The Peace on The Horizon - 75 Years after The World War 2 in the Middle East (30)

 

(Japanese Version)

(Arabic Version)

 

(contents)

 

Chapter 1. Wave of nationalism and socialism (1945-1956) (14)

 

030. Israel independence(3): Palestinians extruded by invading Jewish immigrants (3/3)

The Jewish settlers showed a lot of money and bought the land from the absentee landlord. It was unlikely that they had such a lot of money. It was the donation from rich brotherhood who remained in Europe like Lord Rothschild, or successful brotherhood in the United States. Some of rich Jews stayed in Europe, or Jews with talent and academic background moved to the United States. Most Jews who migrated to Palestine were poor people who had no money, no talent and no education. Jews who escaped from Pogrom in Russia in 1909 (Pogrom means persecution and destruction against Jews in Russia) settled the joint farm "Kibbutz". Kibbutz was the cooperative agricultural society combined with socialism and Zionism. New type of firms prevailed to other Jewish settlements.

 

When they acquired the land, next step was the eviction of the Arab farmers. Arabs could not complain because land ownership was transferred to Jewish immigrants. Arab farmers either had to be employed as laborer by the Jews, or if they did dislike it, they had to move to neighboring Arab countries such as Jordan. They became refugees under the umbrella of their relatives in Jordan. It was the beginning of Palestinian economic refugees.

 

Political refugees who occupy the majority of Palestinian refugees had grown in the Arab-Israeli War. Approximately 700,000 Jews flowed in during three years after Israel independence, almost the same number of Palestinian Arabs became political refugees and rushed into Jordan. Arabs were pushed out by Jews. There were two families in refugees; the Shatilas and the Al-Yassins. They had been living next to each other in the town of Tulkarm on the West Bank of the Jordan River. The father of Al-Shatila family was a teacher and Al-Yassin was a doctor. Shatila escaped to Jordan with his sixteen-years son, Amin.

 

(To be continued ----)

 

 

Areha Kazuya

(From an ordinary citizen in the cloud)