This comprehensive email contains the following (I particularly
recommend you save or print off 3 & 4 and read-in-full, if not now,
then at a future time):

1). Commentary (Latest in Gaza)
2). Analysis from the International Communist Party: "Israel, Bloody
Executioner for the World Capitalist Order"
3). ‘Palestine: sixty years of ethnic cleansing and dispossession’
4). A timeline of Palestine
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1). Commentary (Latest in Gaza):

According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, more than 640 have
been killed over eleven days of Israeli attacks on Gaza. More than
2,850 have been injured. The hospitals say they have run out of
supplies because of the blockade and Gaza faces a "a full-blown
humanitarian crisis", the International Committee of the Red Cross
(ICRC) said on 6 January. On 3 January 2009 tens of thousands of
people protested across the UK and across the world against the
Israeli state's slaughter.

Israel insists it’s military intervention is defensive in response to
the firing of rockets by militants within Gaza - an increasingly
hollow justification as figures show the majority of the 600+
Palestinians killed in this conflict are civilian - one doctor
estimating this to be 45% women and children, with Israeli artillery
shells bombing schools such a United Nations-run school at which 42
people were killed - some children). Israel’s ‘defensive measures’
justified by those who talk on behalf of Israel and accepted as given
by the media consistently fails to recognise that these militants fire
weapons into territory which they believe belongs to them and which
they view is occupied by Israeli settlers. Palestinians view
themselves as refugees, confined to territorial margins in Gaza and
the West Bank, after losing territory with the establishment of Israel
in 1948, and again in 1967.

The root cause of the conflict is not - as Gordon Brown has just said
and others keep stating - Israel's right to feel secure from attacks
by home-made rockets but Israel's continued theft of Palestinian land
and its continuing illegal settlement of the Palestinian territories.
The fact is that this conflict originated back in 1948 when we the
then occupying British forces hurriedly handed over much of Palestine
to the Israelis under the auspices of the UN General Assembly when
they had absolutely no right to do so.
According to the Israeli press (cf Haaretz, 31/12/08), this military
operation actually commenced preparations 6 months ago, at the same
time as the negotiations for the truce, the Israeli army needing
sufficient time to collect intelligence information on the positions
of Hamas and the “militant groups”existing in Gaza!

In actual fact, Israel embarks on military intervention while it is
unprecendently in breach of 69 UN resolutions condemning its
aggressive behaviour towards its neighbours and the long term theft of
land from them. Meanwhile, the UK continues to sell arms to Israel
even though we know that they are using them to illegally invade and
attack their neighbours - Palestine and Lebanon - including high tech
weaponry. Recent reports indicate internationally banned white
phosphorus has been used in the recent conflict.

The Israeli Public Relations machine effortlessly ooze lie after lie
after lie including: "We are going to extreme lengths to prevent
civilian casualties", "Our operation is purely defensive", "Just what
occupation are they referring to?", and "There is no humanitarian
crisis in Gaza." Israeli has the audacity to rubbish the accusation
that it has been disproportionate.

Meanwhile, innocent children are maimed and murdered by Israeli
weaponry. The process most at fault in leading us to this escalation
has been Israel's stubbornness in stalling the peace process even when
Hamas offered olive branches for negotiation last summer. Escalating
conflict not only delays the onset of the only process which can
resolve the issue - a ceasefire and peace process that negotiates a
2-state solution, but it incubates resentment, ill feeling amongst the
next generation radicalised to renew future cycles of military conflict.
***********************************



2).
Analysis from the International Communist Party:


Israel, Bloody Executioner for the World Capitalist Order

On Saturday evening January 3, after one week of air raids which left
more than 450 dead and more than 2000 wounded, the Israeli army began
its land offensive into Gaza.

When it was Hamas, and not more collaborationist currents as they had
wished, who won the elections in Gaza in January 2006, the democratic
governments of Israel and America declared that they were going “to
strangle” this government; the democratic European governments lent
their support by withdrawing all “humanitarian aid” to Gaza (except
that earmarked to pay the police), and the slightly less democratic
Arab governments of the area followed. This political military and
economic pressure continued until the imposition of the blockade of
the territory with the aid of Egypt (which controls one of the exit
points from Gaza), when the partisans of Fatah were militarily beaten
by those of Hamas.

For nineteen months Israel has imposed a blockade (which has been
total for a year) on the million and-a-half inhabitants of Gaza, which
has plunged most of the population into misery. With unemployment and
malnutrition amongst children already high, resources have been
further stretched, with insufficient supplies of diesel meaning Gaza’s
sewage treatment works have not been functioning properly for months.
The stench through Gaza is said to be palpable as tonnes of untreated
sewage is dumped into the sea on a daily basis.


DIRECT COMPLICITY OF THE UNITED STATES, THE EUROPEAN STATES AND THE
ARAB STATES
The United States officially approved the Israeli attacks . But an
operation of this breadth could not receive their green light,
beforehand; this is demonstrated elsewhere by the fact that in
September the American Congress authorized the delivery to Israel of
loathsome bombs fabricated out of depleted uranium (which had already
been used to ravage Yugoslavia and Iraq); the first deliveries took
place at the beginning of December so that these bombs could be rained
on Gaza from the beginning of the bombardments. For their part all the
European governments took great care not to condemn the Israeli
attacks (when they did not give outright approval, like the current
Czech president of the European Union); at best they hypocritically
appealed for a “humanitarian cease-fire” to give each other a clear
conscience with their respective public opinion. Actions are more
illuminating than hollow speeches: under French impulse, on December
8, after the European rump-Parliament decided to postpone the
signature of this agreement because of the situation in Palestine (so
much the worse for the rare simpletons who still believe in the
European elections!), the Foreign Ministers of the 27 European
countries decided with unanimity to accelerate the process of
“re-elevating” relations with Israel, in order to confer the status of
quasi-member State to it. It was necessary to move quickly, such a
decision being a little more difficult to justify in full-out war… As
for Russia, member of the “Quartet” ("...for peace in the Middle
East") supposedly being responsible for the progress of the so-called
“the peace negotiations”, it is far too interested in the development
of its economic relations with Israel (principally arms material) to
think of causing it any problems.

Lastly, before starting its attack, the Israeli government went on to
inform the Egyptian government which, apparently, did not express any
dissension (cf Haaretz, ibid): this says all that needs to be said on
the sincerity of Egypt's “condemnation”, after several days, of the
Israeli bombardments… Just as at the time of the war in Lebanon, the
majority of the Arab States desire the victory of the Israeli armies
to put an end to the potential danger to the stability of the
bourgeois order which the Palestinian masses represent: even in the
extraordinary case of Israel acceeding, it would be impossible to
grant them the right of self-determination; that is, the right to form
a true State, without upsetting regional balances and, especially,
without giving encouragement to the social struggle of all the
oppressed in the region. In the 15 years since the alleged “historic
peace agreements” in Camp David were signed; under the aegis of the
United States and with the blessing of the “international community”,
the nationalist organizations which then accepted giving up the
struggle in order to devote themselves to making money, were
integrated into the Palestinian bourgeoisie of the Palestinian
Territories; but the situation of the proletarians and the Palestinian
masses never ceased worsening, colonization never ceased extending
itself and Israel never ceased reinforcing itself. The religious
organizations, Hamas in the lead, which have taken over the failed
nationalist formations, cannot constitute a real alternative for the
oppressed and exploited masses of Palestine, because, in addition to
the fact that they already proved their anti-proletarian nature by
breaking strikes, they only seek, as good bourgeois organizations, to
find a place in the regional imperialist order.

However, it is this imperialist order, of which Israel is the most
solid pillar and the bloodiest henchman, but not its author, which is
ultimately responsible for the oppression of the Palestinians. Without
the political, but more especially economic, financial and military
support of the United States, and also of the European States, the
jewish State would not have the force to maintain one the strongest
armies of the world and to carry out its perpetual wars; on the
internal level it would not have the force to obtain this solid “union
sacrée” between classes which is the true secret of its military
power. Everyone knows that this “international community”, that is the
great and not-so-great bourgeois States which dominate the world,
never did anything to concretely oblige the Israeli state to respect
the innumerable resolutions voted in the UN, or the innumerable peace
resolutions signed with great fanfare. In international policy as in
the relationship between social classes, it is the interests of most
powerful which take precedence and it is force which rules.

However the Palestinian masses are not eternally condemned to be
crushed under the Israeli and imperialist iron heel, in the same way
that the proletarians of all the countries are not eternally condemned
to be exploited and to be used as cannon fodder. The revolutionary
struggle of the proletarians, those who have nothing to lose but their
chains, is able to put an end to the world imperialist order and of
all bourgeois States, because it is their exploitation which makes the
capitalism of every country function; they themselves thus have hold
of a superior force than that of the bourgeois States, the force to
overthrow capitalism, provided they find the means of struggle and the
class organization, revolutionary and international by nature.

The proletarians of the imperialist countries have a very particular
responsibility, because the Israeli state has a vital need of
assistance from “their” States, “their” imperialisms, to continue its
crimes in Palestine. In again taking up the anticapitalist class
struggle , they would bring decisive aid to the Palestinian masses by
the weakening of this assistance; especially they would indicate to
the Palestinian proletarians (and those of the world) the only way of
effectively fighting oppression, while contributing to the rupture of
the Jewish proletariat of Israel from its bourgeoisie. This prospect
is not easy nor immediate, but it is infinitely more realist than the
calls to make the “International community” or the UNO respect the
“right”, or the wishes for the “peace negotiations to begin again”
which for decades have only succeeded in bringing about repeated wars
and massacres.

The only solidarity with the Palestinian masses which is not a vain
word, takes place through the resumption of the proletarian struggle
right here, against capitalism and all the bourgeois states. Today
there is no more urgent a task than to work to prepare recovery, to
work towards the rupture of the working-class away from the class
collaborationist organizations which paralyse them, and to
reconstitute the future organ essential to the proletarian struggle:
the class party, internationalist and international which will have as
its task the unification of the struggle of the proletarians and
oppressed of the world to achieve the triumph of the international
communist revolution necessary to overthrow world capitalism.

Israel Assassin, United States, European and Arab States Accomplices!
Internationalist Solidarity with the Palestinian Masses!
Long Live the International Proletarian Struggle Against World Capitalism!

International Communist Party
- Homepage: http://www.pcint.org

**********************************************

3).
‘Palestine: sixty years of ethnic cleansing and dispossession’
-(largely consisting of an article written in 1999 entitled
‘Palestine: fifty years of ethnic cleansing and dispossession’, an
historical overview of the conflict in Palestine since 1947, by Dr.
Ismail Zayid).


Background
The standard Zionist position is that they 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 vast
majority of the population of Palestine had been Arab since the 7th
century AD; the Hebrews were expelled by the Romans in the 2nd century
AD - infact the extended kingdoms of David & Solomon endured for only
73 years and Jewish rule in the region only lasted 414 years from
David’s conquest of Canaan in 1000BC to the wiping out of Judah in
586BC). 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 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 the Arabs
(a situation which continues to the present).

On the 29th November 1947, the UN General Assembly passed its
Resolution No. 181, recommending the partition of Palestine into a
Jewish state, in 56% of the land; an Arab state in 42% of the land;
and an International Zone in Jerusalem. At the time, the Jews, a
larger proportion of them recent or illegal immigrants, constituted
one-third of the population of Palestine and owned 5.6% of its land.
In the area that was apportioned to the Jewish state, half of the
population was Arab (Muslims and Christians) and half was Jewish.
Subsequently, fighting erupted between Arabs and Jews and by the end
of the fighting in really 1949, Israel had occupied 78% of Palestine
and approximately 750,000 Palestinians were driven out or fled in
terror from their homes. The population of Gaza are largely decendents
of this mass of refugees.
(Ref: ‘Palestine: fifty years of ethnic cleansing and dispossession’
by Dr. Ismail Zayid).

In short, Zionism was based on a faulty, colonialist world view that
the rights of the indigenous inhabitants did not matter. The Arab’s
opposition to Zionism was not based on anti-Semitism, but rather on a
totally reasonable fear of the dispossession of their people.
(Source: Jews for Justice in the Middle East - ‘the Palestine-Israel
Conflict’).


Palestine: fifty years of ethnic cleansing and dispossession

By Dr. Ismail Zayid

This essay provides an overview of the conflict. It was originally
given as a lecture at the Conference on Palestine, Vancouver, 23rd May
1999. It is now 60 years since the partition of Palestine.
(please note the last paragraphs of this article in particular)


The Palestine-Isreal conflict is frequently described as a very
complex one. I want to submit to you that the problem is fundamentally
a very simple one which was summed up, in the words of a simple
Palestinian farmer in Jericho - quoted by the late Frank Epp, then
President of Conrad Grebel College of the University of Waterloo - who
told him: "Our problem is very simple. A foreigner came and took our
land, our farms and our homes, and kicked us out. We have in mind to
return. It may take a hundred years, but we will return."

This, in a nutshell, is the Palestine problem and the essence of this
conflict. A country, Palestine, has been dismantled, its people
uprooted from their homeland and replaced by an alien people gathered
from all corners of the globe and a new state, Israel, created, in its
place. This tragedy, and the ensuing conflict that brought about
repeated wars in the Middle East is a direct outcome of the
introduction of political Zionism into the Middle East.

Inevitably, some history is relevant here. It was the second of
November 1917 when Arthur Balfour, the British Foreign Secretary,
issued his infamous declaration in the form of a letter written to
Lord Rothchild. It read:
"His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in
Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people. It being clearly
understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and
religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine."

It is interesting to note that the four-letter word "Arab" occurs not
once in this document. To refer to the Arabs who constituted, at the
time, 92% of the population of Palestine and owned 98% of its
land, as the non-Jewish communities is not merely preposterous but
deliberately fraudulent. I do not need to tell you that this letter
has no shred of legality, as Palestine did not belong to Balfour to
assume such acts of generosity. Dr. Arnold Toynbee described the
British role, in Issuing this document, accurately: "We were taking
it upon ourselves to give away something that was not ours to give. We were
promising rights of some kind in the Palestinian Arabs' country to a third
party."

Similarly, the well-known Jewish writer, Arthur Koestler, summed it up
aptly when he described the Balfour Declaration as a document in which
"one nation promised a second the country of a third".

On the 29th November 1947, the UN General Assembly passed its
Resolution No. 181, recommending the partition of Palestine into a
Jewish state, in 56% of the land; an Arab state in 42% of the land;
and an International Zone in Jerusalem. At the time, the Jews, a
larger proportion of them recent or illegal immigrants, constituted
one-third of the population of Palestine and owned 5.6% of its land.
In the area that was apportioned to the Jewish state, half of the
population was Arab (Muslims and Christians) and half was Jewish.

It is interesting to note that times have not changed since 1947 when
the United States got the General Assembly to delay a vote "to gain
time to bring, by coercion, certain Latin American, Asian and
African countries into line with its own views." Under-Secretary of
State Sumner Welles stated:
"By direct order of the White House, every form of pressure, direct
and indirect, was used to make sure that the necessary majority would
be gained."

Subsequently, fighting erupted between Arabs and Jews and by the end
of the fighting in really 1949, Israel had occupied 78% of Palestine
and approximately 750,000 Palestianians were driven out or fled in
terror from their homes.

The genesis of this exodus emanates from the inherent concept of the
Zionist ideology of creating a pure Jewish state in Palestine, free of
Arabs. The current powerful political agenda that exists in
Israel today, as the policy of "transfer of Palestinians" from Israel
and the occupied territories, is not a new one. Theodor Herzl wrote in
his diaries in 1897, on the occasion of the First World Zionist
Cngress in Basel, Switzerland, where he presented his plans to create
a Jewish state in Palestine, that:
"We shall try to spirit the penniless (Arab) population across the
border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while
denying it any employment in our own country. Both the process of
expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out
discretely and circumspectly (from R. Patai, ed, The Complete Diaries
of Theodor Herzl, Vol. I).

Ben-Gurion, in a speech to the 20th Zionist Congress plenum in Zurich
on the 7th August 1937, stated:
Transfer of (Arab) inhabitants happened in the past, in the Jerzeel
Valley, in the Sharon (I.e. the Coastal Plain) and in other places. We
know of the Jewish National Fund's actions in this regard. Now
the transfer will have to be carried out on a different scale
altogether. In many parts of the country new Jewish settlement will
not be possible unless there is transfer of the Arab peasantry. The
transfer of the population is what makes possible a comprehensive
(Jewish) settlement plan. Thankfully, the Arab people have large,
empty areas (outside Palestine). Jewish power in the country, which is
continuously growing, will also increase our possibilities to carry
out the transfer on a large scale. You must remember that this method
contains an important humane and Zionist idea, to shift parts
of a people (I.e. the Palestine Arabs) to their own country and to
settle empty lands [in Syria, Transjordan and Iraq]. (Benny Morris,
"Looking Back: a personal assessment of the Zionist
Experience", Tikkun. 13:40-49, 1998).

Here we go again! Expelling people from their homeland, we are now
told, is a "humane Zionist idea". Professor Israel Shahak said it all:
"You cannot have humane Zionism; it is a contradiction in terms. In
the completion of its policy of "ethnic cleansing" in 1948, Israel
proceeded, in an attempt to destroy the Palestinian national
existence, by a policy of destruction of property and expropriation of
Arab land. A systemic process brought about the total destruction of
378 Palestinian towns and villages."

In a letter to his son, Amos, Ben-Gurion confided that when the Jewish
state comes into being, "we will expel the Arabs and take their
places". And while visiting the newly-conquered Nazareth in July 1948,
Ben-Gurion exclaimed: "Why are there so many Arabs left here? Why
didn't you expel them?"

Joseph Weitz, who was the Jewish Agency chief representative, reported
in the 29th September 1967issue of `Davar', organ of the Histadrut,
that he and other Zionist leaders concluded, in 1940, that there was "no room
for both peoples together in this country". The achievement of Zionist
objectives, he realised, required "a Palestine, or at least Western Palestine
(west of the Jordan River) without Arabs". He wrote that it was necessary "to
transfer the Arabs from here to the neighbouring countries. To transfer all of
them and only after such transfer would the country be able to absorb millions
of our brethren". This, in essence, is the foundation for the policy of "ethnic
cleansing" that the Zionist forces adopted in 1948 to remove, by massacre, and
by psychological warfare, virtually the entire Arab population in the area of
the Palestinian territory that they conquered by military means, 78% of
Palestine.

The massacre on the 9th April 1948 of the village of Deir Yassin near
Jerusalem, where 250 men, women and children were butchered and
massacred in cold blood by Irgun Zwei Leumi terrorist gang, with the
approval of the Jerusalem commander of the official Zionist forces;
the Haganah, David Shaltiel, as recently documented by Yitzhak Levi, a
veteran Israeli intelligence officer, was instrumental in this
expulsion. Ironically, the village of Deir Yassin had made a peace
agreement with their Jewish neighbours of Givat Shaul. This massacre
was not unique and numerous similar massacres were carried out by
Zionist forces and Israeli forces during that war. A recent article in
the Tel Aviv newspaper, Hair, of the 6th May 1992, by Guy Erlich,
documents evidence collected by the American Jewish journalist Dan
Kortzman, author of Genesis 1948, and the history researcher Ariyeh
Yitzhaki, of atleast twenty large massacres of Arabs and about a
hundred more massacres committed by Israeli forces. Yitzhaki states: For many
Israelis it was easy to cling to the false claim that the Arabs left the country
because that was what their leaders ordered. That is a total lie. The
fundamental cause for the flight of the Arabs was their fear of Israelis'
violence, and that fear had a basis in reality".

History researcher Uri Milstein, celebrated in Israel as the dispeller
of myths, confirms Yitzhaki's evaluation regarding the volume of the
massacres and even goes further:
"If Yitzhaki claims that there were murders in almost every village,
then I say that up to the inception of Israel every event of fighting
ended in a massacre of Arabs. There were massacres of Arabs
in all of Israel's wars, but I have no doubt that the War of
Independence was the dirtiest."

In the village of Duweima, an Arab village near Hebron, occupied
without a battle by Battalion 89 of the 8th Brigade, some 80-100
civilians were murdered in cold blood by the occupiers. Later, more
civilians were murdered. In the village of Safsaf: "Fifty-two men
were tied with a rope. Lowered into a pit and shot. Ten were killed.
Women begged for mercy. Three cases of rape. A 14 year-old raped and
four others killed".

The policy of massacre was complemented by a campaign of psychological
warfare, initiating terror to force the Palestinians to flee. Leo
Heiman, Israeli Army Reserve officer who fought in 1948, wrote in
Marine Corp Gazette in June 1964: "As uncontrolled panic spread
through all arab quarters, the Israelis brought up jeeps with loudspeakers which
broadcast recorded `horror sounds'. These included shrieks, wails and anguished
moans of Arab women, the wail of sirens and the clang of fire alarm bells,
interrupted by a sepulchral voice calling out in Arabic: "Save your souls all ye
faithfull: the Jews are using poison gas and atomic weapons. Run for your lives
in the name of Allah".

More subtle methods of psychological warfare were used by Yigal Allon,
the Commander of the Palmach, an elite Haganah force, who later became
Israeli Foreign Minister. He wrote in Ha Sepher Ha Palmach in 1948: I gathered
all of the Jewish mukhtars (headmen), who have contact with Arabs in different
villages, and asked them to whisper in the ears of some Arabs that a great
Jewish reinforcement has arrived in Galilee and that it is going to burn all of
the villages of Huleh.
They should suggest to these Arabs, as their friends, to escape while
there is still time. The rumour spread in all the areas of the Huleh.
The tactic reached its goal completely.

When the Arabs failed to flee, as required, a combination of terror
and physical explusion was used, as in the case of the cities of lydda
and Ramleh, which were occupied in July 10th, 1948. Yitzhak
Rabin, recorded in his memoirs, published in the New York Times (23rd
October 1999):
While the fighting was still in progress, we had to grapple with the
problem dealing with the fate of the civilian population, numbering
some 50,000. We walked outside, Ben Gurion accompanying us. Allon
repeated his question: "What is to be done with the population?" B.G.
waved his hand in a gesture which said, "Drive them out!"

One of the Israeli war crimes is relevant here. After the surrender of
Lydda, a group of Palestinian men took refuge in the small Dahmash
Mosque. The commander of the Palmach's Third Battalion, Moshe Kalman, gave an
order to fire several missiles at the mosque. The force that attacked the mosque
was surprised at the lack of resistance. It found the remains of the Arab
fighters stuck to the mosque walls. A group of 20 to 50 of the city's residents
were then brought to clean the mosque and to bury the remains. When they
finished their work, they were also shot, and thrown into the graves they
themselves had dug. The American Jewish journalist Dan Kortzman learned of the
event from Moshe Kalman while working on his book, Genesis 1948, described the
War of Independence.

Rabin and his officers proceeded to drive these 50-60,000 civilians
away from their homes in terror, with low-flying airplanes over their
heads shooting the occasional person and forcing them to run.
The sight of the terror-stricken men, women and children fleeing in
horror in the midday sun of the hot summer, having run approximately
25km to the village of Beit Nuba, where I saw them with my own eyes,
is a sight not to be forgotten . In refernce to this scene and
countering the Zionist propaganda, that the Palestinians left their
homes voluntarily and in response to broadcasts by their leaders.

It is perhaps relevant to note that this piece of Zionist propaganda
was first demolished by Dr. Erskine Childers who examined the American
and British monitoring records of all Middle East broadcasts throughout 1948. He
reported in the Spectator 1961:
"There was not a single order or appeal or suggestion about evacuation
from Palestine from any Arab radio station, inside or outside
Palestine, in 1948. There is repeated monitored record of Arab appeals
even flat orders, to civilians of Palestine to stay put.

The historical record clearly demonstrates that the Palestine refugee
problem was created in response to a clear Zionist policy of cleansing
the land of Palestine From its own people. Chaim Weizmann, the first
President of Israel, described this process with a great deal of
satisfaction as the "miraculous clearing of the land". However, the UN
mediator, Count Folke Bernadotte of Sweden, stated in a report to the
UN: "It would be an offence against the principles of elemental
justice if these innocent victims of the conflict were denied the
right to return to their homes while Jewish immigrants flow into
Palestine, and, indeed, at least offer the threat of permanent
replacement of the Arab refugees who have been rooted in the land for
centuries."

Count Bernadette paid heavily for stating this obvious principle and
was assassinated by the Stern terrorist gang, on direct orders of
Yitzhak Shamir, on the 17th September 1948 in Jerusalem. The United
Nations General Assembly proceeded, however, to resolve on December
11th, 1948, in its resolution No. 194: "Refugees wishing to return to
their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so
at the earliest practicable date and those wishing not to return should be
compensated for their property.

The implementation of this resolution, together with Resolution 181of
the 29th November 1947, were reaffirmed and were made conditions for
the admittance of Israel to the UN membership in Resolution No. 273 of
the 11th May 1949.

Despite this and despite repeated UN General Assembly and Security
Council Resolutions demanding the implementation of Resolution No. 194
for the return of the refugees, Israel continues to defy this
international will and in essence, it can be argued that its
membership in the United Nations is illegitimate, in view of its
refusal to comply with the conditions that were imposed upon it. Not
only that, Israel proceeded in 1967, after the occupation of the West
Bank and the Gaza Strip, to expel over 300,000 more Palestinian
refugees from their homes or refugee camps. Many of them were in
essence expelled a second time. Security Council Resolution No. 237 of
the 14th June 1967, called upon the government of Israel to facilitate
the return of these refugees, and similar UN General Assembly Resolutions to
that effect remain unimplemented.

It is clear, for anybody, who has witnessed the history of that area
to see that the Palestinians remain determined to return to their
homeland and their struggle continues despite repeated massacres and
an orchestrated policy of genocide denying them their national
existence. Their sacrifices have been documented and continue, despite
the Israeli policy of state terrorism and continuing bombardment of
their refugee camps in Lebanon and the oppressive practices that are
employed against them under occupation in the West Bank and Gaza, the
late Dr. Frank Epp, described the tragedy of the Palestinian people in these
terms: "Rarely has a people suffered so much injustice so passively for so long,
waiting for the powers that be to redress the inflicted wrong."

Similarly, it was the distinguished philosopher, Lord Bertrand Russell
who stated, addressing an international conference in 1970, the following:
"The tragedy of the people of Palestine is that their country was
`given' by a foreign power to another people for the creation of a new
state. The result was that many hundreds of thousands of innocent
people were made permanently homeless. With every new conflict their
numbers increased. How much longer is the world willing to endure this
spectacle of wanton cruelty? It is abundantly clear that the refugees
have every right to the homeland from which they were driven, and the
denial of this right is at the heart of the continuing conflict. No
people anywhere in the world would accept being expelled en masses
from their country; how can anyone require the people of Palestine to
accept a punishment which nobody else would tolerate? A permanent just
settlement of the refugees in their homeland is an essential
ingredient of any genuine settlement in the Middle East."


The Land Question

In the completion of its policy of "ethnic cleansing" in 1948, Israel
proceeded, in an attempt to destroy the Palestinian national
existence, by a policy of destruction of property and expropriation of
Arab land. A systemic process brought about the total destruction of
378 Palestinian towns and villages.

In 1948, the total Jewish holdings, leased and owned, were less than
6% of the total land area of Palestine. To enlarge this, one of the
most shocking acts of plunder in modern history took place. A series
of so-called laws were quickly promulgated to expropriate the millions
of acres and thousands of farms and stores and hundreds of whole towns
and villages that belonged to the expelled Arab refugees. These laws
included the Emergency Defence Regulations, the Abandoned Areas
Ordinance (1949), the Emergency Articles of Exploitation of
Uncultivated Lands (1947-1949), the Absentee
Property Law (1950) and the Land Acquisition Law (1953). This act of
plunder was not confined to the property of the refugees who had been
thrown out of the country but was extended to the Arabs who
remained on their land. Under one regulation, any area could be closed
by the authorities for security reasons and its Arabs barred from it.
It would be declared "abandoned" or "uncultivated". Under another law it would
be handed over to others, usually Jews, to cultivate. Many Arab citizens who had
never moved from the part of Palestine that became Israel happened to be away
from their lands and homes for a certain period during the process of Israeli
occupation, annexation, and population transfer. They were barred from their
villages upon their return, thereby becoming absentees, and their property was
seized. These Arabs earned the Orwellian title of "absent present". Where else
but in the Zionist dictionary would you find such an entity?!

Moshe Keren, a Jewish writer, described the laws as "Wholesale robbery
with a legal coating".
In this way the Israeli authorities confiscated the entire movable and
immovable property of the 750,000 evicted refugees, and more than one
million dunums of land belonging to Arabs who had remained in Israel
after 1948, was seized.

The expropriated Arab land was passed to Keren Kaymeth, the Jewish
National Fund (JNF), the laws of which prevent leasing the land to
Arabs or use of Arab labour. These are clearly racist laws. Uri
Avnery told the Knesset: "If we are going to expel Arab cultivators
from the land that was formally theirs, & was handed over to the Jews, we would
be acting in accordance with the verse which says: `Hast thou killed and also
inherited' ".

These were only a few of the methods and laws that were used or
legislated to expropriate the land of the Arabs, who remained in
Israel, and to discriminate against them.



The 1967 Occupation

Israel's policy of ethnic cleansing and expropriation continued in the
territories occupied in its war of aggression in 1967, including the
West Bank and Gaza. In part, this was achieved by the total
destruction of a number of villages and towns in the West Bank,
including my own village, Beit Nuba. Together with the neighbouring
villages of Imwas (the biblical village of Emmaus) and Yalu, Beit
Nuba was systematically dynamited, bulldozed and erased from the
surface of the earth, on 9-10th June 1967, a war crime committed on
the direct orders of Yitzhak Rabin, the Chief of Staff of the
Israeli army at the time, and later the Prime Minister of Israel, and
ironically a Nobel Peace Laureate. To the shame of every Canadian, the
infamy called Canada Park, paid by Canadian tax-
deductible dollars, stands today on the ruins of Imwas, Yalu and Beit
Nuba.

Moshe Dayan, the Minister of Defence in June 1967, is quoted by
General Arieh Bar-On, Dayan's Military-Secertary, of declaring in a
meeting of the General Command, in September 1967, that: "at the
beginning of the war and during the war we carried out operations to
destroy villages, for Zionist purposes in which I fully share".
General Bar-On states in his recently published book, in Hebrew,
Personal Signature - Moshe Dayan in the Six-Day War and After:
"Encouraging the emigration of the Arabs of Judea and Samaria (sic -
The West Bank) was indeed the policy of the entire system, which was
under his (Dayan's) dominion. Over 300,000 Palestinians were made
refugees by the end of June 1967, and some for the second time. This
was as a result of direct "encouragement" and planned policy by Israel.

Despite Security Council Resolution No. 237 of June 14th 1967,
ordering the return of the 1967 Palestinian refugees to their homes,
Israel refused to comply.

Israeli policies in the Occupied territories continue in defiance of
international law, the Fourth Geneva Convention and Repeated UN
Security Council Resolutions. These policies include the demolition of
Palestinian homes and expropriation of property. Over 70% of the land
area of the West Bank has been expropriated since 1967, for the
creation of illegal Jewish settlements. Apart from the destruction
of entire villages, thousands of homes have been demolished, as acts
of collective punishment or for lack of building permits. Such permits
are regularly denied to Palestinians to build on their own
land.

In the Gaza Strip alone, 40% of this tiny area [was] expropriated to
illegally accommodate 5000 Jewish settlers. The remaining 60%
accommodates approximately one million people, making it an area
with the heaviest population density in the world. The vast majority
of these people are refugees expelled from their homes in Palestine in
1948.

In a systematic process of economic deprivation, over 230,000 olive
and orchard trees in the 1967 occupied territories have been uprooted
and bulldozed. This is ironic, considering that the Zionist
colonists came to Palestine with the myth that they were "to make the
desert bloom".

In reference to this lie and the Zionist slogan of Israel Zangwill of
1906, "Palestine is a land without a people for a people without a
land", it may be relevant to quote other Jewish Zionists.

In truth from Palestine in 1891, Ahad Ha'am, the Russian Jewish writer
and philosopher, wrote:
"We abroad have a way of thinking that Palestine today is almost
desert, an uncultivated wilderness �but this is not infact the case.
It is difficult to find any uncultivated land anywhere in the country.

The behaviour of Jewish settlers toward the Arabs disturbed him. They
had not learned from experience as a minority within a wider
population, but reacted with the cruelty of slaves who had suddenly
become kings, treating their neighbours with contempt. The Arabs, he
wrote, understood very well what Zionist intentions were in the
country and "if the time should come when the lives of our people in
Palestine should develop to the extent that, to a smaller or greater
degree, they usurp the place of the local population, the latter will
not yield easily. We have to treat the local population with
love and respect, justly and rightly. And what do our brethren in the
land of Israel do? Exactly the opposite! Slaves they were in the
country of exile, and suddenly they find themselves in a boundless
and anarchic freedom, as is always the case with a slave that has
become king; and they behave toward the Arabs with hostility and cruelty."

Ethics were at the heart and soul of Ahad ha'am's brand of
nationalism, and to the end of his life, he denounced any compromise
with political expediency. In 1913, protesting against a Jewish
boycott of Arab labour, he wrote to a friend: "..I can't put up with
the idea that our brethren are morally capable of behaving in such a
way to humans of another people, and unwittingly the thought comes
to my mind: `if this is so now, what will our relations to the others
be like if, at the end of time, we shall really achieve power in Eretz
Israel? And if this be the Messiah, I do not wish to see
his coming."

We see today Ahad Ha'am's prophetic statement completely fulfilled.

The process of land expropriation and the creation of illegal
settlements, while Palestinian homes are bulldozed and their trees
uprooted, continue after the charade that is called "The Middle East
Peace Process" and the "Oslo Agreements", a process that has
legitimised the occupation and undermined the international order and
our people's will.

Speaking of peace, it is interesting to note that Ben-Gurion gave Arab
leaders more credit than they deserve when he stated in 1956: "I don't
understand your optimism. Why should the Arabs make peace? If I was an
Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we
have taken their country. (Quoted by Nahum Goldmann in The Jewish
Paradox, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1978, p.99).

Another observation that is relevant here is the continuing reference
to the need for Israeli security and the accusations of terrorism
directed by Israel and western media and politicians, at Palestinians,
who are evidently expected to shower bouquets of flowers at Israelis
who have expelled them from their towns and villages and continue to
bulldoze their homes, uproot their trees and murder, incarcerate and
torture their men, women and children. Interestingly, Canadian General
ELM Burns, Chief of Staff of United Nations Truce Supervision
Organisation (UNTSO), did not expect that. He wrote in his book
`Between Arab and Israeli', 1962: "It seemed to me to be symptomatic
of certain blindness to the human reactions of others that so many
Israelis professed not to understand why the Arabs who had been driven
from their lands should continue to hate and try to injure those who
had driven them out".
(Lt. Gen. E.L.M. Burns, Chief of Staff of UNTSO, Between Arab and
Israeli, p.162).

Commenting about the Western hypocrisy Noam Chomsky said that Israeli
Labour Party policy adapted itself to Western hypocrisy, as Israeli
former Cabinet Minister, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, described their policy
conducted "so that the West can pretend it does not understand."



Jerusalem

The fate of Jerusalem is a major issue to determine the future course
of peace or conflict in the Middle East. Jerusalem has been a
Palestinian city throughout history, despite periods of occupation
by invading alien forces. The same UN Resolution No.181, of the 29th
November 1947, that allowed the creation of Israel, stipulated that
Jerusalem be an international entity (corpus separatum). Of the 41
villages surrounding West Jerusalem, 37 were destroyed by Israel in
1948. More than 80,000 Palestinians were driven out from West
Jerusalem in 1948. The annexation of East Jerusalem in 1967, by
Israel, is illegal and in violation of international law and in
defiance of Security Council resolutions. However, Israel continues
its policy of ethnic cleansing and expropriation in Jerusalem since 1967.

Israel destroyed the entire Magharba quarter, a historic Islamic
religious site, to create a Jewish plaza, in front of the Western
Wall. The Israeli government expanded the Jerusalem municipality to
ten times its original size and annexed it.

Israel has, since 1967, systematically carried out a policy of
Judaization of Jerusalem. 85% of the land annexed has been
expropriated to create Jewish settlements and homes for Jews only,
surrounding and suffocating Arab East Jerusalem.

Arab residents of East Jerusalem are treated as foreigners with
special identity cards, as "permanent residents" in Jerusalem. These
cards are confiscated from Jerusalemites, if they are forced to work
or live outside Jerusalem, even though they and their ancestors have
lived in the city for thousands of years. Yet, Jews from New York or
Toronto can move into Jerusalem at will.

Since September 1993, and the Oslo charade, a strict closure has been
imposed on Jerusalem for Palestinians in the West Bank, to whom
Jerusalem is an economic, medical, cultural, educational and
religious centre. Muslims and Christians are denied access to their
religious worship places. Since then, hundreds of people have been
killed and injured; over 500 families have had their homes demolished;
over 1000 people have had their rights to live in Jerusalem, the city
of their birth, taken away, while Jews from Moscow or New York can
move into Jerusalem, when they choose. Thousands have been arrested,
tortured and imprisoned. Land continues to be expropriated to create
Jewish colonies in Palestinian land and thousands of people have found
themselves homeless, destitute and hopeless. Students are denied access to their
university and the sick are unable to reach hospitals for treatment.

This is what the Oslo charade has brought about. Illegal occupation
has been legitimised, the Palestinian Authority has become a
sub-contractor to do Israel's dirty work in the few scattered "Bantustans" that
are nominally under Arafat's control, but
besieged by Israel's troops. In essence, the Oslo agreement is another
Nakba (catastrophe) that the Palestinian negotiators have
inflicted upon their people and have put back the Palestinian struggle
for self determination by another generation, at least.

Since the annexation of East Jerusalem in 1967, the Israeli government
has adopted a policy of systematic and deliberate discrimination
against the city's Palestinian population in all matters relating to
expropriation of land, planning and building.

This is the principle finding of a report just published in Israel by
B'Tselem, the Israeli Human Rights Organisation. It goes on to
conclude that "this policy is a clear violation of international law
and the fundamental principles of democracy, with grave consequences
as regards human rights".

It is true that the Palestinian people have endured so much wrong and
injustice but I assure you that the Palestinian people's tenacity is
unyielding. Our people are willing to struggle and sacrifice; you
cannot defeat a people with this tenacity, when a child turns his
little hand into a fist, with a stone, that defies the oppressor. The oppressed
people of South Africa were able to teach F.W. De Klerk a lesson that had made
Mr. De Klerk declare that the book on Apartheid is closed. I am afraid the book
on the Zionist ideology is not yet closed but I can assure you that Zionism,
like Apartheid, is running against the natural course of history and I am
optimistic that right will overcome wrong. I am also optimistic because there
are Jewish voices who are speaking out. The late great Jewish journalist, I.F.
Stone, wrote a few years ago: "How can we talk of human rights and ignore them
for the Palestinians? How can Israel talk of Jewish rights to a homeland and
deny one to the Palestinians?"

Similarly, Professor Israel Shahak, a holocaust survivor and Chairman
of the Israeli League for Civil and Human Rights, said: "The majority
of the Israeli public are shutting their eyes to the simple human cry
of the Palestinian."

He warned his people "not to allow the experience of the German people
between the two world wars to befall them". He went on to state that
he is saying this: "so that no one can say as the German
people did, 'I did not know '. And like Albert Speer, I am trying to
act before it is too late".




Wreaking Havoc

The editor of the Jewish religious newspaper 'Ner' wrote in January
1961:
"Only an international revolution can have the power to heal our
people of their murderous sickness of causeless hatred. How great was
our responsibility to those miserable wronged Arab refugees, in
whose towns we have settled Jews who were brought from afar; whose now
sow and harvest; and in whose cities that we robbed, we put up houses
of education, charity and prayer, while we babble and rave about our
being the `People of the Book and the Light of the Nations' ".

This is the kind of authentic Jewish voice that I am happy to say
gives me hope that in time, there will be more people like I.F. Stone,
Israel Shahak, Felicia Langer and other great Jewish men and women of
conscience. For, if the other voice, the voice which has come to
dominate Israel and Zionist thinking, arrogant with power which thinks
only of territorial expansion and practiced discrimination and terror
, the voice of Ariel Sharon, Yitzhak Shamir, Yitzhak Rabin and
Benjamin Netanyahu, if that voice should continue to speak for Israel,
then Israel will bring, I am afraid, tragedy on herself and the
Palestinians and very likely on the rest of the world.

The tragedy of the Jewish people in the crimes they committed, and
continue to commit, against the Palestinian people, are highlighted in
that accurate statement made by the renowned British historian,
Professor Arnold Toynbee, who wrote in his great work on history ‘The
History of the World’:
"In A.D. 1948, the Jews knew from personal experience what they were
doing; and it was their supreme tragedy that the lesson learned by
them from their encounter with the Nazi gentiles should have been not
to eschew but to imitate some of the evil deeds that the Nazis had
committed against the Jews".

The Old Testament prophets were incredibly prophetic in foretelling
what would happen if the Jews turned aside from what they knew to be
the truth of justice. Let me end by quoting to you some verses from
the prophet Micah, who might have been writing for today when he gave
this warning:
"Here this, you heads of the house of Jacob and rulers of the House of
Israel, who abhor justice and pervert all equity, who build Zion with
blood and Jerusalem with wrong. Therefore because of you, Zion shall
be ploughed as a field; Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins".

There is still time to prevent that prophecy from coming true in our
own day. But there may not be very much time.

The Palestinian people are calling for a modicum of justice, for
without this, I am afraid, there will be no peace for Arab or Jew in
the Middle East.

Dr. Ismail Zayid was born and grew up in Beit Nuba, Palestine, went to
school in Jerusalem, received his medical education at the University
of London, and emigrated to Canada in 1972. He is the
author of two books, 'Palestine: A Stolen Heritage' and 'Zionism: The
Myth and the Reality', and is founding president of the Canada
Palestine Association. In the late 1990s, he retired from his
position as professor of Pathology and Head of Anatomical Pathology in
the faculty of Medicine at Dalhousie University of Halifax. His
website is: http://izayid.tripod.com
**********************************************

4).
Here to Stay
A timeline of Palestine

Taken from the “Dossier on Palestine”
Published by ‘Shunpiking’, Nova Scotia’s Discovery Magazine
Vol.7, No.43 - October 28th 2002
©2002 New Media Publications


This timeline seeks to bring to the fore the most important events
related to the question of Palestine in both a regional and
international context. Imperialism was and remains the main obstacle
to the aspirations for freedom and independence. While it is the
people who make history, they do so under conditions not of their
choosing but given to them from the past. In the conditions of the
Ottoman Empire, a feudal system decaying amidst the rise of monopoly
capitalism, this past was complex. The purpose of this chronological
map is to explore these underlying, long term forces shaping Palestine
and Israel. The editors think this especially important in the light
of the anti-historical consciousness spread by media reportage and its
anti-Arab bias.


Historical Palestine

Today’s Palestinians are the descendants of the Amorites, Canaanites,
Jebusites, Philistines and other tribes who have lived in this land
since history began.

Professor Maxime Rodinson, a Jewish professor of history at the
Sorbonne University in Paris states: “The Arab population of Palestine
was native in all senses of the word and their roots in Palestine can
be traced back at least forty centuries”. (‘Israel and the Arabs’, New
York; Penguin, 1968).

Throughout history, the people of Palestine have resisted every
foreign invader, including the Hebrew tribes (1000 BCE), the Assyrians
(722 BCE), the babylonians (586 BCE), the Persians (538 BCE), the
Greeks (332 BCE), the Romans (64 BCE), the Persians under Khosru II
(614), the Muslims (638), the Crusaders (1099 - defeated and expelled in 1187 by
Saladin), the Ottoman Turks (1517), and the British (1917).

Jerusalem was built by the Amorites around 2000 BCE and known
initially as Urusalem, after the Amorite prince Salem. In subsequent
periods and times, special significance was attached to particular
sites there by the Jewish, Christian and Islamic religions. These
include the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and other well-known sites at
Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Nazareth associated with the life of Christ,
the Western or “Wailing Wall” (the last remnant of the Jewish temple
first destroyed by the Romans during the Jewish Wars in 70 and finally
destroyed by order of Roman Emperor Hadrian in 138), the al-Aqsa
Mosque and Dome of the Rock built in 688 by Umayyad Caliph Abdul-Malik
ibn Marwan, etc.

For historical reasons Islam came to predominate, but followers of all
three religions have always been found among the Palestinians, and the
people never allowed themselves to be divided on the basis of
religion. What always defined the Palestinian was not any particular
religious adherence or practice, but rather the long-term continuous
attachment to the land, their motherland and society. Many quotes can
be cited showing that Palestinians, comprised mainly of Muslims and
Christians and Jews, were brothers in terms of nationality, language
and interest.

Addressing the Anglo-American Commission on Palestine in 1946, Chaim
Weizmann, head of the World Zionist Organisation and first President
of the future State of Israel, acknowledged that Islamic society did
not victimise the Jew: “I would not like to do any injustice. The
Muslim world has treated the Jews with considerable tolerance. The
Ottoman Empire (of which the Arabs were a large part) received the
Jews with open arms when they were driven out of Spain and Europe, and
the Jews should never forget that”.

1890s - 1948: Political Zionism, Arab nationalism

Demanding a Jewish state in Palestine, Political Zionism emerges,
inextricably bound up with European imperialism, Theodor Herzl, its
father, courts various patrons. He negotiates with representatives of
Tsarist Russia, Germany, Britain, Italy and the Ottoman Empire.
Zionism becomes adopted by the great powers for their own ends.
Inevitably, ever-greater Palestinian organisation, resistance and
nationality assert themselves in response as well as to the
strangulation of Ottoman rule. This forms part of an overall Arabic
revival - including concern for language and culture, history,
democracy, popular education and women, as well as a revival of Islam.
The Palestinian upsurge demonstrates that the modern Palestinian
resistance, as epitomised by the PLO, did not emerge out of nowhere,
but was rather an extension of a national movement that appeared in
embryonic form toward the end of the Ottoman era. It showed an
awareness of the dangers posed by the self-serving interests of
Russia, Britain, France and Germany in the Middle East in using the
Zionist movement against Palestine for their own ends.

In the 1880s, the population of Palestine was about 500,000. This
includes 47,000 of Jewish origin, some indigenous, the rest religious
immigrants. There were over 1,000 Palestinian villages with many
flourishing towns in a semi-feudal agrarian society with extensive
irrigation. The citrus orchards (the farmed Jaffa orange), olive
groves and grains were known around the world as was the soap
manufactured from pure olive oil in such cities as Nablus and Jaffa.
The livelihood of its inhabitants was based mainly on land, the
greatest portion of which being owned by a small number of wealthy and
influential families and local leaders. Peasants constituted the
largest portion of the population.

Suez, Rothchild, Shell and Balfour:
The Suez Canal was opened in 1869 and by the early 1880s, Rothchild
banking interests, based since the 17th century in Germany, France and
Britain, had acquired effective control of the Suez Canal. Starting in
1882 they also began sponsoring Jewish colonisation schemes in
Palestine. This was launched at the very moment Britain occupied Egypt
(including Cairo and the Nile as far as the Sudan) - banishing the
Egyptian nationalist leader Arabi Pasha to Ceylon after suppressing
the rebellion he led against the British in Alexandria - to secure
their control of the canal. British concern to control such a vital
link to its empire in India is seen in the rise of English shipping
tonnage through its locks almost 10 times between 1870 and 1880, from
309,560 to 3,040,800 tons. A large and growing portion of this traffic
was oil being brought in tankers from the Dutch East Indies, by Shell
Oil, controlled by the Samuel brothers from a prominent London Jewish
banking family.

The essential role of oil for contemporary industry meant Shell, the
Colonial Office and the Rothshilds acquired a stanglehold over both
the sustainability and even the possibility of industrial development
across a wide swath of Europe as well as in Asia and (for the future)
in India and Africa as well.

1840s-1895

1841: The social cohesiveness and stability of Palestine - the 20,000
Jews of Jerusalem are wholly integrated and accepted in Palestinian
society - leads Lord Palmerston, Foreign Secretary, when Britain
convinced the Ottoman Empire to allow them to establish a consulate in
Jerusalem, to propose the founding of a European Jewish settler colony
- similar to the British plantations in Ireland - to “preserve the
larger interests of the British Empire”.

1882: Lord Rothchild initiates Jewish plantations

1886: A group of peasants, pushed into a corner by the loss of their
land, attack Zionist colonists at Al-Khdirah and Petah Tikvah. This
resistance broadens to include shopkeepers and artisans, mainly Christian.

1891: Jewish Colonization Association (JAC) forms. It begins
operations in Palestine in 1896.

1896: Theodore Herzl sets forth a plan for inducing the Ottoman Empire
to grant Palestine to the Zionists: “Supposing his Majesty the Sultan
were to give us Palestine, we could, in return, undertake to regulate
the finances of Turkey. We should there form an outpost of
civilisation as opposed to barbarism”. (emphasis added). Such
despicable views - typifying the Zionist and Israeli outlook about
Palestinians to the present - express the racism integral within
colonialism and imperialism.

1897: 1st Zionist Congress, organised by Herzl in opposition to the
chief rabbis of many West European Jewish communities, launches the
World Zionist Organisation (WZO) and adopts the “Basle Programme” for
settling Jews in Palestine.

A Jewish conference in Montreal passes the following resolution: “We
strongly disapprove of every initiative aimed at the creation of a
Jewish state. Attempts of this kind clearly show a false concept of
Israel’s mission. We assert the goal of Judaism is neither political,
nor national but spiritual and that its purpose is to promote peace,
justice and love among men”.

Resistance against Zionist immigration and land expropriation for the
purpose of agricultural settlement in Palestine increases
dramatically, especially amongst farmers. Albert Antebi, JAC
representative in Jerusalem, observes (1899) that the programme has
adversely affected relations between Palestinians and Jewish
immigrants. Herzl sends letter to the Palestinian Mayor of Jerusalem
hinting that, if Zionists are not welcomed in Palestine, they will go
elsewhere.

Imperial interests
1990: WZO founds the Jewish National Fund to acquire land in Palestine
which can neither be worked by, nor subsequently sold to non-Jews �"
its mission to date.

Many petitions in which Palestinians express strong opposition to
Zionist expropriation of land, including Jerusalem. JCA’s Antebi
observes (1902) that “the ill will of the local population coincides
with the creation of Zionism”.

1902: Herzl argues before a Royal Commission:
Support of Zionism would not only spare the British Government the
distasteful necessity of imposing immigration restrictions against
growing numbers of Eastern Jews, but would also serve British imperial
interests.

The first international exploitation of oil in the ME after British
discovery at Masjid-I-Sulayman, Persia: the Anglo-Persian oil company
is established. Britain controls Persia except for the mountainous
north (which came under Russian domination, in accordance with a 1907
agreement between Britain and Russia). Tsarist Russia seeks to use
Jewish immigration to Ottoman regions to incite trouble so as to
intervene, and Britain to use Zionist immigration to Palestine to
split Syria, Lebanon and Egypt.

1903: 1st Palestinian women’s organisation founded in Acre; wave of
Zionist immigration.

1905: The 7th WZO Congress is terrified that the Palestinian people
are organising a political movement for national independence from the
Ottoman Empire - a threat to Turkish rule and Zionist designs. It
rejects the East Africa scheme for Jewish colonies, and makes
overtures to Imperial Germany for a Jewish state under the auspices of
the Ottomans.

By WW1, a parallel track of collaboration with British Imperial
interests dominates. Weizmann argues in 1914 that such a state would
“form a very effective guard for the Suez Canal”.

1907: First kibbutz, based on exclusively Jewish labour, established.

1909: Tel Aviv is founded north of Jaffa as the first all-Jewish centre.

1914-18 - A war for global redivision
World War 1, waged by the capitalists of all countries - Germany,
Britain, Russia..etc - for resources, transportation routes and
markets. It redivided the world, and further subjugated the weak
nations. The belligerent governments promised “peace without
annexation”, then carved up these nations by secret predatory
treaties. It is the first ‘total war’ and some 12 million people die
for the sake of profit. Throughout the 20th century, war became the
main means of the big powers for settling economic, political and
social conflicts, unleashed on an unprecendented scale on every continent.

1915: Hussein-McMahon Agreement - In return for support of the Arab
Congress for the rest of WW1, Britain promises Arab peoples complete
independence.

1916: (16 Jun) Arab revolt against Ottoman rule. (9 May): Britain
promises France part of ME.

1917: (2 Nov) The Balfour Declaration - Lord Balfour, British foreign
secretary, states British policy regarding a Jewish “national home” in
Palestine in a letter to Lord Rothchild:
“His Majesty’s Government views with favour the establishment in
Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people , and will use
their best endeavours 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”.

The two British moves of 1916 and 1917 contradict its clear and
specific written promises to the Arabs. Balfour later supplies the
rationale:
In Palestine we do not propose even to go through the form of
consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country ….The
four great powers have taken up the Zionist cause. And Zionism, be it
just or false, good or bad, is rooted in long-standing traditions, in
present needs, and in future hopes that are far more important than
the desires or the frustrations of the 700,000 Arabs who live on this
ancient land today.
(30 Oct): Ottoman surrenders to allies in WW1.
(Nov): Muslim-Christian Association forms in Jaffa (and another soon
after Jerusalem); both rapidly spread throughout Palestine by 1920.
1919 - Paris Peace Conference
Jan: Versailles. Mandates Britain to govern Palestine, Transjordan and
Iraq on the basis that the Ottoman territories should be brought under
this system. Large-scale immigration begins.

27 Jan - 10 Feb: 1st Palestine Congress convenes in Jerusalem. It
considers Palestine to be part of Syria, sends two memoranda to
Versailles, rejecting the Balfour Declaration and demanding Arab
independence under Faysal. Assembly convenes seven times between 1919
and 1928.
(June-July): Henry King and Charles Crane, US members of International
Commission of Inquiry, recommend to Allies limited Jewish immigration
and giving up the idea of a distinct “Jewish commonwealth”.

“At Jerusalem, however, and in all other places in Palestine, the
programme of independence was affirmed”. For “a national home for the
Jewish people” is not equivalent to making Palestine into a Jewish
State; nor can the erection of such a Jewish State be accomplished
without the gravest trespass upon the “civil and religious rights of
existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine”. The fact came out
repeatedly in the Commission’s conference, with Jewish
representatives, that the Zionists “looked forward to a practically
complete dispossession of the present non-Jewish inhabitants of
Palestine, by various forms of purchase”.

The report’s existence is not disclosed until 1922, and not published
until 1947 (see also p.64).

1902: British arbitrarily remove Musa Kazim al-Husseini, the mayor of
Jerusalem for opposing their pro-Zionist policies.
(25 Apr): San Remo Peace Conference of Allied Powers endorses French
and British “Mandates” over the Levant. Britain will take Palestine,
Transjordan and Mesopotamia (renamed Iraq, created out of the Ottoman
provinces of Basra, Baghdad and Mosul). Syria and Lebanon are given to
France, plus a 25% share in the proceeds of Iraqi oil. This initiates
a process of balkanisation, communalism and sectarianism:
multi-national “countries” carved out of territories without regard to
history, culture or the peoples’ wishes - a process whose
repercussions still reverberate. The mandate system protects European
interests. It enjoins Britain to implement the Balfour Declaration,
under a civil power that will “facilitate Jewish immigration under
suitable conditions and shall encourage close settlement by Jews on
the land”.

Far from being some semi-autonomous body under the League of Nations,
the mandate is under the direct power of the British Colonial Office.
(May): Britain prevents the convening of the second Palestinian Congress
(Jul): British civil administration in Palestine. The first Zionist
underground terrorist organisation, the Haganah, is formed in Tiberias.

13-19 Dec: 3rd Palestinian National Congress, Haifa, composed of
Muslim-Christian Association delegates; it stresses autonomy of
Palestinian Arabs in Palestine as a distinct political entity and
elects executive committee that steers Palestinian political movement
until 1935.

Balfour & Soviet Jewry
The Balfour Declaration - issued days before the imminent Bolshevik
Revolution (7 Nov 1917) - also targeted the sympathy of East European
Jews for Bolshevism. Soviet success under Lenin and Stalin in handling
problems over nationality, language and the Jewish question without
fragmenting or descending into internal civil war won widespread
admiration and grudging respect.

In 1934 the Soviet Union announced the creation of an autonomous
region in Birobidzhan on the shores of the Amur River on the boundary
with Manchuria. The notorious anti-semitism of Tsarist Russia for 600
years, including the Black Hundreds (pogrom squads), was solved.
Yiddish was the official language, culture flourished, e.g. books and
periodicals were published in the millions of copies. It was
explicitly intended as a homeland for Jews from throughout the Soviet
Union and, after WW2, they offered to extend this opening to all Jews
in Eastern Europe. The international Zionist movement vigorously
boycotted and refused to publicise it. After the creation of the state
of Israel in 1948, it opposed official language status for Yiddish to
keep a cordon sanitaire around the then-socialist USSR and Birobidzhan.

With the shift in policy from the time of Khrushchev to Gorbachev,
however, these problems reappeared. These leaders replaced a policy
that had been based on self-determination with the old tsarist
policies of Russification and the incitement of Russian chauvinism and
the Soviet Union degenerated. Ultimately it became the biggest
supplier of manpower for Israeli colonisation of the Palestinian
Occupied Territories.

By December 1990, immigration of Soviet Jews at 187,000 reached its
highest number for one year since the establishment of Israel.

1921 - Government demanded
Palestine comes under British administration as Irish and Indian
patriots score telling blows against British military occupation in
Belfast and Dublin as well as the Punjab region. In all three
countries Britain deepens its “divide and rule” policy through
partition, inciting religious divisions and forming puppet agencies
along communal lines.
(May): Britain establishes the Supreme Muslim Council and appoints Haj
Mohammed Amin al-Husseini as head. Political protests break out in
Haifa protesting Zionist mass immigration.
(29 May-4 Jun): In response, the 4th PNC convenes in Jerusalem,
sending a Muslim-Christian delegation to London, demanding a national
government in Palestine under a Parliament democratically elected by
Muslim, Christian and Jewish residents. The Zionists reject secular
democracy in favour of communally-based representation. Britain
rejects both.

1922 - The British Mandate begins
World Zionist Organisation forms the Jewish Agency to regulate the
relationship of Jewish immigrants to Palestine to the outside world;
the WZO’s Jewish National Fund moves to Jerusalem to oversee the
buying up of Palestinian lands.
(1st Jul): Second Palestinian delegation to London announces rejection
of the Balfour Declaration to Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill and
demands national independence. The Churchill Memorandum is issued
instead, excluding Jordan from the scope of the Balfour Declaration.
(24 Jul): The League of Nations grants full authority to Britain,
explicitly denying Palestinian rights to self-determination. It
governs Palestine as a colonial dictatorship e.g. the High
Commissioner bans literature that would “jeopardise public
tranquility” or aim at creating a “state of panic and despair”. In
practice, it clamps down on views critical of British authority. This
begins Palestinian political self-expression directly against the mandate.

The first British census of Palestine shows a population of 757,182,
with 78% Muslim, 11% Jewish and 9.6% Christian.

1923: (29 Sep) British mandate officially begins. From 1924-28, 4th
wave of Zionist immigrants (67000) arrives (50% of whom are from
Poland). This increases Jewish percentage to 16%, with land ownership
up to 4.2% in 1928).

1924: Al-Nahda Women’s Association forms in Ramallah.

1925: Establishment of Palestinian Workers’ Society as a moderate
trade union movement.
(Mar): The 70-year old Lord Balfour, at the invitation of the WZO, is
brought to Egypt, Palestine and Syria as an organised provocation.
Balfour is met by demonstrations and general strikes which shook
streets and capitals. In Cairo British troops attack a joint rally of
Egyptian and Palestinian students at the train station “with unusual
brutality”, while the British Minister of War deploys “an armoured
cavalry regiment from Egypt to Palestine to quell any disturbances”.
One protest sent to Al Ahram newspaper in Cairo decried the “freedom
and liberty you have destroyed with your reprehensible declaration”,
adding that Balfour’s arrival “will only augment the Palestinians’
devotion to their country”.

1927: British strike oil at Kirkuk, Iraq - the largest find in the world.

1928: The Red Line Agreement gives the Iraq Petroleum Company
oil-drilling rights in every part of the Ottoman Empire (except Iran
and Kuwait). It excludes the Standard Oil Group (US).
Nov: First provocation by a few Zionist leaders to change “status quo”
at Wailing Wall”, also a Muslim holy site. People are outraged at this
attack, but this is manipulated for communal purposes by the Mufti of
Jerusalem for fear of losing any credibility.

1929: (28-29 Aug) Palestinian indignation against the colonisation of
their land, breaks out into protests. Uprising in several towns in
reaction to militant Zionist provocations at Wailing Wall. High Death
total among both Arabs and Jews. The crackdown by British troops
imported from Egypt is bloody, directed at the Palestinians.
After the stock market crash and the start of the great depression, by
the decade’s end, 100,000 Jewish immigrants reach Palestine (the
influx peaks in 1924-1926, but later declines).

1930: The Shaw Commission of Inquiry attributes 1929 distrubances to
Palestinian fears of Jewish immigration “not only as a menace to their
livelihood but as a possible overlord of the future”.
(Oct): Lord Passfield, Colonial Secretary issues a White Paper, an
investigation of the “immediate causes” of the riots, stating that
Jewish immigration and land purchases should stop due to lack of
available land. The White Paper condemns unrestricted Jewish
immigration as disruptive and detrimental to the interests of the
population as a whole. Nevertheless, following strong Zionist
protests, Labour PM Ramsay MacDonald sends Chaim Weizman a ‘Black
Letter’ a few months later (13/02/31), nullifying the clauses of the
White Paper.

1932: Beginnings of international oil exploitation in the Persian Gulf.
(Jan): Nationalist Arab Youth meet in Jaffa.
(2 Aug): Formation of Independence (Istiqlal) Party as first regularly
constituted Palestinian political party.

1933: The Nazis come to power, Jewish persecution becomes German state
policy, and Jewish immigration to Palestine rises after Canada, the US
and Germany’s neighbours refuse entry. Some 232,000 emigrants arrive
during the 1930s and by 1939, they number more than 445,000, i.e. 30%
of the total population as opposed to 10% in 1919.

Land purchases make very slow headway so, by 1931, the Zionists evict
and drive out 20,000 peasant families by means of terror.

The British promote the destabilisation of the indigenous economy. The
mandate grants a privileged status to Jewish capital, awarding it 90%
of the concessions. While foreign (mainly British) capital is
decisive, the Zionists nestle under their umbrella, gaining control of
local economic infrastructure (road projects, Dead Sea minerals,
electricity, the strategic ports, etc). By 1935, they control 872 of a
total of 1,212 industrial firms in Palestine. The British exempt
Zionist industrial imports from taxes. They pass discriminatory work
laws against the Palestinian work-force, resulting in large scale
unemployment and a substandard existence for those able to find work.
(Oct): Arab Executive Committee calls for a general strike to protest
British pro-Zionist policies.
1934: (4 Nov) National defence Party (al-Hizb al-Difa’a al-Watani)
forms in Jerusalem.

1935: (27 Mar: The Palestine Arab Party (al-Hizb al-Arabi
al-Filastini) forms in Jerusalem. (23 Jun) Annoucement of The Reform
Party (al-Hizb al-Islah) in Jenin. (5 Oct) The National Bloc
(al-Kutlah al-Wataniyah) forms in Nablus.
(Oct): Haganah dissidents form the Irgun Zvai Leumi (National Military
Organisation); Jabotinsky named Commander-in-Chief.
(Nov): Sheikh Izz Eddin al-Qassam leads the first Palestinian unit
resisting British policies and dies in a battle with its forces near
Jenin.

1936-39 - The Great Arab Revolt
Arab Women’s Organisation forms in Jenin
Apr: The Irgun terror gang re-organises and calls for the start of
raids against Palestinians. It begins killing civilians at random on
7th April.
A new union of Palestinian political parties is formed - the Arab
Higher Committee, led by the Mufti of Jerusalem, Al Haj Amin Husseini.
(16-18 Apr): Revolts all over Palestine, largest confrontations in Jaffa.
(20-30 Apr): National Committees established in all Palestinian towns
and large villages. A great rebellion begins. On the 7th May, a
conference of all national committees attended by 150 delegates
representing all sectors of the population calls a 6-month political
strike (no taxation without representation), demanding a national
government and suppression of Zionist immigration.
The British respond by providing professional military training,
officers and arms to Zionist gangs, legalising collective punishments
(home demolitions) and state terrorism (human shields), destroying
large parts of the port city Jaffa (leaving 6,000 people homeless),
deporting leaders to the Seychelles, and imposing a state of emergency
under martial law (Defence Regulations) that remains in force after
the state of emergency is lifted. (The Defence Regulations become the
administrative regulations and justification for Israel after 1967 in
the Occupied Territories - 30 years later).
1937: (7 Jul) The Palestine Royal Commission, led by Lord Peel finds
that the underlying causes of the disturbances are the Palestinians’
desire for national independence. The just demands of the Palestinians
are denied, and it proceeds from the communal approach that there was
no hope of any cooperative national entity comprised of Arabs and
Jews, and that both sides could not live in peace together in one
state. It thus recommends partition, converting Palestine into a
religious or Jewish State aside an Arab State incorporated into
Transjordan, and placing Jerusalem and Bethlehem under the Mandate.
The Jews, who at the time only owned 5.6% of Palestine, were to be
given 33% of the country, from which Peel suggested that the
Palestinian inhabitants could be expelled. 225,000 Arabs would be
transferred out of the 20% of the country it earmarks for Jewish
sovereignty (and the handful of Jews, some 1,250 living in the Arab
areas that were transferred to the Jewish State). A “clean and final”
solution of the Palestine problem necessitated transfer, the
commission ruled. The Arab Higher Committee rejects the Peel Report
(7/37) and calls for Independence of whole Palestine with protection
for the rights of all regardless of religious affiliation and
background as well as the British interests.

The British replace Governors with an army general, proscribe the AHC
and all Palestinian political organisations (10/37), and form military
courts (11/37) to smash the revolution. Sadhij Nassar (wife of the
editor-publisher of Al-Karmel) is first woman arrested (23/2/39) under
Emergency Regulations, and held for 18 months.
- Britain ultimately sends 20,000 troops to quell the revolt. The
Palestinians capture several cities, shaking British “democratic”
rule. In 1938, the Mandate imprisons 5,000; 2,000 receive long prison
terms; another 148 are hanged; and over 5,000 homes are demolished.
- The MacDonald White Paper of the British Govt (17/05/39) disclaims
any intention to create a Jewish state, places restrictions on Jewish
immigration and land purchase, and envisages an independent state in
Palestine within ten years. It prepares for the outbreak of German
attack in Europe by attempting to rebuild bridges to the Arab and
Palestinian leadership.

It is rejected by the Zionists, whose terrorist groups launch a bloody
campaign against the British and the Palestinians with the aim of
paving the way for the establishment of the Zionist state by driving
both of them out of Palestine. There is broad support for Palestinian
national aims, but the combined pressure of the British and Zionist
armed movement prevail over the movement’s limitations including
internal factionalism and readiness to compromise with the British.
During the Mandate, (1922-1947) some 50,000 Palestinians are killed
and thousands more interned in prisons and detention camps, including
hundreds of local political leaders. The deportation and internment of
Palestinian leaders by British colonialism arrested the peoples’
ability to resist the armed assault of the Zionists, with catastrophic
results in 1947-48.

National historiography of the Palestinian cause emerges. Eissa
Al-Safari’s Arab Palestine from the Mandate to Zionism, published in
1938, is the first work to establish clearly that the Palestinian
cause is the product of two factors: the imposition of the British
Mandate and the promulgation of the Balfour Declaration. He concludes
that the most important consequence of the revolt is the expansion of
the Palestinian cause from a local to a universal Arab issue.

- The failure of the Palestinian uprising from 1936 to 1939 is
inevitable, argues Abdel Wahab Al-Kiali in Modern History of Palestine
(1970). The author cites several reasons. Firstly, the balance of
forces are heavily in favour of the Zionists as a result of the
fragmentation of the Arabs and the subordination of Arab governments
to colonial powers. Secondly, the Palestinian leadership is
narrow-minded and lacking in foresight and ambition. Thirdly, there is
an absence of revolutionary vision and mass organisation as a result
of the underdevelopment of both the leadership and society. Finally,
international circumstances between the two world wars are not
propitious for national liberation movements.


The War against Fascism
Appeased by Britain, France and the US, fascist powers initiated WW2.
The cost to humanity was great: 50 million killed, another 35 million
crippled including over 25 million in the Soviet Union; six million
people of Jewish origin die from Nazi genocide, and the five million
others are also exterminated in the death camps. Major political
Zionists were exposed for collaborating with Nazis (see p. 63) or
opposing partisan warfare. Middle East territory was also embroiled.
The British especially coveted the colonies, markets, etc, of Germany,
Italy and Vichy France. With its British alliance as springboard, the
US sought to carve out its own sphere of influence, in which there
would still be no role for a Palestinian state - and assisting this
was the Zionists’ declaration of war on the Mandate.

1939 - Another Promise
(17 May): British White paper - To settle outstanding issues of the revolt as
war clouds gather, Britain formally restricts Jewish
immigration to 75,000 over the next few years and again promise to
extend the Palestinians self-government. It rejects the creation of
either a Jewish or Arab state but envisions an independent state with
a secular government to be established in 1949.
(1 Sept): WW2 - Nazi Germany invades Poland.

1940-1944 - Thieves fall out
1940: (Feb): The Mandate issues land transfer regulations. In the
largest zone, land can only be bought and sold amongst Palestinian
Arabs. With Palestinian rebellion, the Royal Commission’s report and
the 1939 White Paper combining to obstruct their aim of establishing a
Jewish state, the Zionists step up illegal Jewish immigration,
terrorism and their US ties.

1942: (May): The Biltmore Programme, adopted by the Jewish Agency,
aims to create a Jewish state in Palestine through unlimited
immigration and transfer of the Muslim and Christian population to
neighbouring Arab countries.

1944: (Apr): “The executive of Britain’s Labour Party published its
platform for a post-war settlement. It included full-throated
endorsement of the transfer of the Arabs out of Palestine and the
expansion of the mandatory borders to facilitate the absorption of
large waves of Jewish immigrants”. (B. Morris). It also abandons
support for Welsh and Scottish self-determination.
Many Arab states achieve formal political independence, profiting from
the inter-imperialist contradictions, the decline of Britain and
France, and their dissensions. Iraq rebels against the British (5/41),
Vichy France abandons Lebanon and Syria (11/43), and the Conference of
Alexandria lays the foundations for the League of Arab States - Egypt,
Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Transjordania and Yemen (9/44).


Post-War - Dynamic expansion, dispossession and oppression
The defeat of fascism galvanised anti-colonial and socialist struggles
on the world scale. Aspirations for peace, a world governed by law and
recognition of inalienable human rights led to formation of the United
Nations. The United States supplanted the European powers as the
principal imperialist state. With its 6th Fleet, it became a dominant
force in the Middle East in the 1950s. It was prime mover of the
creation of a state of Israel. It also emerged as main prop of
anti-democratic regimes such as the Pablevi dynasty in Iran, and
orchestrated the overthrow of nationalist regimes. Following the
policy of ‘divide and rule’, it set one state against another.

The rapidity of the British collapse caught the Palestinian and Arab
leadership unprepared. At the start of the century, the British Empire
stood at its height. Its control of the Suez Canal facilitated
penetration of all areas lying between the Red Sea and the Indian
Ocean coastline of the African continent down to Cape Town (South
Africa), as well as all regions between the Persian Gulf and the
Indian subcontinent. In the end, neither its extent nor its wealth
could prevent the sun from setting on its empire, nor contain the
struggles for self-determination among the so many peoples enslaved by
its yoke. During WW1 and especially after, as the national revolt of
the peoples of the subcontinent further challenged the Raj, the
security of Britain’s control of the Suez Canal became critical,
linking the fates of India and Palestine. In 1947, Britain abandoned
the Mandate, but not as a result of “fatigue”, let alone the
“brilliant” terror tactics of the Zionist gangs, or from any attack of
conscience. They were desperate. Everything was to be mustered to
prevent the national struggle in the subcontinent from decisively
expelling them. Formed through terror, war and foreign intervention,
Israel was a proxy for Western interests. It provoked bloody conflicts
with and among Arab states. One war after another enabled it to occupy
Egyptian, Syrian, Jordanian and Lebanese territories - Sinai, the West
Bank, the Golan Heights and Gaza Strip. Dispossession and oppression
of the Palestinian people and dynamic expansion were its main
characteristics from the outset.

On 21 May 1948 - a week after proclaiming a state-without-borders,
David Ben-Gurion, the first Israeli Prime Minister, stated: “The
achilles heel of the Arab coalition is the Lebanon. Muslim supremacy
in this country is artificial and can easily be overthrown ..” (The
Armed Phophet, 1954, p.139).
He said that same year: “The present map of Palestine was darwn by the
British Mandate. The Jewish people have another map which our youth
and adults should strive to fulfil - from the Nile to the Euphrates”.

In 1954 he wrote (in ‘Rebirth & Destiny of Israel’): “To maintain the
status quo will not do. We have to set up a dynamic state bent on
expansion”.

In 1969, Gen. Moshe Dayan, Defence Minister, reiterated: “Our fathers
have reached the frontiers which were recognised in the partition
plan. Our generation reached the frontiers of 1949. Now the Six-Day
Generation has managed to reach Suez, Jordan and the Golan Heights.
This is not the end… (London Times, 25/6/1969).

To date, despite innumerable UN resolutions of condemnation, Israel
continues this merciless policy of aggression, checked only by the
stubborn resistance of the Palestinians.

1945 - Compassion in words
(31 Aug): President Truman asks British PM Atlee to grant immigration
certificates for up to 100,000 survivors of the Holocaust to enter
Palestine. While milking world compassion for WW2 survivors to promote
the necessity of a Jewish homeland, the US and Canadian governments
recruit thousands of Nazi war criminals to immigrate.

1946 - US Pressure on Britain
(May): Anglo-American Commission - convened in Jerusalem, with Zionist
and US representatives bringing pressure on the Mandate. Proceeding
from the 1937 Peel Commission, it demands partition on a communal
basis. It reiterates Truman’s demand for 100,000 certificates;
recommends abolition of the 1940 restrictions on the land transfers;
rejects early independence for Palestine - partitioned or unified -
and proposes Palestine become a UN trusteeship, pending which the
mandate would continue . Britain states that it cannot immediately
accept.

The Jewish population grows more than tenfold to 608,000. The
Palestinian population stands at 1,269,000. Some 5.6% of Palestinian
land is in Jewish hands.

1947 - Partition: the Zionist State
(Apr-May): UNSCOP (United Nations Special Committee on Palestine):
Special session to establish this process following a British
announcement that it will pull out of Palestine. “Keeping order” in
Palestine now costs Britain over £35 million a year, exceeding the
profits it extracts.
(Sep): UNSCOP Majority Report recommends partition of Palestine into
Jewish and Arab states. It rejects the “minority” position calling for
a Palestinian secular state with democratic guarantees for the Jewish
minority. Canada’s representative is the Secretary of State for
External Affairs Lester “Mike” Pearson, and the Canadian Jewish
Congress hails his role as that of a “Canadian Balfour”.
(29 Nov): By a two-thirds majority, the UN general Assembly (UNGA)
adopts Resolution 181 embodying the ‘partition plan’ to create
separate Arab and Jewish states. A new Jewish State is granted 56% of
the area, an area that includes as many Arab residents as Jews.
Jerusalem (158 sq km), under UN administration, is defined as a corpus
separatum (international city), comprising 1.5%. The Arab population -
numbering 1,250,000, double that of the Jews - retains 42.4%. The
Palestinians reject the UN plan and demand a unitary state, which
would equitably reflect population size and land access needs. US
Defence Secretary Forrestal writes that the methods of “coercion and
duress on other nations bordered on scandal”. Sumner Welles affirms
that “by direct order of the White House, every form of pressure,
direct or indirect, was brought to bear by American officials upon
those countries that were known to be either uncertain or opposed to
Partition”. The US embargos arms shipments to Palestine and the Arab
states within a week of the resolution, while Zionists stockpile
weapons from all over the world.

1948 - al-Nakba (The Catastrophe); Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing
Between December 1947 and the illegal Declaration of the State of
Israel on the 14th May 1948 - before the British Mandate officially
ends - the Haganah, and the Irgun and Lehi (Stern) which coordinate
many activities under its leadership, unleash Plan ‘Gimel’ - to
militarily occupy and prepare to annex all Palestinian populations
centres inside the partitioned area reserved for a Jewish state. This
is followed by Plan ‘Daled’ - to expel eastward, by whatever means
necessary, communities of Palestinians resident in land already opened
up to cultivation on or in the West Bank as far east as the Jordan
River valley.

There is a mass of literature about what the Palestinians would
experience as “the Catastrophe”, which the Zionists trumpet as a “War
of Independence”. An important source from the Israeli side is the
works of historian Benny Morris about these events. On the damage
inflicted throughout this turning point on the Palestinian striving
for self-determination, there are extensive and detailed materials on
the websites www.passia.org and www. Palestine-net.com

According to historian Morris, Palestine is dismantled in four
distinct waves. Each phase begins with a massacre, e.g. Deir Yassin
(9-10 Apr) by the Irgun-Stern gangs, the last village on the western
side of Jerusalem whose Arab inhabitants had not yet fled. Far from
being a capricious act of “extremists”, it is part of the
comprehensive Plan Daled (‘D’) actually worked out in 1943. Fourteen
other massacres follow in this phase alone, with no British action to
stop them.

First Arab-Israeli War
(May): Ben-Gurion presents his strategic aims to the General Staff.
“We should prepare to go over to the offensive. Our aim is to smash
Lebanon …The weak point is Lebanon …We shall establish a Christian
state there, and then we will smash the Arab Legion, eliminate
Transjordan; Syria will fall to us…” (Michael Bar Zohar, Ben Gurion: A
Biography [New York: Delacorte, 1978])

In this period, with the exception of Nazareth, Zionist forces
depopulate nearly all Palestinian towns. Some census figures before
and after these expulsions: Haifa: from 70,000 to 2,900; Jaffa: from
70,000 to 3,600; Jerusalem: from 70,000 to 3,500; Lydda-Ramleh: from
34,920 to 2,000; Acre: from 15,000 to 3,000; Tiberias: 5,300 to
(virtually) 0; Besian: from 5,180 to 0; Beersheba: from 65,500 to 0;
Safad: from 9,530 to 0 (Labeeb B’Soul, Survey of the Palestinian
Arabs’ Social, Legal and Economic Status in Israel, 2002)

(14 May): The State of Israel is proclaimed but fixed borders are
abjured - on 11% of Palestine. The US recognises it 11 minutes later,
and offers an emergency loan of $100 million.
(15 May): The British Mandate ends abruptly as Britain evacuates its
troops. The Haganah/Irgun/Stern drive east into the UN zone assigned
to the Palestinians. Far from “driving Israel into the sea”, the
armies of Iraq, Syria and Jordan never even reach the area partitioned
for the Jewish state. In the wake of massacres committed against
Palestinians, Israeli minister of agriculture Aharon Cizlang admits in
a cabinet meeting, “now Jews too have been shaken”.
(15-17 May): USA and USSR recognise Israel.
(22 Sep): All-Palestine Government announced by the Arab Higher
Committee, transforming the temporary civil administration into a
government for all Palestine.
(11 Dec): Resolution 194. UN proclaims the inalienable right of return
for Palestinian refugees:
That the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace
with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest
practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the
property of those choosing not to return and for the loss of or damage
to property which, under principles of international law or in equity,
should be made good by the government or authorities responsible.

This resolution is re-affirmed more than 25 times, and confirmed more
than 130 times, a unique case in UN history. For the next 54 years to
date, Israel refuses to comply.

1949 - “It is still waiting”
Israel defeats the Arab armies. A series of armistice agreements are
signed with Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria. Israel extends its
holdings of Palestine by conquering areas allotted by the UN for a
Palestinian state, and controls 78% of the total area - rather than
the 56% originally allocated. At least 700,000 Palestinians are now
refugees, or 60% of the population of historical Palestine. 13,000 are
killed. Of 859,000 Palestinians living inside of Israeli lines,
684,000 lose their homes and property. From 1948 to 1967 Palestinians
inside the State of Israel (78% of Palestine) are again subject to
military rule.
(11 May): Resolution 273 - UNGA admits Israel to the UN on the
condition that it implements Resolution 181 (defining the borders of
the partitioned area) and Resolution 194 (recognising Palestinians’
right to repatriation or compensation). It is still waiting.
(12 Aug): Fourth Geneva Convention provides protection of civilians in
time of war.
(8 Dec): The United Nations relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) forms
specifically to address the Palestinian refugee issue. Close to 5m
refugees are dispossed of their land and identity.

1950:
(23 Jan): In violation of UN resolutions, Israel establishes its
capital in western Jerusalem.
(Mar): Absentee Property Law adopted, classifying anyone who was a
citizen or resident of one of the Arab states or a Palestinian citizen
or resident of one of the Arab states or a Palestinian citizen on
29/11/47 but had left his place of residence, even to take refuge
within Palestine, as an ‘absentee’. Absentee property is vested in the
custody of absentee property, who then ‘sold’ it to the Development
Authority, empowered by the Knesset. This authorises the theft of the
property of a million Palestinians, seized by Israel in 1948.
(24 Apr): Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan annexes the territory it
occupied, renaming it the West Bank. Egypt asserts authority over Gaza.
(Jul): Knesset unanimously passes the ‘Law of return’. Its first tenet
states, “Every Jew has a right to emigrate to Israel”.

1951: Israel attempts to divert the waters of the Jordan river from
the Jordan Valley to the Mediterranean and to the Negev, contrary to
the armistice agreements and over the protests of US and UN officials.

1953 - Qubya …and water
(28 Feb): Israel launches a large scale assault on the Gaza Strip,
attacking the UNWRA refugee camp at Bureij in the Gaza Strip, killing
102 villagers and refugees.
(Sep): The US prepares a unified plan for the Jordan River -
apportioning 33% of its water to Israel. Israel wants more. To
pre-empt the plan it secretly begins a crash program to construct a
nine-mile pipeline in the demilitarised zone to divert its waters, the
B’not Yaacov canal. The significance is that only 23% of the flow of
the Jordan originates in israel. The US secretly cuts aid to Israel.
(14-15 Oct): Massacre in Qibya, a West Bank Palestinian village in
Jordan by “Unit 101” of Israeli Army, “the avengers”, formed and
commanded by 25-year old Israeli major Ariel Scheinerman (Sharon) blow
up 45 homes in Qibya in a battalion-level attack. They kill 69
civilians, two thirds of them women and children. Sharon’s orders are
as follows: “The objective: attack Qibya, conquer and cause maximum
harm to persons and property…”
As a result of the ensuing furore, the US makes public (18 Oct) its
aid cutoff over the diversion project. Just 11 days later, under
pressure from the Zionist lobby and an Israeli pledge to suspend work,
US aid resumes. Israel however diverts some of the waters of the
Galilee and the lakes above it (used by neighbouring countries for
crops) to its Negev desert (see map, p.32).

1956 - 2nd Arab-Israeli War
(26 Jul): Britain and France challenge Egypt’s nationalisation of the
Suez Canal, an event of major importance to developing countries,
cancelling a 99-year lease imposed by an Anglo-French consortium at
the end of the 19th century. Later Israel, in collusion with London
and Paris, and with large secret supplies of French arms, stages a
sweeping ground attack, seizing Gaza and the Sinai Peninsula (see map
p.41). Br-Fr serve an ultimatum on Egypt and Israel (6 Nov) to
withdraw to positions 10 miles either side of the Canal. Israel
provokes Egypt to reject the ultimatum and creates a pretext for the
RAF to bomb Port Said, a port at the Mediterranean entrance to the
Canal. The US becomes Israel’s principal protector, backer and arms
supplier. As part of a new inter-imperialist rivalry, the Soviet Union
also moves in under the banner of “socialism” and “friendship” with
the Arab regimes.
(29 Oct): Kafr Qassem massacre.

1957
(5 Jan): The Eisenhower Doctrine: the US asserts the right to employ
force, if necessary, to assist any nation or group of nations in the
general ME region requesting assistance against armed aggression from
any country controlled by “international communism” (eg, Nasser).
Ostensibly drafted to preserve regional stability, its primary goal is
to extend American hegemony. In response to a Presidential threat to
cut US aid, Israel withdraws from Gaza and the Sinai.

1958
(15-Oct): US invades Lebanon with 10,000 troops from its 6th Fleet, to
prevent a pan-Arab Muslim government.

1959
In Kuwait, one of the major Palestianian diaspora, Yasser Arafat and
associates form the Palestine Liberation Movement, known as Fateh. The
founding congress is held in October. Fateh, a reverse-acronym for
Harakat At-Tahrir Al-Filistiniya (Palestinian Liberation Movement),
also means “conquest”.

Fateh grows out of a clandestine organisation formed by students in
1957; it advocates armed struggle to liberate all of Palestine by
Palestinians, while remaining independent of all Arab governments.
Headed by Arafat ever since, it was and is the largest and strongest
PLO group.

Until the 1970s, it follows a guerrilla strategy (with its military
wing Al-Assifa and squads, known as Fateh Hawks and Black Panthers,
operating underground in the Occupied Territories). Formulating a new
policy at the 1972 congress, it repositions guerrilla warfare as one
of various means of struggle. Its political programme: a democratic,
secular, multi-religious state.

In the first Intifada (1987-93), it played a central role, represented
in its leadership by three members in the Executive Committee. Fateh
is credited with “ferocious resistance” in Jenin and other cities
during Operation Defensive Shield.

1960
Israel completes the diversion of the Jordan River. Jordan and Syria
strongly protest the unilateral appropriation of their water.

The Sixties

This marked the highpoint of national liberation and anti-imperialist
struggles on all continents. In 1960 the Sharpeville Massacre unfolded
in South Africa, the Vietnam war raged, many African countries won
independence, revolutionary movements challenged Latin America clients
of Washington and the civil rights movement was on the march in North
America. Forces came forward recognising the fundemental necessity for
change.

On 29 May 1964 the 1st Palestine National Congress convened in
Jerusalem. Its 388 delegates from all sectors of Palestinian society
drafted the First National Covenant (2 Jun). The Palestine Liberation
Organisation (PLO) officially formed, as a nationalist organisation
with variation tendencies with aims of liberating Palestine and
defeating the anti-Arab, annexationist policy of Israel. It accepted
the Jewish population as part of the citizenry of a new Arab state of
Palestine.

The development of popular struggles placed the Palestinian question
high on the internationalist agenda. This brought widespread support
from progressive forces around the world. The reactionary colonial
nature of Zionist rule became widely known for the first time.

Israel was seen urging imperialist powers to oppose struggles for
national and social liberation more actively. Through the export of
arms, Tel Aviv supported white settler regimes in Zimbabwe, Angola,
Mozambique and South Africa. It also armed South Vietnam (Dayan spent
two months there in 1966) and later Pinochet’s Chile, El Salvador,
Guatemala and Somoza’s Nicaragua. At the UN it opposed African
independence and - in various mettings, such as the Law of the Sea and
the conferences on raw materials - the demand of the developing
countries more equitable, sovereign arrangements.

By the time of the Glassboro Summit, three weeks after the June 1967
war, the US and the Soviet Union, although rival empires found
themselves impelled to collaborate in imposing a continuous state of
“no war, no peace” as the sole arbiters of the fate of the people.

1964
(29 May): The 1st Palestine National Congress in Jerusalem. Its 388
delegates from all sectors of Palestinian society drafted the First
National Covenant.
(2 Jun): The Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) officially
formed, as a nationalist organisation with various tendencies with the
aims of liberating Palestine and defeating the anti-Arab annexationist
policy of Israel. It accepted the Jewish population as part of the
citizenry of a new Arab state of Palestine.
The development of popular struggles placed the Palestinian question
high on the international agenda. This brought widespread support from
progressive forces around the world. The reactionary colonial nature
of Zionist rule became widely known for the first time.
Israel was seen urging imperialist powers to oppose struggles for
national and social liberation more actively. Through the export of
arms, Tel Aviv supported white settler regimes in Zimbabwe, Angola,
Mozambique and South Africa. It also armed South Vietnam (Dayan spent
two months there in 1966) and later Pinochet’s Chile, El Salvador,
Guatemala and Somoza’s Nicaragua. At the UN it opposed African
independence and - in various meetings, such as the Law of the Sea and
the conferences on raw materials - the demand of the developing
countries for more equitable, sovereign arrangements.
The Palestinian Liberation Army (PLA) formed as the PLO’s military
branch led by Arafat, with three brigades: Ein Jalut (Gaza and Egypt),
Qadisiyya (Iraq) and Hittin (Syria). Establishes the Popular
Liberation Troops (Kuwat At-Tahrir Ash-Sha’biya) in Gaza in 1968 as
commando units to fight against the Israeli occupation. Its first
attack (31/12/64) is on a pumping station and water canal of the
National Water Carrier. Follows the strategy of “Peoples’ war”, with
most forces deployed in Syria and Lebanon.
1965: Mar: Israel diverts the Jordan River
1965: (13 Nov) Israeli tanks and armoured cars attack the village of
Sammou in the West Bank, killing 18, wounding 54, destroying 125
houses, a clinic and a school. The UNHCR (25 Nov) censures Israel for
this aggression.

1967 - 3rd Arab-Israeli War
(5 Jun): The Six Day War. Under pretext of a pre-emptive defensive
strike, Israel initiates a war, attacking Egypt, Syria and Jordan. It
occupies the remaining 22% of historic Palestine, bringing another 1.1
million Palestinians under military rule. It begins occupation of the
West Bank and Gaza Strip, the Sinai of Egypt and the Golan Heights of
Syria, over 65,000 sq km. The Suez Canal is closed until 1975.
(28 Jun): Flying in the face of world opinion at the UN, Israel
annexes East Jerusalem.
(26 Jul): Israel launches settlements in the Occupied Territories
under the Allon Plan. Main points include: minimising Arab rights,
annexing the Jordan Valley, consolidating the Jerusalem corridor, and
cantonising the remainder (conforming with an autonomy plan for
Palestinian self-administration) - all in the name of “security”. The 1997
Allon Plus Plan envisions the future “enclaves” with restricted autonomy
around Palestinian population centres, confined to less than 40% of the west
Bank, with Israel retaining residual control.
(Aug): military rule in the Occupied Territories. The Palestinian
Centre for Human Rights issues a report stating that “Israeli military
Orders required the licensing of publications” and occupying forces
had to “confiscate newspapers or other materials published without
license”. All printed material is subject to military censorship. The
censors ban 6,000 titles.
“Open Bridges” policy - Defence Minister Dayan proposes to provide
access for the Palestinians to the Arab world via Jordan and
facilitate the export of Palestinian products (competition for
Israel), and the passage of workers (e.g, to the Gulf states) �" in
order to encourage emigration: Palestinians aged 20-40 are barred from
returning for nine months.
The Israeli establishment is fragmenting over where to resettle the
Palestinians. The Labour Zionist wing, led by Foreign Minister Abba
Eban, says: “to neighbouring Arab countries, mainly Syria and Iraq”.
PM Begin: “Tear down the refugee camps and ship the inhabitants to
Sinai” - territory seized from Egypt two weeks before.
The Army and Defence Ministry set up a “secret unit charged with
‘encouraging’ the departure of the Palestinians for foreign shores” -
including Paraguay. According to the revelations of Ariel Sharon 20
years later, there was a plan to remove up to 1 million Palestinians.
A Palestinian attack on Israel’s consulate in Asuncion kills the
scheme. Some 1,000 are transferred (Washington Post, 7/2/88).
By the time of the Glassboro Summit, three weeks after the June 1967
war, the US and the Soviet Union, although rival empires, found
themselves impelled to collaborate in imposing a continuous state of
“no war, no peace” as the sole arbiters of the fate of the people
(22 Nov): UNSC Resolution 242 calls on Israel to withdraw from lands
occupied in the June war. The United States continues to block efforts
to enforce the resolution.

Predatory economics of the 1967 war: blue water gold
War is a continuation of politics by other means:
The 1967 war augmented the surface water supply of Israel by about 40%
by annexing Arab lands at the expense of three of its four neighbours,
Israel seized control of the headwaters of the Jordan River. Today,
Israel takes virtually all of the river’s flow, leaving only brackish,
unusable water for the Syrians and Jordanians. The Golan Heights,
annexed from Syria, supplies 30% of Israel’s water. The diversion of
the Jordan to the Mediterranean littoral and to the Negev defies
international law regarding water use, namely that water should not be
diverted from its catchment basin.
The war augmented its underground water supply. It diverted 80% of the
water pumped from West Bank aquifers, reducing the Palestinian portion
to only 20%. Today, more than 35% of its water consumption originates
from the West Bank (the westward flowing Eastern Aquifer) and Gaza
(Gaza aquifer, now polluted and salinated) alone.
According to an 1984 estimate, the economic value of this water was
over $2b annually. “The price of peace thus becomes, for Israel, the
spoils of war, some $2-3 billion yearly in forsaken war prizes”.
(Thomas Stauffer, 1984 Arab Research Centre symposium on water,
determining value by the cost to replace this volume, eg
desalination). In 1999, experts estimated the compensation for damages
to Palestinian water resources caused by Israel and for Palestinian
water used by Israel over the years, at a minimum of $45 billion
(Water & Environment, PASSIA).
Authorities imposed strict water regulations on the residents of the
West Bank. Israel enacted Military Order 92 (Order Regarding Powers in
WaterLaw Matters) and Military Order 158 (Order Amending the
Supervision Over Water Law No. 31 of 1952) in the West Bank in August
1967, transferred all powers in effect under Jordanian legislation to
the appointee of the Commander of IDF forces in the region and revoked
all the rights that legislation had granted to the population, unless
the said officer extended them. In contrast to the Jordanian
legislation, decisions of the commander cannot be appealed to any
other level of authority or court.
Military Order 498, of 1974, created a similar situation in the Gaza
Strip. In 1981, Israel transferred powers over water matters to the
Interior Department of the Civil Administration.
Permits to drill or even deepen wells in Arab areas are rarely given,
and never for agriculture - only wells were approved for domestic use
from 1967 to 1996. The policy, according to Davar (26/11/78), was
aimed at minimising any interference with the water being pumped to
Israel proper (within the pre-1967 borders) from the West Bank.
“From the analysis above, it becomes clear that an important second
objective of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank is an economic one,
water being the major factor. A similar goal is probably being sought
in Lebanon.” (H.A. Amery & A.A. Kubursi, “The Litani River Basin: The
Politics and Economics of Water”).

1968
Jan: Fateh adopts as its political programme the establishment of a
secular democratic state in Palestine in which Arabs and Jews coexist.
21 Mar: Israel attacks Fateh bases in Al-Karameh, using chemical
weapons, east of the Jordan R. Palestinian forces and the Jordan
block Israel from entering the East Bank. UNSCR (24 Mar) condemns
Israeli attack.
21 May: UNSCR declares invalid all Israeli legislative and
adminstrative measures - including the expropriation of land and
properties - intended to change the legal status of Jerusalem.

1969 - ‘They did not exist’
Zionist agent sets fire to the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
15 Jun: Israeli PM Golda Meir states:
There was no such thing as Palestinians …It was not as though there
was a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their
country away from them. They did not exist (The Sunday Times, London
15/6/69).

Jul: US increases aid to Israel in 1971 to $634m in 1971, from £93m in
1970. Between 1972-77, the US sells Iran over $22b in arms.
9 Dec: UNGA adopts Resolution 2535 (XXIV) reaffirming the inalienable
rights of Palestinians to self-determination.

The Seventies
In this decade, military attacks on Palestinians become a feature of
daily life inside the Occupation Territories, including terror
tactics used against political leaders. Neighbouring refugee
communities, including Lebanon are not exempt. After the mass
deportations of the 1948 War (750,000) and 1967 War (388,500), Israel
continues this policy in the Occupied Territories. According to
B’Tselems, the Israeli human rights organisation, from 1967 to 1992,
1,522 Palestinians are deported. Between 1970-1973, 785 Palestinians
are deported and in 1992 alone, 415 Palestinians are deported to South
Lebanon, mainly intellectuals, some for one year and others for two
years. None of those deported are charged, tried or convicted of a
criminal offence.

1970: (Sep) The PLO is gaining strength; “Black September” ensues. PLO
decamps to Lebanon.

1971 - ‘The right to resist’
6 Dec: Resolution 2787 - UNGA reiterates the position of the UN
Charter recognising the right to resist foreign occupation in the
Palestinian and other cases, confirming inter alia “…the legality of
the peoples’ struggle and liberation from colonial and foreign
domination and alien subjugation, notably in Southern Africa and in
particular that the peoples of Zimbabwe, Namibia, Angola, Mozambique
and Guinea (Bissau), as well as the Palestinian people, by all means
consistent with the Charter of the United Nations.”

1972: (5-6 Sep) Attack at the Munich Olympics, killing 11 Israelis.
The PLO condemns the attack. Israel bombs Lebanon, killing 400 civilians.

1973 - 4th Arab-Israeli War
10 Apr: Israeli elite troops assassinate PLO officials in their homes
in Beirut, including the prominent poet Kamal Nasser, director of
public relations. This is part of Operation God’s Wrath, authorised by
PM Golda Meir for the purpose of eliminating the established 1,000
current or potential leaders of the Palestinian national liberation
movement.

Aug: Palestinian National Front forms within the Occupied Territories.

6 Oct: The October War. Egyptian and Syrian armies attack to recover
territories occupied by Israel, including the east bank of the Suez
Canal and Golan Heights. (see map p.41) Seymour Hersh (The Samson
Option) claims that Israel has 100+ nuclear bombs and Israeli Gen.
Moshe Dayan considers using them against Egypt. Masibe US airlift
saves the Israeli forces, enabling them to prevail. The US places
forces on global alert (DEFCON III), including Canada’s (through
NORAD), without notifying its government, saying they did not want to
awaken the Defence Minister who was sleeping.

The war in the first unified action of Arab states against Israel. The
myth of Israeli “invincibility” is exposed. (17 Oct) Arab states stop
oil exports to the US, reducing oil production by 5% per month.

22 Oct: Resolution 338 - In the context of demanding an immediate
“ceasefire in place” the UNSCR reiterates that Israel must return to
the pre-1967 borders (Resolution 242).

26-28 Nov: The Arab League in Algiers recognises PLO as the “sole
legitimate representative of the Palestinian people”.

14 Dec: Resolution 3151 - The UNGA condemns inter alia the unholy
alliance between South African racism and Zionism.

1974 - PLO recognised by UN
19 Feb: Discarding the position maintained since its founding in
favour of establishing a secular democratic state in “all” of
Palestine, the Palestinian National Council accepts the establishment
of a Palestinian state in “any liberated part” of Palestine.

14 Oct: UNGA adds the question of Palestine to it’s agenda for the
first time since 1952.
13 Nov: It invites Chairman Arafat to address it on behalf of the PLO
as sole representative of the Palestinian people. His address is
entitled “Zionism is Racism”. The UN recognises the inalienable right
of Palestinians to independence and self-determination and grants the
PLO observer status. (22 Nov Resolution 3236 XXIX)

1975 - ‘Zionism is Racism’
Apr: A 13-year civil war erupts in Lebanon.
10 Nov: UNGA adopts Resolution 3379 (xxx) that Zionism is a form of
racism and racial discrimination. (In the 1990s, it is rescinded under
intense US pressure supported by Canada).

1976 - Day of the Land
30 Mar: Day of the Land - Israeli Arab citizens launch mass
demonstrations in Galilee against expropriation of their land. This
date becomes an international day of solidarity.

1977 - Sadat to Jerusalem
17 May: Likud wins election - A ‘right-wing’ coalition takes power in
Tel-Aviv for the first time, led by Begin, and unleashes waves of
settlements in the territories occupied by Israel in 1967 (19-21 Nov)
President Anwar Sadat of Egypt addresses the Knesset in Jerusalem,
abandoning the Palestinians as a precondition for collaboration with
Washington.

28 Nov: The UNGA adopts resolution condemning Israel for its
political, diplomatic, economic, military and nuclear collaboration
with apartheid South Africa.

1978 - From Litani to Camp David
14 Mar: Israel launches Operation Litani, a full-scale invasion of
South Lebanon, with 30,000 troops in order to push PLO position away
from the border, bolster the power of the ‘South Lebanon Army’, and
annex southern Lebanon south of the Litani River in the name of a
‘security zone’. Studies show it was planned for two years. The attack
displaces over 250,000 people, kills 1,500-2,000 mostly Lebanese and
Palestinian civilians, and ultimately occupies a 10km strip north of
the border (about 10% of Lebanon). Major Saad Haddad (1979) declares a
Maronite State in southern Lebanon. The SLA is paid ($500 a month),
provisioned and armed by Israel, commanded by Israeli officers, and
many of its leaders given Israeli citizenship. UNSCR 425 demands an
immediate Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon. Israel’s refusal and
attempt to claim ‘a security zone’ provokes creation of a 5,000-member
United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIfiL) to restore Beirut’s
authority over its sovereign territory. In a stand-off that lasts
until May 2000, Israel prevents it from reaching the border, in
violation of nine subsequent UN resolutions, where the US openly backs
Israel.
17 Sep: Camp David Accords - Carter brokers “peace” between Egypt
(Sadat) and Israel (Begin) at the expense of Palestine. Carter (28
Dec) rules out a Palestinian state.

US troops disguised as a “multinational force” are placed between
Egypt and Israel but on Egyptian soil. Egypt ultimately becomes the
second-largest recipient of US aid after Israel.

1979 - Soviet Invasion
Jan: People of Iran topple the Shah
22 Mar: Resolution 446 - UNSCR declares Israeli settlements in the
Occupied Territories illegal and a serious obstacle to peace.
19 Nov & 12 Dec: UNGA reaffirms the inalienable rights of the
Palestinian people and declares that the Camp David Accords have no
validity in determining the future of the Palestinians.
26 Dec: Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan.

The Eighties
1980: The Knesset illegally seizes a large portion of the West Bank
for settlements under the guise of annexing as “East Jerusalem” a zone
ten times Jerusalem’s defined area.
1982: (6 Jun) With a “green light” from the US, Israel begins a
massive land, air and sea invasion of Lebanon; (15-18 Sep). Sabra and
Shatilah War Crime (See pp. 24-27) Palestinian Communist Party forms.

1985: (Oct) Israel bombs PLO HQ in Tunis, 3,000 miles distant, in a
bid to assassinate Arafat and the PLO leadership. 75 people are killed
and 120 wounded, mostly civilians.

Israel pulls most of its forces out of Lebanon and sets up a 15km
(nine mile) wide occupation zone to ‘stop cross-border attacks’.

1987 - First Intifada
9 Dec: Intifada (‘Civil Uprising’; Arabic, lit: ‘shaking off’). What
is today referred to as the “first Intifada” erupts after four
Palestinians are killed when an Israeli truck collides with two vans
carrying Palestinian workers. Ensuring clashes spread rapidly to the
rest of the OT. The Intifada is carried by youth and directed by the
Unified National Leadership of the Uprising - a coalition of the main
parties, with the goal to end the Israeli occupation and establish
Palestinian independence.

Israel’s response includes: closing universities, deporting activists,
destroying homes, the use of live ammunition and rubber bullets. The
number of soldiers on duty on the West Bank at the beginning of 1989
is more than three times the number needed to conquer it during the
Six Day War. The international community is stirred into seeking a
permanent solution. With the signing of the Oslo Accords, the Intifada
comes to an end. Casualities were high with over 1,500 Palestinians
dead, and tens of thousands injured.

1988 - Declaration of Independence
Jan: Formation of Hamas, an Arabic acronym formed from Harakat
Al-Muqawama Al-Islamiyya (the Islamic Resistance Movement) meaning
‘zeal’. Hamas is not a component of the religious associations, which
begins as the Muslim Brotherhood’s link to the first Intifada, and
intiatially Israel tolerates, if not encourages its flourishing as an
alternative to the PLO. (It is listed as a ‘terrorist’ organisation by
the US State Dept).
- The Hamas Covenant (Aug) declares all of Palestine an Islamic trust
territory, under no conditions to be surrendered to non-Muslims, and
proclaims jihad against Israel. The Hamas political programme
envisions an Islamic state in all of historic Palestine, under the law
of Shar’ia.
- During the Intifada, although it operates independently of the
leadership, it does not question the PLO’s role as representative of
the Palestinian people at the international level.
- After Fateh, it becomes the largest Palestinian group. Agreeing to
abide by decisions of the Palestine National Council but calling for
elections to the PNC, Hamas gains popularity through its charitable
enterprises in ensuring educational health and other services
especially in Gaza, while opposing the Oslo “peace process” in
principle and participating in numerous armed attacks on Israeli targets.
15 Nov: The Palestinian National Council convenes its 19th session and
adopts the Declaration of Independence of Palestine. It adopts a
political communique, including acceptance of UNGA resolution 181 (II)
of 1947 and UNSCR resolution 242 (1967), announces the establishment
of the State of Palestine in the West Bank and Gaza and endorses the
appointment of Yasser Arafat as President. Fifty-five countries
including China and the Soviet Union recognise the Palestinian state
and/or the proclamation.

15 Dec: The UNGA acknowledges the proclamation of a state of Palestine
by the PNC. It decides that the designation Palestine should be used
instead of PLO in the UN system.

Palestinians mark the anniversary of the Intifada. By the end of the
1st year, 318 Palestinians have been killed, 20,000 wounded, 15,000
arrested, 12,000 jailed and 34 deported.

1990s & Beyond
The collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc between 1989 and
19th August 1991 severely destabilised international relations in
Europe, Asia and Africa. The Common Market reorganised as the European
Union (EU) and, in 1993, the United States, Canada and Mexico set up
the North American Free Trade (NAFTA, officially launched in 1994),
with plans to cover both American continents by 2005.

The US emerged as the sole superpower in a unipolar world. George Bush
Sr endeavoured to create a ‘New World Order’ to preserve its global
pre-eminence. This self-serving unilateral doctrine proposed using
force to settle conflicts, disdaining negotiation. In the Middle-East,
one of the regions in oil, it sought the role of hegemony - a leading
role unchallengeable from any quarter.

Control of oil, strategic pipeline and shipping routes (the Suez
Canal), and the strengthening of Israel and compliant Arab regimes - a
‘New Arab Order’ - becomes critical. This new order envisions
establishment of US military bases throughout the Arab world. All
support from the Arab world for armed resistance by Palestinians was
to be abandoned.

The Gulf War against Iraq allowed Washington to escalate its military
presence, cement its control of the region, and open up massive
investment of billions of dollars by the US multinationals, especially
the energy-rich Caspian Basin and Central Asia. Yet it was also
increasingly challenged economically by Europe and Japan (which in the
mid-1980s had overtaken the United States).

As other revolutionary struggles ebb, the Intifada continued. This
national rebellion posed the major obstacle to Washington’s designs on
the region, and actually became the main factor for peace in the
Middle East. Along with the deceptive Oslo Accords, summit after
summit came and went, aiming to liquidate this uprising and sidetrack
the long-term struggle. Israel implemented its greatest expansion of
colonial settlements into Palestinian territory - its policies of
Transfer and dispersal of the Palestinians. Continued resistance
frustrated these strategems. This laid bare a crisis of historic
proportions for the US and Israel. Far from surrendering , the
Palestinians spontaneously unleash their Second Intifada in 2000.

1990 - Gulf War prelude
1990: (2 Aug) Iraq invades Kuwait, claiming it as its “19th province”.
The Arab world is split and polarised (8-10 Aug) US forces arrive in
Kuwait.
(8 Oct) The first eight Canadian jet fighters arrive in Qatar to take
part in the undeclared blockade of Iraq.
(15 Jan): A US-led coalition ousts the Iraqi forces from Kuwait in
Operation Desert Storm. Canada’s total contribution includes 18
CF-18s, three warships and a field hospital unit - altogether about
1,700 military personnel. The country’s first offensive military
action since the Korean War is met with large-scale protests but all
‘major’ parties endorse the war.

The PLO refuse to join the US-led ‘coalition’. In the aftermath, only
30,000 of 400,000 Palestinians previously in Kuwait remain, as it
expels the rest to the Occupied Territories and Jordan.

1990: 8 Oct: The Al-Aqsa Mosque Massacre: Following a march of 200,000
Jews to assert control over the historic holy site, the closure of
roads with military barriers to prevent Palestinians from getting to
Jerusalem, and blocking the doors of the Mosque (defended inside by
several thousand worshippers), Israeli troops open fire for 35 minutes
in the courtyards of Al-Aqsa, killing 34 Palestinians and injuring
850. They use automatic weapons, poison gas bombs and gunships. Most
wounds are in the head and heart.

1991 - The attack, the loan
Jan: US loan guarantees ($10 bn) fund expansion of Zionist colonies
throughout the Occupied territories, including separate ‘dedicated’
roads, water-sewer service, education and other infrastructure.
Also in Jan: The Gulf War
30 Oct: Madrid peace conference. Bush and Gorbachev open the ‘renewed
peace process’.

1993 - Oslo Accords
25 Jul: Israel launches Operation Accountability, a week long air,
artillery and naval blitz targeting southern Lebanon. Casualties: 123
civilians, 11 Hezbollah guerrillas, about 500 wounded, and
300,000-500,000 Lebanese displaced.

13 Sep: Oslo Accords. Flanking US president US president Clinton , PLO
Chairman Arafat and the Israeli PM Rabin sign the Declaration of
Principles on Interim Self-Government (DOP) at the White House. The
PLO recognises the right of the State of Israel to exist; Israel
recognises the PLO as the “sole legitimate representative of the
Palestinian people” - but not the right of the Palestinians to their
own state. Everything else is put off to “final status” talks, but in
the next eight years Israel’s settlement-building more than doubles.
The Palestinian National Authority (PNA) is established on the basis
of the DoP, to ‘govern’ Palestinian affairs in the self-rule areas. It
consists of the elected President (Yasser Arafat), the appointed
cabinet (executive committee currently composed of 32 PNA Ministers)
and the Palestinian Legislative Council (88 elected members). The PNA
is s

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