re legality of the jewish purchase in article apr bnr ca zbib bnr ca writes amir y rosenblatt writes sam zbib writes no one in his right mind would sell his freedom and dignity palestinians are no exception perhaps you heard about anti trust in the business world since we are debating the legality of a commercial transaction we must use the laws governing the guidelines and ethics of such transactions basic anti trust law says that while you can purchase ibm stocks for the purpose of investing you can not acquire a large number of those shares with the intent or controlling ibm you can do so only if you make your intentions clear apriori clearly the jews who purchased properties from palastenians had some designs they were not buying a dwelling or a real estate they were establishing a bridgehead for the european jews the palastenians sold their properties to the jews in the old tradition of arab hospitality being a multi ethnic multi religious society accepting the jews as neighbours was no different just another religion plus they paid fair market value etc they did not know they were victims of an international conspiracy i m not a conspiracy theorist myself but this one is hard to dismiss right now i m just going to address this point when the jewish national fund bought most of its land it didn t buy it from the palestinians themselves because for the most part they were tenant farmers fallahin living on land owned by wealthy arabs in syria and lebanon the jnf offered a premium deal so the owners took advantage of it it s called commerce the owners however made no provisions for those who had worked for them basically shafting them by selling the land right out from under them they are to blame not the jews amir why would you categorize the sale of land as shafting was it because it was sold to jews was it fair to assume that the fallahin would be mistreated by the jews is this the norm of any commerce read shafting between arabs and jews it was shafting on the part of the arab land owners for doing it without notifying their tenant farmers and for not being responsible enough to make provisions for them but rather just leaving them to their fate your claim that the lebanese syrian landlords sold palestine if true even partially omits the fact that the mandate treaty put lebanon and syria under french rule while palestine under british obiviously any such landlord would have found himself a foreigner in palestine and would be motivated to sell regardless of the price the point is that the land was sold legally often at prices above its actual value it was legal and good business for the sellers though it left the palestinians who worked the land in a poor situation it is interesting though that you acknowledge that the palestinians were shafted do many israelis or jews share your opinion do you absolve the purchaser from any ethical commitments just because it wasn t written down i don t know if others share this opinion it is mine and i m sure there are some who agree and some who don t the way i see it the fallahin were caught in circumstances beyond their control in that since they didn t own the land they didn t have a say of course now for the sake of the greater arab unity the arabs are angry that the land was sold to the jews an act that is illegal in jordan but when it happened it was just business all told i did not see an answer in your response the question was whether the intent behind the purchase was aimed at controlling the public assets land infra structure etc imho the palestinians have grounds to contest the legality of the purchase say in world court sam my opinions are my own and no one else s the purpose of buying the land was to provide space and jobs for jewish immigrants in any case no matter what the purpose the sales were legal so i really don t see any grounds for contesting them amir
