Zionism and Palestine Part 1

ZIONISM AND PALESTINE: A PRE-PLANNED AND PRE-MEDITATED EFFORT FOR ETHNIC CLEANSING AND LAND THEFT
PROLOGUE: The Zionist propaganda began with a big lie claiming that Palestine was a “land without people for a people without a land”. Palestine, however, was not a ‘land without people’. Accordingly, creation of a ‘Jewish State’ with a ‘Jewish Majority’ implied getting rid of its indigenous population and stealing their homes and lands. The pre-planned and pre-meditated Zionist efforts for Ethnic Cleansing and Land Theft started in 1948 and never stopped to this date.HISTORICAL BACKGROUND: The first people to settle in Palestine were the Cana’anites. After the Cana’anites, outsiders almost continuously occupied Palestine. As a result, Palestine, received an admixture of blood from each of the invaders: Egyptians, Hyksos, Israelites, Persians, Philistines, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Turks, Crusaders and others.



There is no doubt that the Israelites had a historical relationship with Palestine. Palestine, however, was not their birth land. They came to Palestine as invaders, like the many other invaders before and after them.



However, following the Medes and the Persians conquest of the Babylonians, Cyrus, the King of Persia, gave the Jews permission to return to Palestine and rebuild the Temple. Accordingly, some Jews left Babylon and began the long journey to Palestine. Yet, most of the Jews did not want to return. They no longer saw physical possession of the ‘Holy Land’ as essential to the Jewish identity. (Karen Armstrong, Holy War: The Crusades and Their Impact on Today’s World. Macmillan, London, 1988, pp. 12-14)



Moreover, when Moslem Arabs conquered Palestine, Caliph Umar took possession of the holy city of Jerusalem and invited the Jews to return to the holy city. Seventy families from Tiberias came to settle in Jerusalem, establishing a quarter for themselves beside the Muslim community at the foot of their old Temple Mount. Umar also purified the site of the ancient Jewish Temple, which had remained in ruins for nearly six centuries. Umar built a simple wooden mosque at the southern end of the cleared platform, where al-Aqsa Mosque now stands. For this piety, some Jews hailed the Muslims during the seventh century as the precursors of the Messiah. (Karen Armstrong, Journal of Palestine Studies, The Holiness of Jerusalem, Volume XXVII, Number 3, Spring 1998, p. 15)



When the Crusaders conquered Jerusalem in the year 1099 some 30,000 Jews and Muslims were killed in two days. The Crusaders founded several states on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean including the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The Crusades ended in 1291 and Islamic rule was re-established in the area. (Karen Armstrong, Holy War: The Crusades and their impact on Today’s World. See also Journal of Palestine Studies, The Holiness of Jerusalem, Volume XXVII, Number 3, Spring 1998, p. 5)


Judaism is a religion. It is not a nationality. The Jews of today are in no way the descendents of the old Israelites or Hebronites who were driven out of Palestine by the Romans two thousand years ago. Most of today’s Jews were a result of conversions to Judaism from different ethnic and religious groups that were not related to the original Israelites. The Ashkenazim, for example, carry a large proportion of Khazar ancestry in them. The Khazar converted to Judaism in the 7th century and, when they were driven out of their empire in Khazaria by the end of the 10th century, emigrated to Russia and Poland.



THE ZIONIST PROJECT: The call for the creation of a ‘Jewish State’ was made during the second half of the eighteenth century.



In 1862, Moses Hess argued that Anti-Semitism would prevent the Jews from assimilating in Christian society and, consequently, they needed to establish their own national state in Palestine. He pointed out that, “The state the Jews would establish in the heart of the Middle East would serve Western imperial interests and at the same time help bring Western civilization to the backward East”. (Benny Morris, Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-1999. New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1999, p. 15)



In 1882, Leo Pinsker called upon his people to go and settle in Palestine and founded the society of Hovevi Zion, which sponsored emigration of Jews to Palestine. (Hans Kohn, Zion and the Jewish National Idea, from The Menorah Journal, XLVI, Nos. 1 & 2, 1958, reproduced in Walid Khalidi, ed., From Haven to Conquest: Readings in Zionism and the Palestine Problem until 1948. Beirut: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1971. Second Printing, Washington, 1987, pp. 813)



In 1896, Theodor Herzl published his Der Judenstaat. In 1897, Herzl convened the first Zionist Congress (ZC) in Basle, Switzerland. The delegates in the ZC adopted the Basle Program, created the Zionist Organization (ZO) and elected Herzl as its president.



Herzl made it clear that the ‘Jewish State’ would form a colonial outpost in Palestine if the Great powers granted it to them and guaranteed their existence. “We would there form a portion of the rampart of Europe against Asia, an outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism. We should, as a neutral State, remain in contact with all Europe, which would have to guarantee our existence”. (Theodor Herzl, The Jewish State: An Attempt at a Modern Solution to the Jewish Question. London: H. Pordes, Translated by Sylvie D'avigdor - 6th Edition, p. 30)



BORDERS OF THE ‘JEWISH STATE’: During the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, the Zionists asked for the territory outlined within a line running east from Sidon in Lebanon to a point South-East of Damascus. The line then goes south along a line parallel to the Hijaz railway and ends in Aqaba in Jordan. From there, the line goes northwest to Al Arish in Egypt. (David McDowall, Palestine and Israel: The uprising and Beyond, Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1989, p. 20, gives a map outlining this area. See also: Simha Flappan, The Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities, New York: 1987, p. 17). This area includes all of Mandate Palestine, the Golan Heights, the Jordan River, and the southern of Lebanon up to and including the Litani River.



IMPERIALIST DESIGNS: The Middle East, in general, and Palestine, in particular, were at the crossroads of the ancient world and still are at the crossroads of the modern world. This strategic geographic feature exposed Palestine and the surrounding areas to invasion by powers aspirant for hegemony and control and empire building. (For more details, see: Ilene Beaty, Arab and Jew in the Land of Cana’an – Political Rights, Chicago: Henry Regnery Co., 1957. Reproduced in Walid Khalidi, ed, From Haven to Conquest: Readings in Zionism and the Palestine Problem until 1948, Beirut: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1971, pp. 3-23)



The strategic geographical significance of the area was enhanced with the discovery of huge oil reserves towards the end of the nineteenth century. In 1871 a mission of German experts visited Mesopotamia and reported the availability of plentiful supplies. In 1907 a German technical mission reported that Mesopotamia was a veritable “lake of petroleum”. In March 1914 the Turkish Petroleum Company was incorporated in Britain to acquire and exploit the oil resources of northern Mesopotamia. As a result of the breakout of WWI, this agreement was never ratified. According to the San Remo Oil Agreement of 24 April 1920, the French replaced the Germans and acquired 25% share of the company. (The Royal Institute of International Affairs, The Middle East: A Political and Economic Survey, London & New York. Second Edition, 1954, p. 15)



Accordingly, imperialist designs to invade and grab the area were prepared and put into action during WWI and were reflected in the Sykes-Picot agreement of 16 May 1916 and the Balfour Declaration of 2 November 1917.



The U.S.A. blessed and endorsed the Balfour declaration by a Joint Resolution of the Congress in 1922.



The Balfour Declaration launched a state of cooperation between the Zionists and the Imperialist powers. This relationship provided the Zionists with the power to occupy and create a state in Palestine.



PARTITION: In August 1946, the Zionist executive meeting in Paris approved a plan for partition of Palestine. The U.S. accepted the plan and “transmitted an appropriate message to the British government.” At the 22nd ZC in Basle, in December 1946, Ben-Gurion emerged as the unchallenged leader of the Zionist movement and started immediate action in putting his thoughts and ideas into action. From the establishment of the Sonnenborn Institute in New York, to his request for the defense portfolio of the Jewish Agency Executive, Ben-Gurion had long been forecasting and planning for the war. (Michael Bar-Zohar, Ben-Gurion: A Biography. New York: Delacorte Press, 1977, pp. 135 and 141)



On 29 November 1947, UN General Assembly Resolution # 181 (II), outlining a partition plan for Palestine, was adopted.



The Arabs rejected the resolution partitioning their country and giving a large part of it to strangers. In protest, the Arab Higher Committee proclaimed a three-day strike. Incidents grew progressively graver, sudden clashes erupted between Jews and Arabs, and small battles were fought using antiquated light arms.



Tensions went high and violent clashes began between the Palestinians and the Jewish community in Palestine. These clashes were of a limited nature, using antiquated light arms.



The Irgun used the Arab rioting in early December in protest of the partition resolution as a pretext to launch a murderous terrorist campaign that claimed the lives of many Arab civilians in numerous towns and villages. The Irgun leader Menachem Begin later explained his attitude during this period: “My greatest worry in those months was that the Arabs might accept the UN plan. Then we would have had the ultimate tragedy, a Jewish State so small that it could not absorb all the Jews of the world.” Irgun terrorism, however, would make sure that no agreement would be possible. (Michael Palumbo, The Palestinian Catastrophe: The 1948 Expulsion of a People from their Homeland. London/Boston: 1987, pp. 34-35, citing Nicholas Bethell, The Palestine Triangle, p. 354)



Nizar Sakhnini, 24 February 2009