Putting The Israeli/Arab "Conflict" In Context.

An issue as complicated as the Israeli conflict with the Palestinians can hardly be given adequate coverage in one essay. Accordingly I plan to devote more time and effort to this very important issue. In this article I plan to discuss the genesis of the conflict because I believe the comments received as well as the articles cited in those comments ignore the fundamental problems of the conflict, which can only be found in its history.

Jews inhabited Palestine in Biblical times but were driven out by wave after wave of invaders, from Romans in 135 A.D. to the 7th century when Muslim Arab armies moved north from Arabia to conquer most of the Middle East, including Palestine. The rulers allowed Christians and Jews to keep their religions. However, most of the local population gradually accepted Islam and the Arab-Islamic culture of their rulers. Thus while some Jews remained in Palestine they were a very small community with most Jews having become part of the great Jewish Diaspora.

Jews had never stopped coming to "the Holy land" or Palestine in small numbers throughout the exile. Palestine also remained the center of Jewish worship and a part of Jewish culture. However, the Jewish connection with the land was mostly abstract and connected with dreams of messianic redemption.

See here, from which some of the above is quoted and for a complete history.

It was not until the 19th century that the birth of Zionism made a return to Palestine a matter of Jewish policy, at least for some, and Jews started returning and buy land there. However, the Arabs were a feudal society and so the land being bought was purchased from absentee landlords and the “serfs’ who toiled on the land had no say in their expropriation. As far as they were concerned it was the Jews who threw them off their land. Most Zionists were not concerned about the Arab population, which they ignored, or thought would agree to voluntary transfer to other Arab countries. In any case, they envisioned the population of Palestine by millions of European Jews who would soon form a decisive majority in the land. At the same time, Palestine's Arab population grew rapidly. By 1914, the total population of Palestine stood at about 700,000. About 615,000 were Arabs, and 85,000 to 100,000 were Jews.

The history becomes ever more complicated and those who might want more details should go to the web site indicated above but one thing was consistent. Arabs always considered Jewish settlers to be an alien force, which they did not welcome.

With the rise of Hitler many Jews desperately wanted to emigrate from Germany and Austria. None of the Western countries were willing to open their borders to receive them. How many might have been saved from the Nazi “Final Solution” is hard to estimate but it would not be unreasonable to suppose that it would have been in the millions. Many tried to flee to Palestine but the British blocked their path and turned them back.

On Nov. 29, 1947 The UN General Assembly voted in favor of Palestine being divided into an Arab state and a Jewish state with Jerusalem to be put under international administration.

As can be seen the land assigned to the new Jewish state was extremely small with Jerusalem being deep in Arab territory and the border between what was called Trans-Jordan and Israel far west of the Jordan river. Nevertheless The Jews accepted the UN decision, but the Arabs rejected it, and upon Israel declaring its statehood war commenced, which Israel won handily.



Why is it important to focus on this history? It bears on the rights of Jews in Palestine. It shows beyond doubt that the Arabs were always an occupied people, exploited by the Imperialist powers and by their own land-owning class.

We need to ask ourselves if the UN had decided to give a piece of territory for a Jewish state to be carved out of the US, or out of Mexico, or out of Africa what would the reaction of the indigenous population have been? It is safe to say it would have been hostile. So the hostility of the Arabs should not be a surprise nor can it be condemned as evil.

That is why David Ben-Gurion the founding leader of Israel said, “If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti - Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?”

Why indeed would they accept that? The answer is reality. Their armies have been defeated again and again. As a result Egypt and Jordan have signed peace treaties with Israel. In desperation they have turned to the only weapon available to the weak, terrorism. Does that make them evil? I don’t think so! Since the dawn of time terrorism has been a weapon used. Even in Biblical times Samson brought down the temple on the heads of the civilian population when he was shorn of his strength. The Jews in striving for a homeland in Palestine used terrorism. On 6 November 1944, Lord Moyne (Walter Guinness), the British Minister Resident in Egypt, was assassinated in Cairo. On 22 July 1946 the King David Hotel was bombed by the Irgun, father to the Likud Party, killing 91 people and injuring 46. The Catholics in Ireland resorted to terrorism with the support of many Americans. And let us not forget the Sabra and Shatila massacres! What was the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki but terrorism? It is a weapon that we would prefer not to see employed but it has a long and storied history. It does not make those who employ it evil by definition.

But even terrorism hasn’t worked. We have ended up with the worst possible situation for all. Israeli’s continue to live without the security that is every people’s desire, and the Arabs continue to live in the squalor of displaced persons camps, which have now become multi-generational and gives them even less security than the Israelis have.

Let’s give Peace a Chance!!!

But peace cannot happen in the face of an expansionist Israel.

As can be seen from the map above, Israel started and accepted a small piece of territory. As a result of subsequent wars Israel grew. It is now accepted that Israel is entitled to all the territory as shown on the map below. Its border with Egypt has now been straightened. Its lands in the north now encompass all the territory to the border with Lebanon. And in the west it has expanded to the Jordan River and the area up to and around Jerusalem. Yet Israel has not been content with its conquered territories. It has built and continues to build settlements on occupied territory in the West Bank despite protests from every American Administration except for the Bush Administration. While it claims to have stopped building new settlements it insists on its right to expand existing ones and in the process continues to seize Arab lands and to destroy Arab homes.



According to Thomas L. Friedman, writing in the NY Times of February 4, 2009:

“The West Bank is so chopped up and divided now by roads, checkpoints and fences to separate Israel’s crazy settlements from Palestinian villages that a Palestinian could fly from Jerusalem to Paris quicker than he or she could drive from Jenin, here in the northern West Bank, to Hebron in the south.”

This is an intolerable situation. What Israel and the Israeli lobby demands is that the Palestinians quietly accept their oppression, accept their ever-diminishing lands, accept their lack of rights, and never fight back. No people would allow such oppression without resistance.

Israel is armed to the teeth. Yet any attempt for its adversaries to arm is treated as an outrage. Where is the balance?

Palestinians are human beings.

And every resistance, whether it is the "intifada", which consists of the throwing of stones against Israeli guns is treated as an outrage instead of the desperation which it represents.

Even the treatment of Palestinian weak claims of “The Right of Return” is treated as an outrage. To be sure Israel could never allow the refugees to return, for that would mean the end of the Jewish state, something that cannot be contemplated. But that does not mean that one should not acknowledge that this “right of return” has been recognized by the International Committee of the Red Cross which holds that persons displaced during armed conflict must be transferred back to their homes as soon as hostilities in the area in question have ceased even though the language of the Fourth Geneva Convention is not nearly as clear as some would contend. Israel has never, as it should, offered as an alternative the resettlement of Arabs in the West Bank, in permanent communities so they can stop being refugees in their own lands. Israel contends that this is something that the Arab nations need to do, but it is, and must be Israel’s responsibility. With American help, this along with adequate compensation must be the framework for negotiations.

Removing many of the settlements will not be easy, but the problem keeps being compounded by their expansion and by continued illegal (even under Israeli law) settlement activity, which is not being prevented by the Israeli authorities. The increasing support for an ethnic cleansing of Arabs from the West Bank by fanatical orthodox Jews must be denounced and the areas need to be referred to by Israeli authorities as the “occupied territories” or the “West Bank” and “Gaza” and not as “Samaria” and “Judea.”