By Mushtaque Rahamat
For some Western commentators, government officials, and Zionist supporters the Palestinian-Israeli conflict only started on 7th October 2023 when Hamas carried out a brutal attack on the Nova Music festival and killed around 1,139 people and captured around 240 mostly Israeli citizens. To them, before this horrific day everything was hunky-dory between Palestinians and Israelis; barring a few occasional skirmishes happening between the two neighbors.
These naïve sentiments and understanding are either deliberate attempts to undermine the whole of Palestinians’ right to their land or make light of their sufferings of around a hundred years.
Since the day the first Zionist settler (read European) set foot on Palestinian land its natives i.e., Palestinians hadn’t had peace. To say it plainly and in a simple word, the state of Israel is a settler-colonial project wrapped in European Jews’ misery and persecution. It was a European uneasiness with Jews- their religion, customs, and practices which had made Jews an object of ridicule in Europe especially in the late 18th and 19th centuries which finally culminated in a horrible holocaust by Hitler. Jews had been living as a diaspora in different parts of the world since they had been driven out by Christians from Jerusalem. However, it was the humility of Jews who accepted this ouster as the command from their God. Before the rise of secular nationalist feelings i.e. Zionism Orthodox Jews never entertained the idea of having their own country according to them this would be against the will of God, and it is up to God to bring them to their holy land.
But the persecution, segregation, and ghettoization forced young Jews to think out of the box solution. Thus the Zionist movement was born in 1897 in the form of The World Zionist Organization (WZO) in Basle under the leadership of Theodor Herzel. The idea of a Jewish homeland in Palestine was settled finally in 1905 after initially considering Uganda. Zionism since its inception was the settler-colonist project and it was hinged on the removal of the native population of Palestine; by force, by terror, by land grab, and through mandate (period) of the League of Nations and later by the resolution of the United Nations and through the agency of various direct and indirect agreements for and on behalf of Palestinians.
Settle-Colonial project is a systematic way of land grabbing in Asia, Africa, Australia, and Canada to permanently settle in those lands by either subjugating, driving away local populations, or killing them almost all. As happened in Canada, USA, and Australia. In this process of removal of the native population, settler erased their identity and signs of culture, language, and faith. To sum up natives either become strangers in their land or assimilate into the settlers’ culture albeit as second-class citizens. Israel changed the name of villages and towns taken forcibly from its Arab inhabitants and continued to forcibly evict Palestinian and settle Jew immigrants from Europe, the USA, and other countries—Israel legislated a law that effectively made Arab-Israeli citizens a second-class citizen.
For more than a hundred years Palestinians had been refused the right of self-determination. The first instance is the Balfour Declaration in 1917 which promised a national home for Jews in Palestine without seeking the wishes of the native population. This declaration is remarkable for a) it was made by a European colonial power b)about a non-European power c)in a flat disregard for both the presence and wishes of the native majority resident in that territory, and d) it took the form of promise about the same territory to another foreign group, that this foreign group might, quite literally, make this a territory a national home for the Jewish people . Here one must understand Britain had no moral, political, or legal right to promise the land that belonged to the Arabs to other people.
Great Britain captured Jerusalem in 1918 and got a mandate from the League of Nations to rule. Article 22 of the Mandate of League of Nations stipulates: “Certain communities formerly belonging to the Turkish Empire have reached a stage of development where their existence as independent nations can be provisionally recognized subject to the rendering of administrative advice and assistance by a Mandatory until they can stand alone. The wishes of these communities must be a principal consideration in the selection of the Mandatory.” This was never fulfilled for Palestine, although Lebanon, Syria, Iraq were created, under the tacit understanding and agreement earlier agreed by Great Britain and France called the Sykes-Picot agreement detailing the division of land among themselves after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. Secondly, Great Britain had already given a promise to the Zionist movement about Palestine. This was to be the first deceit by the great powers of the day to the Palestinians in a series of deceits, abandonments, and lop-sided treaties favoring the Zionist movement i.e. Israel of today.
Al Nakba
By the late 1930s’ Palestinians had started protesting and reacting to the daily violence of Zionist militias who used to kill, grab lands, and drive away Palestinians, Great Britain was under pressure too, and wanted to exit from the Mandate. By this time Zionist militias were attacking British assets as well. Great Britain turned the Mandate back to the United Nations after the end of World War II which decided to partition Palestine giving larger territorial control to Israel despite the fact Jews were holding less than 6% of the land and the overwhelming majority of Palestinians were given 43% land. The Arab-majority cities and fertile lands were given to Israel thus enabling forced eviction/displacement of almost 750,000 native Arab population. Palestinians called this Al Nakba- the great catastrophe. Arabs revolted against this UN resolution but were no match for a better armed, equipped, and supported (partition plan was supported by both super powers-USA and USSR) Israeli army. Arab armies were roundly defeated. Zionist forces captured 78% of the historic Palestine land, ethnically cleansed and destroyed hundreds of villages and towns, and killed around 15000 Palestinians in more than 70 massacres.
Six Day War
As per Rashid Khalidi contrary to popular belief Israeli army carried out pre-emptive strikes on its neighbours’ armed bases crippling their air power in 1967 which is called the Six-day War. The Israeli army had taken the USA into confidence before striking Arab armies and annexing territories in Syria, Egypt, and Lebanon in addition to annexing remaining Palestinian territories. In the later negotiations and agreements between Egypt and Israel, the Palestinians were not given a seat on the negotiation table. From 1947 till the 1980s Palestinians weren’t part of any negotiation with Israel rendering them a non-existent entity. Israel had so far been successful in denying the existence and by extension any right to Palestine thanks to partly USA’s steadfast support and partly owing to its neighbouring Arab rulers’ apathy. All, Arab rulers (in and around Palestine) whether monarchy or autocrats, had their selfish reasons not to push the cause of Palestinians or give them an independent voice in the international forums besides lip services.
First Intifada and Oslo Accord
After Israel’s war on Lebanon in 1982 PLO shifted its base to Tunisia as a part of a ceasefire agreement brokered by USA between Lebanon-PLO-Israel. The first intifada of 1987 was the first non-violent successful resistance movement that caught international attention and somewhat forced Israel to relinquish some kind of autonomy to the remaining Palestinian territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. However, despite the reservations of Palestinian negotiators, Yasir Arafat (Chairman of PLO) had a secret negotiation with Israel resulting in a botched agreement known as the Oslo Accord. As a result of this agreement PLO was allowed to return to Palestinian-held territories and allowed some municipal-level tasks and security arrangements in return PLO accepted Israel, abandoned violence, and sacrificed the sovereignty of Palestinian territories.
The practical implication of the agreements was too much for the Palestinians to bear, along with stories of corruption & high handedness of Palestinian Authority officials resulted in the second Intifada in 2000 which was marked by excessive violence by the Israelis killing hundreds of Palestinians and demolishing public and private properties.
Rise of Hamas
Among all these Hamas won the Palestinian Legislative election of 2006 but being proscribed by the USA, Israel, and others it couldn’t work with the Palestinian Authority. Hamas and Fatah (an arm of PLO) hadn’t been on good terms for long because of the difference in ideology and the methods of resistance e.g. use of violence against civilians and suicide bombing etc. Besides, factional differences some outside powers made sure these two don’t come to work together jeopardizing the interest of Palestinians. Here one must note that in its initial years, Hamas was purportedly bolstered by Israeli intelligence agencies to keep Palestinians divided.
Since the October 7 Hamas attack some 25,900 Palestinian men, women, and children have been killed and around 65,000 injured with tally rising daily. Of those killed more than 10,000 are children which the UN called “The Gaza Strip is a graveyard for thousands of children.” Israel has bombed the Gaza Strip into a rubble mound and flattened schools, hospitals, and shelter homes. Recently a video emerged of the killing of a man waving the white flag, by Israeli snipers.
Israeli leaders had made genocidal calls and exhorted for ethnic cleansing. One Israeli politician called Palestinians animals and sub humans who don’t deserve to live. Numerous videos of Israeli soldiers, are circulating in the social media sphere, making fun of Palestinians, looting their homes and valuables.
South Africa took Israel to the International Court of Justice
International Court of Justice (ICJ) has just delivered an interim judgment on the case filed by South Africa against Israel for committing genocide in the Gaza Strip in response to the October 7 attack by Hamas. Although ICJ restrained itself from charging Israel of genocide, the interim ruling issued by the court ordered six provisional measures, including for Israel to take all measures to prevent genocidal acts, prevent and punish the direct and public incitement to genocide, and take immediate and effective steps to ensure the provision of humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza.
Here one must note that superpowers who at their colonial height promised, endorsed, and supported the Zionist movement in its settler-colonial project almost a hundred years ago remain steadfast today behind Israel’s wanton violence and didn’t lend their weight to ICJ to hold Israel accountable for genocide. Ironically, the heads of state of the UK, the USA, Canada, and France reacted strongly against South Africa’s move to ICJ against Israel accusing it of Genocide. On the other hand, for a few hundred deaths in Ukraine, they got the International Criminal Court to issue an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin. However, when it comes to Palestinian lives even 25000 deaths don’t move them to even call for an urgent ceasefire. The immediate neighbors of Palestine, also, remain as aloof, divided, and weak as they were 75 years before.
It is sad, though, to see Israelis doing the same to Palestinians what had happened to them not so long ago in the past. It is nothing but a tyranny of victims.
For Palestinians, it has been an ongoing resistance for a century and counting. Long live Palestine!