Wikipedia

Draft:Edit Request United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine

Edit Request: The Negev issue

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This is a major Edit Request. I already made a comment about the Negev some 2 months ago. I have now researched this matter because the differing information in various sources about the land use and importance of the Negev has so confused me. Recently, some new research was published on this matter. I now know significantly more than before and am therefore making another, greatly expanded edit request. I am now also WP:XC, but I am proposing such an extensive change here that I prefer to put it up for discussion first. Mainly, I propose to restructure and expand the Ad hoc Committee section.

Why it should be changed: The inclusion of the Negev was the major innovation of the Partition Resolution; therefore, it should be explained. It was also obviously unfair, and very likely even more unfair than depicted in older literature. This should not be obscured. Additionally, the Negev issue was linked to at least one major irregularity in the drafting of the partition (the meeting between Truman and Weizmann), and probably even two (the inaccurate British data). Lastly, this simply reflects the most recent state of research: The extent of the Bedouins' cultivated land according to pre-1946 estimates was only brought to public attention again by Abu-Sitta in 2010 (p. 54) and by Kedar et al. in 2019 (pp. 130-132), following the earlier work of Hadawi. The agricultural history related to this was reconstructed by Halevy only in 2021. The crucial role of Lowdermilk and the UNSCOP visit to Revivim for the Negev decisions was, as far as I know, only highlighted in the four cited monographs from 2019 and 2023. All these pieces are essential to understand both the peculiar innovation of the UN and the outrage of the Arabs about it.


Preparatory Mini-Request

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  • What I think should be changed and added (format using {{textdiff}}):
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The Jewish State included three fertile lowland plains – the [[Sharon, Israel|Sharon]] on the coast, the [[Jezreel Valley]] and the upper [[Jordan Valley (Middle East)|Jordan Valley]]. The bulk of the proposed Jewish State's territory, however, consisted of the [[Negev Desert]], which was mostly not suitable for agriculture, nor for urban development at that time. The Jewish State would also be given sole access to the [[Sea of Galilee]], crucial for its [[Water supply and sanitation in Israel|water supply]], and the economically important [[Red Sea]]. [...]
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The Jewish State included three fertile lowland plains – the [[Sharon, Israel|Sharon]] on the coast, the [[Jezreel Valley]] and the upper [[Jordan Valley (Middle East)|Jordan Valley]]. The Jewish State would also be given sole access to the [[Sea of Galilee]], crucial for its [[Water supply and sanitation in Israel|water supply]], and the economically important [[Red Sea]]. The major innovation of the partition committee, however, unlike in all older partition proposals, was to additionally assign the [[Negev Desert]] and thereby nearly half of the Mandate territory to the Jewish state, despite Jews owning only about 1% of the land and constituting less than 1% of the population there (see below). [...]
  • Why it should be changed: This would set the stage for the major edit request. I now also have realized that "which was mostly not suitable for agriculture, nor for urban development at that time" is probably not just slightly inaccurate. See below.


Major Edit Request

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Draft:

==Ad hoc Committee and border adjustments==

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On 23 September 1947 the General Assembly established the Ad Hoc Committee on the Palestinian Question to consider the UNSCOP report. Representatives of the Arab Higher Committee and Jewish Agency were invited and attended.[1]

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During the committee's deliberations, the British government endorsed the report's recommendations concerning the end of the mandate, independence, and Jewish immigration. [citation needed] However, the British did "not feel able to implement" any agreement unless it was acceptable to both the Arabs and the Jews, and asked that the General Assembly provide an alternative implementing authority if that proved to be the case.

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The chairman H. V. Evatt excluded the Arab states from Subcommittee One, which had been delegated the specific task of studying and, if thought necessary, modifying the boundaries of the proposed partition: Initially, only UNSCOP's majority proposal was to be drafted, but an unnamed US politician maneuvered to also draft the minority proposal, thereby excluding the Arab states from the majority proposal's drafting. Instead, all Arab states were placed in Subcommittee 2 to draft the minority recommendation.[2] Evatt also rejected a motion from Subcommittee 2 to balance this subcommittees' composition.[3] He was later criticized for thereby preventing a compromise and a fairer partition proposal by creating these "unbalanced" subcommittees.[4][5][6]

===Subcommittee 2===

partly new
Despite being primarily set up to draft a detailed plan for a future unitary government of Palestine (Resolution No. III[7]), sub-committee 2's groundwork for this resolution only comprised sections 84-91 of their report. Additionally, they worked on two other draft resolutions: a recommendation to refer the Partition Plan to the International Court of Justice (Resolution No. I[8]), and concerning Jewish refugees from World War II, a recommendation for the countries from which the refugees originated to take them back as much as possible (Resolution No. II[9]), which was partly adopted by the Ad hoc Committee.[10] Furthermore, they elaborated in sections 57-83 why UNSCOP's partition proposal was "legally objectionable, politically unjust, and economically disastrous."[11] A key point of criticism was the Negev and the Bedouins.

===UNSCOP's Negev proposal===

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UNSCOP's inclusion of the Negev in the Jewish state had had mainly two reasons:

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(1) Some Palestinian researchers such as Sami Hadawi and Salman Abu Sitta have suggested that the British – who were determined not to cede the Negev to the Zionists, as they aimed to provide Jordan access to the Mediterranean and prevent Egypt, both of which were under British influence, from being isolated from other Arab states[12] – may have provided inaccurate information about the land use of the Negev. Regarding the Jewish-owned area, this is certain.[13] It is probably also true for the Bedouins: Most estimates assumed that during the British Mandate period, the Bedouin grain cultivation area in the Beersheba subdistrict had gradually expanded from 300,000 hectares to 400,000 hectares.[14][15][16][17] If this is true, it would have constituted nearly 36% of the agricultural land in the region of Palestine[18] and encompassed almost the entire northern half of the Negev.[19] Indeed, during several years of the British Mandate period, barley produced by Bedouins in this area[20][21] was Palestine's economically most important export.[22] However, the British conveyed to both the 1946 Partition Commission and the Sub-committee 2 figures that were only half as large,[23][24] and portrayed the Negev as largely barren with the exception of an area "in the extreme north-west of the sub-district" that was already firmly in the hands of the Bedouins,[25] the barren remainder being suitable only for Bedouin livestock breeding.[26] Finally, they emphasized the "land rights" of the "Beersheba Bedouin" and their "historic association" with the Negev.[27]

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(2) If the British numbers were indeed inaccurate, they had just the opposite effect: Walter C. Lowdermilk, an American Christian Zionist, had written a renowned[28] book that, among other topics, envisioned a water pipeline from the northern Jordan River to the Beersheba District to irrigate the Negev.[29] During the UNSCOP's visit to Revivim in the Negev, the sight of a field of gladioli, freshly irrigated by water from the new Nir Am pipeline, convinced them of the feasibility of Lowdermilk's plans for agricultural development in the Negev.[30][31][32] Believing that large areas of the Negev were still "capable of development", though only achievable with significant Zionist investment in irrigation, they recommended including the Negev in the Jewish state.[33]

===Sub-committee 2's criticism===

partly new
Subcommittee 2 initiated its criticism based on the economic importance of the Negev and the large number of Bedouins living there, for which it also received figures from the British: The number of Bedouins was revised upwards from the 90,000 reported in the UNSCOP report to 127,000.[11] This figure was likely also incorrect.[34] This figure would have meant that, from the beginning, the now 509,780 Arabs would constitute a majority over the 499,020 Jews in the Jewish state.[11] Sub-committee 2 further declared: Since all other agriculturally and economically important areas of Palestine had already been allocated to the Jewish state and the Bedouin were "responsible for the cultivation of the greater part of the [200,000 hectares] of cereal land" of Beersheba (which still amounted to nearly 22% of the agricultural land in Palestine),

[...] it is certain that the proposed Arab State cannot be viable. It would have no cultivable lands of any importance. Such cultivable lands as it would have would not supply a small fraction of the cereal requirements of its population. It would have no other economic resources, no raw materials, no industries, no trade, and would have to subsist on subsidies or loans.

— Sub-committee 2.[11]

===Boundary changes===

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The population argument was accepted by Subcommittee 1 during plenary sessions of the Ad hoc Committee. Therefore it was decided to exclude the urban area of Jaffa as an Arab enclave from the territory of the Jewish state, which reduced the number of Arabs in the Jewish state by several tens of thousands.[35]

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Additionally, the dominant USA had already planned to reallocate the Negev to the Arab state to gain favor with Arab states and secure their support for the partition plan. However, when the Zionists learned of these plans, President Truman's advisor David Niles arranged a meeting with Chaim Weizmann, who persuaded the President with the vision of a canal running through Jewish territory from the Gulf of Aqaba to Tel Aviv. Following Truman’s direct orders, the Americans abandoned their earlier tactic[36][37][38][39][40][41] and only introduced a modification proposal (which was also accepted) to slightly enlarge the Palestinian area with the city of Beersheba and a section on the border with Egypt.[42] This, however, did not change the issue of insufficient arable land, as this section primarily consisted of sand dunes.[43][44]

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The proposed boundaries would also have placed 54 Arab villages on the opposite side of the border from their farm land.[citation needed] In response, the United Nations Palestine Commission established in 1948 was empowered to modify the boundaries "in such a way that village areas as a rule will not be divided by state boundaries unless pressing reasons make that necessary". These modifications never occurred.

===Reactions===

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The Jewish Agency expressed support for most of the UNSCOP recommendations, but emphasized the "intense urge" of the overwhelming majority of Jewish displaced persons to proceed to Palestine. The Jewish Agency criticized the proposed boundaries, especially in the Western Galilee and Western Jerusalem (outside of the old city), arguing that these should be included in the Jewish state. However, they agreed to accept the plan if "it would make possible the immediate re-establishment of the Jewish State with sovereign control of its own immigration."


  1. ^ "1949.I.13 of 31 December 1948". unispal.un.org.
  2. ^ Cf. Daniel Mandel (2004): H. V. Evatt and the Establishment of Israel. The Undercover Zionist. Frank Cass. p. 128.
  3. ^ UN, Department of Public Information: Yearbook of the United Nations. 1947–48. p. 240.
  4. ^ E.g. Nabil Elaraby (1968): Some Legal Implications of the 1947 Partition Resolution and the 1949 Armistice Agreements. Law and Contemporary Problems 33 (1). p. 101: „It seems anomalous that the procedure adopted for the consideration of the report was delegated to two subcommittees of the Ad Hoc Committee, one composed of pro-partition delegates and the other of Arab delegates plus Colombia and Pakistan, which were sympathetic to the Arab cause. It was obvious that those two sub-committees were so unbalanced as to be unable to achieve anything constructive. As was later evident, the task of reconciling their conflicting recommendations was impossible. In such circumstances, it was not surprising that no serious attention was given to the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinians.“
  5. ^ E.g. John B. Judis (2014): Genesis: Truman, American Jews, and the Origins of the Arab/Israeli Conflict. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Section 13: "Months later, [Swedish UN representative] Hagglof told Lionel Gelber from the Jewish Agency that a majority of nations felt that the United States and the chairman of the ad hoc committee, the Australian Herbert Evatt, had manipulated the issue so that the countries were forced to choose between 'partition and some pro-Arab scheme.' They would have preferred an 'attempt at conciliation,' but that was not among the choices they were given."
  6. ^ Similarly, Victor Kattan (2009): From Coexistence to Conquest. International Law and the Origins of the Arab–Israeli Conflict, 1891–1949. Pluto Press. p. 149: "In this regard, two of the Arab states let it be known that they were anxious to step down from Subcommittee 2 so that it might be reconstituted on a fairer basis with countries both for and against partition working together. But the chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee rejected the proposal. In the words of Khan: 'It was either partition or nothing.' There was no middle way."
  7. ^ Sub-Committee 2 of the Ad hoc Committee on the Palestinian Question of the 2nd UN General Assembly 1947 (10 November 1947). "Report of Sub-Committee 2: Chapter 4: Conclusions, III: Draft Resolution on the Constitution and Future Government of Palestine". mlwerke.de. Retrieved 1 March 2016.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  8. ^ Sub-Committee 2 of the Ad hoc Committee on the Palestinian Question of the 2nd UN General Assembly 1947 (10 November 1947). "Report of Sub-Committee 2: Chapter 4: Conclusions, I: Draft Resolution Referring Certain Legal Questions to The International Court of Justice". mlwerke.de. Retrieved 1 March 2016.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  9. ^ Sub-Committee 2 of the Ad hoc Committee on the Palestinian Question of the 2nd UN General Assembly 1947 (10 November 1947). "Report of Sub-Committee 2: Chapter 4: Conclusions, II: Draft Resolution on Jewish Refugees and Displaced Persons". mlwerke.de. Retrieved 1 March 2016.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  10. ^ "Yearbook of the United Nations 1947-48". Retrieved June 9, 2024..
  11. ^ a b c d Sub-Committee 2 of the Ad hoc Committee on the Palestinian Question of the 2nd UN General Assembly 1947 (10 November 1947). "Report of Sub-Committee 2: Chapter 3: Proposals for the constitution and future government of Palestine". mlwerke.de. Retrieved 10 June 2016.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  12. ^ Cf. Michael Oren: The diplomatic struggle for the Negev, 1946–1956. Studies in Zionism 10 (2), 1989. p. 200 f.
  13. ^ It did not measure 6,515 hectares, as the British informed Sub-committee 2, but the Jewish National Fund alone already owned 15,800 hectares (=1.26% of the Beersheba sub-district). Cf. Eric E. Tuten: Between Capital and Land. The Jewish National Fund's finances and land-purchase priorities in Palestine, 1939–45. RoutledgeCurzon, 2005. p. 134.
  14. ^ The British Abramson Report of 1921, based on agricultural production and paid taxes: 280,000 hectares. Cf. Alexandre Kedar et al.: Emptied Lands. A Legal Geography of Bedouin Rights in the Negev. Stanford University Press, 2018. p. 130.
    However, also compare this figure to Salman H. Abu-Sitta: Atlas of Palestine 1917–1966. Palestine Land Society, 2010. p. 54, who thinks that the yield per hectar assumption in these calculations is too low, and that at least 375,000 hectares were already being cultivated at the beginning of the Mandate period.
  15. ^ Beersheba's District Officer Aref al-Aref in 1934: 100,000 hectares currently being cultivated (المزروع بالفعل, "indeed / right now under cultivation"), 300,000 hectares agricultural land. Cf. Aref al-Aref: The History of Beersheba and its Tribes. Maktabat Madbouli, 1999. p. 274. [Arab.]
    Two figures in this and the next two estimates reflect that in Palestine, only roughly half of the agricultural land was regularly cultivated. The remainder either lay fallow to allow the soil to recover or was not cultivated due to insufficient rainfall. Cf. Sami Hadawi: Village Statistics 1945. A Classification of Land and Area Ownership in Palestine. With Explanatory Notes. Palestine Liberation Organization Research Center, 1970. p. 36; Salman H. Abu-Sitta: Atlas of Palestine 1917–1966. Palestine Land Society, 2010. p. 54; Alexandre Kedar et al.: Emptied Lands. A Legal Geography of Bedouin Rights in the Negev. Stanford University Press, 2018. p. 130.
  16. ^ Epstein in 1939, based on a survey of the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries: 211,000 hectares currently under cultivation, 350,000 hectares agricultural land in Bedouin possession. Cf. Eliahu Epstein: Bedouin of the Negeb. Palestine Exploration Quarterly 71 (2), 1939. p. 70.
  17. ^ Hadawi, based on the Village Statistics of 1945: ~200,000 hectares currently under cultivation, >400,000 hectares agricultural land. Cf. Sami Hadawi: Village Statistics 1945. A Classification of Land and Area Ownership in Palestine. With Explanatory Notes. Palestine Liberation Organization Research Center, 1970. p. 36.
  18. ^ Cf. UN Sub-Committee 2 on the Palestinian Question: Report of Sub-Committee 2 to the Ad Hoc Committee on the Palestinian question of the UN General Assembly 1947. Appendix VI: Agricultural land excluding Beersheba = a total of 720,072 ha.
  19. ^ Salman H. Abu-Sitta: Atlas of Palestine 1917–1966. Palestine Land Society, 2010. p. 24: 450,000 ha.
  20. ^ "Gaza barley," alternatively called "badawi abyad" ("Bedouin White"). On this, cf. Dotan Halevy: Stripped. Ruination, Liminality, and the Making of the Gaza Strip. Dissertation, 2021. p. 71–80.
  21. ^ Dotan Halevy: Being Imperial, Being Ephemeral: Ottoman Modernity on Gaza's Seashore, in: Yuval Ben-Bassat / Johann Buessow (ed.): From the Household to the Wider World. Local Perspectives on Urban Institutions in Late Ottoman Bilad al-Sham. Tübingen University Press 2022. p. 233.
  22. ^ Cf. Marwan R. Buheiry: The Agricultural Exports of Southern Palestine, 1885-1914. Journal of Palestine Studies 10 (4), 1981. p. 68: citrus fruits exported from Jaffa: £97,000; barley exported from Gaza: £180,000. Buheiry calculates an average of 350,000 tons of Gaza barley exports from the mid-point of the British Mandate period.
    On citrus fruit export, cf. Walid Khalidi: Revisiting the UNGA Partition Resolution. Journal of Palestine Studies 27/1, 1997. p. 13.
  23. ^ Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry: A Survey of Palestine. Prepared in December 1945 and January 1946. The Government Printer, Palestine, 1946. p. 369 f.: 164,000 hectares.
    On this number, cf. Salman H. Abu-Sitta: Atlas of Palestine 1917–1966. Palestine Land Society, 2010. p. 24.
  24. ^ UN Sub-Committee 2 on the Palestinian Question: Report of Sub-Committee 2 to the Ad Hoc Committee on the Palestinian question of the UN General Assembly 1947. Appendix VI: 200,000 hectares.
    On this number, cf. Sami Hadawi: Village Statistics 1945. A Classification of Land and Area Ownership in Palestine. With Explanatory Notes. Palestine Liberation Organization Research Center, 1970. p. 36.
  25. ^ "Every dunum which can be economically sown is cultivated by the Beduin inhabitants."
    Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry: A Survey of Palestine. Prepared in December 1945 and January 1946. The Government Printer, Palestine, 1946. p. 369 f.
  26. ^ "a wild confusion of bare limestone hills [...], providing winter pasture for the goats and camels of a few small tribes":
    Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry: A Survey of Palestine. Prepared in December 1945 and January 1946. The Government Printer, Palestine, 1946. p. 369 f.
  27. ^ "The term Beersheba Bedouin has a meaning more definite than one would expect in the case of a nomad population. These tribes, wherever they are found in Palestine, will always describe themselves as Beersheba tribes. Their attachment to the area arises from their land rights there and their historic association with it."
    UN Sub-Committee 2 on the Palestinian Question: Report of Sub-Committee 2 to the Ad Hoc Committee on the Palestinian question of the UN General Assembly 1947. Appendix III
  28. ^ James Fergusson: In Search of the River Jordan. A Story of Palestine, Israel and the Struggle for Water. Yale University Press, 2023. p. 165 f.
  29. ^ Christopher Ward et al.: The History of Water in the Land once Called Palestine. Scarcity, Conflict and Loss in Middle East Water Resources. Bloomsbury Academic, 2023. p. 46–49.
  30. ^ Donna Herzog: Contested Waterscapes: Constructing Israel's National Water Carrier. Dissertation, 2019. p. 141 f.: "In retrospect, the Negev pipeline did have the intended impact Ben-Gurion and Blass conceived it would. In April 1947, Mekorot began sending water to the Negev in the pipeline, and this became a major factor in the deliberations made during the visit of the UN Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP); as one UN surveyor who visited the Negev stated to his Jewish escort 'This water pipe will give you the Negev.' Indeed, in the case of the Negev, water determined the land division, and the Negev was included in the border of the Jewish state."
  31. ^ Elad Ben-Dror: UNSCOP and the Arab–Israeli Conflict. The Road to Partition. Routledge, 2023. p. 80 f: "The members of the kibbutz [Revivim] proudly showed the delegation the gladiolas and vegetables they grew in the desert, and a reservoir of water collecting using a special method they had developed. [...] The subtext was that only the Yishuv could take full advantage of the Negev and Aravah regions. The members of UNSCOP were largely convinced."
  32. ^ James Fergusson: In Search of the River Jordan. A Story of Palestine, Israel and the Struggle for Water. Yale University Press, 2023. p. 233: "Revivim, the Jewish Agency argued, proved that the Yishuv, and only the Yishuv, had the capacity and technical know-how to exploit and colonize the empty desert; the Negev should therefore be given to them.
    The first thing the UNESCO [sic] delegation saw on the morning of their arrival at Revivim was a garden of fresh pink gladioli. The pioneers, apparently quite by chance, had watered the gladioli the night before, causing them to burst into bloom as though choreographed. The bright colours against the dun-coloured land made a great impression on the delegates, who were accompanied by the press; a colour photograph of the flowers appeared in the English-language Palestine Post the following day.
    The officials went away convinced that the Negev should be granted to Israel, and in November 1947 – in a vote from which Britain pointedly abstained – the UN General Assembly agreed."
  33. ^ United Nations Special Committee on Palestine. "Report to the General Assembly. Volume I". Retrieved 2024-05-24. p. 14, 54: "The area has good soil but insufficient rain to support a denser population. It can only be developed by irrigation. There are small Jewish settlements in the south of this area (sometimes loosely described as the Negev) which are at present experimental and based on water brought by pipeline at great cost from a considerable distance. The further development of this area remains, therefore, problematic, being dependent either on the discovery of non-saline underground water at economic depths or the development of reservoirs to store the winter rainfall over fairly wide areas. [...] The inclusion of the whole Beersheba sub-district in the Jewish State gives to it a large area, parts of which are very sparsely populated and capable of development, if they can be provided with water for irrigation. The experiments already carried out in this area by the Jews suggest that further development in an appreciable degree should be possible by heavy investment of capital and labour and without impairing the future or prejudicing the rights of the existing Bedouin population. The Negev south of latitude 31, though included in the Jewish State, is desert land of little agricultural value, but is naturally linked with the northern part of the sub-district of Beersheba."
  34. ^ Today, pro-Israeli authors generally estimate there were between 57,000 to 65,000 Bedouins in the Negev, while pro-Palestinian authors estimate between 90,000 to 100,000.
    Cf. e.g. Havatzelet Yahel / Ruth Kark: [</nowiki>https://www.academia.edu/21006195/Israel_Negev_Bedouin_during_the_1948_War_Departure_and_Return Israel Negev Bedouin during the 1948 War: Departure and Return]. Israel Affairs 21 (1), 2014. p. 49; Mansour Nasasra: The Naqab Bedouins. A Century of Politics and Resistance. Columbia University Press 2017. p. 107.
  35. ^ Cf. e.g. Ad hoc Committee on the Palestinian Question of the 2nd UN General Assembly 1947 (10 November 1947). "Tenth meeting, held at Lake Success, New York, on Friday, 10 October 1947". p. 59. Retrieved 10 June 2024.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link): "With regard to the population of the future States as a whole, the Pakistan representative had said that there would be as many Arabs as Jews in the proposed Jewish State. [...] The delegation of Guatemala was ready to reconsider the position of Jaffa and to support any proposal which would give the Arab State possession of that city, to which it had an undeniable right. In that case, there would not be more than 337,000 Arabs in the Jewish State, according to the estimates [...]."
  36. ^ Cf. Chaim Weizmann: Trial and Error. Schocken Books, 1966. p. 457–459.
  37. ^ Abba Eban: An Autobiography. Random House, 1977. p. 94.
  38. ^ Robert J. Donovan: Conflict and Crisis. The Presidency of Harry S. Truman, 1945–1948. W. W. Norton & Company, 1977. p. 327 f.
  39. ^ John W. Mulhall: America and the Founding of Israel. An Investigation of the Morality of America's Role. Deshon Press, 1995. p. 140–142.
  40. ^ Allis Radosh / Ronald Radosh: A Safe Haven. Harry S. Truman and the Founding of Israel. Harper Collins Publishers, 2009. p. 261–265.
  41. ^ John B. Judis: Genesis: Truman, American Jews, and the Origins of the Arab/Israeli Conflict. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014. Epub edition, section 13: "The most controversial of these [subsequent pro-Arab] amendments was giving most of the Negev to the Arabs. With the Negev included, an Arab state would be larger than the Jewish state, and it would have a direct link to the sea and a contiguous border with Egypt and Jordan. Such a plan [...] might have at least brought the Arab League into negotiations. And it would have been a far fairer distribution of Palestine's assets. Truman approved the State Department's amendments, which fit his own sense of fairness. But the Jewish Agency was determined to defeat the proposal."
  42. ^ Benny Morris (2008). 1948: a history of the first Arab-Israeli war. Yale University Press. p. 53. ISBN 978-0-300-12696-9.
  43. ^ Cf. the Survey of Palestine 1:100,000 map.
  44. ^ Cf. Figure 9 in Khalid Fathi Ubeid: Sand dunes of the Gaza Strip (Southwestern Palestine): Morphology, textural characteristics and associated environmental impacts. Earth Sciences Research Journal 18 (2). p. 138.


---

Two further comments:
(1) While Hadawi, Abu-Sitta, and Kedar's coauthor Oren Yiftachel may have perspectives influenced by their backgrounds, the data they reference aren't "Palestinian" data. The Abramson Report was a British-Zionist venture; Epstein was a Zionist. To ensure balance, I searched for even more Zionist figures, but found only two: In a book by Yosef Weitz, there is an estimate claiming that the Bedouins had cultivated only 6,000 hectares.[1] But this is obviously unrealistic. Kedar et al. also cite a Zionist survey of 1920, but this is incomplete, ignores several Bedouin tribes and sections of land, and some data are incorrect (for example, the individual percentages for the Azazima do not add up to the stated total). Thus, I don't think that they are worthy of Wikipedia.

(2) I should add that I now also know more about the geography of the agricultural areas as well. In case anyone searches for this info:

  • There are two different positions on the Highlands: Developed agricultural land in the Highlands measured between 30,000 and 50,000 hectares.[2][3] Researchers who have interviewed Bedouins believe that the Bedouins used the Highlands even more intensively than the Negevites did in Byzantine times and therefore built their own terraces in addition to the Byzantine ones.[4][5] According to this, all of these 30,000-50,000 hectares would have been cultivated by Bedouins. Archaeologists, on the other hand, often believe that Bedouins cultivated less land than the Byzantine Negevites and only reused the best-preserved terrace remnants, meaning: only parts of the 30,000-50,000 hectares. Avni, for example, assumes 8-10% of the Highlands (=17,000-20,000 hectares).[6] In any case, according to both positions, it was an area of 20,000-50,000 hectares – little in relation to the more northerly Beersheba agricultural area, but surprisingly much for the Highlands. This agrees with a survey by Jacob Verman and Daniel Zohary from 1941, who found that almost the entire wadi area in the highlands north of Makhtesh Ramon was used for barley cultivation, except for the too sandy Wadi Boker area and the Nahal Ramon area directly at Makhtesh Ramon.[7]
  • In the region east and southeast of Beersheba that would later become the Siyag, only 40,000 out of 100,000 hectares were suitable for agriculture.[8][9][10] Most of this wasn't included in the Arab state. The area on the border to Egypt was mainly sand dunes (see above). So, the whole rest of the 200,000 / 400,000 ha minus the 20,000-50,000 ha of the highlands and the 40,000 ha east of Beersheba were west and northwest of Beersheba, and nearly everything of the 200,000 / 400,000 ha was to go to the Jewish state.


  1. ^ referenced in the Goldstein Report, p. 8, s. 12.
  2. ^ Daniel Fuks et al.: The Debate on Negev Viticulture and Gaza Wine in Late Antiquity. Tel Aviv 48 (2). p. 157.
  3. ^ Yoav Avni: The Emergence of Terrace Farming in the Arid Zone of the Levant - Past Perspectives and Future Implications. Land 11 (10), 2022. p. 11 of the PDF.
  4. ^ E.g. Philip Mayerson: The Ancient Agricultural Remains of the Central Negeb: Methodology and Dating Criteria. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 160, 1960. p. 35: "I have carefully examined many of these tributary wadis and have found that many terrace walls have been laid by Bedouin and that they do not lie over ancient walls. I have also questioned Bedouin who have cultivated the area, and they claim to have terraced wadis, particularly small ones, in which no walls existed before. When one examines the terracing in tributary wadis with steep gradients, it is quite common to find that the ancient walls stop at some distance from the wadi's source. Bedouin, however, have continued terracing the wadi with low, rough walls as far as there is a bit of cultivable soil. [...] Tributary wadis with mild gradients, and consequently not badly eroded [...], are generally filled with Bedouin walls form source to mouth. [...] In the area around ˁAuja (Nitsanah), I estimate that at least on-third to one-half of all visible remains in tributary wadis are Bedouin work."
  5. ^ E.g. Ariel Meraiot et al: Scale, Landscape and Indigenous Bedouin Land Use: Spatial Order and Agricultural Sedentarisation in the Negev Highlands. Nomadic Peoples 25, 2021. p. 14-16: "'My father built all terraces in our wadi, one by one. I remember him picking and piling up big stones along the entire wadi length' [S.-aG.]). [...] Constructing terrace systems was constrained by technology and manpower and therefore the Bedouin used raw, unhewn stones: 'My father built the terraces, he brought the stones with camels' (A.-L.) '... at the time of the Turks [Ottomans]' (A.-R.). These constraints occasioned specific Bedouin engineering methods, such as hayt az-zaghira (a small secondary terrace [...]): 'We knew about the terraces built by the Romans, but we also built our own terraces' (A.-J.)."
  6. ^ Yoav Avni: The Emergence of Terrace Farming in the Arid Zone of the Levant - Past Perspectives and Future Implications. Land 11 (10), 2022. p. 18 of the PDF: "The seminomadic Bedouin population of the Negev Highlands utilized the best-preserved ancient plots for agricultural production during the last 250 years [...]. Most of these plots were used for cereal cultivation while, in small, designated plots with improved runoff irrigation, they cultivated small orchards (mainly olives and figs, but also carob, almonds, and dates). [This is incorrect. See the following comment] In the 1:100,000 scale British maps of the Negev south of Be´er Sheva that were published in 1942-1946, approximately 8-10% of the land was characterized as 'cultivation in patches' [this is also not true. It is not possible to determine from the maps how much of the area was actually cultivated, and Avni overlooks the 'cultivation' areas in addition to 'cultivation in patches']. Most of these plots were cultivated for the production of cereals by the local Bedouin population of the Negev Highlands, estimated at several thousand people."
    Comment: This is a misquotation. The source he cites, on the contrary, inferred from the analysis of ancient fruit trees that the Negev Highlands were continuously cultivated from over 1,000 years ago until 70 years ago. I assume Avni intentionally misquotes this because he is one of the main proponents who have proven that the Highlands were cultivated not only during the Byzantine but also during the early Islamic period. The end of Highland agriculture after the early Islamic period is thus one of his main theses. The cited source is Eli Ashkenazi et al.: The vitality of fruit trees in ancient Bedouin orchards in the Arid Negev Highlands (Israel): Implications of climatic change and environmental stability. Quaternary International 545, 2020. See also recently Yotam Tepper et al.: Relict olive trees at runoff agriculture remains in Wadi Zetan, Negev Desert, Israel. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 41, 2022.
  7. ^ Cf. Avi Oppenheim (2015): The Agriculture Development in the Negev, 1799 – 1948. M.A. Thesis [Heb.]. p. 88–98.
  8. ^ Cf. Emanuel Marx: Bedouin of the Negev. Frederick A. Praeger, 1967. p. 19 f.
  9. ^ Ghazi Falah: The Spatial Pattern of Bedouin Sedentarization in Israel. GeoJournal 11 (4), 1985. p. 363.
  10. ^ Mansour Nasasra: The Naqab Bedouins. A Century of Politics and Resistance. Columbia University Press, 2017. p. 121.

DaWalda (talk) 09:19, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Some minor inaccuracies

edit
  • What I think should be changed and added (format using {{textdiff}}):
−
In many specific cases,<sup class="noprint Inline-Template Template-Fact" style="white-space:nowrap;">[<i>[[Wikipedia:Citation needed|<span title="This claim needs references to reliable sources. (June 2013)">citation needed</span>]]</i>]</sup> this meant including areas of Arab majority (but with a significant Jewish minority) in the Jewish state. Thus the Jewish State would have an overall large Arab minority. Areas that were sparsely populated (like the Negev desert), were also included in the Jewish state to create room for immigration. [...] The Plan would have had the following demographics (data based on 1945) [...]
+
In most cases, this meant including areas of Arab majority (but with a significant Jewish minority) in the Jewish state. [...] According to UNSCOP's calculations, the Plan would have had the following demographics (data based on 1945) [...]
  • Why it should be changed:
    • Changed "many specific cases" to "most cases" as the attached map corroborates this more general statement, allowing for the removal of the 'citation needed' tag.
    • Removed "Thus the Jewish State would have an overall large Arab minority." This is not accurate. As Sub-committee 2 commented, the Jewish State would have had from the start an Arab majority due to the updated figures for the Bedouins. This was the reason why Jaffa with its some tens of thousands Arabs was ultimately changed into an Arab enclave in the Jewish state (see above). Hence also the next change:
    • Added "[According to UNSCOP's calculations,] the Plan would have had the following demographics (data based on 1945)": See above.
    • Removed the assertion that the Negev was included for immigration purposes. This is a misreading of the UNSCOP report. The relevant passages have been analyzed by Yakobson and Rubinstein. There are two passages in the report, both somewhat unpleasant:
(1) "The proposed Jewish State leaves considerable room for further development and land settlement and, in meeting this need to the extent that it has been met in these proposals, a very substantial minority of Arabs is included in the Jewish state."
-- That's not a comment on the Negev but on the fact that a minority of 45% Arabs in the Jewish state was accepted in order to provide ample room for immigration.[1] So it was precisely the populated regions that were handed over to the Jewish state for immigration. Immigration to the sparsely populated Negev was a more long-term and uncertain issue:
(2) "The inclusion of the whole Beersheba sub-district in the Jewish State gives to it a large area, parts of which are very sparsely populated and capable of development, if they can be provided with water for irrigation. The experiments already carried out in this area by the Jews suggest that further development in an appreciable degree should be possible by heavy investment of capital and labour and without impairing the future or prejudicing the rights of the existing Bedouin population. The Negev south of latitude 31, though included in the Jewish State, is desert land of little agricultural value, but is naturally linked with the northern part of the sub-district of Beersheba."
-- This passage has a different prehistory. I'm currently drafting another edit request to make the decision on the Negev more understandable, but it's going to take some time. In the meantime: This refers to a visit by UNSCOP to Revivim, where they saw that plants grow better with Zionist water pipelines than with the Bedouins' farming methods on the surrounding fields, which did not use artificial irrigation. So this is not about immigration, but about technical development: The Negev was assigned to the Jewish state because it was assumed that they could cultivate it "better" than the Bedouins.[2]

  1. ^ Alexander Yakobson / Amnon Rubinstein: Israel and the Family of Nations. The Jewish nation-state and human rights. Routledge, 2009. p. 19: "The need to guarantee land reserves that would enable the absorption of Jewish immigrants appeared to the members of the committee important enough to justify allocating a relatively large area to this state, thus considerably increasing its proportion of Arab inhabitants, despite the fact that their guiding principle was, naturally, that people belonging to each national community should be included, as far as possible, in the area of their national state. According to the partition plan, the Arab minority within the Jewish State was intended to number close to 45 per cent of its inhabitants, although, as noted, it was assumed that the Jewish majority would grow extensively as a result of massive Jewish immigration. [... T]hey were willing, as noted, to increase substantially the Arab minority included in the Jewish State in order to give the state sufficient territory to absorb large-scale Jewish immigration."
  2. ^ Cf. e.g. Donna Herzog: Contested Waterscapes: Constructing Israel's National Water Carrier. Dissertation, 2019. p. 141 f.: "In retrospect, the Negev pipeline did have the intended impact Ben-Gurion and Blass conceived it would. In April 1947, Mekorot began sending water to the Negev in the pipeline, and this became a major factor in the deliberations made during the visit of the UN Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP); as one UN surveyor who visited the Negev stated to his Jewish escort 'This water pipe will give you the Negev.' Indeed, in the case of the Negev, water determined the land division, and the Negev was included in the border of the Jewish state."

DaWalda (talk) 09:19, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

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