Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 22:35:36 +0100
From: Jan Straathof <janstr-AT-chan.nl>
Subject: BHA: <fwd> Israel/Palestine


Do Jews Belong in Palestine? Palestinians often argue that Jews just
moved into the neighborhood and took over. MITCHELL BARD says
they actually never left.
http://historynewsnetwork.org/articles/article.html?id=706

Have the Jews colonized Palestine?  ROBERT L. TIGNOR says that is
certainly how Palestinians see things and that's what makes the
conflict so difficult to solve.
http://historynewsnetwork.org/articles/article.html?id=717

In need of websites to help you understand the history behind the
Middle East conflict?  HNN Staff put together a guide.
http://historynewsnetwork.org/articles/article.html?id=705

-----
Commentary No. 89, May 15, 2002

"Israel/Palestine: It's Getting Ugly"

by Immanuel Wallerstein


The conflict between the two nationalisms has been going full steam at least
since the First World War. As of 1945, neither nationalism was ready to
concede any legitimacy to the other. Arab nationalists regarded Zionists as
intruders without any legitimate rights. And Zionists thought that the
entire territory of the mandate of Palestine should be the "Jewish national
home." The British as the mandatory waffled, but generally speaking most
parties to the conflict and most analysts thought they were somewhat more on
the Arab side than on the Zionist side.

In the world political debate from 1945-1947, the Arabs were in a weak
position. Many Arab leaders (and in particular the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem)
had sided with the Axis powers. The Zionists had the benefit of European
guilt about Nazi extermination of Jews in Europe. The Soviet Union wanted
the British out of the Middle East, and so in fact did the United States
(although it didn't say so). The British were in a withdrawal mode in any
case (not only from Palestine but from Greece and Turkey as well).

So when the British announced they would abandon the mandate, the United
Nations voted a partition. The vote was overwhelming. Only the Arab states
and a handful of others opposed the resolution. The Zionists reluctantly
accepted partition (with its crazy initial boundaries), feeling that the
crucial thing was to get a state, any state, from which they could pursue
their claims further. This turned out to be a politically shrewd decision.
When independence was declared on May 15, 1948, the United States and the
Soviet Union raced to be the first to recognize.

The Arab states, in the absence of a functioning Palestinian nationalist
movement, decided to declare war. They more or less lost the war, and the
boundaries shifted to the advantage of the independent state of Israel.
Jordan and Egypt annexed the parts of the mandate that Israel didn't
control. As we know, there were two more wars between Israel and the Arab
states, in 1967 and 1973, at the end of which Israel took control from
Jordan and Egypt of the West Bank and Gaza, respectively (and conquered the
Sinai and the Golan for good measure). The Palestine Liberation
Organization, the organizational incarnation of Palestinian nationalism, was
founded in 1964 but only became important after the 1967 war. Yasser Arafat
becomes its leader in 1969.

The first break in the hostilities was the Camp David Accord of 1978 between
Egypt and Israel. It led to a peace treaty and to the return of the Sinai to
Egypt. It was the beginning of a new stage in the struggle between the two
nationalisms. From 1945 to 1978, both sides espoused publicly an absolutist
position. The Israelis argued, as Golda Meir famously said, that there was
no such thing as Palestine (or that, if there were, it was Jordan).
Consequently, there could be no such thing as a Palestinian state to be
located within the area that had been the British mandate. And the PLO
Covenant rejected the right of the Israeli state to exist.

The period from 1978 to 2000 was the time of the "moderates" - that is, of
those on each side who claimed that a compromise was possible, that there
could be two states at peace with each other. Of course, each side still
expected the other side to make the major concessions, but at least the
leaders on each side (or most of the leaders) with the support of their
populations (at least large parts of their populations) talked the language
of peace. The high point of this was the so-called Oslo accords. To be sure,
there were those on each side who rejected the Oslo accord. Indeed, many
rejected them unconditionally and with violence. But the major powers of the
world and probably the majority of Israelis and Palestinians thought Oslo
might work, and more or less wanted it to work.

It didn't. Everyone is busy these days pointing fingers at who made it fail.
The favorite villains are Ariel Sharon and Yasser Arafat. Frankly, who
cares? For after Oslo came the present continuing war. The Israeli
government and armed forces enter Palestinian areas at will and do whatever
they think justified. Since they are militarily far stronger than the
Palestinians, they can wreak considerable damage. The weaker Palestinians
engage in martyrdom operations. There doesn't seem to be the slightest
indication that this will stop in the near future.

Meanwhile the language of everyone is changing. Likud has just said publicly
what everyone knew it felt privately. There should NEVER be a Palestinian
state. And at least some Palestinian activists are reverting to "death to
the Jews" slogans. In the outside world, too, there is an interesting switch
going on. In the period 1945-1978, in the Western world, support for Israel
was to be found largely on the left of center (where world Jewry found
itself as well). The right tended to be pro-Arab, often simply because of an
anti-Semitic heritage. After 1978 or thereabouts, a slow reversal began. The
pro-Israel camp took on an ever more right of center (even far right)
coloration (as did both world Jewry and Israel itself). The world left of
center moved toward ever greater sympathy for the Palestinian cause.

Since we seem to be in for a period of unremitting and unlimited warfare in
Israel/Palestine, tempers are inflamed. What were once outrageously
extremist views are now becoming anodyne. The limited tolerance in each camp
of "moderate" or 'peace" views, which had somewhat blossomed after 1978,
seems to have been swept away in the violence of 2001-2002 - within Israel,
and in the rest of the world. And the fighting seems to be spreading from
inside the region to increasingly nasty confrontations between supporters in
the rest of the world.

Those who have the courage and intelligence to stand, amidst an ever uglier
brawl, for a two-state solution, two states of equal legal status within
more or less the 1967 boundaries, are getting fewer, and are certainly not
being treated well anywhere. The United States, fighting its own demons, has
abandoned any real pretense of fair-play involvement, and is making sure
that no one else can play this role.

The short run is with the Israeli hawks. They have the guns (and the nuclear
weapons). And they have 99% U.S. support. But the middle run doesn't look
good for any one - not Israelis, not Palestinians, not Jews, not Arabs - and
not Americans. And let us not forget. Someone may soon be using tactical
nuclear weapons.

Fernand Braudel Center, Binghamton University
http://fbc.binghamton.edu/commentr.htm





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