The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict I

Spring 2013

Purposes of teaching two sessions on this theme

Central Policy Issue: two States or One, and How do We get there?

• Most Palestinians and Israelis endorse two-state solution, with (parts of?) West Bank and Gaza Strip as at least part of territory of Palestinian state

• Vocal minorities on both sides advocate other solutions: either total removal or transfer of the other community, or a bi-national state

Particularly Difficult Issues:• Status of Jerusalem

• Right of Return – Refugees: – Jordan -- about 1,8 million

refugees – Gaza – about 1 million

refugees – West Bank -- 700,00 refugees – Syria 430, 000 refugees – Lebanon 400,000 refugees – Saudi Arabia 240,000

refugees – Egypt 70,00 refugees

Right of Return • Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

declares that "Everyone has the right to leave any country including his own, and to return to his country."

• United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194 (Dec. 11, 1948) "Resolves that the 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 the property of those choosing not to return [...]

• Israel does recognize a “right of return” for Jews

“A Decent man and an indecent book” (Dershowitz)

Denied tenure in June 2007

“Liars and Bigots” (Dershowitz)

“Liars and Bigots” (Dershowitz)

Zionism

• Not a monolithic movement

• Zion is actually a citadel/a hill in Jerusalem • Zionism: nationalist movement seeking

creation of a homeland/nation-state for Jews

Zionism: Background• Impetus for emergence and growth of Zionism in 19th century

was widespread oppression, especially in Eastern Europe

• 1881 pogroms following assassination of Alexander II, based on rumor that this was carried out by Jews – millions of Jews went to America over next decades, but some ten-thousands also to Palestine

• Dreyfus affair

• First aliyah: supported by Rothschild money

Theodor Herzl (1860-1904)

• Initially a thorough assimilationist; until Dreyfus affair

• “The Jewish State” “Jews will never really be able to assimilate”

• Great organizer: World Zionist Organization

But where? • Uganda?

• Earlier attempts to secure access to Palestine (Herzl) had involved the German Emperor, and when all this failed, East Africa was considered (also Argentina)

• “Oldnewland” – utopia set in 1923, in Palestine: Jews had only brought prosperity to the country’s natives

Beginning Immigration• 1891: first notable reaction to

influx of Jews – 500 Jerusalem notables submitted petition to Ottoman sultan to halt Jewish immigration

• So this was before Herzl became active!

• Which he did -- but it continued anyway

• Slowly confrontation took shape, although the Jews that did arrive would purchase land legally, often from absentee landlords

Chaim Weizmann (1874-1952)

Weizmann and Balfour • Crucial figure in realizing

goals of Zionist movement

• worked with Arthur Balfour to obtain Balfour Declaration – both based in Manchester

• in 1917 -- when it was in the British interest to align themselves with Jewish interests (cost them little because Palestine was part of Ottoman empire)

Balfour Declaration• "His Majesty's Government

view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which 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."

Self-Determination?

• important buzz-word in Paris negotiations

• along with defeated powers of the war Arab region was “exempted” – self-determination not applied to them although they were freed from the supremacy of one of the losing powers

• Notice talk about “non-Jewish communities” – which oppressed any idea of a “people”

Search for Palestinian Identity

Racism? • Belfour in 1919: “Zionism, be it

right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long traditions, in present needs, in future hopes, of far greater import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land.” [quoted in Khalidi, The Iron Cage, p 36]

• Churchill in 1936: The indigenous population had no more right to Palestine than a “dog in a manger has the final right to the manger, even though he may have lain there for a very long time”, and “no wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher grade race, or at any rate, a more worldly-wise race, to put it that way, has come in and taken their place.” (quoted in Finkelstein, Beyond Chutzpah, p 9f)

Motivation?

Balfour, Oct. 31, 1917, in a cabinet meeting: “the vast majority of Jews in Russia and America, as indeed all over the world, now appear to be favorable to Zionism. If we could make a declaration favorable to such an ideal, we should be able to carry on extremely useful propaganda both in Russia and America.” (Morris, p 74)

Un(der)populated territory? • Early 19th century: 5,000 Jews out of about 300,000 (Lesch, p

29)

• 1880: 25,000 out of 450,000

• At the end of WWI, there was about 640,000 people living in Palestine (512,000 Muslims, 66,000 Jews, 61,000 Christians) [Cohn-Sherbok, p 21]

• Different numbers: Lesch, p 100: 90,000 Jews and 800,000 Arabs

Un(der)populated territory?

• Under-populated? By standards of the time, not to the extent that this would call for colonization

• 1931: 175,000 Jews and 760,000 Muslims

• 1948: 600,000 Jews and 1,3 Million Muslims [Pappe, Ethnic Cleansing, p 35]

As of 1929: • Arabs understood that disproportionate growth of Jewish

population, supported by British, promised to turn them into minority in their own land

• by end of 1920 Arabs realized that what they were witnessing was separate, exclusivist economic development

• Escalations, eruptions of violence, riots in 1929, several

hundred dead (including “Hebron massacre”)

[Morris, Righteous Victims, p 110ff]

Land ownership major increase in Jewish land ownership

demand caused a boom in prices, tempting other owners to sell

One estimate has it that prices were fifty times greater in 1944 than in 1910. German consul in Jerusalem, Heinrich Wolff, observed that Arab nationalists ‘in day-light were crying out against Jewish immigration and in the darkness of the night were selling land to the Jews.’

• Morris, p 139f: “From 1880 to 1920, some entertained the prospect of Jews and Arabs coexisting in peace. But increasingly after 1920 and more emphatically after 1929, for the vast majority a denouement of conflict appeared inescapable. Following the outbreak of 1936, no mainstream leader was able to conceive of future coexistence and peace without a clear physical separation between the two peoples – achievable only by way of transfer and expulsion. (…) Moreover, transfer was seen as a highly moral solution. The Zionist leaders felt that the Jews’ need for a country with empty spaces able to absorb future immigrants morally outweighed the rights of the indigenous Arabs – who were no different than their brothers across the Jordan or Litani and could relocate there with relative ease if the transfer was well compensated and well organized. The Arab states – principally, Transjordan, Syria, and Iraq – had vast uninhabited areas and required additional inhabitants for their own development. (…) But Palestine’s Arabs did not wish to evacuate the land of their ancestors, and they made this very clear.”

Ben Gurion

• Morris, p 253 Ben-Gurion, 1937: “I support compulsory transfer. I do not see in it anything immoral.”

• Officially, however, Ben-Gurion supported a partition solution the British had envisaged

Reversal of Policy: 1939 White Paper• During the 1930s, influx of Jews further increased; many wealthy

• Tensions arose, in light of global political situation British decided they could not antagonize Arabs further: Arabs had started to negotiate with the Germans

• Arabs revolt, 36-39; killing 3,000 Arabs, 2,000 Jews, and 600 British

• ideas of creating a separate Jewish state were suspended, Jewish immigration was limited and was eventually to cease (unless Arab approval was given)

• antagonized everybody since the Arabs had demanded that idea of a Jewish national home be abandoned

Aftermath

• Jewish organizations disengaged from British, and paramilitary groups increasingly fought them to force them to disengage

• Eventually, US would replace Britain as strongest supporter of a Jewish state

David Ben-Gurion (1886-1973)

1946• British tried a proposal of internal reform of the Mandate, maintaining general

control but giving some autonomy to cantons of Jews and Arabs

• Oct. 4, 1946: Truman declared support for partition and Jewish state

• 46/47 Jewish violence and reprisal spiraling almost out of control

• In 1947, the Brits decided they could not solve problem, referred it to UN

• Many Jews had served in British army during war: “fight war as if there were no White Paper, fight White Paper as if there is no war” (Ben-G)

Nov. 1947: partition plan was passed – against resistance of the Arabs

• Morris, p 186: “The Zionists and their supporters rejoiced; the Arabs walked out of the hall after declaring the resolution invalid. The could not fathom, a Palestinian historian was later to write, why 37 percent of the population had been given 55 per cent of the land (of which they owned only 7 percent). (…)”

• briefly, Soviet-American agreement on Palestinian problem. Helped to a great extent by feeling of guilt about Holocaust

• Exodus affair in 1947 helped the Zionist cause

Guiding Ideas:• Exclusively Arab areas became

part of Arab state, similarly for Jewish areas

• Mixed areas to become Jewish: creation of Arab minority (conceivably even majority) in Jewish state preferred to alternative

• Unpopulated land (desert) given to Jewish state to increase possibilities for immigration