Article by: Azmat Mumtaz Saqib
Part I
It is impossible to think of the plight of Palestinians at the hands of the Free World and not recall the childhood fairy tale of Little Red Riding Hood and its dark if obscure underpinnings.
Are the Western powers intent on reinterpreting the tale, equating the wolf with the grandmother? They are telling the little girl to celebrate the wolf for his focused and dynamic approach to achieving his objectives convincingly – and to try and negotiate a settlement with him in the best interest of peace.
The grisly tale begins about a hundred years ago. Europeans in general and Russian and Germans, in particular, have a history of persecuting Jews, which they felt guilty about. European justice kicks into action. The deprived Jews are compensated at the expense of poor Palestinians, who would eventually be dispossessed of the land of their forefathers perforce.
More than 700,000 Palestinians were granted international refugee status. A century later, the civilized world does not recognize their right to return to their ancestral homeland. On the other hand, in the 1990s alone, Israel welcomed and integrated 100,000 Russian Jews and 39,000 Ethiopian Jews.
A hundred years on, why is the world still unable to rid itself of this lone surviving colonial project of Israel? To answer that question, we must dig up the annals of history to see how the project began in the first place.
It all started actively in 1896 when Theodore Herzl, the father of modern Zionism, conceived the idea of a Jewish state. A vast majority of the Jews of the time rejected the idea, fearing that they will lose the European countries’ nationalities and be expelled to such a Jewish State.
Conservative Jews considered it a sacrilege since only the Messiah can establish the sacred state. Both Baron Hirsch (Germany) and Baron Rothschild (UK) disliked the idea.
The same year, Herzl met Sultan Abdul Hamid in Istanbul, with a request for a grant of some land to the Jews in Palestine, promising that all the financial burdens of Ottomans will be taken care of in return. Well aware of the Zionist plans, the Sultan rejected the request saying the land belonged to the Palestinians who had shed sweat and blood for it for millennia.
Herzl presented the idea in the first World Zionist Congress held in Basel, Switzerland in 1897. After the death of Herzl in 1904, Chaim Weizmann and other Zionists kept pursuing their case. In 1917, Lord Balfour, the pro-Zionist British Foreign Secretary, and Prime Minister Lloyd George obliged by issuing the Balfour Declaration to Lord Rothschild.
Now the Rothschilds and Hirshes came on board. In return, British leaders wanted Jewish influence in other European capitals to convince them to remain on Britain’s side in the First World War.
Anticipating defeat of Ottomans especially in the Middle East, UK committed herself to facilitating Zionists in the Secret Sykes-Picot agreement for the land east of the Mediterranean. Quietly the British allowed Jewish emigration into Palestine and that came under their control.
Formed immediately after WWI, the League of Nations granted Britain a mandate to administer more than half of the conquered Middle East and later grant the right to self-determination – the other half going on similar terms to France.
Part of the mandate called on Britain to establish a Jewish national homeland. Palestine was the only area of the region where the right to self-determination was not given to the local population.
Britain directly administered these regions from 1928 to 1948. First British High Commissioner to Palestine Sir Herbert Samuel was a Zionist Jew. He inducted better educated Jews in administering the land. By the end of the mandate, the Jews were better prepared to administer Palestine than the less educated and underprivileged Palestinians.
It is of interest to note that secretly and separately Britain made conflicting covenants with Hussein Sharif of Hejaz, the Jews, the French, the Arabs, the Saudis, and the Palestinians in exchange for revolts rendered against the Ottomans Empire.
From Egypt to Iraq, nation states would always go to the some power for dispute resolution i.e., Britain (later to be replaced by USA). One hundred years on, it is still the same.
For more than hundred years Zionist with their financial tycoons, behind the scene manoeuvring and making and breaking of leaders have achieved their goals, a feat unmatched by other ethnoreligious groups in the world. The civilized world call this track two diplomacy and lobbying.
Emigration to ‘the Promised Land’ was slow early on despite incentives, but the rise of Hitler in 1933 and then the Holocaust accelerated the process manifold.
In 1947, Jews were less than 10 percent of the population of Palestine according to Palestinians. Jewish claims put the proportion at more than 30 percent. Ownership of Jewish landholdings was less than 6 percent.
After WW2, UK declared that it would terminate the Administrative Mandate on 14 May 1948. The UN passed Resolution 181 on 29 November 1947 for the partition of Palestine. Fifty-five percent of the land was given to ten percent Jews and 45 percent of the land was for ninety percent Palestinians.
Arabs rejected the resolution because it violated their right to self-determination recognized under the UN charter. Civil war broke out between Jews and Palestinians which lasted for the next six months.
Drawing financial support from Jewish communities from all over the world, the Jews amassed around $180 million, whereas the Palestinians did not even receive the one million pound committed by the Arab league.
Under the leadership of Mufti Ameen Al Husseini they gathered funds from local Palestinian communities. Initially, the Palestinian Fedayeen fought well but with time the Jews improved on their war capabilities with volunteers joining them from overseas. Within six months Haganah, the main paramilitary force of Jews became better organized and better equipped and got the upper hand in the civil war.
On 14 May 1948, Israel declared Independence. The next day Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon supported by manpower and ammunition from Saudi Arabia and Iraq attacked Israel. In order to match the Arabs’ superior arms and air force, the Jews bought used aircrafts and military equipment’s discarded after WW2 from Europe.
The Arab-Israeli War continued until the 1949 Armistice Agreement under the auspices of the UN. The upshot was that Israel came into existence taking over even more land than was originally granted by the UN.
Due to the self-centered leadership of Arab states and desire to grab maximum land for their own country, the combined force lacked coordination and unity of command.
King Abdullah I of Jordan was secretly in cahoots with the Jews. His interest was only in Jerusalem and the West bank. He was opposed to an independent Palestinian State at his western border. The Egyptians occupied the Gaza strip. As a result, the Palestinians ended up in a worse state than what was granted by the UN in 1947.
The most important consequence of the First Arab Israeli War was the establishment of Israel superiority over the combined arms of the Arab states.
More than 700,000 Palestinians became refugees. Their children and their children’s children remain homeless and stateless to this day.
(To be Continued)
