At the end of the Second World War, the colonial age in modern history had come to a close. The colonial period is a blemish on the nations of Europe, the US, and Japan, although none of them have practiced policies of sincere regret, let alone compensation. Rather, many opinion leaders from the former colonial powers have pointed to the legacy of organization and infrastructure that they left in the colonized world. Many also have remarked that the new, independent states that emerged were more often than not dictatorial and corrupt. Of course, there have been countries that have failed to produce either economic well-being or open political institutions for their people. That is regrettable; but the lesson to global powers (and former colonial powers) should be that direct intervention is neither justifiable nor morally warranted. The only appropriate policy is to engage developing nations with fair trade deals and incentives to develop both economically and politically.
Such reasoned and humanist policies are the exception rather than the rule unfortunately. More often the global powers have engaged in efforts to build alliances and strategic partnerships for the projection of their own power. And they have used those alliances and the local antagonisms that sustain them as an opportunity to sell arms to their client states.
Indeed, rather than practice an even-handed policy of international diplomacy, the former colonial powers pursue policies of indirect influence through commercial pressure and clandestine intelligence intervention, a practice often called neo-colonialism. Occasionally such policies develop into outright military intervention. When successful, such as in Libya for the moment, the leaders of France and the UK are able to visit the country in the guise of liberators and friends of the Libyan people.
Nonetheless, history has inched forward with many nations, former colonies, attaining not only independence, but successful political institutions and economic growth. The fate of the Palestinians represents a glaring exception to the historical trend. The Palestinians were never granted even limited autonomy, to this day remain pawns in the political maneuverings of global and local powers, and since 1967 have been under Israeli occupation. The current debate over Palestinian statehood must be seen within this broader context and analyzed with the unbiased and unabridged facts of modern history.
So what are those facts? The area of Palestine was administered colonially by the British after the retreat of the Turkish Empire following the First World War. The Jewish population in Palestine had been a small minority throughout history since the time of the Jewish Diaspora in 135 CE when Rome destroyed the Jewish temple in Jerusalem. Serial waves of Jewish migration to Palestine began in the late 19th century culminating in the massive migration of Jews from Eastern Europe after WWII. Despite this influx of Jewish immigration, however, the Jews remained a minority, albeit a large minority, of the population in Palestine under the British Mandate. Nonetheless, a patchwork map of Palestine divided into multiple areas of Jewish and Arab inhabitants was tabled at the UN and a General Assembly vote recommended that a Jewish State be established within those patchy enclaves in Palestine.[1] The local Arab inhabitants as well as the neighboring Arab States were opposed. In 1948 Israel unilaterally declared statehood ostensibly based upon the General Assembly resolution. (In 1948 Israeli leaders did not insist upon direct negotiations toward an agreed settlement.) War broke out immediately thereafter, and Israel defeated poorly organized Arab resistance and extended the borders from the patchwork territory they initially held to the contiguous territory including all of the area up to the pre-1967 borders, including half of a partitioned Jerusalem. The new state of Israel was essentially recognized ‘de facto’ within these ’67 borders as witnessed by the fact that all peace discussions focus upon these borders as the base case scenario for discussion. Many of the Arab inhabitants fled in the face of the advancing Israeli militias to become refugees in Lebanon and Jordan. During the 1967 war, Israel further expanded the territory it controlled to include the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights and the Sinai Peninsula (the Sinai was subsequently returned to Egypt in the bilateral peace agreement between the two countries). Israel has remained the occupying power of the West Bank and Gaza Israeli since 1967.
The first thing that should strike anyone who honestly reflects upon the above facts is that the reputed UN ‘approval’[2] for the establishment of Israel was a failed decision. That decision resulted in conflict immediately following Israel’s unilateral declaration, continuous antagonism between the states in the region, a refugee crisis, and a continuing occupation for Palestinians living in the West Bank and in Gaza. Hence, the proverbial international community bears responsibility for the current impasse as well as for the fate of Palestinians living as refugees or under occupation. One would hope that ‘global leaders’ would attempt some sort of atonement and initiate action to set things right and alleviate the plight of the victims. But the powers that be have preferred over the years to support their respective client states and to ignore the plight of the Palestinians. Following the Oslo accords, the Palestinians were to be granted statehood within the West Bank and Gaza. But that has not happened. Instead they remain under Israeli occupation, and Israel continues to build new settlements for Jewish immigrants in the West Bank, although the practice is illegal, and in spite of international pressure to stop. The Palestinian authority has now decided upon a different tactic and intends to take their petition for statehood to the UN. Hence the current debate!
What can a reasonable and concerned observer make of this debate? The US is actively discouraging the Palestinians against the move and has stated rather forcefully that it will veto the proposal should it come to a vote in the Security Council. The Palestinians plan in that case to submit their case to the General Assembly, where they are assured of a large majority vote. (So who represents this proverbial international community? Is it the majority of nation states and members of the UN or the few global powers in the Security Council? And why is it that the US intends to exercise its veto despite having been snubbed by Israel when the US requested the cessation of settlement activity on the West Bank?)[3] But here thing stand, so what is to be done?
Palestinians want international acceptance to statehood and endless conflict continuation:
–
No difference between Arabs desire in 1947 and 2011.
Destroying the Jewish state
Only new tactics!(terror,boycode,deligitimization)
—
In 2011 The Arabs want to get international approval to:
*No to a Jewish state!
*No to direct negotiations!
*No to a peace that will remove the issues for conflict continuation!
—-Arabs refused peace in: 1948-1967-1995-2001-2009.
Egypt occupied Gaza and Jordan the West bank.
They didn’t form a Palestinians state.
The Palestinians didn’t demand a state.
—
The world need of 58 Muslim states oil combined with the wish to please the Islamism outcome is:
–they are ready to give away all the moral values
–pay to Muslims with the Israeli coin (remember Czechoslovakia)
—–
In Arabic language -NOT IN ENGLISH lying to infidels
*From the PLO platform reaffirmed in the Fatah
“The struggle will not stop until the Zionist entity IS ELIMINATED””
* Palestine Ambassador Abdullah Abdullah in Lebanon
“The peace talks with Israel are part of ARAB STRATEGY TO ISOLATE ISRAEL and threaten its legitimacy.”
* Azzam al-Ahmed head of the Fatah negotiating team with Hamas
“Fatah has never recognized Israel’s right to exist and WILL NEVER DO SO.
Neither Fatah nor Hamas is required to recognize Israel”
“—
Hamas charter
*”There is no solution for the Palestinian question except THROUGH JIHAD.
Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.”
”
*”The Day of Judgment will not come until Muslims kill the Jews.
This article contains more rubbish than other ill written articles against Israel. The author, like so many others, does not fully understand historical fact , international law and many other basics ofthe Mideast. Typical though.
Ah, my old friend Barry. How are you? Would you care to make even the slightest attempt to substantiate your criticisms? Thanks!
Dear Jeremy, those who are interested only in unleashing the misleading propaganda fire have no need to support their views with any evidence! This much we all know.
Too true, Nasir.
Really interested to see you respond to Ariely’s comments or concerns about the threats from Arab world to eliminate Israel or refusing to recognize it.I personally agree with most of the analysis of the author.But,we have to remember that we need 2 hands to clap.
You’ll have to identify what threats you are talking about to “eliminate Israel”. As for refusing to recognize it, I see no reason for concern there, given Israel’s refusal to recognize Palestine, its ongoing occupation, illegal settlement construction, etc.
Israel was created by Britain who submitted the plans for the “UN” to vote on. So why can’t the palestinians also get the same deal? Why can’t they be given statehood like Israel? With statehood comes responsibility. Maybe that is what is required from both sides.
Actually I believe that I did respond to Ariely’s concerns in my last bullet point. As it happens former President Clinton also responded in an interview yesterday. He said that what Israel has been asking for, security and recognition, has been on offer for some time. Further, he said all Arab governments except Syria have offered recognition for a Palestinian state and that the current Palestinian government has been generally good for it’s people and good on security. Despite that Israel continues to build new settlements and is training new militias within the settlements.
But let me ask you two questions. First, given the tenuous nature of Israel’s claim to the land, what gives Israel the right to deny statehood to the Palestinians. Second, in light of the occupation of more than 50 years, what rights are the Palestinians entitled to? Isn’t there a limit on an occupied people after which they should be granted freedom? Remember Dylan, “How many years can some people exist before they’re allowed to be free?”
What many Israeli supporters seem to disregard is that these issues are questions of international law. Israel has no God given right to the land and should not be allowed to set all of the conditions over the process by which the Palestinians achieve statehood.
David Hillstrom
David Hillstrom,
There are a few simple facts that we need to keep in mind. Zionists control the western media and western ‘political establishment’ – Europe and the United States. Their total control and mastery over the ‘bosses’ in Washington and U.S. Congress is no secret to anyone. That sums up where the power lies and how it is used. The power lies with the Zionists and their vast network of manipulation and control. Will it change in the near future? I don’t think it will. But it will be good if some political analysts take up the theme and give us their views about it.
You ask the questions:
‘First, given the tenuous nature of Israel’s claim to the land, what gives Israel the right to deny statehood to the Palestinians. Second, in light of the occupation of more than 50 years, what rights are the Palestinians entitled to? Isn’t there a limit on an occupied people after which they should be granted freedom?’
The questions are not addressed to me but to a Zionist. It is clear you raise these germane questions in a humane and legalistic way where you seem to imply that right is right but wrong-doing cannot be right. But things get a bit more complicated here in the Zionist world-order and their scheme to achieve their goals! Here who decides what is right or nor right are the Zionists who control America and its foreign policy.
I hope to hear from you soon!
Mr. Kahn,
You make very broad and serious statements about Zionists controlling the media in the US and Europe. Please provide some proof and data rather than spewing generalities. For instance, tell us, precisely and specifically, who is in control of the New York Times, The Washington Post, Fox News, Huffington Post, The Financial Times, etc. Please, edify us with your knowledge.
Thom Schuyler
Nashvile, TN
Mr Schuyler
There is enough material on the internet that may come handy to you if you want to know about the Zionist control and influence both in America and Europe. I am sure you can’t be all that ignorant about that. Anyhow, you may get some information from an article by Mr Ziabari entitled ‘Who is running the Western media?’. Whether it will satisfy your curiosity or not, is difficult for me to surmise, but the writer has given some concrete examples in this regard.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/169032.html
Mr. Hillstrom,
I have read your article a number of times and have a few questions, both elemental and sincere. My first question is historical including a brief bit of set up. You paid little attention to deep history in your article, choosing, rather, to focus on the events of the 20th century, more specifically, 1947 to the present. For the past year I have been trying to determine exactly who the Palestinians are. Can you explain to me the origin, homeland, bloodline, etc. of the Palestinians? Further, what is/was their natural, apparent, obvious, original, historic and appropriated homeland?
(By the way, Rome destroyed the Jewish Temple in A.D. 70 not 134 C.E.)
Thom Schuyler
Nashville, TN
Mr. Schuyler,
First, let me say you are right on the date of the temple’s destruction. There were two uprisings by Jewish nationalists, however, that were put down by the Romans. The second date is generally accepted as the decisive date for the Jewish Diaspora. After 134 CE, as I said in the article, the Jewish people were a minority in Palestine.
Now let me deal with your question about deep history. This is a subject that intrigues me and I would refer you to my book, The Bridge. As it happens very few nations have a very deep history. Science tells us that modern humans have existed for about 150 thousand years. During most of that time, an era we refer to as prehistory, humans lived in bands, clans and then tribes, often migrating but later settling following the invention of agriculture. My point is that prehistory is much deeper than history.
You also ask about blood lines. The simple fact is that all humans belong to one species. Race is a very amorphous concept. And ethnicity is not based upon blood lines, but on culture. I would recommend you read one of the books written by Luigi Carvalli Sforza on these problems. The Jewish people were a Semitic people. But this classification is based primarily upon their language. The Arabs also belong to this Semitic grouping.
Now let’s come back to history. One could argue that the Jews represent one of the older nations. However, a great deal of history has passed since the ‘Kingdom of Israel.’ During ancient times the typical pattern in history was one of shifting empires within which various cultures coexisted. Rarely were indigenous people displaced. Rather they were simply absorbed by one then another empire. These shifting spheres of influence resulted in shifts in languages and customs as well as religion. The Pentateuch was written in Hebrew, but was translated into Greek during the Hellenistic period. The common language among the Jews during Roman times was Aramaic and not Hebrew; Aramaic was a related Semitic tongue adopted by the Persians to administer their rule over the Middle East.
The point I am making is that these cultural arguments will not establish a successful claim over the land of Palestine, because they are based partially in myth and partially in shifting landscapes. If we accept such a principle in the administration of international law, then Europeans should all leave the Americas and return the land to the Indians. Europe would once again be a mess of wading nations battling over borders. We must establish a process of fair international accords as a basis for legal dominion.
This line of reasoning then is the foundation stone for my article. I do not accept that the Jewish people had a right of return and dominion over Palestine as a consequence of ancient history. They are now there as a result of the migration of Jews from Eastern Europe in very recent history. Their legal claim over the territory is tenuous as I have explained. And international law has established parameters over the question of the occupied territories, i e the West Bank and Gaza.
Mr. Hillstrom,
Thank you for your prompt and thorough response. I continue to be fascinated by and concerned about the unfolding of these issues in The Middle East. You clearly have an understanding of the historical chronology, decrees, occupation, etc. that trumps mine. I am grateful for the time you have taken to respond to me.
Thom Schuyler
David Hillstrom: Thor Schuyler asked, “Who are the Palestinians? What is their origin, homeland?”
Since you did not answer his inquiry, I assume the Palestinians have no other identity than ‘people who occupied specific areas in Palestine that were manadated in a United Nations Assembly resolution to become the homelamd for the Jews’.
Your article seems to be saying that these Palestinians never had home rule, but were always occupied by a foreign power. So the insistence of the Palestinians to possessing part of Jerusalem puzzles me. They did not have a their own seat of government there, nor was Jerusalem a national center of life for them such as the Jews had with their temple.
I would like to see a separate internationally recognized state for Palestine because that would place the burden on the Palestinians and their Arab supporters to live in peaceful coexistence with Israel and prove to the world that they are not the aggressors. My memory of their conflicts is that the Palestinians attack and the Israelites defend themselves.
Ms Wilde,I didn’t reply to the question, because ethnic groupings develop within history. They do not exist prior to or before history. Having said that the Arabic word for Palestinians bears close resemblance to name for the people mentioned in the bible, the Philistines. I would agree that the inhabitants of the territory did not have an independent state. But that was the case for many of the nations recognized in the UN today. Shifting empires and colonial powers left little room for the emergence of national identities.
If we apply the historical perspective to national consciousness, it also becomes apparent that the Jewish people who returned to Palestine beginning in the 19th century were quite distinct from the ancient Jews. The Jews from Germany and eastern Europe spoke Yiddish which is a Germanic language.
By the way your memory is deeply biased by the news coverage. First of all it was the Israelis who were on the offensive in 1948. And as the Turkish Prime Minister recently said, try comparing the number of victims over recent years on both sides of the conflict. There are far more casualties on the Palestinian side.
We all wish to see peace. However, it makes little sense to ask an occupied people to negotiate with their occupiers. It is also not in the least unreasonable to expect that Israel should cease building settlements on the land under negotiation, particularly given that the the practice is illegal to begin with.
DH
I am blessed with low blood pressure. However, if I ever want to experience my blood pressure shoot up momentarily, I just have to read a typical anti Israel article at Foreign Policy Journal.
This piece, like so many others found on the site, is revisionist history, short on fact and long on anti Israel sentiment. It is troublesome because Mr. Hillstrom keeps referring to his “facts” when in truth they are anything but.
What the author passes off as fact is nothing more than biased opinion based on an misunderstanding of history. Whether on purpose or due to a lack of study on his part, I will leave for others to judge.
Could I refute each point that maligns Israel unfairly? Yes I could, if I had the inclination to try and talk sense into a writer who is obviously an ideological opponent. Would I succeed? I doubt it because Mr. Hillstrom is too deeply invested in his anti Israel point of view.
Here’s a few “facts” that can be supported by scholarly study. Jews have been a majority in Jerusalem since 1896. NO Arabs were dispossessed by Jewish immigration in the 1800s and up to 1948. There never was a people called the Palestinians other than Jews, who had that moniker before Israel was created. All the others preferred to be called Arabs. Palestinians, as relate to Arabs, is nothing more than a recent term that came into being in 1967, largely for political reasons.
In 1919, both Arab and Jewish leaders supported each others aspirations for self determination in the middle east. Official homelands for both peoples was supported by each side, 500,000 square miles for Arabs and 16,000 square miles for a Jews.
Arabs of the Middle East have had their self determination and calls for the same today are not credible – you cannot have self determination years after your people have been granted self determination.
Mr. Hillstrom writes “So the Jewish claim to the land is based essentially upon the influx of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, especially during and after WWII, on the ‘ reputed approval’ of the General Assembly…”
Wrong Mr. Hillstrom. That the Jewish people had historical ties to land longer than any other people is indisputable, and that the area has been central to Judaism is also widely accepted. That our Bible tells us that it is our land is correct, but I understand that not everyone will accept that.
Israel’s legal foundation of legitimacy stems from the 1920 San Remo Conference where the Principal Allied Powers established under International Law, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and a Jewish homeland. The British, backstabbers that they were, took away much of Israel’s land and gave it to the Arabs leaving a smaller Jewish homeland, which the Jews accepted nonetheless.
In 1947 states were offered to BOTH the Arabs and Jews. The Jews accepted and the Arabs did not, preferring to wage war on Israel in the hopes of annihilation, which meant killing all the Jews living there.
Many Arabs left on their own accord as their leaders promised a quick and easy victory after which they would return. Some were no doubt expelled by Israelis. Of course, had the Arabs accepted THEIR state, none of this would have ever happened.
My point in writing this brief, though incomplete history of the time, is to demonstrate how far off Mr. Hillstrom is in his narrative. For example, here’s a quote from his article.
• At the inception of the State of Israel, no statehood was granted to the Palestinians.
This is a blatant something or other. A state was OFFERED to the Arabs (remember, there were no Palestinians) but they refused to take it, preferring to wage war instead.
If you study Mr. Hillstroms other disingenuous statements in this article, you can see that he is off base throughout. No serious scholar would accept most of what he has written as fact as it is nothing more than opinion based on a misinterpretation of history.
Time for my blood pressure to return to normal. Have a nice day everyone and Mr. Hillstrom, I look forward to your next inaccurate dissection of the Israel-Palestinian issue as I am quite certain it will be similar to the nonsense you have presented here.
Barry, let’s address a few of your “facts”, shall we?
The UNSCOP report of 1947 noted that Jews were a minority in Palestine (33%) while the majority were Arabs (65%). Land ownership statistics from 1945 showed that Arabs owned more land than Jews in every single district in Palestine. The district with the highest percentage of Jewish ownership was Jaffa, where 39% of the land was owned by Jews, compared to 47% owned by Arabs. In the whole of Palestine at the time UNSCOP issued its report, Arabs owned 85% of the land, while Jews owned less than 7%. In the Jerusalem district, the majority Arabs owned 84% while the minority Jews owned a mere 2%.
Lie. As the Hope-Simpson Report of 1930 stated, Jewish immigration displaced Arabs. The report shows that the Zionist claim it did not was a lie.
Lie. “The Arabs of Palestine began widely using the term Palestinian starting in the pre-World War I period to indicate the nationalist concept of a Palestinian people. But after 1948—and even more so after 1967—for Palestinians themselves the term came to signify not only a place of origin but, more importantly, a sense of a shared past and future in the form of a Palestinian state.” — Encyclopedia Britannica
And San Remo again? Barry, how many times do I have to confront you on that lie? Why do you keep peddling the same baseless nonsense after having been repeatedly shown your error? Even assuming you were correct, which you aren’t, the fact that you think the colonial powers would have some legitimate right to take land away from Arabs and give it to Jews illustrates how absolutely prejudicial you are against the rights of the Palestinians.
In 1947, the UN General Assembly passed resolution 181 recommending partition based upon the proposal of the UN Special Committee on Palestine’s report that explicitly rejected the right to self-determination of the Arab Palestinians. The proposal was to take away land from the majority Arabs and give it to the minority Jews who owned a mere 7% of the land. 181 established a committee that itself rejected the proposal as being unjust and contrary to the UN Charter, and the proposal died in the UN Security Council, where members also noted that since the Arabs reasonably rejected it, the only way to implement it would be by force, which would violate the UN Charter. In 1948, the Zionists unilaterally declared the existence of the “Jewish state” of Israel without specifying borders, thereby declaring Arab land to belon to the Jewish people to defend their people and their property rights against such massacres as had occurred at Deir Yassin and against the theft of their land by the Zionists. The Zionists proceeded to ethnically cleanse Palestine of 750,000 of its Arab inhabitants.
Barry, you know all this. We’ve had this same discussion so many times. The fact that you keep repeating the same falsehoods over and over despite knowing the truth full well demonstrates that when you accuse others of dishonesty, you make yourself an outrageous hypocrite.
Was there a such thing as an “Israeli” prior to 1948? What is your point regarding Arabs v. Palestinians (1967) or Jews vs. Zionists vs. Israelis (1948). Both are newly invented descriptors responding to forces that drove the creation of the Jewish State of Israel. And?