CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT — Part 3 of 4

The United Nations Secretary General ended his report to the General Assembly in 1983 by stating the implications of the United Nations resolutions on permanent sovereignty of peoples over their national wealth and resources as follows: (65)

IMPLICATIONS OF UNITED NATIONS RESOLUTIONS

As far as existing law is concerned one starts therefore with the law of belligerent occupation reinforced by the principle of permanent sovereignty over natural resources. Admittedly the law of belligerent occupation is not altogether adequate to deal with situations of prolonged occupation following the close of active military operations since a speedy end to an occupation was envisaged. But the alternalive de lege ferenda for a long-term occupation where it does continue would be towards a status which would provide greater rights and protections for the occupied territories. With the exigencies of an active military operation removed, the rationale for the special powers of the occupant are reduced while the humanitarianconsiderations are if anything enhanced by prolonged occupation. The principle of permanent sovereignty over natural resources would strengthen any trend in this direction.

In the light of the foregoing, the following are some of the implications of United Nations resolutions on permanent sovereignty over natural resources on the occupied Palestinian and other Arab territories and on the obligations of Israel concerning its conduct in those territories which might be considered:

(a) The primary right of peoples and nations to permanent sovereignty over their natural resources is a right freely to use, control and dispose of such resources. The full exercise of this right can only take place with the restoration of control over the occupied territories to the States and peoples concerned. Such restoration is the first implication of the resolutions on permanent sovereignty over natural resources.

(b) A second implication derived directly from the primary right would be that in any interim pending full implementation of the foregoing, control over land, water and other natural resources should be restored to the local population. This would include allowing municipalities and other local Palestinian and Arab authorities to control the natural resources for which they had responsibility prior to the occupation. (c) A third implication would be that the occupying Power is under an obligation not to interfere with the exercise of permanent sovereignty by the local population.

(d) A fourth implication of the United Nations resolutions on permanent sovereignty over natural resources would be the strengthening of the protection of the natural resources of the occupied territories afforded by the law of belligerent occupation. In any event such resources could not be used by the occupying Power beyond the limits imposed by the Hague Regulations and the Fourth Geneva Convention. Land and other resources may not be taken for settlements or permanently acquired for any purposes. Privately owned land and other resources may, if at all, only be requisitioned for the needs of the army of occupation and must be paid for. Public land cannot be used beyond usufruct and the proceeds must then be used only in connection with the occupation. While there is a practice of working existing mines, if any, the text of article 55 of the Hague Regulations requires the occupying Power to "safeguard the capital" of properties subject to usufruct. The principle of permanent sovereignty would imply that no depletion of natural resources should be permitted and would emphasize the provision in article 55 on safeguarding the capital. A further requirement of the Hague Regulations is that property of municipalities should be treated as private property. Land held for the benefit of municipalities and similar local groups, even if registered in the name of the State or central authorities, should be protected as private. The principle of permanent sovereignty of peoples over their natural resources suggests the strengthening of this provision as well as the other limitations placed by the law of belligerent occupation on an occupant's use of natural resources.

(e) A fifth implication of permanent sovereignty would be to reinforce a right under international law to reparation for any loss or damage to natural resources suffered as a result of violations of the rules of belligerent occupation.


CONCLUSION

The right of peoples andnations to permanent sovereignty over their natural resources has been accepted as a principle of international law although its exact content and relation to other principles of international law have yet to be fully developed and defined. The principle of permanent sovereignty has been specifically applied by the General Assembly to the occupied Palestinian and other Arab territories, and Security Council resolutions have also dealt with the protection of property rights in those territories. Moreover, both the General Assembly and the Security Council have recognized the applicability of the law of belligerent occupation to the occupied territories. The law of belligerent occupation gives some protection to the principles of permanent sovereignty while the principle of permanent sovereignty enhances and reinforces the law of belligerent occupati~n. The law of belligerent occupation should be interpreted and applied to protect to the greatest extent possible the principle of permanent sovereignty. Implications of the United Nations resolutions on permanent sovereignty over natural resources as they apply to the occupied Palestinian andother Arab territoriesand to the obligations of Israel therein have been set forth in the present study.

While normally General Assembly resolutions are recommendatory, there may be legal effects depending on a number of variables. Decisions in Security Council resolutions arc binding. It is for Member States, the General Assembly and the Security Council and, if requested. the International Court of Justice to assess in each case the legal effect of a particular resolution.

THE USURPATION AND SPOLIATION OF THE NATIONAL WEALTH AND RESOURCES OF THE PALESTINIANS IN 80% OF PALESTINE 1948-1967

In 1943 the Government of Palestine made a survey of land ownership. The results were as follows: The Arabs of Palestine owned 24,670,455 dunums and the Jews owned 1,514,247 dunums. (A dunum is 1,000 square meters. Four dunums equal one acre.) (66)

The following table was published by the Government of Palestine:

OWNERSHIP OF LAND IN PALESTINE

Share of Jews and Arabs (including other non-Jews) as at 1st April, 1943

(Dunums = 1000 sq. meters)

Category of land (Fiscal Categories)	Arabs & other non-Jews	Jews	Total
Urban	76,662	70, 111	146,773
Citrus	145,572	141, 188	286,760
Bananas	2,300	1,430	3,730
Rural built-on area	36,85 1	42.330	79, 181
Plantations	1,079,788	95,514	1, 175,302
Cereal land (taxable)	5,503, 183	814, 102	6,3 17,285
Cereal land (not taxable)	900,294	51,049	951,343
Uncultivable	16,925,805	298,523	17,224,328
Total area (in Dunums):	24,670,455	1,5 14,247	26, 184,702
Roads, railways, rivers and lakes		135,803
Total including roads, railways, etc.		26,320,505

Subcommittee 2 of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Palestine Question stated in its report to the United Nations General Assembly the following: (67)

Closely connected with the distribution of population is the factor of land ownership in the proposed Jewish State. The bulk of the land in the Arab State, as well as in the proposed Jewish State, is owned and possessed by Arabs. This is clear from the following statistics furnished to the Sub-Committee by the United Kingdom representative, showing the respective percentages of Arab and Jewish ownership of land in the various sub-districts of Palestine.(4)

Sub-district	Percentage of Ownership Arabs & Others	Jews
Safad	68	18
Acre	87	3
Tiberias	51	38
Beisan	44	34
Nazareth	52	28
Hai fa	42	35
Jenin	84	Less than 1
Nablus	76	Less than 1
Tu l karrn	78	17
Ramallah	99	Less than 1
Jerusalem	64	2
Hebron	96	Less than 1
Jaffa	47	39
Ramle	77	14
Gaza	75	4
Beersheba	14	Less than 1

Note: The balance represents waste lands and lands under public ownership, consisting mainly of grazing lands attached to villages.

The Survey of Palestine contained information about the years and number of dunums purchased by Jews from 1920-1945 as follows: (68)

AREAS PURCHASED BY JEWS, 1920-45

Year	Dunums
Area owned before 1920 (estimated)	650,00
1920	1,048
1921	90,785
1922	39,359
1923	17,493
1924	44,765
1925	176, 124
1926	38,978
1927	18,995
1928	21,515
1929	64,517
1930	19,365
1931	18,585
1932	18,893
1933	36,991
1934	62, 114
1935	72,905
1936	18, 146
1937	29,367
1938	27,280
1939	27,973
1940	22,481
1941	14,530
1942	18,810
1943	18,035
1944	8,311
1945 (estimated)	11,000
Total	1,588,365

 

JEWS PURCHASED LANDS FROM EGYPTIAN, LEBANESE AND SYRIAN LANDLORDS, AND NOT FROM PALESTINIANS

The following are examples:

(a) The land of the Jezreel valley (Marj Ibn 'Amir), containing more than twenty villages with over 4,000 inhabitants, was purchased by the banker Sursock of Beirut in 1872. He paid 6,000 British Pounds to the Turkish government and 12,000 British Pounds to the politicians in Constantinople who arranged the transaction. In 1921 the Zionists The International Law of Restitution Invalidates All Zionist Measures Against the Rights, Properties and Interests ofthe Palestinians purchased 62,623 dunums of land in the valley of Jezreel from the Sursock family at a cost of 282.388 British Pounds. (69)

(b) According to the data assembled by M. Smilansky, head of the Jewish National Farmers' Association, the Jews held in March 1936 an area of 1,231,900 dunums (307,750 acres) of land they had purchased, and an area of 161,800 dunums (40,450 acres) on lease from the government, a total of 1,393,700 dunums (348,200) acresj. Out of the area purchased, l, 125,000dunums (28 1,250 acres) or 91.3% had been acquired from landowners, including 443,000 dunums ( 1 10,750 acres) or 39.4% from persons residing in Egypt, the Lebanon and Syria, and only 106,900 dunums (46,725 acresj or 8.7% from peasants of Palestine. Before the Balfour Declaration, according to Smilansky, 564,000 dunums (141,000 acres) had been purchased by Jews, and following the declaration 667,900 dunums (166,975 acres) were purchased (Cohen, pp. 194-200). It is therefore clear that Arab peasants generally did not sell their lands, and that lands purchased by the Zionist bodies were sold by merchants and big landlords, whether Egyptian, Lebanese, Syrians or Palestinians. The Arab Palestinian cultivators consistently opposed land sales to Jews and resisted evacuation. (70)

(c) After the British occupation, the land problem became more acute, and thus the resistance of the Arab cultivators to pressure to evacuate their holdings and deliver the lands to the Zionist organizations become more and more violent. The British execution offices started to employ British armed police in enforcing orders to eviction, and in one of these cases in 1934-35 a peasant of Arab Zbeidat was killed by British police during the eviction operation. The martyr was Sa'ad Mohammad Ati-Ahmad of Hartiyeh village, now known as the Jewish settlement Sha'r Amaqim, on the Haifa- Nazareth road.

(d) In The Palestine Triangle (London: Andre Deutsch, 1979) Nicholas Bethell describes Arab land sales to Jews and the fate of the Arab farmers as follows:

Simultaneously the Jewish community was offering high prices to Arab landowners and finding willing sellers. Many of the sellers were absentees from Syria, but others were Palestinians; land sales enabled the latter to acquire liquid wealth .... But for the Arab tenant fanners the result was less fortunate. The new owner naturally required his land for cultivation by Jews. Sometimes (the Arab tenant) was provided with alternative land, but more often he was simply left landless. He was thrown off his land and not allowed to work it even as a hired laborer.

An example of this was seen at Wadi Hawarith by Hugh Foot, a young administrator who later became governor of Cyprus and other British colonies: "It was a large stretch of land inhabited by Arabs in tents and shacks. Eventually, after long court cases, it was decided that they must be evicted. I had the dreadful job of going in with police, knocking down their tents and small structures and turning them off." Great bitterness was aroused by such cases. (71)

The Jewish National Fund, which is the agency of the Jewish Agency and later on an agency of the Israeli Govemmentfor ownership of lands in Palestine,did a study of Jewish villages in so-called Israel in 1949 and stated:

Of the entire area of the State of Israel only about 300,000- 400,000 dunams — apart from the desolate rocky area of the southern Negev, at present quite unfit for cultivation — are State Domain which the Israel Government took over from the Mandatory regime. The J.N.F. and private Jewish owners possess under twomillion dunams. Almost all therest belongs at law to Arab owners, many of whom have left the country. The fate of these Arabs will be settled when the terms of the peace treaties between Israel and her Arab neighbours are finally drawn up. The J.N.F., however, cannot wait until then to obtain the land it requires for its pressing needs. It is, therefore, acquiring part of the land abandoned by the Arab owners, through the Government of Israel, the sovereign authority in Israel.

Whatever the ultimate fate of the Arabs concerned, it is manifest that their legal right to their land and property in Israel, or to the monetary value of them, will not be waived, nor do the Jews wish to ignore them. Legal conquest of territory is a powerful factor in determining the frontiers of the sovereignty of a state. But conquest by force of arms cannot, in law or in ethics, abrogate the rights of the legal owner to his personal property. The J.N.F., therefore, will pay for the lands it takes over, at a fixed and fair price. The Government will receive the money and in due time will make compensation to the Arabs.

Under this arrangement the J.N.F. will acquire this year one million dunams of land for settlement. The forces of history have given the J.N.F. the opportunity - and the necessity - of acquiring in one year as much land as it acquired in the long period of 47 years of unremitting effort. That is an indication of the practical change which has come about as a result of Israel's independence.

Within the first 10 months of the establishment of Israel 51 new villages have been established on J.N.F. land. In all, 200 new villages will arise on the new area of one million dunams. Most of them will be in strategic areas. Besides providing the land, the J.N.F. is contributing 37 1/2% of the initial cost of settlement. These do not exhaust the tasks that face the J.N.F. It is also reclaiming the land, furthering the development of the country's water resources, and, wherever necessary, afforesting areas unfit for cultivation. In and around the cities it must provide land for housing, a vital necessity for the rapidly growing population. These, too, are enormous lasks, and ifwedonomore than mention them here, it is only because they do not fall directly within the scope of this review. (72)

The Palestinian Arabs owned 52% of the total acreage of citrus groves in Palestine; the Jews owned 48%. The Palestinian Arabs produced 73% of all fruits, 90% of grains and legumes, 77% of vegetables, 99% of olives and olive oil, 5 1% of dairy products, 62% of eggs and poultry, 89% of cattle and 94% of sheep slaughtered in Palestine. In 1948 the Palestinian Arabs had 1,558 industrial establishments; the Jews had 1,907. These facts were stated in the Survey of Palestine for the Infurmation of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry. (73)

BUILDINGS AND APARTMENTS

In 1948 there were in Palestine four mixed cities and towns where Arabs and Jews lived together, namely Jerusalem, Haifa, Safad and Tiberias. There were also 29 Arab cities and towns and 830 Arab villages. There were six Jewish towns, 21 urban Jewish settlements and 266 Jewish rural settlements. Jewish statistics also show that in 1947 there were 919 Arab towns and villages and 293 Jewish towns and villages.74 The great majority of Arabs, about 90%, were living in these cities and towns mostly in individual Arab houses built of stones. 10% of the Arabs were living in apartment houses in buildings owned by Arab landlords. The Arabs in villages were living in individual houses built of stone. 80% of these village houses were modem houses and 20% were of inferior quality. The Government of Palestine made a census in 1931 of the population of Palestine in every town and village and the number of houses. This was the last census, the Government gave estimates of the increase of the Arab and Jewish population. The increase of the Arab population was estimated at 30.87 per 1,000. On the basis of this estimate, we computerized the estimates in 1948 and the result was that the Arab population in Palestine was 1,440,274 and the number of Arab houses or apartments was 360,068.

MOTOR VEHICLES AND ESTIMATED VALUE

The Survey of Palestine published the number of vehicles owned by Arabs and Jews and their value in 1945 as follows:(76)

	Number total	Jewish	Arab & other	Total
Omnibuses	1,342	566	377	943
Commercial
Vehicles:
Light	921	106	57	163
Heavy	3, 111	717	386	1, 103
Taxis	1,248	150	183	333
Private	3 ,051	343	281	624
Total	9,673	1,882	1,284	3, 166

OWNERSHIP IN INDUSTRY

The Survey of Palestine dealt with the ownership of industry in Palestine. There were 1,558 Arab industrial establishments and 1,907 Jewish establishments. The details were as follows:

OWNERSHIP OF INDUSTRY IN PALESTINE

(As found at the census of industry, 1943)(75)

Item	Arab & other non-Jewish	Jewish	Concessions	Total
Establishments (No.)	1,558	1,907	5	3,470
Capital Invested (LP)	2,064,587	12,093,929	6,293.681	20,452, 197
Horse Power	3,625	57,410	133,673	194,708
Gross outout (LP)	5.658.222	29.040.679	2,131,467	36.830.368
Cost of materials(LP)	3,9331429	17,552,836	499,993	21,986,258
Net output (LP)	,724,793	11,487,843	1,631,474	14,844, 110
Persons engaged (No.)	8,804	37,773	3,400	49,977

 

ESTIMATED NUMBER AND VALUE OF LIVESTOCK UNDER ARAB AND JEWISH OWNERSHIP(7)

	Arab 1943	Jewish 1942	Total 1942-43
	Number	Number	Number
Cattle	214,570	28,375	242,945
Buffaloes	4,972	-	4,972
Sheepover 1 yr	224,942	19, 120	244,062
Goats over 1 yr	314,602	10, 174	324,776
Camels over 1 yr	29,736	-	29,736
Horses	16,869	2, 152	19,021
Mules	7,328	2,534	9,862
Donkeys	105,414	2,322	107,736
Pigs	12, 145	-	12, 145
Fowls (excl. chickens)	1,202, 122	669,506	1,871,628
Other poultry	16,394	74,259	90,653
Estimated total value at pre-war prices	3, 100,000	1,440,000	4,540,000
Note: LP = Palestinian Pounds

VALUATION OF RURAL LAND UNDER ARAB AND JEWISH OWNERSHIP IN 1943 (78)

The values quoted are pre-war values (i.e., before 1939):

Fiscal categories	Arab & other non-Jewish	Jewish	Total
	LP. ’000	LP. ’000	LP. ’000
Citrus	18, 197	17,648	35.845
Bananas	230	143	373
Rural built-on area	1, 106	1.270	2,376
Plantations	8,098	716	8,814
Cereal land (taxable)	27.5 16	4,07 1	31,587
Cereal land (not taxable)	2,701	153	2,854
Uncultivable	16,926	299	17,225
Total	74,774	24,300	99,074
Note: LP = Palestinian Pounds

 

THE USURPATION AND SPOLIATION OF THE NATIONAL WEALTH AND RESOURCES OF THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE

In January 1948 there were in Palestine four cities and towns of mixed Arab and Jewish population, eight cities and large towns which were wholly Arab, 833 Arab small towns and villages, and 108 villages and localities inhabited by Bedouin tribes who were semi-nomads. The Zionists, by war and aggression, occupied in 1948-49 the subdistricts of Acre, Beisan, Nazareth, Safad, Tiberias, Haifa, Jaffa, Ramle and Beersheba. They also occupied parts of the subdistricts of Jenin, Tulkarrn, Nablus, Hebron, Jerusalem and Gaza. The areas they occupied constitute 80% of the total area of Palestine. According to a thorough survey, the Zionists occupied in the above mentioned districts 526 Arab towns and villages as well as 108 villages and localities inhabited by Bedouins. They expelled more than 90% of the inhabitants of the occupied areas by massacre, force and the most inhuman and barbaric methods. They destroyed 415 Arab towns and villages and 67 villages and localities of the Bedouin tribes. They usurped their lands and established Jewish colonies on their sites.

According to the List of Localities, Geographical Informotion and Population 1948, 1961, 1972, prepared by the Central Bureau of Statistics in Jerusalem, only 101 Arab towns and villages still exist in so-called Israel, and are referred to as "non-Jewish small villages," "large non-Jewish villages," or "non-Jewish urban localities." There are also only 41 villages and localities of the Bedouin tribes which are referred to as "Bedouin tribes." This means that the Zionists destroyed 492 Arab towns, villages and Bedouin localities, together with their mosques, churches and cemeteries and erased them from the map of Palestine and usurped all their lands.

The Zionists also usurped a great part of the lands of the 101 towns and villages they did not destroy and either established Jewish settlements on these lands or added them to the lands of nearby Jewish settlements. 95% of Arab houses, apartments and commercial buildings in the cities and large towns of Acre, Beisan, Tiberias, Haifa. Jaffa, Ramle, Lydda, Majdal, Beersheba, Ain Karem and the New City of Jerusalem, were usurped and used for the settlement of Jews. The Zionists referred to these large towns and cities as "Jewish."

PILLAGE, PLUNDER AND LOOTING OF PALESTINIAN PROPERTY

Members of the Haganah, Stem and Irgun gangs, as well as Jewish civilians, pillaged, plundered and looted the fumiture, jewelry, money, food provisions, manufactured goods, machinery and all kinds of movables and personal property from Arab homes, commercial and industrial establishments in nine Arab towns -namely, Acre, Beisan, Nazareth, Jaffa, Lydda, Ramle, Beersheba, Majdal, Ain Karem, and from Arab quarters in four mixed towns - Tiberias, Safad, Jerusalem and Haifa, and from about 500 Arab villages.

We have dealt fully with the subject of looting, pillage and plunder in another chapter. However, it is sufficient to recall certain testimony to this looting, pillage and plunder:

The late Count Bernadette, United Nations Mediator, stated in his progress report the following:

There have been numerous reports from reliable sources of large-scale looting, pillaging and plundering, and of instances of destruction of villages without apparent military necessity. (79)

The late Mgr. Antoine Vergani, who was General Vicar of the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, reported on July 5, 1948, the following facts (80):

Tiberias: Casa Nova and Franciscan Convent: "Father Phillipo, Latin parish priest of Tiberias, saw Haganah soldiers stealing the belongings of the Casa Nova and carrying them away to one of their vehicles parked near the steps. The hospice had been rummaged and searched in every place, mattresses, mosquito curtains, glasses, dishes, the personal objects of the nuns and all provisions were stolen."

Tabgha: Church of the Mosaics, Hospice and Farm, Benedictine Fathers: "The priests found the farm robbed and rummaged; the holy chalice, all the harvest of the corn, barley and their provision, all animals and their agricultural implements and machinery had been stolen. While the fathers were taking their personal things, guards proceeded to take under their very eyes whatever articles they chose. In the hospice, crosses had been broken, furniture had been stolen or ruined (some divan comers cut with knives), the pottery smashed, the electric pump stolen and all batteries stolen."

Father Pascal St. Jean, Superior of Our Lady of France Hostel in Jerusalem, reported: "Our rooms were ransacked; the archives belonging toour Father Superior were plundered. The safe was opened andemptied; missing were 400 Palestine Pounds, gold bracelets and various otherjewelry ... large quantities of blankets, sheets, clothes, linen and woolens, plates, glasses and footwear, etc., were taken." (81)

The late Mgr. Thomas G. MacMahon, National Secretary of the Catholic Near East Welfare Association established by the Holy See. in his letter dated August 20, 1948, to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, stated as follows: "Jews have looted seven convents pertaining to the churches." (82)

"In Cabinet sessions, the problem of looting was often discussed. Minister Shitrit reported thefts in Jaffa and Haifa, Minister Mordechai Bentov asked about a convoy of spoils which left Jerusalem and Minister Cizling said: 'It's been said that there were cases of rape in Ramleh. I can forgive rape, but I will not forgive other acts which seem to me much worse. When they enter a town and forcibly remove rings from the fingers and jewelry from someone's neck, that's a very grave matter. Many are guilty of it,"' (83)

David Ben-Gurion wrote in his diary entry for July 15, 1948: "The bitter question has arisen regarding acts of robbery and rape in the conquered towns of Lydda and Ramie. Soldiers from all the battalions robbed and stole." (84)

The Archives of the so-called State of Israel are full of documents testifying to these war crimes. The following are examples:

After a while the Custodian himself began to distribute the confiscated property. To begin with, Shafrir later reported, goods, materials and equipment were turned over to the army. directly from the stores in the occupied towns. Merchandise which the army did not require was put up for sale. The sale was conducted by special departments instituted for the purpose, staffed, as much as war conditions allowed, by personnel trained in the principal branches of commerce. Other merchandise was sold through negotiations with merchants or industrialists, depending on the type of materials. "The Army had the first choice of any goods and materials it might require," Shafrir said. "Next were the government office, the war disabled, the Jewish Agency, the local authorities and public bodies, such as Hadassah." The army also needed most of the workshop equipment such as cabinet-making shops, locksmiths-works, turneries, iron-works, tin-works, and the like. Industrial plants which could be operated on their existing sites were leased out by contract, "whenever possible," according to Shafrir. Plants which no one wanted to lease were sold to the highest bidder.

The sale of furniture, Shafrir said, "was an especially complex and difficult business and took a long time." The army had removed from the houses and obtained from the warehouses furniture worth tens of thousands of pounds for its offices, homes and clubs. A ministerial committee resolved to have the remaining furniture, which was mostly from warehouses, evaluated by professionals and furniture dealers, and sold to a variety of buyers at this valuation price. If any furniture was left after the general sale, the Custodian would determine the method of selling it. The priority list for buyers was as follows: the families of the war disabled, soldiers' families, government employees who had been transferred from Jerusalem, civilians who had been injured in the war. and last of all, ordinary civilians. "In reality," the Custodian later remembered, "the last category never got to purchase any of the furniture, because the higher categories bought practically all of it." (85)

Yosef Yaakobson - an orange grower, and later an advisor to the Ministry of Defense - suggested to Ben- Gurion that he expropriate a shoe-making plant from its Jaffa owner and turn it over to the shoe-making enterprise Min'al of kibbutz Givat Hashloshah. Ben-Gurion consulted the Minister of Finance and Kaplan expressed the opinion that the private property of Arabs who remained in Jaffa should not be expropriated. Ben-Gurion disagreed: in his opinion only the property found inside private residence should not be expropriated. Yaakobson told him that the army was removing goods from Jaffa property estimated at 30,000 pounds daily. Attorney Naftaly Lifshitz of Haifa informed him that in the banks of that city there were 1,500,000,000 pounds in deposits belonging to Arabs. "The banks are willing to turn this property over," noted Ben-Gurion, and so the government, too, took a hand in the division of the spoils. (86)

The purchasing power of this one and one-half billion Palestinian pounds of Arab deposits in Haifa banks alone gives a clue to the magnitude of the looting, pillaging and plundering committed against the Palestinian Arabs.

The culpability and guilt of the Zionists in the looting, pillaging and plundering of the Palestinian Arabs' land and possessions is admitted by then Minister of Agriculture Aharon Cizling in a document sent by him to David Ben Gurion of June 16, 1948:

Again and again in our meetings we discuss the issue of the abandoned property. Everyone expresses shock, bitterness and shame. but we have yet to find a solution ... up to now we have dealt with individual looters, both soldiers and civilians. Now, however, there are more and more reports about acts which, judging by their nature and extent, could only have been carried out by (government) order. I ask ... on what basis was the order given (I hear it has been held back to dismantle all the water pumps in the Araborange groves) .... If there is any foundation to the reports which have reached me, the responsibility rests with a government agency .... Meanwhile, private plundering still goes on, too. (87)

The response by the Custodian of Absentee Property to Cizling's complaint was as follows:

A widespread operation of dismantling the (water pump) engines had been carried out throughout the country. This had to be done in order to collect all the motors in the abandoned orange groves because of the many robberies, and so they could be put to use when they would be needed. (88)

In other words, the Zionists officially admitted that they stole the water pump engines in question in order to ensure that the rank and file Zionists didn't steal them!

No proof that the whole Israeli edifice is built on the foundation of land and possessions belonging to the Palestinian Arabs is more damning than that found in the Official Israeli Archives. The report of Custodian Dov Shafrir proving that the present Israeli inhabitants of Haifa and Jaffa are the beneficiaries of stolen Arab goods is a case in point:

With the intensification of immigration in the summer of 1948, the institutions which looked after the immigrants themselves began to demand that parts of the city which were still under occupation be made available to them. The property included warehouses and shops from which the merchandise had yet to be removed, as well as fully equipped workshops and plants. In Haifa the inspector's office began to issue apartments to the Absorption Department as early as July. The intention was to proceed through the city, quarter by quarter, allocating the apartments and business premises, after the goods had already been taken out of them. But the order was not followed. Hundreds of immigrant families were sent to take possession of apartments, and this caused confusion both in the collecting of goods and in the distribution of apartments. In Jaffa the situation was considerably worse. A certain part of the city was scheduled to be opened on September 10, and a particular allocation of houses was actually agreed upon- to be given to the Absorption Department, the army, the government officials who had been transferred from Jerusalem, and for the children of the settlements who had been evacuated during the war and who had been living in Tel Aviv schools, as well as to the soldiers' families. The Tel Aviv Absorption Department ignored this agreement and went ahead and organized a mass invasion of hundreds of families ... before the date that was originally agreed upon for the opening of the city to civilians. The government appointed a committee to handle the distribution of apartments in Jaffa. The committee met and reached authoritative conclusions. But once again no heed was paid to the proper agreement. This time the social welfare officers sent hundreds of soldiers' families. Thus the populating of Jaffa was achieved by continuous invasions and counter-invasions (of unauthorized immigrants). (89)

Tom Segev, who has researched the official Zionist archives with exemplary objectivity, writes:

By established custom, whoever succeeded in placing a bed in a room and spending the night in it, acquired the right of possession. One day Avraham Amsalem, age 19, entered the house of Mohammed Abu Sirah in the Ajjami quarter, and. threatening the Arab with his submachine gun, invaded and occupied the hallway of the house. The man was brought to trial and in court he explained that he was about toget married and had nowhere to live. He was sentenced to five days in prison. A few weeks previously a few score soldiers, some of them disabled, invaded Arab houses in Wadi Nisnas and Abbas Street in Haifa. Carrying arms, they appeared at six o'clock in the morning, and forcibly ejected the residents. Then they threw out their belongings and brought in their own. The police came and removed them, but by evening they had invaded other people's homes. They, too, had nowhere to live.

Not only Arabs were subjected to such violence. Moshe Yupiler, an Israeli immigrant, got his apartment from the Custodian, but he was constantly harassed by people who would present themselves, in twos and threes, as Jewish Agency officials, demand to inspect his rooms, check the lease agreement and ask other questions pertaining to the apartment. Yupiter sensed that they were not Jewish Agency officials, and more than once these "visits" ended in threats and curses. He was fearful. "There was no one to go to," he complained. "There is no civil police and the military police is far away from here." Custodian Shafrir confirmed that "the police help little and the military police not at all." After receiving permission from the Ministry of Police, Shafrir managed to recruit a few policemen of his own to work for his office.

Altogether, between 140,000 and 160,000 immigrants were settled in abandoned homes: in Jaffa some 45,000, in downtown Haifa about 40,000, and in Acre, about 5.000. The man who put in charge of resettling Acre was Mordebai Sarid. "We consulted a map," he later recalled. "1 knew which houses I was getting and I worked withengineers to determine what we would do with each apartment. One place needed sinks installed, another required a coat of paint, while other places needed flooring and sewage." The expenses were covered by the Jewish Agency. One day Sarid asked about some immigrants and was told that they were "getting organized." "Splendid," he said, "let them get organized." One of his aides explained what the phrase meant. "They are stealing tables and wardrobes from abandoned houses." (90)

American Jews like to think that their contributions to the Zionist cause created the shops and factories in Israel on empty land. In fact, many so-called shops and factories were already there, previously built by their Palestinian Arab owners. The land was not "empty," as American Jews were told, but emptied of its rightful inhabitants by Zionist violence. Tom Segev writes:

By the end of the year some 600 shops in Ramleh had been distributed to immigrants. Elkayam had no idea what a city might need, so he went toTel Aviv. "I went through the streets and made a list of all types of shops," he related later. "I estimated more or less how many groceries were needed, how many butcher shops, how many barber shops and how many cafes."The shops were then distributed, as he described it, by aspecial committee, giving first consideration to the disabled. But some of the shops were leased to people who could pay for them. By May 1949 some 8,000 people had been settled in Ramlch. In Lydda, too, some 8,000 were settled. At that time there was still no electricity in Lydda, and there was a water shortage. However most of the political parties had already opened offices and clubs in the town. Of the abandoned properties turned over to immigrants, those already operative were: a button manufactory; a carbonated-drinks plant; sausage, ice, textile and macaroni factories. (91)

Segev also recounts the situation in Jerusalem, giving the fate of the houses and apartments of the Palestinian Arabs which had been previously looted of their furnishings by the Zionist mobs:

In Jerusalem the situation was the same. In April it was decided to allocate 400 apartments to government officials who would move to Jerusalem. They had a choice of homes in the better neighborhoods of Baq'a, the "German colony" and the "Greek Colony." The Absorption Department got the poorer houses of Musrara and Lifta. Shaul Avigur, one of Ben-Gurion's closest advisors, was to be the absolute arbitrator in any disputes. The document detailing this division of property does not mention the elegant quarter of Talbieh. The houses there were given to senior officials, associates and people with important connections - government officials, judges, professors at the Hebrew University, etc. In Jerusalem, too. people were sent to take possessions of empty houses. The immigrants' center in Baq'a sent them to occupy apartments assigned to government officials. (92)

Thus, the Zionist political and intellectual elite, and those with "connections" to that elite, were the receivers of stolen property for their personal residences. This self-same elite is constantly pontificating about Israel's "moral basis"! When they return from their speechifying jaunts around the world they do not return to what could be called their own homes or apartments, but to the homes and apartments criminally usurped from the Palestinian Arabs.

It should be pointed out that no Zionist can use the excuse that "he didn't know" the property was stolen. Even David Ben-Gurion ordered an inspection of all the kibbutzim and moshavim of Lower and Upper Galilee for an inventory of "flocks of cattle and sheep, and other property taken from the Arab villages during the war, and after; crops, furniture, and all other objects, were to be presented to the Minister of Defense." (93)

The looting was total. Tom Segev recounts:

And so tens of thousands of Israelis, soldiers and civilians, helped themselves to the spoils. One took an armchair, another a rug, a third took a sewing machine and a fourth - a combine; one took an apartment and another took a vineyard. Very quickly and easily a whole class - albeit a small one - of newly prosperous people appeared on the scene: merchants, speculators, contractors, agents of all sorts, industrialists and farmers. Some stole what property they could, others received theirs legally. A good many of the transactions fell into that grey area between what the law permitted and what was considered illegal, between outright robbery and official expropriation. (94)

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