The Amazing Shrinking Palestine

Last week an octogenarian Wall Street retiree financed an ad campaign on New York suburban train platforms showing the shrinkage of Palestine. According to the official British Survey of Mandate Palestine, issued in 1945, private ownership of land by non-Jewish Palestinians encompassed 24 million dunams (approximately 90% of Mandate Palestine), while Jewish land ownership was only 1.5 million dunams ( approximately 5%). The four maps are accurate, but ignited a maelstrum of outrage such as from the Manhattan-based Jewish newspaper, The Algemeiner. “This is anti-Semitic because when people think of Jews they think of the Jewish state. Jews have seen this happen so many times. It always starts with messaging that says Jews are committing a crime.” "If Israel is wrong for stealing land from the Palestinians, then how guilty is the USA." James Steele criticized his country for their land grabs of Native American lands throughout the 19th Century which strangely resembles the minimalization of Arab territory in the old British Mandate of Palestine and further added, "As for the claims of anti-semiticism, the definition of semitic pertains both ethically and linguistically to the language family of Middle East." Wikipedia extends this family to the following ancient and modern dialects; Akkadian, Aramaic, Hebrew, Arabic, Ge'ez, Maltese, Canaanite/Phoenician, Amorite, Eblaite, Ugaritic, Sutean, Moabite, Edomite, Ammonite, Assyrian Neo-Aramaic, Chaldean, Mandaic, Ahlamu, Syriac, Amharic, Tigre and Tigrinya. Anti-semiticism could apply to prejudice against any of these ethnic groups, not just those of Jewish persuasion, although in Western culture the term mainly refers to persecution of the Jews, since they were the only Semitic group in Europe for centuries. New Yorkers are blind to the kinship. We are the world. And the world is a small place.