This post is part of a long series I plan to report about Palestine as a country, culture, and humans across multiple communities in hopes that I spread the word about Palestine and what is happening there.

The fact that I am an Arab obviously comes with perceived bias which is a perception that I accept considering that most of the people on this platform are not Arabs. As much as I believe it is something I am able to refute using my own history, I prefer to keep the focus of this series on Palestine itself and let the series speak for itself.

However, considering the aforementioned fact of my identity, I have challenged myself and limited myself to use mostly sources that are outside of the Arab world when it comes to facts. Therefore, all the events mentioned here come from non-Arab sources which you will be able to verify yourself by reading the sources below. In fact, I implore you to check out those sources regardless of the series.

A "Land without people" is one of the most famous Zionist ideas, even though it comes at the expense of the fact that Palestine, at the end of the 19th Century and early 20th century, was a completely harmonious society with a majority of Muslims, but also Christians and a Jewish minority. It was a society that despite being so diverse, it was still culturally compatible.

Jaffa, the biggest city on the East Coast, had more than 60 thousand Palestinians. It had cinemas, theatres, and a port that was hundred of years older than Tel Aviv's new port. The British delegate that came to Palestine between 1871 and 1877 wrote a 12-part encyclopedia about Palestine where the names of 13 thousand places. Just by this fact, which can be easily checked, we can confirm that the land did have people and a lot of them, But, this leads to a question;

What Does The "People Without Land" Slogan Mean?

The first meaning is one interpreted by Pedro Brieger; the leader of the Zionist movement who wanted all Jews to follow them to the "Promised Land", didn't actually know anything about it. All they knew about the world was just Europe with their knowledge of the region being only the tales of travelers.

If you're a traveller or an adventurous person, when you go back home, you won't be sharing stories of how you went from the UK to a place like Jaffa only to find Cinemas and Theaters and places that are very similar to ones in the UK. Your listeners would demand something different, you've gone to the Middle East, and they want stories like "One Thousand and One Nights", tales with camels, tents, and that permeative stereotype of the Middle East.

This still applies today, when you think of a place like Egypt, isn't the first image in your mind of a person riding a camel with the Pyramids in the background? You wouldn't think of it as a modern country with bridges, urban cities, and modern malls and cafes at every corner.

But, more importantly than all of that, the description required is one of the land being an empty land that awaits the return of the Jews. The interpretation is also one of the promotional values as it simply tells many people who are living under oppression that there's an empty land for them elsewhere where they can be safe. But, that's the first interpretation.

The second interpretation is much more sinister;

Land Without People: The Intent

The other interpretation is that this wasn't a promotion stance to encourage more to immigrate to Palestine, but also was the intention of Zionists to make the land without people, let me explain.

Until the end of the 19th century, the percentage of immigrants did not exceed 3% of Palestine which was under the Ottoman Empire's rule. Herzl attempted to persuade the Ottoman Sultan to specify a land for the Jews but failed. However, and this is because the Ottoman Empire nor Arabs had a problem with Jews, the immigration movement wasn't stopped or rejected, after all, if you're a Jew who wants to come live and work in our land, you're welcome to do so. It was only when the intent of Zionism appeared that it became a problem.

The immigration continued and in 1907, Zionist Chaim Weizmann, another Jew with little to do with religion, would start a company for land development in Jaffa. Chaim Weizmann is another crucial part of Zionism as the company had set the target on purchasing land in an organized manner from Palestinians.

However, as pointed out by the American professor Walter Lehn, it was a farming land, Palestine farmers wouldn't let go of their lands so easily, and they wouldn't let go of lands that were the source of their livelihood just for money. Especially since the land acquisition included conditions of kicking out Palestinian farmers to make it land without people for Zionism to bring their own people.

That's why Zionists only succeeded in buying those lands from the so-called "Large Absentee Landlords", people who owned a lot of lands, but weren't living in them like a big Lebanese family that lived in Europe. That family owned and then sold a 200 square kilometres land in Marj Ibn Amer, currently renamed Jezreel Valley, to Jewish companies.

So far, it sounds innocent enough, Jewish people immigrating from Europe to live and farm in a new place. However, the way those farms were structured wasn't so innocent. What the Zionists did at that point, a practice that went from that point on, was that with every land they took there was as follows:

1- Jewish-Only Workers

Zionists rejected it and deemed it inappropriate that Palestinians would be working in those lands. You're not there to work with them, you're there to replace, remember, a land without people. That simply meant that only Jews would be allowed to work on the land, so much so that Barj Ibn Amer saw the displacement of 60,000 Palestinians and replaced them with Jews.

2- Land Protection

Jewish security troops were formed called Hashomer, those troops had the goal of protecting those lands because they always considered anything outside that land as enemies. These guards would strengthen the relationships between Jews and the "New Land".

3- Complete Boycott

Zionists wouldn't do business with Palestinians. They're not there to work with Palestinians, they're there to make Jewish products and work only with other Jews. That method of dealing with the land was a strategy by Zionists to ensure no Palestinians remained. Maybe that strategy wasn't clear at the time, but it is definitely one that lived on until today.

Also, even though it wasn't so apparent, it still rang the alarm with some Palestinians as written by EL-CARMEL newspaper that went on and publicly warned against the Jewish settlement movement among other newspapers and magazines at the time. Still, the immigration continued and before World War 1, the number of Jews in Palestine increased from 24,000 to 50,0000. Of course, the number increased by double but still wasn't enough.

This made the Zionist settlement movement feel like it would take them a hundred years before the complete seizure of the land. 50 thousand people aren't enough, and as any movement that needs to grow, it needs a big investor, and who was that investor? Britain.

The British Mandate and the subsequent "Independence" from it is probably the most important part of the Zionist narrative, that's why it became the longest period in my research as we will in upcoming parts.

Previous Parts

The Tragic Story of Palestine - Part 1: Tantura
The Tragic Story of Palestine - Part 2: Protecting The Israel Mythology
The Tragic Story of Palestine - Part 3: The Israel Foundation Myth
The Tragic Story of Palestine - Part 4: The "One People" Myth
The Tragic Story of Palestine - Part 5: The "Zionism is Judaism" Myth

Follow-up parts

Sources

The Arabs: A History - Eugene Rogan
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine - Ilan Pappe
Ten Myths About Israel - Ilan Pappe
Palestine: ...it is something colonial (Decolonizing the mind)
One hundred questions and answers about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - Pedro Brieger
Tantura Documentary
Executions and Mass Graves in Tantura - Forensic Architecture
Israel’s 55-year occupation of Palestinian Territory is apartheid – UN human rights expert
"Nakba Law" - Amendment No. 40 to the Budgets Foundations Law
Eye Witnesses Statments
Al-Nakba: The Palestinian catastrophe - Episode 1 | Featured Documentary
Al-Nakba: The Palestinian catastrophe - Episode 2 | Featured Documentary
Al-Nakba: The Palestinian catastrophe - Episode 3 | Featured Documentary
Al-Nakba: The Palestinian catastrophe - Episode 4 | Featured Documentary
Anatomy of the Israeli mind
Collusion Across The Jordan: King Abdullah, The Zionist Movement, And The Partition Of Palestine - Avi Shlaim

The Tragic Story of Palestine - Part 6: The "Land Without a People" Myth