Israel vs. Palestine (part 1)
This post originally started out as a way for me to answer what I thought was a simple question: “what caused the most recent conflict in Gaza between Israelis and Palestinians?” Traditional wisdom in America generally follows the same logic time and time again — namely, that Arabs hate Israel’s existence, therefore the Palestinian terrorists are trying to wipe it off the face of the earth. It’s a succinct, easily digestible story line, but I wanted to discover the reasoning behind both the premise and the conclusion. Hours of researching and juggling dozens of browser tabs later, the story I’ve started to uncover is almost infinitely more multifaceted than I could ever imagine — so much so that there is no way that one blog post can ever do it justice. Nevertheless, I’m going to try my best, so hold on to your reading hats.
I also want to get the disclaimers out of the way at the beginning. I am not Israeli. I am not Palestinian. I have never lived under the threat of being attacked by rockets. This isn’t my doctoral thesis, and I fully recognize that there are many, many people out there with more first-hand knowledge of the situation than me. Based on my Facebook and Twitter feeds, I’m also aware that I have friends who feel very strongly about this subject — some who support Israel and some who support Palestine. So if you’re reading this and see some glaring misinformation on my part, please leave a comment with a link to independently verified sources that can correct me. I don’t have a horse in this race, I just want to get as close to the truth as I possibly can. So, let’s get started.
History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
There’s only one way to understand the current conflict, and that’s by understanding the history behind it. While some might argue that the history of the region goes back thousands of years (which is certainly true), in the interest of keeping this post below 40,000 words, I’m just going to focus on relatively modern history (aka within the last few centuries.) I think this is reasonably sufficient for providing enough context to understand the motivations of the various parties involved.
Pre-World War I
In the 1800s, the countries we currently know as Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, and parts of Saudi Arabia and Yemen all belonged to the Ottoman Empire. However, increasing discontent and desire for independence among the native Arab peoples led to a nationalist movement that began in the early 1820s. The movement was fairly weak until the early 1900s, when the Arab Revolt occurred as an attempt to create one Arab state, entirely free from Ottoman rule.
Given the fact that both France and Britain were interested in acquiring new territories in the region, and both were aligned against the Ottoman Empire and the Central Powers during WWI, it can hardly be seen as surprising that the two nations forged alliances with the Arab nationalists, promising them the entire region between Egypt and Persia in exchange for joining the battle against the Ottomans. As you can see in Figure 1 below, this is quite a significant chunk of land.
The nationalist movement attempting to reclaim the Middle East from the Ottoman Empire has to be viewed against a drastic restructuring of land laws by the Empire. For millennia, land ownership was viewed in a very traditional manner: as a function of proximity and tenure. If you and your family lived and worked on a certain number of acres for generations, that land became yours automatically — no titles or deeds involved. The Ottoman Land Code of 1858 introduced the concept of deeded land ownership. In other words, whoever held the title to the land was the owner, whether he lived there or not.
Wealthy absentee landlords claimed large swaths of land for themselves, often right from under the noses of the peasants who actually lived and worked there. These landlords found willing land buyers in the Jewish settlers who came over to Palestine as part of the growing Zionist movement. Zionism was largely the brainchild of Theodor Herzl, and the movement essentially had its official start in 1897. Early pre-Zionist initiatives were started by others as early as the 1870s, and some writings go back to the late 1840s. Nevertheless, it wasn’t until the years right before World War I that the land purchases began in earnest.
So to recap, going into World War I, we have a native Arab population that seeks to reclaim their lands from the grasp of the Ottoman Empire, and has been promised complete control of the region that includes modern Israel and Palestine by the British and French. We have an absentee land-owning class that largely taken advantage of the lower class’s understanding of modern deed laws. Lastly, we have a large number of Jewish immigrants who have the money to purchase that land, and want the native Arabs removed from the lands that the Jews now own. In some senses, this is one of the earliest origins of resentment towards the Israeli state: the Arabs felt that the Jewish people had come in and “stolen” the land that was rightfully theirs, and the Jewish people felt that they had acted properly and were the legal and true owners of the land now.
Post-World War I
Backed by British and French military power, as well as promises of independence made in a series of letters between Hussein bin Ali (Sharif of Mecca) and Henry McMahon (British High Commissioner), the Arabs lost many soldiers in the bloodshed but ultimately succeeded in wresting away control of the region from the Ottoman Empire. Even as the European powers made promises to the Arabs, however, they were secretly moving to renege on those promises. The Sykes-Picot Agreement secretly divided control of the Middle East between the British and French, and the British began making official promises (particularly under the Balfour Declaration) to the Zionists that they would be given a homeland in Palestine.
What perhaps would make this especially galling to the Arabs is the sheer duplicity with which they were treated, particularly by the British government. Even as David Hogarth (in his official capacity as representative of the British government) was telling King Hussein that “The Entente Powers are determined that the Arab race shall be given full opportunity of once again forming a nation in the world. This can only be achieved by the Arabs themselves uniting, and Great Britain and her Allies will pursue a policy with this ultimate unity in view,” Hogarth reported back to his government that King Hussein “would not accept an independent Jewish State in Palestine, nor was I instructed to warn him that such a state was contemplated by Great Britain.”
When the dust settled and the League of Nations had created mandates regarding the status and future of various territories within the former Ottoman Empire, the resulting map ended up looking like Figure 2 below.
What’s important to note is that the borders seen here were fundamentally created by the Sykes-Picot Agreement between the British and French, and later ratified by the League of Nations. So again, this much like the situation where the Arabs perceived the Jews as usurpers of parts of their territory, and the Jews claimed legitimate purchase of those lands. Even though the Arabs were betrayed by British and France in the creation of these mandates (including a Jewish state in Palestine), they see the land as being rightfully theirs, since that’s what they were originally promised. It’s very tempting here to brush this point off and say “the Jewish people legally got this land, the Arabs should just accept it.” To do that, however, is to whitewash a very real injury to the people who fought, bled, and died in an attempt to create an independent homeland. I’m not trying to say how the Arabs should feel about the situation, but rather provide some perspective on why they felt how they felt in light of the circumstances.
Early Israeli Statehood (1947–1949)
In the aftermath of the Holocaust, it became increasingly important to Jewish people across the globe (but particularly in Europe and Russia where persecution was heaviest) to create a homeland where they would be free from persecution. Despite a moratorium on settling in the Palestinian region, desperate Jews immigrated there (both legally and illegally) in droves, while keeping up political pressure to create an internationally recognized nation for their people. Eventually, following the dissolution of the League of Nations and subsequent creation of the United Nations, a resolution was passed in 1947 to partition Palestine into two distinct nations, one Jewish and one Arab.
While the Jewish Agency accepted the proposed partitioning, Arab nations in the surrounding region objected vehemently. The Jews (which were a minority population) only legally owned 7% of the land in Palestine and made up about 1/3rd of the total population, but were due to receive approximately 55% of the total land (as well as the vast majority of the arable land) in the region under the partition plan. While Palestinians also naturally objected, they were amenable to a two-state solution as they suspected — quite correctly — that the surrounding Arab nations wanted to claim the land.
Once the British officially departed, however, things went downhill rapidly to say the least. Because the Arab-Israeli War of 1948 is such a seminal moment in the unraveling of the two-state partition plan, there is a huge amount of propaganda spread by both sides. However, here are some basic facts that can be determined with certainty about the beginning of the war:
Internal clashes between Palestinians and Israelis began in November of 1947, immediately following the announcement of the partition plan, and continuing through May 14, 1948, when the British had finished withdrawing from the region.
On December 30, 1947, Jewish militants — following a pattern of bombing crowded Palestinian civilian areas — threw bombs into a crowd of Palestinian workers who were going to their jobs. Palestinians promptly murders 39 Jews in revenge.
The Deir Yassin massacre of Palestinian civilians by Israeli troops occurred on April 9, 1948.
In response, a Jewish medical convoy was massacred by Palestinian militia on April 13th, 1948.
The whole point of listing dates and massacres here is to hopefully help give the sense that a) both Palestinians and Israelis were engaged in horrific and inexcusable acts of violence, and b) such acts of violence set the stage for the exodus of Palestinian refugees from their homes. By May 15, 1948, the Israeli military had occupied the Palestinian cities of Tiberias, Haifa, Jaffa, Beisan, Safad, Acre, and the rest of Jerusalem. In contrast, Palestinians had not occupied (or attempted to occupy) a single Israeli city.
Attempting to explain the Palestinian exodus in full detail would take hundreds of pages. Israelis state that the local Arab leadership encouraged people to leave, while Arabs assert that they were forcibly ejected from their homes by the Israelis. Either way, what we can know for certain is that Israeli leadership such as David Ben-Gurion and Menachem Begin were very much in favor of expanding Israeli territory beyond the bounds given in the partition plan, and by May 15, 1948, they had achieved at least some of that wish. At this point, the war was very much a strategic Israeli offensive, prompting the US to withdraw support for a two-state partition plan and giving the Arab League reason to believe that the Palestinians would be overrun. Thus, on the day of Israel’s birth, forces from Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria declared war against the fledgling state. The war itself had two primary outcomes: the expansion of Israeli territory by about 30% more than the UN mandate provided for, and the creation of a Palestinian refugee population of about 750,000 people that exists to this day, and has grown to about 1.4 million people.
The Six-Day War of 1967
After the Suez Crisis in 1956, The next fundamental shift in Israel’s boundaries occurred in 1967, as a result of the Six-Day War with Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and Iraq. The war was precipitated by Egyptian troop movements and an alliance between President Nasser of Egypt and the government of Syria. Nasser envisioned a unified (albeit Communist) Middle East, much as had been originally promised to the Arabs by the British — so to some extent, Israeli alarm at these actions was understandable. Amidst high tensions among all parties in the months leading up to the war, Israel invaded the West Bank (which was Jordanian territory at the time), and repeatedly sent tractors into the Golan Heights (a demilitarized zone controlled by Syria) in an attempt to provoke Syrian retaliation. In response to false Soviet intelligence indicating an imminent Israeli attack on Syria, Nasser moved several divisions closer to the Egypt-Israeli border.
It is an uncontested fact that Israel pre-emptively attacked Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, under the justification that Israel’s existence was threatened. Perhaps it was — we have no way of knowing what alternate history would look like. However, we can examine quotes from Israeli officials at the time:
There was no “threat of destruction,” but a pre-emptive strike was needed for Israel to “exist according to the scale, spirit, and quality she now embodies.” — General Ezer Weitzman, Air Force Commander
“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.” — Menahem Begin
“I do not think Nasser wanted war. The two divisions he sent to the Sinai would not have been sufficient to launch an offensive war. He knew it, and we knew it.” Yitzhak Rabin, Israeli Chief of Staff
“They [the Israeli farmers] didn’t even try to hide their greed for the 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.” — Moshe Dayan, Defense Minister
When the war was over, Israel had gained control over the Sinai peninsula (which it later ceded back to Egypt), the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights. Ostensibly, the reason why Israel needed military control of these regions was to protect vulnerable borders and create protective zones for their nation. However, the Israelis were given a proposal by Senator William Fulbright to provide full armed protection by the US military and a UN Peacekeeping force, in exchange for Israeli troops withdrawing from the occupied regions and allowing for the creation of a Palestinian state. Israel refused, and instead began confiscating lands and demolishing homes in the West Bank in preparation for Israeli settlers — a direct violation of the UN Charter, which does not allow for military actions leading to territorial gains.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the historical context leading up to Israel’s standing conflict with the Palestinian people in those occupied territories. Before you say anything, yes I am totally aware that I’m glossing over events such as the War of Attrition (1970), the Yom Kippur War (1973) and Israel’s peace treaty with Egypt and subsequent transfer of territory (1975–1982). While those events absolutely have a huge impact on the nation of Israel itself, they are less relevant to this discussion and so I leave them as research subjects for you to pursue at your leisure. In my next post, I’ll talk specifically about the modern conflict (i.e. since the late 1980s), as well as where things go from here.
Sources:
http://mideastweb.org/briefhistory-oslo.htm
http://www.mideastweb.org/briefhistory.htm
http://www.contenderministries.org/articles/israelhistory.php
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/history/origin.html
http://www.btselem.org/inter_palestinian_violations
http://www.btselem.org/gaza_strip
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/cabinetpapers/documents/maps-in-time.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Arab%E2%80%93Israeli_War
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Facts+About+Israel/Israel+in+Maps/Israel+in+Maps.htm