Population Statistics of Palestine

Regardless of whoever said the famous phrase describing Palestine as "a land without a people for a people without a land", this false statement was adopted by the Zionists and was associated with their establishing of a Jewish state in Palestine. At the birth of modern Zionism in the early twentieth century, the meaning of this phrase was taken literally suggesting that the land of Palestine was uninhabited. Discovering that this was not the case, many interpretations were made by Jewish scholars to justify the validity of the phrase. However, their efforts only added insult to injury and made the bad situation worse. For example, a group of scholars interprets the phrase as an expression claiming that the Palestinians did not constitute a self-conscious national group, meaning that Palestine contained people but not "a people". In other words, this interpretation suggests that the Palestinians have no history, culture, nor a legitimate claim to national self-determination! Assuming that the first phrase interpretation is misleading, the second would be racist and misleading!

The history and culture of Palestine is much richer than to be summarized in few pages, yet here is an attempt, but as for the statistical question of Palestine, a population statistics study would be helpful. Below is a table of the population statistics of the historical land of Palestine, which is now divided into Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, from 1900 to 2005. It's important to note that statistical data are available for earlier years, for example, in 1877, Palestine had a population of 426,908 (97%) Arabs and 13,942 (3%) Jews. However, earlier years data were neglected to maintain accuracy, as older data is generally seen as less accurate than more modern population figures. Another thing to note is that the decrease in total population in 1918 is due to WWI and famine.

Year	Arabs	Jews	Total	% of Arabs	% of Jews
1900	564,000	36,000	600,000	94.00%	6.00%
1914	731,000	60,000	791,000	92.41%	7.59%
1918	688,000	59,000	747,000	92.10%	7.90%
1922	668,258	83,790	752,048	88.86%	11.14%
1931	858,708	174,606	1,033,314	83.10%	16.90%
1941	1,111,398	474,102	1,585,500	70.10%	29.90%
1944	1,211,000	554,000	1,765,000	68.61%	31.39%
1946	1,237,334	608,225	1,845,559	67.04%	32.96%
1950	1,172,100	1,203,000	2,375,100	49.35%	50.65%
1960	1,340,100	1,911,300	3,251,400	41.22%	58.78%
1970	1,045,000	2,582,000	3,627,000	28.81%	71.19%
1980	2,100,000	3,282,700	5,382,700	39.01%	60.99%
1995	3,506,900	4,495,100	8,002,000	43.83%	56.17%
2005	5,139,100	5,275,700	10,414,800	49.34%	50.66%

Many conclusions can be drawn from the above data, but first, an explanation is needed to interpret the unnatural increase in the Jewish population throughout the years, and another explanation to interpret the unnatural decrease in the Arab population throughout the years and especially in the '40s and the late '60s. As for the first, Jewish immigration to Palestine, or what is known as the Aliyah, explains this unnatural increase of the Jewish population, for example, the Jewish population nearly tripled between 1931 and 1941, and this is explained by the 5th Aliyah that occurred between 1929 and 1939 in which a wave of nearly 250,000 Jewish immigrants arrived to Palestine. Secondly, reductions in the Arab population in Palestine were mainly a result of the Nakba in 1948 and the Naksa in 1967, where more than 750,000 and 372,000 Arab Palestinians respectively fled or were expelled from Palestine.

After the UN partitioning plan of Palestine and after the creation of Israel, only few Arab Palestinians were permitted to stay in Israel and acquire Israeli citizenship. Those Palestinians are called Arab citizens of Israel or the Israeli Arabs and the data below shows population statistics of these Israeli Arabs against the Israeli Jews within the boarders of what is now knows as the state of Israel.

Year	Arabs	Jews	Total	% of Arabs	% of Jews
1949	159,100	1,013,900	1,173,000	13.56%	86.44%
1967	392,700	2,383,600	2,776,300	14.14%	85.86%
1973	493,200	2,845,000	3,338,200	14.77%	85.23%
1983	706,100	3,412,500	4,118,600	17.14%	82.86%
1990	875,000	3,946,700	4,821,700	18.15%	81.85%
1995	1,004,900	4,522,300	5,527,200	18.18%	81.82%
2000	1,188,700	4,955,400	6,144,100	19.35%	80.65%
2006	1,413,300	5,393,400	6,806,700	20.76%	79.24%

Upon the creation of Israel, the remaining Palestinian lands were divided into the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. And the data below shows the Arab population statistics for these two areas from 1948 to 2005. However, it's important to note that following the 1967 war, Israel began establishing Jewish settlements on the stolen Palestinian lands and only for the Israeli Jews. There are now thousands of these settlements throughout the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and their aim is to expand the borders of the Israeli land at the expense of the remaining Palestinian land. Though the tables below only shows population of the Arab Palestinians, the illegal Jewish settlers in 2006 reached 255,600 in the West Bank and that is almost 10% of the total population in the territory.

Year	West Bank	Gaza	Total
1948	462,100	82,500	544,600
1950	765,000	240,000	1,005,000
1960	799,000	302,000	1,101,000
1970	677,000	368,000	1,045,000
1980	964,000	497,000	1,461,000
1985	1,044,000	532,288	1,576,288
1990	1,254,506	642,814	1,897,320
1995	1,626,689	875,231	2,501,920
2000	2,020,298	1,132,063	3,152,361
2005	2,385,615	1,376,289	3,761,904

Israeli citizen

1978: Operation of the Martyr Kamal Adwan

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Khalil al-Wazir "Abu Jihad", a founder of the Palestine Liberation Organization "Fateh", started planning for the operation in 1977 and instantly after Zbigniew Brzezinski's, US National Security Advisor, important slogan "Bye-bye PLO". Abu Jihad chose the name of Kamal Adwan, who was killed by the Mossad in 1973 in Beirut, to be the name of the operation. Kamal Adwan was a PLO chief of operations, responsible for armed militant activities against Israel in the Palestinian occupied territories. As an act of revenge, Abu Jihad's plan was to imitate the Mossad style in murdering Kamal Adwan by sending a group of Fedayeen to Tel Aviv by sea. This group, called Deir Yassin, was consisted of 13 Fedayeen and their plan was to seize a luxury hotel on the coast of Tel Aviv and take tourists and foreign ambassadors hostage in order to exchange them for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. During the time of the operation, Yassir Arafat "Abu Ammar", the President of the PLO, was in a visit to Moscow where he met with Andrei Gromyko, the Minister for Foreign Affairs for the Soviet Union. The Russians were hesitating about the arms deal with the Palestinians and therefore, Abu Ammar was hoping for the Kamal Adwan operation to occur before his visit to the Soviet Union for the purpose of showing the Russians the real Palestinian need for the weapons.

The Group of Deir Yassin consisted of 13 Fedayeen, most notably Dalal Mughrabi (20), who was the Political Commissar and the only woman in the group. Most of the Fedayeen were Palestinians except for Hussein "Osama" Murad (15) and Amer "Tariq ibn Ziyad" Amireya (25) who were Lebanese and Mohammed "Abu Hussein" al-Shammari (18) and Abdel Raouf "Abu Ahmed" Ali (22) who were Yemeni. The Group leader was Mahmoud "Abu Hazza" Ali (19) but the group was actually led by Hussein Fayad (18). Other group members were Yahya "Abu Jalal" Skaf (18) who was the Deputy Commander, Abu al-Ramz (18), Kaled "Abu Salah" Ibrahim (18), Khaled "Abdel Salam" Yousef (18), Mohamed "Fakher el-Nahal" Musameh (19) and Mohammed "Wael" Shara'an (17).

The Group of Deir Yassin departed on March 9, 1978 taking a ship from Tyre, Lebanon heading to Tel-Aviv. Approximately 4 hours away from their destination, the group continued heading to Tel-Aviv using two inflatable boats. Because of the bad weather and navigation errors, the inflatable boats were deviated from their direction, and the group was lost in the Mediterranean Sea and was unable to reach Tel Aviv in the time agreed upon. In March 11 and After two days of fighting with the waves, the Fedayeen managed to reach land, but with a dire situation in which both Abdel Salam and Abu Ahmed drowned and died in the sea and Wael became unconscious.

While the group was resting and gathering its strengths, Dalal was able to discover that they were on the Palestinian land and somehow close to Tel-Aviv. The unit was now ready to start the operation and they started heading toward the main street. While getting closer, the team took cover when they found a car heading toward the beach. Abu Hussein, Abu Hazza and Abu al-Ramz entrusted Dalal to talk to the female driver and obtain information. After the discussion, Dalal discovered that they were on a military zone and they were only 90 km away from Tel-Aviv. Regardless of the team instructions, Dalal had to kill the American tourist to avoid revealing the identity of the team, or to be arrested before capturing any hostages.

The main priority of the Fedayeen now is to capture hostages. Therefore, the team suggested an alternative plan in which Abu Jalal and Abu Salah were both chosen to stop a bus on the main road to take them to Tel-Aviv. Being unable to stop any car, Abu al-Ramz opened fire on an Israeli soldiers carrier and forced it to stop. The team took control over the bus and ordered the driver to head to Tel-Aviv. On the way to Tel-Aviv, the team opened fire on another bus and forced it to stop and all the new hostages were taken to the first bus. The bus now have more than 90 hostages. At this point the Israeli police and army started pursuing and opening fire aiming randomly at the bus in an attempt to stop it. Wael, who was unconscious, suddenly wakes up and stand on his feet taking a fighting position and singing revolutionary Palestinian songs. The Israeli bus driver skillfully managed to pass through the Israeli barriers but he stopped the bus at the last barrier on the borders of Tel-Aviv and wasn't able to get in. After a long combat and exchanging fire between the Palestinian Fedayeen and the Israeli Army, the bus caught fire and many were killed including five on the Fedayeen; Abu Hazza, Abu Hussein, Fakher el-Nahal, Wael and Tariq ibn Ziyad. From the remaining six Fedayeen Dalal, Abu Jalal, Osama and Abu al-Ramz died in a combat outside of the bus. Abu Salah and Fayad were the only survivors of the Fedayeen.

According to official statistics, the Operation resulted in 37 Israeli deaths and 78 injuries. However, many sources claim that theses numbers only counts Israeli civilians, and that the actual deaths and injuries would much more exceed these numbers if the deaths and injuries resulted in the Israeli Army were added.

007: Peace Bus

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A famous 1960's Volkswagen Type 2 bus. Modeled in SolidWorks!

005: Animal

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Briggs & Stratton Animal is a single cylinder, four stroke overhead valve engine used in many go-karting series. I used a different engine during my design project of The Camel, Supermileage vehicle, which was the Briggs & Stratton Model 20. I modeled both on SolidWorks as well as other engines, but this one is my favorite. Obviously, it's not complete yet, as it lacks the Carburetor and Head Assemblies. I'll complete the model as soon as I get my hands on good reference images that I couldn't find anywhere. Below is an exploded view of the Animal engine.

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003: Classical Guitar

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Fake autographed by some of my favorite artists.

1909: Committee of Union and Progress

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The Second Aliyah occurred between 1904 and 1914, in which approximately 34,000 Jews immigrated to Palestine, and particularly to the Galilee, after Sultan Abdülhamid permitted Jewish immigration to only the northern district of Palestine. In 1909, Zionist Jews of the Second Aliyah were able to establish their first Kibbutz community, named it Degania, which was founded near the Palestinian village of Umm Juni located on the coast of the Sea of Galilee. Kibbutzim communities are different from Jewish settlements, in which, Kibbutzim societies rely solely on agriculture and are established as separate entities that act independently and does not follow local authorities laws or regulations. Regardless of Sultan Abdülhamid's orders in not permitting new Jewish immigrants to settle in Palestine except for the Galilee, Zionist Jews of the Second Aliyah managed to sneak to Jaffa and were able to form a new Jewish society, named Ahuzat Bayit, in which was later expanded to become the city of Tel-Aviv.

During this time, Zionists were not happy with the actions of Sultan Abdülhamid in allowing Jewish immigrants to settle only in the Galilee, since this would not go with their plans of taking over Palestine and converting it into a Jewish state. Therefore, Zionists decided to eliminate the Ottoman Empire by using their influences to penetrate into the Committee of Union and Progress. In 1909, this committee along with the Young Turks movement, succeeded in seizing power from Sultan Abdülhamid, and replaced him with his younger brother Mehmed Reşad. The Committee of Union and Progress reconstituted the parliament and put the power and decision-making in the hands of the new appointed thirteen ministers, leaving the new Sultan, Mehmed Reşad, with absolutely no political power. The Committee of Union and Progress, widely influenced by Zionists, assigned only one Arab minister out of the thirteen minsters, although Arabs represented more than half of the Ottoman Empire's population, while assigning three Jewish ministers. One of the earliest decisions that was made by the new government is to allow the Jewish Zionist colonists into Palestine.

Several Arab and Turkish revolts arose in an attempt to restore the power from the Committee of Union and Progress back to Sultan Abdülhamid. However, the Committee of Union and Progress was able to put down all the revolts with the help of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, a Jewish Freemason, who was also able to depose Sultan Abdülhamid and send him to exile in Selanik. Sultan Abdülhamid later explained that the reason behind his dethronement was his "determination to prevent the Jews from their determination on establishing a Jewish homeland in Palestine"

002: Shark M500 Revolver

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Inspired by S&W M500 revolver. More details to be added soon.