The Bird in Israel

Introduction

From the outset it should be pointed out that the underlying factors for the conflict in the Middle East are two:

The Jewish - Christian factor

When the Jews rebelled against the Roman Empire in AD 70, Titus the emperor destroyed Jerusalem. From then the Jews stood apart from other peoples in two important aspects. One was that in general they did not intermarry and assimilate with the other peoples of the region. The other was their religious genius which produced the first of three great monotheistic faiths. The Ten Commandments and the Judaic legal code which derives from them were by far the highest system of morality to be developed by mankind.

But because the Jews regarded themselves as a distinctive people, specially chosen by God, Judaism was never a proselytizing religion. There was no question of huge masses converting to the Jewish faith as was the case of its two successors- Christianity and Islam. Jesus and his Apostles were Jews and originally Christianity was a movement within Judaism but because of the rigidity earlier mentioned Christianity did not make headway among the Jewish people and it was soon directed to the gentile world.

The Islamic factor

There two aspects of the Islamic religion which are of special importance to the subsequent history of the Middle East. The first is that while Muslims do not believe Muhammad to be divine for Islam is the most fiercely monotheistic of faiths, adhering to the belief that “there is no God but Allah”. They therefore hold that Islam is the ultimate faith which completes and perfects the other two heavenly religions- Judaism & Christianity. Muslims believe that if mankind as a whole has not yet accepted Islam, it is due to the failings of the community of Muslim believers (Umah).

The other important fact is that the prophet, unlike Jesus, was a political leader and organizer of genius, and in Islam there is no separation between religion and politics and no concept of a secular state. Let us derail a little into the implications of this last aspect. Together the Koran and the Sunnah form the sources of Islamic law (Shalia). It is neither canonical law nor secular law because no such concept exists in Islam.

So the shalia is rather a whole system of social morality, prescribing the ways in which man should live if he is to act according to God’s will. If he contravenes the shalia his offense is against God and not the state. In the Western World this is usually described as fundamentalism but in the real sense all Muslim believers are fundamentalists.

Revival of a State

1914, nearly 2000 years since the last failure to restore Jewish independence in Palestine; the idea of mass return of Jews in the world of Palestine was conceived. It was being advanced by ‘practical Zionists’. At the time there were80,000 estimated Jews as compared to 650,000 Arabs.

The concept of ‘political Zionism’ was to turn Palestine into a Jewish state and this was pioneered by a prominent Austrian political journalist Theodor Herzl.

For tactical reasons the Zionists spoke of a ‘home’ rather than a ‘state’ in Palestine. But this did not help, as several of their requests were turned down. Notable among were: Sinai, Cyprus, Egypt and Uganda.

There followed a decade of frustration for political Zionism, but their ground work seemed far more reaching. In 1917 the British foreign secretary, Arthur Balfour wrote to a leading British Zionist Jew, lord Rothschild to what became the Balfour declaration. The letter said in part ‘….. Palestine should be reconstituted as the National home for the Jewish people……’ Although this might have sounded a little too strong for the British government, it nevertheless lost no time in implementing its terms. Weizman who was president of the English Zionist federation arrived at Jerusalem after its capture and established its headquarters there.

By 1918 although 90% of the people of Palestine were Arabs, it was now clear that the Zionists were ready to take over the country and place the Arabs in subjection. And surely they were in no position to foresee that they had created a political time-bomb that its effects were to be unprecedented.

In 1927 there were nil Jewish immigration into Palestine and in 1928 the net immigration was only ten persons. The Zionist hopes of dominance receded. In 1929 the situation sharply deteriorated. In August, Britain consented to the creation of an enlarged Jewish Agency in which half the members were recruited from Zionist sympathizers outside Palestine.

Britain, U.S.A & UN Stamp

In the first half of the 1930s there was a sharp rise in the Jewish immigration from 4,000 in 1930 to 30,000 in 1933 and 62,000 in 1935. The coming to power of the labor government in Britain in 1945 raised the hopes of the Zionists. One it had opposed the 1939 white paper which provided for the limitation of Zionist immigration over the next five years to 75,000 and subject to Arab ‘acquiescence’. Secondly, and most importantly, in the conference of 1944 it had passed a resolution suggesting that the Arabs should move out of Palestine as the Jews moved in.

As soon as the 1945 war ended President Truman cabled the British government to demand the immediate entry of 100,000 Jews into Palestine. The U.S Congress had wanted unrestricted immigration.

August 1947 a majority report of a UN Special Commission on Palestine (UNSCOP) recommended the partition of Palestine in to Arab and Jewish states, which would be economically unified with Jerusalem and its environs to be international.

By a vote of 33 to 13 with 10 abstentions, these recommendations were substantially adopted by the UN General Assembly in its Resolution 181 of November 29^th 1947. This resolution was passed because both the USA and the Soviet Union which then dominated the UN, voted in favor. Only the Islamic Asian countries voted against the resolution. An Arab proposal to question the International Court of Justice on the competence of the General Assembly to partition a country against the wishes of the majority of its inhabitants (at the time there were 1,269, 000 Arabs and 678,000 Jews) was narrowly defeated.

Despite the fact that they possessed 8% only of the total possessions, the Jews acquired 55%. The Arabs were dissatisfied with the partition and particularly outraged because the proposed Jewish state would include almost as many Arabs as Jews.

The Seeds of Terrorism

It should be noted that prior and during this period the Jews carried out activities that had it been their counterparts the Arabs, they would and rightly so have been referred to as terrorists. For instance a splinter group from the mainstream Haganah (Jewish army) joined hands with the more extreme Stern Gang in wide spread attacks which culminated in to the murder of lord Moyne a British minister of state in Cairo in November 1944. The Irgun and the Stern who were extreme Zionists overran Arab villages and a total of 250 inhabitants of the DeirYasin village were reportedly massacred.

Despite of the above mentioned, the dice had been cast and on 14^th May 1948 the British high commissioner left Palestine and the mandate formally ended. The Zionists immediately proclaimed the state of Israel and within hours they had received the defacto recognition of the Soviet Union and United States. There were no proposals as how the partition of Palestine should be carried out and financed. Israel was now a state with neither political nor geographical boundaries. Britain merely handed over power to whichever community was locally in the ascendancy. Communal fighting broke out immediately and soon developed into full-scale civil war.

It was a unanimous decision by the Arab league to intervene in Palestine. Early on 15^th May, units of the regular armies of Syria, Transjordan, Iraq and Egypt crossed the frontiers of Palestine in the hope of restoring the situation for Arabs.

40 million Arabs confronting some 600, 000 Zionist-Jews in fact to take it to the battle field they were 60, 000 Jewish troops. The Syrian and Iraqi leaders were so ignorant of the situation that they expected a walk-over. At first all went well, for they entered Gaza, Beersheba and Bethlehem. It was not until a blockade was tried at the Jewish west Jerusalem to cut the road from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem that disaster struck.

A ceasefire was secured, proposals made but rejected by both sides. Jews broke the siege of west Jerusalem, captured Nazareth and Galilee. By January 1949 the Jews had occupied the whole of Negev up to Egyptian boarder only 21% of Palestine remained for the Arabs and between 700,000 Arabs to 750,000 had become refugees. Neither the new state of Israel nor its neighbors were ready to offer the now destitute Arabs a place to call home. In the mean time no Arab state was ready to consider any peace treaty with Israel and Jerusalem was now to be divided between the Arab East and Jewish West. The Gaza strip came under the Egyptians.

Arabs Humbled!

In December 1948 a conference of about 2000 Arab notables meant to unite Palestine and Jordan was called. Jordan acquired a population twice as numerous and, half a million of them were destitute refugees. While King Hussein was trying to prevent Palestinian fedayeen from operating in his territory, Syria gave them encouragement and support. And as expected Israel’s heavy retaliation was principally directed against Syria.

In 1966, Syria, Egypt and Jordan signed a comprehensive defense pact. Tensions were on a high. The Arab states were filled with a state of emotional self-intoxication that final victory over Israel was imminent. Some believed that the United States would restrain Israel from attacking and that they could score a tactical victory without fighting. They were wrong. But even then, experience should have taught them better, for any last doubts should have been removed when the activist General Mashe Dayan joined Israel cabinet on 1^st June, 1967. On 7^th June after destroying Egypt it was turn to Jordan, Jerusalem and West Bank fell. Syria came next, the Golan Heights were stormed and Quneitra and by 10^th June Syria also accepted a ceasefire.

The swift and shattering course of the six-day War had many immediate and long term consequences. But before we look at that, why was there reason for the Arabs to think U.S would stop Israel from attacking? One is that by this time more than half of the total oil production came from the middle-east. Notable among these were Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq. It is estimated that Saudi Arabia had more than $ 250 billion on its World Bank reserves. Most of the companies involved in the oil drilling were American and English companies among them included; the Standard Oil of California, Texas company and Mobil

Secondly at this time it was a bipolar World there was the Far-East bloc [USSR] and the Western bloc [USA]. Having denied USSR control over Persia [Iran] the Arabs thought they had brought USA on board.

It may sound ironical, but it is a humble opinion that as the Arab countries amassed their World Bank Accounts with billions of dollars, these later turned out to be the ammunition that killed them. Through World Bank and IMF, Great Britain and USA are able to support and sustain the Israel economy through the ‘generous grants’.

Israel Grows Wings…

After the war, in November 1967 the UN Security Council Resolution 242 calling for an Israel withdrawal from the occupied territories in return an Arab recognition for an Israeli state was accepted.

The other major consequence of the war was that the Palestinian Arabs no longer looked at the Arab regular armies to liberate Palestine. Al-Fattah, the largest of the unofficial Palestine guerrilla organization had since 1965 carried out operations from Jordan and Syria.

In 1969 the small and dynamic Yasir Arafat took over as leader from the discredited Ahmed Shakairy. Although the PLO operated within other Arab states it was never controlled by them.

1970, Sadat had taken over as president of Egypt. His intentions were very clear, he wanted victory over Israel for the essential purpose of obliging the West-especially the United States to revise its view of the Middle-East conflict. Thus in the summer of 1973 together with Syria launched an offensive against Israel. The Arabs strongest weapon was to be the element of total surprise, which was being helped by Israel’s complacency.

Again Israel’s military recovery was swift, helped by the immediate and massive airlift of the most sophisticated arms from the United States and the onslaught was completed by General Ariel Sharon.

On 26^th March 1979, The Treaty of Washington was signed bringing an end of a thirty-one years state war between Israel and Egypt. However, on 30^th July 1979 Israel declared the whole of Jerusalem including Arab Eastern part as a United and eternal capital of Israel.

In June 1980 the members of the European Community issued what was called the Venice Declaration, in which they said that the PLO should be ‘associated’ but as long as United States held 99% of the cards in Middle East, Israel could ignore this.

On 6^th June 1982 Israel launched a full- scale invasion on Lebanon on the pretext that there was an attempted assassination on its London ambassador, not by a Lebanese but a young Palestinian. Thousands died, Arab states were appalled because of their inability to influence events.

The Israelis secured a stronghold on the PLO headquarters in Beirut. But Israel more than the U.S found that its objectives in Lebanon were far from achieved, for the PLO structures were destroyed but Arafat and PLO survived and eventually made their headquarters in Tunis. Israel’s dreams were further shattered by the assassination of a newly elected Christian leader of Lebanon. The Israeli forces faced increasing attacks from Lebanese fighters who also included members of the Hezbollah [or the party of God].

A Ray of Hope

By June 1985 Peres was able to secure the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon, however maintaining military advisers in southern part of the country.

PLO survived as an organization and Arafat pursued a diplomatic offensive as he shuttled between the many capitals of the World. In December 1987 the Palestinians in the occupied territories began an uprising (Intifada). It took the form of demonstrations, tyre burning the raising of the Palestinian flag and strikes.

Its characteristic feature was the hurling of stones at Israeli soldiers and it mainly involved adolescents and even children.

The Israeli authorities were surprised by the intensity and persistence of the uprising. They responded with mass arrests and deportations, curfews and beatings. After a period of two years, some 50,000 Palestinians had been arrested and more than 500 killed. About half of those arrested were under eighteen years.

The Intifada suppress was costly for Israel and its success of staying alive gave a whole fresh impetus to the PLO. Although PLO had neither timed nor organized the internal rebellion, the Arabs under occupation left no doubt that they regarded it as their representative and Arafat as their leader.

Algiers November 1988 Palestine was declared an independent state and Arafat as its president. The Palestine National Council for the first time unambiguously declared its acceptance of the UN Security Council Resolution 242 of 1967 a step which the United States had long been demanding as a demonstration that PLO was willing to recognize Israel. It also declared that it was renouncing all forms of terrorism.

Still to Come… (Conclusion)

It is now more than two decades after the acceptance of the UN Security Council Resolution 242 and the recognition of Israel as a state by Palestinians, and yet war, bloodshed still loom around their courtyard. It is to be an unfinished business not until Israel’s political and geographical frontiers are redefined. Until Britain, United States of America and the United Nations realize and accept the fact that the Jews are not ‘a special people’ (according to the treatment), peace in the Middle East would be a far fetched dream, as Muslims (Arabs) will continue to die in numbers in the belief that fighting (Jihad) is one way to get to heaven (Jana).

In 70 A.D the World population was in its hundreds of millions, today it is more than five billion and yet still, the surface area has not changed but we still believe and work around the clock that a people should be glorified and idolized as others are put into subjection! The world will always ask for more, and what seems fair. The oppressed will always fight on in a spirit of survival. It is now not only a conflict of the Middle-East, not only between Jews and Arabs but now of faiths and it stretches from one corner of the Globe to the other. It has broken both, the political and geographical barriers. From Sudan and Somalia in Africa to Afghanistan, India and Pakistan in Asia, from the Heath row airport in Europe to the twin towers in the United States. It is a 3^rd World War in waiting and the reading is on the wall. It is a question calling for natural human justice and we either pretend or talk straight but there seems not to be too much time left. The World should have acted yesterday.