CHAPTER TWELVE — Part 4 of 4

12. JAFFA SUB-DISTRICT

13. RAMLE SUB-DISTRICT

14. BEERSHEBA SUB-DISTRICT

15. GAZA SUB-DISTRICT

16. PALESTINE TOTALS

The magnitude of the looting, pillaging and plundering perpetrated by the Zionists is almost beyond one's ability to comprehend. They descended upon the Palestinian Arabs' homes, shops, farms and factories, destroying in months a sophisticated infrastructure that had taken many generations of Palestinians to build. The usurpation and destruction of Palestinian Arab houses and apartments was almost always accompanied by the looting and plundering of all their furniture and household goods.

According to the Summary in Table 16 above, Arab houses and apartments which existed in the areas of the Sub-Districts which were occupied in 1948 by the Zionists totaled 179,316. Out of these housing units, the Zionists usurped or wantonly destroyed 158,332. The Zionists usurped 95% of Arab houses and apartments in the cities and towns of Acre, Beisan, Safad, Tiberias, Haifa, Jaffa, Ramle, Lydda, Beersheba and the New City of Jerusalem and used them for the settlement of Jews. The Palestinian houses in small towns, villages and Bedouin localities were either completely destroyed or partly destroyed and the small towns and villages were converted into Jewish colonies for settling Jews.

The Custodian of Enemy Property appointed by the Provisional Government of Israel took possession of the apartments and houses which had not been destroyed and settled in them Jews from other areas or Jewish immigrants who came to Palestine after the occupation. Many of the houses of affluent Arab owners were usurped by top Zionist leaders.

The above-mentioned facts of looting, pillaging and plundering prove beyond any doubt that the Zionist State was established on usurped Arab lands. Zionists were housed in usurped Arab houses and apartments. The Zionists enriched themselves by taking possession of all Arab lands including orange groves, fruit orchards, fields, livestock and farm tools and equipment, by taking possession of all goods, merchandise and fixtures in Arab shops and warehouses, by taking possession of all equipment, machinery, raw materials and finished goods in Arab factories, and by usurping all Palestinian commercial buildings in twelve cities and 492 towns and villages which they occupied and pillaging all their contents. They further enriched themselves by taking possession of Arab furniture and household goods, clothing and jewelry, and many of them robbed the refugees they expelled.

The Zionists, in other words, completely robbed the Palestinians in 80% of Palestine of their entire real and movable property. They made the Palestinians, who were once a prosperous nation, a destitute, refugee nation in exile, thereby committing the crime of genocide in addition to war crimes and crimes against humanity.

NOTES TO CHAPTER TWELVE

1. Tom Segev, 1949 The First Israelis (New York: The Free Press, 1986), p. 83.

2. Benny Morris, "Operation Dani and the Palestinian Exodus from Lydda and Ramle in 1948," The Middle East Journal volume 40, No. 1, Winter 1986, pp. 97-98.

3. Ibid., p. 98.

4. Ibid., p. 107.

5. Ibid.

6. Knesset Record, volume 3, November 22, 1949, p. 156.

7. Don Peretz, Israel and the Palestinian Arabs (Washington, D.C.: The Middle East Institute, 1958), p. 148.

8. United Nations Document A/SPC/PV 509, November 11, 1966.

9. Joachim C. Fest, The Face of the Third Reich (New York: Pantheon Books, 1970), p. 219.

10. Segev, 1949 The First Israelis, p. 26.

11. State Archives, Prime Minister's Office, 5431117.

12. United Nations Document A/648, 16 September 1948.

13. Larry Collins and Dominique Pierre, 0 Jerusalem! (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1972), pp. 461-462.

14. Ibid., p. 462.

15. Minutes of the MAPAI Secretariat, August 1, 1949, Labor

Party Archives. 16. Segev, pp. 70-71.

17. Ibid, p. 71.

18. Government of Israel Yearbook, 195 1- 1952, p. 84.

19. Peretz, Israel and the Palestinian Arabs, p. 143.

20. Government of Israel Yearbook 1953-54.

21. Ibid.

22. Knesset Record, volume 3, November 14, 1949, p. 37.

23. Custodian's Report, State Archives, Prime Minister's Office, 210105 5400lC.

24. Segev, p. 76.

25. Cizling to Ben-Gurion, June 16, 1948, State Archives, Foreign Ministry, 240112 1/A.

26. Custodian's Report, State Archives, Prime Minister's Office, 210105, Custodian 5440lC.

27. Roberta Strauss Feurlicht, The Fate of the Jews (New York: Times Books, 1983), p. 248.

28. Dov Shafrir's Report, State Archives, Prime Minister's Office, 210105, Custodian 5440/C.

29. Segev, pp. 76-77.

30. Ibid, p. 78.

31. Ibid.

32. Ian Lustick, Arabs in the Jewish State (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1980), p. 59.

33. Segev, p. 86.

34. Ibid., p. 74.

35. Ibid., p. 79.

36. Davar, October 27, 1950.

37. Walter Laqueur and Barry Rubin, editors, The Israel-Arab Reader: A Documentary History of the Middle East Conflict (New York: Penguin Books, 1984), p. 127.

38. Ibid.,pp. 118-121.

39. Lustick, Arabs in the Jewish State, p. 5 1.

40. Segev, p. 80.

41. Feurlicht, The Fate of the Jews, p. 245.

42. Custodian to Finance Minister, 2.1 1.5 1 ., State Archives, Foreign Ministry, Custodian Council, 1949-53,5431119 as quoted by Segev, p. 82.

43. Lustick, p. 57.

44. Ibid., p. 58.

45. Ibid., p. 5 1 .

46. Naim Makhoul, "The Arab Village in Israel," Ner 9, Nos. 8- 9, May-June, 1958, p. 48, cited in Lustick, p. 13.

47. Elia T. Zureik, The Palestinians in Israel (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979), pp 118-1 19.

48. Knesset Record, volume 3, p, 144, 1 1.22.49 as cited by Segev, p. 81.

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