The origins of the Palestine- Israel conflict
In this overview article Savera Kalideen traces the historical origins of the Palestine Israeli conflict
Arabs have lived in Palestine since the Arab conquest of the region in the 7th Century A.D. Palestine became a predominantly Arab and Islamic country by the end of the 7th Century A.D. In 1516, Palestine became part of the Ottoman Empire but still kept its Arab identity. From 1882, Jewish colonists began to settle in Palestine although they remained a minority until the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. Before the 20th Century, most Jews who lived in Palestine belonged to communities that had settled in the country for religious reasons. There was little or no conflict between them and the majority Arab population. The Jews who were persecuted in Spain and in Russia during the pogroms (persecutions) found refuge in North Africa, the Arab Middle East and the United States. Jews lived peacefully in Palestine until some began to claim ownership of Palestine while excluding the Arab population. This claim was made after the formation of the Jewish National Fund by Zionists who aimed to buy Palestinian land for the exclusive use of Jews. This was the rise of Jewish nationalism or Zionism, a purposeful project by Zionists for Jews only. The land bought was held in the name of the Jewish people and was not resold to Arabs. The Jewish National Fund continues with this practice today. But it is important to note that not all Jews are Zionist and believe in the exclusive nationalism for Jews only.
The Balfour Declaration of 1917
The Balfour Declaration was a letter (see documents section) written by the then British Foreign Secretary, Arthur James Balfour, to Lord Rothschild, a leader of the Jewish community in Britain. It was the first significant declaration by a world power in favour of a Jewish-only, ‘national home’ in Palestine. Britain, did this because it saw a Jewish homeland as a strategic buffer against the Arabs in the Middle East. Although the letter does not mention the creation of a Jewish state, it became an important arm of the movement to create a Jewish state in Palestine
The British Mandate Period (1920-1948)
At the end of the First World War in 1919, Palestine came under British mandatory rule. The Arab citizens expected to gain their independence from Britain because during the First World War Britain had made a pact with the Arab countries. The pact, the Anglo French Declaration of 1918, promised that in return for support for the Allies, Britain would give the Arab countries their independence. With no signs of independence from Britain on the horizon, Palestinians began a national uprising between 1936 and 1939. They failed because of their lack of training and organisation as well as because of the alliance between British troops and the Zionist militias.
The UN partition of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states
There was a groundswell of international sympathy for the Jewish victims of the Holocaust during the Second World War. The Holocaust was the name given to the systematic killing of Jews in Nazi concentration camps in Germany under Hitler, during the Second World War. This tipped the scales internationally, in favour of Zionism during the 1940s. In 1947, The United Nations General Assembly decided to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab states. Jerusalem was meant to be an international city for both Jews and Arabs. Under the UN Resolution 181, 56% of the British Mandate of Palestine was given to Jews and 44% was given to Palestinians. At that time, Jewish people only owned 7% of the land in Palestine, and were just 30% of the population.
The Zionist representatives in Palestine accepted the plan because it gave them international legitimacy. Some Zionist leaders, such as David Ben Gurion, the first Israeli prime minister, opposed the plan because they wanted a Jewish state on the entire territory of Mandate Palestine.
Palestinians and Arabs were angry at the injustice and because their rights were ignored. Neither were they willing to give up 56% of their land. The Arab League and Palestinian institutions rejected the Partition plan because they believed that they were being made to pay a heavy price for the persecution of Jews in Europe.
In December 1947, Britain announced that it would leave Palestine on May 15, 1948. Palestinians in Jerusalem and Jaffa declared a general strike against the partition. Fighting broke out immediately.
On 9 April 1948, the Irgun, Jewish/Zionis soldiers lined up men, women and children from the village of Deir Yassin and killed them in cold blood. News of this massacre created panic in other Arab villages and shocked the world. Before the end of April 1948 and before the possible intervention of other Arab states, Jews had occupied most of the Arab cities in Palestine.
Some villagers had fled in fear and others were subjected to massacres, rape and murders as at Deir Yassin. Palestinians did not occupy any of the cities reserved for Jews under the partition resolution.
The state of Israel
After Israel declared independence on May 15, 1948, it continued to attack Palestinians in Palestine (the 44% of Palestine that was a state according to resolution 181). Arab states entered Palestine to protect Palestinians but were unable to equal the organisation and equipment of the superior Israeli forces. Israel managed to capture 78% of historic Palestine by 1949. Jerusalem was divided along the ceasefire line into West Jerusalem under Israeli control, while East Jerusalem and the West Bank were under Jordanian control. 750 000 Palestinians became refugees during 1948-1949 when they fled their homes to avoid the fighting or were forcibly removed from their homes.
They and their descendants are part of the more than 4 million Palestinian refugees who are denied the right to live in Palestine today. Most live in the surrounding Arab countries like Jordan, Egypt,
Lebanon and Syria, with the majority living in cramped and impoverished refugee camps. Almost one-fifth of today’s Israeli population, about 1 200 000, are Palestinians and their descendants who did not leave their homes during the 1948-1949 fighting. They are deprived of legal rights in relation to citizenship, property rights, access to health and housing, education and other rights enjoyed by Israeli Jewish citizens. They remain second class citizens in the land of their birth because the state of Israel has declared itself to be ‘the state of Jews.’ Palestinians, being Christian, Muslim or secular can therefore never be full citizens of the Israeli state.
1967
The Israeli Air Force destroyed the Egyptian air force on the ground on the morning of 5 June 1967 in a surprise attack, which began the Six Day War. During the war, Israel took control of the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip from Egypt, the Golan Heights from Syria, and the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan. The war made 250,000 more Palestinians – and more than 100,000 Syrians – into refugees. No peace is possible in the Middle East without solving their problems. Israel became an occupier of Arab land and continues to occupy much of this land today: the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem (known as the occupied Territories under international law) and the Golan Heights. Forty years later, Israel has settled around 450,000 people on land occupied in 1967, in defiance of international law.
The two-state solution
The two-state solution refers to the creation of two states in historic Palestine, Israel and Palestine. These states should be allocated land based on UN resolution 181 with Palestine comprising 44% of the land and Israel 56%.
However, the Israeli state has never conceded this division of the land. It has at various times argued that Israel will occupy 78% of historic Palestine, that is, all the land it was given under UN resolution 181 and all the land it seized in the 1967 war. The state of Palestine will be created on 22% of historic Palestine.
Israel continues to demand negotiations to discuss the amount of land taken in 1967 that it will give back to Palestinians – in defiance of international law which does not acknowledge Israel’s right to land taken in the 1967 war.
The international community has supported the creation of two states based on this division of historic Palestine for more than 37 years. This division of the land forms the basis for the current peace process that began in Annapolis, with both the Palestinians engaged in the negotiations and the international community supporting a division of Palestine to the pre-1967 borders.
The two-state solution presumes that all Palestinian refugees will return to the newly created (geographically reduced) Palestinian state, and not to their homes and properties in what is now Israel itself, a right guaranteed to them under UN resolution 194 of 1949.
The one-state solution
Opponents of the two-state solution say that Israeli settlements have been built on the land that should be part of a Palestinian state, making it impossible for Palestinians to settle there. They also argue that Palestinian refugees have a legitimate right to be allowed to return to their own homes even if these are now in Israel. They propose a single state as a solution: This will allow Israeli settlements to remain where they are and enable Palestinian refugees to return to the homes they left in 1948 and 1967. A one-state solution will give equal rights to all citizens of a single Palestine/Israel, irrespective of religion. There will be no dominance of one religious group over the other and no restrictions or exclusion based on religion. The state will be a state for all its citizens.
* Savera Kalideen is a Palestine Solidarity activist and recently spent six months in the Gaza Strip
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