In 1920 or thereabouts the population was roughly 80% muslim, 10% jewish, and 10% christian, though there were tiny fractions of others in there as well, figures from memory but will be substantially accurate as per british census ... so muslims were still, after several waves of colonists, in the majority, as i said [and as is well known, Nadine] ... yes, Jerusalem was majority jewish, it was also quite small, twenty thousands or less ... there were two or three other places that were majority jewish as well, all small and all included in the 10% of the census .... should christians have a right of return, sure why not, even agnostics, hell let's all pile into this little sliver of land, it's not like we'd be in the way of any great mines or oil wells or anything
Yishuv - if it means dwelling or settlement then it may be a more general term than i thought, but i read somewhere, and i think on a zionist site, something about an Old Yishuv, which referred to the jewish community that was invited in by the sultan, mid-1500s or so .... whose descendants formed the population of Jerusalem later on, by their own account, and who opposed zionism on religious grounds [because it was supposed to be their god's job to wipe out the pagans, not theirs], and on grounds of pragmatism [because they could see what a ton of shi'ite it would bring down on them] ... [though this latter was not from the zionist site, rather from a quote of some rabbi circa 1880s]
'even more massive Arab immigration' - not by proportion, no ... in absolute numbers in any given year, who knows, but overall the trend was down for the arabs, their percentage of population was steadily eroded, as wave after wave of colonists poured in .... by the last british census [1947?] muslims were down to 60%, jews listed at 30% ... again, these are rough figures from memory, but they'll be close, and they make it clear that in proportion zionist numbers were clearly gaining on the native
In re terrorism - the King David hotel was not blown up by the Mufti, i think he was dead by then ... likely the majority of incidents were caused by arabs, since they formed the majority of population, but i doubt very much that you can document anywhere near your '99%' figure .... neither side has clean hands on the terrorism question [though it is noted that one side refrains from the terrorising use of armoured D9s] ... consistently, all the way through since the brits first kept track of numbers, far more arabs than jews have died in this struggle
In re ethnic cleansing of 1948 - you'll have heard of Plan Dalet, of course, a/k/a What To Do When The Brits Aren't Watching Anymore, it talks of 'enemy population centres' and you know what it means, it means villages ... yes in a few cases, arab communities were asked to stay by authority figures among the jews, and it was well-meant too, near Haifa was one example ... however, in many cases the natives were driven off or became afraid when a few of them were shot, or they heard about Deir Yassin, or like you say, 'most of the rest panicked when the Haganah showed up', a pretty understandable reaction when enemy Men With Guns roll over the hill
That's such a bullshit argument, that people fleeing from war should lose all rights, and it's a cornerstone of the zionist position regarding palestinians .... of course if armed zoroastrians were to invade here in BC i would get my family to a safe location first thing, of freaking course, this would give them no right to my home or business or to anything that is mine ... their declaration of ownership would be based strictly on right of conquest, something that does not belong among the civilised
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