I will leave that fight aside… because I would have to look at the numbers myself to see which set of numbers I would believe.
But, I am struck by something buried in Mr. Porath’s argument that seems to contradict his opposition to Miss Peters and supports exactly what the main thrust of her book is saying.
Mr. Sanders sums up her thesis thusly: ”Much of Miss Peters’ book argues that at the same time that Jewish immigration to Palestine was rising, Arab immigration to the parts of Palestine where Jews had settled also increased. Therefore, in her view, the Arab claim that an indigenousArab population was displaced by Jewish immigrants must be false, since many Arabs only arrived with the Jews.
Mr. Sanders writing says: “Yet neither he (Mr. Porath) nor any of the detractors I have read has taken on the most striking of her demonstrations in favor of her case, dealing with the phenomenon she calls “in-migration” – that is, the movement of Arabs from other parts of Palestine into the main areas of Jewish settlement. She shows that in the years 1893 to 1947, while the Palestinian Arab population slightly more than doubled in areas where no Jews were settled, it quintupled in the main areas of Jewish settlement. How can this difference be accounted for without including Arab migration as a factor?"
Mr. Porath goes about explaining how that can be… and in the meantime he proves just how that happened.
First, Mr. Porath discounts evidence that Palestine was a wasteland due to the fact that the person Mr. Sanders quoted in his review about this fact was a Zionist. Okay… but there is evidence from numerous sources i.e, Mark Twain being just one observer who wrote that Palestine was in fact desolate and void of population.
Mr. Porath writes about “in-migrants”: “It is true nevertheless that during the Mandate period, the Arab population of the coastal area of Palestine grew faster than it did in other others. But this fact does not necessarily prove an Arab immigration into Palestine took place. More reasonably it confirms the very well-known fact that the coastal area attracted villagers from the mountainous parts of Palestine who preferred the economic opportunities in the fast-growing areas of Jaffa and Haifa to the meager opportunities available in their villages.
The coastal area had several main attractions for the Arab villagers. The found jobs in constructing, and later working in, the port of Haifa, The Iraq Petroleum Company refineries, the railway, workshops, and the nascent Arab industries there. They also took part in the large-scale cultivation of the citrus groves between Haifa and Jaffa and found jobs connected with the shipment of citrus fruits from the Jaffa port. Contrary to what Mr. Pipes claims, all these developments had almost nothing to do with the growth of the Jewish National Home. The main foreign factor that brought them about was the Mandatory government. The Zionist settlers had a clearly stated polity against using Arab labor or investing in Arab industries.”
First of all, Mr. Porath is in denial if he thinks that the explosion in labor had nothing to do with the Jews reclaiming the land and planting and growing citrus crops. He accounts it only to the British government. We know that government can produce jobs… and may be responsible for some of the opportunities presented to Arab workers… but that doesn’t refute Miss Peters’ argument that the growth of the Arab population in Western Palestine was due to “in-migrant” workers and not landed Arabs who were displaced by Zionists from lands they have owned since time immemorial.
And to say that the Jews never hired Arab workers is not true. Yes, there were instances where the Jews would not work with Arabs but left the labor to Jews. But that is not true in every situation. As the land was reclaimed… and Jewish immigration was stymied by British capitulation to Arab demands, the Jews were forced to work with Arabs (paying them great wages), which lead to more Arab “in-migration”
Such books as Israel by Martin Gilbert, The Seige By Conor Cruise O’Brien, A Durable Peace by Benjamin Netanyahu and O Jerusalem state that Arabs worked for Jewish farmers and as a result their standard of living improved.
Were some landed Arabs uprooted from their homes at the birth of Israel? Without a doubt. Were 1.6 million of them uprooted… no. Miss Peters’ says that the UNWRA stated that any Arab who lived in Israel only 2 years before the partition are refugees and should be counted as such. They are still categorized as refugees 54 years later. Jewish refugees from Arab countries who were forced out of their homes in 1948, as of 1984, could no longer be counted as refugees. Why the double-standard? Why hasn’t Arab countries absorbed the refugees? In the early 1980’s the Syrians put out a call for laborers. When asked why they didn’t hire the refugees in Syrian camps… they said no… that those refugees served a political strategy against Israel.
In conclusion, we can argue about the 1890 census until we turn blue in the face and nothing will be solved. The truth is that from the time the Mandate came into force until 1948, Western Palestine flourished and industry grew. That growth was due to the Jewish efforts to reclaim the land. As the land flourished… industry grew. It is also true, that Arab “in-migrants” came to where the wages were higher and the standard of living was good. And those “in-migrants” were counted by the UNWRA and Arab propaganda as Arabs thrown off their farms by Zionist imperialists. These farms that they have owned since time immemorial.