Abstract
Unequal demographic changes in Palestine have both created and continue to reproduce the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – a conflict that has historically revolved around issues of land control and population dominance dating back to the end of the nineteenth century. The major demographic changes in Palestine could be traced to three processes: the racialized settlement project of the late 1800s, the exclusive state building project of the mid-twentieth century, and the colonial system since the late 1960s. The corresponding relationship of supremacy that emerged between European settler vs. native other, Jewish migrant vs. non-Jewish native (that is Muslim and Christian residents of Palestine), and Israeli vs. Palestinian dictated the demography of Palestine and impacted their differential migration processes and entitlements.
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Notes
- 1.
For an account of the Palestinian villages depopulated by Israel in 1948 see Walid Khalidi (ed.), All That Remains (Washington, D.C.: Institute of Palestine Studies, 1992). The former inhabitants of these villages and their descendants constitute the residents of the refugee camps of the occupied territories and the surrounding countries.
- 2.
Both European Christian and Jewish immigrants legitimized their settlement in Palestine beginning in the nineteenth century on the basis of religion. Jewish settlement was legitimized by a religious ideology even though the in-migrations were part of the Zionist project which was at its core a secular national project. The European Christians who settled in Palestine since 1868 also used a religious ideology declaring themselves heirs to the Promised land; the most famous of which was the Association of Templars – an offshoot of the German Protestant movement, but their numbers remained minimal (Farsoun 1997: 47).
- 3.
Small number of Muslims migrated to Palestine from lands that were previously under Ottoman rule like Maghrebis from North African areas that were colonized by the French, Bosnians from Yoguslavia escaping Austrian repression, and Circassians from the Russian Caucasus (Smith 1984: 15 in Farsoun 1997: 45)
- 4.
See Yair Aharoni. The Israeli Economy: Dreams and Realities (London: Routledge, 1991), 56.
- 5.
The Jewish population in urban areas increased from 23,500 to 73,000 between 1882 and 1914, compared to the agricultural areas where their numbers increased from 500 to 11,990 for the same period (see Farsoun 1997: 57, 58).
- 6.
In general, the new immigrants settled in the urban areas of Palestine as at no point until 1947 did their ratio come close to a fifth of the total farm population in Palestine (Farsoun 1997: 80); Eighty-five percent were concentrated in three major urban centers: Jaffa-TelAviv, Jerusalem, and Haifa (Farsoun 1997: 76).
- 7.
The new immigrants were able to establish agricultural colonies initially in an unsystematic form between 1870 and 1900 where they depended on land purchases with the backing and the direct financial support of wealthy Europeans of the like of French Jewish banker Baron Edmund de Rothschild, and between 1900 and 1914 agricultural land settlement became more systematic with the turning over of the financing of the settlements to the Jewish Colonization Association (ICA) (see Farsoun 1997: 57).
- 8.
Khalidi (1988: 207–203), Farsoun (1997: 58).
- 9.
- 10.
Britain was officially granted in 1922 a mandate over Palestine by the League of Nations – controlled by the colonial powers of the time – to maintain the status quo until a Palestinian future was decided (Farsoun 1997)
- 11.
- 12.
According to Rodinson (1973: 45) “The Europeanism of the Zionists made it possible for them to present their plan as part of the same movement of European expansion…Hence, the many statements pointing out that it was in the general interest of Europe or civilization (which amounted to the same thing), or in the particular interest of this or that power, to support the Zionist movement.”
- 13.
All persons born or naturalized in British Palestine were given British (Palestine) passports and were considered legally British (see Shiblak 2008).
- 14.
Britain gave monopolistic concessions to Jewish settlers including rights to use waters (Auja) and rights over the supply of electric power throughout Palestine (see Farsoun 1997).
- 15.
Eighty-five thousand immigrants (mostly Polish) of the fourth migration wave between 1924 and 1931 were of middle class background. See A Survey of Palestine, Chapter 7, 187–203.
- 16.
See Ghanem, A. (2001: 1). The Palestinian Arab Minority in Israel: 1948–2001. New York: State University of New York Press.
- 17.
Between 1950–1967, Jerusalem was the spiritual capital of Jordan and Amman was the capital and the place of residence of King Hussein of Jordan. See Jahshan, Ghattas, and Maheeba Jahshan. Guide to the West Bank of Jordan. 3rd Edition. Jerusalem: Franciscan Press. (undated)
- 18.
PCBS (2009); Different figures are given by different authors: 365,000 in Abu Lughod (1987: 3); 350,000 in Farsoun (1997). 360,000 in Sayigh (1979: 65). For a discussion of Palestinian refugees in Gaza see Hammami, Rema. “Between Heaven and Earth: Transformations in Religiosity and Labor among Southern Palestinian Peasant and Refugee Women, 1920–1993.” Ph.D. dissertation, Temple University, 1994.
- 19.
The area of the West Bank is listed as approximately 22,770 square miles in (1994: 269, 271); as 3,629 square miles in the Atlas of the Middle East and Northern Africa (Hammond 2006: 27)
- 20.
- 21.
See for example Taraki (2006). Living Palestine: Family Survival, Resistance, and Mobility under Occupation. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press; Bamyeh, Muhammad. (2003) Listening to the Inaudible. South Atlantic Quarterly, 102 (4), 825–849; Khalidi (1997). Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness. New York: Columbia University Press, 21.
- 22.
See Fanon (1989). Studies in a Dying Colonialism. London: Earthscan. P. 51.
- 23.
Pappe (2008) Zionism as Colonialism: A Comparative View of Diluted Colonialism in Asia and Africa. South Atlantic Quarterly, 107, p. 631.
- 24.
See Pappe (2008).
- 25.
Bornstein, A. (2002) Crossing the Green Line between the West Bank and Israel. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, p. 2.
- 26.
Sara Roy uses the term “De-Development” to describe how Israel blocked development in Gaza guided by Israel’s concerns with Jewish sovereignty and the military force needed to back it up (Roy 1994: 6, 2001).
- 27.
Samara, Adel (1992). Industrialization in the West Bank: A Marxist Socio-Economic Analysis. Jerusalem: Al Mashriq, p. 58.
- 28.
Out of 1,950 Israeli military orders issued until mid-1984, 935 orders dealt with customs, industry and crafts, commerce, land, water, and taxation amongst other areas (Samara 1992: 106, 107).
- 29.
See for example Uri Ur-Alouf, Order No. 1015: Order Regarding Monitoring the Planting of Fruitful Trees, Israeli Defense Forces, August 27, 1982, 1–3.
- 30.
The West Bank, for example, got partitioned into Area A (full Palestinian civil jurisdiction and internal security), Area B (full Palestinian civil jurisdiction, joint Israeli-Palestinian internal security), and Area C (Israeli civil and overall security control). (see Dictionary of Palestinian Political Terms, Jerusalem: PASSIA, April 2004) By March 2000, Israel retained control over 59 % of the West Bank, and given that part of the areas under Palestinian control (about 23.8 % of the West Bank) was subject to Israeli security control resulted in actual Israeli control of over 83 % of the West Bank, and 20 % of the Gaza Strip (Roy 1994: 340). By 2002 the West Bank got divided into eight cantons requiring permits from Israel for movement in and out of them (Hammami and Tamari 2006: 266, 267)
- 31.
Danny Rubinstein, “Continued Rule by Other Means,” Daily Selection in Ha’aretz Daily, June 30, 1997. (Internet edition: ha’aretz.co.il)
- 32.
The origin of the Jewish immigrants to Israel until the early 1990s was mainly from the Soviet Union, Romania, Morocco, Poland, Iraq, and Iran. Colbert, Held C. Middle East Patterns: Places, Peoples, and Politics (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1994), 257.
- 33.
The term “Mizrahim” emerged as an umbrella identity out of the massive encounter between Jews from varied regions from Maghreb to Yemen, and it replaced the term Sephardim (literally referring to those of Spanish origin) which was used oppositionally until the 1980s but still privileged the links to Europe; Mizrahim “began to be used only in the early 1990s by leftist non-Ashkenazi activists who saw the previous term such as bnei edot hamizrah (“descendants of the oriental ethnicities”) as condescending; non-European Jews were posited as “ethnicities,” in contradistinction to the unmarked norm of “Ashkenaziness” or Euro-Israeli “Sabraness,” defined simply as Israeli” (Shohat 1999: 13); the term references more than just origin as it evokes the specific experiences of non-Ashkenazi Jews in Israel. Shohat (1999: 14) argues that the term “Mizrahim” “condenses a number of connotations: it celebrates the Jewish past in the Eastern world, it affirms the pan-Oriental communities developed in Israel itself; and it invokes a future of revived cohabitation with the Arab Muslim East.”
- 34.
Paul Rivlin. The Israeli Economy (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992), 23. More than 121,00 of the 130,000 Jews in Iraq, and 44,000 of the 45,000 Jews in Yemen were flown in. Colbert Held (1994: 255,256).
- 35.
The phenotypical similarities between Mizrahis and Palestinian Arabs at times led to Mizrahis being mistaken for Palestinians and arrested or beaten. (Shohat 1999: 16)
- 36.
The nationality designation in the personal identity cards in Israel were based on religious categories (Jew, Muslim, Christian, and Druze), and following a law approved in the Israeli parliament (Knesset) in 2002 the interior ministry developed around 132 national designations for the identity cards including Jew, Arab, and Druze, thus lumping Christians and Muslims in the state under the category “Arab” while still not acknowledging a secular “Israeli nationality” (Zureik 2003: 627).
- 37.
Person born to Israeli citizen while staying abroad, who entered Israel with the intention of settling. From 13 months prior to May 2011 the population grew by 2 % (Linger 2011).
- 38.
Within Israel, the Israeli born Jewish population has increased to 70 % compared with 35 % in 1948 (Linger 2011)
- 39.
Linger, Aviad. 2011. Press Release. Central Bureau of Statistics. State of Israel, May 8.
- 40.
See Shafir and Peled. “The Frontiers Within: Palestinians as Third Class Citizens” in Being Israeli: The Dynamics of Multiple Citizenship (Cambridge; UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002) 110–136. For a discussion of how Israeli law is used to restrict access to land by Israeli Palestinians see Abu Hussain and McKay, Access Denied: Palestinian Land Rights in Israel (London; New York: Zed Books, 2001).
- 41.
Salim Tamari, “The Transformation of Palestinian Society,” in Mariane Heiberg and Geir Ovensen, Palestinian Society in Gaza, West Bank, and East Jerusalem: A Survey of Living Conditions (Oslo: FAFO, 1993, 1994) 24.
- 42.
Israeli 1980 Basic Law (Jerusalem, Capital of Israel) annexed Jerusalem as Israel’s “complete and united” capital and modified the city’s municipal borders. The UNSC Resolution 478 does not recognize the 1980 law. The European Union as well did not recognize any changes to the pre-1967 border. EU Heads of Mission, Jerusalem Report 2010, p. 2.
- 43.
See PCBS, Population, Housing and Establishment Census 1997, and 2007; Population by Sex, PCBS, 2009: 57. http://www.pcbs.gov.ps/pcbs
- 44.
Statistical Abstract of Israel estimates are based on the December 2008 population census survey. The population of Israel estimates include permanent residents who live in the area of the state of Israel, and Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and who are either Israeli citizens or permanent residents without Israeli citizenship –including those who have been out of the country for less than a year at the time of the estimate. Their number at end of 1967 was 70,900. In 1972, Judea and Samaria (West Bank), and the Gaza Strip were added. Since 2008 tourists, temporary visitors for more than one year, and foreign workers staying for more than one year were no longer included in the Israeli estimates (see Population, CBS, Statistical Abstract of Israel, 2010)
- 45.
Salim Tamari, “The Transformation of Palestinian Society,” in Mariane Heiberg and Geir Ovensen, Palestinian Society in Gaza, West Bank, and East Jerusalem: A Survey of Living Conditions (Oslo: FAFO, 1993) 23, 24. By 1993, the population was 830,000 people, 99 % of whom are Sunni Muslims. 70 % (583,000) of Gazans are refugees of the 1948 war and their descendents, and according to UNRWA figures for 1992, over half of the refugees live in camps (Roy 1994: 15).
- 46.
Hasan Abu Libdeh et al., “Population Characteristics and Trends” in Mariane Heiberg and Geir Ovensen, Palestinian Society in Gaza, West Bank, and East Jerusalem: A Survey of Loving Conditions (Oslo: FAFO, 1993), 41.
- 47.
Hasan Abu Libdeh et al., “Population Characteristics and Trends” in Mariane Heiberg and Geir Ovensen, Palestinian Society in Gaza, West Bank, and East Jerusalem: A Survey of Loving Conditions (Oslo: FAFO, 1993) 42.
- 48.
Hasan Abu Libdeh, 1993, 1994, 44–47.
- 49.
FAFO Summary Report, 1994, 14.
- 50.
Geir Ovensen, Responding to Change: Trends in Palestinian Household Economy. FAFO. 1994, pp. 128, 129
- 51.
UNRWA, OCHA OPT, Seven Years after the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice on the Barrier: The Impact of the Barrier in the Jerusalem area, http://www.ochaopt.org
- 52.
The barrier swapped the major Israeli settlements on the West Bank and East Jerusalem into the Israeli side of the barrier including the settlements of Shomron bloc, Ariel, Giv’at Ze’ev, Ma’ale Adummim, and the Fush Etzion settlement bloc. 71. UN map projections show that the barrier incorporated 85 % of the West Bank settler population along with their 71 settlements (out of a total of 150 settlements on the West Bank) into the Israeli side of the barrier.
- 53.
Daoud Kuttab, “Jerusalem should be at the center of peace efforts”, 1/4/2010 accessed 1/28/2010.
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Hovsepian, M. (2015). Demography of Race and Ethnicity in Palestine. In: Sáenz, R., Embrick, D., Rodríguez, N. (eds) The International Handbook of the Demography of Race and Ethnicity. International Handbooks of Population, vol 4. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8891-8_17
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