Dominion of Israel

Title kind of says it all. Is the idea of creation a British Dominion of Israel possible and what conditions would make it sustainable? (Sustainable defined as the state apparatus’s security is assured without the deployment of non-domestic forces).

Ideas for the divergence:
In 1840 the Convention of London between European powers and Ottoman Empire over Egypt is more favourable to Egypt. This Convention would preserve the hereditary rule of Muhammad Ali Pasha in Egypt, Eyalet of Acre, and elements of Damascus Eyalet (the portions making up modern Israel). Egypt would remain nominally part of the Ottoman Empire. In 1841 the Convention is accepted by Egypt. Over the decades after the Convention, Egypt is gradually weakened and enters into debt. As a consequence of its weekend state its administrative capacity in what becomes Israel is weakened and stronger but not complete Ottoman control is established over it.


As part of the settlement ending the Crimean War (Treaty of Paris, 1856) the British Empire is granted the role of protector of the Jews in their traditional Homeland of Eretz Israel. Eretz Israel for the purposes of the Convention is the Sinai and Modern Israel (including West Bank and the Golan). Initially this would simply mean having a consul in Jerusalem which would intercede with local authorities on behalf of Jewish communities from time to time. This encourages Jewish immigration to Israel particularly as a response to the 1859, 1871, and other pogroms in Russia (the 1881- pogroms in particular contributes greatly to the Jewish population of Israel). The Ottomans welcome this, if for no other reasons then the Russian Empire is a traditional enemy and nominal Muslim control helps to appease local concerns. The British and French branches of the Rothschild Family in cooperation with the British Government also assist in this, the Rothschild’s by helping to finance settlement and business ventures while the government creates the Anglo-Jewish Agency for Israel by expanding its role. This would serve as a quasi-government for Jewish groups through facilitating community projects and running schools. In 1870, the Rothschild’s with the Anglo-Jewish Agency’s assistance purchases the Moroccan Quarter of Jerusalem to create greater access to the Western Wall; this is done with official Ottoman approval.


In 1875 the British Empire purchases ½ of the Suez Canal (Egypt’s stake in the Canal) and assumes control of ‘Israel (minus Sinai)’ as a nominal Condominium with the Ottoman Empire, and after its military intervention in 1882 in Egypt, it gains control of the Sinai. From 1882, Israel (including the Sinai) is considered nominally Ottoman but under full British administration (like Cyprus was). The agreement with the Ottoman Empire explicitly recognizes it as the homeland of the Jewish people and recognizes a ‘right of return.’ With Israel in practice a British colony the Anglo-Jewish Agency is disbanded and becomes the basis for the new civilian government. A census is conducted of Israel to identify religious and cultural groups in Israel. The now Israeli government continues to facilitate Jewish immigration and works particularly closely with Jewish, Christian, and Druze communities to build infrastructure and deliver services. Some British immigration also occurs. In 1885 a nominated advisory council is introduced for the protectorate, and in 1910 it becomes a legislative council.


At the start of WW1, like Cyprus, Israel is declared a formal Crown Colony. With transportations links firmly established to Egypt, the British military is able hold the colony and has a forward base of operations for operations against the Ottomans. There is a Muslim revolt during the war in support of the Ottoman Empire; the revolt is put down by the British military, Jews, and Druze. Post war there is a de facto population transfer between Israel and several states carved out of the Ottoman Empire. In 1920, Israel is declared a Dominion within the British Empire. During inter-war period heavy immigration from Europe ensures continued Jewish plurality if not majority of the Dominion's population. The Dominion itself would be defined as secular as would its legal system (no confessional system, secular legal system for personal law)


Supplementary question: could this scenario be feasible in an Imperial Federation context as well as on its own?
(I realize my ideas for pod are mostly pre 1900, yet I feel it still might fit better in this forum. If a mod wants to move it they may and I won't object)
 

katchen

Banned
Katchen

Believe it or not, the British could actually dig an alternative to the Suez Canal through Palestine even in the 1860s (with railroads and steam shovels). There is only a stretch 25 miles between Haifa Bay and where the Valley of Jezreel falls below sea level on it's way to the below sea level Jordan Valley. And another stretch of 80 miles above sea level between the head of the Gulf of Aqabah and where the Wadi al Arabah passes below sea level on it's way to the Dead Sea. The highest point of that stretch, according to a map of Israel I've seen is about 220 feet above sea level. So at most, the British would be looking at digging a cut about 280 feet deep at it's deepest through sandstone and limestone in desert conditions, not rainforest like the Panama Canal. Then wait a few years while the Jordan valley filled up to sea level with seawater from the Mediteranean and Red Seas. The only real opposition might come from Anglican and Catholic clergy who would have a problem with flooding the ford where Jesus was baptised. The whole project might take about 10 years to build, though Palestine's Jewish presence might get diluted with Muslim and Hindu laborers, probably from India. to build the canal and staying on. It's the kind of project that would look good and even strategically essential for Britain while Napoleon III was in conttrol of France and France did not need the money that selling half interest in the Suez Canal would bring to recoup it's losses to Germany. And a US Naval expedition had discovered that the Jordan Valley and Dead Sea were below sea level in 1848.
 
Believe it or not, the British could actually dig an alternative to the Suez Canal through Palestine even in the 1860s (with railroads and steam shovels). There is only a stretch 25 miles between Haifa Bay and where the Valley of Jezreel falls below sea level on it's way to the below sea level Jordan Valley. And another stretch of 80 miles above sea level between the head of the Gulf of Aqabah and where the Wadi al Arabah passes below sea level on it's way to the Dead Sea. The highest point of that stretch, according to a map of Israel I've seen is about 220 feet above sea level. So at most, the British would be looking at digging a cut about 280 feet deep at it's deepest through sandstone and limestone in desert conditions, not rainforest like the Panama Canal. Then wait a few years while the Jordan valley filled up to sea level with seawater from the Mediteranean and Red Seas. The only real opposition might come from Anglican and Catholic clergy who would have a problem with flooding the ford where Jesus was baptised. The whole project might take about 10 years to build, though Palestine's Jewish presence might get diluted with Muslim and Hindu laborers, probably from India. to build the canal and staying on. It's the kind of project that would look good and even strategically essential for Britain while Napoleon III was in conttrol of France and France did not need the money that selling half interest in the Suez Canal would bring to recoup it's losses to Germany. And a US Naval expedition had discovered that the Jordan Valley and Dead Sea were below sea level in 1848.
I would tend to dismiss early canal proposals... if only because of loss of agricultural land and regional sysmic instability..... there are regional nuclear canal proposals to but I am not so sure about them

http://www.osti.gov/bridge/servlets/purl/453701-mfyTWL/webviewable/453701.pdf
 
I would tend to dismiss early canal proposals... if only because of loss of agricultural land and regional seysmic instability...

In the 1860s, nobody really cared about seysmic instability.
Now agricultural land is a good question. This canal would mean Lake Kinneret gone, and almost the entire area that is IOTL part of Israel (i.e. everything between the canal and Sinai) would pretty much be hopelessly stuck as a desert (well the parts that didn't get flooded anyway); and indeed, almost all half-decent land in the region would end up flooded by the newly created sea.
I agree, however, that flooding half of Galilee and three quarters of the Jordan river certainly wouldn't have a good reputation with the church. :D
 
I seriously doubt making a freshwater river in an arid land into a saltwater canal would be a net positive for anyone.

You are correct in assuming that to make Israel a Dominion with Jewish government requires a much larger Jewish population than OTL. IIRC IOTL they managed to be the local power and take independence with about 1/4 of the areas population.
 

katchen

Banned
katchen

People don't realize how underpopulated Palestine was in the early 19th Century due to the depradations of Bedouins. In OTL, the Ottomans resettled Bosnian Muslims and Muslim Circassians who were refugees from Austrian and Russian Christian respectively, takeover of their countries (so much for Palestinian Arab claims of 100% nativity to the area) because the land was vacant and yes, Jewish population was rising toward majority status which it had achieved by the 1880s in Jerusalem. So during the 1840s, there wouldn't be much agriculture for the canal to displace (basically the towns of Beisan and Ariha (Jericho) and Tiberias, which would have had to be moved 600 feet up the hillside from where it is now. But a New TIberias would be a seaport and would likely thrive.
There are two major reasons why the British did not takeover Palestine in the 19th Century and both lend themselves to wonderful ATLs if in fact they do. Tthe first is that the balance of power in the Middle East was hanging by a thread. Palestine was essential for the Ottoman Empire to communicate with, let alone extend it's power to the Hejaz and the holy cities of Mecca and Medina.. Once that link is severed, the Shiites of Qajar Persia are motivated to retake Shia Iraq and move on to take Mecca and Medina and claim legitimacy for Shia Islam. The Arab tribes of the Nejd are probably not strong enough to stop them. Egypt under Muhammad Ali can't claim Mecca and Medina because the French are dominating it and because the British will want to keep the French away from the Arabian shore of the Red Sea. And the British, after their experience in Afghanistan in 1842 are not keen on marching into Mecca themselves, since it could well lead to Muslim insurrection across Muslim India to have infidels in Mecca. So the British would be reduced to propping up the Sharif of Mecca as an independent ruler, possibly maintaining a presence at Al Lith (Jidda would be too close to Mecca).or letting Persia create the stability in the region. And Russia would be grabbing it's share of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans, possibly going all the way to Constantinople, in which fcase Tsar Nicholas might be able to claim the Byzantine titles of Baseleus and Augustus and make a serious claim to Russia as the third Rome.. While the British would have to follow up taking Palestine with colonizing the Aegean and Ionian Islands to keep Russia out of the Mediterranean. That's reason number one.
The second reason, and this is even more basic is that the return of the Jews to Palestine was and is such a challenge to both conventional Christianity and to Islam that it sparks moral panics across the Western world in OTL, even today. Most of Christianity, even today believves in Exile Theology, the idea that the Jews were sent into exile because they did not follow Jesus while he was alive and must remain in exile until His return or they see the error of their ways.
It was only in the 1830s that Thomas Nelson Darby began preaching a dispensationalist form of Christianity that is familiar to most American Pentecostals, Baptists, Assemblies of God and other similar denominations. His Plymouth Bretheren hold that God kept his covenant with the Jewish People and that the covenant with Jesus for all people was in addition to the covenant and does not diminish God's dispensation to the Jews. In OTL, this doctrine became very popular in the UK by the early 20th Century. Lord Balfour and Lloyd George and General Allenby apparently believed it, which is why the Balfour Declaration was made in OTL and given legal force in 1920 with the Treaty of San Remo, which set the boundaries of a Jewish State in Palestine. After 1920, the Liberal Party in the UK got blamed for the carnage of WWI and lost not only power, but dissolved and the idea of a Jewish State fell out of favor in British official circles. But that is another story.
A similar situation exists with Islam, where the idea of a Jewish state apparently threatens the very theological foundations on which Islam is built, namely the role of Ishmael as the rightful holder of God's blessing now that he has accepted God (Allah) and stopped worshipping idols. Whatever the reason, Muslims treat the Jewish State as a complete and satanic reversal of fortune and are in a continuing state of moral panic about it to this day. But back to the 19th Century and the Christian world.
This moral panic reaction by most Christians (remember that the Catholic Church still considered Jews to be deicides --Christ killers pre Vatican II--and the Eastern Orthodox Churches may still consider Jews to be deicides to this day--I'm not sure OTL) was very strong. Strong enough that in the wake of the World Zionist Congress in Basle Switzerland in 1893, Yuliana Glinka, (Yelena Blavatskaya, the founder of Theosophy and possible minor princess and Okhrana agent's secretary) was able to ghostwrite the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, attributing it to a Russian monk named Sergei Nilus and have this piece of Okhrana disinformation, which purported that the Elders of Zion were masterminding a takeover of the World by destabilizing World institutions of Church and State and have this falsehood accepted by most of it's readers even 20 years later. Because the fact of the matter is that Zionism is profoundly destabilizing to much o fChristianity and Islam.
So in the 1840s, a Jewish Dominion will be seen conspiratorially by nearly all of continental Europe, particularly if the British Prime Minister is someone named Benjamin Disraeli. Even in Great Britain, the idea of a Jewish return to Zion is as radical in the 1840s as abolitionism is in the United States. If the British show that they are serious about a Jewish Dominion ATL, expect violent pogroms against Jews as Jews attempt to go to Palestine--bringing about exactly what Europeans are trying to prevent. And possible early attempts at a Final Solution in one or more European countries, though without the benefit of modern industry. And widespread hostility to Great Britain.....
 
People don't realize how underpopulated Palestine was in the early 19th Century due to the depradations of Bedouins
Actually, the whole of the Middle East was underpopulated, mainly due to plague (which left the rest of the Ottoman Empire underpopulated too. It think that Syria only broke the 1,000,000 people mark during the 20th century or very close to, for comparison.
In OTL, the Ottomans resettled Bosnian Muslims and Muslim Circassians who were refugees from Austrian and Russian Christian respectively, takeover of their countries (so much for Palestinian Arab claims of 100% nativity to the area)
Are you trying to say that Palestinians are in fact solely the decedents of Muslims refugees from Europe and the Caucasus? Because that is incorrect.
because the land was vacant
It wasn't vacent, just less densely populated than it is now...

and yes, Jewish population was rising toward majority status which it had achieved by the 1880s in Jerusalem.
The Jews were not rising toward a majority status in Palestine before major Zionist immigration after 1918. Even afterwards, they did not make a majority in Israel until they ethnically cleansed the Palestinian population in 1948. I cannot find any figures from 1880, but in 1850, the Jews in Jerusalem were outnumbered by the Christians, let alone the Muslims. And I know of no massive Jewish growth in Jerusalem between those years.

the first is that the balance of power in the Middle East was hanging by a thread. Palestine was essential for the Ottoman Empire to communicate with, let alone extend it's power to the Hejaz and the holy cities of Mecca and Medina.. Once that link is severed, the Shiites of Qajar Persia are motivated to retake Shia Iraq and move on to take Mecca and Medina and claim legitimacy for Shia Islam. The Arab tribes of the Nejd are probably not strong enough to stop them.
Ok, slow this down for a minute. There is a reason why the Nejd has almost never been ruled by outsiders. Namely because it is a big whopping patch of desert. Which of course, are very hard to supply armies in. The only water sources are oases which are few and far between. There is also the question of how the hell the weakened state of Qajar Iran manage to take down the Ottomans. If they don't do it immediatly after the 2nd Oriental crisis (when the Ottomans basically had no army), then there is no chance for them to do it. Iran is simply too weak compared to the Ottoman Empire, and as the Iran-Iraq war proved, religious fervor is not enough to overcome effective defenses.

And Russia would be grabbing it's share of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans, possibly going all the way to Constantinople, in which fcase Tsar Nicholas might be able to claim the Byzantine titles of Baseleus and Augustus and make a serious claim to Russia as the third Rome..
While the British would have to follow up taking Palestine with colonizing the Aegean and Ionian Islands to keep Russia out of the Mediterranean. That's reason number one.
Yeah, there is no way the British are going to let them do that. One of the major points of British foreign policy during the 19th century was to keep Russia away from Constantinople, to deny them access to the Mediterranean. Forget the Aegean Islands, Constantinople is the best, and indeed the only way to keep the Russians locked up in the Black Sea.

[/QUOTE]So in the 1840s, a Jewish Dominion will be seen conspiratorially by nearly all of continental Europe, particularly if the British Prime Minister is someone named Benjamin Disraeli. Even in Great Britain, the idea of a Jewish return to Zion is as radical in the 1840s as abolitionism is in the United States. If the British show that they are serious about a Jewish Dominion ATL, expect violent pogroms against Jews as Jews attempt to go to Palestine--bringing about exactly what Europeans are trying to prevent. And possible early attempts at a Final Solution in one or more European countries, though without the benefit of modern industry. And widespread hostility to Great Britain.....[/QUOTE]
Disraeli wasn't a Prime Minister until the late 1860's. And as I'm aware, there was virtually no concept of a Zionist movement until later on in the 19th century, so unless we get particularly biblically motivated policy (that seems to go against every other political instinct the British have in this period, I'm going to say that this whole scenario is highly unlikely.
 
People don't realize how underpopulated Palestine was in the early 19th Century due to the depradations of Bedouins. In OTL, the Ottomans resettled Bosnian Muslims and Muslim Circassians who were refugees from Austrian and Russian Christian respectively, takeover of their countries (so much for Palestinian Arab claims of 100% nativity to the area) because the land was vacant and yes, Jewish population was rising toward majority status which it had achieved by the 1880s in Jerusalem. So during the 1840s, there wouldn't be much agriculture for the canal to displace (basically the towns of Beisan and Ariha (Jericho) and Tiberias, which would have had to be moved 600 feet up the hillside from where it is now. But a New TIberias would be a seaport and would likely thrive.

1. The idea that Palestine was vacant is a myth. In the late Nineteenth Century Palestine had a higher population density than the United States. In the 1880's Lawrence Oliphant described the Jezreel Valley as "a huge green lake of waving wheat, with its village-crowned mounds rising from it like islands; and it presents one of the most striking pictures of luxuriant fertility which it is possible to conceive." And Ahad Ha'am, an early Zionist, said of Palestine in the 1890's...

From abroad, we are accustomed to believe that Eretz Israel is presently almost totally desolate, an uncultivated desert, and that anyone wishing to buy land there can come and buy all he wants. But in truth it is not so. In the entire land, it is hard to find tillable land that is not already tilled; only sandy fields or stony hills, suitable at best for planting trees or vines and, even that after considerable work and expense in clearing and preparing them- only these remain unworked. ... Many of our people who came to buy land have been in Eretz Israel for months, and have toured its length and width, without finding what they seek.

2. Jews were certainly not rising towards majority status. Even in 1947, Jews were only a little less than a third of the population. At the beginning of the Mandatory period they were only about 11%. And they were even less before that.
 

katchen

Banned
Katchen

The most likely outcome of British takeover of Palestine in 1840s would be that quite a few British Plymouth Brethren, Christian Zionists, (who were becoming quite prevalent in Scotland in particular, where Thomas Nelson Darby did much of his preaching, would move to Palestine themselves in large numbers. The 1840s was the beginning of peak British immigration to British colonies (Canada, Cape Colony, Natal, Australia, New Zealand, and Palestine being the Holy Land and having a clement climate would be attractive to fundamentalist dispensationalist Christians and other British of a British Israelite persuasion (those who see the British as the Second Israel--a popular belief at that time). They would take over any vacant land and displace Bedouin from grazing land in order to set up Australian style sheep stations for commercial sheep raising. This would likely be prevalent from Hauran through most of TransJordan to Midian and the Negev--perhaps even into the Northern Hejaz, as sheep grazing was quite profitable at that time due to the demand from English woolen mills It would be ethnic cleansing, no doubt about it, and the Bedouin would fight back, perhaps drawing reinforcements from still free Wahabis from the Nejd. The struggle between Plymouth Bretheren, who have the same beliefs as American born again Christians do today against Wahabis would probably make for a very bitter but low level ongoing holy guerrilla war, perhaps like the Apache Wars in the American Southwest And whaat's left of the Ottomans in Syria would aid those mujihadeen. . Whether the Plymouth Bretheren settlers would be up to the task (remember, many of them are Scots and Scots-Irish) and how much support they would get from the British Crown would make this a very interesting ATL. indeed. . The initial immigration would be overwhelmingly British and Irish, perhaps with an admixture of Maltese (Malta was a British colony then) and Greeks if the Aegean Islands were taken over by the British. Massive Jewish immigration would likely not start until later (the 1880s, from Russia) and would be likely welcomed by the Plymouth Bretheren colonials for their own religious reasons and far more controversial in Whitehall.
Regarding the population of Palestine, there are no reliable estimates for the 1840s, but here is a fairly reliable table based on a number of listed sources. It shows that the population of Palestine in 1878, at apx 350,000 while by no means negligable was fairly small with plenty of room for immigration and plenty of room for concern by the Ottoman Government.

The following table is given by Maxime Rodinson
(Rodinson, M., Israel and the Arabs, Penguin, 1968).
Estimated Population of Palestine 1870-1946*

Arabs (%) Jews (%) Total
1870 367,224 (98%) 7,000 (2%) 375,000
1893 469,000 (98%) 10,000 (2%) 497,000
1912 525,000 (93%) 40,000 (6%) 565,000
1920 542,000 (90%) 61,000 (10%) 603,000
1925 598,000 (83%) 120,000 (17%) 719,000
1930 763,000 (82%) 165,000 (18%) 928,000
1935 886,000 (71%) 355,000 (29%) 1,241,000
1940 1,014,000 (69%) 463,000 (31%) 1,478,000
1946 1,237,000 (65%) 608,000 (35%) 1,845,000

Figures are rounded.

Sources: The numbers in this table are estimates constructed from the following:

Yehoshua Ben-Arieh, "The Population of the Large Towns in Palestine During the First Eighty Years of the Nineteenth Century, According to Western Sources" in Moshe Ma'oz, ed.

Studies on Palestine during the Ottoman Period, Magnus, 1975;

Alexander Scholch, "The Demographic Development of Palestine 1850-1882",

International Journal of Middle East Studies, XII, 4, November 1985, pp. 485-505; "Palestine",

Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th edn, 1911; "Palestine",

Encyclopedia of Islam, 1964;

UN Document A/AC 14/32, 11 November 1947, p.304;

Justin McCarthy, "The Population of Ottoman Syria and Iraq, 1878-1914",

Asian and African Studies, XV, 1 March 1981;

Kemal Karpat, "Ottoman Population Records and the Census of 1881/82-1893",

International Journal of Middle East Studies, XCI, 2, 1978;

Bill Farell, "Review of Joan Peters", 'From Time Immemorial',

Journal of Palestine Studies, 53, Fall 1984, pp. 126-34;

Walid Khalidi, From Heaven to Conquest: Readings in Zionism and the Palestine Problem until 1948,

Institute for Palestine Studies, 1971 appendix I;

Janet L. Abu Lughod, "The Demographic Transformation of Palestine", in Ibrahim Abu Lughod, ed.,

The Transformation of Palestine: Essays on the Origin and Development of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, Northwestern University Press, 1971 pp. 139-63.




It must be understood that the figures in the above table are estimates. There was no census in most of the years given in the table above, and likewise in the estimates given below for Mandate population. However, the estimates for mandatory Palestine are in fair agreement. Rodinson gives 1.478 million total population in 1940, while the Esco figures estimate 1,544,530 for the same year.



By contrast, if we look at Wikipedia's article on Demographics of the Ottoman Empire, we see an overall population for the Empire of 35 million and by comparison, Aleppo vilayet has a population of 800,000. in 1880.

Regarding the settlement of Bosnian Muslims in Palestine, here is the Wikipedia article entitled Bushnak
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The Bosnian mosque in Caesarea, Israel


Bushnak (Arabic: بشناق‎, meaning "Bosnian" or "Bosniak", also transliteratedBushnaq and Boshnak) is a surname common among the small minority of Palestinians who are of Bosnian origin.[1][2][3] Those sharing this surname are the descendants of Bosnian Muslims apprehensive of living under Christian rule after the Austro-Hungarian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1878, who emigrated to Palestine within the Ottoman empire.
While not originally from one family, most Bosnians who emigrated to Palestine adopted Bushnak as a common surname, attesting to their origins.[1]
Contents

[hide]

[edit] History

Some Bosnian movement to Palestine occurred when Bosnian Muslim soldiers were brought to Palestine in the late 1800s to provide reinforcements for the Ottoman army.[1][3]
More substantial movement occurred after 1878, when the Austro-Hungarian empire, ruled by the House of Habsburg, occupied Bosnia. Bosnian Muslim emigration continued through this period, escalating after the Austro-Hungarian's 1908 annexation of Bosnia. Many emigrated to parts of what is now modern Turkey, while a smaller number settled in Syria, Palestine, Lebanon and Jordan.
In Palestine, these Bosnian emigrants settled predominantly in villages in the northern parts of the present day West Bank and Israel: Caesarea (Qisarya), Yanun, Nablus, and Tulkarem.[1][2][3] Their descendants still live in these villages, their Bosnian heritage reflected in the Arab surname of Bushnak.[3]
The Bosnian Muslim immigrants who settled in Caesarea in 1878 built two mosques, joining other Muslim immigrants from Morocco, Algeria, Crimea, the Caucasus, and Turkestan. These Slavic speaking immigrants eventually assimilated into the Arab population of Palestine.
One of the most historically prominent Bosnian-Palestinians was Jezzar Pasha, who was the Ottoman ruler of Acre and the Galilee from 1775 until his death.
[edit] Other uses

Bushnak is also used colloquially among Palestinians to refer to someone who is fair-skinned and good looking.[4]
[edit] List of notable Bushnaks


[edit] See also


[edit] Notes and references


  1. ^ a b c d "It's the pits". Original in Haaretz, reprinted by Ta'ayush. 25 October 2002. http://www.taayush.org/new/yanun_haaretz_english.htm. Retrieved 2008-11-12.
  2. ^ a b Ibrahim Al-Marashi. "The Arab Bosnians?: The Middle East and the Security of the Balkans" (PDF). p. 4. http://www.hks.harvard.edu/kokkalis/GSW3/Ibrahim_Al-Marashi.pdf. Retrieved 2008-11-12.
  3. ^ a b c d Cohen and Riesman, 1996, p. 123.
  4. ^ Khalifeh, 2005, p. 254.

[edit] Bibliography





 
Regarding the population of Palestine, there are no reliable estimates for the 1840s, but here is a fairly reliable table based on a number of listed sources. It shows that the population of Palestine in 1878, at apx 350,000 while by no means negligable was fairly small with plenty of room for immigration and plenty of room for concern by the Ottoman Government.
Actually, if you are rounding up, it would be closer to 400,000. And many of the fertile areas had already been occupied by Palestinian farmers (the coastal plains that Israeli agriculture relies so heavily on was malarial at the time).
By contrast, if we look at Wikipedia's article on Demographics of the Ottoman Empire, we see an overall population for the Empire of 35 million and by comparison, Aleppo vilayet has a population of 800,000. in 1880.
That is strange, as most of the figures I've seen suggest a figure of around 650,000 in Aleppo Vilayet in 1914, and there was no major population decline in the area that I'm aware of during that time.
Regarding the settlement of Bosnian Muslims in Palestine, here is the Wikipedia article entitled Bushnak
Your orignial post suggested that the Palestinians were nearly entirely the descendants of these Bosniak and Circassian refugees. You have done absolutely nothing to prove that there was no Arab population in the area prior to the wars, just proven that there were some refugees there, a point I have not contended.
 

Archibald

Banned
Now that would make a pretty good TL with a very ironic tone.

How to solve that ignoble, utterly silly, never ending and bloody Israel - Palestine conflict ?

Easy. Drawn the land under the sea, courtesy of an alternate Suez canal. Turn what left of it into an arid desert.
Now no-one on his right sake would want to live there, nor fight to the very end. Not for such a creepy place.

Or perhaps the palestinian and the jews will be silly enough to kill each other for a patch of sea - or desert ? You never know... :mad:
 
I simply cannot see any sort of "Dominion of Isreal."

The Religious Zionists and whatever Orthodox faction is out there would never accept the house of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha-Oldensburg-Glucksburg ("Windsor Mountbatten) as royal sovereigns of Israel. Either they are absolute strangers to both the Davidic and Hasmonean lines, or else their descent from David ben Yeshe happened through the adultery of Queen Victoria's mother-in-law, which is even worse.

And either way, not only are they Christian, but concept of a "Sovereign Governor" is so utterly at odds with how things were run in the Davidic and Hasmonean kingdoms, or even the Khazar Khanate, as to be totally incompatible with Jewish thinking. To recognise a British monarch as king or queen of Israel would be tantamount to recognising the Spanish, Austrian, or Neopolitan claims to the Crusader State of Jerusalem as making them valid "Kings of Israel."

The Secular Zionists simply rejected any concept of monarchy out of hand on general Republican principle.
 
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