The Inconvenient Palestine Facts
What the Media Don't Know or Never Tell
The Jewish and Arab inhabitants of what both consider a Holy Land, Israel or Palestine, agree on their descent from the Patriarch Abraham and his sons Isaac and Ishmael, respectively. All else seems to be subject to disagreement. Is it possible to reconcile enough of the intervening 4,000 years to form a rational basis for settling the current decades-old dispute over the land?
The Crux of the Historical Dispute
The predominant Israeli and Jewish position is that the Zionist movement which began to bring large numbers of Jews to the region between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea in the late 19th century was the exercise of a right of return to a land in which most of their ancestors lived from before 1000 BCE to the 1st century of the Common Era.
The basic Palestinian and Arab position is that Arabs have continuously dwelt in the land at least since the Muslim Conquest of the 7th century and have links to the Canaanite population that even preceded Abraham. They regard the Israelis as predominantly European colonists with only a tenuous connection to the Israelites of Biblical times. Some go so far as to claim that there never was a Jewish political entity in the land and that there was no Jewish Temple in Jerusalem.
Generally Accepted History
While historians and archaeologists debate the authenticity of early Biblical history, they agree on well over a thousand years of Israelite residence in the disputed area. Contemporary Babylonian, Assyrian, and Persian records refer to Israelite and Judean kings known through the Bible, and artifacts verify the presence of their people. Roman history documents the subjugation of the Jews and the bloody suppression of revolts in the lst and 2nd centuries. The Temple was real enough to be described glowingly by contemporary Jewish and Roman eyewitnesses and to form a key locale for the activities of Jesus not long before its destruction.
The deaths of perhaps a million or more Judeans in the revolts and the accompanying ravaging of the land led to an emigration of most of the remaining population to Europe, other parts of the Middle East, and North Africa. Artifacts and the memoirs of travelers suggest that a small number of Jews continued to live in small communities in what the Romans renamed Palestine as a rebuke to the rebellious Judeans. In the 13th and 16th centuries, additional small numbers of European and North African Jews returned to the area. By the mid-19th century, they formed the largest community of Jerusalem.
The 7th century Muslim conquest was predominantly Arab. The Arabs may have blended with other non-Jewish elements of the population going back to Roman, Greek, or even earlier migrations. Arabs built the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem and ruled the land as part of larger provinces until supplanted by other Muslims like the Seljuk and Ottoman Turks. There never was an independent Palestinian state and the Muslim rule ended with the defeat of the Ottoman forces by Great Britain in World War I. The Arab population of the now disputed territory continued to exceed that of the Jews until after the founding of the modern State of Israel.
20th Century Facts
The post-World War I League of Nations gave England a Mandate for a temporary governance of Palestine, defined as territory on both sides of the Jordan River. The Mandate ratified a wartime declaration of the British government in favor of a Jewish homeland in Palestine which would not harm the rights of the Arab population.
Shortly after assuming the Mandate, Britain separated the four-fifths of the territory lying east of the Jordan River and created the Emirate of Transjordan. Jews were not permitted to settle in this portion.
The growth of the Jewish population west of the Jordan led to clashes with Arabs and eventually a revolt of the Arabs against the British. A British Commission recommended a partition of the land between Arabs and Jews in 1937. The Jews accepted; the Arabs rejected it and continued the revolt until 1939, when the British announced a sharp curtailment and phasing out of Jewish immigration.
After the intervening World War II and continued Arab-Jewish hostilities, Britain surrendered its Mandate to the newly formed United Nations, which voted in 1947 to partition the land between Arabs and Jews. Again the Jews accepted; the Arabs rejected it. On May 14, 1948, when the Jews declared the State of Israel, Egypt bombed the capital, Tel Aviv, and several Arab armies invaded Israel. UN-arranged armistices in 1949 left the Israelis in possession of additional territory. A Palestinian state was not established. Instead, Egypt occupied the Gaza Strip and Transjordan occupied and then annexed the West Bank, soon renaming itself Jordan on the strength of the conquest.
The Arab nations refused to recognize Israel or conclude peace treaties. They abetted guerrilla forces which attacked Israel from both Jordan and the Gaza Strip, some under the aegis of a Palestine Liberation Organization.
In 1967, Egypt declared a blockade of Israel. The UN discussed this classic act of war but took no action. When Israel attacked Egypt to break the blockade, Jordan attacked Israel in support of its ally. After a six-day war, Israel was in control of the rest of the land west of the Jordan River. Israel announced its willingness to return its new conquests in return for a peace agreement, but the Arab nations announced a policy of no peace, no recognition, no negotiations.
The Most Relevant Facts
Jews are not European colonists but a people with a historical claim to the land they call Israel. Large numbers of Arabs have been living in parts of the same land for centuries. Those who call themselves Palestinians do not form or feel part of any other country.
