Perhaps, but with Lots of Provisos
by Bennett Muraskin
Peter Beinart, in an article in the September 26, 2013 issue of the New York Review of Books, wrote: “Virtually every Palestinian I’ve ever met considers Zionism to be colonialist, imperialist, and racist. When liberal American Jews think about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, they think about Isaac and Ishmael: brothers reared in the same land, each needing territory their progeny can call home. Palestinians are more likely to think about South Africa: a phalanx of European invaders, fired by religious and nationalistic zeal, dominating the indigenous population.”
If this is, indeed, the dominant Palestinian perspective, what is its validity?
A colonial settler state is generally seen as a country established by white Europeans among an indigenous, non-white population with the intent or effect of seizing their land. The best known examples are the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. Each of these were colonies that broke away from their mother country and became independent — while continuing to displace or oppress the natives.
Zionism first arose in the 1880s in response to European anti-Semitism, in particular pogroms in Tsarist Russia. Most Zionist leaders had negative perceptions of Arabs, based mainly on European colonialist ideology. As far back as 1891, Ahad Ha’am wrote that Jewish settlers “treat the Arabs with hostility and cruelty and deprive them of their rights . . .” Herzl wrote in The Jewish State (1896) that Jews in Palestine should “form a portion of a rampart of Europe against Asia, an outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism,” whose existence would be guaranteed by European powers. In Herzl’s novel, Old-New Land (1902), he depicted a society in which Arabs would enjoy full equality, but in his diaries he proposed to “spirit” the Arab peasantry across the Jordan River.
With the permission of the controlling Ottoman Empire, European Jews first began arriving in Palestine in large numbers. From 5 percent of the population in 1880, the Jewish proportion of the total in Palestine rose to 10 percent by 1917.
After World War I, the League of Nations declared Great Britain the “mandatory” power over Palestine. Pursuant to its 1917 Balfour Declaration, the British government sponsored Jewish immigration to Palestine with the goal of establishing a “Jewish national home.”
During the Mandate period, Jewish National Fund purchased land from Arab property owners. Consistent with the prevailing Labor Zionist philosophy, the Jewish colonists sought to create an exclusively Jewish economy, using only Jewish labor. Through a myriad of institutions, including the Jewish-only trade union federation (the Histadrut), Jewish-only agricultural settlements (the kibbutzim and moshavim), and the Haganah militia, the Zionist movement acquired Arab land and built the infrastructure of a future state.
There can be no doubt that the immigration of hundreds of thousands of mostly European Jews to Palestine under the British mandate was opposed by the native population, who had no say in the matter. In 1939, however, in response to the Arab Revolt of 1936-39, the British issued a “White Paper” that rescinded the Balfour Declaration. On the eve of World War II, the new policy limited future Jewish immigration to 75,000 over the next five years and proposed the creation of an independent Palestinian state that would maintain an Arab/Jewish demographic balance of 2:1. In defiance of this White Paper, the Zionists organized illegal immigration of Jewish refugees and survivors of the Holocaust into Palestine — and after World War II, the Zionist forces launched an armed struggle to oust the British and establish a Jewish state.
In November 1947, in response to the Zionist struggle for independence, the United Nations voted to partition the British Mandate into Jewish and Arab states. By then, the Jewish population stood at about 600,000, a tenfold increase since 1917. However, it was amounted to only half of the Arab population of 1.2 million, according to the 1945 British census. Yet the UN awarded the Jewish state 55 percent of the land, drawing its borders in such a way as to create a Jewish majority. It also included a large Arab minority, however, because thousands of Arabs lived close to Jewish population centers.
The Palestinian Arabs, with the exception of the communists acting under instructions from Moscow, opposed the partition. Their stated alternative was a single state in which further Jewish immigration and land purchases would be forbidden. The Zionists, on the other hand, were totally committed to bringing hundreds of thousands of Jews languishing in European Displaced Persons camps to settle and develop the land in the new Jewish state.
A third alternative was a binational state in which power would be shared. There were two Jewish organizations in favor of it. The Socialist-Zionist Hashomer Hatzair, based in the kibbutzim, and Ihud, made up of Jewish intellectuals, including Judah Magnes, Martin Buber, and Hadassah founder Henrietta Szold. Neither could find partners on the Arab side.
The ensuing war, initiated by the Palestinian Arabs in December 1947, expanded into a war between the new State of Israel and surrounding Arab nations in May 1948. In the early stages, the Israelis fought for their survival, but by mid-1948, the better armed and disciplined Israeli army went on the offensive. By the war’s end in 1949, Israel had expanded its territory to 78 percent of the British Mandate and created over 700,000 Arab refugees.
Did the Zionist forces from the beginning plan to seize more territory and expel Arabs in order to rid itself of a large Arab minority and secure additional land for Jewish settlement? Or did it do so in response to battlefield conditions? This question may never be answered, but nothing pleased the Israeli leadership more than to see most of the land emptied of the native population.
Zionism is described by its supporters as the national liberation movement of the Jewish people, but it must be recognized that until the 1947 UN Partition Plan, the land it sought to liberate had a minority of Jews, consisting mainly of recent Europeans immigrants living under the protection of an imperial power. When the British turned against the Jewish colony, the Zionists succeeded in liberating themselves, but in the war it fought with the Palestinian Arabs and Arab armies, the Zionists dispossessed the native population.
In this sense, Israel is a colonial settler state.
Yet this is not the entire story. There was a small pre-existing Jewish population in Palestine dating back at least 1,900 years to the Roman destruction of the Second Temple, and arguably to more ancient times than that. The Jewish Bible considers Israel to be the “Promised Land,” and Jewish liturgy is full of longing for a return to Zion. There is no parallel of cultural memory and desire in the histories of other colonial settler states. These factors do not justify Zionist claims to (re)-establish a Jewish state after such a prolonged long absence, but they do explain the intensity of Jewish attachment to Israel.
There are other distinguishing features. North American Indians, Australian aborigines and black South Africans had no previous experience with Europeans, but Arabs were quite familiar with the Mizrakhi (Eastern) branch of the Jewish family, many of whom spoke Arabic and shared certain cultural attributes with their Arab neighbors. There were significant Jewish minorities in Arab lands whose treatment ranged from toleration to hostility. At best these Jews were treated as a protected subordinate minority; at worst, they were periodically persecuted. After 1948, they were subject to persecution in reprisal for the creation of Israel. For example, all of Iraq’s 135,000 Jews were expelled by 1951. Egypt’s 75,000 strong Jewish community was driven out in stages first in the late 1940s and then in 1956, after the Suez War.
Arabs might tolerate Jews and befriend them, but the idea that Jews could comprise a national group with a right to self-determination was totally alien their thinking. Based on their experience and their religious texts, Jews were strictly a religious minority. Christian Arabs, who had a significant presence in Palestine, also had deep-seated prejudices against Jews based on Christian religious teachings. Although Ashkenazic Jews arriving from Europe were understandably perceived as Western invaders, their arrival is not sufficient to explain the Palestinian Arab rejection of any proposal, prior to the creation of Israel, to share the land through partition or to share power with Jews through a binational state. In fact, the Arab authorities did not even accept the British White Paper issued in 1939, as obnoxious it was to Zionists, because it did not totally ban Jewish immigration.
As an aggravating factor, many Arab leaders and mass movements have been influenced by European anti-Semitism in their opposition to Zionism. Haj Amin Muhammad al-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem who collaborated with the Nazis during World War II, is the most notorious example. Based on the dubious principle that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” some Arab leaders like him looked to the Nazis to assist them in opposing the Jewish colonization of Palestine. With their connivance, Nazi Germany spread anti-Semitic propaganda throughout the Arab world in an effort to undermine the British. To this day, anti-Semitic screeds such as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, as well as Holocaust denial, have credence among many within the Arab world.
European anti-Semitism and the Holocaust are key factors that differentiate Israel from other colonial settler-states. After that catastrophe, who could blame Jews for wanting to live in their own country? No other European colonizers came from a people that suffered such a fate.
Some may ask, Why did this state have to be in Palestine? But where else could it have been? In the 1930s, the Soviet Union offered Birobidzhan, but that was a false promise from the start. In 1903, some Zionists led by the British Jewish writer Israel Zangwill were ready to take up a British offer of Uganda — which was in essence another colonial project. During the 1940s and 50s, a movement of “Jewish Territorialists” explored the potential of the under-populated Australian province of Kimberley and the South American Dutch colony of Suriname as Jewish homelands. Some Jews had hopes for a homeland in the pampas of Argentina. None of these proposals came to fruition, and none were designed to provide a homeland for more than a fraction of homeless Jews.
For decades Arab states refused to recognize Israel. Egypt was ostracized from the Arab world for a decade after it signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979. The PLO took the plunge in 1993 and Jordan followed suit in 1994. But Hamas and more extreme Palestinian factions and Islamic fanatics throughout the Arab/Muslim world still call for the “liberation of Palestine” from Jewish control. As a practical matter, the majority of Palestinians have accepted that a state on 22 percent of the Mandatory Palestine is the best they can hope for, but their hearts are still in Jaffa and Jerusalem.
It is worth recalling that in 1947, the UN decided to create not just a Jewish state, but an Arab one as well on 45 percent of the territory of Palestine. It was not an ideal solution for the Arab majority, but no other native people was ever offered such a deal. The American Indians, for example, lost an entire continent. Israel, by contrast, occupies only a sliver of the Arab Middle East.
Yet this sliver has expanded. Since June 1967 Israel has occupied the West Bank, in violation of international law. Anchored by over 400,000 Jewish settlers, this is a clear case of “white settler colonialism.” Whether this description also applies to the State of Israel in its 1947 partition borders or its pre-June 1967 borders is less arguable. There are many mitigating factors, especially the legitimacy conferred on Israel by the UN Partition Resolution in November 1947.
In addition to the imprimatur of the United Nations , the Zionist project in Palestine/Israel differs from European settler colonialism in the following ways. To take the example most frequently cited by anti-Zionists — South Africa:
- Jews lived in the region for millennia, albeit at times as a small minority. There was no white presence in South Africa before the 1700s.
- Jewish immigrants from Europe had a strong attachment to the land of Israel based on Biblical sources and tradition. Not the case with whites in South Africa.
- European Jews were not safe or secure in their old homes and in many cases were forced out due to escalating anti-Jewish policies and violence. The role of the Holocaust in convincing Jews that a Jewish state was a necessity cannot be underestimated. The Dutch immigrants known as Boers and the later British immigrants faced no such conditions.
- Close to half of the Jewish citizens of Israel are from Arab/Muslim lands, not white Europeans. Again, no comparison to South Africa.
- The hostility shown by the native Arab population toward Jewish settlers was based, in part, on prejudice against non-Muslims and general and Jews in particular, drawing on their religious and political traditions of treating Jews as an inferior religious minority. Black African hostility toward European whites was based purely on their status as colonizers.
- The Jewish colonizers were willing to share the land with the Arab natives up through 1947 and Israel made offers to the Palestinians that went beyond “bantustan” solutions in 2000 and 2008.
- Arabs who live within Israel’s borders face discrimination, but are still citizens of the state. The South African apartheid governments forced blacks into semi-autonomous enclaves, i.e. bantustans, and denied them basic citizenship rights.
Certainly there are similarities, including racist attitudes toward the natives, land theft, and expulsions, but Israel cannot simply be dismissed or condemned as a “European settler state.”
Isaac Deutscher compared the relationship between Jews and Palestinians in Israel to that of a person who jumps from a burning building (Jews fleeing anti-Semitism in Europe) and lands on someone walking below (the Arabs of Palestine). The analogy is not exact, but it speaks to the need for mutual recognition of the national rights of both peoples. This should mean two states based on the pre-June 1967 borders, including an Arab capital in East Jerusalem and compensation for Palestinian refugees.
Radicals on the left propose a one-state solution, which virtually no Israeli Jews would accept. Nationalist sentiment on both sides make it foolish to even contemplate. Unfortunately, there is not even a conversation about a binational state, which remains the most humane solution — but only in the long term, after a transitional period in which the two independent states form a cooperative relationship.
A fool’s errand? People tend to forget that an integral component of the same UN Partition Resolution that created Israel was an “economic union” between the Jewish and Arab state, with Jerusalem as an “international city” belonging to neither.
Now there is food for thought.
Bennett Muraskin is a contributing writer to Jewish Currents who conducts our “In Memoriam” column. He writes widely about secular Jewish thought and trends and is the author of Humanist Readings in Jewish Folklore and Let Justice Well Up Like Water: Progressive Jews from Hillel to Helen Suzman, and The Association of Jewish Libraries Guide to Yiddish Short Stories.
Good artcle, but I disagree with you on the so-called “colonialist” character of Israel.
1) You seem to forget that although the 1st aliya was colonialist, the 2nd one was not. All the thinkers of the 2nd aliya (Borochov, Katznelson, Ben Tzvi…) condemned colonialism. Furthermore, from the 1st Arab National Congress held in Paris, in 1913, up until the meetings between Musa Alami and Ben Gurion in the 30’s, several times, the Zionist movement offered an alliance to Arab nationalists. You mentioned the Hashomer Hatzair and its binational project, but Ben Gurion came up with the idea of a “Semitic confederation” in the 1930’s.
2) The Jews did not settle in Palestine by invading the territory, they purchased land. Yes, the Arab peasants who lived in these lands as tenants were evicted, but they were compensated for their loss by the Jews. As for the peasants who owned their own parcel of land, these peoole were not evicted. On the contrary, they enriched themselves by selling their land way above the market value.
3) The UN partition plan did not give 55% of Palestine to the Jews, but rather 12% only (you seem to forget that Jordan as well, was part and parcel of Palestine until 1922).
4) During the 1947-1949 war, the Palestinians were dispossessed, and this is sad. However, they were expelled after they attacked the Yishuv in December of 1947. I do not excuse this ethnic cleansing. But the Palestinians were not innocent victims, the same way as the Germans who were expelled from Eastern Europe after WWII, were not innocent victims either.
5) Finally, it is true that the state of Israel was established in a land that was already occupied by another people. However, the Jews were a landless nation. This is why the partition of Palestine was legitimate, so that both the Jews and the Palestinians could have a state of their own. Wanting the peoples that already have a territory to share a small part of it with landless nations has nothing to do with colonialism. Colonialism is based upon dispossession, not repartition!
To briefly respond:
1. The trajectory of Zionism was colonialist. They used the term “colonial” themselves to describe the Zionist project. The anti-colonialist rhetoric of some Zionists was not matched in practice. Zionist economic policies of only employing Jewish labor and only buying from Jewish farms etc. was meant to create Jewish colonies that would become the infrastructure of a future Jewish state.
2. Jews did not invade, but their authority to settle in Palestine came from the British. The Arab population had no say in the matter.
3. Trans-Jordan was part of the British mandate until 1922, but no Jews lived there. It cannot be seriously considered as potential territory for a future Jewish state
4. The Palestinian militia did attack the Yishuv, but were defeated before the Arab armies invaded. Most of the expulsions took place while Israeli army was on the offensive. I never said the Palestinians were totally innocent, but they were less guilty than the Israel army that expelled them.
5. I wrote that the UN partition plan grants Israel legitimacy. But hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs were displaced and for that Israel bears primary responsibility.
Thank you for your thoughtful comments
I beg to disagree!
1) The Zionists of the 2nd aliya did refer to Zionism as a movement of “colonization”, but not as a “colonialist” movement. Both Katznelson and Borochov insisted on this distinction. Nowadays, both terms have become synonymous, but at the beginning of the 20th Century, it was not the case. Colonization was as a synonym for mass immigration, whereas colonialism was clearly related to imperialism. Even the Italian community of New York was called the “Italian colony”. It doesn’t mean that Italian-Americans oppressed WASP’s!
2) The fact that the Jews tried to make an alliance with imperial powers doesn’t mean that Zionism itself was imperialistic as well. In fact, small nations always look for the support of a foreign powerful country. It’s the only way for them to succeed. The Arabs also made an alliance with the British against the Turks; the Greeks sought the support of foreign powers against the Ottomans as well; the same thing can be said for East Timor; South Sudan… It’s called realpolitik, not “surrogate colonialism” (the extreme-left likes to use this expression to depict Jewish immigration to Palestine).
3) The fact that no Jews lived in Transjordan before 1922 is irrelevant. This territory was clearly designated to host Jewish immigration by the League of Nations. The only reason we lost it is because Churchill needed a parcel a land to compensate the Hachemite dynasty for it loss of Syria (caused by its defeat against of the French).
4) and 5) Sorry, but the one who starts the war is the one who bares most of the reponsability for the consequences of this decision. Had the Palesrinians accepted the partition plan, or had they accepted to renegotiate it (and they were given the opportunity to do so), no one would’ve been displaced. By the way, the ethnic cleansing was made on both sides. In 1947-48, not only 10% of Israeli Jews were forcefully displaced, but also 1% of the overall Israeli population and 8% of Israeli-Jews aged between 19 and 21 got killed in the course of this war. Had Israel reacted the same way as Czechoslovakia towards its German minority after WWII, or Greece towards its Albanian community in the aftermath of its liberation, all the Palestinians would’ve been officially expelled.
Finally this discussion looks pretty much like the one which took place in the late 60’s and during the early 70’s between left-wing Zionists (Michael Walzer, Albert Memmi, Robert Mizrashi, Ralph Miliband, Sartre…) and those on the New Left who called Israel a colonial state (Chomsky, Maxime Rodinson, Marcel Liebman…).
It’s an interesting debate, but the arguments invoked on both sides are already well known. And to be honest, they are all valuable. Thus, it unnecessary to repeat them all over again. Nevertheless, I would not put you in the extreme left-wing post-Zionisy category. I think your understanding of this conflict is closer to Zeev Sternhell’s or Isaac Deutscher’s one, whose views are much more sophisticated than traditional post-Zionists).
Thanks for giving me the opportunity to answer this intelligent (and even- handed) article (in my terrible English!)
Interesting that despite the fact that you state that European countries insigated Colonialism and then proceed to mention only English speaking countries. Almost all of Africa was colonized by the Bristish, the French (Algeria), Belgian Congo, South West Africa ( Germany) not to speak of Latin America. Just proves that the writer has certain blinkers on. Without repeating all the just points in favour of Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel – did the writer use these term even once? ( As well known it appears numerous times in the Bible. Once again blinkers); I’d like to point out that the Jews purchased all the land they settled -what’s wrong with that? (yes mentioned in the article) . Moreover refugees by the millions were moved from country to country in the 20th century: Hindus and Muslims in the Indian sub-continent (14 million) , ethnic Germans from Central and Eastern Europe, (12 million) Greeks and Turks (2 million) and quite a few more – not to mention the Jews from Arab countries. All were absorbed into their home culture. Only the Palestinans not?
Mr. Muraskin;
I am afraid you are substituting important facts with your own imagination.
1. There have always been at least some Jews who lived in the area; the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem was named the Jewish Quarter for a reason. There was no “absence”. The Arabs, on the other hand, arrived with the Muslim Conquest in the late 600’s AD.
2. The first Jews to immigrate dressed as the Arabs and learned Arabic, in order to “fit in”.
3. The Jews did not launch an armed struggle to oust the British and establish a Jewish state. They armed themselves against attacks by the Arabs (which, by the way, began in the 1800’s, well before the Mandate). When the British seemed to take sides, the Jews had to defend themselves from the British as well. While a small minority of Jews attacked Arab civilians, the bulk of the Jews, through the Haganah, attacked only military targets. When the British arrested and hung Jewish fighters, they ignited the Jewish organizations to resist.
4. You gloss over the fact that the Jews were not well armed until the first cease fire was declared.
5. You gloss over the fact that the Arabs ran away at the behest of the Arab armies, who thought it would then be easier to “sweep the Jews into the sea” without them in the way. And that the Arab-Israelis of today are those that stayed, many at the request of Jews.
6. The Zionists displaced a native population that attacked them. This is not the same as colonialism. And the Arabs have attacked again and again and refuse to take responsibility for their actions.
7. You gloss over the fact that Israel expanded in self defense, and that it made many political efforts beforehand, with assistance from the US, to avert war. The same scenario was also played out in 1947, but (again) to no avail. There is no international law that states that if you are attacked again and again that you still must give up what you have taken in self defense. It seems this “law” only applies to Israel. I am sure that Israelis will give up their land after the US does the same.
8. The Arabs did not accept partition. You can go back 66 years only in fairy tales.
9. Why the 1948 armistice lines (they are not pre-June “borders” and were never meant to be)?
10. They are refugees because their brothers Arabs refused to help them. While you do not mention compensation for those Jewish refugees who were expelled from Arab countries, they have gone on with their lives, as have many others throughout history.
11. Arabs do face discrimination in Israel. They also vote, are represented in government, sit on the Supreme Court, and go to the same hospitals as Jews to be treated by the same Jewish and Arab doctors and nurses.
12. Israel withdrew from Gaza and left a healthy flower growing industry. That didn’t work out too well, did it? And the PA states their country will be Judenrein while Hamas states that their goal is to kill all the Jews. Apartheid in the Middle East? Yes, but it ain’t the Jews.
13. Danzig (Gdansk) was also an experiment in an international city. That didn’t work out too well either, did it?
Right now the onus is on the Arabs to prove their intentions over time. The very fact that in the current “negotiations” they refuse to compromise on anything demonstrates their true goal, while refusing to get on with their lives.
divide
Excellent write up. The complex history has been written lucidly
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I don’t understand why you feel like the Palestinians were obligated to “share” their territory. I also don’t understand how you can claim they wanted to “share” the territory rather than rule the territory (that was the mission of Zionism; to establish a Jewish state in Palestine). You are right about one thing in this article. Israel is a Colonial Settler State.
Jews have lived among the Palestinians for centuries. For the last past centuries, they were a minority. That does not mean Jews from all over the world who have become foreigners to the land of Palestine/Israel (whatever you desire to call it)for thousands of years have a “right” to come settle there and change the Arabic identity of the land, with the excuse that there are still some Jews who continued to live on the land. Those Jews are as indigenous as the Palestinians to the land; the Jews that immigrated in masses from Europe and other Arab countries are not.
Did the world just form in 600ad? Is this another Muslim philosophy? Are you trying to tell me that Jews are Arabs? Only real “occupier” to the lands is the Arab. It has been Israel to that small number of israelí Jews for millenniums. Long before Arabs knew of the area. Does not matter that Jews were driven out by Romans. Jews, are the original native of Israel. They have always kept a presence there to this very day. Not Arabs. All your credibility is lost when you enter into selective thought! PS … the name Palestine is accredited to roman doings…not Arab! You know why Arabs never originated a word such as “P”alestine. The use of the word was made erroneously by the English, and only brought into use by Arabs in 1964 by the PLO as a taunt to Jews! Some of us do know the two faces of Arab culture! As for Jews from Europe…they are kin to original Jews who were displaced during the Diaspora, and as thus by your way of thinking, entitled to return to their occupied lands and reclaim it…maybe even with “compensation” from time of its conquering by Arab Muslims. You do realize that the Jewish diaspora was just another of histories ethnic enemas. Does not reduce their original tittle of claim. Arabs stole it…and now Jews stole it back. Why cry about it. If you throw rocks in glass houses … you will break it eventually.
You completely ignore the 1.3 million Palestinians in “refugee” camps forced against their will. But the Palestinians treated jews badly so the jews deserve their land? Idk about that justification, it sounds like you’re trying to make yourself feel better about supporting a greedy regime.
The plight of the Palestinian refugees is a serious issue, but does not directly relate to the issue of whether Israel is a colonial settler state.
A modest number should be allowed to return and the rest should receive compensation.
As Jews were the original occupier, and Arabs stole the land under the sword..is it not Jews deserving of compensation? One could also accuse you of selective thought! Israel is not a colonial state..it is a state in its own right and has been in its peoples minds for thousands of years. It was a hard struggle to get there. Not just a few decades, but millenniums. Jerusalem can never be an Arab capital. Why would it? The very name is an English translation for Yerushalayim, the Hebrew name for the city. Nothing Arab about that, is there. Named by its rightful peoples, long time before Arabs came to territories. That Arabs renamed someone else´s lands to the name of El-´Quds holds no merit at all. Why are only Arabs entitled to a “Palaestin” and not the Canaanites, Amorites, Ancient Egyptians, Moabites, Ammonites, Tjeker, Philistines, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, ancient Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Umayads, Abbasids, Seljuqs, Fatimids, Crusaders, Ayyubids, Mamluks, Ottoman Turks, the British, or Jordanians to name a few? The reality is, only one peoples lay any notable steadfast claim to this land. You will notice Arabs are only last in a long line! There is no Palestine. There is no Arab tittle older than Jewish tittle…there can be no compensation. You will find that this is why international courts can not make a final judgement in favor of a peoples with no title to land. Because some people think it would, just does not make it tenable or legal under international laws. Jews have resided there continuously for the longest period. This is what keeps them there.
“No other European colonizers came from a people that suffered such a fate.”
Didn’t the puritans come to the new world because of religious persecution?
“Wanting the peoples that already have a territory to share a small part of it with landless nations has nothing to do with colonialism. Colonialism is based upon dispossession, not repartition!”
Tell that to the american indians, who now live on reservations. Thats all the united states did was divide, split and divide some more till there wasnt much left.
“People tend to forget that an integral component of the same UN Partition Resolution that created Israel was an “economic union” between the Jewish and Arab state, with Jerusalem as an “international city” belonging to neither.”
I think the world would love to see this, demilitarize Jerusalem. It can then be like the Vatican ,minus the world politics of a city state. But i doubt it ever happens. Too much bad blood.
Test, test…..thread still alive?
Have a new angle that I want to throw out on this forum.
However, before I approach this topic, a quick question to “corners” on last post here.
Where did you learn that the UN Partition Resolution created Israel?
That’s news to me. The UN General Assembly Resolutions are only recommendations, and are not binding in any way (and that is a good thing, because it is a worthless body). The UN Charter does not authorize it to “create nations,” and the Security Council is not authorized for that either.
A State is created when a group holds land that has no legal sovereign holding title, has control over its territory, has state infrastructure to govern and conduct foreign relations, AND has recognition by at least a couple of the big boys.
The UN Partition Plan was just a recommendation, worthless if both Jews and Arabs agreed to it, but absolutely a dead document with the Arab rejection. It never even went to the Security Council for a vote.
There is only one thing important: The British, exhausted and bankrupt from WW2, and facing a hostile and impossible situation there, firmed decided to get out, and give up title to the land (regardless of the UN doing anything). That region was absolutely going to descend into conflict, and when the Jews would secure territory, they would declare their state.
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In the end, does it matter? I mean, was not the Muslim Conquest itself colonialist, apartheid and racist in the truest sense of these terms? And is not the world today living with parts of the Islamic world seeking its continuation?
The Muslim Conquest consisted of Islamic conquest of non-Muslim lands from non-Muslim peoples, and their forced conversion to Islam under pain of expulsion or death (except for the people of the book–Christians and Jews–who were tolerated as second class citizens forced to remain submissive to Muslims and taxed for the privilege of living in submission). It was racist, in the way that term is currently twisted by the Palestinian movement, because Christians and Jews were treated differently from Muslims and pagans and others were exiled or killed; the people of the book were treated as inferiors; it was apartheid for the same reason, and it was colonialist because it consisted in colonizing newly conquered lands by Muslim peoples.
In the beginning , the Muslim conquerors of what is today Iraq and Syria wondered what should happen to the land? Should they give it to the soldiers, or what? So they held a high-level meeting of the Caliph and the companions of the Prophet who “decided that the land should be left with its owners who could benefit by its fruit. As for the real ownership of the land and the land itself, it should be consecrated for Moslem generations till Judgement Day. Those who are on the land, are there only to benefit from its fruit. This Waqf remains as long as earth and heaven remain. Any procedure in contradiction to Islamic Sharia, where Palestine is concerned, is null and void.” Hamas Charter, Article Eleven.
Thus we see that ownership of the conquered lands–true title to the land– was removed from its owners, whether they were the original inhabitants or the conquerers, and placed in an eternal Muslim land trust, or “Waqf”, and the rule was set up that this land could never be set aside or abandoned; it must always remain under Muslim control. (Article Eleven). And this rule does not apply only to Infidel Israel, but to “any land the Moslems have conquered by force, because during the times of (Islamic) conquests, the Moslems consecrated these lands to Moslem generations till the Day of Judgement.” (Article Eleven). Think France, Spain, Italy, Hungary, China, etc.
This is the religious underpinning that prevents a two-state solution. It isn’t because Israel is unjust in some way; it is because Israel is Infidel–not Muslim, and exists on lands the Muslims took from the non-Muslim peoples when they conquered it.
The proof is in the Jordanian and Egyptian occupation of the West Bank and Gaza between 1948 and 1967. There was no Arab outcry–no Palestinian outcry– until this occupation became Infidel after the ’67 war in which the Arab countries made war against Israel with the repeatedly stated goal of destroying her.
The Muslims and Christians that ruled Palestine did not settle their population in Palestine, they came as rulers of the native inhabitants of various religions depending on the period of time.
The Huguenots were being massacred in Europe and colonized South Africa to flee persecution. There are other groups that fled Europe and colonized other lands to avoid death and persecution, e.g. the English Catholics that went to Maryland.
The Arabs (Muslim and Christian) outnumbered the Jews in the geographical area of Palestine by 20:1 when Jews first started to immigrate there in large numbers in the 1880s.
Did Huguenots go to South Africa or the Dutch? Either way their plight and tat of the English Catholics that fled to Maryland does not excuse their treatment of the native population.
These numbers you sprout only serve to show the extent of the forced removal and killings that had taken place over hundreds of years of Muslim occupation. It shows nothing to say that Arabs or Jews are holders to tittle or not! …. Aliya has been happening since the Jews were first kicked out by the Byzentines. Jews didn´t just start returning in large numbers in 1880´s. They have been doing that since 600´s BC. They returned to their native land to them, waiting for the second coming! This land has more religious significance predating any muslim Arab dreams.
A) The Zionists only purchased some of the land
B) purchase of land doesn’t give you a right to create a country
C) You would fight too if your country was being given away to foreigners.
D) There is no reason the Palestinians should have accepted a deal to dispossess them of their country.
E) Israel is a race based colonial state that was smart enough to ethnically cleanse most of the area. When the West Bank is cleansed they will absorb it, but not before because then it would be too diverse and the Israel is supposed to be a race based state.
F) none of you would accept being driven out and disposed of your country because foreigners want it, and they want to make a race based state that sees you as a second class citizen.
Nation building has historically involved ethnic cleansing–although this does not make it right, the Israeli experience is not unique.
Zionism is not race-based. Dark skilled Jews are not excluded. It is ethno-religious based.
The best option would have been a bi-national state. A few Jews but virtually no Palestinian Arabs were interested.
Under the circumstances, partition was the only viable option. Yes, it led to war. But so would any other solution–and if any people needed a homeland in 1948, it was the Jews.
Any bi state agreement would be seen as a weakness by jews to accept..and as such the arab muslim population would soon outgrow them by design as they do in all countries today, political control would be wrested from jews and forced abandonment of religion and state affairs would see the jewish people disappear forever, which is exactly what the arabs want.
Sol Tuller – strong points… Does not look like OP can comeback from that…
Arguing whether zionism is colonialism or not is like arguing there’s a difference between genocide or gendercide or politicide.
There is, in fact, a difference, but the difference is mechanical/cosmetic only.
One day Israel will wake up from the monstrosity it has become and regain a sense of human conscience.
“A land without people for a people without a land”
“blood and soil”