This is the second in a series of articles about the ongoing conflict between Palestinians and Israelis. The first article concentrated on the 19th century until Israel’s War of Independence. I found that each side has reason for grievance. But both sides tend to ignore the reasons for grievance on the other side. This article illustrates more of the same.
In 1947, the UN mandated a partition of historic Palestine, giving 44 percent to a new Palestinian state and the rest to a new state of Israel. Palestinians and neighboring Arab states rejected this plan and attacked Israel, which formally came into existence in May 1948, in a war that lasted until the middle of 1949. The war ended with an armistice which left Palestinians with only 22.5 percent of the land in question, comprised of Gaza and the West Bank.
Contrary to claims that Palestinians voluntarily left their homes in what became pre-1967 Israel, we now know that Israeli forces attempted the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, destroying some 530 villages and causing at least 726,000 Palestinians to flee for their lives in 1948. The Palestinian population was 1,324,000 in 1947, more than double the Jewish population of 630,000, but only 154,000 by the end of 1948. Israel forbade the return of those who had fled, contrary to the UN General Assembly (UNGA) Resolution 194 which required repatriation of those wanting to return. Palestinians also rejected the UNGA Resolution, in their case, because it included international recognition of Israel.
While Arab governments and Palestinian leaders must be faulted for the war, Israelis can be faulted for ethnic cleansing, and for insisting that the borders at the time of the armistice remain in place, rather than the UN-mandated borders that gave more land to Palestinians. In any case, the two-state solution mandated by the UN was foiled by Jordan annexing the West Bank and Egypt taking over Gaza. Neither Palestinians nor Israelis can be blamed for the failure to establish a Palestinian state in 1949.
The Palestine Liberation Organization (PL0), begun in 1964, fought against Israel due to the continuing immiseration of Palestinian refugees, whom Arab countries made few efforts to assimilate. The PLO claimed to be freedom fighters. Israelis, many of whom had pulled up stakes to start a new life in a new land, couldn’t see why Palestinians couldn’t do the same. It’s ironic that Israelis claimed the land because their ancestors had previously settled there more than 3000 years ago, yet couldn’t see the justice of Palestinians, recently expelled after living there for generations, making the same claim of possession based on prior residence.
The Six-Day War in 1967, begun by an Israeli pre-emptive strike that most international observers considered justified, resulted in quadrupling the size of Israel. Egypt and Syria attacked Israel in 1973 to recover land taken from them in 1967. Nevertheless, Israel held the Sinai Peninsula from June of 1967 until Egyptian rule was restored in 1982 following extensive peace-making efforts. Israel still holds the Golan Heights, which is claimed by Syria.
Before considering developments that started in 1988, it’s worth looking at how much of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians up to that point depended on the actions of others – those who are neither Israelis nor Palestinians.
European antisemitism drove Jews out of Europe starting in the late 19th Century. Ottoman Turks allowed Jews to buy land in historic Palestine from absentee landlords with no compensation for displaced Palestinians. Fighting the Turks in World War I, Europeans made contradictory promises to both Jews and Arabs about possession of the land.
The United States closed its doors to Jews and others in 1924, making Palestine an attractive alternative. Antisemitism in the United States restricted the absorption of Jews during the Holocaust, giving Jews further incentives to go to Palestine. International institutions, first the League of Nations and then the UN, tended to ignore Palestinian claims.
Palestinian aspirations for statehood after the Israeli War of Independence was foiled not by Israel, but by Egypt and Jordan who took the land designated internationally for a Palestinian state. Arab governments generally welcomed Palestinian refugees only as temporary workers, not as future citizens. They exploited the refugee problem for their own political purposes.
Europe, the United States, and other wealthy countries showed no interest in assimilating a million Palestinian refugees. As a result, Palestinians were stuck in place, their national ambitions thwarted. They were pawns in the games of others. Just as Jews took up arms against the British when the UK opposed Jewish immigration to Palestine, Palestinians did the same to get their land back. Both had experienced injustice, and in the long run, without justice there is no peace.
I concentrate in the next post on the flaws in the Israeli and Palestinian responses to one another.
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