P F Tinmore
Diamond Member
- Dec 6, 2009
- 79,210
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- #21
Except, Jews have transformed desert into orange groves and microprocessor plants.
Arabs are camel drivers stuck in the 7th century.
A British missionary who lived in Beirut and visited Palestine in 1859 described the southern coastal area as "a very ocean of wheat," and the British Consul in Jerusalem, James Finn, reported that "the fields would do credit to British farming."(5)
The German geographer Alexander Scholch concluded that between 1856 and 1882 "Palestine produced a relatively large agricultural surplus which was marketed in neighboring countries, such as Egypt and Lebanon, and increasingly exported to Europe. These exports included wheat, barley, dura, maise, sesame, olive oil, soap, oranges, vegetables and cotton. Among the European importers of Palestinian produce were France, England, Turkey, Greece, Italy and Malta."(6)
Lawrence Oliphant, who visited Palestine in 1887, wrote that Palestine's Valley of Esdraelon was "a huge green lake of waving wheat, with its village-crowned mounds rising from it like islands; and it presents one of the most striking pictures of luxuriant fertility which it is possible to conceive."(7) This Palestinian wheat had historically played an important part in international commerce. According to Paul Masson, a French economic historian, "wheat shipments from the Palestinian port of Acre had helped to save southern France from famine on numerous occasions in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries."(8)
Agricultural techniques in Palestine, especially in citriculture, were among the most advanced in the world long before the first Zionist settlers came to its shores. In 1856, the American consul in Jerusalem, Henry Gillman, "outlined reasons why orange growers in Florida would find it advantageous to adopt Palestinian techniques of grafting directly onto lemon trees."^ In 1893, the British Consul advised his government of the value of importing "young trees procured from Jaffa" to improve production in Australia and South Africa.(10)
All of this historical evidence from unimpeachable eyewitnesses destroys Israel's contention that it developed Palestine through its colonization. The legend that the Zionists have created, that they made "the desert bloom with roses," is totally without foundation. It is a ploy to gain donations from naive Jews throughout the world and to help extort economic aid from the American Congress. The economic achievements of Israel today are built totally on the capital base of lands, property and possessions usurped from the Palestinian Arabs.
Chapter 2: Encyclopedia of Palestine
Another bogus cut and paste job, doofus?
The Palestine Royal Commission Report presented to the British Cabinet...
The Arab population shows a remarkable increase since 1920, and it has had some share in the increased prosperity of Palestine. Many Arab landowners have benefited from the sale of land [to Jews] and the profitable investment of the purchase money. The fellaheen are better off on the whole than they were in 1920. This Arab progress has been partly due to the import of Jewish capital into Palestine and other factors associated with the growth of the National Home. In particular, the Arabs have benefited from social services which could not have been provided on the existing scale without the revenue obtained from the Jews.
The shortage of land is due less to purchase by Jews than to the increase in the Arab population. The Arab claims that the Jews have obtained too large a proportion of good land cannot be maintained. Much of the land now carrying orange groves was sand dunes or swamps and uncultivated when it was bought. [by Jews]
It is true that the Jews brought in new ideas and new money that was a benefit to the country. This was only part of the prosperity seen by the people. The economy was stagnant under Ottoman rule. Palestine, like the typical 3rd world countries under the rule of outsiders, lived under rules and taxation that inhibited progress. Under the Mandate there was more money and freedom for capital improvements. The Arab part of the economy improved considerably by increasing productivity. Another problem that is common in 3rd world countries is the consolidation of land into the hands of a few. Many Palestinians farmed their ancestral land under the ownership of someone else. Under the Mandate, these farmers were regaining their land leaving the profits in their own hands for reinvestment.
There were many different reasons for the prosperity.