Above: Israeli Independence Hall, in Tel Aviv, is the location where David Ben-Gurion declared Israel's Independence on 14 May 1948. |
Thinking
Thinking about Israel? Here are some resources you might consider!
Never been to Israel?
If you are Jewish and have never been to Israel on an organized trip, consider a Birthright Trip. Check out Taglit-Birthright to look into FREE educational trips for Jewish college students.
Discuss, Argue, and Learn
Get onto mitsi-talk@mit.edu. We hold an open, moderated, spam-free list in which members ask questions, post interesting articles they have read, and discuss history and current events concerning Israel. Go to mitsi-talk's Mailman Server in order to get your e-mail onto the list!
Many Types of Zionism
Zionism became an incredibly diverse ideology immediately upon its inception: some Zionists were ardently secular, whereas others were religious. Some types included labor Zionism, socialist Zionism, communist Zionism, religious Zionism, revisionist Zionism, and cultural Zionism. Also, Christian Zionism, sometimes also called Restorationism or Dispensationalism, developed in parallel. Today, there is even more diverse ideologies. To put your ear in on the discussion, consider checking out Blogs of Zion.
Stay Updated!
The Israel-Update list, sent nearly weekly by Noah Liben is a compilation of articles, YouTube videos, and reading lists to keep you updated on what's going on. To request to get onto the list, send a quick e-mail to Noah at noah.liben@gmail.com.
Aliyah on your Mind?
Aliyah, a Hebrew word that literally means to ascend, is an ancient term used as early as fifth century BCE to refer to a Jewish person immigrating to Israel. ImpactAliyah is a college-based group whose vision is to enable Aliyah-minded students to become agents of positive change in Israeli society, the global Jewish commnity, and the world at large using Israel as a platform. TO learn more about it, visit ImpactAliyah.com.
Brush Up On Some History
Here is a brief account of the early history of Israel. Sources include Mitchell Bard's "Myths and Facts" and StandWithUs's "Israel 101."
A Long Long Time Ago...
Hebrew-speaking [i.e., Semitic] peoples entered the tract of land now called Israel approximately 3300 years ago. Those peoples developed religious practices and cultural identity that would become the Judaism of today. Their King David established Jerusalem as the kingdom's capital around 1000 BCE, and the following king, Solomon, built a Temple on a plateau [now called the Temple Mount or the Haram al-Sharif] in the middle of the city.
When in Rome...
During the military campaigns of Pompei Magnus, the Roman empire annexed the Jewish kingdom [it then became the province of Judea] in 66 BCE. Under Roman Rule, the Jews were given a substantial amount of religious and cultural autonomy, but the institutions of political sovereignty and rule of law were effectively in the hands of the Romans. In 66 CE, a revolt began in Judea that ended in 70 CE by the liquidation of Jewish independence and the destruction of the Temple. In the second century, following a crushing defeat of another Jewish revolt, the emperor Hadrian forbade the Jews from entering Jerusalem and renamed Judea [which was Latin for "land of the Jews"] to Palaestina [Latin for "land of the Philistines"]. Despite the Roman law, Jews continued to live in Palestine.
Conquest of Palestine
In the late seventh century, the expanding Islamic empire expelled the Roman rulers and brought Palestine into the Arab orbit. The Dome of the Rock, an Islamic shrine, was built upon the then-barren Temple mount as a repudiation of Christian doctrine. During the ensuing twelve centuries, the territory changed hands as it was re-conquered by other emerging empires. It passed from the Umayyads, to the Mamluks, and then to the Ottomans. Never, however, in this period did the Arabs of Palestine constitute an independent sovereign entity. From 1517 to 1917, Palestine was an unimportant backwater of the sprawling Ottoman Empire. By the twentieth century, it was "sparsely populated, impoverished, and barren" according to a report made by the League of Nations in 1921.
World War I -- The British Enter the Stage
Upon the collapse of the Ottoman Empire toward the end of the First World War, the Great Powers of the Triple Entente were in the throes of a complicated process of partitioning the empire into Mandates. The British were granted sovereignty of the Palestinian mandate by the Treaties of Sevres and Versailles. The mandatory government gave Britain sovereignty over the peoples living in that region.
Zionism
Political Zionism was an ideological movement that was developed by European Jews in the mid nineteenth century in response to growing persecution and anti-Semitism in Europe. A pragmatic solution, as suggested by Leo Pinsker in the work Auto-Emancipation [1882] was the return to the historic land of Israel. These goals were given coherence by the leadership of Theodore Herzl. The Balfour Declaration, signed in 1917, was a document issued by the British empire granting the Jewish people a national homeland in Palestine. The Balfour Declaration was formalized by 52 governments when the League of Nations met on 24 July 1922.
Since Palestine was a highly underdeveloped region in the Arab world, many Arab leaders initially approved of the Balfour Declaration. Here are some examples:
"Who can challenge the rights of the Jews in Palestine? Good Lord, historically it is really your country."
Yusuf Diya al-Khalidi, Mayor of Jerusalem, 1899
"We Arabs, especially the educated among us, look with deepest sympathy on the Zionist on the Zionist movement... We will wish the Jews a hearty welcome home... our two movements complement each other."
Emir Faisal, leader of the Arab World, 1919
"The resources of the country are still virgin soil and will be developed by the Jewish immigrants. One of the most amazing things until recent times was that the Palestinian used to leave his country, wandering over the high seas in every direction... At the same time we have seen the Jews from foreign countries streaming to Palestine from Russia, German, Austria, Spain, America. The cause of causes could not escape those who had a gift of deeper insight. They knew that the country was for its abna'ihilasliyin [original sons], for all their differences, a sacred and beloved homeland. The return of these jaliya [exiles] to their homeland will provide materially and spiritually [to be] an experimental school for their brethren who are with them in the fields."
Sherif Hussein, guardian of Islamic Holy Places, in Al-Qibla 1918
The Jewish people base their claim to the Land of Israel on four major premises:
[1] The Jewish people had settled and developed the land, and established its cities
[2] The International community granted political sovereignty in Palestine to the Jewish people
[3] Captured territory was acquired in defensive wars
[4] Historical realities had shown that dignified Jewish communal existence was not viable in any country in which Jews were a minority. The only exception to this case was the United States, but its quotas for Jewish immigration was prohibitively low from 1945 until the mid 1950s.
The Yishuv
From the mid-nineteenth century until 1948, the Jewish community in the Palestinian Mandate was called the Yishuv. Most of the Jews who came were impoverished Eastern Europeans who wanted to become farmers. The kibbutzim and moshavim were communist-styled farming communities that used money from Jewish organizations to purchase land from Arab landowners. Most of the land in Palestine was owned by "absentee landlords" who lived in Cairo and Damascus. Furthermore, most of the land was purchased was agriculturally intractable swamplands that were never developed by Arab peasants. The Jews who arrived developed the land using modern agricultural techniques.
Tensions built because the Jews preferred to employ only other Jews on their new farms. As a result, multiple outbreaks of violence broke out against the Jews -- especially in 1909, 1921, and 1936-39. Many of these riots were inspired by the anti-Semitic Hajj Amin al-Husseini -- the mufti of Jerusalem, and de facto leader of the Palestinian people. In response, the Jews formed the Hagganah [the Defense] in order to defend the farming communities.
Immigration
In the 1930s, the need for immigration to Palestine was urgent due to the rise of Nazism. However, the British were in want of oil resources rich in the Arab world, and so instead of opening Palestine to Jewish refugees, they severely limited immigration with two separate legislations called The White Papers. Even after 1945, when the phantasmagoric evils of Nazi genocide was known to the entire world, the British still refused to allow Jewish immigration to Palestine.
As a response, Jewish terrorist groups sought to make the Palestinian mandate so expensive to upkeep, that the British would renounce their claims to it. These groups, like the Irgun and the Stern gang, were responsible in 1946 for bombing a wing of the King David Hotel -- where the British Mandate headquarters was stationed. Although no forms of terrorism should be condoned, it is important to note nonetheless that several anonymous calls were placed warning the British of the plan and asking for the zone to be evacuated.
Partition
The British failed to work out an agreement that would be acceptable to both Arabs and Jews concerning sovereignty of Palestine, as Arab leaders refused to make concessions. As a result, the British turned the issue to the United Nations in February of 1947.
The UN devised a solution called the Partition Plan, or General Assembly Resolution 182, which was passed by a majority of 33 to 13 on 29 November 1947. Of the 13 dissenting votes, 11 came from Arab states,
The Jewish community largely accepted the plan, while the Arab League flatly rejected it. Many Arabs, including Palestinian Arabs, articulated vehemently that they would support no plan in which any Jewish State would be formed.
Alarmed that continued Jewish presence in Palestine would result in the promulgation of a Jewish state, Hajj Amin al-Husseini encouraged the Arab population to force the Jews out. Husseini was known for remarks like:
"Kill Jews wherever you find them. This pleases God, history, and religion. This saves you honor."
A protest strike that began the very day after the passing of the Partition Plan claimed the lives of 62 Jews and 32 Arabs. Large scale assaults began on 9 January 1948, when Arabs of Palestine and neighboring countries assaulted Jewish communities in Northern Palestine. The Jewish defense forces retaliated in response.
The UN Palestine Commission on 16 February 1948 declared that:
Powerful Arab interests, both inside and outside Palestine, are defying the resolution of the General Assembly and are engaged in a deliberate effort to alter by force the settlement envisaged therein.
The havoc that ensued is called the "Intercommunal Phase" of the Israeli War of Independence. Eventually, the British began to abandon mandatory ambitions in Palestine because the situation went out of hand. Without announcement or fanfare, the British left Palestine on 14 May 1948, and the State of Israel declared its independence. Five Arab armies [Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, Lebanon, and Iraq] immediately invaded the new State with the pretense of expunging the Jewish population. As articulated by Azzam Pasha, the Secretary-General of the Arab League:
"This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades."
The War of Independence
The international phase of the war continued until mid-1949. The Israeli defense forces succeeded in repelling attacks from the invading armies on all fronts except in the area around Jerusalem: the Arab Legions of Transjordan, which was led by British command, retained the Eastern half of the city.
The war created a societal collapse among the Palestinian peasants, and many decided voluntarily to emigrate from Palestine. This emigration was strongly influenced by the false promises of the invading Arab countries, which claimed the Jews would be annihilated in the battle and so the Palestinian Arabs could return to their farms after the war.
Many Palestinian villages were coerced to side with the invading armies, and the villages were transformed into on-site weapon depots and training grounds. The Israeli defense was therefore forced to treat those villages as enemy targets. When the invading armies were conquered at these sites, many Palestinians fled from them. The invading armies targeted the kibbutzim and moshavim -- generally making little distinction between Jewish civilians and Jewish soldiers. As a result, about 40% of the Jewish casualties were civilian. Despite these cynical tactics, the Jewish armies refused to attack Palestinian villages that were not militant.
The most disgraceful error in the war was the Dir Yassein Massacre. Dir Yassin was a village on the hillsides of the winding road that connected Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. As all roads to Jerusalem were blocked by the Arab Legions, the Jews of Jerusalem were in a dire situation: they had no access to food, water, or medical supplies. The Arab Legion was trying to force a surrender of the city by starving the Jewish inhabitants. Most of these Jews were Orthodox; they had no weapons and they were the targets of Husseini's murderous riots of 1921 and 1936-39.
The road to Jerusalem was in a valley, on whose flanks were many Arab villages. Attempts to smuggle food and medicine into Jerusalem was brutally stopped by militant villages that bombarded the cargo trucks. In response, the Jewish defense was forced to pacify the villages: one was Dir Yassin. In a horrible military botch, the plan -- originally intended to stop the road-siege of Jeruslaem -- exploded into civilian crossfire when gunfire came from the Arab civilian population. Approximately 115 Palestinian civilians were killed. It is important to note that the Israeli military sent a truck with a loudspeaker near the village, warning civilians to leave. Some Palestinian sources claim there never was a loudspeaker truck -- but these claims are unlikely since ~750 Dir Yassin villagers successfully evacuated before fighting started. By giving this humane warning, Israeli fighters threw away the element of complete surprise, and thus increased their own risk in the ensuing battle. Most [though not all] of the 115 civilians who stayed were most likely accessories to the para-military activity.
The Palestinian Refugee Crisis
Palestinian Arabs who left Palestine during the War of Independence became political refugees in the aftermath of the war. They mostly entered Gaza, Lebanon, and Transjordan [including the West Bank].
Immediately following the war, Palestinian refugees sought to make their livelihood in these states. However, the Arab countries opted to exacerbate the situation by purposefully not allowing Palestinian Arabs to assimilate into their populations; in essence, the Palestinian refugees were exploited in order to generate international criticism of Israel's legitimacy.
The UN general assembly passed Resolution 194 in December 1948, which recommended that Palestinian refugees be re-admitted into Israel. The resolution, although now touted by many as the Palestinian "Right of Return," was voted down by Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Yemen because it implicitly recognized Israel's Right to Exist -- which, at the time, the Arab countries were unwilling to concede... even at the expense of the Palestinian refugees.
In reality, the Right of Return, even if supported by the Arab states was unrealistic for security reasons. The War of Independence had demonstrated the high degree of complicity many of the Palestinian civilians had toward the annihilationist efforts of the invading Arab armies.
Resolution 194 pre-supposed that the Arab countries would recognize Israel's Right to Exist, which many still do not; it would have therefore been highly asymmetrical for Israel to implement Refugee Return without any form of recognition by Arab countries. Furthermore, Resolution 194 called for the return and compensation of all refugees -- implying that the 750,000 Jewish refugees who were exiled from Arab countries following Israel's inception also would have to have been compensated. Even though no effort was done on behalf of Arab nations or the UN to compensate those Jewish refugees, Israel has been a major financial beneficiary to the UNRWA -- the special committee for Palestinian refugees.
Thirdly, the original basis of Zionism was predicated on the 1917 Balfour Declaration, in which Britain promised the Jewish people a national homeland in Palestine. Implementation of the Palestinian Return would demographically obviate that promise by making the Jews a minority in their own state. The Palestinian Right of Return therefore contradicts the original premise of the destiny that was assigned to the Palestinian Mandate when it was first formed.
From the very onset of the war in November 1947, when the UN passed the Partition Plan, the Jews were in favor of a "two-state" solution. Rejecting the plan, Arab leaders unrealistically called for a return to the status quo ante after failing to secure victory against Israel in an offensive and annihilationist war. Israeli policymakers continue to work on effecting a viable and secure two-state solution with their Palestinian neighbors.
|
|
