This article was originally published at the Palestine Chronicle.
There is a general perception that the reason the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has continued for so long is because it is extremely complex. Nothing could be further from the truth. Placed in historical context, understanding the root cause of the conflict is simple, and in doing so, the solution becomes apparent.
During the late 1800s, a movement known as Zionism arose to establish a Jewish state in Palestine, then a territory under the Ottoman Empire. As a result of World War I, the Ottoman Empire was dissolved and Great Britain and France conspired to divide the territorial spoils of war between themselves. The British became the occupying power of Palestine. The League of Nations issued a mandate effectively recognizing Great Britain as such.
During the war, the British had promised the Arab nations their independence in return for their cooperation in helping to defeat the Ottoman Turks. At the same time, the British declared its support for the goal of Zionism of establishing a “national home” for the Jewish people and permitted Jewish immigration into Palestine.
The Zionist aims did not sit well with the majority Arab inhabitants of Palestine. The Arab states proposed that the independence of Palestine be recognized and a democratic government established that would include representatives of the Jewish minority. But this solution was rejected by both the Zionists and the British, whose respective leadership recognized that the Zionist project could not be carried out except by force of arms.
As Jewish immigration continued and Arabs were displaced from their land, violent clashes between the two communities began to erupt. In 1921, for instance, Arabs rioted and attacked Jewish communities, and in 1929, Arabs massacred Jews in Hebron.
Zionist terrorist organizations targeted not only Arabs, but the British as well, such as the bombing of the King David Hotel in 1946. That attack was carried out by the Irgun, whose leader, Menachem Begin, would later become prime minister of Israel.
Following World War II, the British, unable to reconcile its conflicting policies and commitments, requested that the newly formed United Nations take up the matter. This resulted in the creation of the U.N. Special Commission on Palestine. The members of the commission, which included no representatives from any Arab state, explicitly rejected the right to self-determination of the population. Although the Arab states reiterated their proposed democratic solution, it was again rejected. The commission instead recommended dividing Palestine in two.
Under their partition plan, more than half of the territory would go to the minority Jews, who owned just seven percent of the land (while 85 percent was owned by Arabs). The General Assembly passed a resolution in 1947 recommending that the commission’s partition plan be implemented. Naturally, the Arabs rejected the plan.
Contrary to popular myth, Israel was not created by the U.N. Israel was born on May 14, 1948, when the Zionist leadership unilaterally declared its existence. The neighboring Arab states took up arms against the newly declared state in the war known to Israelis as the “War of Independence” and to the Arabs as the “Nakba”, or “Catastrophe”. During the war, 700,000 Arabs were either driven from their homes or fled out of fear of further massacres such as had occurred at the village of Deir Yassin shortly prior to the Zionist declaration.
This ethnic cleansing of Israel is the root cause of the Palestinian refugee problem one hears so much about today. Although their right of return is guaranteed under international law, Israel has refused to allow those who fled and their descendents to return to what is rightfully their own land. This is also the reason why Palestinians today do not recognize that Israel has a “right to exist”.
Another watershed event occurred in June of 1967, when Israel launched a surprise attack against Egypt (then the United Arab Republic). Such was the superiority of the Israeli force of arms that the war lasted only six days, during which Israel invaded and occupied the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
As a result of the war, the U.N. Security Council passed resolution 242, which emphasized the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war and called on Israel to withdraw from the territories it had occupied.
Today, the West Bank remains under Israeli occupation. Israel continues to bulldoze Palestinian homes and construct Jewish settlements in violation of international law and numerous U.N. resolutions.
As for Gaza, Israel withdrew in 2005, but has since placed it under siege, permitting in only enough aid to prevent a full-scale humanitarian catastrophe, while keeping Gazans perpetually in a state of misery and despair.
Then, on December 27, 2008, Israel launched a full-scale military attack against Gaza dubbed Operation Cast Lead, during which the Israeli military rained down death and destruction upon the defenseless civilian population and infrastructure of Gaza.
The reason why this state of affairs can continue is simple. It is because the United States unconditionally supports Israel. An illuminating example was the announcement early in the Obama administration that if Israel did not end settlement activity, it would suffer no consequences. U.S. support would continue regardless. That message was understood perfectly well by the Netanyahu government in Israel.
U.S. policy must be understood and judged by deeds and not rhetoric. The fact of the matter is that the U.S. supports Israeli violations of international law financially ($3 billion plus annually), militarily (U.S. made F-16 jets, Apache helicopter gunships, and white phosphorus munitions were used during Operation Cast Lead, for instance), and diplomatically (such as the U.S. use of the veto in the U.N. Security Council).
The most practical and equitable solution to the conflict has been recognized for decades. There is an international consensus on a two-state solution that has long been accepted by the Palestinian side. The reason this solution has not been implemented is also perfectly simple. It is because the Israeli and U.S. policies of rejectionism prevent it from happening.
Israeli policy will continue so long as it has U.S. backing. U.S. policy will continue so long as the American people permit it to.
A just and lasting peace in the Middle East is possible. It’s simple. There is a choice.
Hard-hitting facts in its most simplified form Jeremy. I think it is a primer to understanding the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Serves well the readers who do not know a lot about the conflict.
I suppose you can make any conflict appear simple if you leave out all of the arguments of one of the two sides: for example, there is nothing here about Nasser’s provocation of Israel. (including the promise to “slaughter the Jews” made on Cairo radio three days before Israel’s attack), the 1973 war, the massacre of the Jews of Hebron, long before there was a state at all, etc., etc., So, yes, I suppose if you filter the facts you don’t like, you can make it quite simple. Mazel Tov! Good job…
Yes, and you could filter out facts such as those which follow. But I see no need to obfuscate what really is very simple.
“I know how at least 80 percent of all of the incidents there started. In my opinion, more than 80 percent, but let’s speak about 80 percent. It would go like this: we would send a tractor to plowin the demilitarized area, and we would know ahead of time that the Syrians would start shooting. If they did not start shooting, we would inform the tractor to progress farther, until the Syrians, in the end, would get nervous and would shoot. And then we would use guns, and later, even the air force, and that is how it went… We thought that we could change the lines of the cease-fire accords by military actions that were less than a war. That is, to seize some territory and hold it until the enemy despairs and gives it to us.” — Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan (Norman Finkelstein review of Oren)
They didn’t even try to hide their greed for that land… We would send a tractor to plow some area where it wasn’t possible to do anything, in the demilitarized area, and knew in advance that the Syrians would start to shoot. If they didn’t shoot, we would tell the tractor to advance further, until in the end the Syrians would get annoyed and shoot. And then we would use artillery and later the air force also, and that’s how it was… The Syrians, on the fourth day of the war, were not a threat to us.” — Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan (The New York Times, May 11, 1997; Yediot Aharanot, May 6, 1997)
“This policy continued well into the 1950s. Most of the 2,000 Arabs living in the zone had been forced out by 1956. Many moved to the sloping land below the Golan Heights. In response to the expulsion of Arabs from the zone, the otherwise helpless Syrian forces on the Heights began firing on Israelis, particularly when, each year, their tractors plowed further into the demilitarized zone. General von Horn was convinced the instances of firing would not have occurred without the specific Israeli provocations.” — Sheldon L. Richman of the Cato Institute, The Golan Heights: A History of Israeli Agression
“[Most of the border clashes before the 1967 war] were a result of our security policy of maximum settlement in the demilitarized area.” — General Matityahu Peled (Cited in Richman, Sheldon L., ‘The Golan Heights: A History of Israeli Aggression’, Washington Report On Middle East Affairs, November 1991, p. 23.)
“They repeatedly obstructed the operations of the UN observers, on one occasion even threatening to kill them. They refused to cooperate with the Mixed Armistice Commission, and when it suited them they simply rejected the rulings and requests of the observers. They expelled, or otherwise forced out, Arab inhabitants, and razed their villages to the ground. They transplanted trees as a stratagem to advance the frontier to their own advantage. They built roads against the advice of the UN. They carried out excavations on Arab land for their own drainage schemes.”– David Hirst, The Gun and the Olive Branch
“To solidify their gains after the 1967 war, according to UN figures, the Israelis destroyed during the period between June 11, 1967 and November 15, 1969 some 7,554 Palestinian Arab homes in the territories seized during that war; this figure excluded thirty-five villages in the occupied Golan Heights that were razed to the ground. In the two years between September 1969 and 1971 the figure was estimated to have reached 16,312 homes.” — Alfred Lilienthal, The Zionist Connection II
“The Egyptian buildup in Sinai lacked a clear offensive plan, and Nasser’s defensive instructions explicitly assumed an Israeli first strike.” — Avraham Sela, Shalem Center
“In June 1967, we again had a choice. The Egyptian army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him.” — Menachem Begin (Noam Chomsky, Fateful Triangle, p. 100; New York Times, August 21, 1982)
“There was no danger of annihilation. Israeli headquarters never believed in this danger.” — General Chaim Herzog, Commanding General and first Military Governor of Israeli Occupied West Bank (Ma’ariv, April 4, 1972)
“There was no threat of destruction against the state of Israel” — Ezer Weizman (Ha’aretz, March 20, 1972)
“There was never a danger of extermination. This hypothesis had never been considered in any serious meeting.” — General Ezer Weizman, Chief of Operations (Ma’ariv, April 4, 1972)
“We were not threatened with genocide on the eve of the six-day war, and we had never thought of such possibility.” — Chief of Staff Haim Bar-Lev (Ma’ariv, April 4, 1972)
“The Jews of the Diaspora would like, for reasons of their own, to see us as heroes, our backs to the wall. This desire of theirs, however, will not affect the reality of the situation.” — Ezer Weizman (June 3, 1972)
“The entire story of the danger of extermination was invented in every detail, and exaggerated a posteriori to justify the annexation of new Arab territory.” — Mordechai Bentov, Israeli Minister of HOusing (Al-Hamishmar, April 14, 1971)
“I do not think Nasser wanted war. The two divisions he sent to the Sinai would not have been sufficent to launch an offensive war. He knew it and we knew it.” — Yitzhaq Rabin (Le Monde, February 28, 1968)
“The Yom Kippur War was not fought by Egypt and Syria to threaten the existence of Israel. It was an all out use of their military force to achieve a limited political goal. What Sadat wanted by crossing the canal was to change the political reality and, thereby, to start a political [peace] process from a point more favorable to him than the one that existed.”–Yitzhak Rabin (Israeli hostorian Professor Benny Morris, “A Personal Assessment of the Zionist Experience”, Tikkun, March-April 1998)
LOL, you start your history lesson in 1946, however, there is a history before this date, please re-draw your map and show the history, from say; 3,000 BC to today, then you will have presented a fair and balanced presentation on the inhabitants of this land.
The Bible is clear on this subject, for those with ears to hear and eyes to see; God tells you, all about this land, who HE was giving it too, who HE was taking the land from and why and all about the Jews and their scattering in 70 AD to all corners of the earth and then gathering them back, which began in 1948….. These maps only show Gods word is true but they only show a shadow of a picture of Truth, of whats really going on. God tells you, the whole story, in HIS Story, the Bible, the Word of God, its all in there and was in there long before any of it happened! Did you hear that, BEFORE it happened! And there’s more, it tells of what has not happened yet…. Regarding these maps, there is an end game, Christians know it, it is written and just as the man Jesus came the first time, he will return, Christ, mankind crucified him but God resurected him and Jesus told us, Gods Word tells us, he will come again, just as it told us he would come the first time and as the former has come to pass, so will the rest, do you want to know the Truth? (I’m not speaking about religion here folks but truth, if you care to know it)
This little snippet of maps is hardly a history lesson, compared to His Story, the Bible, Gods Word, the Truth, that is available to you, it is the best selling book, in the history of books, in all of mans time here on earth and that, for good reason!!! Do not be deceived by the politics of man, all men are liars!
May the love of Christ, bring new life and everlasting peace, to you, in the midst of this beautiful creation God has made and may this gift, give you sight to see to see the Truth, thru the mist of confusion, thru the deception in a fallen, mankind, that purports to be the Truth! John 8:32 “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free”
The Bible is also clear that the Hebrews were to obey Yahweh, but if they didn’t, they would not come into the Promised Land. They disobeyed him time and time again, violating the covenant.
Do not speak to me about the love of Christ. Hypocrite! If you had the love of Yeshua HaMashiach (Jesus the Christ), you would not support Israeli’s criminal and murderous policies. You forget the commandments not to kill, not to covet that which is thy neighbor’s. You forget the commandment which summarizes the whole of the Torah, to do unto others that which you would have them do unto you. You forget Romans 13, in which Paul instructs others to respect the governing authorities. That would today include the U.N. Security Council. Here’s a list of UNSC resolutions Israel has been in violation of:
http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2010/01/27/rogue-state-israeli-violations-of-u-n-security-council-resolutions/
That includes resolution 242 calling upon Israel to withdraw from the illegally occupied territories.
Just as lunatic as the original “article”.
Well wrıtten and sımplıfıed a short hıstorıcal story could heal blınd eyes… Thank you Mr Hammond
If it wasn’t so profitable to a few sociopaths who use religion to plunder their fellow man, such nonsense wouldn’t be happening. I wouldn’t have to comment, and you wouldn’t have had to spend so much time and effort coming up with this excellent commentary. It would be wonderful if others could see the same sunshine of truth. However, since Plato’s time, 380B.C., the “Allegory of the Cave” continues to exist. [Wikipedia]
“And if dragged all the way out into the sunlight, wouldn’t he be distressed and unable to see “even one of the things now said to be true.”
Sigh.
NaZionism of Israel plays the holocaust card very well to make the world is feeling bad for its struggled in WWII. That is the truth, but a big problem is Israel has learned very well while they were in “refugee camps” across EU. Since Israel uses all tactics cutting water, foods, electricity at “Palestinian refugee camps” anytime it wants to. Israel now becomes a modern Nazi (NaZionism, NaZionist). More than anyone, Jews knew how hard to be as victims of war, hatred, but Jews don’t care, they are promoting Zionist as NaZionism to push helpless Palestinians to the situation of noway out. The whole world close the eyes on Palestinian: Israeli Holocaust from NaZionism.
The new NaZionist has gone too far then normal of human kind to create war and incited allies into war to destroy Iraq/Afghanistan, Lebanon and shot Palestinians any times NaZionist wanted to, then use the media tactics to cover-up the truth of ruthlessness, evil of new NaZionist.
When people live in poor countries and live in the refugee camps. They have no choice to to look up to their future. The only way they could make their young one to remember them is to die for any causes, no matter that cause comes from. Why the world waited too long to protect the Palestinians? How many years Jews were in “Refugee Camps”? and how many years the Palestinians are being in the “Modern NaZionism Refugee Camps”? Who will end the struggle of Palestinian? 50 years for the whole world watch the Palestinian suffering in their own soil, because they are not “children of God”? What the moral value US, UK, UE, (United of Europe) and UN created state of NaZionism of Israel? also sailing DEMOCRACY to the world and 4U acted behind the New NaZionist and blindly support NaZionism to spread to new millennium.
WHY –REALLY WHY -ARE WE ( U S A ) so stubbornly SUPPORTIVE OF ISRAEL ?????
If we were NOT-that alone would go a long way in resolving these problems !!
@ fred jones
I’m no expert but i am a follower of what REALLY goes on in the world today (i.e. what the propaganda filled mainstream media isn’t showing us).
And yes, i agree that if America wasn’t such a powerful state, in military terms alone, there would be many problems in this world that would be a lot closer to being solved. It’s scary how one government can become so powerful as to have all other states and nations totally useless and vulnerable whenever The One State makes any murderous policy decisions.
And for previous people who have commented to be quoting the bible in support of Israel’s actions is just sick. I’m pretty sure Jesus’s main message was one of love and peace. Whatever Jewish people are seemingly entitled to as outlined in an ancient book, they do not have any right in torturing others in the goal for what they ‘deserve’.
My thoughts go out to the Palestinians and all others who have, are and will be suffering from the greed and selfishness of others.
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