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Posted by Fred Schlomka on July 9, 2008 #45337 Christian Democrat - I'd hardly call Palestine/Israel a safe place. It seems you didn't get my point. By 'sharing the land' I refer to democratic political institutions, not the actual land ownership which should of course be retained by it's rightful owners, or they should be appropriately compensated for confiscated land. The plunder of Native Americans' land was much worse in many ways than the dismemberment of Palestine, since the North Americans were completely overwhelmed my sheer numbers of Europeans. Here in Palestine of course we almost have demographic parity. However despite the issues of restitution, return, compensation etc - democracy will need to prevail. There is no successful democratic state that is defined by a single ethnic or religious group. We certainly shouldn't replace the Zionist ethnocracy with a Muslim or Palestinian Ethnocracy.

Posted by Christian Democrat on April 29, 2008 #36286 You're right Fred Schlomka. I'm glad we made Native Americans "share" their land at the end of a bayonette. It's easy to say things from the comfort of a safe place when you have millions of ignorant southern Evangelical Christians who believe the Jews are God's "chosen people" instead of a people who lump Protestant Christian Arabs with Muslim Arabs when carpet bombing refugee camps. But hey, you've got to crack a few eggs to make an omelette, right?

Posted by Fred Schlomka on March 2, 2008 #30290 It is perhaps unfortunate that both Jews and Palestinian Arabs seem to equate ownership with sovereignty. In modern democracies, ownership of land by different ethnic/religious groups is largely separate from the sovereignty over the land which is a civic and secular matter. Justice and restitution for Palestinians who lost their land in 1948 is, of course, an inalienable right. However claims of sovereignty based on land ownership need to be tempered with some good democratic notions of sharing the land based on civic and political equality.

Posted by robert on December 3, 2007 #24573 You wouldn't have an updated map handy would you?

Posted by ksdrover on December 2, 2007 #24547 I find the date that this was posted rather curious. The next day the zionist worldwide would begin their attempt to conquer not only Palestine but the entire world. Zionism is part of the racist ideology and not limited to religion or political affiliation.

Posted by Ans on December 2, 2007 #24545 Shameful that UN, US, UK,France just to name a frew, with powerplay created this mess and put the Palestinian in the verge of being wiped out.

Posted by Fuad Massad on March 13, 2007 #14377 In a UNCCP document dated July 4, 1947, oral evidence were presented at a public meeting were Ben-Gurion was present. Ben-Gurion was discussing the ؟disparities between Jews and Arabs؟ in Palestine. He stated: ؟I shall mention only a few [referring to the disparities between Arabs and Jews]. There is the disparity in numbers. There are some 600,000 Jews in Palestine and some 1,100,000 Arabs. There are no reliable figures in this respect. There is an even greater disparity than that. The Arabs own 94% of the land, the Jews only 6%. The Arabs have seven States, the Jews none. The Arabs have vast underdeveloped territories-Iraq alone is three times as large as England؟؟ So, Ben-Gurion himself admitted that the Arabs of Palestine owned 94 percent of the land while the Jews owned 6 percent of it, according to this UNCCP document. http://unispal.un.org/unispal.nsf/0/7735b7dc144807b985256e8b006f4a71?OpenDocument

Posted by Fuad Massad on March 8, 2007 #14300 UN document dated 3 September 1947 the Report of the General assembly was discussing several issues relating to the Palestine question such as the elements of the conflict, religious sites, and different proposed solutions. Among the issues discussed was ؟the conflicting claims؟ in which both the Arab and the Jewish claim to the issue is presented, followed by an appraisal by the U.N. expressing it؟s opinion and analysis of each claim. Under the appraisal of the Arab claim Paragraph 164 the following is stated: "The Arab population, despite the strenuous efforts of Jews to acquire land in Palestine, at present remains in possession of approximately 85 per cent of the land. The provisions of the land transfer regulations of 1940, which gave effect to the 1939 White Paper policy, have severely restricted the Jewish efforts to acquire new land." http://unispal.un.org/unispal.nsf/0/07175de9fa2de563852568d3006e10f3?OpenDocument

Posted by Fuad Massad on March 5, 2007 #14253 In a UN document dated 16 June 1947, Annex B: Oral Evidence Presented by the Private Meetings RECORD OF THE SIXTH MEETING (PRIVATE) Held at the Y.M.C.A. Building, Jerusalem, Palestine, Monday, 16 June 1947, at 4 p.m., Mr.Blom from Holland asked about public ownership in Palestine; Sir Henry GURNEY answered: "The Government of Palestine took over from the Turkish Administration what was state domain؟it belonged to the sovereignty of Turkey. I think the present area of state domain is just over a million dunums." In other words, of Palestine's total area of about 26,300,000, only about 1 million was state land according to this UN private meeting

Posted by Fuad Massad on March 5, 2007 #14252 According to the Progress Report of the UNCCP 20 November 1951: "The total extent of the abandoned land which has passed to Jewish hands is estimated by the Commission's Refugee Office at 16,324 square kilometres and its total value at £P 100 million." Concerning the Negev: "In the Negev, 12,138 square kilometres have changed hands[land formely held by Arabs, now by jews], of which 10,303 square kilometres are uncultivable and 1,835 square kilometres are cultivable" http://unispal.un.org/unispal.nsf/0/61201e86bc8189f485256102005a8eab?OpenDocument

Posted by Fuad Massad on February 19, 2007 #13982 The British Mandate records afferm that 12,600,000 Dunums of Negev land belonged to the Bedouins. (Mandate records 1937. See Penny Maddrell, The Beduin of the Negev, Minority Rights Group, Report no.81 (1990) p.5)

Posted by Fuad Massad on February 17, 2007 #13925 According to this U.N. document, paragraph 15: http://unispal.un.org/unispal.nsf/0/e11790721615c5aa052565f600543580?OpenDocument the link shows that although only around 2 million dunums of the Negev was considered fit for cultivation, the other unfit for cultivation 10 million dunums wad owned by arabs.

Posted by Fuad Massad on February 17, 2007 #13924 ؟The CCP Refugee Office estimated that although only a little more than a quarter was considered cultivable, more than 80 percent of Israel's total area of 20,850 km.sq. represented land abandoned by the Arab refugees. Three-quarters of the former Arab land was sub-marginal land or semi-desert in the Negeb." Subcommittee 2 of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Palestine Question stated in its report to the United Nations General Assembly the following: Closely connected with the distribution of population is the factor of land ownership in the proposed Jewish State. The bulk of the land in the Arab State, as well as in the proposed Jewish State, is owned and possessed by Arabs. This is clear from the following statistics furnished to the Sub-Committee by the United Kingdom representative, showing the respective percentages of Arab and Jewish ownership of land in the various sub-districts of Palestine.

Posted by Fuad Massad on February 17, 2007 #13922 According to the above table scanned directly from the Survey of Palestine, Arab land ownership was 94.22%; in other words, the Negev area (which some claim was state land) was actually owned by arabs it is almost 50% of Palestine. Also, "The Custodian of Absentee Property does not choose to discuss politics. But when asked how much of the land of the state of Israel might potentially have two claimants - an Arab and a Jew holding respectively a British Mandate and an Israeli deed to the same property - Mr. Manor [the Custodian in 1980] believes that 'about 70 percent' might fall into that category (Robert Fisk, 'The Land of Palestine, Part Eight: The Custodian of Absentee Property', The Times, 24 December, 1980)؟