no organized government. There was no strong commitment to the region. The people who WERE there lived in untenable conditions.
Only after the Jews were given this territory to serve as their homeland, did it become a thriving region of the world. And only then did the Arabs decide it was so damned important.
As for Mark Twain, if he wanted to see more people, he should have gone to the Arab cities of Jaffa, Haifa and Jerusalem.....while they were small, they were considered cities and had rather high density levels.
Twain's remarks are an absolute refutation of what you said. That was the only point of posting them. You were wrong by all accounts. |
