Palestinians made the desert bloom before the Israelis got there

One tiny flaw in clevenson's entire premise.

These figures predate Israel. The huge advances in agriculture in what became Israel came after 1948, largely in the 50's and 60's.

By the way clevenson, the term "Palestinian" in 1948 meant Jews as well as Arabs (and was more frequently used to refer to Jews).

thanks clevenson for highlighting this essential piece of factual information.

amber - What label would you like to give the 'Palestinians'?

Zair, you miss the point. Clevenson talks about "the Palestinians" in 1948, meaning Arab Palestinians. "Palestinian" at the time also (and more frequently) referred to Jews.

Why is this "essential information"? Essential for what? Trying to pretend the Israelis haven't revolutionized agriculture in the region?

amber, do you have any Palestinian friends?

Where does C. Levenson get his ideas from?

Now for the truth:-
Of the many accolades attributed to the early Zionist pioneers was that they were able to,with the help of God, make the desert bloom. For nearly 2,000 years the Land of Israel was an uninhabitable wasteland.

Mark Twain, who visited the Land of Israel in 1867, described it as:
"desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds-a silent mournful expanse....A desolation is here that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action....We never saw a human being on the whole route....There was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere. Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends of the worthless soil, had almost deserted the country.? "

Making the deserts of Israel bloom was given its greatest impetus by the creation of the kibbutz, a unique experiment in cooperative living. The first kibbutz, Degania, was founded in 1909. The revolutionary new life sharing work, jobs, living space, child-rearing and income resulted in extraordinary agriculteral results.
In the last quarter of the 19th century the agriculture began its graduation from a concentration on olives and oranges. The kibbutz farmers started to plow fields in lands that had for generations been arid.
Specialists from Bordeaux came to teach growing of grapes for high-quality wines.
Thousands of volunteers came as immigrants to drain malarial swamps and transform them into lush farmland.
By the late 1920s, dozens of kibbutzim and moshavim were dotting the landscape, soon providing Israel and neighbouring countries with unprecedented amounts and types of produce.
Fast-forward to the 21st century and Israel is one of the world’s agricultural dynamos, with one of the world’s highest rates of crops per acre.
A hundred years ago,Israel was an ecological disaster. Four centuries of Ottoman rule had seen millions of trees cut down for one simple reason – property taxes were calculated by the number of trees owned by landowners.
In 1909, when the first kibbutz was founded it gave a practical boost to the dream of making the desert bloom.
A historic and collective Jewish effort was undertaken to restore Israel’s forests and to transform the distressed landscape into a fertile paradise.
A hundred years later, and just as with so many elements of our civilization, the concept of “greening” can be traced back to the land of Israel.

Israel is one of two countries on earth that has more trees today than it did 100 years ago. From 1513 to 1917, the Land of Israel was part of the Ottoman Empire. During much of those four centuries, taxes were calculated according to the number of trees on a particular property. It takes little imagination to understand that, cutting down trees was the obvious answer to retaining wealth.

It was in 1901 that the Jewish National Fund was formed: its goal to oversee the reforestation of the Land of Israel. During the ensuing century, the planting of some 200 million trees transformed the landscape, the hillsides and the oxygen levels of the country. Israel is now a land of forests and pastures, not of barren wilderness.

This regeneration and development of the land had nothing whatsoever to do with the Arabs, apart from them being employed to work on the land.

This regeneration and development of the land had nothing whatsoever to do with the Arabs, apart from them being employed to work on the land

statements like this Cohen are why antisemitism exists and why your beloved Israel is loathed.

C.Levenson
anti-semitism continues to exist because people like you perpetuate the myths and stereotypes, blatantly distort or ignore history and seem to get some sort of kick out of being a self hater.

Clevenson blames the Jews for bringing antisemitism on themselves - which is, of course, an example of classic antisemitism.

For shame.

In fact, clevenson's attitude exposes why he posts such information in the first place - simply to denigrate the achievements of Jews.

Jon, you have blinded him with facts, which he has not been able to refute. Well done.

Thank you Amber; keep up YOUR good work!!

Yes, brilliant work, A and J.

clevenson, your posts might sound less repetitive and monotonous if you set them to music for fiddle. I've a hunch you'd be able to.

uninhabited wasteland....

J = Jews A = Arabs

respective populations of " Palestine " ie the area between the river and the sea

1914 J 60,000 A 731,000

1941 J 474,000 A 1,111,000

1950 J 1,203,000 A 2,375,000

2005 J 5,275,800 A 5,139,000

Now the present Arab population is indigenous in the sense that it has been there for many many generations.The Jewish population represents historically very recent immigration. In other words Israel is a nation of settlers.Of course all the big advances in agriculture came in the 50,s and after. That was the latest agricultural revolution. The same is true of any place you care to mention.

And this is the key to understanding the " conflict " . Its a classic native / settler situation.

The conflict in Ireland is represented as being about religion. This is nonsense.Its a native settler thing. In North America and Africa and Australia it was always obvious who were the natives and who were the settlers.Different skin colours, racial facial characteristics etc etc. In Ireland not so. So whether you came from a catholic or a protestant tradition has been the rough and ready guide.

None of this is to say that Israel should not exist or even that that it should not exist as " a jewish state " koff

But if the sovereignty of the land is to be divided between Jews and Arabs the present State of Israel represents, wouldnt you say, a more than fair jewish share given the demographics and recent demographic history.

In other words in any two state solution that would work Israel will have to be satisfied with pretty much its pre 1967 borders and a division of Jerusalem along pre 1967 lines.

Otherwise you are going to have one state with roughly the same number of jews and arabs with a significant number of jews not interested in a political expression of Zionism.

In other words the end of " The Jewish State "

In other words Israel needs a two state solution and it needs it badly. You better pull your fingers out.

More spurious figures and fantasies from the Jew-baiters.
Presumambly they have never heard of the Bible- there has been a Jewish presence in Israel since time and History began.
Why don't you start a campaign to return Australia to the Aborigines? or New Zealand to the Maoris? or whatabout the USA to the Red Indians?

By the way your two - state solution has already been approved, 1917, 1922, 1945, 1947; ie Trans-Jordan ie accross the River Jordan to what is today Jordan - that is the Palestian Arab territory; Geographically and Logistically there is no room for another Arab State West of the Jordan River.

which figure is spurious jon ?

there is no room for another Arab state west of the jordan river.... that may well be so

so there will be just one state west of the river but it wont be a jewish state , nor with 5 million Arabs in it .

or do have plans for these 5 million arabs jon ?

Care to share them with us ?

Whatever the truth of the statistics I would remind everyone that when the Jews began to buy land from the Sultan in the late 19th century it was the uninhabited, arid or malaria-infested marshland etc, exactly the land that the Arabs did not want or could not cultivate that was made available.

The Jews bought what they could and then set about transforming it into land which would support a growing Jewish population.

So it does not surprise me that the Arabs were producing more (if that is true and I have no problem with it if it is) - they had the best land already.

The 'Israel made the desert bloom' story is, therefore, not given the lie by these statistics but is reinforced.

The Jews didn't just make the desert bloom, they brought medical, scientific and business know-how to Palestine and made it available to all.

stephenb, you are an ignorant Jew-baiter - you are obviously on an unholy crusade to delegitimise Israel by portraying Israel as an imperialistic "settler" society. Everything that Jon, Amber and Ray tell you is correct.

According to the Central Bureau Of Statistics the Arab population of Israel in 2008 was 1.488 million, less than 20% of the population; NOT the spurious 5 million mentioned.
By 2030, (which is an awful long way off), it is estimated to be 2.362 million, no more than 24% of the population at that time.
By then many of these Arabs,(those that do not want to swear allegiance to the State of Israel), will be living in the State Of Palestine, East of The River Jordan i.e. what is now known as The Kingdom of Jordan.

Here is the link to the CBS:-
http://www.gov.il/FirstGov/NewsEng/NewsEng_ArabPopulation.htm

Jon

These Palestinians will still be living in Israel in 2030, just as their family lived in Israel prior to 1947, they will remain there, as ethnic cleansing is illegal and breaks human rights laws. To expel all the Palestinians, simply for being Palestinian was be racist, discriminatory and ethnic cleansing.

Jon how come you protest when you claim 'loads of Jews where forced out of Islamic countries', yet don't care if all the Palestinians are forced out of their homes in Israel, homes they lived in prior to Israel's creation?

Amber

What evidence do you have to support your claim that in 1948 Palestinians referred to Arab Palestinians and also Jews. This is nonsense, your simply trying to get around the fact that as Clevesons stats and those i have previously quoted from the 1937 census, prove that Palestinians far outnumbered Jews within Palestine, prior to 1947. You cannot get around this by simply claiming Palestinians also meant Jews in 1948, lets be clear the census breaks these numbers down into religious categories, your claims are unfounded nonsense, totally disproved by census

Amber honey one blog thread on demographics does not a crusade make o))

Jon you just arent listening.The CBS figures relate to Israel proper , the figures I quoted relate to the entire area between the river and the sea.

It doesnt matter who made the freaking desert bloom.And do we really want every square inch of the globe covered in buzy lizzies ? Why does the Negev have to be Judaised and turned into another South freaking Buckinghamshire ? Why not leave it to the Bedouin who will respect it and enjoy it for what it is ?

We are where we are and Israel has three options.Option one is to persist in one of two fantasies.

Fantasy one is that the present situation of a Jewish quasi democratic Israel with an occupied apartheid province appended to it is a forever kind of thing. Time has pretty well run out on that on.

Fantasy two, the one favoured by Jon, is that 5 million plus Arabs are going to up and move to Jordan.

Option two is the much loved two state solution.To go with this option Israel will have to accept that the State of Palestine will have borders more or less drawn along pre 1967 lines and have East Jerusalem as its capital otherwise it wont be durable and therefore no option at all.

Option three is not to have two states west of the river but one.But this will not be a jewish state, how could it be with roughly the same number of jews and arabs in it and with maybe a million jews not remotely interested in a jewish state or jewish emblems etc etc but who merely want to live on and be of the land.

Jon hopes for this but with the fantasy that the arabs will move to Jordan. Why would they ? Why would they leave their homeland and home so some American or Russian can move in ? And if the price is declaring allegiance to this state why not ? Why wouldnt the Arab on the clapham omnibus do this ? I would. This state probably will be called Israel but it wont be " a jewish state ".Maybe Jon has in mind some less than voluntary transfer of population . koff

I agree with Jon there probably isent room for two states west of the river. Illegal Israeli settlement in the west bank has probably made this impossible.

In years and centuries to come it will be seen that the Israeli settler movement in the west bank has been the biggest own goal in history.The mega mistake that killed the possibility of a jewish state in the middle east.

So it looks like we are going to have just one big happy family west of the river koff

stephenb, why do yo call me "honey"? I would really like to know.

Amber its a term of endearment much favoured by our merrykan cousins. But I can do " sweatheart " if you would prefer

i do of course mean " sweetheart " the thought of you sweating is well...lets not go there

stephenb's analysis seems pretty accurate …

stephenb: We are where we are and Israel has three options …

until he gets to …

stephenb: I agree with Jon there probably isent room for two states west of the river. Illegal Israeli settlement in the west bank has probably made this impossible.

with an acre-for acre land swap (probably from the galilee region), the west bank (with or without gaza) does have sufficient population and area to be a viable country

stephenb, I believe you call me "honey", not for the first time, because you are condescending, and a misogynist.

So that's another one to add to your qualities - a racist misogynist. What a great bloke.

Given his misogyny and his antisemitism stephenb would feel right at home in Hamastan.

I don't think anyone ever claimed Jews produced more than Arabs up to 1948. But they did so more efficiently, on far less land. Jews only owned 7% of available land up to 1948, but, for instance, so far as I understand it, the bulk of the citrus, and over half of Palestine's export, crop. Which means the Jewish Net National Product was (much?) higher.

Modern irrigation systems have increased the area under cultivation in the West Bank by 100% since 1967, too.

stephenb - any apology?

stephenb - any apology?

well most people wouldnt regard " honey " as an over the top response to " jew bating Israeli delegitamising racist fascist mysoginist scumbag "

so......no

Macairt

Can you provide any credible evidence for this claim, or is it simply based on the old Zionist myths that simply tried to justify the colonial project by use of myths that Jews and Israel represented 'progress and development' of a 'barren land'. Classical colonial narratives

ibrows gives th game away - he claims to care about Israel - but then calls the Jewish state a "colonial project."

Do you really think people don't see?

Is it policy that misogynistic comments (stephenb) will be accepted?