Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: The Roots Of The Palestinian Catastrophe
By Moin Qazi, New Age Islam
27 October 2023
The Starting Point Of The Plight Of Palestinians Is The United
Nations’ Vote In 1947 To Partition British Colony I; Into Two – One Jewish, One
Arab Despite The Worldwide Sympathy And C; Condemnation Of The Carnage Of Palestinians
All Along History The World Leaders Who Speak Volumes About Human Rights Have
Looked The Other Way. They Have Done It In A Very Shrewd Way.
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The terrorist character
of the Zionist Movement had its origins in what was initially a sharp division
of opinion and strategy between the London-based Chaim Weizmann, representing
the World Zionist Congress, and the fiery, extremist Polish immigrant into
Palestine, Vladimir Jabotinsky. (AP)
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The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has claimed tens of
thousands of lives and displaced many millions of people It has its roots in
what appeared an innocuous act a colonial act carried out more than a century
ago b, but has made the lines of Palestinians miserable and sub-human. It is
the eye of the beholder that determines most of the truth. It also comes with
prejudices and may not be the whole truth. But people and opinions are likely
to be guided by what you hear. It is the media which sets the tone for most
opinions.
But the starting point of the plight of Palestinians is the United
Nations’ vote in 1947 to partition British Colony I; into two – one Jewish, one
Arab Despite the worldwide sympathy and c; condemnation of the carnage of
Palestinians all along history the world leaders who speak volumes about human
rights have looked the other way. They have done it in a very shrewd way. They
have all along engaged in subtle diplomacy giving the world an impression of
sincerity but in reality, no genuine efforts to resolve a clear-cut injustice,
In short, the world has spent more than seventy years only shedding crocodile
tears. This drama has been re-enacted throughout history since Britain and
other powers helped Israel usurp Palestinian territory.
Neither the Palestinians nor the neighbouring Arab countries
accepted the founding of modern Israel in May 1948. It would be wise to
understand the entire trajectory of events that led to the creation of Israel
to grasp the brutalities oppression and aggression of Palestine and the
violation of fundamental human rights with the tacit backing of world powers
who exclaim paeans about these lofty humanitarian principles on world stages.
Balfour Declaration
• More than 100
years ago, on November 2, 1917, Britain’s then-foreign secretary, Arthur
Balfour, wrote a letter addressed to Lionel Walter Rothschild, a figurehead of
the British Jewish community.
• The letter‘s
contents had a seismic effect on Palestine that is still felt to this day.
• It committed
the British government to “the establishment in Palestine of a national home
for the Jewish people” The letter is
known as the Balfour Declaration.
• The European
power promised the Zionist movement a country where Palestinian Arab natives
made up more than 90 per cent of the population.
• A British
Mandate was created in 1923 and lasted until 1948. During that period, the
British facilitated mass Jewish immigration to Arab-held Palestine.
Palestinians were alarmed by their country’s changing demographics.
The Un Partition Plan
• By 1947, the
Jewish population had ballooned to 33 per cent of Palestine, but they owned
only 6 per cent of the land.
• The United
Nations adopted Resolution 181, which called for the partition of Palestine
into Arab and Jewish states.
• The
Palestinians rejected the plan because it was an outright conspiracy to uproot Palestinians
and facilitate Jews
• At the time,
the Palestinians owned 94 per cent of historic Palestine and comprised 67 per
cent of its population.
The 1930s
• Escalating
tensions eventually led to the Arab Revolt, which lasted from 1936 to 1939.
• In April 1936,
the newly formed Arab National Committee called on Palestinians to launch a
general strike, withhold tax payments and boycott Jewish products to protest
British colonialism and growing Jewish immigration.
• The six-month
strike was brutally repressed by the British
• The second
phase of the revolt began in late 1937 and was led by the Palestinian peasant
resistance movement, which targeted British forces and colonialism.
• By the second
half of 1939, Britain had massed 30,000 troops in Palestine. Villages were
bombed by air, curfews imposed, homes demolished, and administrative detentions
and summary killings were widespread.
• In tandem, the
British set a pact with the settler community and formed armed groups and a
British-led “counterinsurgency force” of Jewish fighters to crush the
Palestinians.
• Within the
Yishuv, the pre-state settler community, arms were secretly imported and
weapons factories were established to expand the Haganah, the Jewish
paramilitary that later became the core of the Israeli army.
With Israel’s new army gaining ground, an armistice
agreement in 1949 saw new de facto borders that gave the tiny Jewish state
considerably more territory than it was awarded under the UN partition plan.
About 700,000 Palestinians were driven out –
and were never allowed to return.
Palestinians called this rampage the Nakba, or
“catastrophe”, and it remains a taq highly painful and inhalable in their
modern history.
Arabs were subjected to discrimination. And were placed
under and the Arabs in Israeli possession became victims of inhuman treatment.
In 1964, a coalition of Palestinian groups founded the Palestine
Liberation Organisation under the leadership of Yasser Arafat to pursue
establishing an Arab state in place of Israel. The PLO drew international
attention to its objective but later the change in geopolitics left it to
disintegrate
In 1967, Israel launched what it said was a pre-emptive
defensive war against Jordan, Egypt and Syria, as they feared their invasion
attack on them. Israel achieved rapid
victories including seizing the Sinai peninsula and the Gaza Strip from Egypt,
the Golan Heights from Syria, and the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan.
The six-day war was an outright victory for Israel and helped it carve its
future trajectory of domination
The First Intifada
Israel regarded the Palestinian population as mild and
peaceful even as it went on expanding Jewish settlements in Gaza and the West
Bank and Arab land.
That illusion was shattered in 1987 with the emergence of
young Palestinians. They indulged in low-level violence. The Israeli army
responded with large-scale arrests and collective punishments. The intifada is
largely recognised as a success for the Palestinians because it solidified
their identity and forced Israel into negotiations. It also helped Arafat bring
the two parties to the compromise table
The Peace Process
As the first intifada wound down in 1993, the Oslo peace
process started with secret talks between Israel and the PLO. Israel’s
then-prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, signed an agreement with Arafat “right of the Palestinian people to
self-determination. Rabin did not accept the principle of a Palestinian state.
The Oslo Accords established the Palestinian National
Authority, granting limited self-governance over certain swathes of the West
Bank and Gaza Strip. Further negotiations were intended to resolve issues such
as the status of Jerusalem, and the future of the Israelis was almost
meaningless. Some prominent Palestinians regarded the accords as a form of
surrender while right-wing Israelis opposed giving up settlements or territory.
The Second Intifada
Peace negotiations moved slowly along until the failure of
Bill Clinton’s attempts to broker a final deal at Camp David in 2000, which
contributed to the outbreak of the second intifada. The period was marked by
suicide bombings and acquired a new dimension. By the time the uprising ended
in 2005, more than 3,000 Palestinians and 1,000 Israelis were dead.
The political fallout of the mini-war led to a hardening of
attitudes among ordinary Israelis and the construction of the West Bank
barrier. t it also prompted then Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon to say that Israel could not go on occupying the
Palestinians’ territory – although he did not say that the alternative was an
independent Palestinian state.
Entry Of Hamas
The PLO was a secular organisation modelled on the lines of
leftwing guerrilla movements although most of its supporters were Muslim.
Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood had
previously avoided armed conflict and were largely dedicated to working for a
more religious society. But that position changed under the leadership of
Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, a charismatic figure living in Gaza who mobilized
substantial work and support.
Position Of Gaza
One consequence of the second intifada was Sharon’s decision
to “disengage” from the Palestinians beginning in 2005 with the closing of
Israeli settlements in Gaza and parts of the northern West Bank.
The status of Gaza since the disengagement remains disputed.
Israel says it is no longer occupied. The United Nations says otherwise because
of Israel’s continued control of airspace and territorial waters, and also
access to the territory
Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections in part
because of a backlash against the corruption and political stagnation of the
ruling Fatah party. The Hamas leader was appointed prime minister. Israel began
arresting Hamas members of the Palestinian parliament and imposed sanctions
against Gaza.
Deteriorating relations between Hamas and Fatah resulted in
violence. An agreement to form a national unity government fell apart and Hamas
led an armed takeover of Gaza while Fatah continued to control the Palestinian
Authority in the West Bank. There have been no elections since.
Hamas has continued to attack Israel from Gaza, mostly using
rockets until the latest ground incursion. Israel has maintained a tight
blockade of the territory which has contributed to deteriorating living
conditions and deepening poverty.
The Present Scenario
• The Zionist
movement captured 78 per cent of historic Palestine. The remaining 22 per cent
was divided into what are now the occupied West Bank and the besieged Gaza
Strip.
• An estimated
750,000 Palestinians were forced out of their homes.
• Today their
descendants live as six million refugees in 58 squalid camps throughout
Palestine and the neighbouring countries of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt.
• On May 15,
1948, Israel announced its establishment.
• The following
day, the first Arab-Israeli war began and the fighting ended in January 1949
after an armistice between Israel and Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.
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Moin Qazi is the author
of the bestselling book, Village Diary of a Heretic Banker. He has worked in
the development finance sector for almost four decades.
New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic
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