The Genesis of Armageddon

Originally published as "The Origin of the Palestine-Israel Conflict"
by Jews for Justice in the Middle East

The original document has been extended and annotated by Michael R. Burch, editor of The HyperTexts. All such modifications appear in square bracketed italicized text, like this: [text], except for the corrections of a few typos in the original text, and normalization of capitalization and punctuation. If you prefer to read the original text, you can download it by clicking here. I chose the title "The Genesis of Armageddon" because I believe the events which led to the Shoah ("Catastrophe") of the Jews at the hands of the Nazis led in turn to the Nakba ("Catastrophe") of the Palestinians at the hands of Israeli Jews. Fortunately the Shoah ended over sixty years ago. Unfortunately the Nakba continues to this day, and this new Holocaust is being funded and supported by the American government (and therefore the American taxpayer). It is up to all the people of the world, and particularly to Israeli Jews, American Jews and other Americans, to face the facts, confront them, and do what must be done to grant the Palestinian people their self-evident human rights. We can no longer subscribe to the old, tired mantra that the victims of Holocausts are responsible for whatever befalls them. Who created the racist laws and courts of Nazi Germany? Germans. Who created the racist laws and courts of the United States prior to the American Civil Rights Movement? White Americans. Who created the racist laws and courts of apartheidist South Africa? White South Africans. Who created the racist laws and courts of Israel? Israeli Jews. Every nation is responsible for its own laws and courts, without excuses. Only racists establish racist laws and courts, and racism is an abomination. The facts speak for themselves, and facts do no lie. The propagandists are the liars: today's crop of pro-Israel propagandists are ironically and incongruously the heirs of Goebbels. The Palestinians obviously did not create the racist laws and courts that deny them their self-evident human rights. They would be slaves and fools to submit to the Israeli Injustice Machine, which tramples innocent Palestinian schoolchildren under its crushing wheels, as they trudge to school in tears while being cursed and spat on by Jewish settlers and Israeli soldiers. Jewish soldiers are obviously not "defending" the "security" of Israel by cursing and spitting on tearful schoolchildren deep inside occupied Palestine. Why are innocent children being molested on their way to schools far from the borders of Israel? Even if they were carrying bombs, which they obviously aren't, they could only hurt themselves and their teachers, if Israeli Jews stayed inside their borders. American soldiers don't have to "protect" American citizens from Mexican schoolchildren trudging to kindergartens deep inside Mexico. All one has to do to prove pro-Israel propaganda a pack of nefarious lies is ask simple questions, such as: "Where are defensive walls and military checkpoints placed: at one's own borders, or deep inside the borders of another people?" Most of the "defensive" walls erected by Israel are, in reality, highly offensive in nature. These so-called "security fences" are dividing, conquering, killing walls twice as high as the Berlin Wall, which snake through occupied Palestine and blatantly steal precious farmland and water from an increasingly homeless, dispossessed people. Why are American taxpayers pouring trillions of dollars into Israel and two fruitless wars that might have been avoided if only we had stood for equal rights for Jews and Palestinians alike, and stopped stupidly "protecting" our "oil interests" in the Middle East? We quite obviously would have done much better to simply pay the going price of oil, since the price of oil has skyrocketed due to our incessant meddling in the affairs of Muslim nations. If our children and grandchildren face World War III and a nuclear Armageddon, to find someone to blame we will have to look squarely in the mirror. If you want your children or grandchildren to die for no good reason, just continue to unthinkingly "support" Israel and the status quo. But hopefully there is still time, if only we don't continue to repeat our errors of the past sixty years. The first step away from Armageddon is to understand its Genesis, racism and injustice, then to immediately abandon racism and injustice, and finally and firmly standing for what Americans say we believe in: equal rights and justice for all human beings, not just the Chosen Few (i.e., Americans and Jews). — Michael R. Burch

As the periodic bloodshed continues in the Middle East, the search for an equitable solution must come to grips with the root cause of the conflict. The conventional wisdom is that, even if both sides are at fault, the Palestinians are irrational “terrorists” who have no point of view worth listening to. Our position, however, is that the Palestinians have a real grievance: their homeland for over a thousand years was taken, without their consent and mostly by force, during the creation of the state of Israel. And all subsequent crimes — on both sides — inevitably follow from this original injustice.

[There is only one nonviolent cure for the disease of injustice, and that is to establish justice through fair laws and fair courts. The group that compiled this document originally calls itself Jews for Justice. History clearly teaches that injustice always leads to violence, with the victims invariably being blamed by their conquerors. White slaveowners accused their black slaves of being "inferior." White politicians with forked tongues accused Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse of being "insurrectionists." Nazis accused Jews of being "terrorists" and called them every other vile name under the sun. The apartheidist government of South Africa labeled Nelson Mandela a "terrorist" and Mandela remains on the terrorist watch list of the United States to this day, an interesting irony since he is now a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, a saint, and an icon of hope to billions. And so we can never believe what conquerors say about the people they victimize for their own economic benefit. White slaveowners grew fat on the blood, sweat and tears of black slaves. White settlers gained huge tracts of "free" land at the price of the freedom, dignity and lives of the Native Americans who fell before them in droves. Jews suffered and died in an unimaginable Holocaust so that Germans could steal their homes, property and, just before they were incinerated or buried in mass graves, the gold from their teeth. Black South Africans lived and died on the margins of existence for the economic benefit of a white supremacist minority. And so it goes, and so it will continue, until every nation on earth assumes the responsibility for establishing equal rights, fair laws and fair courts for every human being under its aegis. While this document presents the "other side" of the ongoing conflict between Israeli Jews and Palestinians, and proves that things are clearly not as we have been led to believe, even if the Israeli Jews were entirely right on every count, and even if the Palestinians were entirely wrong on every count, in the end Israel still cannot deny Palestinians equal rights and individual justice. The Palestinians are human beings, and they are entitled to their self-evident human rights, just as we are. Even if every living adult Palestinian was a "terrorist" (which is obviously not the case), still Palestinian babies are not born "terrorists." All babies are born innocent. But in present-day Israel/Palestine Jewish babies are born with vastly superior rights to Palestinian babies. This is an abomination. In my opinion (and as far as I can tell, in the opinion of the world), there are only two possible cures if the Jews are going to live in peace with their neighbors: either Israel must make Palestinians full, equal citizens of Israel, or Israel must grant the Palestinians their independence, so that they can all become full, equal citizens of a fully autonomous Palestinian state free of Israeli interference. What Israel has tried to do instead, and has unfortunately accomplished so far, is to keep the Palestinians in a state of political limbo for over sixty years, meaning that millions of Palestinian babies were born and now face death without ever having been treated as human beings with equal rights. This is an abomination. This abomination has a name: racism. In Germany racism led to the Holocaust. In the United States racism led to slavery, a terrible Civil War, and then another hundred years of Jim Crow laws and public lynchings. My mother is English. When she came to the United States in the mid 1950's after marrying my American father, they took a bus from "up north" where her plane landed to "down south" where my father's family lived in Nashville, Tennessee. My mother was an angel, and of course my father was anxious for his family to meet her. But when their bus reached the Mason Dixon Line, it stopped, and all the black passengers began to get up and trudge to the back of the bus. My mother was rightfully horrified. Many years later, I made a fine young black man a partner in my business. At that time he told me that when his father was a small boy growing up in Mississippi, he was ordered to call little white boys "sir." I was horrified, and still am. So as you read this document, please keep in mind that we must not only understand the "big picture" of how millions of Palestinians lost their land, farms, homes and livelihoods unfairly. Yes the "big picture" matters; it matters terribly. But the "little pictures" matter also, and they also matter terribly. Of every injustice I have discovered being perpetrated on the Palestinians, this is the one I find most horrifying: little Palestinian boys and girls being cursed and spat on by Jewish settlers, as the children trudge to school in tears. Why are Israeli soldiers armed with machineguns protecting the robber barons rather than their victims? Why are the soldiers adding their own contempt, jeers and spittle to the humiliation and degradation of innocents? I don't believe anyone with a heart and brain that work simultaneously needs to read the rest of this document to understand the fundamental evil at work here: racism. But I believe anyone who doesn't understand how and why such things can come to pass should read on, because we must educate ourselves and our children, if we are ever going to end the injustices that invariably lead to violence. If we want to avoid Armageddon, we must understand its Genesis. — MRB]

This paper outlines the history of Palestine to show how this process [of injustice leading to violence] occurred and what a moral solution to the region’s problems should consist of. If you care about the people of the Middle East, Jewish and Arab, you owe it to yourself to read this account of the other side of the historical record.

Introduction

The standard Zionist position is that [the Jews] showed up in Palestine in the late 19th century to reclaim their ancestral homeland. Jews bought land and started building up the Jewish community there. They were met with increasingly violent opposition from the Palestinian Arabs, presumably stemming from the Arabs’ inherent anti-Semitism. The Zionists were then forced to defend themselves and, in one form or another, this same situation continues up to today.

The problem with this explanation is that it is simply not true, as the documentary evidence in this booklet will show. What really happened was that the Zionist movement, from the beginning, looked forward to a practically complete dispossession of the indigenous Arab population so that Israel could be a wholly Jewish state, or as much as was possible. Land bought by the Jewish National Fund was held in the name of the Jewish people and could never be sold or even leased back to Arabs (a situation which continues to the present).

[One problem Americans may face as we proceed is the desire not to be racist, which of course means not favoring one race over another, while also wanting to support the Jewish state of Israel. But this is simply not possible because the two desires are inherently contradictory. An analogy would be wanting fair elections while also wanting to rig votes. We cannot support a Jewish state called Israel without advocating racism because a Jewish state is, by definition, racist. Would it be fair to ask black Americans to submit to the idea of a "white United States"? No, of course not. What sort of nation would the United States be, if black Americans could only own a tiny percentage of the land? It would clearly be a racist state. And yet in Israel, which claims to be "democratic," most of the land cannot be purchased by non-Jews. The land, citizenship and marriage laws of Israel are matters of public record, and are clearly racist. Anyone can read and study them online, using Google and other search tools. Americans are constantly being urged to "support" Israel and to believe that not to support Israel is "anti-Semitic. This is, quite frankly, racist bullshit. If I say American minorities must have equal rights, I am not "anti-American" but opposing governmental and societal racism. If I say minorities in Israel must have equal rights, I am not "anti-Semitic" for exactly the same reason. In one of many ironies we will discover together on these pages, it is the pro-Israel propagandists who are the real anti-Semites, because most Palestinians are Semites. I am not an anti-Semite because I believe all Jews and all Palestinians must have exactly the same rights. What do you think? If you agree with me, Israel becomes a conundrum because the only way to have a non-discriminatory Jewish state is to separate all the babies at birth, and whisk out the non-Jewish ones to some other nation where they'll have equal rights and be fully protected by fair laws and fair courts. Of course this would require some sort of genetic litmus test administered at birth to determine whether a baby is "sufficiently Jewish" to have equal rights. What if a baby has a Jewish father and a Ugandan mother: is the baby "pure enough" or "unsatisfactory"? Believe it or not, such questions are vitally important in Israel, because the "purity" of many babies remains in doubt. If a baby has a Jewish father and a Palestinian mother, is the baby "pure" or "impure"? In a true democracy the question doesn't matter because justice is colorblind: babies are babies and all babies are born equal. But because Israel is, by definition, a racist state, the prospect of Israeli citizens marrying Palestinians is terrifying and there are racist laws to keep "undesirable" babies from living with their parents in Israel on a permanent basis. The government of Israel can force a mother with "undesirable" children to either leave Israel or abandon them. This is not just a problem for Palestinians. Many Jews are discovering they're not "Jewish enough" to be entitled to Jewish weddings and funerals. What kind of nation denies large numbers of its citizens the right to marry whom they please and live with their own families as they please? A racist nation. Americans must understand that as long as Israel defines itself as a "Jewish state" it does not share American democratic values. If our children or grandchildren were born in Israel or Palestine, they would be treated as inferior, subhuman creatures. How do you think that makes Palestinians feel? — MRB]

The Arab community, as it became increasingly aware of the Zionists’ intentions, strenuously opposed further Jewish immigration and land buying because it posed a real and imminent danger to the very existence of Arab society in Palestine. Because of this opposition, the entire Zionist project never could have been realized without the military backing of the British. The vast majority of the population of Palestine, by the way, had been Arabic since the seventh century A.D. (over 1200 years).

In short, Zionism was based on a faulty, colonialist world view that the rights of the indigenous inhabitants didn’t matter. The Arabs’ opposition to Zionism wasn’t based on anti-Semitism but rather on a totally reasonable fear of the dispossession of their people.

[Winston Churchill's words and actions during the brief time he oversaw (or, more accurately, ruled) the Middle East clearly reveal the colonial attitude of Britain at the time. Understanding the colonial attitudes of the early Zionists and the powerful men like Churchill who supported them, and how such attitudes led to the disenfranchisement and dispossession of the Palestinians, is critical to a proper understanding of the current conflict and why events like 9-11 have threatened the stability and security of the world. So let's take a look at what happened when Churchill was appointed Secretary of State for the British Colonies in early 1921.

Just four years earlier British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour had issued the Balfour Declaration of 1917, a formal statement of British government policy which read: "His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country." Unfortunately the establishment of a Jewish state "out of thin air" proved incompatible with the words I bolded.

According to Churchill and Palestine by David Lyon Hurwitz, even before officially taking over as Secretary of State for the Colonies (notice the word "Colonies" in his title) Churchill "annexed the Middle East to his bailiwick, so that Lord Curzon, foreign secretary, complained in a letter, 'He wants to grab everything in his new Department & be a sort of Asiatic Foreign Secretary.'" Churchill also quickly brought in Thomas E. Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia") as his adviser.

At the time Sir Herbert Samuel, a dedicated Zionist, served as the first high commissioner of the Palestine Mandate. Samuel was the "first professing Jew in the [British] cabinet" and in 1914 had written an influential memorandum to the cabinet entitled "The Future of Palestine," impressing acting Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith, David Lloyd George (who became prime minister in 1916), Lord Milner (who had preceded Churchill as Colonial Secretary), and Sir Mark Sykes (Middle East adviser). Samuel's 1914 paper influenced the Balfour Declaration of 1917. The Balfour Declaration would have devastating consequences for the Palestinians, the region, and the world.

Churchill was highly sympathetic to the Zionist cause. Even before he left for Cairo to assume his new office and partake in a hasty summit with far-reaching consequences for the region, Churchill was already discussing just how much of the Middle East would be allotted to the Jews with Chaim Weizmann, founder of the Democratic Zionist Party and president of the World Zionist Organization, who was later to be elected the first president of Israel in 1949. But there was a problem: the Jews constituted only a small percentage of the population of Palestine at the time. So in order for Churchill to keep his promises to his Jewish friends, he would have to stymie democracy. As we shall see, Churchill regularly trumpeted the glories of democracy to the rest of the world, but constantly denied or deferred the rights of Palestinians to self-determination. Please keep this strange double standard in mind as we continue, because it persists to this day in the halls of power. For some strange reason the Western World constantly carols the glories of democracy for everyone else, but in collusion with Jews constantly denies Palestinians the right to self-determination. This is hypocrisy, racism and an abomination. Why doesn't the West require Israel to unconditionally grant Palestinians equal rights, or unconditionally grant them their independence? It seems the Jews still have "friends in high places" who grant them "special relationships" even when those relationships result in Palestinian babies being born without human rights or the protection of fair laws and fair courts. How would you like your child to be born without human rights, and therefore exist entirely at the "mercy" of any ruthless man looking to make an easy buck at her expense?

According to Churchill A Life by Martin Gilbert, Churchill immediately set out to find a less expensive system of governing the Middle East. He wanted to cut a budget of 37 million pounds (around 88 million dollars) in half. In transferring power (and costs) to local officials, he showed little or no interest in democratic elections, saying in the case of Emir Feisal, his choice to rule Iraq (and a crony of Lawrence), that Western political methods "are not necessarily applicable to the East and basis of election should be framed." Despite planning to slash an insufficient budget in half, (he wrote "I am determined to save you millions in this field" to Austen Chamberlain, the Chancellor of the Exchequer), Churchill believed he could somehow still arrange for 500,000 Arabs not to be dominated by 80,000 Jews, while allowing more Jews to settle in Palestine. One can feel the palpable hubris in the comment of Lawrence to Churchill that British arrangements with Feisal and his brother Abdullah "tend toward cheapness & speed of settlement." Churchill, Lawrence, the Exchequer and Britain were all for cheapness, speed and expediency. They cared little or nothing about the wishes of the people who would have to live with the consequences of their quick, expedient economies.

What sort of consequences did the Palestinians face? Orthodox Jews have highly rigid beliefs about not "working" on the Sabbath, which can mean not buying or preparing food, or driving a car. How would Americans feel about not being able to buy groceries on Saturday, or to drive their cars, or wash them? Of course Palestinians didn't want their laws to incorporate Jewish religious beliefs. Nor do we. 

Once in Cairo, Churchill pretty much got what he wanted, and what he wanted was clear. On March 13, 1921 he drafted a telegram to Prime Minister Lloyd George which read, "I think we shall reach unanimous conclusion ... that Feisal offers hope of best and cheapest solution." According to Gilbert, "The Cairo Conference discussions on Palestine and Transjordan were at an end. In three days two new Arab States had been created, their sovereigns chosen, and part of the Zionist case lost by default." (Churchill had not agreed to all the demands of Samuel and Weizmann, such as the Jews being allotted land west of the Jordan River.) On March 20 the Conference adjourned and Churchill and his wife sped off to see the Pyramids, which Churchill painted (perhaps more carefully and thoughtfully than he had legislated.) It had taken Churchill a mere three days to slice an insufficient budget in half and decide the fates of hundreds of thousands of Arabs who would soon become millions, many of them doomed to become homeless and destitute.

On March 24, 1921 Churchill arrived at Gaza. I wonder what the people of Gaza think of Churchill and British diplomacy today? Of course they probably feel exactly the same way about American diplomacy, and who can blame them?

On March 27, 1921 Churchill reached Jerusalem to meet with Abdullah. When an Arab delegation protested the creation of a Jewish state at their expense, he preached them a pretty sermon, saying a Jewish National Home would create "increasing benefits and prosperity and happiness to the people of the country as a whole," then continued, "Why should this not be possible?  ... If instead of sharing miseries through quarrels you will share blessings through cooperation, a bright and tranquil future lies before your country. The earth is a generous mother. She will produce in plentiful abundance for all her children if they will but cultivate her soil in justice and in peace." But the Arabs knew something Churchill didn't: the Zionists were intent on taking over, then kicking them out. Churchill's dream was a pipe dream, and many Americans share it to this day.

On March 29, 1921 Churchill planted a tree on Mount Scopus, telling onlooking Jews that if they behaved, "Palestine will be happy and prosperous and concord will always reign; it will turn into a paradise" in which "sufferers of all races and religions will find a rest from their sufferings." Churchill believed in the dream of Zionism, but he didn't have the money or the time or the resources to make sure his promises to the Arabs were honored. When Arabs rioted in opposition to British expediency at their expense, Churchill opposed forgiving the fines Herbert Samuel preferred not to collect, saying, "We cannot allow expediency to govern the administration of justice."

On March 30, 1921 at their final meeting Churchill informed Abdullah that he would be given money and troops in return for his guarantee "that there should be no anti-French or anti-Zionist agitation in the country." Abdullah accepted, and "it was done." According to Norman Bentwich, "It was an improvised and almost careless creation of a State without any economic basis." Once again in a matter of days Churchill had managed to set an avalanche in motion that threatens the world to this day. Soon he was off to Alexandria, then Genoa. His work in the Middle East was largely done; today we have only to view the current carnage to understand the danger of Western powerbrokers with "bigger fish to fry" making hasty decisions on short budgets.

Lord Milner warned Samuel in a letter that Churchill was "too apt to make up his mind without sufficient knowledge." Unfortunately, Milner was right. (Later, American politicians like George W. Bush would prove just as hubristic and inept.) Churchill had promised Abdullah that the "rights of the existing non-Jewish population would be strictly preserved." When Churchill was asked by the Arabs for a national government elected by the Palestinian people, he had demurred but confidently promised that "no Arabs would be dispossessed." Of course it was a promise he would be unable to keep; today millions of Palestinians are homeless, stateless and dispossessed; therefore many Arabs feel betrayed by Britain and the West, to this day. And they have every reason to feel that way. Churchill and other hubristic, speed-mad British politicians on short budgets had no business making monumental decisions for people they knew little and cared less about. What was the Middle East to Churchill, but a sort of "training wheel" exercise, before he moved on to bigger and better things?

When it mattered most, Churchill was all in favor of expediency. But when his expediency produced poor results for other people, he was all for justice: for them.

On May 31, 2001 at a cabinet meeting in England, Churchill explained that he had decided to "suspend the development of representative institutions in Palestine (i.e., democracy) because "any elected body" would "undoubtedly" disagree with his edicts.

In a June 14, 2001 speech before the cabinet, Churchill called Arab fears of being pushed off the land "illusory." Of course their fears were not "illusory" because what they feared most happened just as they feared. To show the height of Churchill's folly, eight days later he said that if the Jews eventually become the majority in Palestine, they would naturally "take it over." But if a future majority of Jews would be allowed to take over democratically, what about the present majority of Arabs?

In November 1921 there was a riot in Jerusalem that left five people dead, after which Churchill told his advisers, "Do please remember that everything else that happens in the Middle East is secondary to reduction in expense." He had already conveniently forgotten his stern words about expediency and justice. Years later he would damn his policies in the Middle East when he told the English people, "The foundation of all democracy is that the people have the right to vote. The deprive them of that right is to make a mockery of all the high-sounding phrases which are so often used. At the bottom of all the tributes paid to democracy is the little man, walking into the little booth, with a little pencil, making a little cross on a little bit of paper. No amount of rhetoric or voluminous discussion can possibly palliate the overwhelming importance of that point. The people have the right to choose representatives in accordance with their wishes and feelings." But not the Palestinians, and not the other Arabs of the Middle East. Their wishes and feeling mattered nothing, when compared with the wishes and feelings of men like Churchill, and later Truman and other American presidents. This, too, is racism. This, too, is an abomination.

But Churchill did accomplish his prime objective: slashing the cost of Palestine to the British taxpayer from 8 million pounds in 1920, to 4 million pounds in 1921, to 2 million pounds in 1922.

Not all Englishmen were in favor of Zionism. In a July 1922 debate before the House of Lords, Lord Islington called the Palestine Mandate "unacceptable to this House ... opposed [by] the ... great majority of the people" and added that "Zionism runs counter to the whole human psychology of the age." The Lords were "incensed" by the decision of the Colonial office to grant the Zionists a monopoly on the development of water power in Palestine, and thus on electricity and irrigation.

Balfour's rejoinder remains profoundly perplexing: "I do not deny that this is an adventure. Are we never to have adventures? Are we never to have experiments?" I wonder what millions of homeless, dispossessed Palestinians think of his "adventurous experiments" today.

Lord Sydenham then spoke against the Jewish Home in Palestine, complaining, "we have dumped 25,000 promiscuous people on the shores of Palestine, many of them quite unsuited for colonizing purposes, and some of them Bolsheviks, who have already shown the most sinister activity  ... The Mandate will undoubtedly transfer control of the Holy Land to New York, Berlin, London, Frankfurt and other places" and for this "we shall be responsible." When the votes were counted, he and his allies had prevailed, 60 to 29. The date was interesting: July the 4th.

But Churchill was to win the war in the House of Commons, where he impetuously offered all Palestinians "the assurance of great prosperity and means of a higher economic and social life." What must Palestinians think today of Churchill asking, "Was not this a good gift (the water monopoly) ... which would impress ... on the Arab population that the Zionists were their friends and helpers, not their expellers and expropriators ...?" In 1922, shortly after the House of Commons sided with Churchill and reversed the vote of the House of Lords, the League of Nations made the Balfour Declaration an integral part of its Palestine Mandate. A Jewish National Home in Palestine had "become a reality." Churchill may have been a man for the ages, but he was to the Palestinians as Andrew Jackson was to the Native Americans he forced to walk The Trail of Tears, my Cherokee ancestors perhaps among them. — MRB]

One further point: being Jewish ourselves, the position we present here is critical of Zionism but is in no way anti-Semitic. We do not believe that the Jews acted worse than any other group might have acted in their situation. The Zionists (who were a distinct minority of the Jewish people until after WWII) had an understandable desire to establish a place where Jews could be masters of their own fate, given the bleak history of Jewish oppression. Especially as the danger to European Jewry crystallized in the late 1930’s and after, the actions of the Zionists were propelled by real desperation.

[I agree. We can understand the dream of Zion: a place where Jews could live in peace and security. I understand the dream of Zion, because I'd like to find a good-sized tract of land where my family, my sisters' families, and my parents can all live together. But I understand that for my dream not to become a nightmare for my neighbors, I must procure the land legally, and obey all prevailing zoning laws. I cannot take the land I want by force, and I cannot subvert fair laws to give myself an unfair advantage. While I do not oppose the dream of Zion, I do strongly oppose its current implementation, because Zionists took land by force, subversion of the law, and outright robbery. And to this day Israel continues to take Palestinian land by force, subversion of law, and outright robbery. Many of the victims are women, children and the elderly. This too is an abomination. — MRB]

But so were the actions of the Arabs [propelled by real desperation]. The mythic “land without people for a people without land” was already home to 700,000 Palestinians in 1919. This is the root of the problem, as we shall see.

Early History of the Region

Before the Hebrews first migrated there around 1800 B.C., the land of Canaan was occupied by Canaanites.

The present-day Palestinians’ ancestral heritage

The Jewish kingdoms were only one of many periods in ancient Palestine

More on Canaanite civilization

How long has Palestine been a specifically Arab country?

How did land ownership traditionally work in Palestine and when did it change?

Was Arab opposition to the arrival of Zionists based on inherent anti-Semitism or a real sense of danger to their community?

Jews attitude towards Arabs when reaching Palestine.

Proposals for Arab-Jewish Cooperation

Was Palestine the only, or even preferred, destination of Jews facing persecution when the Zionist movement started?

The Balfour Declaration promises a Jewish Homeland in Palestine.

Wasn’t Palestine a wasteland before the Jews started immigrating there?

Were the early Zionists planning on living side by side with Arabs?

Given Arab opposition to them, did the Zionists support steps towards majority rule in Palestine?

Denial of the Arabs’ right to self-determination

Arab resistance to Pre-Israeli Zionism

Gandhi on the Palestine conflict — 1938

Didn’t the Zionists legally buy much of the land before Israel was established?

Why did the UN recommend the plan partitioning Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state?

Why was this Truman’s position?

Was the partition plan fair to both Arabs and Jews?

Were the Zionists prepared to settle for the territory granted in the 1947 partition?

Public vs. private pronouncements on this question.

The war begins

Zionists’ disrespect of partition boundaries

Culpability for escalation of the fighting

The Deir Yassin Massacre of Palestinians by Jewish soldiers

Was Deir Yassin the only act of its kind?

What was the Arab reaction to the announcement of the creation of the state of Israel?

Was the part of Palestine assigned to a Jewish state in mortal danger from the Arab armies?

Ethnic cleansing of the Arab population of Palestine

Didn’t the Palestinians leave their homes voluntarily during the 1948 war?

The deliberate destruction of Arab villages to prevent return of Palestinians

After the fighting was over, why didn’t the Palestinians return to their homes?

Is there any justification for this expropriation of land?

How about the negotiations after the 1948-1949 wars?

Israel admitted to UN but then reneged on the conditions under which it was admitted

What was the fate of the Palestinians who had now become refugees?

Did the Egyptians actually start the 1967 war, as Israel originally claimed?

Moshe Dayan posthumously speaks out on the Golan Heights

The history of Israeli expansionism

But wasn’t the occupation of Arab lands necessary to protect Israel’s security?

What happened after the 1967 war ended?

World opinion on the legality of Israeli control of the West Bank and Gaza.

Examples of the effects of Israeli occupation

All Jewish settlements in territories occupied in the 1967 war are a direct violation of the Geneva Conventions, which Israel has signed.

Excerpts from the U.S. State Department’s reports during the Intifada

Jerusalem — Eternal, Indivisible Capital of Israel?

We hear lots about Palestinian terrorism. How about the Israeli record?

The U.S. Government and media bias on terrorism in the Middle East

Jewish Criticism of Zionism

Martin Buber on what Zionism should have been

Israel’s new historians now refute myths of the founding of the state

“It is no longer my country”

The effect of Zionism on American Jews

Shamir proposes an alliance with the Nazis

Wasn’t the main goal of Zionism to save Jews from the Holocaust?

Emigration to Palestine before World War II

Emigration during World War II

Palestine was not necessarily a safe haven either

In any case, Palestine was not Britain’s to give away; it was already occupied

The use of the Holocaust for political gain

Roosevelt’s advisor writes on why Jewish refugees were not offered sanctuary in the U.S. after WWII

Victimology

Israel has sought peace with its Arab neighbor states but has steadfastly refused to negotiate with Palestinians directly, until the last few years. Why?

The international consensus on Israel (a very small representative sampling)

From the 1970s until the 1999 Israeli High Court decision forbidding torture during interrogation (theoretically), hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were subjected to inhuman treatment in Israeli prisons.

The 1997 U.N. Commission Against Torture rules against Israel

Some arguments used to justify Zionism

Zionism’s ‘historical right’ to Palestine

How about the Zionist argument that Jordan already is the Palestinian state?

Why doesn’t Israel, “the only democracy in the Middle East,” have a constitution?

Ideological basis of racism in Israel

Jewish fundamentalist rationale for seizing Arab land

The flaws of the Oslo Accords

The roots of Intifada 2000

“Israel has failed the test”

Jimmy Carter’s simple statement of the facts — November 2000

Oslo and Intifada 2000

America — An impartial mediator?

Lockstep U.S. Media tell (some of) the facts but not the truth

Intifada 2000 — An overview

Albright stands the facts on their heads

What Arafat was offered

An Israeli’s “Open Letter to a Friend In Peace Now”

“Barak promised peace and brought war, and not by accident.”

A ‘benign’ occupation?

What “closure” means

A future free of ethnocentrism

The answer? A sovereign Palestinian state.

Palestinian refugees claim to repatriation is realistic, as well as just

Israeli professor calls for a new Zionism

Sources for further research on Palestine and Israel

1. Palestine and Israel: A Challenge to Justice by John Quigley, professor of law at Ohio State University. Duke University Press, 1990.
   
2. The Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel & The Palestinians by Noam Chomsky, professor at MIT and “arguably the most important intellectual alive” (NY Times). South End Press, 1983.
   
3. Original Sins: Reflections on the History of Zionism and Israel by Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi. An honest history of Zionism by a noted Israeli scholar who teaches at Haifa University. Olive Branch Press, 1993.
   
4. Bitter Harvest by Sami Hadawi. A very complete look at the documentary evidence of the creation of the state of Israel, by a Palestinian Christian who lived through that period. Caravan Books 1979.

Thank you for taking the time to read

“The Origin of the Palestine-Israel Conflict”

Compiled, Edited, and Published by
Jews for Justice in The Middle East
P.O. Box 14561
Berkeley CA 94712