What is it with this Israeli/Palestinian issue anyway? Part III

As you read through this last part, think about the policy that the United States government long held about the Native Americans. Forced off their land, forced to stop practicing their religious rituals, herded on to large reservations in locations of poor land quality, the Native Americans became diminished for about a century. Then, with the civil rights movement of the 1960s and government programs to improve education and employment opportunities, the tribes began to grow again. It was an economic boon, though, the loophole of the casino laws that ended up making the significant change for many. How different is this situation? Can we take what we learned by our own shameful chapter of history and help Israel and the Palestinians possibly find a way?

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To recap, in 1947 the British announced it would be leaving the land and the United Nations then voted to partition it into Jewish and Arab states. The Arab nations voted against this partition and then, in 1948, armies from neighboring Arab countries invaded the new Jewish State of Israel. Prior to and during that war, an estimated 500,000 Muslim and Christian Arabs left, fully believing the advice they were getting that they could return in a few days would happen.

The governments of the countries that ended up with refugees did not want them to be absorbed into their population. When the refugees could not return, camps were set up.

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At the same time, about 500,000 Jews living in Arab or Muslim nations needed to leave. Most settled in Israel and were assisted by the Israeli government and became full citizens, learning a new language and getting educated.

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So, today finger pointing is going on---who was responsible for this dispersion of Arab residents in what had become the Jewish State of Israel? The only fair thing to do is to take quotes from the time and from neutral sources and from Arab leadership.

"The fact that there are these refugees is the direct consequence of the act of the Arab states in opposing partition and the Jewish state. The Arab states agreed upon this policy unanimously and they must share in the solution of the problem." Emile Ghoury, secretary of the Palestinian Arab Higher Committee, in an interview with the Beirut Telegraph September 6, 1948. (same appeared in The London Telegraph, August 1948)

"Every effort is being made by the Jews to persuade the Arab populace to stay and carry on with their normal lives, to get their shops and businesses open and to be assured that their lives and interests will be safe." -- Haifa District HQ of the British Police, April 26, 1948, (quoted in Battleground by Samuel Katz).

"The most potent factor [in the flight of Palestinians] was the announcements made over the air by the Arab-"It must not be forgotten that the Arab Higher Committee encouraged the refugees' flight from their homes in Jaffa, Haifa, and Jerusalem." -- Near East Arabic Broadcasting Station, Cyprus, April 3, 1949

In listing the reasons for the Arab failure in 1948, Khaled al-Azm (Syrian Prime Minister) notes that "Since 1948, it is we who have demanded the return of the refugees, while it is we who made them leave. We brought disaster upon a million Arab refugees by inviting them and bringing pressure on them to leave. We have accustomed them to begging...we have participated in lowering their morale and social level...Then we exploited them in executing crimes of murder, arson and throwing stones upon men, women and children...all this in the service of political purposes..." -- Khaled el-Azm, Syrian prime minister after the 1948 War, in his 1972 memoirs, published in 1973.

"The Arab states which had encouraged the Palestine Arabs to leave their homes temporarily in order to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies, have failed to keep their promise to help these refugees." -- The Jordanian daily newspaper Falastin, February 19, 1949.

"Who brought the Palestinians to Lebanon as refugees, suffering now from the malign attitude of newspapers and communal leaders, who have neither honor nor conscience? Who brought them over in dire straits and penniless, after they lost their honor? The Arab states, and Lebanon amongst them, did it." -- The Beirut Muslim weekly Kul-Shay, August 19, 1951

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The contrast between the way Jewish refugees to Israel were welcomed compared with the reception of Palestinian refugees in Arab countries is even starker when one considers the difference in cultural and geographic dislocation experienced by the two groups. Most Jewish refugees traveled hundreds or thousands of miles to a tiny country whose inhabitants spoke a different language.

Most Arab refugees never left Palestine at all; they traveled a few miles to the other side of the truce line, remaining inside the vast Arab nation that they were part of linguistically, culturally and ethnically. But the governments in the lands where they went did not absorb them into population. With the exception of the Kingdom of Jordan, they parked them in the camps and rewrote the history, erasing in their culture their duplicity in the evacuation of the Palestinians.

In December 1948 the United Nations issued Resolution 194 which resolves, in part that refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which under principles of international law or in equity should be made good by Governments or authorities responsible. (emphasis by me to show that the United Nations expected the refugees to be returning peacefully with peaceful intent. As there has been little peace in all these years, is it any wonder why Israel finds it hard to believe it will happen magically if land is given back?))

This return policy has been a major issue since that time. Israel did permit about 100,000 people back to rejoin family who had remained, and financially gave them restitution for land and property taken. More people have been unable to return although the concept to rejoin family has been offered several times.

As the Palestinian population is growing rapidly and is now in its third generation in the camps, the issue revolves around the Palestinian’s desire to return and Israel’s need to have peaceful citizens. The Palestinians expect Israel will support them financially and pay restitution. (No restitution was paid to Jews forced to leave Arab nations.) The United Nations Resolution 194 indicates the financial burden should be on the parties responsible, but as we have seen from the quotes, the Arab nations and some leadership have recognized their responsibility in urging the massive population movement in 1948.

According to a recommendation by the International Crisis Group, the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon need to be addressed as an issue of unrest in the Middle East even without waiting for a solution with Israel. They point that unrest within the Lebanon camps contributed to the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990), the invasion by Israel in 1982, and Syria’s involvement in an attempt to control the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization.) The first recommendation is to provide the Palestinians within the camps there Lebanonese citizenship, permitting them to vote and have full rights. The International Crisis Group recognizes that as the Palestinians are currently fragmented and are used by various political groups for their own ends, there is little leadership from the actual people who are affected.

Once again we look to the concept of the lack of Palestinian leadership. The people are living miles apart; they have never recognized themselves as a nation until the world stage, responding to very strong noise, said hey! Here is a group of people that need to be recognized. They have been used as political pawns for over six decades. People living in the refugee camps are living in dire poverty with crowded housing, poor health care, questionable education, and lack of employment possibilities. No wonder they are angry.

The concept of a two state solution was proposed years ago but in reality, no one likes it. In this solution, the land would be divided again, along the lines of the original partition for the most part but primarily with the West Bank area and the Gaza Strip part of a new Palestinian state. Both sides want Jerusalem, but the Israelis say it will never be divided again.

The problem with this concept from the Israeli standpoint is that the borders are not well defended. Remember the map with the mileage from the borders to major population centers? Modern rockets and missiles make new borders along the uplands not feasible.

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From the Palestinian view, why should they go live in the West Bank or the Gaza Strip if their families once lived in an area now occupied by Jews? They want to be permitted to move there, buy a house in that area. Palestinians want a one state solution. They want to be allowed to move back to the area where their families once lived, now in the State of Israel.

Israel has two main problems with this. If they grant citizenship to millions of Palestinian refugees, in time the population growth will grant the Palestinians a majority. The State of Israel is a Jewish nation, and with the democratic process in place, the land would become an Islamic nation. Secondly, if the Palestinians are not offered full citizenship, the process will represent the apartheid practice held in South Africa for years. Neither option is healthy.

In any religion, when there are fundamental practices in power, there is little tolerance for anything that is different. We have observed how the nations of Iran and Afghanistan have had major upheavals because of religious intolerance within a Muslim nation. We have seen how the difference in belief systems in Iraq continue to cause issues on how to help that nation learn to work together.

In a region where radical Arab leaders have sworn to destroy the Jewish State of Israel, there seems no way to find a way through the mire. The Palestinians want Israel to give them land for a vague promise that there will be recognition and peace.

So, I am as stymied as I was before, but a bit better educated. And now I feel I can make comments that are thoughtful and possibly through provoking when in discussion. Please add your thoughts….the peace process may very much take a grass roots movement to succeed.

What is it with this Israeli/Palestinian issue anyway? Part II

So, let’s continue. I will again be simplifying a lot, but the time line is going to slow down. (I want to interject here that I have found a terrific website, http://www.procon.org/, which has taken this issue (and 38 others) and reports on information with NO editorializing....it presents the pros and cons as gathered from prime sources. Go to the website to explore...you will find an issue that is meaningful to you and can finally read information, not rhetoric.)

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When Jewish settlement started to pick up some speed in the late 1800s, settlers made land purchases in areas that were desirable because of arability and water availability. This may not have made much of an impression at the beginning, but issues soon arose, similar to the American West, between the farming culture and the grazing culture. These issues arose well before the English were involved when the land was part of the Ottoman Empire and the people living there did not call themselves as Palestinians.

Following World War I and with the British Mandate over the land, it became politically known as Palestine. The French were in Syria and the issues came to a head in 1920 when the Syrian Congress elected Faisal as King of United Syria. The concept of Arab nationalism started to grow with the hope to unite all the Arab lands and all lands that had once been Arab. Rioting broke out at a pro-Faisal demonstration in 1920 in Jerusalem after the leaders incited the crowd, and Jews were attacked. The local police, most of whom were Arabs, did nothing to stop the situation and the British army had to intervene.

The second major incident occurred in 1921 and actually started when Jewish Communists clashed with Jewish Labor Party members at a Labor Day parade. Local Arabs joined the fray and this time the rioting escalated until people were killed there in Jaffa and throughout the land. Again, the civil authorities, using the local police, were unable to maintain order and troops had to be called in. In all 88 people were killed and 238 wounded.

By the end of the decade, the situation had become more tense. While the arguments were not based on religious differences, rumors of destruction of religious symbols were used more and more to incite each side to anger. Riots and killings spread and because the outgoing British governor had reduced the number of British troops, the Hagana began to defend Jews in Tel Aviv and in Haifa but in other areas whole communities were killed.

By the middle of the 1930s it was harder for the British to maintain some balance between the Jewish and Arab interests in Palestine. At the same time, as the Nazi policies against the Jews became intolerant to many, increasing pressure on the British to permit more Jewish immigrants. In August 1936 what started as a simple criminal murder of two Jews by two Arabs became a major political incident, escalating rapidly and became what is now called the Great Arab Revolt. The Arab Higher Committee called for a general strike as a way to show their dissatisfaction with the British rule and violence increased with attacks on British troops and police posts; sabotage of roads, railways and pipelines; as well attacks on Jewish settlements. In reaction, over 15,000 Jews became armed.

The Brits imposed curfews but little could be done to end the uprising. The British Government appointed a Royal Commission to investigate the cause of the current problem and the Commission appealed to the rulers of the Arab States for mediation. The strike was called off in October but proved only to be a lull. As soon as violence recommenced the Royal Commission arrested the prominent leaders of the Arab Higher Committee and deported them to the Seychelles Islands. (off the southeastern coast of Africa just north of Madagascar) The Mufti of Jerusalem escaped to Lebanon and continued to direct the rebellion.

Information from the MidEast Web website gives us some interesting concepts to consider:
Palestine was not an empty land when Zionist immigration began. The lowest estimates claim there were about 410,000 Arab Muslims and Christians in Palestine in 1893.
Zionist settlement between 1880 and 1948 did not displace or dispossess Palestinians. Every indication is that there was net Arab immigration into Palestine in this period, and that the economic situation of Palestinian Arabs improved tremendously under the British Mandate relative to surrounding countries. By 1948, there were approximately 1.35 million Arabs and 650,000 Jews living between the Jordan and the Mediterranean, more Arabs than had ever lived in Palestine before, and more Jews than had lived there since Roman times.
The city of Jerusalem has had a Jewish majority for over 100 years - The city of Jerusalem itself has had a Jewish majority since about 1896, but probably not before. The district of Jerusalem (as opposed to the city) comprised a very wide area in Ottoman and British times, in which there was a Muslim majority. This included Jericho, Bethlehem and other towns

The British government informed the United Nations that the Mandate over Palestine would end May 15, 1948. When the United Nations adopted the plan to partition the land of Palestine into a Jewish State and an Arab state in 1947, it did so based on population centers and land ownership. The city of Jerusalem was to be under the aegis of the United Nations, part of neither nation.

The United Nations made no provision for how the partition would take place. The Council of the Arab League announced it would prevent the proposed partition by force. In contrast, the Jews planned how to form a new nation. Nothing was done to help the Arab Palestinians form a nation. The effect of the British suppression of the Arab Revolt in 1936-1939 resulted in damage to the Palestinian Arab political and economic infrastructure. No one stepped forward to fill that vacuum of leadership.

During the time between the United Nations vote and the actual withdrawal of the British and the declaration of the Jewish State of Israel May 14, 1948, there were many incidents of fighting between the Jews and the Arabs. However, the day after Israeli statehood was announced, the Arab leadership in the region with the armies of Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq launched a war to win back all of Israel. Despite smaller numbers of troops, the Jews in the land had been preparing for over a decade and their training and superior cache of weapons helped them occupy all the territory they hoped for except for the west bank area of the Jordan River.

The issue of the Palestinian refugees begins here. At the time of the UN vote to partition Palestine in 1947, thousands of wealthy and middle class Arabs left Palestine and immigrated to other nations. During the 1948 war the Arab leadership from countries surrounding Israel urged Arabs to flee to safe areas until the fighting was over. In addition, to encourage the departure, broadcasts in Arabic by Israeli forces told Palestinian Arabs that there was typhus and cholera in the area and they should leave to avoid death.

The exact number of Palestinians who fled Israel from November 1947 to the armistice in 1949 will never be known. Estimates range from about 400,000 to one million with 550,000 a generally plausible figure. Based on the census at the time there were about 740,000 Palestinians living in the area that became Israel in 1947. About 140,000 remained and about 50,000 returned after 1948. About two-thirds who left Israel went to the West Bank and Gaza with the rest going to Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.
Palestinian Refugee Camp 1948

Displaced Persons Camp 1947 Israel

It needs to be noted that there was another displacement of people going on. Prior to 1948 there were slightly more than one million Jews living in other areas of the Middle East and in North Africa. As warned by the Egyptian delegation to the United Nations during discussion of partition in 1947, reprisals and increased activities to eliminate the Jews could be expected. He actually likened it to the recent experience in Europe by the Nazis. About half of this population chose to leave their homes. Some emigrated to the United States and other nations but most found their way to Israel. In contrast to most Palestinian refugees n their new locations, the Jews from Arab nations were assimilated into the Israeli population. (By the way, almost the rest of the Jewish population in these nations left after the 1967 Six Day War and the anger and difficulties then.)

It is important to note that we are talking about the same number of displaced people. The difference is how those people were welcomed or used as a political tool.

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It seems to me that there were two basic problems in the Arab community that contributed greatly to the continuing refugee problem.
1: There was no effort to take advantage of the United Nations establishment of an Arab state in the partition of Palestine. The whole emphasis at that time was that the Jews did not belong there and they would be removed forcefully, if necessary. There was no concept of how to build an Arab nation even if they did win in their efforts in 1948.
2. The lack of leadership in the Arab community continued following the refugee situation. Instead of accepting their fellow Arabs into citizenship, with the exception of the Kingdom of Jordan who absorbed the West Bank following the 1948 War and offered citizenship, the other nations set up refugee camps and continue, to this day, to use them as a political tool.

Okay, I have gone on longer than I first expected. I will need to start a third section to explain the various plans to be considered for a possible solution to this mess.

What is it with this Israeli/Palestinian issue anyway? PART I

I want to start by saying I am NOT a political person, but I am Jewish. I have been to Israel several times and I have family there. I support Israel as a nation and feel it MUST be supported.

That being said, there are problems. The concept of a Two State Solution seems to be the one that has the highest possibility to bring peace. I have heard "yes, but...." so many times that I decided to TRY to put this in terms I understand.

Maybe I can help you too. I may have some facts wrong altho I did spend some time researching. I used Israeli resources, Palestinian resources, Jordanian resources and good old Wikipedia. Please let me know if I have commited a grave error. The hope here is to symplified to achieve some level of understanding, not cause another war.

I started with a look at maps of the region. I love maps, so forgive me but they show one thing VERY CLEARLY: this is real estate that has been fought over for millennium.

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This first map is c1200 BCE, Canaan at the time of Joshua. I figured this is as good as any place to start. You can see there are a number of communities. JEWS nor PALESTINIANS lived here at that time, although the Israelites arrived from their time of slavery in Egypt, promised the land by God. Read your Bible. The peoples who lived here were conquered and either killed or absorbed over time by the conquerors, an age-old tradition no matter where in the world it took place.

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This colorful map shows the division of territory in the time before Christ. It shows how the tribes have spread over the land. Note that the territory shown is on both sides of the Jordan River and the Dead Sea.

This is the territory at the time of Jesus. You'll recognize some names. Others you won't. To simplify, that means they were conquered or absorbed.

This map, shows the territories occupied by the 10 Tribes.

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So by this time, the land has been ruled over by the Greeks, the Babylonians, and the Romans, and was part of the Byzantine Empire, each conquering and subduing the people. Each being consequently pushed out. Destruction of the two Temples and exile of the population occurred. And people always went back.

Following Mohammad's unification of the Arabia peninsula in the 6th Century, the Caliph capture of Jerusalem in 638 permitted the rights of all non-Muslims to live as they chose in the territory. The Arab name for the Byzantine province of Palaestina Prima became Palestine and this is where the regional name comes from. In 691 the Caliph ordered the Dome of the Rock built on the ruins of the Temple Mount. It is believed that Mohammad began his journey to heaven from this site. About a decade later the Al-Aksa Mosque was also built. The Caliph passed an edict that Jews and Muslims were both "Peoples of the Book" to underscore the common monotheistic roots that they shared.

Meanwhile, in Europe, grave concerns rose when the Caliph recommended demolishing the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in 1009. His successor, with the acceptable amount of money handed over, permitted the Byzantines to rebuilt the church. As the Arabs began to understand that the pilgrims coming to visit the holy sites brought a lot of money, persecution of the Christians diminished. As time went on the concept to recapture the territory grew. The decision by the Pope was that a holy war to unite the lands that were occupied by Christians was allowable. There was a lot of bloodshed of Jews throughout Europe as well as the people in the lands along the way. This black and white map shows the region that the Crusades fought to conquer.

This colored map shows the Kingdom of Jerusalem as established between the First and Second Crusades. The political power ended in 1291 when the Europeans were ousted by the Caliph. They either went home or were absorbed into the population. The rulers at this time were the Mamuks from the Damascus area and they remained in power until 1516, when the Ottoman Empire expanded into the territory. (Black and white map below.)

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After the Roman destruction of the Second Temple, most Jews fled the land and dispersed throughout Europe, Asia and Africa The history of the Jewish people has been an almost continual time of persecution interspersed with times when they were accepted by the local government and were able to achieve based on education and land ownership. Each time in history that there has been a "golden period", there has followed times of persecution. All through the millenium, Jewish people returned to the land. Each day in prayer there is a call to return. This map shows towns and settlements in 1845.

In the late 1880s the movement to recognize that Jews are a people who deserve a land where they can live in peace and control their own lives started to gain strength. The term Zionism was coined by a journalist in 1891 and in 1897 Theodore Herzl founded the Zionist Movement. Zionism is NOT a religious movement. Nor did Zionism originally set its goal on the current land of Israel. In fact, the Zionist movement was a huge factor in why so many Eastern European Jews emigrated to the United States from the 1880s-1930. Prior to the Zionist movement, people had been moving to the land and emigration stepped up in the late 1800s. This map, with the red dots, shows settlements by 1878. And the black and white map shows the increased distribution of Jewish settlements by the beginning of World War I.

So, here we are, at the point in time many of us have heard about. World War I saw the end of the Ottoman Empire and the land in the Middle East was distributed between European powers. France was assigned Lebanon and Syria, which is why there is the French language spoken there. Great Britain was assigned the area of the British Mandate.

This map clearly shows the territorial lines that we know. In 1921 the Balfour Declaration declared that Palestine would be separated into a Jewish region, Palestinian region, and the area of Transjordan. At the same time, a group of leaders from Syria worked with the British to establish the Hashimite Kingdom in the Transjordan region and Jordan became an independent Kingdom in 1946.

The next year, 1947, is when the British Mandate over the land ended. Based on population centers of Jewish and Muslim residents, several partitions were suggested and finally,
November 29, 1947 the United Nations voted to separate the land into a Jewish State and a Palestinian State. This is a map of the world that shows how the voting occurred. Green voted in favor of partition, brown against and the yellowish color are countries that abstained. By the way, the UUSR was the first to vote yes with the US second.

So, as best as we can have worldwide consensus, the people spoke and the land was divided.

This map of the United States shows the relative size of the State of Israel.

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I will stop here. In a few days I will attempt to discuss what happened NEXT to the current day.