HISTORY OF ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN RELATIONS published 01/03/16

For several weeks I have been attempting to find a way to address the current United Nations issue with regard to Israel and Palestine.  As you might guess, there is a plethora of information available online, about 50% of it contradicting the other 50%.  Not only are there conflicting reports, but it is difficult to know which of the many sites are legitimate news sources.

I have decided to use as the basis for this column today an article by Edward Bernard Glick, a professor emeritus of political science at Temple University in Philadelphia and the author of  several books, including “Peaceful Conflict” and “Soldiers, Scholars, and Society.”  He wrote this article in 2006 and it is an excellent overview of the history of the Israeli-Palestinian problem.

The history of the Jews in the Holy Land goes back long before the Babylonians and later when the Romans expelled Jews from the area.  You don’t have to be a learned Biblical  scholar or even a student of history to know this.

But Glick picks up the story in the late 1800s when the Zionist movement came into being,  Zionism being the political expression of Jewish attachment to the Holy Land.  Thus began the first modern organized efforts to settle Jews in Palestine, which then comprised all of what we now call Israel, Jordan, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank of the Jordan River.

Until 1948 all inhabitants of Palestine, whether they were Jews, Muslims, Christians, or others, were called Palestinians.  When they went out of the country they used Palestinian passports issued by the British who conquered Palestine in 1917.  In 1922 when the League of Nations established an official body to represent the Jews of that land, it was called the Jewish Agency for Palestine.

Great Britain was the first country to support the Zionist cause in 1917.  Shortly thereafter, France, Italy, America, and other nations indicated their agreement with the Balfour Declaration-  a statement named after Britain’s Foreign Secretary, Arthur Balfour.   The statement had been made in favor of a national home for the Jews in Palestine.

In July 1922 the League of Nations recognized “the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine” and incorporated the Balfour Declaration into the League's Mandate for Palestine.

Jews began coming to British Palestine in great numbers between the first and second world wars. In 1919 the country contained some 515,000 Arabs and about 65,000 Jews, who comprised 12 percent of its population. By 1938 the Jews were 29 percent and by 1944 they were 33 percent.

But as time passed, the Jews put in a claim for a Jewish state, not just a Jewish home, and at the same time the Palestinian Arabs became more nationalistic and demanded that the land become a Palestinian state.  The irreconcilability of these two vibrant nationalisms in one tiny piece of land became apparent almost as soon as the British began to rule Palestine.

The Palestinian Jews wanted the British to continue to allow Jews to immigrate into the country so that they could eventually become the majority. Also Adolf Hitler was growing in power and the Holocaust was already on the horizon, giving the Jews an even greater reason to want to provide a place of safety for the Jews now facing persecution.  

Of  course the Palestinian Arabs demanded that the British stop Jewish immigration, and in trying to force Britain to convert Palestine immediately into an Arab state, some Arabs engaged in frequent violence and massacres of Jews, for example in 1929 and between 1936 and 1939.

In an effort to quell the unrest, Britain set a limit on the number of Jews who could immigrate into Palestine, i.e. no more than 75,000 persons between 1939 and 1944.  The U.K. also put other restrictions on the Palestinian  Jews.

After the Second World War the Zionist movement demanded that the survivors of the Holocaust be taken to Palestine immediately.  The British refused so the Zionists brought Jews to Palestine illegally.

After several efforts by Britain to resolve the differences, including bringing President Harry Truman in to help, all to no avail, Great Britain took the matter to the United Nations on April 2, 1947 and  on November 29, 1947 the General Assembly recommended the partition of Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state.

The Jews accepted the recommendation, even though it gave them no control over the Holy City of Jerusalem, which was to be governed by the United Nations as a separate entity.

The Arabs did not accept it  despite the fact that Israel's Declaration of Independence, proclaimed on May 14, 1948, after the British left Palestine, contained language asking the Arab inhabitants to preserve peace and participate in the upbuilding of the State; and further extending their hand to all neighboring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighbourliness, and promises to do its share for the advancement of the entire Middle East.

The Arabs and other Muslims have rejected every opportunity to have a sovereign and peaceful Palestinian state next to the State of Israel.  In 2000 Palestine Authority Chairman Yasir Aarafat rejected Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s offer to return to the Palestinians 95% of  the Israeli—occupied territories, including a portion of East Jerusalem to be used as their capital. Arafat responded by launching a  suicide bombing attack.

Glick closes his article with this question:  When will there be peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians?  Long before the Palestinians began using suicide bombers and long before Palestinian mothers began to encourage their offspring to become suicide bombers, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir answered the question this way:  “There will be peace between us and our neighbors when they love their children more than they hate ours.”