Not too long ago, I posted an article about Israel. I've come to see it as expressing "The Israeli Narrative." That is, my musings were based on Israeli scholarship and a story that makes sense in a lot of ways, but doesn't ever come from the point of view of the 'other' - that is, the Palestinians who were pushed out of modern day Israel and currently live under, for all intensive purposes, Israeli-controlled territorial islands. According to the Israeli Narrative, their plight is the result of having willfully left when Israel claimed statehood, followed by a year of war. But it's hard to imagine, from the perspective of the other, that 300,000 Arabs would have fled Israel with a clear conscience. And this is where the Israel Narrative breaks down. I have outlined here three major inconsistencies with the Israeli Narrative, and you can draw from it what you will.
1) According to the Israeli Narrative, land was acquired for Zionist Jews both peacefully and lawfully. This is true, but only from a Western-European paradigm (a colonialist and capitalist thought-process with particularly western ideas of land ownership). That is, in colonialism, a differing culture exerts its rules and standards on another culture. That is the case with the "peaceful and lawful" acquisition of land for Zionists. Palestinians have historically lived a rural life where peasant laborers grew crops as a means of feeding their families. The land was run like a cooperative. It was "owned" communally. But as the Ottoman Empire was starting its disintegration, a foreign concept of individual land ownership was imposed on the Palestinian people in an effort to raise more revenues for the Ottoman Empire (with individual ownership of land, you can easily impose property taxes). So, Palestinians now needed a clear title or deed of ownership to farm the land they'd been farming for centuries. The peasants, unable to afford this, registered their lands with wealthy investors who would pay the property tax. With no paper trail, this also insured the Palestinians that their children wouldn't be conscripted by the army. Most of these landowners were absentee landlords. The peasants continued to work the land as they'd done for centuries, but as a motivated Zionist population set its sites on the Holy Land, land was easily purchased and inhabited. Was this lawful? Absolutely. But by who's laws? The indigenous population did not agree to it, and they suffered terribly from it as they were cast off the land their families cultivated for generations because new Zionist owners did not want them living on it. Was it peaceful? Absolutely not. With the influx of tens of thousands of Jews upon an indigenous population, the seed of a Palestinian nationalist movement was planted, and displacing a people is never a peaceful affair.
2) The Israeli Narrative blames the Palestinian refugee problem on anti-semitism and a willful exodus on the part of the Palestinians. This has been a recurring issue because Hamas has in its platform the requirement that Palestinians have the right to return to their homeland, while Israel claims they were never forced out but lost that right by willfully leaving. The Palestinian exodus has to be understood with regard to the war between Israel and the Palestinians starting right after the UN declared the state of Israel. The Palestinians went on the offensive and Israel defended itself. Little outside Arab resistance came to support the Palestinians, and due to Israel's superiority in military training and organization, the virtually leader-less Palestinians did not stand much of a chance. There were tragedies and extreme brutality coming from both sides. Israel eventually went on the offensive and made an extreme and notorious attack at Deir Yassin. Between 100-200 men, women, and children died despite the village's non-aggression pact with the Jewish Defense Force, Haganah. What followed was a propaganda campaign terrorizing Palestinian communities. Scholar Gregory Harms writes, "As Arab radio stations broadcast news of Deir Yassin, Zionist forces in trucks with loudspeakers further terrorized Arab peasants and villagers with threats of similar violence" (94). Shortly thereafter, 300,000 Arabs had fled their homes and Israel had a refugee problem still causing strife today.
3) According to the Israeli Narrative, the international war following the Civil War was like the story of David and Goliath, where a united and bellicose Arab league fought a vastly outnumbered 650,000 Jews, and the Jews came out victorious. What actually happened was that the invading countries - Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Lebanon - sent around 23,000 troops and met Israel's 30,000-40,000 troops (96). We should not downplay the anti-semitism pouring out of these Arab countries at the time (and today), but these countries were not all united, and they were locked in rivalries of power themselves. Suffering from struggling economies, political instability, and competition for being the leading Arab nation, they were reluctant to fight Israel, and put in a half-hearted effort. Harms writes, "As one might predict, with a lack of cohesion, no plans, and insufficient troops, the Arab countries did not fare well in the conflict" (98). When the Israelis won, approximately 700,000 Palestinians fled or were forced from their homes into Arab-held Palestine or surrounding Arab countries. Thousands and thousands of these Palestinians fled to Arab-held Gaza and the West Bank. In the 1967 war, opposing numerous cease-fire orders issued by the UN, including Security Council Resolution 233, Israel tripled its size and acquired for its own both Gaza and the West Bank, coming to control 1.1 million Palestinians. According to the Israeli narrative, this was all justified with respect to their need for defense, which finds its footing on the David and Goliath analogy. So long as the surrounding Arab nations are seen as equipped, trained, thirsty for blood and revenge, and united in its desire to destroy Israel, the David and Goliath story stands, and the acquisition of these territories seems justifiable. But the surrounding Arab nations have not had this united front, and as a whole, they've been more respectful of UN resolutions than the Israelis have. They've been far more open-minded in negotiating with Israel than Israel's been, but, in fairness, that's perhaps because they have more to gain from it and less to lose. But even that is not altogether clear. What does Israel have to gain by separatist policies? Palestine and Israel have been in a state of conflict since Zionism began its work in Palestine, and so long as Israel imposes heavy-handed restrictions on a Palestinian state, no end of the violence is in sight, which begs the question: is Israel safer with the wall they've constructed? Is it really in their best interest to (not) negotiate peace treaties with as much arrogance and lack of diplomacy as they have? Does it make the lives of Israelis better? Or safer?
For peace in the Palestine-Israeli conflict, it seems that the Israeli Narrative needs to be critically examined. Its ideas are consistent and reasonable, but only from within the colonialist perspective. The indigenous perspective needs to be given much more respect and attention in the peace process for the good of both parties.
Harms, Gregory and Todd M. Ferry. The Palestine Israel Conflict, a Basic Introduction. 2nd ed. New York: Pluto Press, 2008.
Hey Mike, another great article.
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