14
DETROIT JEWISH CHRONICLE and The Legal Chronicle
JEWS BRING THE LAND TO PALESTINE
By MARTIN SILVER
How can the Jews bring the
land to Palestine? It's the other
way round, you think. They are
bringing the Jews to the land of
Palestine.
But if you think so, you are
wrong. The Jews are actually
bringing the land to Palestine.
They are actually creating the
land on which they are settling.
At least that is what you are
led to believe if you listen to
Professor Walter Clay Lowder-
milk. Dr. Lowdermilk is not a
Jew. He is a great authority on
land in the Department of Agri-
culture of the United States Gov-
ernment.
Dr. Lowdermilk not so long
ago spent a considerable length of
time in Palestine and the Near
East, scientifically studying the
soil—and his opinions on the sub-
ject are scientific in the highest
sense of the word.
Palestine at one time—back in
Bible times—had a great deal of
land. Josephus and other his-
torians estimated that it sus-
tained a population of 5,000,000.
Some estimated the population as
even higher. The most conserva-
tive estimates are around 3,000,-
000.
Yet when the Jews in the last
century started coming into Pal-
estine, there were only 300,000
settlers. Today, the number has
grown to 1,800,000.
Why is it that the population
of Palestine dwindled so? The
answer is—the land vanished.
To be sure, the land in the
sense of space did not vanish,
but the land in any real sense—
in any sense of being able to
support people, disappeared. What
was left was really so much
sky—a kind of lower sky. A
hard, instead of soft, airy kind
of sky. The land of milk and
honey became a heap of rocks
and stones.
The Arabs had an explanation
of all the stones in Palestine.
They wove a very picturesque
legend to explain the situation.
They said that once upon a time
an angel, carrying a sack of
stones, flew over Palestine. Sud-
denly the sack burst open and
all the stones were strewn about
upon the hills.
But Dr. Lowdermilk, in his
recently published book "Pales-
tine, Land of Promise," says the
true story reads differently. Here
is the true story as the American
scientist tells it:
"Once upon a time the hills
of Palestine were covered with
rich red earth and protected by
forests, smaller vegetation and
terraces. Then the trees were cut
down, the terraces were neglect-
ed, the fertile soil washed away
by rain and only the stones were
left on the fields. Some of the
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earth, washed off the slopes, was
washed away in gullies; the
greater part of the earth was
dumped into the Mediterranean
during floods. Here the soils were
sorted by the waves so that fine
textured particles floated farther
out to sea while heavier sands
were heaped close to shore and
were rolled by the winds and
waves into great sand dunes.
These in turn dammed up the
water channels, so that the coas-
tal plains became marshes where
malaria depopulated the lands."
That is the true story—the
story of neglect and abuse of the
land leading to the soil floating
away to the Mediterranean. So
the soil which could sustain mil-
lions emigrated from Palestine
and Palestine became a land of
stones—and of malaria.
Yes—the land of a country c ,111
emigrate. The thousands of little
molecules that compose the soil,
if they are not treated right, be-
have just like people. They leave
the land which abuses them.
In the land of the Bible, the
great American soil expert of
our Department of Agriculture
was turned into an ardent Zion-
ist and became filled with the
spirit of the Bible. In a broad-
cast in Jerusalem to the Palestin-
ian Jewish villages, Dr. Lowder-
milk, in the language of the
Bible, broadcast an 11th Com-
mandment:
"Thou shalt inherit the earth
as a faithful steward, conserving
its resources and productivity
from generation to generation.
Thou shalt safeguard thy fields
from soil erosion, thy living wa-
ters from drying up, thy forests
from desolation and protect thy
hills from overgrazing by the
herds, that thy descendants may
have abundance forever. If any
shall fail in this stewardship of
the land, thy fruitful fields shall
become sterile stony ground or
wasting gullies and thy descend-
ants shall live in poverty or per-
ish' from off the face of the
earth."
This is the Eleventh Command-
ment as Dr. Lowdermilk sees it
and in his book he goes on to tell
how the Jews are religiously ob-
serving this commandment and,
as a result, the land is also re-
turning to Palestine.
How are the Jews making the
land come back? Dr. Lowdermilk
tells about it in his book. The
Jews are reforesting the land.
Planting trees is a way to get
the soil to absorb the water, so
that the rains do not wash away
the soil. Planting trees also pre-
vents the rolling sand dunes
from sweeping over the shore
and turning everything into des-
ert. Arabs had been cutting down
trees for generations. An absurd
tax system under the Turkish
regime which lasted for four
centuries had placed a tax on
trees so that the Arabs simply
cut them down. The Arab Bed-
ouifi's life was another factor in
making for the ruin of the land.
The Bedouin is a nomad, who
travels about the country looking
for pastures for his stock. This
system, of course, leads to irre-
sponsibility as regards the future
of the land. Here to day, gone
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JVA, corresponding to our own
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the irrigation of tens of thou-
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of the JVA—but it holds the
promise of one of the greatest
miracles of the ages. There has
been as yet no Jewish settlement
in the Negeb—the southern por-
tion of Palestine. Yet the Negeb
in Biblical times was a beehive
of peoples. Although as largo as
all of the rest of Palestine, it
has almost no population. The
JVA by irrigation may make this
land again blossom like the rose.
Yes, the Jews are not coming
empty handed to Palestine—they
are bringing the land with them!
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tomorrow—the Bedouin had no
thought for the future of his
land. This is being done away
with now, as the settlement of
the Jew increases.
The herds and particularly the
goats, nibbling at every scrub
of a tree, were another harmful
influence. The young trees now
are fenced off, so that the goats
do not get at them.
The neglect of the soil also
led to the turning of much land
into swamps not only unfit to be
used, but breeding malaria. The
Jews drain these swamps and
so make more usable land.
Irrigation introduced by the
Jews has reclaimed thousands of
other dunams. Dr. Lowdermilk
goes on to tell of the proposed
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