Quite simply and not surprisingly, the findings of the Peel Commission smack of the logic of the imperialist. The displacement, disenfranchisement, and colonization of the native peoples are all moot points so long as the colonialists are better prepared to maximize the value drawn from the land. Perhaps the Zionists did bring with them from Europe more advanced farming methods, but that did not (and does not) entitle them to somebody else's country. This is merely a variation on the old "might makes right" theme with a peculiarly bourgeois element of profit-seeking added into the mix.
The displacement, disenfranchisement, and colonization of the so-called native people claims are utter unfounded claims that are not based on historical analysis or factual events but on speculations and consciously falsification of the Arab-Jewish conflict in the Middle East area. The displacement of the Arab population, who lived at western Palestine, which in that area the Jewish state was declared, was caused mostly by the deceived promises of Arab religious and political leadership in Palestine itself and in the Arab states around it that they should run away for now until the war will end with an Arab victory and the destruction of Israel and then they will be allowed to return to their houses. The promises were, certainly, proven false when Israel won 6 Arab nations at a time and expended their theoretical territory to what we know as pre-67 cease-fire borders.
The Arab population that lived inside theoretical Israeli borders wasn't under a military occupation regime but under regular, civil regime. The Arabs who lived under military occupation regime had suffered a freedom of movement and freedom of property limitation temporally until the year of 1966, when the military occupation regime was revoked. Nevertheless, a disenfranchisement of the Arab population didn't existed and most of them voted to the Israeli Communist Party (M.C.I – Maki), a mixed Arab-Jewish party that exist to this day as a faction in the party of H.D.SH (Hadash).
Colonization of the so-called native people never existed. At some cities, the Jews were the majority since 1850-1869, twenty years to one year before the Zionists started returning their ancestor's homeland. As the Zionists came, they bought land or built on lands that were owned by the Ottoman Empire, illegally. While Colonialism has a certain definition, you choose to ignore the pure fact that Zionism are not, and cannot be considered by definition, to colonialists.
I frequently hear the claim that Britain supported the Zionism and that is prove that Zionists are colonialists. I would like to discuss that issue a little bit. In the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, Nationalism started to spread to the Middle East through French-British imperial-cultural influence on the Ottoman Empire's population, especially the Turks, Arabs, Greeks, Armenians and Jews who started to seek for sovereign, independent political entity which will give them a homeland, most of the people I mentioned wanted to establish their state in their homeland, or their ancestors' homeland: The Jews wanted Judea, which was named Syria-Palastina by the Romans after the oppression of the Jewish rebellion for independence at 135 CE; The Greeks wanted to come back to Greece, as many Greeks did after the successful Greek independent war at 1829; The Arabs wanted every land where their lived, although those land were gained through the Imperialist Islamic conquest from the 7th century to the 13th century CE and the Armenians wanted Armenia. Those nationalist wills made those people riot against the Ottomans, such as the First Arab Great Revolt at 1916–1918 in all of the areas were Arabs were under Ottoman rule. The Armenians were "punished" at their holocaust and the Jews who helped the British Army to defeat the Ottomans through intelligence or actual fighting were executed by the Turks.
As for that, giving a "little" push to the nationalism of the people that lived under your rule will be just more than reasonable act. And, the British helped the Arab nationalism through "punishing" the Zionists, and history reveals that the British actually wanted to create a "Greater Syria" Arab state. As you can read at "Greater Syria: The History of an Ambition" by Daniel Pipes and you can also read in the next article in Ha'arets:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/950373.html which proves that it was Arab Nationalism, not Jewish, that was backed up by the Colonial empires.
You states, in the quote above that "Palestine" was the Palestinian's country, and I would like to note you that Palestinian self determinism was evolved only at 1964 with the foundation of the terrorist-mass-murderer organization, the PLO; The Palestinians are mostly immigrants who came to Palestine at the 18th and the 19th century – especially at the 19th century – as a result of an improvement of work conditions and opportunities at the working market as a result of the Zionist arrival and British land development. The Jews are the ancient inhabits of Palestine and they have lived there consecutively since the early Bible times. Although the vast majority didn't live there since the crusaders, when 50%-60% of the Jews lived in that area, they have a rightful and justified for moral and historical claim and moral claim on the land.
JVL's points about absentee landlordism is centrally relevant, because it disprove and completely contradict the known biased claim of most lands at Palestine were own by Arab-Palestinians, while actually most of the Arabs in or out of Palestine didn't own the land, but most of those who did lived out of Palestine. As for your claims about " exploitive and unequal property", I would like to have an unbiased source about such claims, and a clarification about " unequal property".
The Palestinian nation as a whole didn't existed yet at that time, and the Arabs who lived at Palestine didn't categorized themselves as a nation or a separate ethnic group. The claim about Zionists as hostile foreigners is an example for drastic distortion of factual history about the Jewish-Arab conflict. The Zionists, at the beginning wanted to create an Arab-Jewish federation at Palestine – including Jordan – where Jews and Arab will have a common and united rule but each group will have an autonomous sub-government that will have jurisdiction only in its own region. Even the right – wing Zionists, such as the Revisionists supported such idea and you can read it at Z.J. article "The Gate of Iron". There were even more extreme Zionist factions, such as the Altruist Zionism, that supported full cultural integration with the Arab-Muslims in the Middle East.
It's really painful in my heart to see you are unaware of 1 million Jewish refugees of Arab countries out of 1 million Jews less or more - while the Palestinians had only 700 thousands – that were expelled through pogroms (the pogrom in Cairo, killing 70 Jews is an example), riots and fear of death to the new state of the Jews, after not having one for 2000 years. While these Jews were rehabilitated by Israel itself with no aid, the Arab refugees were oppressed by their Arab brothers for political cause per-se. These population exchanges were not rare at any war, yet, the hypocrisy about the Jewish-Arab conflict is huge, especially when the fingers are always pointed against Israel although it defend and defended its own existence, and for defending your existence you need to use force, a lot of it.
נושא: תגובה אנטי-ישראלית חריפה מאוד שמצאתי (אנגלית) (נקרא 1688 פעמים)