9. The growth of the Arab population in Palestine was, in great measure, a consequence of Arab immigration, attracted to Palestine from the surrounding Arab lands because of the development initiated by the Jews. The British authorities turned a blind eye to this migration, while placing severe restrictions on Jewish immigration into Palestine.
The evidence to corroborate the foregoing statement has been in the public domain for decades, as the information was made available to the League of Nations (LoN) Mandates Commission and recorded officially. Still, even supporters of Israel advocacy have used this information only rarely. The object of this article is (1) to review the evidence and (2) to explain the significance of the point in the context of opposing the creation of a second Palestinian-Arab state.
In using source material for the purpose of this series, I prefer web-based, primary sources, so that readers can verify the information for themselves. In the case of this particular article, primary-source material would have meant the British Mandatory reports which the authorities submitted to the Mandates Commission of the LoN, as well as the complete texts of reports and testimony of the Peel Commission, the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, etc. Unfortunately, most of this material is either not posted at all, or posted by UNISPAL, the UN organ designed to disseminate Palestinian-Arab propaganda. Consequently, the reports UNISPAL posted are truncated, and there is ample evidence that the truncation is tendencious and biassed. For this reason, much of the information cited below comes from the research done by Joan Peters (see complete reference at article’s end).
To begin, let us examine the web-based evidence posted by UNISPAL, restricting our examination to the years 1931-1935.
Throughout the mandate, there was a measure of legal immigration of Arabs which the mandatory authorities included under “non-Jews”. For example, the 1931 submission to the LoN reported that close to a quarter of all immigrants for 1927-1930 were “non-Jews”:
Immigration into Palestine has on the whole remained relatively constant during the past five years. 5,533 immigrants, of whom 4,075 were Jews, received permission to settle in Palestine in 1931. The average for the previous four years is 4,920 (3,771 Jews).
For the period ending in 1947, Joan Peters, p. 255, cites the figure of 27,300 legal non-Jewish immigrants.
Additionally, there was a measure of illegal Arab immigration that even the British were unable to conceal. The mandatory authorities had to provide data on deportations of illegal Arab immigrants, which proved ipso facto that illegal Arab immigration did occur and was known to the British administration. For example, the 1934 British report to the LoN states,
The number of persons deported during the year for immigration offences was 2,407, of whom 772 were Jews.
To put these figures in context, one should recall that (according to Joan Peters), the British went out of their way to encourage illegal Arab immigration, and only used deportations in the most blatant and extreme cases. Hence, the fact that the vast majority of deportees were illegal Arab immigrants tells us more about the extent of this illegal immigration and less about the British efforts to expel the “illegals”.
Third, in questioning the British representatives, the Mandates Commission members who examined the reports exposed the large-scale illegal immigration that took place from Trans-Jordan and Syria (especially, from the Hauran district). For example, the minutes of the June 5, 1935 examination of the British representatives includes these passages:
M. ORTS [one of the Mandates Commission members who examined the British report] wondered whether the free admission of Trans-Jordanians into Palestine did not lead to abuses, since it was a fact that a certain number of Trans-Jordanians remained in the country. He wished to ask whether the Palestine Government could be certain that Arabs entering Palestine through Trans-Jordan (and these need not necessarily be Trans-Jordanian Arabs) did not avail themselves of the privilege accorded to the Trans-Jordanians in order to settle down in Palestine.
...
Lord LUGARD [another Commission member] said that La Syrie had published, on August 12th, 1934, an interview with Tewfik Bey El-Huriani, Governor of the Hauran, who said that in the last few months from 30,000 to 36,000 Hauranese had entered Palestine and settled there. The accredited representative would note the Governor's statement that these Hauranese had actually "settled".
M. ORTS said that the Governor had not said that these people had entered via Trans-Jordan; that allegation was made in Jewish circles. His declaration, however, had caused some excitement among the Jews, who saw in it a proof that the mandatory Power was closing its eyes to the entry of Hauranese, while it severely punished illicit Jewish immigration.
...
Count DE PENHA GARCIA [a third Commission member] observed that... In actual practice, two mandates were being applied, one to Palestine and the other to Trans-Jordan, the latter being comprised in the former; but while Trans-Jordanians might go freely into Palestine, Jews were not allowed to settle in Trans-Jordan. There could be no doubt that quite a large number of Trans-Jordanians did settle in Palestine--this fact was even admitted in paragraph 36, page 110, of the report for 1934. As Arabs entering Palestine from Trans-Jordan did not require passports, this element of immigration could not be properly gauged by the Mandates Commission...
In her monumental work, Since Time Immemorial (1984), , Joan Peters has collected an impressive array of evidence to support the claim about the Arab immigration into “West Palestine” (Israel, Judea, Samaria and Gaza of today) and in particular, about the Arab migration into the areas of prime Jewish settlement. We now turn to a review of this evidence, which is over and above the UNISPAL evidence we have just documented.
1. Evidence from “secret” correspondence of British mandatory officials. As noted, the British authorities in Palestine applied their “best endeavour” in an attempt to conceal the existence and scope of the Arab illegal immigration into Palestine. In secret correspondence, now declassified (and researched by Joan Peters), it appeared that the British officials made numerous references to illegal Arab immigration into Palestine; examples from this correspondence are cited by Peters, pp. 270 - 295.
2. Evidence from the Hope Simpson report. (John Hope Simpson headed yet another British investigation of the Palestinian situation; the inquiry followed the Arab riots of 1929 and the report was released in 1930.) Specifically, Joan Peters, pp. 296-299 cites passages which indicate that the Hope Simpson Commission knew about the illegal Arab immigration into Palestine and even acknowledged the injustice it inflicted on the Jewish population.
3. Evidence from the Peel Commission testimony. (The Peel Commission, another group sent to investigate the Palestinian situation, started its hearing in the midst of the Arab 1936-39 riots; the Peel report was released in 1937.) Pages 302-309 of Joan Peters’ work provide quotation from testimony before the commission, testimony which clearly addresses the issue of Arab illegal immigration.
4. Evidence from a report, entitled Survey of Palestine, by the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry (AACI). (The AACI was constituted in 1945 and reported in 1946 - another British attempt to kill the Jewish National Home by committee.) According to Joan Peters, pp. 377-379, this document confirms that while the British shut the gates of Palestine to Jewish refugees, thus condemning them to the fires of the Nazi death camps, legal and illegal Arab immigrants were pouring into Palestine. (However, the quotations given in Joan Peter’s book are from the complete report, not from the summary version which corresponds to the link I cited above.)
5. Evidence from reports by historians, travellers, diplomats and pilgrims about Palestine from the Arab conquest to the 1880's. These reports, cited on pp. 157-171, and 196-199 indicate that the country was devastated and depopulated during some periods, and re-populated by immigrants from numerous countries at other periods. Throughout, a Jewish population was always present. Villages of Circassians, who were brought to Palestine from the Caucasus by the Ottomans, exist in Israel to this day.
Example of the reports mentioned above are the writings of James Finn and his wife, Elizabeth Finn. (James was the British consul in Jerusalem, 1846-1863; Elizabeth Finn lived with him in Jerusalem throughout this period. Each authored many books.) Joan Peters, pp. 197 quotes James Finn as having said in 1860, “From Haifa I learn the arrival of about 6,000 of the Beni Sukhr Arabs at Tiberias...”, “I have omitted to mention the increase of Mahometan agriculturalists and pastoral Arabs from countries of Barbary...”, “The Plain of Esdraelon is full of Turkoman Bedouins...”.
6. Evidence from the 1931 Census of Palestine. On p. 226-229, Joan Peters presents the list of birthplaces and “Languages of habitual use” for the 1931 population of Palestine by religion. Muslims show 27 birthplace caterories (in addition to Palestine), including Syria, Transjordan, Egypt, Hejaz (Arabia), Iraq, Yemen, Algeria, Morocco, Tunis, Albania and Persia (Iran). The list of languages includes 22 categories (in addition to Arabic), including Albanian, Bosnian, Circassian, Hindustani, Kurdis, Persian and Turkish.
7. Studies by geographers and other academics concerning the birthplace of the population in selected Arab villages. Joan Peters (pp. 263-267) quotes several academics who conducted such studies: Prof. Moshe Braver’s 1968 study of 200 villages in Israel is an example. This and other studies quoted confirm the existence of a large population whose birthplace was Egypt and Syria.
8. Demographic evidence. The foregoing evidence is qualitative in nature and may be dismissed by some as being anecdotal. But Joan Peters also provides one attempt to quantified the impact of the Arab immigration.
The pertinent demographic calculation analyses the 1882-1895 population change in Palestine, i.e., the 13-year growth of the settled Moslem population in the area of today’s Israel plus “Yesha”. The change is from 141,000 “settled Moslems” to 252,000, and the increase, 111,000. The upper limit of possible natural increase in the late 19th Century could not exceed 1.5%, and if this rate is applied to the 1882 base population, then the expected number in 1895 would be 170,000 as an upper limit. This leaves the conclusion that some 82,000 persons out of the 111,000, or about 74% of the increase, are due to immigration, including the children borne to the immigrants. The period 1882-1895 coincides with the beginning of the large-scale Jewish immigration to Palestine and the calculation presented is consistent with the assertion that the Palestinian Arabs are recent immigrants and not the indigenous population “since time immemorial”.
Why is all this so important? Some readers have e-mailed me to say, “all your arguments [meaning the first eight presented in previous articles] have to do with the past; the fact is that the Arabs are now here, in Palestine, regardless of how they arrived”. This line of argument, based on the current realities of the Mideast, will be dealt with in subsequent articles. The object of the first ring of nine articles was to underscore that the Palestinian-Arab argument about their rights to the land, about the Jews being newcomers and usurpers, and about justice to the indigenous population, are ill founded arguments.
Reference:
Peters, Joan. From Time Immemorial. New York: Harpers and Row, 1984.
dawsonspeek.com |
