Talk:Jewish land purchase in Palestine

Poor Sources

A lot of this article is based on sources of very poor quality. Mitchell Bard for example, the editor of Myths & Facts, is a well-known propagandist and the article being cited is obviously a polemic. Also Dershowitz cannot be trusted to accurately report what Benny Morris wrote. Morris' work is easily available; what's wrong with quoting it directly? If you want a quality source for the Zionist viewpoint, you can use Kenneth Stein's book. Zero^talk 10:01, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

And, indeed, a quick look at Morris' book "Righteous Victims", page 110, shows that Morris' opinion is nothing at all like Dershowitz claims (I apologise to Dershowitz if in fact the problem is that his book is not correctly cited here). Zero^talk 10:29, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

And for proof of the unreliability of Mitchell Bard, consider this copy-paste from his article: "...no orange groves, orchards or vineyards were to be seen until one reached [the Jewish village of] Yabna [Yavne]...". Here is what the Peel Commission report (p233) actually said: "In the villages on both sides of the track and as far as the hills to the east no orange groves, orchards or vineyards were to be seen until one reached Yabna Village." The claim that it was a Jewish village is Bard's and it is nonsense. In fact it was an Arab village, and no Jewish village was there until much later, see Yavne. Zero^talk 13:10, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Nice to see that someone else besides me noticed the unreliable sources, half of them are from the Jewish virtual library which is an advocacy site and pro-Israeli, Israel-centric and Jewish-centric. And as you have proven above, a site that straight out lies. Nsaum75 shouldn't be wikistalking me and undoing all my edits but take a look at the sources instead. --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 20:54, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

There's no wikistalking, as I already had those pages in watch list. Please be more careful before making false accusations. --nsaum75^{¡שיחת!‎} 23:08, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Jewish land ownership prohibited until turn of 19th-cent

How odd. There is no mention here that for centuries, Jews were forbidden by the Turks from owning land in their own homeland. Chesdovi (talk) 15:18, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

In the first half of the 19th century, no foreigners were allowed to purchase land. This was official until 1856 and in practice until 1867. (ref is Kark, JHG 10(1984)357-384; I will bring details later). Zero^talk 04:59, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Moses Montefiore purchased land in 1855 outside the Jerusalem old city walls. Was this an exception? He also is reported to have purchased the grounds at the Tomb of Rachel in 1841? Chesdovi (talk) 17:31, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Sources

Mitchell Bard's unreliable polemic has to go. There are plenty of reliable sources on these subjects. See my example above about Yavne for one proof, another is the completely ridiculous assertion that 37% of the Arab population growth was due to immigration. Besides that, the tone is one of a sort of hysterical polemic. Zero^talk 23:10, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Just because a source disagrees with your opinions doesn't mean you can brand it "fringe." I'll admit the language could be phrased better. But pointing out errors in the Jewish Virtual Library doesn't diminish it's cultural signifigance. I'll tone down the language to be less "polemic," but the source and sentiment are valid. Modinyr (talk) 22:08, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Mitchell Bard and the things he writes at Jewish Virtual Library are not reliable sources. Some of the things on that site are as they are copies of other sources, but the original content is not. Much of it is sourced to Wikipedia articles and other poor quality sources. Find a better source if you want to include this material. nableezy - 22:42, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

It doesn't matter what you think is true or not. The Jewish Virtual Library is a prominent and often-quoted part of the Internet. It is a reflection of many people's views. These views might not be something you like, but they are still relevant and reliable if properly cited.

Zero claims that the way the source is cited is "polemic." Agreed. But the source, if it is used to represent people's beliefs, is a good fit for the article. Remember sources don't prove facts, just verify opinions. Modinyr (talk) 04:08, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

I deleted Mitchell Bard's useless polemic. Much of the nonsense derived from it has to go as well, but that takes more time. Zero^talk 01:36, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Topic of this article

While reading this article, i was very confused - is this article dealing with the Jewish land purchase obligation in the Land of Israel (religious custom) or the historic process of land purchases in Ottoman Syria and later in Mandatory Palestine (Eretz Yisrael)? There is also an extreme propaganda tone sounding from the text, looking like copy-paste has widely been done from Palestinian propaganda sources (Palestine remembered, etc.). So it is about the religious duty? Is it more of an historic overview on Ottoman and British period?GreyShark (dibra) 07:26, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

I think it should be about the history of actual land purchases, though the reasons for those purchases and the reasons for opposition to them can't really be excluded. Your comments about sources are quite wrong since PalestineRemembered is used only as a WP:Convenience link for mainstream British documents. That is a perfectly valid use that does not make the cited material dubious. Actually the source on balance are either factual (the British documents) or pro-Zionist (Porath, Avneri, etc). Zero^talk 09:01, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

The religious obligation is certainly for land purchases in the Land of Israel (including Golan, Transjordan, etc.), while historic purchases were correctly speaking in Ottoman Syria and Mandatory Palestine. The current title "Jewish land purchase in Palestine" thus is implying of the land sales issues in the State of Palestine (PNA) - a very delicate issue by the law of the State of Palestine. So a rename in any case is a must.GreyShark (dibra) 11:51, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

I don't agree that Palestine here implies State of Palestine, and similarly with lots of other articles that use the common English name for the region. Zero^talk 13:09, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Considering today's broad acceptance of the existence of a de facto, modern State of Palestine, this article should be renamed "Jewish land purchase in Mandatory Palestine". Without the "Mandatory" the title is anachronistic at best and likely misleading. Jyg (talk) 08:27, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

However, much of the article refers to the time before the mandate existed. Zero^talk 08:53, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

That is a very good point. So I went back to the article and was stopped at the very first sentence: "Jewish land purchase in Palestine refers to the acquisition of land in Mandatory Palestine by Jews from the 1880s until the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948." I do not see why the title cannot reflect article's own internal definition. Since the article does have such a definition, I propose either changing the title to fit the definition or change the definition to fit the title. However, as your point on chronology was very salient, perhaps the solution is to have a title of "Jewish land purchase in Palestine before Israeli statehood" and leave the internal definition alone. Jyg (talk) 15:56, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

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Missing "not"

The lines: In the 1930s most land was bought from small landowners. Of the land that the Jews bought, "52.6% of the lands were bought from big non-Palestinian landowners, 24.6% from Palestinian-Arab landowners and only 9.4% from the Fellahin".[10]

Seems, as only 9.4% were bought from small farmers, the first line should read: In the 1930s most land was not bought from small landowners.

Afbach (talk)

Fixed! ImTheIP (talk) 22:50, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

False claim

To editor Sidoroff-B:, you added the parenthesised portion of "As of 1944, Jews acquired only 6% of the land in Palestine (though several times more of private land on the territory of today's Israel http://unispal.un.org/unispal.nsf/0/a73996728ba8b94785256d560060cd1a?OpenDocument )". First, the source is a map that requires substantial analysis before it can be said to support your claim. So you are violating WP:NOR. Second, you are wrong. Although it is true that the portion of Palestine which is now the West Bank or Gaza had much lower Jewish ownership fraction than the rest, it is only a small fraction of the total area. Even if none of the Jewish land ownership listed in the 1945 statistics was within WB&G, the fraction of Jewish ownership would rise from 5.7% to 6.6%. The true figure is somewhere between those two numbers and would take serious effort to determine. "Several times more" is impossible. Excluding public land from the calculation is even more complicated because most of the land in Palestine had not been officially classified by 1948 and there are wildly differing estimates. Zero^talk 03:27, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Pov tag

"Lawless Bedouin" is racist.Rich (talk) 21:34, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

I removed "lawless". The intention was to indicate that the Bedouin did not obey the Ottoman authorities, though of course they had laws of their own which were often more strict. Anyway, the word is not needed. Zero^talk 03:25, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Citation

@Nakashchit: In this edit, one would assume from the context that the source is likely Porath as well (some older Wiki material has these medial citations and laissez-faire approach to terminal ones) - were you able to check the source? Iskandar323 (talk) 04:48, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

The source is, as given, the paper by Nasser Abufarha, not a Wikipedia article. I provided a web link to the paper, but it is informal. I do like to have a link to a location where readers can get to the original. It is also available through Research Gate on request from the author. I await a reply. If I get one, I will substitute that location for the one that is there now. If not, may add a more formal reference to its original publication, even if it is not accessible online. While the paper is not really written to an academic standard, it is interesting and written by a protagonist, as it were in the events covered by the article.

If Porath wrote about this earlier, clearly that deserves to be mentioned, particularly since Abufarha does not offer any primary sources. This may be because he grew up in Palestine himself and heard this from so many other people that he considers it to be common knowledge, unquestioned by anyone?

There is a common issue in getting people to formally register anything where they fear that this may lead to negative consequences. In the US, for example, surveys have revealed massive underreporting of illegal immigrants by the census. So what Abufahar says rings true.

I will put time into searching Porath at some point. He is cited a number of times in the article, so I assume that otherwise some other editor will pick it.

Your further comments are, of course, welcome. Nakashchit (talk) 21:56, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

The UN Survey Map 1947 republish in 1950

It is most widely used source of disinformation. Just because it is in UN archive, it is not necessarily the accepted or ratified, it could be a proposal or just a survey data which need unbias surveyor. My doubt arrised when the some of the district have land private ownership of beyond impossible: 99% (Ramalah) and 96% (Hebron). Means the ruling government could not even build a pedestrian walk let alone a decent size road without buying lots of area from private owner. This is not some ye olde kingdom nor dynasty government, where individu could have vast land by noble birth.

The map was prepared on instruction by sub Commitee 2 which consist of Afghanistan, Columbia, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia. Syria, Yemen as mentioned in page 3 of the complete document.

Source reference of the map and complete document: https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-196499/ https://www.un.org/unispal/document/ad-hoc-committee-on-the-palestine-question-report-of-sub-committee-2-11-november-1947/

If the surveyed map can proof the land ownership with registered deeds by authorities like Jewish purchases then the UN really has turned the world upside down by recommending a partition in 1947.

The following article suggest that most of the original pre 1948 maps (and olders historical Ottoman records) and other documents are withheld by Jordan and some other parties. My personal assumption it may have advantage to Jews, and such if released to public. Mossad should really try their best to obtain this if it were true and show them to the world :-) https://merip.org/1997/03/documenting-land-ownership-in-the-palestinian-authority/

If it is not possible to remove the map, then members of subcommitee 2 must also be pointed out. Supeskrim (talk) 17:11, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

The map was prepared at the request of the committee, but it wasn't prepared by the committee. As it says on the map, it is actually just a summary of the Village Statistics, 1945 compiled by the Government of Palestine. Here are the totals for the Ramallah Sub-District (in dunums): Arabs 681996, Jews 146, Public 2569, Others 489, Roads Railways Rivers & Lakes 1364, Total 686564. It agrees with the map and is perfectly reasonable for a district that was overwhelmingly rural and not a primary target of Jewish land purchases. The Village Statistics provide this data down to village level. Incidentally the Israeli State Archives hold copies of all the land registry information and maps that the UK kept. Fischbach's article is mostly about land holdings during the Jordanian regime, not pre-1948 information. Zero^talk 01:05, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

Landless Arabs

French's definition of "landless Arab" excluded those who had sold their own land, those who owned land elsewhere, those who had since obtained tenancy of other land even if they were unable to cultivate it due to poverty or debt

That an appropriate exclusion. Calling someone "landless" who willingly sold their land is not legitimate. Johnywhy (talk) 19:49, 20 April 2024 (UTC)