"So, who is occupying whom??"

ReefBreak

Attached is a rather tongue-in-cheek article from New York's Village Voice (Letter from Israel) outlining a quick history of Palestine. Assuming it's true, it does turn on it's head the whole notion of destroying Israel for a Palestinian state. Or of even returning all of Palestine to the Palestinians. Most importantly, it emphasises for me the pointlessness of the actions of both sides in the region.

Palestine 101 - A Short Take on a Long History

DadaKopf

I think the Village Voice article by Sylvana Foa is one sided, biased, bigoted and racist – providing she’s not just playing the Devil’s advocate. While it’s not factually incorrect, it ignores so many facts as to read like a propaganda piece by Josef Goebbels; she says herself: “If the lie is big enough and told often enough, it will be believed". People can lie through facts, too. So I wrote some lines straightening the mess out.

In 1917, Britain issued the Balfour Declaration and promised "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish People."
The British then turned around and gave over 77 percent of Palestine to the Arab Hashemites, for what later became Jordan. The remaining 23 percent, west of the River Jordan, was supposedly for the Jews.

In fact, it was the League of Nations (albeit dominated by Britain and France) that carved up the territories of the defeated Ottoman Empire in the aftermath of WWI. The League of Nations granted Britain the territories that now make up Israel, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Jordan who controlled it in quasi-colonial manner. In 1922, when Britain established further territories to the east of the River Jordan (Transjordan), the region was 90% Arab; the indigenous Jewish population was small but was increasing due to the Zionist movement established in the 1880s.

It’s important to keep in mind, here, that the Balfour Declaration was only a that – a declaration, not a law. It’s true that the Balfour Declaration promised the Zionists a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine but Britain promised exactly the same thing to the Arabs in ‘the Hussain-McMahon correspondence’. These political statements of intent were mutually exclusive and eventually explosive.

Here, the author is being very historically selective. The region was 90% Arab but they got 77% of the land; moreover, it was obvious that such a formula was going to cause serious problems right from the start.

But in 1947, the UN voted to partition that 23 percent of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states. The Israelis accepted the plan and in 1948 proclaimed the establishment of their state. Neighboring Arab nations, however, rejected both the partition and the idea of a Jewish state and launched a massive invasion of Israel.
They were defeated, and at the end of the 1948 war Israel held all of Western Palestine except the West Bank, which was captured by Jordan, and Gaza, which was seized by Egypt.

Once again, selective history; there were a number of reasons for this decision. Firstly, Jewish immigration to British controlled Palestine rapidly increased from 1933 onwards due to Nazi persecutions. Land purchases vastly increased as the ethnic balance was disrupted and indigenous Palestinians felt squeezed out by migrants and asylum seekers. These tensions were coupled with increased Arab resistance to British control – something that we’re all familiar with on this island. Tensions increased enough to produce the Arab revolt of 1936-39 but this was eventually suppressed by Zionist militias and with the complicity of Arab regimes.

Hostilities between Arabs, Jews and the British colonisers never disappeared, though. Hostilities increased so much that Britain felt it in their best interests to relinquish their mandate over Palestine. As was the style at the time, the United Nations found that the best solution was to partition the contested 23% - a solution also sought in Ireland and India/Pakistan. The problem was that the Palestinian state envisioned by the plan was never established; Israel retained 77% of the territory (in spite of the larger Arab population).

The establishment of this 77% as the state of Israel in 1948 prompted the first Arab-Israeli war and this sliced the territory like a battle scar – Egypt took control of the Gaza Strip, Jordan annexed Jerusalem and the West Bank. The resonating issue that this conflict caused was the bolstering of the legitimacy of the Israeli state which was achieved through multilateral UN channels and the surrounding Palestinian regions which were established through blood and iron. What emerged was an historical ideological conflict between two rules of law. But I will return to this at the end.

In the 1967 Six Day War, Israel again defeated Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and Iraq, gaining control not only of Gaza and the West Bank, but also of Egypt's Sinai Peninsula and Syria's Golan Heights.

Again, this paragraph erases the context and the role Israel played in this conflict. Essentially, Israel waged war on Jordan. Their military forces quickly defeated Jordan’s army and the offensive action by Israel established her as a major military power in the region. This paragraph erases Israel’s guilt in this conflict and of subsequent illegal military and political actions to acquire more land. Since 1981, following the establishment of the Camp David Process, Israel continued to violate international law, confiscating 52% of West Bank territory for military use and Jewish settlements. That means that since that 77% was first established, Israel has increased her share to 89% illegally. Combined with continued Jewish immigration (now primarily from the former USSR), one could say Israel has explicitly pursued a strategy of aggressive colonialism. The same strategy was adopted by England and Britain at various stages in Ireland’s history (e.g. the establishment of Londonderry).

The big question is: Where were the calls for a Palestinian state during the 19 years Jordan occupied the West Bank and Egypt held Gaza?

The answer is simple: because at the time, the regions were controlled by Arab regimes. When the regions were annexed by Israel in 1967, the indigenous Arabs found themselves under illegitimate rule, the rule of a (now largely immigrant) population who were not acting in their legitimate interests. The reason that calls for a separate Palestinian state did not emerge until 1967 was because of this dynamic – historically, the strongest seedbed of nationalist independence movements is ‘foreign rule’.

The author makes it seem as if the Palestinians are being unreasonable when they demand something when they can’t get it and don’t want it when they can. This may be the case to an extent but nationalist political theory strongly makes a case for the legitimacy of the Palestinian position.

DadaKopf

A 1978 peace accord signed with Egypt returned the Sinai to Cairo, but the Egyptians seemed relieved to leave Gaza with Israel. In 1988, King Hussein of Jordan officially renounced all claims to the West Bank.
As far as Israelis were concerned, the land, won in a defensive war, belonged to them.

The author ignores the importance of this event. 1978 saw the establishment of the first moves towards a peace settlement. The meetings between Egypt’s Anwar Sadat and President Jimmy Carter became known as ‘the Camp David process’. The process had two prongs: a peace settlement between Egypt and Israel and a peace settlement between the Palestinians and Israel. Unfortunately, the Palestinians rejected the latter proposed settlement because it was contrary to self-determination – worst of all, Israel deliberately sabotaged the negotiations by continuing to confiscate Palestinian lands and build new settlements.

Once again, the author makes it look as if it was just those zany Arabs at it again. While there was clearly political stubbornness on both sides of the negotiating table, one cannot forget that it was Israel who did the most to sabotage the talks and while they pretended to be committed to due process, they continued on a programme of illegal land confiscation and resettlement.

Now, just a few last comments which I said I’d come back to. As the author goes to pains to inform us about the ancient history of the region, something very important emerges. The entire history of the region is based on ancient military conquest between feudal lords, satraps and kings. Europe’s political system has transferred to the liberal democratic model – the rule of law and the minimisation of military force for general purposes of defence only. That is what we see as the legitimate way to settle problems. In the Middle East, however, the political values of feudalism persist. Conflict is more a tool of diplomacy in the Middle East than in the West. Now, Israel is an anomaly in the Middle East – it is a Western-style state surrounded by feudal political structures. This means that Israel is working on a totally different model of political legitimacy and morality than her neighbours. The history of the Middle East, as seen through a Palestinian’s mind sees their historical claim to Palestine as legitimate as it was achieved through ancient conquest. But an Israeli immigrant’s mind would concentrate more on the (European) Zionist notion of ‘being there first’. Ironically, since 1948, it is Israel who has most avariciously pursued the feudal rule of law but denies it by appealing to the strategy of military ‘defence’ – a Western concept. Israel and Palestine, beyond talking two different languages, are talking two different moral languages.

The key to overcoming the conflict is for both sides to genuinely realise this impasse and to agree on a programme that can transcend it. Unfortunately, the Israeli politicians – being in the position of power – appear to endorse this impasse to maintain regional control. The programme should include mutual recognition of both sides, of their equal right to be there – this must involve a genuine appraisal of both side’s differences and similarities and this can begin at the political-institutional level. This has to be coupled with a workable, practical plan, I believe, based on power sharing, not partition.

The above criticism of Sylvana Foa’s article is not intended as an indictment of Israel or an absolution of Palestinian atrocities. It’s indended as a factual account of the process of what has happened since 1917, resetting the balance so offset by Foa. It’s clearly incumbent on both sides to end the violence and while facts speak for themselves, blaming each other for everything gets the people this conflict is hurting nowhere.

Clintons Cat

As far as Israelis were concerned, the land, won in a defensive war, belonged to them.

But even after all the nauseating terror of the last 23 months, the majority of Israelis are willing to give Palestinians the West Bank, Gaza, and half of Jerusalem for their state. We just wonder if they are willing to let us keep ours

this statement seems to bear no relation to the current political situation,otherwise Sharon would not be primeminister.

Lastnight newsnight had an illustration of how much sharons likud party (the leading coalition party)was prepared to put the intrests of the west bank settlers above the intrests of israel as a whole when faced with a dehibilitating recession (in part caused by Americas continued phasing out of ecconomic aid in favour of military aid and by israels decission to restrict migrant labour into israel from the PA) it voted to cut back government welfare to all citizens except for those in the occupied territories.

<Edit>more on that nn story from haaretz
more on israels slide into recession from the Juerusalem post
here
and here

bonkey

OK - Reef did say that this was a somewhat tongue-in-cheek article, and I'm not going to get involved in the truth or accuracy of what is in there, but I will say this much :

The article ends with : We just wonder if they are willing to let us keep ours.

During the Afghan invasion, someone pointed to an article written by a journo about the fundamentals of journalism, and he/she made one incredibly telling comment which I think will remain stuck with me.

When an article contains the first-person, it ceases to be objective. It ceases to be reporting. All it is, all it can be, is the views from one side of the fence. Had this been passed off as reporting, rather than "a letter", it would be automatically nothing but propaganda.

This article, for me, isnt worth anything. It is the opinions of an individual from one side of the conflict about those on the other side. It is not objective.

I gathered this from one line. Dadakopf more or less proved my point by showing why the rest of the article proves this.

Sure - we can discuss it, but there's nothing new in it. Both sides print rubbish about the other - we already knew this. What else is there to say?

jc

Hobbes

Originally posted by DadaKopf
Again, this paragraph erases the context and the role Israel played in this conflict. Essentially, Israel waged war on Jordan.

From what I remember Jordan attacked Israel in retaliation for them attacking Egypt and got their asses handed to them.

Also Israel did attack first however Egypt had been threatening to attack for weeks and it had come to a point where if Israel remained on high alert it's forces would of been weaker. A pre-emptive attack seemed the only solution (of course this doesn't relate to the US "Attack first to defend ourselves" policy recently introduced).

Of course both sides nowdays are as fuked as each other. I mean Israels new law which allows them to bomb the family of a suicide bomber after they have attacked is pretty screwed up.

dathi1

both sides are to blame.........blah blah blah blah!!!! If only they could be like us...look at the complicated history... etc. There's one driving force behind the excuse for carnage: OCCUPATION end of story. As a result of UN / Western Media / TV pro "settler" "because of 9/11" coverage we are now in Hyper Carnage Mode in the middle east. Time for everybody to get real because Zionists like Sharon wont stop until he has us accepting his watered down version of a Nazi death camp in Palestine.

dathi1

Reef...I think Robert Fisk's Pity the Nation is the best history lesson you'll ever read on the middle east.

sceptre

Originally posted by dathi1
Reef...I think Robert Fisk's Pity the Nation is the best history lesson you'll ever read on the middle east.

Absolutely.

Of course, because of Fisk's issues with the running of the Israeli state, some have pegged him down as anti-semitic. Which is a major problem, even faced by western governments. Any criticism of Israel will raise cries of "oh you're just a Jew-hater"

Great reply btw Dadakopf.

Kim Tae-Woo

Ever wonder who were the 1st Terrorists?

They were Islrealis bombing the French and British Embasies after they didn't secure the West Bank and Jerusalem.
Early Terrorism = Isrealis using terrorist attacks on French land and the British Embassy.
Early Racism = Isreali Talmud ( Calls Arabs lower than dogs, claims Isrealis are the most pure race, Calls blacks Sinful Negroes as blacks have took pleasure from their children so their skin will be darkened from Sin. )


Also when Jerusalem was part of Turkey Arabs and Jews lived in peace.

JustHalf

Again, this paragraph erases the context and the role Israel played in this conflict. Essentially, Israel waged war on Jordan. Their military forces quickly defeated Jordan’s army and the offensive action by Israel established her as a major military power in the region. This paragraph erases Israel’s guilt in this conflict

Israel made a pre-emptive strike to assure it didn't get destroyed.

Hey look ma! I'm guilty of self defense!

The author ignores the importance of this event. 1978 saw the establishment of the first moves towards a peace settlement.

Wrong. Israel started trying in 1967, after the Six Day war.

I'll back these statements up later (it is late, after all)

I'm also quite annoyed at this whole "Israeli = Nazi" crap that seems so prevalent. First of all with Dadakopfs "it ignores so many facts as to read like a propaganda piece by Josef Goebbels", followed soon after by Dathi1's "Time for everybody to get real because Zionists like Sharon wont stop until he has us accepting his watered down version of a Nazi death camp in Palestine."

I mean, for fecks sake. Talk about not helping the situation.

Ajnag

well as irish we could always play the suffering paddy card, ie 800 years of occupation, rape, land theft followed by rent, and multi-million deaths(quiet a few more then 6 million i would imagine).

I honesltly dont know what the jews are complaining about, do we constantly complain.(jesus not a nation of bitchs i hope )

JustHalf

Oh my...

Hairy Homer

When I hear the phrase 'pre-emptive strike' I always think of the Monty Python skit about the noble Welsh art of self defence (I think they called it Llap Goch) which was based around attacking your assailant before he could attack you.

'Better still,' it went 'it is important to defend yourself against attack even before the very thought of his attacking you has entered your opponent's head. That way you're sure to get him by surprise' The difference between Python and apologists for 'pre-emptive strikes is: the Pythons knew they were being absurd.


As for the rest of the V V article: leaving aside the irony of an American publication taking seriously the argument 'We were here first-like 3,000 years ago—so we have rights that you don't' Duhh!!! (It's true. Americans just don't get irony) it is ultimately based on the same premise that many other Israeli apologists use for the occupation of the West Bank.

Namely, that having won that war Israel has certain rights of conquest and therefore is entitled to behave like an occupying power. Retired diplomat George Dempsey whose opinions have popped up in the Sunday Indo and Questions & Answers parrots this line and Fisk's Pity the Nation also refers to the strength of this argument among Israelis.

Well that's fine. But the only problem with 'Right of conquest' is that it can be overturned by 'right of reconquest' and therefore it effectively legitimises all the violent acts that the Palestinians perpetrate against their conquerors.

In other words it gets you nowhere.

What Israel is facing is endless decades of total war. All males into the army for three years at age 17, unless studying in a religious establishment; all males reporting back for a month each year until the age of 55. And that's only during peace time. I'll bet tours of duty are a little more frequent and longer lasting now.

All non-married females into the army for two years at 18. So they marry young and have a consequently high rate of divorce. A seriously disfunctional society in the making there. And yet, the smart ones know that the only long-term goal is to make some sort of peace with the Arabs.

Well, not with Mr Sharon in power. No way.

JustHalf

http://www.salon.com/books/int/2002/06/12/oren/

Read that there.

In particular:

You say in the introduction that you wanted to change the way that people looked at this war so it was never seen in the same way again. What do you mean by that? Were there certain commonly held beliefs that you wanted to challenge?

Yes, there are Israeli conventional wisdoms and Arab conventional wisdoms that I think have to be revised in light of the research. For example, the Arab wisdom was that the Egyptians never intended to attack Israel and that Israel was the first to shoot a gun. My book goes into great depth about Egyptian war plans and Jordanian war plans and Syrian war plans. They had war plans. They didn't work, but they had war plans.

On the Israeli side, one example is the myth of the liberation of Jerusalem as if it were planned, as if Israel intended to go to war against Jordan and always wanted to liberate Jerusalem. In fact, the Israeli government did just about everything not to liberate Jerusalem, which I think would come as a great shock to a lot of Israelis.

DadaKopf

This weeks Village Voice letters page from here.

THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND

Sylvana Foa's history of the land now called Israel is very well-written and historically accurate. However, one point that she makes is dangerous: She argues that because Jews were in Israel several thousand years before Arabs, they deserve the land. By this line of reasoning, the United States should give New Mexico and other parts of the American Southwest back to Mexico, and also large parts of the country back to the Native Americans. Similar arguments could be made for almost any territory in the world. While morally defensible, these arguments are extremely impractical and divisive.

Eric Kollman
Chicago, Illinois

Sylvana Foa replies: My column addressed oft-repeated Arab claims and explained that Jewish claims are even more evident. In 1947, the UN offered the Arabs a state in 50 percent of Palestine. They said "hell no" and spent the next 55 years trying to drive the Jews into the sea. They started three wars and lost them all, giving Israel control of the whole shebang. Israel is willing to give the Arabs a share if they agree to respect Israel's right to exist. Stop whining.

Hairy Homer

Sylvana Foa replies: My column addressed oft-repeated Arab claims and explained that Jewish claims are even more evident. In 1947, the UN offered the Arabs a state in 50 percent of Palestine. They said "hell no" and spent the next 55 years trying to drive the Jews into the sea. They started three wars and lost them all, giving Israel control of the whole shebang. Israel is willing to give the Arabs a share if they agree to respect Israel's right to exist. Stop whining

Bull****! Neither side accepted the United Nations boundaries suggested in 1947. Israel (or the Jewish Agency as its governing body then was prior to the declaration of the State) accepted the principle of partition of Palestine which would have brought a Jewish state into existence. The Arabs refused to countenance such a thing.

One of the more accessible histories of the birth of Israel is Oh Jerusalem by Collins and La Pierre. Written in the early 1970s before the phrase 'ethnic cleansing' entered the English lexicon it describes very vividly how Jewish forces (they weren't called Israel at the time) forced Arabs out of what would in today's Belfast be called 'interface' areas and cleared many villages along key transport routes of their inhabitants. Most notorious was the case of Deir Yassin where a wholesale massacre of Arab civilians took place.

This was before the declarationof the State of Israel. Before the declaration of war by its Arab neighbours and before Israeli territory was invaded by Egypt and the Arab Legion.

And furthermore Ms Foa's ultimate argument is that having lost the war the Arabs have to accept the status quo.

Which is only an argument for another war.

Thomas from Presence

I think, being of Norman extraction, I'll go and claim me a peace of Northern France before some pure bred Celt kicks me out of house and home but eventually it'll be back to Norway for Tom when some Frankish descendant wants it back

Kim Tae-Woo

I full believe that the Isrealis and the Jews in Isreal have a right to their own home, country and land.

But

Not the one they have today, the Isrealis need to withdraw back to the original boundaries and land set form them. During the 40s they violated this agreement by attacking Egyptian villagers, bombing British territory, and using terrorist attacks on the French Embassy in 1946, 47, 48...

The Early Terrorists were Isrealis, they were far-right Zionists that made the Arabs look moderate.

Can you imagine Scandanavians, Celts, Commanches, Slovaks, Aborigines, Manchus, Inuits, Tamilese, Uygur.. attacking other nations and people because it was their religious right to own another persons land??

Its fanatical & It's impossible

Today it's worse Sharon
Is a war criminal send him to the Hague. He killed more innocent people in Shatila ( at least 2,500 ) than Binladen did in the WTC attacks!

Sharon
He is worse than the exteeme Islamic nuts.
the US sends its own troops into the region and gives plenty of tanks and missiles to the Isreali for free.

The USA has a bad foreign policy and has supported terror and dictators in the past like, Iraq or like Afghanistan or did any of you Americans read about Habury's protest outside the Whitehouse when she found out that the CIA paid war criminals in death camps in Guatemala.
Or Colombia or Isreal or El Salvador.....



I've wondered why the USA and Isreal have such a strong friendship??

How did they prove their friend ship by Killing Arabic people?
Or Building Nukes?
Or by increasing the Anti-America?
Or by censoring the american media ?

Kim Tae-Woo

The Israali primeminister is a war criminal.
He got War criminals and killers out of prison, dressed them up in soldier uniform.
Armed them with knives gun bombs and torture instruments.Sent them in to the small population of 2000 people

Attorney-General Elyakim Rubinstein charged yesterday that the indictment in Belgium against Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and former IDF officers linked to the 1982 Sabra and Shatila Massacre was a political rather than a judicial act.
http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2001/07/11/News/News.30175.html

read this
An American wrote this:

Israel's Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, is one of the world's most bloodstained terrorists. He is responsible for the cold-blooded slaughter of at least 1,500 men, women and children in the Beirut refugee camps of Chatila and Sabra. Even a formal Israeli commission found Sharon personally responsible for the Lebanese massacres.(4)

In 1982, as Israel's defense minister, Sharon directed Israel's invasion of Lebanon and the carpet bombing and devastation of the city of Beirut (In Lebanon five times more women and children died than in the September New York attack). This terror bombing was carried out by Jews using jet fighters and bombs supplied by the United States.

After the Israeli military devastation and occupation, Sharon forcibly removed Palestinian resistance fighters from Lebanon. Many Palestinian women, children and old people were left behind in refugee camps near Beirut. The United States publicly guaranteed their safety and promised that they would quickly be reunited with their loved ones. When Sharon plotted their murder, he not only planned a bloody act of terrorism against the refugees; he knew it was an act of treachery against the United States that would raise intense hatred against America.

On the night of September 16, 1982, Sharon sent Phalangist murder squads into two Palestinian refugee camps, Sabra and Chatila. With Israeli tanks and troops closely surrounding the camps to prevent any of the Palestinians from escaping, the murder squads machine-gunned, bayoneted, and bludgeoned Palestinian civilians all that night, the next day and the following night; all while the Israelis surrounding the camps listened gleefully to the machine gun fire and screams coming from inside. Sharon then sent in bulldozers to hide as much of the atrocity as he could. At least 2000 old men, women and children were butchered, and perhaps as many as 2500. (An official Lebanese investigation set the figure at 2500) Even after the efforts of Sharon's bulldozers, many Palestinians remained unburied, and Red Cross workers found whole families; including hundreds of elderly and little children, with their throats cut or disemboweled. Uncounted numbers of women and girls were also raped before they were slaughtered.

Ariel Sharon is sought for trial by the Hague Tribunal, the same body that succeeded in extraditing former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic for charges of crimes against humanity in Kosovo. Sharon will not travel to Belgium for fear of arrest by the International Court for the massacre.(5)
http://www.minneapolis.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=3533

. EVEN A FORMAL ISRAELI commission found Sharon PERSONALLY responsible for the Lebanese massacres.(

Atama Ii (Jan 18 2002 - 08:00)
"Wasn't Sharon, after all, the one that said that Israel controlled the U.S.?"
Do you have more info on this. Just curious....

I will have a look 4 you, but I think it may be controll in a more indirect tacticall fashion.

Heres an example:

"Many Palestinian women, children and old people were left behind in refugee camps near Beirut. The United States publicly guaranteed their safety and promised that they would quickly be reunited with their loved ones. When Sharon plotted their murder, he not only planned a bloody act of terrorism against the refugees; he knew it was an act of treachery against the United States that would raise intense hatred against America."

http://www.minneapolis.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=3533

A good example of a smaller country outwitting and tactically controlling a larger one!

JacquesPompidou

Good