From: makowsky@enuxha.eas.asu.edu (David Makowsky)
Subject: Re: Fair Swap
Reply-To: makowsky@enuxha.eas.asu.edu (David Makowsky)
Organization: Arizona State University, Tempe AZ
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 03:41:24 GMT

In article <bdm.716519532@cs.anu.edu.au> bdm@cs.anu.edu.au (Brendan McKay) writes:

# eshneken@ux4.cso.uiuc.edu (Edward A Shnekendorf) writes:

# >Speaking of immigration, Palestinian Arabs were, in fact, VERY migratory.
# >Fred Gottheil, an Economics professor at the University of Illinois, did
# >a study using original census data and found that just during the years
# >1922-1931, 54,790 Arabs immigrated into Palestine.  That means that 11.8%
# >of ALL Arabs in pre-state Israel were immigrants and Arab immigration 
# >accounted for 38.7% of all Arab population growth in the land.  That means
# >that during that period, Arabs accounted for 36.8% of all immigrants to
# >pre-state Israel.  So much for Palestinians not being migratory!

# Ah yes, Gottheil.  He should stick to economics.  Here is an earlier
# article of mine on the subject, slightly editted.

	Maybe, but perhaps you should stick to mathematics.  Analysis is
obviously not your forte.

# Firstly, here is a very brief summary of the thesis of F.M. Gottheil, 
# Arab Migration into Pre-State Israel: 1922-1931, in The Palestinians
# (eds. Curtis, Neyer, Pollack and Waxman).  Also printed in Palestine
# and Israel (eds. Kedourie and Haim) with minor changes.

# ---------------------
# There were only two proper censuses of Palestine during the British
# mandate, in 1922 and 1931.  Between those dates, records were kept
# of births, deaths, immigration and emigration.  Gottheil's basic
# approach is to take the 1922 Arab population, then increment it year
# by year according to the registered numbers of births and deaths.
# The result obtained for 1931 is substantially less than the Arab
# population counted at the 1931 census.  Gottheil takes the difference
# to be an estimate of the net Arab immigration into Palestine during
# the period 1922-1931.

# Gottheil also does this calculation separately for the portion of
# Palestine that became Israel in 1948, and for the portion that didn't.
# His conclusion is that Arab immigration into pre-state Israel for
# 1922-1931 was about 54790 and for the other parts of Palestine, 4677.
# The total of about 59000 is much higher than the official figure for
# Arab immigration during that time.
# ---------------------
 
# There are quite a few weaknessness in Gottheil's analysis.

	Fine.  How come you did not point any out?

# Some simple examples:
# (a) Gottheil assumes a constant ratio of Moslem:Christian:Other
#     even though the rates of increase were quite different for each.

	I did not see this in your summary of his thesis.  What I did see
was his count of the registered number of Arab births and deaths.
Since I doubt that Christians are counted among Jews in anyone's
figures (although some may ignore them), I cannot see how he makes
this assumption.

# (b) Gottheil uses rates of natural increase that were computed using
#     assumptions about the total population that he is trying to disprove.

	Just because set A is not valid for some reason, it does not mean
that subset A1 is also not valid (I am not a rigourous mathematician,
but I tried to use terms you would understand).

# However, the main problem (and a question-mark about his integrity)
# is provided by Gottheil's own footnote 15:

#    Although no analysis was made of such a residual, it was nonetheless
#    recognized in the Royal Commission Report of 1937.  The Report states:
#    "A discrepancy arose at the census of 1931 between the expected and
#    enumerated population due to incomplete recording of births and deaths
#    and of migration, and possibly to faulty enumeration of suspicious
#    and primitive people." ...

# Here we see three possible explanations being proposed.  Why has Gottheil
# assumed that only the second (migration) is responsible for all of it?
# We can only guess, because he doesn't even try to justify it.  Has he
# looked at the literature on censuses to see how accurate vital statistics
# generally are?  Has he considered the sedentation (settling-down) of
# Bedouin during the period 1922-1931 as a partial explanation?  None of
# those things, as far as I can tell from his paper.  In the absence of
# any contrary evidence,

	This is where you are ridiculous Brendan, and you are (almost)
pulling a "Finklestein".  If we grant either of the other two
alternatives (and by the way, I think they are very possible), then
none of the censuses taken can be of any weight to support any claim.
and in fact, one can ascribe motives to the incompletness which would
support the immigration theory, and in a way the Bedouin theory
implies it anyways.

# I suggest that Gottheil's political motives are
# the primary reason he has ignored the possible alternative explanations.

	Frankly, I think this suggestion could be made about you.  Along
with your recently documented bigotry.

# Having questioned Gottheil's balance, I will now question his scholarship
# (or maybe his honesty) as well.  As in the footnote quoted above, he
# claims "no analysis was made of such a residual".  Did he not read the
# report of the 1931 census, or is he just hoping we won't?  For, that
# report on pages 61-65 of volume I contains a section entitled "Comparison
# of the census statistics with the annual records of migration".  That
# section does exactly what Gottheil claims was not done: it compares
# the birth/death/migration records against the actual population increase
# and analyses the discrepancy.

	Who knows what he means by "no analysis"?  While this is the only
criticism of yours that makes any sense, the worst you can call it is
poor or sloppy phrasing.

# Its conclusions are that the net migratory
# balance (inward migration less outward migration, including Jews) was
# actually about 70,000 instead of the 57,000 recorded.

	So it is even higher?  Or maybe Gottheil was just referring to the
57,000 out of the 70,000, making your whole attempt here a swipe at
nothing!  Even if both, it certainly goes against your case of where
the Arabs originated.

# The difference of
# 13,000 is ascribed to unrecorded migration, mostly illegal, of which all
# but about 4,000 was Jewish.

# The total Arab migration, recorded or not,
# is estimated at about 11,000.

	Does this include Bedouin?  what about the sum that is not of the
11,000?  Were they all Jewish?  How could they even be counted?  If
you were an "illegal" Jew, would you permit yourself to be?

	At any rate (and if I understand you correctly) there were 70,000
immigrants.  Since 11,000 were Arab, 59,000 must have been Jewish.
How did they get these numbers?  What is recorded vs. unrecorded (I
know, but I do not think you do otherwise you would not post this
nonsense).

# It is clear that this figure cannot be
# regarded as definitely proven, but the analysis in the census report
# is vastly more believable than Gottheil's.

	Why?

# Gottheil's failure to
# mention such a primary source must be explained; either he is ignorant
# or he is dishonest.

	Or he does not play by your "rules".  THere are tons of primary
sources indicating there was no holocaust.  There are secondary
sources which state otherwise.  WHo do you believe?

# Finally, let me address Gottheil's split of Palestine into the part that
# became Israel and the part that didn't.  This calculation is not trivial,
# because the borders of Israel did not correspond to the district
# boundaries for the two censuses.  Similar attempts to estimate the
# pre-1948 population in the same area have produced answers differing
# by more than 20%, considerably more than is needed to completely wipe out
# Gottheil's argument.

	And depending how youlook at it, this could wipe out just about
every argument, pro or anti Gottlieb.  Are you familer with how births
and birth places are registered?  One need only look at Yassir
Arafat's "birth history" to show your whole article to be nonsense.

# Gottheil's clear bias should lead us to suspect
# his calculation (which is not given in detail).
#  Furthermore, he makes 
# unjustified assumptions such as that the natural rate of increase was 
# the same in both parts of Palestine, ignoring the very different 
# economic conditions in the two parts.

# All in all, Gottlieb's 
# conclusions simply can't be trusted.


	Maybe, maybe not.  But except for one example you have not given
any reasons.

# Finally, we should wonder at Gottheil's failure to mention that the 
# 1931 census made a direct count of population as a function of birthplace---
# an obvious crosscheck on immigration rates.

	Oh really.  How could they prove that?  I bet they counted the immigrants
from two of the biggest Arab clans as having been born there.

# According to the summary
# on page 59 of Volume I, the percentage of each religious group who were
# born outside Palestine was:  Muslims, 2%; Christians, 20%; Jews, 58%.
# No real scholar would fail to mention such data, even if arguing
# against it.  Gottlieb's total silence on it marks him very clearly 
# for what he is: a propagandist (and not even a good one).

	You are ridiculous.  The Bedoiun themselves make the 2% Muslim
figure invalid.  Maybe Gottlieb did not wnat to touch that issue who
knows.  Just because he does not follow your rules does not make him
wrong.

	Funny how rendan labels most pro-Israel propagandsists.  I wonder
what he would say if they were not Jewish.  Or if he were not involved
with David Palmer.
--

David Makowsky
makowsky@enuxha.eas.asu.edu
Newsgroups: talk.politics.mideast