Future notes’ is not intended to dwell inordinately upon the past but to try and scope better futures from existing possibilities. At present, nowhere is this discourse more deserved than the murderous context of the Palestinian conflict. Thousands of people have died and will continue to die, and it would be somewhat less disheartening if one could visualise an endgame, but at this stage none is on the horizon.
In a nutshell, at the core of the Jewish vision is the total political/economic control of a state sufficiently large to contain all those wishing to live there? Largely because of how the initial efforts to achieve this goal were pursued – thousands of Palestinians Arabs being murdered and some 700,000 forcibly ejected from their homes – the fundamental intention of the Arabs was to prevent the development of a Jewish state in Palestine.
It now appears that all sides, including Hamas, have concluded that the solution must revolve around the creation of two viable states to accommodate Palestinians and Jews. But given the circumstances that led to its development, the constitutional nature of the present state of Israel does not adequately reflect the vision of its founders and many Israelis today. Therefore, regardless of the outcome of Israel’s current objective to eradicate Hamas and the formation of two states the general political context is too duplicitous to lead to lasting peace.
For centuries, particularly in Europe, Jews have been most barbarously illtreated: Jewish pogroms were commonplace. As an early instance: 1,000 years ago, there were very few Jews living in England but the Frenchman William the Conqueror, who took England in 1066, invited them to settle. Under the protection of the king, they lived in peace for a time. But fueled by the Roman Church’s crusades to take back the Holy Land since they were not Christians and jealousy of their legendary financial success, anti semitism increased throughout Europe and in England.
Confronted by anti-Jewish riots in 1189, some Jews locked themselves in a castle and committed suicide. In 1260, some 500 hundred Jews were killed by rioters and calls for all 3,000 of them to be expelled increased. A reluctant king finally issued the Edict of Expulsion in 1290. It is said that Britain was the first country in Europe to expel its Jewish population, and one sea captain, having convinced his passengers to take a break by walking on a sand bank left them there to be taken by the high tide! The well-known Nazi genocidal murder of some six million Jews is only one, but perhaps the most extreme, case, in a long history of suffering.
Given this kind of history, and the relative uniqueness of the Jewish people in not having had a geographical ethnic haven, i.e., a country to which they could go with confidence that their Jewishness would never result in severe negative consequences, I believe that they should have a state over which they have total political control. Not surprising then that the goal of the first Zionist congress held in Switzerland in 1897 stated that: ‘Zionism seeks to establish a home for the Jewish people in Palestine secured under public law.’ Perhaps partly in recompense for their historical behaviour in 1917, the British government, by the Balfor Declaration, was the first country to take up this Zionist theme.
Interestingly, some half dozen other countries including Guyana, Uganda, Japan, and the Soviet Union were considered, but for religious reasons the Jews were hooked on Palestine. In 1940, Guyana was proposed but was ruled out with a cryptic British government comment that: ‘the problem is at present too problematical to admit of the adoption of a definite policy and must be left for the decision of some future Government in years to come!’
The Mandate that formalised British rule over Palestine was approved by the League of Nations in June 1922. The declaration stated that ‘the Principal Allied Powers have also agreed that the Mandatory should be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on 2 November 1917, by the Government of His Britannic Majesty, and adopted by the said Powers, in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.’ The declaration, considered racist by some, was condemned by Palestinians and importantly the British were attempting to walk back the more radical implication: that of having an exclusive Jewish state.
In 1922, Palestine had a population of 757,182: 589,177 Muslims, 73,024 Christians and 83,790 Jews. Jews began to migrate into the area and by 1945 the population was 1,764,520 Muslims, 1,061,270 Christians 135,550 and 550,600 Jews. The immigration of Jews resulted in the forced displacement of the Palestinians from their lands, sectarian conflicts, and ethnic war between Arab and Jews. In 1947, the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine included a two-state solution and at end of the British Mandate over Palestine in 1948 came Israeli’s Declaration of Independence which stated that: ‘Every Jew has the right to come to this country as an oleh (sacred right).’
The state of Israel that resulted from this mess is based on universal equal citizenship for both Jews and Arabs and thus conceptually severely undercuts the historical intention of its founding fathers and those who today want a haven controlled by the Jews for Jews. What was required was for the United Nations and Britain to legally negotiate and acquire geographical space for the establishment of a Jewish state totally and perennially under the control of the Jews. And based upon their success to better manage the influx of Jews into Palestine.
But remember that this project began at the end of the 19th century when the British ruled the roost and maybe thought they could ride roughshod over the Palestinians. Even in 1940, the UN plan for Palestine was awarding Arabs less land than the Jews! Democratic theory was in its infancy: notions of ethnic political/traditional rights that today exist in many places were not universally embedded. But by the middle of the 20th century, two world wars had taken their toll on Britain and colonialism was in its final death throes, giving the Arabs more political space to prosecute the injustices done to them.
What has been said about Hamas can also be said about the Jews: the extremes to which they are prepared to go is a product of their history and until they have a state over which they have total control there will not be lasting peace. Unless this is done, even if two states are created with 20% of the population of Israel being Arabs with equal rights, all manner of de facto apartheid-type discriminatory measure will continue to be concocted to contain them and to nurture criticisms and conflict not only in Israel but in the wider region and the world. Today democratic theory and practice allows a more encouraging pathway, and it should be facilitated.
Similarly, the Palestinians have been dislodged, imprisoned and illtreated in their own land and that will not be easily forgotten. As with Africans who suffered 400 years of slavery, all the consequences cannot be undone but there should be adequate compensation. The UN and the British voluntarily took the responsibility to successfully implement and manage the Palestinian/Israeli project and must replicate the kind of effort being made in Ukraine and keep intervening until this conflict is brought to an end.
This article first appeared as ‘Palestine: an end game‘ and published on
