The Real News Network has stepped up to the plate once again. They continually blow me away with their coverage of Israel and Palestine. Their new episode Israeli Tree Campaign “Judaizes” Expropriated Land focuses on the Jewish National Fund’s role, past and present, in Judaizing the region.
From the founding of the JNF at the 5th Zionist Congress in 1901, for the purpose of purchasing land for Jewish settlement in Palestine culminating in the purchase of only 6% of the land by 1948, thru the evolvement of this organization in the expropriation of land belonging to Palestinians exclusively for Jewish use (still going on today), Real News has produced an excellent JNF 101, a short 12 minute episode worth volumes.
They start off in the Bedouin village of Al Araqib in the Negev desert interviewing Aziz Sayah Al-Turi, son of Al-Araqib’s Shiekh Al-Turi, as he motions his arm over a desolate barren landscape marked by only the cruel tracks of JNF bulldozers. Where once his family’s 4500 olive and carob trees grew and his house once stood near the homes of other villagers, now nothing. Aziz Sayah Al-Turi explains:
“If we were the Jews, the government would have honored us for making the desert bloom. But we are Arabs, what can we do?”
Interviewing Tel Aviv University history professor Gadi Algazi as he briefly explains how the 1949 Absentee Property Law, in regulating the possession of the Palestinian refugees, facilitated the JNF acquiring the land from ‘custodians’:
‘Ben Gurion circumvented any future action by simply selling, absolutely illegally, selling the land entrusted to the custodians to some third party so that the State of Israel, in case of an international debate, can safely say ‘sorry’ like any bicycle thief,…’it’s not in my hand anymore’..within a few days a million dunam was sold to the JNF. It took about 8 days to realize one of the biggest business deals in the history of Israel…and the JNF never even paid for most of this land.’
From JNF boxes to the recent resignation of board member Seth Morrison, current evictions in Silwan and EJ, to Israel’s supreme court forcing the JNF, through the efforts of Zochrot to post the history of ethnically cleansed villages of Beit Nuba, Yalu and Imwas where Canada Park now stands, this video is a must see.
Annie, I have been told over and over and over again how it is myth that the so-called settlers steal Palestinian lands; rather, I am told, the land has been abandoned and bought.
What a racket; cleanse and remove evidence of the Palestinian owners and their villages, declare the land as abandoned (even for a day), appropriate the land, and sell (or give it) for Jewish development; it’s like some kind of mafiosa dream.
An informative video.
The 1949 law that Gadi (I forgot his last name) referred, is one of three laws that I’ve been referring to regularly about the same point here, the institutionalization of the prohibition from return, and the erasure of former Palestinian presence.
“In October 2004, civil rights groups petitioned the High Court of Justice to block a Government bid announcement involving JNF land that effectively banned Arabs from bidding. The Government then halted marketing of JNF land in the Galilee and other areas of the north, where there are large Arab populations. In December 2004, Adalah petitioned the High Court to require the Government to apply nondiscriminatory procedures for allocating land and to conduct open land sales/leases to Arabs as well as to Jews. In January 2005, the Attorney General ruled that the Government cannot discriminate against Israeli Arabs in the marketing and allocation of lands it manages, including lands that the Israel Land Administration manages for the Jewish National Fund. Adalah criticized the Attorney General, however, for also deciding that the Government should compensate the JNF with land equal in size to any plots of JNF land won by non-Jewish citizens in government tenders.[4]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_Land_Administration
Annie sez:
“..land for Jewish settlement in Palestine culminating in the purchase of only 6% of the land by 1948”.
My sources give closer to 8% of the total land of ‘Palestine’. Now when you factor in that over fifty percent of the total land of Palestine was State owned and desert scrub land, the portion of Jewish owned, arable, private land is much higher, about 1/3.
BTW. “In the two years between June 1934 and August 1936, Jews bought more than 53,000 dunams in 2,339 land sales. Of these, 41 sales involved more than 500 dunams and 164 involved 100 to 500 dunams. The vast majority – 2,134 sales – were of plots of less than 100 dunams. This means that thousands of Arabs of all walks of life – poor and rich, Christian and Muslim, members of the political mainstream and oppositionists, city dwellers, Bedouin, and villagers – acted contrary to the norms laid down by their national movement. Cohen, Hillel. Army of Shadows: Palestinian Collaboration with Zionism, 1917-1948. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008. 32-33
I still remember my visit to Yad Vashem where my guide mentioned how the JNF planted trees in honor of the “righteous Gentiles”, while pointing to the Jerusalem Forest! As shown by Zochrot the real purpose of these artificial forests is to erase history. Ilan Pappe in the Ethnic Cleansing of Israel noted that the Forest of Birya, which is the largest man made forest in Israel, conceals the land of six Palestinian villages; Dishon, Alma, Qaddita, Amqa, Ayn al-Zaytun, and Birya.
You don’t have to trust Ilan Pappe, just your own eyes. Here’s the village of Saffurriya just outside Nazareth with a photo of Saffurriya at ground level.
http://i484.photobucket.com/albums/rr202/rblinne/Picture10938.jpg
I decided to see what this looked like on Google Earth. Here’s the screenshot.
http://i484.photobucket.com/albums/rr202/rblinne/Screenshot2011-05-29at23228PM.png
While I was at it I also overlaid the ethnically cleansed villages on top of a map of the UN partition (border in blue).
http://i484.photobucket.com/albums/rr202/rblinne/Screenshot2011-05-28at94247AM.png
Needless to say the shameless abuse of the Holocaust allowed me to endure any false charges of anti-Semitism and allowed me to speak up here and elsewhere. They don’t care about the victims of the Shoah, it’s just a talking point.
Cheers Annie – Im a big Real News/Paul Jay fan……
not only does he lead the way in terms of north american I/P coverage alot of the time ( for a news program) – his economic contributors are second to none….A great resource to be sure.