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To: Haim R. Branisteanu who wrote (122107)	9/15/2001 11:57:27 AM
From: Moominoid	Respond to of 436258

David the numbers are incorrect. It does not account for the Jews IN Tzfat, Tiberias, Hebron or even Yaffa and other places, were another 10,000 to 20,000 Jews lived Again, I can check, but I'd be surprised if the TOTAL population of Jerusalem was much more than 20,000 in 1880, the date I cited. There are about that number inside the Old City walls today. Again I can look up the data. Further in the calculation one must substract the contingent Turkish Army and their families and the Turkish bureaucrats which counted for an additional 20,000 to 40,000. It is important to remember Turks are not Arabs. Yes I didn't say that the 180,000 non-Jews were Arabs or Muslims. I just said there were 20,000 Jews. There is reputed to have been continuous Jewish settlement at Bukeia or Peki'in (I know you know this but for thread benefit) which is a village in Upper Galillee even during the time of the crusades. Again, whatever the exact numbers I agree with that article's view that strong Arab immigration into Palestine took place together with the strong Jewish immigration from the late 19th century onwards. not to mention neighboring cities as Alexandria in Egypt and other cities in what is now Lebanon and Syria. Sure that is true - even in the 1980s there were still one or two old Jews in places like Deir Al Qamar in Lebanon apart from the main community in Beirut. There are no hard statistics that we can relay on but since ancient times what is now part of Lebanon, Jordan, Israel and Sinai Peninsula were transitory territory sparsely populated and a confrontation point between the two populated areas of the Nile valley and the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. Well, all these areas had large fluctuations in population over time including the Nile Valley and Mesopotamian region. The peak population in Canaan-Israel-Palestine was probably just before the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70CE. The city covered two square kilometres at the time and may have had a population of as much as 100,000 - about half the population of Rome at its peak. Jerusalem's water collection aqueduct system reached as far as Hebron 40km away. It didn't get back to that population till the 1940s I think. Projecting off that figure you might have a population of as much as 2 million in Palestine around 70CE. But that is just my own speculation. The Jewish kingdoms were independent during periods when the neighboring powers (Egypt, and the various Mesopotamian powers) were weak. There were other periods when the Levant region was more and less populated over time. As we know some important innovations emerged from that area in ancient times. Under Turkish rule the population had declined to a low point. It was more populous probably under some of the Arab rule periods before. David