Palestine and the Creation of Israel

To understand the current war on Gaza, one has to step back in history, where the seeds of the current conflict had been sown.

First Zionist Conference in Basle, Switzerland in 1897:

Conditions in Palestine at the time: Palestine had been under Ottoman rule for 400 years.  Composition of Palestinian population at the time: 400,000 Muslims, 53,000 Christians, and 47,000 Jews, making a total of 500,000 members living in harmony.

Mission of the Basle Conference: Colonize Palestine through massive immigration of Zionist settlers.  Although European Zionists began to arrive in Palestine in 1880, their numbers had increased sharply following the Basle conference.  Such a sharp increase in immigration alerted and disturbed the indigenous population, and led to confrontations with the new arrivals.

Outbreak of World War 1 Britain pledged to Arabs to free their lands, including Palestine, and grant them independence if the Arabs join British Forces to defeat Turkey and its ally Germany (the MacMahon Letter).  In 1916 Britain and France entered into a secret Sykes-Picot agreement to divide Arab lands between them, whereby Britain was assigned Jordan and Iraq, and France was granted Syria and Lebanon; Palestine was internationalized. In 1917 British and Arab forces entered Palestine and were welcomed by the Palestinians.  However, the British, instead of honoring their commitment to the Arabs as articulated in the MacMahon Letter, they switched their allegiance to support the Zionists, under the Balfour Declaration (a letter from British Foreign Secretary Lord Balfour to Zionist leader Lord Rothschild.)  In this letter the British Government pledged to work toward the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine.

 The 1918 San Remo conference: Britain was granted mandate over Palestine, and Sir Herbert Samuel, a declared Zionist was appointed as Britain’s High Commission in Palestine in order to implement the Balfour Declaration.  With the break of Second World War, the British government approached the Arabs with a new pledge, articulated in a new White Paper restricting Zionist immigration into Palestine and promising independence to the Palestinians in 10 years, conditional on Arab participation in the war alongside British Forces.  The Arabs took the bait, and at the end of the war, the British reneged on their pledge again. In 1947 the British decided to withdraw from Palestine and leave its population to defend itself against marauding Zionist gangs, heavily armed and well trained, to pillage and plunder Palestinian homes, farms, cities and villages.

 1947 Partition Plan of Palestine: Following the British decision to withdraw from Palestine, the United Nations, under tremendous pressure by the United States, agreed to partition Palestine into two segments.  According to this partition, the Palestinians who comprised 70% of the population and owned 92% of the land would be allotted 47% of the total land; while the Zionists who comprised 30% of the population and owned 8% of the land would receive 53% of the land including its most fertile and productive regions (the US has never been fair or just when it comes to Palestinian/Israeli issues.)  This partition plan was accepted by the Zionists who viewed as a base for future land confiscations, and, was naturally rejected by the Palestinians.  Following the British departure from Palestine in May, 1948, Israel was declared a state, even though its borders were never determined, and left to future land grabs. Currently Israel sits on 78% of historic Palestine, and trying to squeeze the Palestinians out of their last 22% of their ancestral homeland.

 The degradation of Israeli Occupation: Ever since Israel’s creation the Palestinians have lived a nomadic life moving from one refugee camp to another in search of relative safety, and escape Israeli army and settler brutalities.  Those brutalities included: home demolitions, land confiscations, destruction of infrastructure as currently happening in Gaza, siphoning water from Palestinian controlled areas for use in settler swimming pools, destruction of trees, assassinations, military incursions wreaking death and destruction, endless closures and numerous checkpoints, imprisonment without charges or trials (there are 11,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.)  Israel’s current war on Gaza reflects the savagery of its handling of Palestinians and exhibits utter contempt for their lives and property, such savagery would not have been possible if it was not for George Bush’s blessings and supplied weapons. Israel’s brutalities toward the Palestinians, although widely reported by respected human rights organization, are rarely mentioned in American media, and issues of Israel’s use of torture and violations of human rights are never discussed, let alone condemned. The Palestinians have endured humiliation and deprivation since the creation of Israel 60 years ago, and are fully justified in defending themselves by all means available to them.