THE 'HISTORIC PALESTINIAN HOMELAND'

In a time of suicide bombings and Israeli defense, of EU criticisms and Saudi peace proposals, there are a multitude of arguments about who really owns the land of ancient Israel, and who has the right to make their dwellings in it.

In order to climb above all the propaganda for a true perspective of recent history's realities, it may be beneficial to turn to an eyewitness account of the land before all the current media attention. What was Israel like a hundred years ago? Did the Jews really invade a land inhabited by content Palestinian Arabs to set up an oppressive Israeli state?

To better answer these questions, we should go back to sources that predate the current fighting. Just 133 years ago, an American writer documented his travels with a group of other pilgrims to Europe and the Holy Lands. For our reader's convenience, we offer below a number of excerpts from Mark Twain's visit to the lands of the Bible, as memorialized in his book, The Innocents Abroad, published in 1869.

It was a very short day's run, but the dragoman does not want to go further, and has invented a plausible lie about the country beyond this being infested by ferocious Arabs, who would make sleeping in their midst a dangerous pastime. Well, they ought to be dangerous…The great sash they wear in many a fold around their waists has two or three absurd old horse pistols in it that are rusty from eternal disuse - weapons that would hang fire just about long enough for your to walk out of range, and then burst and blow the Arab's head off. Exceedingly dangerous these sons of the desert are.

[Regarding the valley where Joshua slaughtered the King of Hazor and where Jael killed Sisera in her tent:]

There is not a solitary village throughout its whole extent - not for thirty miles in either direction. There are two or three small clusters of Bedouin tents, but not a single permanent habitation. One may ride ten miles hereabouts and not see ten human beings. To this region one of the prophecies is applied; "I will bring the land into desolation; and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it. And I will scatter you among the heathen, and I will draw out sword after you; and your land shall be desolate and your cities waste." No man can stand here by deserted Ain Mellahah and say the prophecy has not been fulfilled.

We traversed some miles of desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds; a silent, mournful expanse, wherein we saw only three persons - Arabs with nothing on but a long coarse shirt like the "tow-linen" shirts which used to form the only summer garment of little Negro boys on the southern plantations. Shepherds they were, and they charmed their flocks with the traditional shepherd's pipe - a reed instrument that made music as exquisitely infernal as these same Arabs create when they sing.

...Well, there was nothing to do but just submit and forgo the privilege of voyaging on Gennesaret, after coming half around the globe to taste that pleasure. There was a time, when the Saviour taught here, that boats were plenty among the fishermen of the coasts - but boats and fishermen are both gone now… and the commercial marine of Galilee numbers only two small ships, just of a pattern with the little skiffs the disciples knew. One was lost to us for good - the other was miles away and far out of hail. So we mounted the horses and rode grimly on toward Magdala, cantering along the edge of the water for want of the means of passing over it.

We had left Capernaum behind us. It was only a shapeless ruin. It bore no semblance to a town and had nothing about it to suggest that it had ever been a town. But all desolate and unpeopled as it was, it was illustrious ground.

Magdala is not a beautiful place. It is thoroughly Syrian, and that is to say that it is thoroughly ugly and cramped, squalid, uncomfortable and filthy…

As we rode into Magdala not a soul was visible. But the ring of the horses' hoofs roused the stupid population, and they all came trooping out - old men and old women, boys and girls, the blind, the crazy, and the crippled, all in ragged, soiled, and scanty raiment, and all abject beggars by nature, instinct, and education.

We are camped in this place now, just within the city walls of Tiberias… Its people are best examined at a distance. They are particularly uncomely Jews, Arabs, and Negroes. Squalor and poverty are the pride of Tiberias.

...But the doom of the Christian power was sealed. Sunset found Saladin lord of Palestine, the Christian chivalry strewn in heaps upon the field… It was hard to realize that this silent plain had once resounded with martial music and trembled to the tramp of armed men. It was hard to people this solitude with rushing columns of cavalry… 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, much less lawless hordes of Bedouins. Tabor stands solitary and alone, a giant sentinel above the Plain of Esdraelon.

The narrow canyon in which Nablus, or Shechem, is situated is under high cultivation, and the soil is exceedingly black and fertile. It is well watered, and its affluent vegetation gains effect by contrast with the barren hills that tower on either side.

For thousands of years this clan have dwelt in Shechem under strict taboo and having little commerce or fellowship with their fellowmen of any religion or nationality. For generations they have not numbered more than one or two hundred, but they still adhere to their ancient faith and maintain their ancient rites and ceremonies. Talk of family and old descent! … This handful of old first families of Shechem…can name their fathers straight back without a flaw for thousands [of years]…. I found myself gazing at any straggling scion of this strange race with a riveted fascination, just as one would stare at a living mastodon or a megatherium…Carefully preserved among the sacred archives of this curious community is a MS copy of the ancient Jewish law, which is said to be the oldest document on earth.

The Further we went, the hotter the sun got, and the more rocky and bare, repulsive and dreary the landscape became… There was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere. Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, and had almost deserted the country. No landscape exists that is more tiresome to the eye that that which bounds the approaches to Jerusalem.

At last, away in the middle of the day, ancient bits of wall and crumbling arches began to line the way - we toiled up one more hill, and every pilgrim and every sinner swung his hat on high! Jerusalem! Perched on its eternal hills, white and domed and solid, massed together and hooped with high gray walls, the venerable city gleamed in the sun. So small! Why, it was no larger than an American village of four thousand inhabitants… Jerusalem numbers only fourteen thousand people.

The population of Jerusalem is composed of Muslims, Jews, Greeks, Latins, Armenians, Syrians, Copts, Abyssinians, Greek Catholics, and a handful of Protestants. One hundred of the latter sect are all that dwell now in this birthplace of Christianity. The nice shades of nationality comprised in the above list and the languages spoken by them are altogether too numerous to mention. It seems to me that all the races and colors and tongues of the earth must be represented among the fourteen thousand souls that dwell in Jerusalem. Rags, wretchedness, poverty, and dirt, those signs and symbols that indicate the presence of Muslim rule more surely than the crescent flag itself, abound… I would not desire to live here.

Of all the lands there are for dismal scenery, I think Palestine must be the prince. The hills are barren, they are dull of color, they are unpicturesque in shape. The valleys are unsightly deserts fringed with a feeble vegetation that has an statement about it of being sorrowful and despondent. The Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee sleep in the midst of a vast stretch of hill and plain wherein the eye rests upon no pleasant tint, no striking object, no soft picture dreaming in a purple haze or mottled with the shadows of the clouds. Every outline is harsh, every feature is distinct, there is no perspective - distance works no enchantment here. It is a hopeless, dreary, heartbroken land.

Palestine is desolate and unlovely. And why should it be otherwise? Can the curse of the Deity beautify a land?

Ah yes, the so-called historic Palestinian homeland. Why are the Jews so accursed by the Arabs? For bringing in prosperity and trade, cultivation and health? Rather than fighting the Jews, the Palestinians would do well to set aside their guns and stones and to enjoy the benefits of living in a well-governed, bountiful, thriving nation.

Here is a non-biased view of "Palestine" before it became Israel. From what he writes, there were hardly any people there. Jerusalem's population approx 14K

There is a book available on Amazon called From Time Immemorial (think that's the title) which uses British census documents from the British mandate times following WWI and other original sources to make pretty much the same point as Twain did.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0963624202/qid=1022082590/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/103-3373421-3315024

From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict over Palestine
by Joan Peters

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