posted on Oct, 29 2023 @ 11:13 PM
Now let's a add a historical context in the name of argument
According to Avneri, Jews held 1,850,000 dunams (1,850 km2) of land in 1947, or 6.94% of the total.
source:Avneri, Aryeh L. (1984). The Claim of Dispossession: Jewish Land-Settlement and the Arabs, 1878–1948., p. 224 Transaction Publishers. ISBN
978-0-87855-964-0.
Stein gives the estimate of 2,000,000 dunams (2,000 km2) as of May 1948, or 7.51% of the total
source: Stein, Kenneth W. (1987) [Original in 1984]. The Land Question in Palestine, 1917–1939., pp. 3–4, 247 University of North Carolina
Press. ISBN 978-0-8078-4178-5.
Around less than 10% of the land sold doesn't give anyone right to kick Americans from USA, call it Afghan land.
after the 1948, Israel passed a series of laws called The 'Absentees Property Law' which allowed Israel to takeover arab-owned land.
As a result, two million dunams were confiscated and given to the custodian, who later transferred the land to the development authority. This law
created the novel citizenship category of "present absentees" (nifkadim nohahim), persons present at the time but considered absent for the purpose of
the law. These Israeli Arabs enjoyed all civil rights-including the right to vote in the Knesset elections-except one: the right to use and dispose of
their property. About 30,000-35,000 Palestinians became "present absentees".[27]
According to Simha Flapan,[28] "a detailed account of exactly how abandoned Arab property assisted in the absorption of the new immigrants was
prepared by Joseph Schechtman":
It is difficult to overestimate the tremendous role this lot of abandoned Arab property has played in the settlement of hundreds of thousands of
Jewish immigrants who have reached Israel since the proclamation of the state in May 1948. Forty-seven new rural settlements established on the sites
of abandoned Arab villages had by October 1949 already absorbed 25,255 new immigrants. By the spring of 1950 over 1 million dunams had been leased by
the custodian to Jewish settlements and individual farmers for the raising of grain crops.
Large tracts of land belonging to Arab absentees have also been leased to Jewish settlers, old and new, for the raising of vegetables. In the
south alone, 15,000 dunams of vineyards and fruit trees have been leased to cooperative settlements; a similar area has been rented by the Yemenites
Association, the Farmers Association, and the Soldiers Settlement and Rehabilitation Board. This has saved the Jewish Agency and the government
millions of dollars. While the average cost of establishing an immigrant family in a new settlement was from $7,500 to $9,000, the cost in abandoned
Arab villages did not exceed $1,500 ($750 for building repairs and $750 for livestock and equipment).
Abandoned Arab dwellings in towns have also not remained empty. By the end of July 1948, 170,000 people, notably new immigrants and ex-soldiers,
in addition to about 40,000 former tenants, both Jewish and Arab, had been housed in premises under the custodian's control; and 7,000 shops,
workshops and stores were sublet to new arrivals. The existence of these Arab houses-vacant and ready for occupation-has, to a large extent, solved
the greatest immediate problem which faced the Israeli authorities in the absorption of immigrants. It also considerably relieved the financial burden
of absorption
So,yes if you define steal as ( take without consent ) Israel did steal land from the Palestinian arabs / Israeli-Palestinians.
In the same source, we have this:
The Custodian of Absentee Property does not choose to discuss politics. But when asked how much of the land of the state of Israel might potentially
have two claimants — an Arab and a Jew holding respectively a British Mandate and an Israeli deed to the same property — Mr. Manor [the Custodian
in 1980] believes that 'about 70 percent' might fall into that category (Robert Fisk, 'The Land of Palestine, Part Eight: The Custodian of Absentee
Property', The Times, December 24, 1980, quoted in his book Pity the Nation: Lebanon at War).
which might explain the origin of the confusion, There are 4 separate facts which were corrupted to result in your claim:
Israel took 73% of what was mandatory Palestine - true
Jews privately and collectively owned a small part of the land (6-9%)- true
Israel stole land from the arab land owners - true ( under a certain definition of stealing)
the land stolen from the arab land owners is 70% of the Israeli land - disputed (The Jewish Virtual Library, estimates that Custodial and Absentee
land comprises 12% of Israel's total territory).