PALESTINE-ISRAEL IN PERSPECTIVE

War in Gaza is Only the Latest in Five Thousand Year Conflict

As old age encroached on the biblical Abraham, his barren wife Sarah suggested that he bed her handmaiden Hagar in order that she might conceive a son and heir for him. The suggestion was duly accomplished, and the strapping boy Ishmael came into the family. But then, it came to pass that this had apparently not been God’s plan (or maybe it was). In any case, at the ripe age of 90 Sarah finally managed to conceive and bear a son, Isaac.

With two heirs and their mothers in the one tent, the home atmosphere became increasingly toxic and Sarah proclaimed that Hagar and Ishmael had to go. Abraham, who was fond of the boy’s boy Ishmael, hesitated, but God told him not to worry and let Ishmael go. He would, said God, be the founder of many tribes and the leader of a great people. Thus did Ishmael become the father of the Arabs while Isaac sired the tribes of Jews of Israel.

THE LAND OF ISRAEL, ROME, AND EXILE

For perhaps 1500 years the Israelites lived in the promised lands of Palestine with their cousins the Arabs nearby in the easter and southeastern parts of the middle east now named Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, and Jordan. They enjoyed periods of wealth and great power but also suffered defeat, exile to Babylon, and eventual return to the shell of their former homeland which they proceeded to rebuild.

In the time we today would call the first century AD, the Roman Empire stretched from Persia across the north and south of the Mediterranean Sea to the Spanish shores of the Atlantic Ocean and then turned north through what is now Switzerland, France, part of Germany, Belgium, and eventually to Scotland. In this vast empire, Greek and Latin were the main languages and economically the entire region was a great common market. Jewish traders, bankers, and craftsmen flourished not only in the homeland of Palestine but also in Alexandria, Spain, Corinth, Rhodes, and Rome itself.

For the Romans, the Jews had an annoying habit of resisting Roman rule and periodically declaring independence. Finally around year AD 135, the Bar Kokhba revolt of the Jews really triggered the Emperor Hadrian’s anger. He ordered the entire Jewish population of Palestine to be expelled to the far reaches of his empire. Thus it was that for the next 1800 years, the sons of Isaac lived in Greece, Spain, Morocco, France, Germany, Poland, Russia, the UK, the U.S. and elsewhere while the sons of Ishmael stayed in the middle east and eventually became the owners of what had once been the land of Israel. Indeed, with the birth of Islam around the year 610, they made Jerusalem the third holiest city of their new religion.

JEWS BEING PUSHED AROUND

A major problem for the Jews of Hadrian’s time and immediately afterward was the rapid growth and spread of Christianity around the Mediterranean Sea and through Europe. The expansion of both the eastern and western churches increasingly made it difficult for Jews to find locations where they could easily fit in. Still, over the next eight hundred years they managed to survive, often quite well. The world wide Jewish network was an ideal tool for international traders. The Jews emphasized education and specialized in medicine, finance, trading, and teaching. They managed to make their way and even in various times and places to flourish.

Then came the Crusades, beginning in the year 1096 with the first crusade aimed at recovering the holy land and especially Jerusalem for the Christian church. Over the next two hundred years until about 1300 there were a total of nine crusades, some successful and some not. But for Jews in Europe and they were all more or less a disaster and led to substantial movement of Jews within Europe looking for relatively tolerant locations. One that was often more tolerant than others was Poland, but nothing and nowhere was ever guaranteed to be eternally safe for Jews.

Still, over time, many jews, especially those in the UK, France, Austria, Poland, and The Netherlands were able to do well. It was not unusual for Jews to be knighted and even to receive royal titles. Thus, in Austria there were the Von Biedermans, Ritter von Fischer, Von Goldschmidt, and the well known economist Ludwig Von Mises. In Belgium, Baron Henrich Apfelbaum, and the Marquis de Montfort Francisco de Silvay Solis were on the royal list. In the UK, as early as 1700 Sir Solomon de Medina was knighted. In 1841, Baronet Isaac Goldsmid was the first British Jew to receive a title, and in 1885 Baron Rothschild was the first Jew to receive a peerage title. For these and many others like them, life as a Jew in Christian Europe was not entirely a bad thing.

RISE OF HERZL AND ZIONISM

In the late 19th century, a combination of renewed pogroms in Russia and eastern Europe and the Haskalah (kind of Jewish enlightenment) sparked the rise of Zionism which called for the return of Jews to the land of their origin, the land of Abraham and Isaac, now entirely in the hands of the Islamic sons of Ishmael and their masters, the Islamic Turks of the Ottoman Empire.

The key leader of this movement was an Austrian Jew named Theodor Herzl. He grew up in late 19th century Vienna in an upper middle class family and had little, if any, sense of discrimination against Jews. Indeed, his initial thinking was that Jews tended to isolate themselves by persisting in certain, specifically Jewish mannerisms, speech, and behavioral patterns. His prescription to cure this malady separating Jews from the majority of Austrians was for Jews to stop acting so much like Jews and to adopt the mannerisms of the majority.

Then a major event in Paris, the so called city of light, occurred that convinced Herzl that Jews would never be safe anywhere except in their historical native land in Palestine. French army Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a graduate of the Ecole Polytechnique and a Jew of Alsatian origin was arrested for allegedly passing secret information to German intelligence agents. His case was adjudicated in a closed trial and he was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison on Devil’s Island in French Guiana. Initially the French intelligentsia and ruling classes were convinced of Dreyfus’s guilt and accepting of the sentence. But his brother undertook an independent investigation and turned up evidence convincing enough to cause a new trial to be held.

The real culprit eventually turned out to be Major Ferdinand Esterhazy who at this trial was exonerated and immediately shaved his moustache and skipped town. It was also at this trial that Emile Zola read his famous “J’accuse” letter, despite all of which Dreyfuss was again convicted and returned to prison. However, the French Supreme Court had inserted itself into the case and in 1899 annulled the whole procedure. A new trial was held at Renne and while Dreyfus was convicted again but received a Presidential pardon. Finally, in 1906 Dreyfus was found innocent in a whole new trial by the Supreme Court and returned to army service. He fought in World War I with the rank of Major and eventually died in 1935.

The whole process turned Herzl into a complete and forever Zionist. Jews, he concluded, could never be safe and comfortable except in their own ancient homeland, preferably without non-Jewish residents, and under the governance of only their own government. Herzl published his landmark book, Der Judenstaat, in 1897. His concluding words said it all:

“I believe that a wondrous generation of Jews will spring into existence. The Maccabeans will rise again. Let me repeat one more my opening words: “The Jews who wish for a state will have it. We shall live at last as free men on our own soil, and die peacefully in our own homes. The world will be freed by our liberty, enriched by our wealth, magnified by our greatness. And whatever we attempt there to accomplish for our own welfare will react powerfully and beneficially for the good of humanity.”

Herzl organized the first Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland in 1897 and was elected President of the Zionist Organization which was focused on moving Jews out of Europe. At the time, there was some talk of possibly moving to Uganda which had been offered by Joseph Chamberlain, then British Secretary of State for colonies. This idea was discussed by Herzl and his Zionists at their conference in 2003 and was strongly rejected. These people wanted to go to Zion, nowhere else. Sadly, Herzl died at the age of only 44 in 1904. But he is still remembered as the father of Israel.

HOW TO GET TO ZION

The road would be neither straight nor well paved. The last thing the Muslim Ottoman Empire wanted to see in the holy lands was more Jews. It sharply restricted sale of land and especially of land that might pass into Zionist Jewish hands. And yet. And yet. Organizations like The Palestine Jewish Colonization Association, the Palestine Land Development Company, and the Jewish National Fund did manage to buy bits of land here and there in Palestine. Nevertheless, in a world headed for war and unimaginable upheaval, buying a bit of land in Palestine was not the real game. Rather, one who wished to be a real player had to imagine war, and how and by whom the war might be won, and how the winner or winners might be guided to recreate the ancient Zion.

Thus, one had to guess that Great Britain would be a major winner of the war and that some of its major leaders would be Jewish and/or sympathetic to Zionism and that this would all lead the British government to make what would go down in history as the Balfour Declaration written over the name of Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to Lord Rothschild calling for creation after the war of a homeland for the Jewish people of the world in Palestine. One would also have had to guess or at least suspect that the area in question would come under legal British jurisdiction upon the conclusion of the war. In other words, one would have had to have been not only a genius, but a very lucky genius. Was there ever such a person or such persons?

Yes. There were several. The most important was Chaim Weizmann, a Russian chemist who became known as the father of industrial fermentation. Having won his PhD degree at the University of Fribourg in 1900, he settled in the UK with a science appointment to the University of Manchester in 1904. There, he developed the acetone-butanol-ethanol fermentation process. Winston Churchill learned of the development and, along with then Minister of Munitions David Lloyd George, encouraged Weizmann to hurry full development of the process which became to fundamental to British war production. It, of course, did not hurt Weizmann to have backers with names like Churchill and George.

Weizmann missed the first Zionist Conference in Basel in 1897, but he made everyone afterward. He met Arthur Balfour in the electoral campaign of 1905-06 when Balfour expressed interest in the idea of establishment of a Zionist settlement in Uganda. This, of course, was not at all what Weizmann wanted, but the discussion did get him acquainted with a man who was Prime Minister and more importantly who would be Foreign Secretary in 1915-18 when the whole Uganda option had been dropped and the discussion would be about Palestine.

Palestine and how to get Jews there was Weizmann’s constant obsession. Even in the midst of the war in Europe, he and those around him strove to get Jews into Palestine. Organizations like the Palestine Jewish Colonization Association, the Palestine Land Development Company, and the Jewish National Fund were established with the objective of buying land as soon as possible after the war ended.

THE BALFOUR DECLARATION

By late 1917, World War I was not going well for the Western Powers. Revolution and war weariness had essentially taken Russia out of the contest and freed up 600,000 to a million German soldiers for reassignment to the Western Front. The Americans had declared war on Germany in the spring but no doughboys had yet shown up in France and they would not for still some time. The British hoped some Russian soldiers might stay engaged against the Ottoman armies and worried about what finally would come out of America. It was thought in London that many Jewish Americans were wealthy and politically influential while, given their present circumstances, Russia’s Jews might well prefer to get to Palestine. What might Britain do to encourage both the Russians and the Americans to take the right path?

Maybe a declaration by the Foreign Secretary of British government support for Jewish migration to Palestine? Sir Herbert Louis Samuel, first Viscount Samuel, GCB, OM, GBE, PC was the first nominally practicing Jew to serve as a cabinet minister and to become the leader of a major political party. He was a strong Zionist and had written a memo for the Cabinet in 1915 entitled The Future of Palestine in which he called for creation of a new homeland for the world’s Jews. Now, a first meeting was set for 7 February 1917 at which the key cabinet members would meet with top Zionist leaders to discuss a draft statement for eventual release to the public. In June, after much more discussion, Balfour asked Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann and Sir Lionel Walter Rothschild to do a new draft and after much amending, reading, and re-reading the final document was released on November 2, 1917 in the form of note from Balfour to Sir Rothschild regarding the Jews and Palestine. It read as follows:

Dear Lord Rothschild,

I have much pleasure in conveying to you on behalf of his Majesty’s government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to and approved by the Cabinet.

His Majesty’s government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done that 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.

I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist federation.

Arthur Balfour

At this time, Jews made up about 3 percent of the total population of Palestine with Arabs accounting for the overwhelming majority and Christians being the next largest group. Later clarifications by Weizmann, Lloyd George, and Churchill indicated that by “national home” the statement meant establishment of a state in Palestine at such time as the Jews might become a majority in some part of the region.

Many doubted that the Balfour Declaration could be carried out. For instance, the 1919 King-Crane investigation Commission noted that no British officer consulted by the Commissioners believed that the Zionist program could be carried out except by force of arms, given that the population was overwhelmingly Arab and Muslim.

THE MANDATE

In the wake of the WWI and the Peace Treaty of Versailles, Britain received the League of Nations Mandate to govern Palestine and to begin implementing the Zionist program of creating a homeland in the region for Jews from around the world.

The key, of course, was increased immigration into Palestine of Jews from around the world, but particularly from Europe. But, of course, the act of immigration raised a lot of other issues. Where would these newcomers work and live? Palestine was not a rich place. The economy was mostly agricultural and not rich agricultural but mainly subsistence agricultural. How would they interact with the present overwhelmingly Arab/Muslim population which had been subsisting here for several millennia?

The work and living aspects had been prepared for by the Zionist organization or Jewish Agency. Using the banking institutions noted above, it bought land in Palestine, mostly from absentee landlords who lived in Old Constantinople, and provided it for farming to the newly arrived Jewish immigrants. Unfortunately, this immediately began to create a major problem. Heretofore, the land had been worked by local Arab peasants who had work arrangements with the absentee landlords. When the Zionists bought the land, they terminated these arrangements. This created jobs for the new immigrants but left the poor Arab workers in distress. There was no bail out for them. Neither the Zionists nor the British had a payroll for them, and thus increasing resentment with rising anti-Zionist, anti-Jewish sentiments was inevitable. Already there had been clashes Jerusalem and Jaffa. Somehow, Weizmann, Samuel and their colleagues had overlooked this aspect of the project.

Between 1924 and 1929 over 80,000 Jews arrived in Palestine from Europe but especially from Poland, Russia, and Hungary. This brought the percent of Jews among the population from about 11 percent to nearly 17 percent and also led to political organization. In 1928, a democratically elected Jewish National Council became the main administrative institution for the Jews in Palestine. Kind of like a state within a state it raised its own taxes and provided a variety of services for the Jewish population.

Not surprisingly none of this went down well with the Arab Palestinians. Clashes and riots between the Arab and Jewish residents proliferated as the Arabs perceived that the British rulers were promoting development of what increasingly appeared to be a Jewish state in Palestine. And, indeed, the Haganah, a para-military group had already been formed by the Zionist organization in 1920, prior to large scale immigration, for the purpose presumably of protecting newly immigrated Jews from disenchanted Arabs.

As Jewish immigration rose rapidly under British direction in the early and mid 1920s. tensions rose with increased rioting and unrest among the Arab inhabitants. The British then cut back the immigration for a while but by 1932, it was back in full swing and reached over 66,000 in 1935. Through such immigration, the Jewish population was rising from about ten percent of the total to close to one third. On top of that the Jews had established the Irgun Zvai Leumi as an additional military unit to defend Jews while attacking Arabs and even the British. This was maddening to the Arab Palestinians who in 1936 triggered the Arab Revolt. As the Arabs saw it, alien Jews funded by rich Jews in Europe and America were aiming to displace and bury them. They vowed not to go down without a fight.

An Arab Higher Committee presided over by the Mufti of Jerusalem declared a general strike, called for non payment of taxes, closure of municipal government offices, an end to Jewish immigration, a ban on land sales to Jews, an end to the British Mandate, and independence for Palestine. Armed Arab units attacked British and Jewish villages, installations, and municipal works. The British brought in the army which killed 5,000 Arabs, wounded and additional 15,000, and imprisoned 5600 while immigration numbers for Jews were dramatically increased. In sum, the Arab revolt was one of the best things that ever happened for the Zionists.

WORLD WAR II AND THE NEW UN

World War II both stimulated and hindered immigration to Palestine. Of course, it decimated Europe’s Jews, but it did train some of them how to be soldiers guerilla fighters which would later prove helpful to both Haganah and the Irgun. Indeed, in 1944, the British Army created aa Jewish Brigade made up of recruits from Jewish Palestine and commanded by Anglo-Jewish officers. Obviously these soldiers did not forget how to fight at war’s end.

By 19467, the so called Yishuv (the Jewish establishment in Palestine) was calling for independent statehood for itself and the Irgun was even attacking British posts in Palestine including the blowing up of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem which then served as the headquarters of the occupying British forces in Palestine. Post war Great Britain was negotiating full independence for India and other major colonies. The last thing it needed was the continued maintenance of an army in Palestine to keep the Jews and Arabs from strangling each other. So it punted by turning the whole question of Palestine over the the brand new United Nations.

THE UN AND PALESTINE 1947-48

The UN Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) carefully studied the situation and on came up with a three part solution. It identified an area around and including Jerusalem that would be internationalized which is to say it would remain under UN oversight without to whether its residents were Arab or Jew. There was to be a part of Palestine that would be under Arab Palestinian governance that would cover much of the central part of Palestine as well as the strip now known as Gaza and a significant territory in the north of Palestine. Under Jewish governance would be a long, relatively wide strip along the Mediterranean along with another smaller area in the mountains along the border with Jordan and virtually the whole of the Negev desert. The population of the whole of Palestine at the time was about two thirds Arab and one third Jewish. At first blush the UN plan seemed unbalanced in that it would give the Arabs only 56 percent of the land. But if one considered the Negev desert as of marginal productive use, that division was perhaps not as bad as it appeared at first glance.

The final vote in the UN was strongly for the deal, but there were some interesting responses. Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister of India not only voted no but complained that bribes had been offered to key Indians by Zionist backers. U.S. President Truman noted that he had never seen such a heavy lobbying effort as that done by American Jews in favor of the UN proposals, and several countries like the Philippines seemed to have changed their votes in response to pressure from the U.S.

In any case, the Zionists not only accepted but declared independence without waiting for any formal response from the Arab side. The Arabs both inside Palestine and in the surrounding countries overwhelmingly rejected the proposal and launched invasions of Palestine to prevent the establishment of an independent Zionist state in an overwhelmingly Arab locality. Eventually, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Transjordan intervened. Unfortunately for them, they had no “Jewish Brigades” and they were out-maneuvered and badly beaten by the new Israeli army in conjunction with the Irgun and the Stern Gang. The new state of Israel wound up in fact with a bit more territory than it would have had if the original UN proposal had been accepted by all parties. Sadly, it also wound up with a cup that has poisoned Israeli-Arab relations ever since. The undefended Arab village of Deir Yassin was attacked by the Irgun and the Stern Gang which killed over 100 Arabs and drove the rest away. Similar actions by these unregistered Zionist gangs resulted in massive lines of refugees. The final result was that Jordan annexed the West Bank and Egypt controlled the rest of the nominally Arab territory assigned by the UN to Arab Palestinians. This consisted mostly of Gaza and some of the Negez desert.

SUEZ

In 1956, the Suez Canal was still operated by Britain and protected by British Army units. Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser was upset with the British for not giving Egypt enough aid and for implying Egyptian inadequacy by maintaining operating control of the canal. He decided to nationalize the waterway. This was both demeaning and irritating to the British. They connived with the French and Israelis (who found themselves often skirmishing with Nasser’s troops near the Israel -Egypt border around Gaza. It was agreed, that the three would strike Suez together on October 29, 1956.

The Israelis struck on schedule as their tanks churned across the desert from Gaza to Suez. The French and Brits followed two days later and succeeded in occupying Ports Said and Fuad and taking back control of the canal. Unfortunately for them, they had omitted to inform U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower who condemned the whole scheme as foolish child’s play at a moment when a nuclear armed Soviet Union was promising to back Nasser for whatever he might wish to do. Without U.S. blessing the whole operation collapsed with the Brits, French, and especially the Israelis going home with their tails between their legs.

ARAB LEAGUE

At its first summit meeting in 1964, the Arab League undertook the creation of an organization to represent the Palestinian people. On May 28, 1964 the Palestinian National Council met in Jerusalem and on June 2 announced the founding of the Palestine Liberation Organization aimed at freeing Palestinian Arabs from any control by Israel.

SIX DAY WAR

In the months prior to the outbreak of the Six Day War in June, 1967, tension had begun to mount. Particularly, Israel let it be known that any closure of the Straits of Tiran ( enable shipment from the south of Israel to the Red Sea and the world) which had been opened for Israel after Nasser’s Suez Canal debacle, would be a casus belli. Never one to avoid a challenge, Nasser ordered blockade of the Strait of Tiran and removal of the UN Emergency Force that had been patrolling the Egypt-Israel border. On the morning of June 5, Israel staged a surprise air attack on Egyptian and Syrian airbases, thereby totally destroying the air forces of both nations. The Israeli army was in occupation of the entire Sinai peninsula ad at the gates of Suez within three days. Along the way it also captured the Golan Heights from Syria and took the West Bank back from Jordan. On the Seventh Day, Israel (God?) rested.

YOM KIPPUR (RAMADAN)WAR 1973

This time around Egypt had a real leader, Anwar el Sadat. His goal was to recover the Sinai Peninsula or Egypt from occupation by the Israeli army. Not at all a loudmouth like Nasser, he kept his lips closed and his wits about him. While not speaking of war, he plotted a clever attack to be carried out in conjunction with a similar move by Syria. The idea was to strike the Israelis in Sinai and the Golan Heights on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year and also the tenth day of the Muslim fasting period known as Ramadan. Surely, he surmised no one would imagine an Egyptian military attack in the midst of such holy days.

He was right. No one did. The Israelis were caught flat footed. Sadat managed to grab the Suez Canal and to scare the bejesus out of Israel. Eventually the Israeli army pulled itself together and managed successful counter attacks, but by then the Russians were resupplying the Egyptians while the U.S. resupplied Israel and both the U.S. and Russia came to agree that it was time to stop and shooting came to a halt on October 25, 1973. On the one hand, the Israelis, with U.S. help, had managed to successfully defend themselves, but the whole experience did not bode well for the future. Likewise, for the Egyptians. They had recovered their pride but also came to believe that there had to be a better way. Thus a peace process began that led to the Camp David accords of 1978 in which Israel returned the entire Sinai peninsula to Egypt and then concluded the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty of 1979.

LEBANON- OSLO- INTERIM AGREEMENT- MORE CHANGE MORE THE SAME

With the establishment of quiet on the Southern Front, the action shifted North to Lebanon where there were very large camps of refugees driven out of Palestine by the conflicts of the past thirty years. The PLO under Yasir Arafat based itself here and carried out operations in Israel and Palestine. In 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon and occupied Beirut. Shortly thereafter the PLO retreated from Lebanon and moved its headquarters to Tunisia. Around the same time, Palestinian refugees in some of the camps in Lebanon were murdered by Christian groups operating at the direction of the Israeli General Ariel Sharon. On top of this, the presence and activities of the Israeli army in southern Lebanon were causing increasing unrest among the largely Shia Muslim population. Eventually Lebanon and Israel reached agreement on the return of the Israeli army to Israel by the end of 1985.

Eventually, in 1993, secret talks that had started in Oslo continued and were concluded on September 13, 1993 with signing at the White House of documents whereby the PLO officially recognized Israel and Israel officially recognized the PLO to be the official representative of the Palestinian people and the governor of the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank and eventually the government of a separate and independent Palestinian state. I watched this event myself and remember thinking that this would finally be the end of the eternal Israeli-Palestinian struggle.

Of course, I should have known better. Both the Palestinians and the Israelis were divided. The last thing many Israelis wanted, including political leaders like Israel’s Binyamin Netanyahu (now Prime Minister) wanted was a true Palestinian state. Indeed, they continued to subsidize immigration of Jews from Russia and elsewhere while doing everything possible to prevent the emergence of such a state. Indeed, ironically and tragically, in a preliminary election among the Palestinians, the PLO was elected to govern the (under Israeli control) the West Bank while Hamas won the governance of the Gaza Strip. Netanyahu no doubt regrets his role in all that now, but he was one of the main promoters of Hamas at the time. He wanted to keep the PLO and Hamas divided so as to prevent any final establishment of an Arab Palestine.

Thus have the sons of Isaac and Ishmael still not found a way to live quietly, peacefully, and constructively together.

Will they ever?