Organization: Bar-Ilan University Computing Center, Israel
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 13:45:49 IST
From: Shaul Wallach <F66204@BARILVM.BITNET>
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
Subject: Re: WHERE DO THE "palestinians" COME FROM?

In article <4618@bimacs.BITNET>, ehrlich@bimacs.BITNET (Gideon Ehrlich) writes:

>(Zeyd M. Ben-Halim) writes:
>
>> Where do the palestinians come from?
>
>From : Egypt , Syria , Afgahnistan, Iran, Magrab ( North Africa),
>      Turky, Bosnia , Saudi-Arabia  ....
>
>For more details look at : Britanica (1910) PALESTINE , population .
>
>and at the new very detailed scientific book:
>
> Prof.  DAVID GROSSMAN:  RURAL PROCESS-PATERN RELATIONSHIPS
>        Published by Praeger   March 1992.
>
>The book is based on both: written old sources and an extensive
>researches in the area , aspecially in the samaria farms where the big
>Egyptian mass population is located.
>There are a lot of maps tables and diagrams.
>A must for everyone interesting in the topic.
>
>  Shalom     Gideon Ehrlich

     Prof. Grossman's new book, based on earlier published work,
does give details of Arab migration into Palestine, mainly from
Egypt and Syria. However, Grossman makes no effort to estimate
the size of this immigration as a fraction of the total Arab
population, my guess being that the paucity of Ottoman population
data simply does not allow such an estimate to be made.

    There are, however, some numerical data, and from them it
can be surmised that a significant portion, though not necessarily
a majority, of Palestinian Arabs are of relatively recent foreign
origin, having immigrated during the Ottoman period or during
British rule. These include immigrants primarily from Transjordan,
Syria and Egypt. Those refugees who came from Algeria, Circassia
and Bosnia were significantly fewer, as Grossman states on p. 125.

     Grossman (in GeoJournal 9:393-406 (1984)) found that the
ruling families of most of the districts of Samaria traced their
origins to Transjordan from the late 17th or early 18th centuries.
This tallies with the traditions of other West Bank villagers, such
as those of Beitin (Abdulla M. Lutfiyya, "Baytin: A Jordanian Village",
Mouton, The Hague (1966)), that their ancestors immigrated from
Transjordan. The causes of much of this immigration are rooted in
intertribal warfare, which was common throughout the Ottoman rule.
Grossman notes, however, that there was also emigration from Palestine
to Transjordan during the same period, demonstrating the strong ties
between the two regions. Many villagers whom Grossman interviewed
in his own field work claimed that their ancestors came with the
Muslim armies which conquered Palestine in 634 or with those of
Salah ad-Din who defeated the Crusaders. However, he found also
that these ancestors did not always settle immediately in
Palestine but sometimes first in Transjordan for several
generations before moving finally to Palestine.

     The immigration from Syria, including the southern area of
Hauran, is estimated to be smaller in importance. Unlike the
immigration from Transjordan, it had economic causes as well,
such as the migrant laborers from Hauran during the British
Mandate. The two articles by E. Bromberger and P. J. Loftus in
the June 1948 issue of Population Studies express differing
opinions on the size of Arab immigration during the Mandatory
period, an issue which has been discussed repeatedly on the net.
On the basis of government statistics, Loftus concludes that
only about 2,000 of those immigrants from Hauran who were
registered stayed and that the rest were repatriated. However,
immigration from Syria goes back much earlier than the British
Mandate. This writer knew personally a Palestinian student here
at Bar-Ilan from Jaljuliya (near Petah Tiqwa) whose family has
lived for generations in Palestine and yet has distant relatives
in Syria.

     Immigration from Egypt was substantially larger than that
from Syria and is dealt with by Grossman in detail in his book
(pp. 104-109). He discerns three major waves of immigration
during the late Ottoman period. The first occurred as a result
of the plagues and droughts of the years 1783 to 1785, in which
a traveller estimated that one sixth of the population left for
Palestine and Syria. The next wave took place starting in 1831
as a result of Muhammad Ali's taxation policies. Grossman
(in GeoJournal, cited above) quotes a contemporary source to
the effect that more than 6,000 immigrants arrived in Palestine
in 1831 alone. While occupying Palestine until 1840, Muhammad
Ali encouraged Egyptian immigration, and after his retreat many
of his officers and servants remained. The last wave occurred
during the latter 19th and early 20th centuries, sources for
which are given by Grossman (in GeoJournal, also in his Hebrew
article in Cathedra 45:57-86 (1987)). Bromberger (in his article
in Population Studies) also gives the translation of an Egyptian
newspaper article of 1946 claiming that during World War II some
3,000 women from the Sharqiyya district moved to Palestine for
marriage because the bride-price there was higher. According to
Grossman, the Egyptian immigrants settled mainly in the coastal
plain (around Jaffo and its environs), but a sizeable part of them
reached the villages in the hills of Samaria. They formed a
significant proportion of the Beduin population in the Negev,
one tribe of which was nearly 50% of Egyptian origin.

     Grossman's sources include not only Zionist historians but
Arab sources as well, such as "Biladuna Filastin" ("Palestine:
Our Country") by M. al-Dabbagh (Beirut, 1965).

     In summary, while the data presented by Grossman and others
do not permit any reliable quantitative estimate of Arab immigration
to Palestine in modern times, they do definitely indicate that it is
not negligible at the very least.

     Now to Zeyd M. Ben-Halim's questions:

In article <1993Jan4.075958.1292@netcom.com>, zmbenhal@netcom.com (Zeyd M.
Ben-Halim) writes:

>And where do the jews come from?
>
>Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria,
>Morocco, France, Britain, USA, Argentina, South Africa, Australia, Tukey.
>What was your point again? :-)
>
>  ...
>
>>A must for everyone interesting in the topic.
>So are the records of all the jewish immigrants to Palestine. Why is palestine
>always empty so that all of these gentiles keep moving into it?

     The point is not that Palestine was "always empty"; in fact it was
always populated and had about 450,000 inhabitants at the end of the
19th century before the large waves of Jewish immigration. However,
the point is that its non-Jewish population was not a stable,
homogeneous aborigine people who had always existed on the land,
as some Arab historians maintain (and even identify the Palestinians
with the ancient Canaanites or the Philistines). As Grossman and
others have shown, Palestine has been subject to significant
population movements, both in and out, in recent historical
times. The claim of an ancient historical connection still
being advanced by some Palestinians accordingly loses much of
its weight and thus detracts from their cause. On historical
connections see also what I wrote in soc.culture.arabic on
Jan. 1, 1993.

Shalom,

Shaul Wallach
Xref: sparky soc.culture.jewish:24603 soc.culture.arabic:6260 talk.politics.mideast:24774