Jewish settlers a bad thing for Palestinians?

[Will69ease Profile]

If not for Jewish settlers, there would be no Palestine and no economic progress for the region’s Arab population!

Here are some key points evicting the claim that Israeli settlements are the root cause of the turmoil in the Middle East...

•Before the first influx of Jews into Palestine in the mid-19th century, the Arab population remained static, numbered between 200,000 and 300,000. Now the population is around 5.5 million.

•In the decades preceding Israeli independence in 1948, the new opportunities created by Jewish settlement activity attracted hundreds of thousands of Arab immigrants from Iraq, Syria, Jordan and the desert.

•Arab wages working for the Jews were double or more than that in Syria, Jordan and Iraq, leading the British Royal Commission to report: “The whole range of public services has steadily developed to the benefit of the [Arab] fellaheen … the revenue for those services having been largely provided by the Jews.”

•During the era of “Israeli occupation” that ran from 1967 to 1993, the number of Arabs in the territories tripled to some 3 million, with the creation of some 261 towns and a tripling of Arab per capita income. There was also a rise in life expectancy from 52 to 73 years.

•During the 1990s, foreign aid to the tune of $4 million flooded into the coffers of the PLO; its use decided on by terrorist Yasser Arafat. The result was a 40 percent decline in per capita income among Arabs, as well as humiliation for any Palestinians working for Jews.

•Palestinian annual household income for a family of four is $14,400 compared to $9,400 in neighboring Jordan, representative of other nations in the region.