Sunday, May 16, 2021

Palestine: The Rose of Sharon Withers

In my youth I was an uncritical idealistic supporter of Israel because the new State seemed a noble ideal in the aftermath of the Holocaust and the brutality of World War 2.  During my college years of 1955-59 the second of the Arab-Israeli wars broke out.  My professor of Greek Language at the University of Richmond found time while translating Thucydides’ The History of the Peloponnesian War to use his knowledge of the region to pontificate on the underlying political and strategic issues of the Arab-Israeli Wars of 1948 and 1956. It was noble David fighting off the combined military forces of the Arab Goliath. 

David won. Well, maybe better stated that Israel fought off the Arab aggressors and the wars ended in a stalemate with Israel preserving its independence but the fundamental issues of the war unresolved.  Regrettably those issues still have not been resolved despite regular bloody battles large and small interspersed with truces and futile attempts to resolve the conflict with a two-state compromise, but with no resolution of the fundamental issue there can be no lasting peace. 

So what is this issue?  Simply put, it is about stolen land.  A little history* may help since most people today were not alive when the events occurred that gave rise to the ongoing conflict, and the breathless talking heads on the morning news obfuscate the issues through lack of context, ignorance or political agenda. 

Following World War 2, with little consideration of the trouble it would create, the Western Allies resettled the displaced Jews from the refugee camps of Europe to the British “Mandate” of Palestine, which had been occupied for centuries by Jews, Christians and Arabs co-existing together in a stable if not always harmonious relationship, to carve out a new homeland for the Jewish people by evicting non-Jewish residents from Palestine and moving them to “temporary” tent cities outside the newly-created Jewish homeland. The intent was for them to be absorbed into the surrounding largely Arab nations. The wealthier evicted residents emigrated elsewhere (the U.S., Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan), while those without resources were stuck in the refugee camps.

Tensions in the Middle East escalated as Israel became stronger.  With no resolution for the displaced Palestinians and little interest among the Arab nations in absorbing them, war broke out again in 1967 that resulted in Israel again defeating the Arabs and seizing territory on the west side of the Jordan River and in Sinai, now called the Occupied Territories.  Israel annexed these territories contrary to international law and UN resolutions and began a systematic policy of building Jewish settlements on land taken from Palestinians, demolishing their homes and villages, revoking their residency rights, denying building permits to non-Israelis, putting down protests violently with the Israeli Defense Force (IDF), and killing Palestinian teens who threw rocks in protest against systematic abuse—all to intimidate and harass the Palestinians and to seize and occupy Palestinian land with the intent to make a two-state solution impossible.    

This is now and always has been an increasingly desperate fight between Palestinians whose homes and lands were taken forcibly from them and the State of Israel, whose citizens now occupy Palestinian homes, farms and villages.  It is a fight over land and related issues of property rights, title to property, eminent domain, right of conquest and just compensation, all complicated by different legal systems, some based in common law and others based in religious doctrines of competing religions that do not allow for legal niceties, practical politics and reasonable compromise.  To complicate the land issue there are emotional issues that intrude: religious history, hopes and dreams, cultural heritage, ethnic cleansing, the right of return, collective punishment.

Israel and its supporters argue that it has the right to defend itself against terrorists but however true that may be as a general principal surely that is not the issue here.  There is a legitimate argument that when your homes, villages, orchards and livelihoods are being stolen from you by a powerful state that daily threatens your survival, you fight for your life and livelihood any way you can.

That is not terrorism, it is asymmetrical warfare.   The Palestinians have no army, no tanks, no air force, no artillery, so they use what weaker peoples always do when fighting against a conventional military force, they use guerrilla tactics, they use what weapons they make in their cellars.  That is not terrorism, it is the right of self-defense and survival.  Israel knows that—they are the same guerrilla tactics the Irgun (predecessor of the IDF) used against the Arabs in the 1930s and 40s.

The current escalation of hostilities appears to have begun with the imminent eviction of six Palestinian families from their homes in East Jerusalem and spiraled out of control from there.  That may have been the final straw but there was always a preceding event and we could get into a long senseless argument about who started this current round of violent conflict by looking at each event and what preceded it ad nauseam into the past, but that would be singularly unsatisfying and unproductive—it would not help to end the conflict and stop the bloodshed.

I have been an interested observer of this conflict all my adult life, literally since its beginning, but I have become increasingly cynical as the years have gone by that there is any negotiated or compromise settlement possible given the complex and intractable nature of the issues and the obstinance of the feuding parties.  The flower fades. Hope and peace are withering away.

I last wrote about the Arab-Israeli conflict in 2010 when former Vermont Senator George Mitchell, an experienced negotiator, was dispatched to the region to try to jumpstart negotiations.  I believed then and I still believe that the “two state solution” makes rational sense by giving each side much of what it wants: an independent Palestine incorporating the contiguous occupied territories; Israel at its original borders; Jerusalem as an independent free city controlled jointly by Christians, Jews and Muslims; and a mutual non-aggression pact that assured the cessation of hostilities and a measure of tranquility. 

What has changed in the past ten years is that while I still believe the two-state solution is the most desirable outcome, I no longer believe it is a possible outcome.  I cannot see any circumstance in which Israel voluntarily surrenders the Occupied Territory for use as the Palestinian homeland, or vacates Jewish settlements built on Palestinian land, or gives up Jerusalem as its undivided capital, and I cannot foresee any stomach in the international community to pressure it to do so.  Anything less than that would not be acceptable to the Palestinians and would not result in lasting peace.

Writing in 2010 I had suggested that actions by the government of Benyamin Netanyahu and his ultra-right political allies made peace less likely because Israel had imposed a series of draconian and punitive measures on the Occupied Territories: restricted movement of Palestinians; built new Jewish settlements among the Palestinians, taking Palestinian lands and dispossessing the inhabitants; bulldozed Palestinian homes built without Israeli permits while refusing to issue permits to Palestinians; used repressive and aggressive military and police actions against Palestinians; imposed restrictions on food, medical supplies, fuel and food brought into the territories; blocked export of trade goods out of the territories; and interfered with international charitable and social service agencies providing much needed relief services.

A reasonable person might conclude those strategies were intended to provoke the Palestinians to violence in order to give Israel’s political and military leaders cover to justify continued repressive tactics while they built and expanded Jewish settlements in Palestinian territory.  When the Palestinians fight back against the repression Israel loudly proclaims that its right of defense against Palestinian “terrorists” justifies and excuses wildly-disproportionate destructive attacks on Palestinians, currently evident in the IDF attacks on Gaza.

When there is such disproportionate power between the two sides, as there is between the Israelis and Palestinians, a negotiated resolution is impossible because it would be a de facto surrender.  The brutality of the current conflict has resulted in the expected and dutiful urgent calls by international powers for both sides to stand down into some form of truce. Of course if an armed truce happens it will be a temporary respite until once again the Palestinians are fed up with the daily abuse and sanctimonious pronouncements by the Israelis that they are the good guys trying to maintain order against hostile troublemakers and terrorists while they feign ignorance about any alleged abuses. 

Eventually the international powers may get fed up with these ugly and dangerous periodic destabilizing violent flareups and could get together to impose a solution on the partisans.  But don’t hold your breath.

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*This is a brief outline of events in a complex, rich and interesting history.  It is not possible to understand the difficulties of peace without comprehending how this intractable problem has developed, the current players and parties to the conflict, and their various agendas. To name a few:  The extreme right wing religious parties of Israel led by Netanyahu who argue that they have the right to all the land formerly occupied by Jews in Old Testament times.  American Christian Fundamentalists, who have co-opted elements of the extreme right wing of the U.S. Republican Party, who support Israel’s Zionists because they believe that Jesus will return when the Jews are in full control of the Promised Land.  Elements of Hamas, Iranian-backed Islamist militants, with their own agenda that includes gaining control of the al Aqsa Mosque and East Jerusalem, which has significance as the third most important holy place for Muslims.  The Palestine Liberation Organization. 


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