A Brief History of the Palestinian / Israeli Conflict If you don’t know the answers to these questions, or if you think you have all the answers, then this is the primer you need to read. ▶ Haven’t Jews and Arabs been fighting in this region since biblical times? ▶ If God gave this country to the Jews, why are so many people upset about it? ▶ Wouldn’t there be peace if all the terrorism ended? ▶ Why can’t Israelis and Palestinians live together in one democratic state? ▶ Why can’t Israelis and Palestinians live together in two democratic states side by side? A Brief History of the Palestinian / Israeli Conflict 3rd Edition - 2015 originally written by Yahav Zohar (2012) Since the original writing the text has been disected and carved up a number of times by dozens of people that it’s fair to say that the author of the current version is the ‘Green Olive Community’. ©Copyright 2015 - Green Olive Collective Inc. Copyright is reserved but any individual or organisation many copy, publish, and/or distribute the text, subject to the following conditions: 1. That only the entire text of this document is copied. Distribution or publication of only part of the text is prohibited except with written permission. 2. A clear attribution to the Green Olive Collective must be included with any republication, including these two web addresses where free digital copies are available: www.madeinpeace.com www.greenolivetours.com Green Olive Collective Inc. Green Olive Tours Collective Ltd. 66 9th Street East, PO Box 41055 Suite 2605 Jaffa / Tel Aviv Saint Paul, MN 55101-2282 Israel 61410 USA Tel: +1-612-276-2077 Tel: +972-3-731-9540 [email protected] [email protected] About the Collective Green Olive Collective is a work in Progress. Originally started as a privately owned tour company in 2007, the organisation broadened its scope and its ownership to cover a spectrum of stakeholders. By 2015 there were 7 Palestinian and Israeli Working Partners and over 100 Members and Investors from 22 countries. Membership is open to everyone. The organization is a Social Enterprise and a Workers Collective. Our function is to generate economice social, cultural and political activity that cultivate humane and just societies - and to provide a fair livelihood for our Working Partners. As a Social Enterprise, the organization provides information, services and products that help heal and repair the rifts that cause oppression and dysfunction between people, and between human activity and the planet that hosts us. This includes educational, creative, and pro-active projects that both illuminate the issues, and provide tools for progressive change. As a Workers Collective, we provide a democratic governing framework, nurture the relationships among the members, and provide a working environment that is supportive and sustaining, enabling the members develop both professionally and personally. The Collective conducts political and cultural tours of Palestine, Israel and Jordan, volunteer programs, mechandising products and conducting charitable programs for local oppressed and disadvantaged populations. About this Booklet - 3rd Edition The following pages are a work in progress, an attempt by Palestinian and Israeli colleagues to develop a common narrative. Contributions have been made by both members of the Collective and external reltionships, including a two-day seminar held in 2014. The document is continually revised, and once or twice a year a new digital copy is uploaded. Limited editions of 1-2,000 copies of the booklet are published annually and distributed to people who participate in our projects and programs. If you want to contribute constructive feedback about the text, please cite the edition number you are reading, page numbers, and section name. Comments can be made online at the following Web address www.greenolivetours.com/booklet-feedback.html 1 A Brief History of the Palestinian / Israeli Conflict Israel and Palestine are two names for the same geographical place, claimed by both the Zionist and Palestinian national movements. Despite common assumptions, this is not an ancient problem. The Holy Land changed hands many times through history -- from the Canaanites to the Israelites, Babylonians, Romans, Byzantines, Crusaders, Arabs, Ottoman Turks, British, and so on. Ottoman Period and the Development of Zionism For hundreds of years of Ottoman rule, the ethnic and religious groups between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River lived together in relative peace. In the 19th Century, not only was there no Jewish-Arab conflict, the two terms were not seen as mutually exclusive, and members of some Mid-eastern Jewish communities may have identified themselves as Arab-Jews, just like Arab-Muslims or Arab-Christians. The modern Israeli Palestinian conflict is a national conflict, and like nationalism itself was imported from Europe. Zionism was not an national movement of indigenous Palestinian Jews, but arose in late 19th century Europe, largely as a reaction to rising political anti-Semitism and violence in central and eastern Europe, and Tsarist Russia. European Zionists held that Jews were not just a religious or ethnic group, but a nation that should have its own nation-state. The Zionist movement was generally secular in nature with the vast majority of religious Jews opposing the movement on religious grounds. Zionism was officially founded at the first Zionist Congress in 1897 but had limited success purchasing land or settling immigrants in Palestine while the Ottomans were in power. Despite difficulties caused by the Ottoman restrictions and objection to zionism, between 1882 and 1914 large waves of Jewish immigrants arrived in the country, purchasing small plots of land and establishing several agricultural colonies as well as independent urban developments (Tel Aviv 1909) and social and economic institutions that helped promote their collective interests. The Jewish Colonial Trust Company, Jewish National Fund, Jewish Agency, and the World Zionist Congress were all established during this period. These Zionist communities had little in common with the local Jews who had coexisted with Christians and Muslims for centuries. The Zionist immigrants also brought with 2 them an ideology of exclusion, seeking to free themselves from the restrictions of anti-Semitic Europe. As a result they often restricted Arab participation in their agricultural and industrial enterprises, and began creating a segregated sector in Palestine. Then the First World War intervened and the Ottoman Empire sided with the Germans. They lost the war British Mandate In 1917 the British conquered the region and through a League of Nations Mandate, governed the area now known as Jordan, Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza. For the first time in the modern era an administrative area with clearly defined borders was defined as ‘Palestine’. The British also issued the Balfour Declaration, which begins: “His Majesty’s government views 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”. The British allowed the Zionists to buy large areas of land from feudal absentee landlords and permitted the new Jewish owners to evict the Arab tenant farmers. In addition the British confiscated land for non-payment of taxes resulting in more evictions. With British support, the Zionists set about creating “facts on the ground” – acquiring and settling as much land as possible along strategic lines, aiming for water resources, ports and fertile land. Exclusive Jewish villages and neighbourhoods were built, where only Jews were employed and, where possible, only Jewish produced goods were consumed. When strategic purchases were not possible, they purchased swamp ridden lands of the Mediterranean coast and other lands that were deemed useless by their owners. The expanding Zionist settlements and rising Arab nationalism led to the founding of what would later become the Palestinian national movement – an attempt to unite the many religious, ethnic and social groups of the country. The Palestinians demanded that the British set limits on Jewish immigration and land purchases, as well as grant legal protection for tenant farmers. Arab resistance to Jewish settlement led to the riots and attacks of 1920-21 and the founding of the Hagana, the main Zionist defence militia that would grow to become the IDF. 3 Following the uprising of Palestinian Arabs in the summer of 1929, the British set some limits on land purchase and immigration. The Zionists saw this as betrayal – political anti-Semitism was on the rise in Europe, and Palestine was one of the few places Jews could still go since the U.S.A. had also closed its doors to Jewish immigration. The British found themselves caught between the two national movements. The problem was further exacerbated in 1933 when the Nazis came to power in Germany, and large numbers of German Jews immigrated to Palestine, doubling the Jewish population in just a few years. The Great Arab Revolt in Palestine broke out in 1936, targeting primarily the British rule. Within the next three years some 400 Jews, 200 British, and over 5000 Palestinians were killed, as the British, with Zionist help, brought down the revolt with huge force. This included also the exile of most prominent Palestinian leaders, leaving Palestinians with diminished political leadership. In 1937 the Peel commission investigated the causes for the violence and recommended for the first time implementing a 2 state solution, an Arab state alongside a Jewish one. In the aftermath of the second World War and the horrors of the Holocaust, Zionism was strengthened and the movement brought Jewish survivors to Palestine in large numbers, further stiffening Arab opposition to immigration. Thousands of Jewish soldiers were demobilised by the British and added a trained professional core to the Zionist militias such as the Hagana, Palmach and the Irgun Zevai Leumi.