Palestine in a Nutshell
There are two groups of people fighting over Palestine: an indigenous one and a colonizing-occupying one. The occupiers are Jewish members of – or subscribers to – the World Zionist Organization (WZO).
There are two groups of people fighting over Palestine: an indigenous one and a colonizing-occupying one. The occupiers are Jewish members of – or subscribers to – the World Zionist Organization (WZO). Centuries ago, European states for the most part had been divided along ethnic borders. France was wherever the French lived, and Germany was wherever the Germans lived, and so on. But what about the French Jew or the German Jew? Did they not belong to France and Germany? Anti-Semites said no, and Zionists concurred. Both Zionist and anti-Semite believed that European Jews (a.k.a. the Diaspora) were a people without a land, which justified and motivated their search for “a land without a people” to establish their Judenstaat, the very mission of the WZO. And when the British colonized Palestine in 1917, their anti-Semitic foreign secretary (Arthur J. Balfour) wrote a brief letter addressed to influential Zionist leaders in his country (Weizmann and Rothchild), promising that his government “will use their best endeavors to facilitate […] the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”
That’s why European anti-Semites are called anti-Semites and not anti-Jews. They want it to be known that their hatred and rejection of Jews is based on their ethnicity, not religion. It was this raging anti-Semitism that motivated both the Zionist and the anti-Semite to promote a new Jewish Exodus. And the British felt Palestine was ideal because it would ignite the aspirations of symbol-minded Jews. After all, Palestine was a shortly-lived Jewish kingdom some 2000 years ago.
The colonizer knows, by instinct, that you don’t declare statehood on a land you do not represent the majority of. The Founding Fathers of what became the United States of America knew this very well.
An American colony or territory could not become a state until Whites had become a significant majority (otherwise you’d end up with “savages” elected into local and state offices).
Likewise, the Zionists knew they could not establish a “Jewish” state without depopulating their new colony from the non-Jewish indigenous majority (who, by the way, were even more Semitic). Even if you want to believe that the Zionists preferred a peaceful transfer of the indigenous over massacres and expulsions, the Zionists themselves knew it was not possible. Ask yourself: would you and your family and friends pack up and leave your homes and go live as a refugees in another country if you were asked nicely?
The land the British designated as Palestine in 1921 (after carving it out of Greater Syria), a.k.a. Historic Palestine, quickly became the new destination for Jewish “immigrants” from all over the world. European governments were as excited as the Zionists, and gladly offered to ship off their Jewish citizens to the seaports of Palestine. And although the indigenous Palestinians (70% Muslim, 20%
Christian, 10% Jewish) were more focused on the British colonizer as their enemy, it did not take them long to figure out that there were plans to replace them with European Jews.
Anyone who was paying attention back then knew what was coming. Even people like Albert Einstein, Eric Fromm, and Mahatma Gandhi understood the obvious truth way before the creation of the Zionist state:
“Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French,” said Gandhi in 1938. “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.”1
1 Mahatma Gandhi, quoted in A Land of Two Peoples ed. Mendes-Flohr.
“In general international law,” Eric Fromm said, “the principle holds true that no citizen loses his property or his rights of citizenship; and the citizenship right is de facto a right to which the Arabs in Israel have much more legitimacy than the Jews. Just because the Arabs fled? Since when is that punishable by confiscation of property, and by being barred from returning to the land on which a people’s forefathers have lived for generations? Thus, the claim of the Jews to the land of Israel cannot be a realistic claim. If all nations would suddenly claim territory in which their forefathers had lived two thousand years ago, this world would be a madhouse. I believe that, politically
speaking, there is only one solution for Israel, namely, the unilateral acknowledgement of the obligation of the State towards the Arabs – not to use it as a bargaining point, but to acknowledge the complete moral obligation of the Israeli State to its former inhabitants of Palestine.”2
“I should much rather see reasonable agreement with the Arabs on the basis of living together in peace than the creation of a Jewish State,” Albert Einstein said, speaking in New York City in 1938. “Apart from practical considerations, my awareness of the essential nature of Judaism resists the idea of a Jewish State, with borders, an army, and a measure of temporal power, no matter how modest. I am afraid of the inner damage Judaism will sustain.”3 Einstein declined the offer to become Israel’s president (an honorary position with no effective political power), let alone the offer for Israeli citizenship.
In 1947 the UN proposed a plan to partition British-controlled Palestine into two states, the bigger slice for Jews (second map above). The indigenous refused, as expected. And the Zionists began an ISIS- like campaign of terror, sending armed militiamen into towns and massacring hundreds of men, women, and children, until the message was loud and clear. The majority of Palestinians fled in fear, believing that if they stayed they would get slain.
The Zionists, however, did not stop their land theft where the UN set the boundaries of their proposed state. It was when they crossed over that the neighboring Arab states declared war to save Palestine and “throw the Jews into the sea” they came from4. They failed. And in 1948, the Zionists, seeing that they have become the majority of the population, declared the creation of the state of Israel over 78% of historic Palestine (all territories colored in white on the third map above). The remaining territories were immediately occupied by Israel’s secret allies – Jordan occupied the West Bank and Jerusalem, and Egypt occupied the Gaza Strip.
It was only a matter of time before they captured the remainder of Palestine (and a little bit extra). In 1967, Israelis attacked Egypt, Jordan, and Syria all at once, and in six days occupied Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Egypt’s Sinai desert, and Syria’s Golan Heights! The construction of new “Jewish”
2 Quoted from Sami Hadawi, Bitter Harvest.
3 Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/feb/16/israel.india
4 Article on the true origins of that phrase: https://www.haaretz.com/who-s-throwing-who-into-the-sea-1.5202302
settlements on all those conquered territories began immediately, nullifying any illusions (and delusions) about the Israeli desire for territorial expansion.
Since 1967, the military occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and Jerusalem could not be resolved because unlike the Israeli occupation of 1948, most Palestinians did not flee. Unlike the 20 percent Palestinian citizens of “Israel,” the 5.5 million Palestinians living under the 1967 Israeli military occupation today are not citizens of Israel or any other country.
I have no doubt that the ongoing conflict in the 1967 occupied territories would come to an end (the way that the indigenous of America no longer struggle for their freedom) had the Palestinians not outnumbered Jewish colonial-settlers five to one (despite 53 years of slow ethnic cleansing and settlement construction efforts). So, aside from committing instant genocide, and unless the Jewish colonial-settlers can ever out-birth Palestinians, there are only two solutions possible:
1 – Grant all Palestinians the Israeli citizenship with full and equal rights. But most Israelis reject this idea (and some might fight to the death to prevent it from happening), because it would make the Palestinians the majority, thus ending the “Jewishness” of the Israeli state and de facto destroying the Zionist project.
2 – End the military occupation and let the 5.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and Jerusalem establish their own independent state. Most Israelis (both right wing and left) reject this idea as well, and for good reasons:
A – Most Israelis, if not all, cannot and will not give up Jerusalem. without which a Palestinian state is impossible. Jerusalem is not only a symbolic capital for Palestine, but also its social, financial, and cultural hub. Aside from Israeli flags, Jerusalem on the ground is very authentically Palestinian. Taking Jerusalem away from Palestine is like taking New York City away from New York.
B – Allowing an independent and thriving Palestinian state to exist next door is an eternal existential threat to the Zionist state. The distance from the 1967 border to Tel Aviv (Israel’s most important city) would be less than 12 miles. No Zionist with a bare-minimum understanding of history and geopolitics could agree to it.
As both solutions would undo the Zionist state, most Israelis have rejected them in favor of maintaining the status quo: remain in constant fear of war and retribution, continue expansionist efforts in colonial-settlement construction and the slow ethnic cleansing of the indigenous Palestinian, and continue to bolster and forge ahead with the global PR campaign to neutralize critics, censor truth tellers, and naturalize relations with the whole world, as though Palestine and the Palestinians don’t exist.