THE HANDSTAND

 DECEMBER2010

 

Survey of Palestine refutes "land without people" myth. Palestinians made the desert bloom

http://www.uruknet.de/?s1=1&p=71231&s2=28

1948 Lest We Forget has obtained a copy of the full Survey of Palestine (Including the map survey) for its records. The following outline extracts shed more light on the Zionist lies about Palestine being "a land without people…." We recommend that Survey to all our Supporters.

By Antoine Raffoul, Coordinator

1948: LEST WE FORGET

http://www.1948.org.uk

In December 1945 and January 1946, the British Mandate authorities carried out an extensive survey of Palestine , in support of the work of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine. The results were published in the Survey of Palestine, which has been scanned and made available online by Palestine Remembered; all 1300 pages can be read here.

 

One of the subjects investigated in the Survey of Palestine is land use; specifically, which crops were Palestine's leading agricultural products at the end of the British Mandate, and whose farms were producing them.

 

So, according to the Survey of Palestine, who really made the barley fields of Beersheba bloom?

 

The British government survey found that in 1944-45 Palestinian farmers produced approximately 210,000 tons of grain.

 

About 193,400 tons of that grain were cultivated on Palestinian farms; about 16,600 tons were cultivated on Jewish farms. ...

 

The British government survey found that in 1944-45 Palestinian farmers produced approximately 143,000 tons of melons.

 

About 136,000 tons of those melons were cultivated on Palestinian farms; a little over 7,000 tons were cultivated on Jewish farms. ...

 

The British government survey found that in 1944-45 Palestinian farmers produced approximately 1,683 tons of tobacco, on 28,169 dunams of land. Virtually all the land under tobacco cultivation was Palestinian.

 

Who made the vineyards of Hebron bloom?

 

The British government survey found that in 1944-45 Palestines farmers produced approximately 40-50,000 tons of grapes, and between 3-4 million litres of wine. About 86% of the land that produced these products was owned and cultivated by Palestinians. ...

 

The British government survey found that in 1944-45 Palestinian farmers produced approximately 79,000 tons of olives.

 

About 78,000 tons of those olives were cultivated on Palestinian farms; a little over 1,000 tons were cultivated on Jewish farms. ...

 

The British government survey found that in 1944-45 Palestinian farmers produced approximately 8,000 tons of bananas.

 

About 60% of the land that produced these bananas was owned and cultivated by Palestinians. ...

 

The British government survey found that in 1944-45 Palestines farmers produced approximately 245,000 tons of vegetables.

 

About 189,000 tons of those vegetables were cultivated by Palestinian farmers; about 56,000 tons were cultivated by Jewish farmers. ...

 

So, on the eve of the partition resolution, in which the United Nations proposed to allocate 55 percent of the land to Jewish Palestine (including those parts that produced most of Palestine's leading crops, with the sole exception of the olive crop), and 45% to Arab Palestine, Palestinian Arabs were producing:

 

92% of Palestine grain

86% of its grapes

99% of its olives

77 % of its vegetables

95% of its melons

more than 99% of its tobacco

and 60% of its bananas.

 

Palestine's agricultural produce at that time had an annual value of approximately 21.8 million pounds sterling; 17.1 million of which was produced by Arab cultivation, and 4.7 million by Jewish cultivation. (as seen in below table). ...

 

So, who made the desert bloom? The Palestinians made the desert bloom.

 

Photos: All the photographs of Palestinian farmers cultivating their crops in Palestine under the British Mandate are from Before Their Diaspora: A Photographic History Of The Palestinians 1876 – 1948, by Walid Khalidi.


US report: Religious coercion, violence in Israel rising

 

State Department's annual International Religious Freedom Report points to strict conversion policy, segregated bus lines, violent haredi protests in Jewish state

 

Kobi Nahshoni

 

Published:

 

11.19.10, 07:58 / Israel Jewish Scene    

 

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3986722,00.html

 

The past year has seen a significant rise in religious coercion and violence on a religious background in Israel, a US State Department report on religious freedom issued on Wednesday stated. The report surveys religious freedom parameters in some 200 countries around the world and devotes a 29-page chapter to Israel.

 

The report states that "approximately 360,000 citizens who immigrated from the former-Soviet Union under the Law of Return but are not considered Jewish by the Orthodox Rabbinate, cannot be buried in Jewish cemeteries, divorce, or marry within the country."

 

It also noted that most of the Jews in Israel are not religious-Orthodox and oppose the Orthodox establishment's control of crucial aspects of their lives.

 

The report also mentiones the High Rabbinical Court's 2009 ruling which cast a doubt on 40,000 conversions performed by the state.

 

According to the report, there has been a significant rise in hostility manifestations between secular Jews and religious Jews in the past year and pointed to violent haredi demonstrations involving vandalism and violence towards police officers.

 

Inter-religious conflicts are also mentioned: "There were reports on haredi Jews insulting and spitting at priests and nuns, and defacing with graffiti and throwing garbage and dead cats at monasteries in Jerusalem."

 

In the field of religious coercion, the report pointed to the separation between men and women in services in the Western Wall and the operation of the ultra-Orthodox chastity squads.

 

Segregated bus lines

 

The State Department also reported that the "public transportation company, Egged, continued to operate some sex-segregated buses along inter-and intra-city routes frequented by ultra-Orthodox Jews" and noted that "women who refused to sit at the back of such buses risked harassment and physical assault by male passengers."

 

The report states that "ultra-Orthodox groups that proselytize secular Jews, encouraging them to adopt ultra-Orthodox practices and beliefs, enjoyed government funding." On the other hand, it was also noted that the Supreme Court continued to issue rulings based on freedom of religion and equality. The report also addressed the growing tension between the Orthodox establishment and the secular courts, particularly in relation to the Emmanuel affair.

 

Chairman of the Hiddush foundation For Freedom of Religion and Equality, Rabbi Uri Regev said in response: "It appears that when it comes to religious freedom Israel is closer to radical Islam countries than the Western democratic world.

 

"The report discusses at length the Israeli government's capitulation to the haredi parties' extortion and the way in which it compromises  marriage rights, freedom of worship, women's dignity, the immigrant population, the non-Jewish communities and many others as part of a policy which gains power by funding religious institutes and capitulting to religious coercion while disregarding the will of the majority of the Jewish people in Israel and in the Diaspora."