Iqbal Tamimi – Changes in Palestinian Demographics
By Iqbal Tamimi • Jun 20th, 2008 at 8:00 • Category: Analysis, Documents, Features, Israel, Newswire, Palestine, Somoud: Arab Voices of Resistance, Zionism
85% of the Palestinian population has been expelled by Israel since the Nakba. This has transformed Gaza into the most densely populated area in the world
The number of the Palestinian population has increased seven fold since the Nakba in 1948 despite the plight and the tragic circumstances as stated by the Head of Palestinian Statistics Dr. Lwai Shabana.
The Palestinian plight is a dark stage in modern history. The Palestinian population was expelled from its homeland, the people deprived of their lands, homes and properties. They were forced to seek refuge all over the world, facing all kinds of suffering and woes.
Since The Catastrophe (Nakba) in 1948 Israel has occupied more than three quarters of Palestine, and has destroyed 531 groupings of population. The occupation of Palestine has lead to the expulsion and displacement of 85% of the Palestinian population.
Nakba means Catastrophe = ethnic cleansing
The expression "Catastrophe" is supposed to be a term used to describe natural disasters like earthquakes, volcanoes and hurricanes.
While the plight of Palestinians or the 'catastrophe' was not the result of natural causes, but precisely an act of ethnic cleansing, destruction and expulsion of unarmed people from their lands. It is a displacement of a nation for the purpose of bringing another group of people to occupy their homeland.
Such horror has not been caused by nature’s cruelty; it has come as a result of human-induced military schemes and collusion between states.
1.4 million Palestinians were living in 1,300 villages, towns and cities in Palestine in 1948.
800,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homeland by Israel, forced to beg for a place in neighbouring countries and other parts of the world.
The data documented on "in memory of Palestine" website reveals that since the Nakba Israel has taken over and dominated 774 Palestinian villages, towns and cities, and destroyed 531 others. The Israeli forces committed more than 70 massacres against the Palestinians, and led to the martyrdom of more than 15,000 Palestinians since 1948.
Demographic facts:
The demographic reality is: After 60 years of the Nakba 'Catastrophe' The Palestinian population has increased more than seven fold.
The Palestinian population was 1.4 million 1948, while the estimates of 2008 are 10.5 million. 5.0 million are still living in Palestine according to statistics from the end of 2007. While the continuous efforts of importing Jews from all over the world to house them in place of the expelled Palestinians has reached 5.5 million, and the process of building settlements on stolen Palestinian lands for those newcomers is still going on.
According to estimates and statistics, the Palestinian Arabs and the Jews will have an equal number of populations in Palestine by 2016.
According to the Refugees Relief Agency data towards the end of 2007, the total number of Palestinian refugees in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories is almost 4.6 million. 42% of them are in Jordan, 10% in Syria, 9% in Lebanon, 16% in the West Bank, 23% in the Gaza Strip.
One third of the Palestinian refugees live in 59 camps, and that includes 10 camps in Jordan, 10 in Syria, 12 camps in Lebanon, 19 camps in the West Bank and 8 camps in the Gaza Strip. The average size of the Palestinian family in Jordan is about 5.1 people while the average in Syria is 4.1 and 3.8 in Lebanon.
These are the minimum estimated figures obtained for the registered Palestinian refugees only. This does not include the Palestinians who were expelled after 1949 – or after the occupation of 1967. And it does not include the Palestinians who were forced to evacuate or were evacuated by force from the West Bank in 1967 because of the war (those who were not refugees from 1948 areas).
The number of Palestinian residents who Israel failed to force into leaving their homeland in 1948 is estimated to be 154,000 citizens. The estimated number in the sixtieth anniversary of the plight revealed their number grew to become 1.2 million (their ratio is 103.7 males per hundred females).
The average Palestinian family size is 4.7 persons. 40.2% of the population is younger than 15, While 3.2% of the population is over 65.
Palestine's Nakba transformed the Gaza Strip to the most densely populated area in the world
The density of the population in Palestine in 1948 was 73 persons / km 2, compared with 389 persons / km² in 2007.
The total population density in the Palestinian territories at the end of 2007 became 625 person / km². In the West Bank it was 415 persons / km 2, and in Gaza strip it has risen to 3881 persons / km².
While in Israel, the total population density of both Arabs and Jews in 2007 was 317 person / km².
Most Jewish settlers are being settled in Jerusalem in an attempt to transform the city totally into a Jewish city.
By the end of 2007 the number of Jewish settlements in the West Bank reached 144. The number of settlers rose to half a million. 54.6 % were housed in Jerusalem, 42 % are living on confiscated (stolen) Arab Palestinian land of Jerusalem by force, after Israel’s occupation of the West Bank in 1967.
References:
Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics
Wael R. Ennab, Ph.D. Director, Academic Program for the Study of Involuntary Migration (APSM)
An Najah National University, West Bank
Justin McCarthy, Ph.D. Professor of History
University of Louisville, Kentucky
Iqbal Tamimi is a Palestinian journalist and poet from Hebron. She is the creator of a vibrant and important activists' network Palestinian Mothers, open to all who share the vision of peace and justice, men and women alike. She is working now in UK.
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Good news Mrs Iqbal,
I think that the Palestinian population’s increment is one of Allah’s soldiers against our land’s occupiers, and I hope that other soldiers will join them too.
[...] http://palestinethinktank.com/2008/06/20/iqbal-tamimi-changes-in-palestinian-demographics/ [...]
I will translate it into Spanish.
I won't do it. I has be done by a colleauge.
http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=69212&titular=cambios-en-la-demografía-palestina-
Thank you Fawdawi for adding the Spanish translated version because I would have never knew about it. I wish you can pass my gratitude to your colleague who has translated the article. Your efforts compleents ours to bring the truth to every door step.
The Naqba has been disasterous for the palestinians and i hope they get their state with Jeruzalem as their capital. But the palestinians where for the most part not expelled but left out of fear, understandably but
as the presence of arabs in many villages in Israel shows ( even a majority in the Galilea ) Fear drove them away not guns. Exept for Lod Ramle and undoubtably some other places in then palestine.
In 1967 no-one was forced out .
Richard
When some one bomb your next door neighbours home and massacre all the people in the nearest village, do you consider this as not expelled?
I just want to understand how you see things? Do you consider expullsion happens only when you drag someone by force ( physically) and throw him outside the borders of his country?
I would say this is the strangest way of thinking I have ever heard about.
The fear you are trying to conceal is the number one any opressor will use to hide his crime, especially that this method is effective and cost nothing. They use to terrorize one city to force 10 other cities to surrender to their devious plans. If you read my articles, you will find that they even lied to terrorize Palestinians, they told them we have an atomic bomb, and what happens to the people of Hiroshima will happen to you.
Do you consider this act as an expulsion method or not?
Hello Iqbal,
Ofcourse its not just dragging people out of their homes that i consider expulsion. But it's not like
people were massacred in large numbers although you might feel differently. Ofcourse like in any
war between two peoples who become independant atrocities happen on both sides. Look at India
were their was another independence war between muslims and hindoes. It's unfortunate that the
palestinians never got their own state as happened in India. Being neither jewish nor muslim
i look at the palestine problem from a distance not emotional as you undoutably do. I don't think the
palestinians in 67 fled because of the threat of a nuclear bomb. During this war their were journalist from everywhere in the area since their was a long buildup to this war, and their is no report af attrocities then.
Ofcourse there were regular armies fighting each other so this was different from 1948.
Like i said before part of the arabs in haifa and elsewhere stayed and nothing happened to them.
Things are not as black and white as people from both sides sometimes suggest.
I feel that their should be no settlers outside of the borders of 67, but personally i feel that
the facts that have been created on the ground will be quite irreversable and that the wall that is being
build will be the new border. Since the demografics in Jeruzalem have already changed and
are changing in the rest of the area behind the wall there is no incentive for the jews there
to give up anything but whats outside of the wall. I would like to here how you see the situation evolving
especially if you feel thats what is being created on the ground is realistically reversable.
As the palestinian census showed the arab population in Jeruzalem proper is not rising anymore
and with more and more religious jews in and around Jeruzalem i feel that this is a run race.
How do you see this ?
regards Richard.
Hello to you too,
I quote you ‘Of course it’s not just dragging people out of their homes that I consider expulsion. But it’s not like people were massacred in large numbers…’
Well I have news for you, people have been massacred IN LARGE numbers, even though I feel the use of (large number) description is extremely insensitive.
Have you heared about massacres like ….
The King David Massacre
The Massacre at Baldat al-Shaikh
YEHIDA MASSACRE
KHISAS MASSACRE
QAZAZA MASSACRE
The Semiramis Hotel Massacre
The Massacre at Dair Yasin
NASER AL-DIN MASSACRE
THE TANTURA MASSACRE
BEIT DARAS MASSACRE
THE DAHMASH MOSQUE MASSACRE
DAWAYMA MASSACRE
HOULA MASSACRE
SHARAFAT MASSACRE
Salha Massacre
The Massacre at Qibya
KAFR QASEM MASSACRE
Khan Yunis Massacre
The Massacre in Gaza City
AL-SAMMOU' MASSACRE
Aitharoun Massacre
Kawnin Massacre
Hanin Massacre
Bint Jbeil Massacre
Abbasieh Massacre
Adloun Massacre
Saida Massacre
Fakhani Massacre
Beirut Massacre
Sabra And Shatila Massacre
Jibsheet Massacre
Sohmor Massacre
Seer Al Garbiah
Maaraka Massacres
Zrariah Massacre
Homeen Al-Tahta Massacre
Jibaa Massacre
Yohmor Massacre
Tiri massacre
Al-Naher Al-Bared Massacre
Ain Al-Hillwee Massacre
OYON QARA MASSACRE
Siddiqine Massacre
AL-AQSA MOSQUE MASSACRE
THE IBRAHIMI MOSQUE MASSACRE
THE JABALIA MASSACRE
Aramta Massacre
ERETZ CHECKPOINT MASSACRE
Deir Al-Zahrani Massacre
Nabatiyeh (school bus) Massacre
Mnsuriah Massacre
The Sohmor Second Massacre
Nabatyaih Massacre
Qana Massacre
Trqumia Massacr
Janta Massacre
24 Of June 1999 Massacres
Western Bekaa villages Massacre:
All those massacres were the doing of the Israelis. Did you expect more massacres?
I quote you ‘Of course like in any war between two peoples who become independent atrocities happen on both sides? Look at India’
No dear, it seems you have to go back to history books and read a little bit, but I warn you not to read from one source, do your own research to know that what happened in Palestine, it’s not like any war between two people….bla …bla
Someone in England thousands of miles away from Palestine, who does not own Palestine, gave a promise to the Jews of Europe to give them my country (Palestine) to be their own. This was a promise or declaration of Balfour. This man gave something which is not his, to some people to solve their problem in Europe.
He never thought of the owners of the land, The Palestinians were not considered at all… it is a long story, but this was the start, the problem is almost 60 years old or a little bit more. Jewish people came from all over the world, and started creating a state with force. They did not even want to share the land with the original owners, they wanted them dead or out. After that they started invading the area around and occupied lands in neighbouring countries besides the West Bank.
[...] Palästinenser auf dem britischen Mandatsgebiet. Bis 2008 ist ihre Zahl auf rund zehn Millionen gestiegen*. Wie nennt man das? [...]