Isn't it true that Palestine was destitute until Israelis made its desert bloom? The Truth

From the early stages of Zionism to the present, Zionists have propagated the myth that the most important land-bridge in human history (Palestine) has been empty and destitute for two thousand year until it was later developed by the Israeli Jews. As it will be proven below based on British Mandatory statistical books and other sources, this myth about Palestine and its indigenous people was concocted to romanticize the "Jewish return and redemption of the Promised Land". Soon you shall find that was destitute in 1948 still destitute which is a fact that can be easily proven by using Google's Satellite view. Let's get a detailed accounting of the agricultural production in Palestine for the season of 1944-1945, we will directly quote the British Mandate (who prepared two volume books, titled Survey of Palestine, for the United Nations in 1946-7) as follows:






Palestinian



               Dunums***     Tons         Value*

Grains
               4,152,438       193,376     4,403,409
Vegetables 239,733         189,104     5,113,553
Fodder      23,970           20,827       156,847
Fruits**    355,709         73,320        3,139,374
Olives       592,546         78,287        3,320,320
Melons      120,304         135,634      969,630
Total        5,484,700       690,548      17,103,133

Percentage 92.8%          71.25%       78.40%



Jewish



               Dunums*** Tons           Value*

Grains
               215,191       16,579       497,048
Vegetables 40,207        55,730       1,745,870
Fodder      119,578       176,525     951,178
Fruits**    37,217        21,398       1,379,620
Olives       7,587          1,182         53,235
Melons      5,675         7,193         83,975
Total        425,455      278,607      4,710,926

Percentage 7.20%        28.75%     21.60%

Source: Survey of Palestine, prepared by the British Mandate for the United Nations, p. 323-327
* Value in Palestinian Pound
** Non-citrus fruits. Note Citrus production=248,274 dunums of which 120,897 dunums were Jewish owned (Supplement to Survey of Palestine, p. 37)
*** One Dunum = 1,000 sq. meters.
Click here to view the exact scanned pages from Survey of Palestine that we extracted the data was from.

Let's contemplate the following lands statistics about Palestine (based on CIA's WorldFact Book) before we draw any conclusions.

Land Statistics                 Value
Total land                         26,000.0 sq. km. = 20,000 (Israel) + 6,000 (W. Bank & Gaza Strip)
Arable land                         4,420.0 sq. km. = 17% * 26,000 sq. km.
Lands planted by Jews         425.4 sq. km. = 425,455 /1000
Lands planted by Palestinians  5,484.7 sq. km. = 5,484,700 /1000

Based on these statistics, it is clear that the indigenous population planted 13 times more than newly immigrated European colonizers, which explains why the majority of them preferred to work in the services and manufacturing industries. It should be emphasized that the Jewish Agency and the Jewish National Fund provided lots of subsidies and incentives (such as free consultation, loans, and attractive long term lease programs) to encourage Jews to "redeem" the land. On the other hand, Palestinian agriculture was profitable and sustainable without any assistance from the local government.

It should be emphasized that Jews owned under 7% of Palestine of which only 44% was used for agricultural purposes by Jews (click here to see the exact scanned page from Survey of Palestine p. 376). In this regards, we ask the reader how could this myth be true if Jews cultivated under 3% of Palestine?

Soon after Nakba, the victorious Jews destroyed most of the usurped Palestinian farms and groves, especially the olive and orange groves that required extensive labor to maintain and harvest. In this regards, it is worth quoting the Israeli Zionist writer Meron Benvenisti who described the Palestinian landscape soon after Nakba as follows:

   "The destruction of hundreds of thousands of dunums of fruit-bearing trees does not fit Israel's self-image as a society that knows how to make the desert bloom. And the contention that the green Arab landscape had been destroyed because of necessity of adopting the crops to the agricultural practices of the Jews only underscores the conclusion it was not the war that had caused this devastation, but rather the disappearance of the specific human community. that had shaped the landscape in accordance with its needs and preferences. The destruction of vast areas of orchards did not attract the same degree of interests as had the demolition of the Arab villages, despite the fact that it perhaps had more devastating effect on the landscape." (Sacred Landscape, p. 165) Click here to view a documentary film showing how Israelis uprooted over half a million olive trees in the occupied West Bank.



So much more truth at:  http://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Palestine-Remembered/Story665.html


All referenced and proved.