Palestine and Israel: A Challenge to Justice

Journal of Palestine Studies, 2009

Challenging the widely accepted premise that the 1948 war was a war of Jewish self-defense, the author demonstrates that the 1947 United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) partition resolution was fundamentally a green light for the Yishuv's fully mobilized paramilitary organizations (supported by the resources of the World Zionist Organization) to effect the long-planned establishment of a Jewish state by force of arms. He further argues that as a national movement, Zionism was inherently conquest-oriented from the moment of its birth in Basel in 1897 and that it most closely resembles-in the alchemy of its religious and secular motivation and its insatiable land hunger, irredentism, and indifference to the fate of the "natives"-the Iberian Reconquista of the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries. i The prevalenT vieW in The WesT sustained by Israeli and pro-Israeli proponents is that the Yishuv (the Jewish community in Palestine) was in an essentially defensive mode during the "civil" and "regular" phases of the 1947-48 war. This view is not shared by some left-of-center Israeli revisionist historians and sociologists, but it remains the foundational premise of official Israeli historiography, including school curricula, and of most non-Israeli Western writers on the 1947-48 war. This article argues that on the eve of the 1947-48 war, the Yishuv was in a full-blown aggrandizing, militant, and territorially expansionist mode, and that this mode long preceded the November 1947 UNGA partition resolution, which within six months led to the Nakba. walid Khalidi, a founder of the Institute for Palestine Studies (IPS) and its general secretary, has taught at Oxford University,

American Ethnologist, 1989

The "surrogate colonization" of Palestine had a foreign power giving to a nonnative group rights over land occupied by an indigenous people. It thus brought into play the complementary and conflicting agendas of three culturally distinguishable parties: British, Jews and Arabs. Each party had both "externalist" [those with no sustained practical experience of day to day life in Palestine] and "internalist" representatives. The surrogate idea was based on a "strategic consensus" involving each party's externalist camp: the British ruling elite, the leadership of the World Zionist Organization and the Hashemite Dynasty of Arabia. The collapse of this triangular consensus, which put an end to the policy but not the process of surrogate colonization, resulted from irreconcilable antagonisms within and between the major currents of each internalist camp. A focus on the land problem in Palestine highlights contradictions in each party's internalist agenda, which forestalled a rift between the Jewish and British sides of the consensus long enough for the Zionist settlement in Palestine (Yishuv) to acquire territory and to develop a largely selfsufficient economic, cultural, political and military infrastructure. [Palestine, Zionism, British empire, fellaheen, land settlement]

Acta Neophilologica, 2020

This paper critically examines Theodore Herzl’s canonical Zionist novel, Altneuland /Old New Land as a frontier narrative which depicts the process of Jewish immigration to Palestine as an inevitable historical process aiming to rescue European Jews from persecution and establish a multi-national Utopia on the land of Palestine. Unlike radical Zionist narratives which underlie the necessity of founding a purely Jewish state in the holy land, Altneuland depicts an egalitarian and cosmopolitan community shared by Jews, Arabs and other races. The paper emphasizes that Herzl’s Zionist project in Altneuland is not an extension of western colonialism par excellence. Herzl’s narrative is a pragmatic appropriation of frontier literature depicting Palestine as a new frontier and promoting a construct of mythology about enthusiastic individuals who thrived in the desert while serving the needs of an enterprising and progressive society. Unlike western colonial narratives which necessitate the...

The Muslim World, 1994

The American Historical Review, 1979

The Sanjak of Jerusalem was independent and directly linked to the Minister of the Interior in view of its importance to the three major monotheistic religions. It comprised the greater part of the territory of Palestine and more than three quarters of its population.(*1) The total number of villages was 672 with an estimated population of 457,5922 (*2) (not including the Beduins). The number of educational establishments in Palestine amounted to 956 most of which were primary and elementary schools. The overwhelming majority of the population was Sunni Muslim. Small numbers of Shi'a and Druzes existed, while around sixteen per cent of the population was Christian, mainly Greek Orthodox, Latin and Creek Catholics. Arthur Ruppin put the number of Jews living in Palestine in 1880 at 25,000. (*3) Both Jews and Christians were free to practice their religions and enjoyed a degree of autonomy through the Millet system.(*4) The majority of the Muslim population was engaged in agriculture and lived in villages. Apart from the peasants there was a considerable number of unsettled beduins, particularly in the vicinity of Beersheba. The urban population, both Muslim and Christian, was engaged in commerce, the crafts and modest agricultural industries, and some people held government posts. Prior to 1880 almost the entire Jewish population of Palestine lived in its Four Holy Cities': Jerusalem, Tiberias, Safad and Hebron. A sizable proportion of Palestine's Jewry was supported to a very large extent by the challukah system; the organised collection of funds in the Diaspora for the support of the pious scholars in Palestine. Never-the less, piety was not the sole characteristic occupation of Jews in Palestine. As early as 1851, the British Consul in Jerusalem reported that Jews are the majority of artisans-which included the glaziers, blacksmiths, watchmakers, tailors, shoemakers, book-binders.(*5) In addition they almost monopolised money-lending and the limited banking business in the country. Palestine and the Great Powers The effects of the decline of the Ottoman Empire were not confined to the growth of the power of the notables. As the Ottoman state became increasingly dependent on foreign protection vis a-vis other foreign powers as well as ambitious vassals, the European powers sought to establish direct links with the various populations of the Empire. Thus, France became the 'protector' of the Catholic communities in Syria, Lebanon and Palestine, while the Orthodox Christians came under Russian protection. The British Government's interest in Palestine was aroused by Napoleon's Palestinian Campaign (1799) which posed a threat to the British overland route to India. When Mohammad Ali of Egypt occupied Palestine and Syria and defeated the Ottoman armies, even threatening Constantinople itself, the British Government adopted a course of military intervention and was instrumental in driving the armies of Ibrahim Pasha (son of Mohammad Ali) back to Egypt. It was during that period (1838) that the British Government decided to station a British consular agent in Jerusalem and to open the first European Consulate in March 1839. Mohammad Ali's advance into Syria opened the 'Syrian Question'. New British policies were formulated as a result. To begin with, Britain sought to emulate the French and the Russian approach in the area. It was during the 1840s and 1850s that the British Government, which had no obvious proteges of its own, established a connection with the Jews in Palestine, the Druzes in Lebanon and the new Protestant churches. reconciliation:"(*27) In 1895, after talks with Palestinian Arab merchants, Najib al-Hajj, the editor of Abu-al-Hol of Cairo accused the Jewish colonists of expropriating the Arabs' means of livelihood. Both , Rashad Pasha, the Ottoman Mutasarrif, and the educated Palestinians were quick to perceive that the Zionists sought to establish a Jewish State in Palestine. Yusuf al-Khalidi " viewed the Zionist movement with grave concern: he recognised the existence of a Jewish problem in Europe...but he also foresaw that a Jewish state could not be established in Palestine without hostilities and bloodshed because of Arab opposition".(*28) The Mufti of Jerusalem, Muhammad Taher al-Husseini, fought Jewish immigration and agricultural settlement, and in 1897, he presided over a commission which scrutinised applications for transfer of land in the Mutasarrifiyya and so effectively stopped all purchases by Jews for the next few years."(*29) In 1900 there was a campaign of protest by means of signed petitions against Jewish purchases of land.(*30) Fears and Apprehensions In the same year, A Antebi, of the Jewish Colonial Association (a non Zionist institution) reported: The Zionists had made the Muslim population ill-disposed to all progress accomplished by the Jews. A year and a half later, illiterate Muslim peasants asked him, 'Is it time that the Jews wish to retake this country?' and in early 1902 the ill-will had spread to the Administrative Council, the law courts and government officials many of whom especially at lower levels were drawn from the population.(*31) Religious sentiments were an additional ground of resentment: Muslim sentiments in Jerusalem were reflected in the following statement made in 1903 by a young (and, it is reported not very fanatical) Arab: "We shall pour everything to the last drop of our blood rather than see our Haram Sharif fall into the hands of non Muslims".(*32) It is also worth noting that local government officials, Christians and educated Muslims, were interested in reading Zionist literature, and some of them even read Ha-Po 'el Ha-Za 'ir. This explains the state of alarm among the Arab population of Palestine. following the Seventh Zionist Congress in 1905, which resolved that Zionist efforts must be directed entirely towards Palestine. The Palestinians were not entirely alone in conceiving the implications of Jewish immigration and agricultural settlement in Palestine. Rashid Rida, one of the most prominent Islamic reformists and of the influential AI-Manar, recognised that the Jews were seeking national sovereignty in Palestine.(*33) In his book La reveil de la Nation Arabe (Paris, 1905), Najib Azoury warned that Zionists and Arab nationalist aspirations would come into conflict. Because Azouri called for Arab independence, copies of his manifesto had to be smuggled into Palestine as a result of which several Arab notables in Jaffa, Gaza and Ramla were imprisoned by the Ottoman authorities.(*34

Middle East Studies, 2023

Most of the first Jewish rural settlements established in Ottoman Palestine in the late 19 th Century have something in common that has not yet been systematically analyzed. This common factor is their physical location: on low or high ground. Most of the first Jewish settlements were established in plains and valleys for several reasons, while Arab rural settlements were located in the hills and mountains. The paper discusses how Palestinian notables (effendis) who purchase or leased the usufruct rights to state land after the promulgation of the Ottoman Land Code in 1858, subsequently sold all or part of their landholdings in the valleys and plains of Late Ottoman Palestine to Jewish purchasers until the British conquest of Palestine in 1917.

2007

Modem Jewish immigration and colonization of Palestine started in the eighth decade of the 19th century. Though it took some time until the Arabs started to formulate their opposition towards these activities. At the turn of the century, with the formulation of the Zionist political programme, some Arabs started to voice their opposition in various forms. They were increasingly well informed about Zionist goals and aware of the implications of their policies. However several structural barriers prevented anti-Zionism from becoming a broader movement.

When we look at the post-1967 Israeli settlement enterprise from a historical perspective, several questions deserve special attention. The first of them concerns continuity and change: is this simply one more stage in an ongoing process since the late 19th century, or a new development altogether? The second question is more analytical in nature: what are the relevant forces shaping settlement policy? Is it the quest for land or labour, considerations of ideology or state power? The third question has to do with models: what analogies or similar processes can be used in order to make sense of settlement in the case of Israel/Palestine? In what follows I address each question in turn in order to position the current stage in its historical, conceptual and comparative contexts. The Ottoman Period The origins of the Zionist settlement project go back to the late 19 th century, towards the end of the Ottoman period. In just over 30 years, dozens of new villages (moshavot) and towns were established in Palestine by Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. For the first time, a segment of the Jewish community entered into direct contact with the Palestinian-Arab residents of the countryside, the majority of the population at the time. In that way, issues of land and labour were brought to the fore, thus signalling the beginning of a long struggle over the future of the country.

Brown Journal of World Affairs, 2017

Throughout the past century, the Zionist movement constructed the most sophisticated settler-colonial project of our age: the State of Israel. The violent birth of Israel in 1948 and the subsequent colonization of the entirety of the land of Palestine after the 1967 war are indeed reflections of Zionism's successes in fulfilling its settler-colonial ambitions in Palestine. Yet, while this settlercolonial project continues unabated, it is an entangled one, unable to reach the ultimate point of Jewish exclusivity in the land. Zionist settler colonialism, as its historical precedents suggest, is fundamentally based on the operative logic of "eliminating the native" and failing to utterly marginalize and "minoritize" him. The vibrant Palestinian presence in the land, the everyday resistance to the colonial order, and the robust Palestinian adherence to their rights all stand as structural obstacles to the ultimate realization of the "Zionist dream." 1 Despite Israel's relentless colonial power and domination, Palestinian steadfastness means that this project will remain impeded and incomplete, a matter that may lead to its future demise.

Discussions around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict tend to rely upon a binary distinction of the Arab inhabitants of Palestine and the Zionist movement to establish a “national home of the Jewish people” there. This oversimplifies and erases the position of those whose identities are both Jewish and Arab, and the existence of Jewish communities in Palestine long before the ‘national home’ was proposed. The Zionist movement created new tensions between Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jewry who had previously co-existed in relative harmony under Ottoman rule, as the Ashkenazi population began to dominate the Palestinian Jewish community and Zionism defined itself in terms starkly incompatible with Arab identity. From the Old Yishuv of the Ottoman Era to the establishment of the Israeli state (and beyond) Zionist rhetoric has been characterised by a deeply contradictory relationship to non-European Jewry, treating them as a burden whilst relying on them to make the Zionist project workable. Additionally, contrary to the promise of safety associated with the 'Jewish National Home,' the Zionist movement has profited from the persecution of Jews in the Arab world, relying on displacement of Jewry from populations such as Egypt and Iraq due to anti-Semitism to legitimise and strengthen the National Home.

Itinerario, 2009

In Nur Masalha (ed.) Catastrophe Remembered: Palestine, Israel and the Internal Refugees. London: Zed Books, pp.113-141., 2005