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On Fri, 16 Apr 2004 23:45, you wrote:
> ANNOUNCEMENTS and ARTICLES: http://pnews.org/art/art.shtml
>
>
> some were in the middle is the truth. most of the so called peasants are
> from other arab nations, they are not native to that area and this has been
> demonstrated time and time again. they came with the hope of jobs from
> israel. even the arab league admits that.

I believe this here has much more to do with it than unsupported claims:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/5172
Yehoshua Porath:
"Unlike other reviewers I preferred to argue with Mrs. Peters's basic
concepts, explanations, and methods. However, Mr. Sanders's fair-minded
letter requires some comment on demographic issues. As he notes, Mrs.
Peters's claims about Arabs entering Palestine "are impressionistic, and have
no statistical value." Mr. Pipes apparently believes they do but he gives no
specific evidence of a "substantial migration of Arabs to Palestine." "

And:
"It is true nevertheless that during the Mandatory period the Arab population
of the coastal area of Palestine grew faster than it did in other areas. But
this fact does not necessarily prove an Arab immigration into Palestine took
place. More reasonably it confirms the very well-known fact that the coastal
area attracted Arab villagers from the mountainous parts of Palestine who
preferred the economic opportunities in the fast-growing areas of Jaffa and
Haifa to the meager opportunities available in their villages."

And again:
"Contrary to what Mr. Pipes claims, all these developments had almost nothing
to do with the growth of the Jewish National Home. The main foreign factor
that brought them about was the Mandatory government. The Zionist settlers
had a clearly stated policy against using Arab labor or investing in Arab
industries. At the same time, the natural increase in the Palestinian Arab
population I referred to is made clear in the statistical abstracts and
quarterly surveys published by the Mandatory government in the years
following the census of 1931."

I trust Prof Porath because what he talks about are historical details that I
know from my own background in and historical knowledge of Papua New Guinea,
are likely to have existed, in Mandatory Palestine.

> arafat is an egyptian.

That argument is interesting.  His paternal and maternal families were from
Gaza and Jerusalem - he was born in Cairo because his father moved there for
business purposes.  From a purely jus solis citizenship - place of birth
citizenship - point of view, he is Egyptian; from a jus sanguinis citizenship
- citizenship by descent -  point of view, he is solidly Palestinian.

He himself has made his chosen citizenship obvious - he's Palestinian through
and through.

> there are no so called palestinians, with a seperate culture or language or
> government. they are part and parcel with all the surrounding arabs. i am
> willing to bet their parents are first generation in that area. sparse
> population is how that area is discribed in the 1880's.

"sparse population"?  In relation to what?  What are your criteria?  No doubt
Ottoman Palestine in the 18th and early 19th C were fairly sparsely
populated.  From one Palestinian source I read that it had just been subject
to plague.  If so, that would be understandable.

Again, in relation to what?  Ireland during the early 1800s was quite densely
populated.  In relation to that, after the Potato Famine in 1845-1850, it
would've been quite sparsely populated.  Tell me, were the English Absentee
Landlords _the_ First Generation Irish?  (Don't ask that in any downtown
Irish-American pub - I guarantee you that you'll be floored by a haymaker
before you've finished asking it!)

And "culture" - I'm not quite sure where you got that idea from.  A peasant
culture is made up of the people's experiences in that locality, and the
songs, stories, whathaveyou, made up to express that.  In this case, I
confess my ignorance of Palestinian culture, I can only assume - and argue -
that it must necessarily be different from Lebanese culture, and Egyptian
culture, etc, because the environment is not identical, while at the same
time, containing a large degree of similarity because of common features like
religion, etc.  This would explain one of the reasons why Palestinians have
had a hard time in other Arab states.

Shalom
--
Wesley Parish
* * *
Clinersterton beademung - in all of love.  RIP James Blish
* * *
Mau e ki, "He aha te mea nui?"
You ask, "What is the most important thing?"
Maku e ki, "He tangata, he tangata, he tangata."
I reply, "It is people, it is people, it is people."

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