Palestine Bleeds under the Shadow of Global Skullduggery
By Masood H Kizilbash
Islamabad, Pakistan
Fourteenth day of May, 1948 was the day David Ben- Gurion, the head of the Jewish Agency, proclaimed the establishment of the State of Israel in Palestinian territory and the US recognized it the same day. The same date was chosen to shift the US embassy to Jerusalem as a seat of the Israeli capital in flagrant violation of the UN resolutions. The protests staged by the unarmed Palestinians in Gaza were retaliated with ruthless brutality, using live bullets and jet fighters. Sixty lay dead and 2,700 were wounded. The message given to the Palestinians was that peace, justice and international rule of law had been superseded by sheer jingoism and chauvinism.
One can hardly gainsay that a change in the geo-political shape of the globe is wrought by the victors in war. It was after the World War 1 that the Allies divided the territory under the control of the Ottoman Empire into colonial trusteeships called “mandates”. An Agreement between the United Kingdom and Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca stipulated grant of Arab independence in the limits and boundaries proposed by Sharif of Mecca in return for Hussein launching a revolt against the Ottoman Empire. The Palestinian territory was excluded from the ambit of the Agreement. Accordingly, while Palestine was retained under its mandate, the territory under the Agreement in the rest of the Middle East was divided into several unnatural States as a reward to those who revolted against the Ottoman Empire in WW1.
The United Kingdom had long supported the movement of Jewish organizations for the creation of a modern Jewish State in the ancient Kingdom of Israel and had facilitated migration of Jews to Palestine since late 19th century. As a result, the population of Jews in Palestine increased from just 24,000 or 5 percent in 1882 to 85,000 in 1914. When the WW 1 was still raging, the British Government made a Declaration on 2nd November, 1917, commonly known as the Balfour Declaration, announcing its support for the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine, then an Ottoman region with a minority Jewish population (around 3-5% of the total). The Declaration read: His Majesty’s government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.
A swift demographic change took place under the British mandate through large scale immigration of Jews from across the world. They were facilitated to acquire land, raise settlements and establish industry and business houses. In fact, the Jewish community known as Yishuv was allowed to set up political institutions of their own to the exclusion of Arab Palestinians. During the Second World War (1939-1945) and, thereafter, massive immigration of Jews from Europe escaping Nazi persecution further changed the demographic profile and helped consolidate the Jewish control of Palestine.
Fearing reprisals from the militant Yishuv, the British transferred their mandate to the United Nations in April, 1947. The UN General Assembly with a majority vote passed resolution 181 dividing Palestine into two States, one Arab and the other Jewish. The Yushiv accepted the Plan but the Arab representatives including the Arab States rejected it. Their rejection was based on the iniquitous division of the territory to Jews to the extent of 56 percent of Palestine although their population was one-third of the total population and they owned less than 10 percent of land.
The injustice perpetrated by the world powers in declaring Palestine as a home for Jews and settlement of immigrant Jews in the territory, coupled with the UN resolution 181 sparked off an offensive by the Arab Palestinians which was repelled by the Jewish forces. During this phase, the atrocities perpetrated on Arab Palestinians, including the “DeirYasin” massacre, forced out some 250,000- 350,000 to seek refuge outside Palestine. Israel, meanwhile, came to control 78 percent of the territory of Mandatory Palestine as against 56 percent earmarked to them under resolution 181. After formal establishment of the Israeli State on 14th May, 1948, some 1.4 million were forced out to seek refuge either in the Gaza Strip won by Egypt or on the West Bank in Tans-Jordan where the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan came into existence in the latter half of 1948. By this time, a large number of Arab Palestinians had become stateless refugees.
Another aspect of the conflict between Israel and independent Arab States created as a reward for revolting against the Ottoman Empire in the WW 1 is generally mixed up with pure Palestinian issue. The fact of the matter is that this aspect of conflict is exclusive of the Palestinian issue. It arose primarily on account of the security concerns of Arab states themselves on the creation of Israel rather than for sympathy to the Palestinian cause. The Arab-Israeli wars in 1948 and 1967 were fought out of security concerns of both the parties. In the war of 1967, the Arab States lost control of the West Bank in Jordan, the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt and Golan Heights in Syria. The war in 1973 was waged by the Arab States to retrieve the territory lost to Israel in 1967.
Palestinians have suffered at the hands of both Israel and the Arab states. It has been graver in case of the former. The state of Israel was established in the territory inhabited by them for centuries through settlements of Jews in Palestine from across the globe beginning in the later half of the 19th century. The settlements of immigrants in Mandatory Palestine swelled under liberal facilities offered to them. It multiplied further with immigrants from Europe escaping Nazi persecution. Right from the beginning, the object of the Jews was to re-establish the ancient Kingdom of Israel in all territories that were part of it. It was this object that the Jews perpetrated the worst repression on the Palestinians to force them out of Palestine. Almost all Arab Palestinians became refugees under the designed policy. Rashid Khalidi in his book titled “The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinians Struggle for Statehood” published by Beacon Press, Boston in 2006, highlights this policy. He states: “Indeed, it was known to Zionist leaders even in the1920s and 1930s that the creation of Jewish state within Mandatory Palestine, required the wholesale ‘transfer’ or expulsion of Arabs.” Consistent with this objective Israel has continued to expand its territorial jurisdiction and opposed the creation of a Palestinian state in flagrant violation of theUN resolution. Ian S Lustick in his book titled ‘Unsettled States, Disputed Lands: Britain and Ireland,France and Algeria, Israel and the West Bank-Gaza,’ published by Cornell University Press, Ithaca in 1993 extrapolates the policy: The 1967 war represents aa critical juncture in the Israeli state’s approach to land. It marked the point at which “revisionist Zionism” or the political movement aimed at incorporating the entire ancient Land of Israel, gained greater legitimacy domestically and set the stage for a war of position over the shape of the state.
The sufferings of Palestinians from the Arab states resulted from the wars waged by them with Israel. These wars were fought under the apparent cover of providing support to Palestinian cause but, in fact, were motivated by their own security concerns. These wars impacted on the Palestinians in two ways. Firstly, Israel suffering from its own security concerns, hardened its policy of eviction of Palestinians and went out all the way to flush out Arab Palestinians through widespread massacre and violence. Secondly, the Arab States concerned with their own security did not lend the refugees financial, logistic and diplomatic support they required for their survival. Quite the opposite, some of the states out of fear of reprisal from Israel went to the extent of taking repressive measures against the refugees by restricting their movements from Gaza and West Bank where a large chunk of the population had taken refuge.
In the aftermath of the 14th May, 2018 carnage, condemnation followed in fits and starts from the Islamic States. The protests were mild in some of the Arab states aligned to the Israel- US axis while the countries aligned with Russia took an aggressive stance and demanded immediate deployment of an International Peace Force under the aegis of the United Nations in Gaza and West Bank to protect the lives of the Palestinians. The resolution in the Security Council was vetoed by the USA due to disunity among Muslim countries evidenced in the extraordinary summit of the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation, convened in Ankara on 18th May by the current President of the Organization and President of Turkey RecepTayyip Erdogan.
The inhabitants of Palestine have been facing miseries like orphans since the past 97 years after the Balfour Declaration of 1917 under the shadow of international power politics. One wonders if their cause will be dissociated from it and justice meted out to them under the charter of the United Nations and its own resolutions and a state provided to them on their own mainland.
(The contributor is a retired government servant of the Government of Pakistan and author of a recently published book titled “Pakistan under Siege. ” -masood_ Kizilbash@ hotmail.com
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