HAGEE: NO ARABS IN ISRAEL UNTIL AFTER 1948
By Rev. Ted Pike
21 Aug 08
In 1948, beginning with the Deir Yassin massacre, Zionists terrorized
800,000 indigenous Palestinians into fleeing their homes in Palestine. ( See, Israel:
Founded on Terror) Yet, much Zionist propaganda today, responding
to evangelical gullibility, adds insult to horrific injury. It claims
that Arab refugees who inhabit Israeli concentration camps and demand
return to their ancestral lands and property have no claims at all. Why? Because
their parents and grandparents didn't truly occupy Israel.
Such propaganda asserts that Palestine was a wasteland of desolate
sand dunes when Jewish pioneers arrived at the beginning of the 20th
century. A tiny indolent Arab population may have lived there; but
Jews, through vision, enterprise, and hard work (as well as divine
blessing) made the land “blossom as the rose.”
This Zionist mythology says Arab "Palestinians" only arrived after Jews brought Palestine to life. They were neighboring Arabs who swarmed in,
seeking to benefit from Jewish-created prosperity. They lied, say Zionists,
about owning and occupying Palestine for centuries. Having no deep and vested
loyalty to the land (as did Jews), these imposters fled in panic in 1948, fearing
the crossfire of an Arab-Israeli war. As a result, Israel says the land claims
of these so-called “Palestinians” need not be honored.
Pastor John Hagee, dependable mouthpiece of Zionist disinformation,
summarizes what tens of millions of evangelicals unquestioningly
believe:
The land of Israel never belonged to the Palestinians…there
has never been a land called Palestine. There is no Palestinian
language. Before 1948, the people now called Palestinians lived
in Egypt. They lived in Syria. They lived in Iraq. They moved into
the land of Israel when they were displaced by the war of 1948,
which the Arab nations started, but Israel is not occupying territory
these people now call home. 1
Such claims lead to Israel-absolving conclusions: No injustice
has been done to Palestinians. Israel need not return land and property
it never took.
Encyclopedic Rebuttal
The Encyclopedia of the Palestine Problem (EPP) rebuts these lies
with documentation that is truly encyclopedic, as have Israeli "new
historians" such as Benny Morris. 2
Many cultures and nations passed through Palestine since Jews were
banished in the 2nd century A.D. But EPP says its occupants largely
remained descendants of the ancient Philistines, from whom the title “ Palestine ” is
derived. EPP quotes Abraham Granott, former managing director of
the Jewish National Fund, who admits: “When the kingdom of
Byzantium was subjected by the Arabs, practically the whole land
belonged to the big proprietors…while the soil was cultivated
by the former owners who had remained on their plots as tenants…” Thus,
EPP says, “The Palestinian Arabs are…the descendants
of the Philistines and of all Semitic peoples who have lived in Palestine
since the time of the Canaanites” (p. 33). This included the
ancient Samaritans whom God, in the time of Jeremiah, allowed to
occupy Palestine because the Jews would not obey. The same
divine invitation extends to Gentiles today until a remnant out of
Israel will at last repent at Christ's second coming. (See, Almost Anyone Can Occupy Palestine)
Palestine : Mideast Breadbasket
Despite de-forestation and over-grazing of its highlands, Palestine
always lived up to its Biblical reputation as a breadbasket – “a
land flowing with milk and honey.” EPP says,
“The historical record disproves the Zionist lie that Palestine
was undeveloped before the establishment of Jewish settlements in
Palestine. Muqqadisi, a native of Jerusalem who died in 986 A.D.,
enumerated the principal products of Palestine in the 10th century: ‘…among
whose agricultural produce was particularly copious and prized: fruit
of every kind (olives, figs, grapes, quinces, plums, apples, dates,
walnuts, almonds, jujube, and bananas),” etc.
[A late 10th century description says,] " Palestine is watered
by the rains and dew. Its trees and plowed fields do not need artificial
irrigation. Palestine is the most fertile of the Syrian provinces.”
“In 1615, the English traveler George Sandys described Palestine
as ‘a land that flows with milk and honey.’”
[A British missionary who visited Palestine in 1859 describes
the southern coastland area as a] “very ocean of wheat.”
“The German geographer Alexander Scholch concluded that between
1856 and 1892, ‘ Palestine produced a relatively large agricultural
surplus which was marketed in neighboring countries…’" [including
Europe.] "Laurence Oliphant, who visited Palestine in
1887, wrote that Palestine’s Valley of Esdraelon was a ‘huge
green lake of waving wheat…and it presents one of the most
striking pictures of luxuriant fertility which it is possible to
conceive.’”
[According to Paul Masson, a French economic historian] “wheat
shipments from the Palestinian port of Acre had helped to save southern
France from famine on numerous occasions in the 17th and 18th centuries” (p.
33).
So much for the Zionist “barren sand dunes” claim!
Who Made Israel Blossom?
Contrary to Zionist mythology, Palestinian farmers were among the
most efficient in the world. EPP presents extensive records (largely
from British and UN archives) of Arab agricultural production in
the decades before expulsion by the Zionists in 1948. Agricultural
production and efficiency exploded, especially in the first half
of the 20th century. Palestinians took deep pride in themselves and
keenly anticipated statehood.
EPP says after Zionists terrorized most Palestinians into flight,
Israel suddenly possessed vast holdings of citrus, olives, grapes,
tobacco, wheat, etc. Israel since boasted that it planted these crops
on former sand dunes, but EPP reveals the truth: Israeli agriculture
didn't burgeon before 1948 primarily because of Western Jewish subsidies
or the celebrated kibbutzim (socialist, low-incentive collectives
later largely abandoned as inefficient). Instead, “In 1948,
the Zionists seized 90 percent of Arab-owned citrus groves, packaging
and storage facilities, as well as that year’s crop, looting
the prosperous Arab citrus groves and making them [the Arab owners]
destitute refugees” (p. 41).
EPP also presents extensive statistics proving that the Palestinians
were hardly the ignorant “donkey drivers” of Zionist
propaganda. Their population boasted a disproportionate number of
urban professionals.
These Arab towns and villages…were developed communities,
containing farms, factories, stores and schools, with an infrastructure
of doctors, lawyers, teachers, engineers, merchants, mechanics,
industrialists, workers and farmers which would be the envy of
any developing country today (p. 34).
How Many Arabs in Palestine?
EPP says that 634,133 Arabs lived in Palestine in 1914. The first
official census in 1922 listed 590,890 Muslim Arabs and at least
50,000 Christians Arabs. By 1948, an estimated 1,440,274 Palestinian
Arabs dwelt in 12 cities or major towns and 830 small towns and villages
(p. 25-26).
EPP exhaustively documents all major aspects of Palestinian life
during the 20th century preceding 1948. Such data confirms that Palestinians
were very capable of creating a thriving mid-east democracy as soon
as permitted.
"The indigenous Arab population was recognized by paragraph
4 of article XXII of the League of Nations Covenant as ‘a provisionally
independent nation.’ Palestine was placed under a Class A mandate,
the very status of which indicated that the indigenous population
was well advanced toward self-determination” (p. 35). [Under
the British in 1947,] “…there were 309 high Government
Arab officials and 30,178 lower grade Arab officials…” (p.
27-28)
From 1919 to 1948, no fewer than 10 Palestinian political parties
tried to stop more Jews from entering Palestine, prevent further
acquisition of Arab lands by Jews, and form a working Palestinian
state. Bedeviled by disunity, Arab Palestinians could not hold at
bay the much more focused, organized, and implacable ambitions of
Zionists to ultimately displace the Palestinians altogether (p. 36-39).
Yet some early and brutal Zionists were more truthful than contemporary
Israeli mythmakers. Gen. Moshe Dayan said bluntly:
"We came to this country which was already populated by Arabs
and we are establishing a Hebrew, that is, a Jewish state here. Jewish
villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even
know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you, because
these geography books no longer exist. Not only do the books not
exist, the Arab villages are not there either…There is not
one place in this country that did not have a former Arab population." 3
Endnotes:
1. John Hagee, In Defense of Israel, 2007, FrontLine, 600
Rinehart Road, Lake Mary, FL 32746, p. 58.
2. Nakahleh, Dr. Issa, Encyclopedia of the Palestine
Problem, 1991,
Intercontinental Books, P.O. Box 756, Grand Central Station, NY, NY 10163-0756.
3. Ha'aretz, April 4, 1969, quoted in Encyclopedia
of the Palestine Problem, p. 34.
Rev. Ted Pike is director of the National Prayer Network, a Christian/conservative
watchdog organization.
Let the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith teach you how they
have saddled 45 states with hate laws capable of persecuting Christians: http://www.adl.org/99hatecrime/intro.asp.
Learn how ADL took away free speech in Canada and wants to steal
it now in the U.S. Congress. Watch Rev. Ted Pike's Hate
Laws: Making Criminals of Christians at video.google.com. Purchase
this gripping documentary to show at church. Order online at www.truthtellers.org for
$24.90, DVD or VHS, by calling 503-853-3688, or at the address below.
TALK SHOW HOSTS: Interview Rev. Ted Pike on this
topic. Call (503) 631-3808.
National Prayer Network, P.O. Box 828, Clackamas,
OR 97015
