Israel and Palestine
academic.umf.maine.edu
Violence in the Mideast: Right now the Mideast has descended into a spiral of violence and killings from both sides that could, combined with the Iraq crisis, ignite a major war in the region and disrupt the US war on terror, our oil supplies, and the global economy. Or it could fester with mutual killings for some time. The problem is that it is a conflict that cannot be won militarily, but neither side is willing to compromise enough to end it. Both sides have really good arguments for their position, but neither side recognizes the legitimacy of the other side’s argument. It’s a tragedy.
Zionist movement, began in 1897 with the publication of a book called The Jewish State by Theodore Herzl, an Austrian journalist who wanted Jews to settle Palestine. That led to considerable immigration between then and 1914, as land was bought by Jews. 60,000 immigrated to Palestine between 1881 and 1914, wealthy Jewish Europeans bought large tracks of land from the Arabs.
James Balfour, British foreign Minister, 1917, declares goal of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Native Palestinians objected to the Balfour declaration, and were uneasy about all the immigrants. By 1937 Jews constituted one third of the total population of Palestine. Between 1928 and 1937 their population went from 150,000 to 400,000, largely due to people fleeing Nazi Germany, where they were persecuted.
The British, worried about Arab oil, put a ceiling on Jewish immigration. They even sent Jews back to Germany in the thirties (ship: Exodus), many who later died in the holocaust. British logic: its their colony, and the Jews were destabilizing the situation (and threatening the oil supply if there was unrest). After WWII: more illegal Jewish immigration, Arabs growing more restive, and British couldn't keep peace, so they decided to put the issue before the United Nations. Jewish settlers led by David Ben Gurion declare a goal of a Jewish state.
UNSCOP: UN Special Committee On Palestine recommend that Palestine (1.2 million Arabs, 570,000 Jews) be partitioned. Jerusalem would be in UN hands. Arabs decided to fight; they had driven out the Crusaders, but lost to Spain and Persia. Had to defend what they saw as their homeland. They saw this as colonialism again, rich Europeans taking the land. They thought the claim of Palestine as their homeland from 2000 years ago bizarre -- what if the American Indians used that claim to try to get their own state from the US?
Not hatred at first: Jews and Arabs both Semitic peoples and originally got along. The hatred came later. There was intense debate at the United Nations. The UN choose to allow partition and both sides started gathering arms. Arab states: Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and Transjordan...pledged to help the Palestinians. David Ben Gurion saw the possibility of war as a way to expand Israel's borders. Both sides were going down the path to conflict.
Attempts for a peaceful solution failed: Arab suggestions of autonomy but a unified Palestine were rejected; Jewish peace plans were rejected as well. 14 May 1948, David Ben-Gurion announced formation of Israeli state. The U.S. recognized this state. War broke out the next day. The invasion of Arab states, not approved by US or the Soviets, brought an army of 23,500 men with tanks, planes, and a lot of equipment. The Israelis were outmanned (about 17,000, only 3000 regular army) and out gunned, having no tanks. The Arabs thought they’d easily defeat the upstart Israelis. But Israel won, and ended up with slightly more land than before. So the birth of the Jewish state created animosities, nationalisms and hatreds on both sides which had not been there before. Jerusalem at this side became divided, with the Arabs controlling the East, and Israeli the West.
Arab side: 1 million refugees, homeless. This created lingering resentment. These people are the Palestinians now, who want a state and formed the PLO. They see themselves of having lost a state to outsiders, and for a long time didn’t accept the legitimacy of any Israeli state.
1956 War: Enter: Gamal Abdel Nasser; he was an Arab nationalist in Egypt, who decided to get rid of this new Israeli state by using economic pressure. He put a blockade on Isareli shipping through the Suez, nationalizing a canal that Britain and France thought they owned. (He had been doing things like this since he took power in 1952).
Britain and France: saw Nasser as a Hitler, thought allowing him to keep the canal would be akin to appeasement. The Israelis saw Egyptian moves as a threat to their security. The British and the French had the right to use military force to protect their interest in the Suez, and plotted with the Israelis to create an excuse to use it. British PM Eden thought he had US support, but things went awry.
On October 29th Israel's army launched an attack on Egypt, with the help of Britain and France. It was a big victory, as Israel pushed through the Sinai and defeated Egypt. But tensions were mounting over the attack, and the US, worried that this was going to give the Soviets the upper hand in the third world (Britain and French were seen as colonizers), and angry that they weren’t consulted, surprisingly sided with the Soviets against the British, French and Israeli attacks. It was a humiliating defeat for France and Britain, proof they were no longer major powers. Israel had won considerable land and demonstrated their military prowess, but had to give most of it back under U.S. pressure. Egypt felt vindicated, and Arab nationalism was growing.
Six day war of 1967:
Time doesn’t always heal, and tensions continued to mount. The Syrians were most radical, they bordered Israel and used the high point of their border territory, the Golan Heights, as a base for border raids into Israel. April 1967: a major clash on Syrian-Israeli border. May: armies were mobilizing, and UN peacekeepers were kicked out of areas between Israel and Egypt. 21 May, both Israel and Egypt mobilized. Egypt blocked Israeli passage on waterways (Straits of Tiran and the Gulf of Aqaba) which had been guaranteed in 1956.
5 June 1967: the six day war began. Israel attacked Egyptian airfields in preemptive strike, destroying the Egyptian airforce. They also surprised the Syrians and took the Golan Heights. From Egypt, they took the Sinai Pennisula and Gaza strip. They also took all of Jerusalem, which the UN said should be a divided city. A major victory for Israel -- they had few casulties, many deaths for Arabs. The war was won by tactical genius. Massive victory, unbelievable, in fact. The military genius: General Yitzhak Rabin.
Note: the issue of Jerusalem is intense to this day. In that 1967 war Israel took the Arab part of Jerusalem, claiming the holy city as unalterably part of the Israeli state. Arabs, who also see it as an Islamic holy city, argued that UN agreements guaranteed the city be divided or under UN authority. That issue is still tense. Also, a lot of the territory taken includes the areas now under Palestinian control, which the Palestinians want back to make a Palestinian state. The military victory created long term problems. Egypt also lost the Sinai pennisula and gaza strip (a small area of land on the coast). The area Israel gained was more than the size of their country before 1967; the occupied lands on the West Bank of the Jordan river taken included Hebron, Bethlehem, Jericho, and Jerun.
October War of 1973:
Shame and bitterness on the Arab side after 1967. Diplomacy could not dislodge Israel from the territories it occupied. UN Security Council passed a resolution in November 1967 calling on Israel to withdrawal but too much distrust.
Anwar Sadat, Egypt's new President, planned counter-attack on Israel. Yom Kippur, a Jewish holiday (last week) was chosen as the day to try to do back to Israel what it did to Egypt in 1967, to launch a surprise attack: Syria attacked the Golan Heights, Egypt attacked via the Sinai. The U.S. gave aid to Israel and the Soviets sided with the Arab states, escalating the conflict.
Early victories for the Arabs turned around in the second week of the war, Israel gradually gained the upper hand on both fronts. Kissinger eingineered a cease fire. Higher loses on both sides. Israel managed to keep the land won in 1967. Israel was bitter: they forgot that the attack was to regain lost territories, they saw it as only evil Arabs. Arabs bitter: they felt land had been stolen, first in 1947, but especially in 1967.
Sadat changed his tactics: the importance of leadership. Recognizing that war was not going to get Egypt the Sinai back, Sadat decided to try peace. It got him killed -- assassinated by an anti-Israel extremist who considered Sadat a traitor, but it started a road which still could lead to peace in the region.
1977: Sadat visited the Israeli Knesset.
1978: The Camp David Accords: Sinai given back to Egypt, and the West Bank was supposed to in time go to the Palestinians. The one thing that worked: land for peace. Egypt recognized Israel’s right to exist; Israel gave back captured land. That broke the Arab alliance against Israel and created hope -- a process continuing to this day, but perhaps pushed a step backwards yesterday.
The PLO: Led by Yasser Arafat the Palestinian Liberation Organization emerged as a terrorist organization designed to try to win back land for the Palestinians. By the eighties Arafat had gained international recognition, and started to move away from terrorism to diplomacy. However, little was being done; Israel was bogged down in Lebanon, and no progress was being made on the Palestinian issue. In May 1988 the intifadeh began, a Palestinian uprising of violence by mostly stone throwing civilians and youths on the West bank. Israel was seen internationally as an illegal occupier, and world sentiment sided more and more with the Palestinians. After the Gulf War, when Arafat’s support of Saddam Hussein hurt his prestige, the Israelis decided that the violence in occupied territories was proof that they could never have complete control of those regions, and perhaps it would be best to move towards a peaceful resolution.
In 1993 Rabin, the military genius of the 1967 war, broke the impasse by doing something no Israeli could have imagined before: shook hands with Yasser Arafat, and signed a deal to allow Palestinian autonomy in the occupied territories, which Arafat argued should lead to a Palestinian state.
Note: The PLO as a terrorist organization was extremely brutal early on -- the 1972 Munich Olympic attack, etc. Yasser Arafat was the national enemy of Israel. But over time they decided they couldn’t get back all the land for Palestine, so they decided to try to at least get back what they lost in the wars, and start their own state -- basically willing to accept what the UN wanted in 1947. Israel -- that would be giving up too much hard won territory, the Palestinians blew that when they didn’t accept the original deal. But at least they were talking now, and the handshake between the PLO terrorist leader and Israeli’s war hero general genius showed that the makers of war were becoming the peacemakers.
Rabin: like Sadat, was assassinated by an anti-peace extremist.
Since then, progress had been made, and the Palestinians now control sections of the occupied territories. But a final agreement was elusive. In 2000 a new Camp David meeting tried to bridge the last problems, but due to the emotion of the Jerusalem question and other details, they couldn’t agree. Then violence spilled over: Ariel Sharon, a hardline conservative, visited an Israeli holy site, the Temple Mount, which is also on the same territory as the third most important Muslim holy site. The way he did it was seen as a provocation by Palestinians, and they started a new uprising, this one even spread into Israel. Besides the West Bank, a large number of Arabs live not in occupied lands, but Israel proper (especially cities like Nazareth and others near the West Bank). Most have Israeli citizenship, and there are even Arabs in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament. They have tended not to join in uprisings, but this one has even spread there -- some see that as a very dangerous sign.
Hundreds of Israelis have been killed in Palestinian bombs or suicide attacks. Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed as Israeli sends tanks and heavy weapons into Palestinian population centers.
The Israelis say they are fighting terrorism.
The Palestinians say they are fighting for their homeland, they have no political rights and have been occupied and oppressed for thirty years by the Israelis. They are bitter and desperate, that is why they are willing to use suicide methods.
The reality: they can’t win without peace and co-existence. They need to find a solution. Until they want peace more than war, however, the spiral will continue. Neither side is right, both have a good case, but both share blame.
Yassir Arafat finally died in 2004, though despite the way he was demonized by Israel, it’s not clear this will help. While Mahmed Abbas, his replacement, has been more open to working with Israel. Ariel Sharon seems to have learned that there needs to be compromise, and has withdrawn from Gaza, and tore down Jewish settlements, taking on the hardliners he onced championed. This created anger in Israel, as Israeli forces forcefully evicted Jewish extremists wanting to claim the Gaza forever.
But the West Bank remains uncertain. Many think that Sharon left Gaza in order to focus on reshaping the West Bank in a way that gets Israel a lot more land, a unilateral solution. After Sharon’s stroke Olmert (his replacement) claimed a withdrawal from the West Bank was the next move, but the Lebanon war has hurt that.
Recent developments: possibility and danger.
HAMAS won parliamentary elections by a landslide in the Palestinian territories, meaning Israel now has to deal with a Palestinian government led by a terrorist organization. Downside: this could mean no solution and more fighting, with HAMAS continuing violence. But if Hamas decides that in government it has to be more pragmatic and responsible, perhaps it could ultimately create a peace agreement that would have legitimacy.
KADEMA, the centrist party formed by Sharon when Likud split over his plans on unitlateral withdrawal won a plurality in the last election, forming a coalition with Labor.
July – August 2006: Israeli-Lebanon war. Israel invaded to try to disarm and weaken Hezbollah, and get back soldiers kidnapped. Israel’s air war killed numerous civilians, and didn’t stop Hezbollah rocket attacks into northern Israel, which targeted civilians. Ultimately a peace agreement was reached, but it was a sour peace for Israel, as they didn’t get their soldiers back, and Hezbollah appeared stronger than ever. Yet Hezbollah, while praised in the Arab world for standing up to Israel, was also criticized for its actions that provoked a war that killed massive numbers of civilians. Iranian money poured in to help the Lebanese rebuild, and with Hezbollah remaining strong, another war remains possible.
Ultmately the rise of Hezbollah and Hamas has made things much more difficult, especially since these groups inject Islamic extremism into the mix. Despite the optimism from a few years ago, there is reason to think that a solution to this issue is still a long ways off.
Violence continues in Gaza, recently there was another suicide bombing, and Hamas remains intransigent. |
