the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict: An Introduction

It is a truism that "history is written by the victors." Something unique has happened, the history of the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict is being written by the losers, on social media, in the press and academia. Google is so swamped with pro-Palestinian propaganda that contradictory facts cannot be found. The history can be so complex, with so much information and so many ethical, cultural and religious viewpoints that I believe only by cutting the story to the barebones can it be understood.

In the 19th and 20th century Palestine was a total shithole. A small elite of families of 'notables', 'effendis' who claimed descent from Arabian conquerors ruled as agents of the Ottomans over tribes of (fellaheen): dirty, ignorant, desperately poor, violent peasants. Lice, mosquito, flea and faecal borne diseases were common, infant mortality was very high and life expectancy was around 35. European tourism to Palestine increased in the 19th century because it was the "Holy Land" of Christianity and they could now expect to receive some protection. Those who recorded their visits all agreed that it was a nearly empty desert, worthless except for its religious history.

In the 19th century Great Britain and other countries in Europe became the dominant financial, manufacturing and military powers on earth with Britain the most powerful. In this time the Levant or Middle East was ruled by the Ottoman Empire though it's sharia, medieval, guild controlled Islamic society was unable to compete with Europe and Russia and was making efforts to 'reform' ie Europanize itself. European travellers in Palestine in the 19th century reported it was a wasteland in which they required armed guards for protection from the 'natives'.

The Palestinians were living in the Ottoman Empire, ruled by Turks. Palestine was a very poor area, the majority of inhabitants were permanently indebted peasants or fellaheen ruled and exploited by the 'notables' or effendi landowning class. They spoke Arabic having been conquered and converted when they were Byzantine Christians but are genetically descendants of ancient Canaanites as were the Zionist Jews. It's quite remarkable that in 1905 Ben Borochov (1881-1917), one of Socialist Zionism's fathers wrote in "On the Issues of Zionism and Territory":

The Fellahin in Eretz-Yisrael are the direct descendants of the remnants of the Jewish and Canaanite agricultural community, with a very slight admixture of Arab blood; for as is well known, the Arabs, proud conquerors, mixed very little with the mass of the people in the lands which they conquered […] Thus the ethnic difference between the Jews of the Diaspora and the fellahin of Eretz-Yisrael is no greater than the difference between the Ashekenazi and the Sephardi Jews. The local people are neither Arabs or Turks.24

Britain had a Great Power interest in Palestine, it was close to the Egypt and Suez Canal but there was also a quirky religious tradition, a wide-spread British-Israelism movement with which many upper-class Victorians identified and a belief known as Christian Restorationism which taught that return of the Jewish people to the Holy Land must occur before Christ could return to earth. The British had no interest in the wishes of the Palestinians. Joseph Balfour, the Foreign Secretary famously said "In Palestine we do not propose even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country."

In 1917 when the outome of WW1 was uncertain the British government published the Balfour Declaration supporting a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine. This was a decision made by a small group of old men in London for which there were no rational grounds but quite a number of mistaken ones. Britain and its allies did win the war and in 1922 their administration was formalised under a Mandate for Palestine by the League of Nations including the establishment of this Jewish :home.".

In the late 19th century Jews began leaving Europe and migrating to Palestine in response to terrible oppression in Eastern Europe. They were Zionists, seeking to create a Jewish homeland in Ottoman Palestine. There did not seem there was any possibility that this could be accomplished. They were not very many and they were not very successful. They relied on Jews in other countries financing them. Their migration was legal and they bought land and settled. By 1914 there were app. 600,000 Arabs (mostly Muslim) and 100,000 Jews. The Ottomans did not maintain a reasonable rule of law in the area and the Jews were greeted with criminal attacks by the local fellaheen. They were so hopeless at self defence that they often hired guards to protect themselves from the very villages attacking them.

Jews are descendants of ancient Canaanite people, the Israelites, who lived in the area currently now known as Israel and the West Bank for 2,000 years until the suppression of the Bar Kokhba revolt in 135 AD. Hadrian then expelled the Jews. They recorded their history in the Tanahk (Jewish Bible) aka the Christian Old Testament. Judaism has evolved from the time of the Diaspora but a return to Zion, the Holy Land, was always part of it. However, there was no right of return then, as now.

There were always some religious Jews living in the Jerusalem area but in the late 19th century a new and increasing number of Jews, the Zionists, began to arrive and purchase land and settle in towns and create farming settlements. They were escaping persecution and they had a dream, if they could create a Jewish state, a Jewish country, then Jews would be safe. The Zionists were Jews but a different type of non-submissive Jew, outsiders, feranghi, Crusaders, Europeans, Russians, etc. The people of Palestine were not famous for their welcoming atitude, they quickly developed a paranoid fear that the Zionists would replace them even before they had reached 10% of the total population. This reflected either paranoia or a deep understanding of their social and cultural weakness. Replacing the dominant Muslim and Christian 90% was clearly impossible …

unless there was a world war and Turkey chooses the losing side which ends the Ottoman Empire
unless a desperate Britain gives away the Middle East and millions of pounds to an Arab pretender who can only assemble a few thousand tribesmen to go looting
unless a desperate Britain promises a Jewish home in Palestine in a forlon fantasy driven by old men with weid religious ideas
unless a newly created world body approves this Jewish homeland
unless the Palestinians are ruled by one man whose only competence is maintaining his control of them by any means necessary and driving them to their ruin
unless a crazed dictator rules Germany and forces hundreds of thousands of Jews to flee Europe
unless the Arabs begin a rebellion against the British and lose
unless the Arab rebellion convinces the British government to end Jewish immigration to Palestine in fear of the coming world war
unless the Arabs support Germany in the second world war and Germany loses but kills 6 million Jews
unless Jews become so incensed that radical groups begin a Zionist terrorist insurgency that forces the British to leave Palestine in the hands of the UNO
unless the UNO decides on partitioning Palestine into two possible states and the Jews accept
unless the Arabs start a civil war against the Jews and lose
unless the woefully unprepared Arab nations start a war against Israel and lose
unless the MENA Arab nations expel their Jewish citizens and over 800,000 are forced to emigrate to Israel

but what are the odds that that chain of events could occur …

There was an argument made when I was a boy that the Jews had suffered so much that they deserved to have a state. Today, there is an argument made that the Palestinians have suffered so much and the the British politicians lied so much that Israel should never have been allowed. Somehow the first argument was replaced by the second one while I was at the beach one summer and didn't notice. I do not attempt to consider the suffering, pain and heartache felt by any of the people involved in or affected by these events.

I am not a believer in any religion. I ascribe no value to Jewish religious ideas about JHWH giving the land of Canaan to the Jews or that their past history gives them any right of return and neither do I accept Muslim views of Palestine as a blessed land, al Quds, al Buraq, etc from where Mohammed rose to the 7th heaven. I only care about facts on the ground.

Where possible I have taken the facts from Palestinian and pro-Palestinian sources or compared them to the formerly dominant history.