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As the periodic bloodshed
continues in the Middle East, the search for an equitable solution must
come to grips with the root cause of the conflict. The conventional
wisdom is that, even if both sides are at fault, the Palestinians are
irrational "terrorists" who have no point of view worth listening to.
Our position, however, is that the Palestinians have a real grievance:
their homeland for over a thousand years was taken, without their
consent and mostly by force, during the creation of the state of Israel.
And all subsequent crimes - on both sides - inevitably follow from this
original injustice.
This paper outlines the history of
Palestine to show how this process occurred and what a moral solution to
the region's problems should consist of. If you care about the people of
the Middle East, Jewish and Arab, you owe it to yourself to read this
account of the other side of the historical record.
The standard Zionist
position is that they showed up in Palestine in the late 19th century to
reclaim their ancestral homeland. Jews bought land and started building
up the Jewish community there. They were met with increasingly violent
opposition from the Palestinian Arabs, presumably stemming from the
Arabs' inherent anti-Semitism. The Zionists were then forced to defend
themselves and, in one form or another, this same situation continues up
to today.
The problem with this explanation is
that it is simply not true, as the documentary evidence in this booklet
will show. What really happened was that the Zionist movement, from the
beginning, looked forward to a practically complete dispossession of the
indigenous Arab population so that Israel could be a wholly Jewish
state, or as much as was possible. Land bought by the Jewish National
Fund was held in the name of the Jewish people and could never be sold
or even leased back to Arabs (a situation which continues to the
present).
The Arab community, as it became
increasingly aware of the Zionists' intentions, strenuously opposed
further Jewish immigration and land buying because it posed a real and
imminent danger to the very existence of Arab society in Palestine.
Because of this opposition, the entire Zionist project never could have
been realized without the military backing of the British. The vast
majority of the population of Palestine, by the way, had been Arabic
since the seventh century A.D. (Over 1200 years)
In short, Zionism was based on a faulty,
colonialist world view that the rights of the indigenous inhabitants
didn't matter. The Arabs' opposition to Zionism wasn't based on
anti-Semitism but rather on a totally reasonable fear of the
dispossession of their people.
One further point: being Jewish
ourselves, the position we present here is critical of Zionism but is in
no way anti-Semitic. We do not believe that the Jews acted worse than
any other group might have acted in their situation. The Zionists (who
were a distinct minority of the Jewish people until after WWII) had an
understandable desire to establish a place where Jews could be masters
of their own fate, given the bleak history of Jewish oppression.
Especially as the danger to European Jewry crystallized in the late
1930's and after, the actions of the Zionists were propelled by real
desperation.
But so were the actions of the Arabs.
The mythic "land without people for a people without land" was already
home to 700,000 Palestinians in 1919. This is the root of the problem,
as we shall see.
Early History of the Region
Before
the Hebrews first migrated there around 1800 B.C., the land of Canaan
was occupied by Canaanites.
"Between 3000 and 1100 B.C., Canaanite civilization covered what is
today Israel, the West Bank, Lebanon and much of Syria and
Jordan...Those who remained in the Jerusalem hills after the Romans
expelled the Jews [in the second century A.D.] were a potpourri: farmers
and vineyard growers, pagans and converts to Christianity, descendants
of the Arabs, Persians, Samaritans, Greeks and old Canaanite tribes."
Marcia Kunstel and Joseph Albright, "Their Promised Land."
The
present-day Palestinians' ancestral heritage
"But all these [different peoples who had come to Canaan] were
additions, sprigs grafted onto the parent tree...And that parent tree
was Canaanite...[The Arab invaders of the 7th century A.D.] made Moslem
converts of the natives, settled down as residents, and intermarried
with them, with the result that all are now so completely Arabized that
we cannot tell where the Canaanites leave off and the Arabs begin."
Illene Beatty, "Arab and Jew in the Land of Canaan."
The
Jewish kingdoms were only one of many periods in ancient Palestine
"The extended kingdoms of David and Solomon, on which the Zionists
base their territorial demands, endured for only about 73 years...Then
it fell apart...[Even] if we allow independence to the entire life of
the ancient Jewish kingdoms, from David's conquest of Canaan in 1000
B.C. to the wiping out of Judah in 586 B.C., we arrive at [only] a 414
year Jewish rule." Illene Beatty, "Arab and Jew in the Land of
Canaan."
More
on Canaanite civilization
"Recent archeological digs have provided evidence that Jerusalem was
a big and fortified city already in 1800 BCE...Findings show that the
sophisticated water system heretofor attributed to the conquering
Israelites pre-dated them by eight centuries and was even more
sophisticated than imagined...Dr. Ronny Reich, who directed the
excavation along with Eli Shuikrun, said the entire system was built as
a single complex by Canaanites in the Middle Bronze Period, around 1800
BCE." The Jewish Bulletin, July 31st, 1998.
How
long has Palestine been a specifically Arab country?
"Palestine became a predominately Arab and Islamic country by the end
of the seventh century. Almost immediately thereafter its boundaries and
its characteristics - including its name in Arabic, Filastin - became
known to the entire Islamic world, as much for its fertility and beauty
as for its religious significance...In 1516, Palestine became a province
of the Ottoman Empire, but this made it no less fertile, no less Arab or
Islamic...Sixty percent of the population was in agriculture; the
balance was divided between townspeople and a relatively small nomadic
group. All these people believed themselves to belong in a land called
Palestine, despite their feelings that they were also members of a large
Arab nation...Despite the steady arrival in Palestine of Jewish
colonists after 1882, it is important to realize that not until the few
weeks immediately preceding the establishment of Israel in the spring of
1948 was there ever anything other than a huge Arab majority. For
example, the Jewish population in 1931 was 174,606 against a total of
1,033,314." Edward Said, "The Question of Palestine."
How
did land ownership traditionally work in Palestine and when did it
change?
"[The Ottoman Land Code of 1858] required the registration in the
name of individual owners of agricultural land, most of which had never
previously been registered and which had formerly been treated according
to traditional forms of land tenure, in the hill areas of Palestine
generally masha'a, or communal usufruct. The new law meant that for the
first time a peasant could be deprived not of title to his land, which
he had rarely held before, but rather of the right to live on it,
cultivate it and pass it on to his heirs, which had formerly been
inalienable...Under the provisions of the 1858 law, communal rights of
tenure were often ignored...Instead, members of the upper classes, adept
at manipulating or circumventing the legal process, registered large
areas of land as theirs...The fellahin [peasants] naturally considered
the land to be theirs, and often discovered that they had ceased to be
the legal owners only when the land was sold to Jewish settlers by an
absentee landlord...Not only was the land being purchased; its Arab
cultivators were being dispossessed and replaced by foreigners who had
overt political objectives in Palestine." Rashid Khalidi, "Blaming
The Victims," ed. Said and Hitchens
Was
Arab opposition to the arrival of Zionists based on inherent
anti-Semitism or a real sense of danger to their community?
"The aim of the [Jewish National] Fund was 'to redeem the land of
Palestine as the inalienable possession of the Jewish people.'...As
early as 1891, Zionist leader Ahad Ha'am wrote that the Arabs
"understood very well what we were doing and what we were aiming
at'...[Theodore Herzl, the founder of Zionism, stated] 'We shall try to
spirit the penniless [Arab] population across the border by procuring
employment for it in transit countries, while denying it employment in
our own country... Both the process of expropriation and the removal of
the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly'...At various
locations in northern Palestine Arab farmers refused to move from land
the Fund purchased from absentee owners, and the Turkish authorities, at
the Fund's request, evicted them...The indigenous Jews of Palestine also
reacted negatively to Zionism. They did not see the need for a Jewish
state in Palestine and did not want to exacerbate relations with the
Arabs." John Quigley, "Palestine and Israel: A Challenge to
Justice."
Inherent anti-Semitism? - continued
"Before the 20th century, most Jews in Palestine belonged to old
Yishuv, or community, that had settled more for religious than for
political reasons. There was little if any conflict between them and the
Arab population. Tensions began after the first Zionist settlers arrived
in the 1880's...when [they] purchased land from absentee Arab owners,
leading to dispossession of the peasants who had cultivated it." Don
Peretz, "The Arab-Israeli Dispute."
Inherent anti-Semitism? - continued
"[During the Middle Ages,] North Africa and the Arab Middle East
became places of refuge and a haven for the persecuted Jews of Spain and
elsewhere...In the Holy Land...they lived together in [relative]
harmony, a harmony only disrupted when the Zionists began to claim that
Palestine was the 'rightful' possession of the 'Jewish people' to the
exclusion of its Moslem and Christian inhabitants." Sami Hadawi,
"Bitter Harvest."
Jews'
attitude towards Arabs when reaching Palestine.
"Serfs they (the Jews) were in the lands of the Diaspora, and
suddenly they find themselves in freedom [in Palestine]; and this change
has awakened in them an inclination to despotism. They treat the Arabs
with hostility and cruelty, deprive them of their rights, offend them
without cause, and even boast of these deeds; and nobody among us
opposes this despicable and dangerous inclination." Zionist writer
Ahad Ha'am, quoted in Sami Hadawi, "Bitter Harvest."
Proposals for Arab-Jewish Cooperation
"An article by Yitzhak Epstein, published in Hashiloah in
1907...called for a new Zionist policy towards the Arabs after 30 years
of settlement activity...Like Ahad-Ha'am in 1891, Epstein claims that no
good land is vacant, so Jewish settlement meant Arab
dispossession...Epstein's solution to the problem, so that a new "Jewish
question" may be avoided, is the creation of a bi-national,
non-exclusive program of settlement and development. Purchasing land
should not involve the dispossession of poor sharecroppers. It should
mean creating a joint farming community, where the Arabs will enjoy
modern technology. Schools, hospitals and libraries should be
non-exclusivist and education bilingual...The vision of non-exclusivist,
peaceful cooperation to replace the practice of dispossession found few
takers. Epstein was maligned and scorned for his faintheartedness."
Israeli author, Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, "Original Sins."
Was
Palestine the only, or even preferred, destination of Jews facing
persecution when the Zionist movement started?
"The pogroms forced many Jews to leave
Russia. Societies known as 'Lovers of Zion,' which were forerunners of
the Zionist organization, convinced some of the frightened emigrants to
go to Palestine. There, they argued, Jews would rebuild the ancient
Jewish 'Kingdom of David and Solomon,' Most Russian Jews ignored their
appeal and fled to Europe and the United States. By 1900, almost a
million Jews had settled in the United States alone." "Our Roots Are
Still Alive" by The People Press Palestine Book Project.
The British Mandate Period
1920-1948
The
Balfour Declaration promises a Jewish Homeland in Palestine.
"The Balfour Declaration, made in November 1917 by the British
Government...was made a) by a European power, b) about a non-European
territory, c) in flat disregard of both the presence and wishes of the
native majority resident in that territory...[As Balfour himself wrote
in 1919], 'The contradiction between the letter of the Covenant (the
Anglo French Declaration of 1918 promising the Arabs of the former
Ottoman colonies that as a reward for supporting the Allies they could
have their independence) is even more flagrant in the case of the
independent nation of Palestine than in that of the independent nation
of Syria. For in Palestine we do not propose even to go through the form
of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country...The
four powers are committed to Zionism and Zionism, be it right or wrong,
good or bad, is rooted in age-long tradition, in present needs, in
future hopes, of far profounder import than the desire and prejudices of
the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land,'" Edward Said,
"The Question of Palestine."
Wasn't Palestine a wasteland before the Jews started immigrating there?
"Britain's high commissioner for Palestine, John Chancellor,
recommended total suspension of Jewish immigration and land purchase to
protect Arab agriculture. He said 'all cultivable land was occupied;
that no cultivable land now in possession of the indigenous population
could be sold to Jews without creating a class of landless Arab
cultivators'...The Colonial Office rejected the recommendation."
John Quigley, "Palestine and Israel: A Challenge to Justice."
Were
the early Zionists planning on living side by side with Arabs?
In 1919, the American King-Crane
Commission spent six weeks in Syria and Palestine, interviewing
delegations and reading petitions. Their report stated, "The
commissioners began their study of Zionism with minds predisposed in its
favor...The fact came out repeatedly in the Commission's conferences
with Jewish representatives that the Zionists looked forward to a
practically complete dispossession of the present non-Jewish inhabitants
of Palestine, by various forms of purchase...
"If [the] principle [of
self-determination] is to rule, and so the wishes of Palestine's
population are to be decisive as to what is to be done with Palestine,
then it is to be remembered that the non-Jewish population of Palestine
- nearly nine-tenths of the whole - are emphatically against the entire
Zionist program.. To subject a people so minded to unlimited Jewish
immigration, and to steady financial and social pressure to surrender
the land, would be a gross violation of the principle just quoted...No
British officers, consulted by the Commissioners, believed that the
Zionist program could be carried out except by force of arms. The
officers generally thought that a force of not less than fifty thousand
soldiers would be required even to initiate the program. That of itself
is evidence of a strong sense of the injustice of the Zionist
program...The initial claim, often submitted by Zionist representatives,
that they have a 'right' to Palestine based on occupation of two
thousand years ago, can barely be seriously considered." Quoted in
"The Israel-Arab Reader" ed. Laquer and Rubin.
Side
by side - continued
"Zionist land policy was incorporated in
the Constitution of the Jewish Agency for Palestine...'land is to be
acquired as Jewish property and..the title to the lands acquired is to
be taken in the name of the Jewish National Fund, to the end that the
same shall be held as the inalienable property of the Jewish people.'
The provision goes to stipulate that 'the Agency shall promote
agricultural colonization based on Jewish labor'...The effect of this
Zionist colonization policy on the Arabs was that land acquired by Jews
became extra-territorialized. It ceased to be land from which the Arabs
could ever hope to gain any advantage...
"The Zionists made no secret of their
intentions, for as early as 1921, Dr. Eder, a member of the Zionist
Commission, boldly told the Court of Inquiry, 'there can be only one
National Home in Palestine, and that a Jewish one, and no equality in
the partnership between Jews and Arabs, but a Jewish preponderance as
soon as the numbers of the race are sufficiently increased.' He then
asked that only Jews should be allowed to bear arms." Sami Hadawi,
"Bitter Harvest."
Given
Arab opposition to them, did the Zionists support steps towards majority
rule in Palestine?
"Clearly, the last thing the Zionists really wanted was that all the
inhabitants of Palestine should have an equal say in running the
country... [Chaim] Weizmann had impressed on Churchill that
representative government would have spelled the end of the [Jewish]
National Home in Palestine... [Churchill declared,] 'The present form of
government will continue for many years. Step by step we shall develop
representative institutions leading to full self-government, but our
children's children will have passed away before that is accomplished.'"
David Hirst, "The Gun and the Olive Branch."
Denial of the Arabs' right to self-determination
"Even if nobody lost their land, the [Zionist] program was unjust in
principle because it denied majority political rights... Zionism, in
principle, could not allow the natives to exercise their political
rights because it would mean the end of the Zionist enterprise."
Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, "Original Sins."
Arab
resistance to Pre-Israeli Zionism
"In 1936-9, the Palestinian Arabs attempted a nationalist revolt...
David Ben-Gurion, eminently a realist, recognized its nature. In
internal discussion, he noted that 'in our political argument abroad, we
minimize Arab opposition to us,' but he urged, 'let us not ignore the
truth among ourselves.' The truth was that 'politically we are the
aggressors and they defend themselves... The country is theirs, because
they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in
their view we want to take away from them their country, while we are
still outside'... The revolt was crushed by the British, with
considerable brutality." Noam Chomsky, "The Fateful Triangle."
Gandhi on the Palestine conflict - 1938
"Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England
belongs to the English or France to the French...What is going on in
Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct...If
they [the Jews] must look to the Palestine of geography as their
national home, it is wrong to enter it under the shadow of the British
gun. A religious act cannot be performed with the aid of the bayonet or
the bomb. They can settle in Palestine only by the goodwill of the
Arabs... As it is, they are co-sharers with the British in despoiling a
people who have done no wrong to them. I am not defending the Arab
excesses. I wish they had chosen the way of non-violence in resisting
what they rightly regard as an unacceptable encroachment upon their
country. But according to the accepted canons of right and wrong,
nothing can be said against the Arab resistance in the face of
overwhelming odds." Mahatma Gandhi, quoted in "A Land of Two
Peoples" ed. Mendes-Flohr.
Didn't the Zionists legally buy much of the land before Israel was
established?
"In 1948, at the moment that Israel
declared itself a state, it legally owned a little more than 6 percent
of the land of Palestine...After 1940, when the mandatory authority
restricted Jewish land ownership to specific zones inside Palestine,
there continued to be illegal buying (and selling) within the 65 percent
of the total area restricted to Arabs.
Thus when the partition plan was
announced in 1947 it included land held illegally by Jews, which was
incorporated as a fait accompli inside the borders of the Jewish state.
And after Israel announced its statehood, an impressive series of laws
legally assimilated huge tracts of Arab land (whose proprietors had
become refugees, and were pronounced 'absentee landlords' in order to
expropriate their lands and prevent their return under any
circumstances)." Edward Said, "The Question of Palestine."
The
UN Partition of Palestine
Why
did the UN recommend the plan partitioning Palestine into a Jewish and
an Arab state?
"By this time [November 1947] the United States had emerged as the
most aggressive proponent of partition...The United States got the
General Assembly to delay a vote 'to gain time to bring certain Latin
American republics into line with its own views.'...Some delegates
charged U.S. officials with 'diplomatic intimidation.' Without 'terrific
pressure' from the United States on 'governments which cannot afford to
risk American reprisals,' said an anonymous editorial writer, the
resolution 'would never have passed.'" John Quigley, "Palestine and
Israel: A Challenge to Justice."
Why
was this Truman's position?
"I am sorry gentlemen, but I have to answer to hundreds of thousands
who are anxious for the success of Zionism. I do not have hundreds of
thousands of Arabs among my constituents." President Harry Truman,
quoted in "Anti Zionism", ed. by Teikener, Abed-Rabbo & Mezvinsky.
Was
the partition plan fair to both Arabs and Jews?
"Arab rejection was...based on the fact that, while the population of
the Jewish state was to be [only half] Jewish with the Jews owning less
than 10% of the Jewish state land area, the Jews were to be established
as the ruling body - a settlement which no self-respecting people would
accept without protest, to say the least...The action of the United
Nations conflicted with the basic principles for which the world
organization was established, namely, to uphold the right of all peoples
to self-determination. By denying the Palestine Arabs, who formed the
two-thirds majority of the country, the right to decide for themselves,
the United Nations had violated its own charter." Sami Hadawi,
"Bitter Harvest."
Were
the Zionists prepared to settle for the territory granted in the 1947
partition?
"While the Yishuv's leadership formally accepted the 1947 Partition
Resolution, large sections of Israel's society - including...Ben-Gurion
- were opposed to or extremely unhappy with partition and from early on
viewed the war as an ideal opportunity to expand the new state's borders
beyond the UN earmarked partition boundaries and at the expense of the
Palestinians." Israeli historian, Benny Morris, in "Tikkun",
March/April 1998.
Public vs private pronouncements on this question.
"In internal discussion in 1938 [David Ben-Gurion] stated that 'after
we become a strong force, as a result of the creation of a state, we
shall abolish partition and expand into the whole of Palestine'...In
1948, Menachem Begin declared that: 'The partition of the Homeland is
illegal. It will never be recognized. The signature of institutions and
individuals of the partition agreement is invalid. It will not bind the
Jewish people. Jerusalem was and will forever be our capital. Eretz
Israel (the land of Israel) will be restored to the people of Israel,
All of it. And forever." Noam Chomsky, "The Fateful Triangle."
The
war begins
"In December 1947, the British announced that they would withdraw
from Palestine by May 15, 1948. Palestinians in Jerusalem and Jaffa
called a general strike against the partition. Fighting broke out in
Jerusalem's streets almost immediately...Violent incidents mushroomed
into all-out war...During that fateful April of 1948, eight out of
thirteen major Zionist military attacks on Palestinians occurred in the
territory granted to the Arab state." "Our Roots Are Still Alive" by
the People Press Palestine Book Project.
Zionists' disrespect of partition boundaries
"Before the end of the mandate and, therefore before any possible
intervention by Arab states, the Jews, taking advantage of their
superior military preparation and organization, had occupied...most of
the Arab cities in Palestine before May 15, 1948. Tiberias was occupied
on April 19, 1948, Haifa on April 22, Jaffa on April 28, the Arab
quarters in the New City of Jerusalem on April 30, Beisan on May 8,
Safad on May 10 and Acre on May 14, 1948...In contrast, the Palestine
Arabs did not seize any of the territories reserved for the Jewish state
under the partition resolution." British author, Henry Cattan,
"Palestine, The Arabs and Israel."
Culpability for escalation of the fighting
"Menahem Begin, the Leader of the Irgun, tells how 'in Jerusalem, as
elsewhere, we were the first to pass from the defensive to the
offensive...Arabs began to flee in terror...Hagana was carrying out
successful attacks on other fronts, while all the Jewish forces
proceeded to advance through Haifa like a knife through butter'...The
Israelis now allege that the Palestine war began with the entry of the
Arab armies into Palestine after 15 May 1948. But that was the second
phase of the war; they overlook the massacres, expulsions and
dispossessions which took place prior to that date and which
necessitated Arab states' intervention." Sami Hadawi, "Bitter
Harvest."
The
Deir Yassin Massacre of Palestinians by Jewish soldiers
"For the entire day of April 9, 1948, Irgun and LEHI soldiers carried
out the slaughter in a cold and premeditated fashion...The attackers
'lined men, women and children up against the walls and shot
them,'...The ruthlessness of the attack on Deir Yassin shocked Jewish
and world opinion alike, drove fear and panic into the Arab population,
and led to the flight of unarmed civilians from their homes all over the
country." Israeli author, Simha Flapan, "The Birth of Israel."
Was
Deir Yassin the only act of its kind?
"By 1948, the Jew was not only able to
'defend himself' but to commit massive atrocities as well. Indeed,
according to the former director of the Israeli army archives, 'in
almost every village occupied by us during the War of Independence, acts
were committed which are defined as war crimes, such as murders,
massacres, and rapes'...Uri Milstein, the authoritative Israeli military
historian of the 1948 war, goes one step further, maintaining that
'every skirmish ended in a massacre of Arabs.'" Norman Finkelstein,
"Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict."
The Palestine-Israel Conflict-
Founding the State of Israel and Expelling the
Natives
Zionism and the Holocaust
Jewish Fundamentalism and the Intifada
The Future and Conclusions
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