Rena Lipiner Katz, Author of “A LIFE INHERITED.”

One of the biggest and lesser known stories of Nov 29 is that the lands allocated to a Jewish state (two color map) were essentially those the Zionists reclaimed from malaria through land purchase, science and education (the two-tone blue map is the incidents of malaria and the middle map shows Jewish land ownership of those lands reclaimed from malaria). Moreover, the sudden and extremely rapid increase of the Arab population in the 1920’s and 1930’s in this barely populated backwater region (this was the highest population increase rate in the world in 1931/2) was only in part due to immigration spurred by Zionist development of the land. The major share of the massive Arab population increase was thanks to Malaria eradication, which was the work of the Galician born famed microbiologist and ardent Zionist Dr. Israel Kligler (credit to the great historical work of Anton Alexander). With this knowledge it remains even a greater tragedy that the now much more numerous Arabs of the land directed their efforts towards brutally fighting Zionism rather than choosing to live side by side with an emerging Jewish state. More than a year after the Oct 7 massacre we mark once more the Nov 29 moment when the Jews said yes to the UNGA plan of partition (having prioritized having a state, even if tiny and mostly desert and lands reclaimed from malaria and no Zion and no Judea) and the Arabs said no and proceeded to wage a brutal war to the present day (having prioritized - still - the goal of the Jews not having a state at all and of any size). (Note on map titles: for twenty centuries, before a campaign of denial was underway, it was well understood that the name “Palestine” merely denoted the Roman/Christian/Colonial/European name for the geographic region where the Land of Israel was and was therefore deeply associated with Jews and the their continuous connection to the land. Hence the League of Nation in establishing the mandate recognized the “historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine" as the "grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country” and which is why the Palestine Philharmonic Orchestra of Jewish musicians became the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra…)