People's Democracy
(Weekly
Organ of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)
No. 25
June 22, 2003
(Weekly
Organ of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)
|
Vol.
XXVII
No. 25 June 22, 2003 |
The
Palestinian Saga
WHILE there is constant harping about micro-violence
(suicide bombings) and castigation of the Palestinians for the same, the world
at large has practically turned a blind eye to the gross macro-violence (state
terror) being perpetrated on them by the Zionist government of Israel with the
unstinting support of the US administration. That Israel has been a
crypto-fascist state has not been widely recognised as yet, despite the fact
that there is no shortage of information on this count. Umpteen UN reports have
brought to light the nightmarish existence of the Palestinians under Israeli
occupation.
Aren’t
such reports themselves ample proof of the fascistic nature of the occupying
forces? Of course, there have been many concerned people across the globe who
have spoken up forthrightly for the cause of the Palestinians. None other than
Mahatma Gandhi was one of the foremost amongst them. Others who were not
initially opposed to the creation of Israel soon realised their folly and began
to alert the world to the growing fascist tendencies there. Noted scientist and
humanist, Albert Einstein, tried to do precisely that. Isn’t it time the world
listened to the appeals of Gandhi and Einstein?
It may not take too much time and effort to understand
that it was the call for a Jewish national home in Palestine, the subsequent
immigration of Jews into that territory and the resulting coercive displacement
of the Palestinian population from their land that has resulted in the
Palestinian-Israeli imbroglio. In this context it would be appropriate to recall
what Mahatma Gandhi had to say regarding the matter. In an article in his
journal, the Harijan, on November 26, 1938, he wrote: “It is wrong and
inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs. What is going on in Palestine today
cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct.... Surely it would be a crime
against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to
the Jews partly or wholly as their national home.” [The Collected Works of
Mahatma Gandhi, GOI, 1977, Vol 68, p 137]. Gandhi’s observations are as
relevant and valid today as when they were first made over 64 years ago. In
other words, it is the forcible occupation of Palestine by Jews emigrating from
other parts of the world and the resistance offered by the dispossessed native
Palestinians against the humiliating treatment meted out to them in the process
that is the crux of the problem.
Coinciding with the decision of Britain to terminate
its “mandate” over Palestine (which was obtained in 1922 by application of
article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations), the Zionists unilaterally
occupied most of the territory and proclaimed it as the “state of Israel” on
May 14, 1948. This precipitate action needlessly aborted the move for a peaceful
transition of power as envisaged in the UN partition plan for Palestine, which
the UN General Assembly had adopted on November 29, 1947.
A UN report
later recounted the developments as follows: “One of the two states envisaged
in the partition plan proclaimed its independence as Israel and in the 1948 war
expanded to occupy 77 per cent of the territory of Palestine. Israel also
occupied the larger part of Jerusalem. Over half the indigenous Palestinian
population fled or were expelled…. In the 1967 war, Israel occupied the
remaining territory of Palestine, until then under Jordanian and Egyptian
control (the West Bank and Gaza Strip)”[Overview 1947-1977].
The Zionists were able to impose their will over the
Palestinians only because of their military superiority. Such superiority was
achieved through long-tem planning. To advance their interests, the Zionists
methodically went about arming and training their members in large numbers soon
after they started immigrating to Palestine from the1880s in an organized
manner. Thus, at the time of forcibly establishing the state of Israel in 1948,
the Zionist had well-trained and well-armed forces, which were at least 65,000
strong [John Bagot Glubb (British commander of Transjordan’s Arab Legion), A
Soldier With the Arabs, New York, 1957].
There was little doubt that the number of armed Zionists in the field in
1948 was far greater than the combined strength of the ill-trained,
in-disciplined and poorly armed Arab armies from the neighbouring countries that
came to the rescue of the Palestinians.
While the
Zionists immigrated to Palestine in a very organised manner, the Palestinian
resistance against it was most disorganised. There were several reasons for it.
The prospect of a strong, united and committed leadership emerging from amongst
the Palestinians was constrained by the social set-up of heir society. Big
land-holding families (many of them non-Palestinian Arabs) had largely
controlled Palestine. In the 1930s, while about 30 per cent of the Palestinian
rural families were landless, 250 families owned the same amount of land as
cultivated by 60,000 peasants [Don Perez, The Palestinian State: A Rational
Approach, New York, 1977].
Palestine was an
excellent ground in the 1920s and 1930s for a peasant-led revolution. Large
numbers of absentee landlords (mainly from Lebanon and Syria) were ready to
surrender to the temptations of selling their estates at generous prices offered
by the Jews. The Jewish campaign of dispossessing the natives in favour of
immigrants inevitably created an acute sense of economic outrage and helped
politicise the Arab peasantry. The British occupation of Palestine on December
9, 1917, thereby ending Turkish rule over the territory since 1517, also kindled
the passion for national liberation. As a result, all the objective conditions
for a successful peasant revolution existed there, except one: radical
leadership [Punyapriya Dasgupta, Cheated by the World: The Palestinian
Experience, New Delhi, 1988].
While the Zionist movement indulged in organised
terror against the Palestinians, Britain (which had promised a national home for
Jews in Palestine through its infamous Balfour declaration issued on November 2,
1917) tried to organise a round table conference in 1946 to bring about a
rapprochement. After that attempt failed to produce any results, Britain shifted
the Palestinian question to the United Nations in April 1947. Palestine’s
territorial integrity was formally destroyed when it was partitioned into Arab
and Jewish states by the adoption of Resolution 181 (II) of the UN General
Assembly on November 29, 1947 [A/RES/ 181 (II) (A+B)]. While the Palestinians
rejected the partition plan, the Jews more or less welcomed it. India, Iran and
Yugoslavia opposed the partition of Palestine and, instead, proposed the setting
up a federal state where both Arabs and Jews could co-exist [see Recommendations
(III), Chapter VII, UN Document No. A/364, September 3, 1947].
The partition plan allocated approximately 43 per cent
of the territory of Palestine to the Arab state, while about 56 per cent of the
area* to the Jewish state, and less than 1 per cent of area to the city of
Jerusalem [UN Document No. A/364, Add.1, September 9, 1947].
[* It included the most fertile land. “The Jews will
have the more economically developed part of the country embracing practically
the whole of the citrus-producing area which includes a large number of Arab
producers” [see Point No. 13 (1), Recommendations (II), Chapter VI, UN
Document No. A/364, September 3, 1947]. This ignored the fact that the Jews then
constituted only about one-third of the population and the land under their
possession, which in 1918 amounted to less than 2 per cent of the total land
area of Palestine, had by 1946 increased to just about 6 per cent of the total
land area there (UN Document No.A/AC.25/W.85, dated 16 May 1966).]
The population composition in the UN partition plan
further revealed the patently discriminatory nature of the plan. In the
designated Jewish state nearly half the population consisted of Arabs: 498,000
Jews against 407,000 Arabs, totaling 905,000 in all. On the other hand, in the
designated Arab state there were 725,000 Arabs against a mere 10,000 Jews,
totaling 735,000 in all, while in the city of Jerusalem there were 100,000 Jews
to 105,000 Arabs, totaling 205,000 residents in all [Point No. 5, Justification,
Part II, Recommendations (II), Chapter VI, UN Document No. A/364, September 3,
1947, p 54]. Was it not a mischievous move on the part of those who prepared the
partition plan to enlarge the boundaries of the Jewish state to include within
it such a large number of Arabs, most of whom were driven out from there as soon
as the Zionists seized power?
What was the justification for allocating 56 per cent
of the land (including the best land) to the Jews who comprised just 33 per cent
of the population and who legally owned less than 6 per cent of that land? Is
there any unbiased yardstick by which this blatant discrimination could be
justified? Strange as it may seem, even the Soviet Union had backed this
outrageous plan for partition of Palestine.*
[*The Soviet stand was inexplicable because every
communist leader --- from Karl Marx (who was himself of Jewish origin) downward,
including Stalin in his early phase --- had opposed the idea of a separate
Jewish homeland. For more details, see Dasgupta, op cit., pp 110-126.]
When the Zionist movement unilaterally proclaimed the
“state of Israel” on May 14, 1948, they occupied over 77 per cent of the
land in Palestine --- far in excess of the 56 per cent of land allocated to it
under the UN partition plan --- and systematically evicted Palestinians from
that portion of the land. The facts, as ascertained by the US Library of
Congress, are as follows: “According to British Mandate Authority population
figures in 1947, there were about 1.3 million Arabs in all of Palestine. Between
700,000 and 900,000 of the Arabs lived in the region eventually bounded by the
1949 Armistice line, the so-called Green Line. By the time the fighting stopped,
there were only about 170,000 Arabs left in the new state of Israel. By the
summer of 1949, about 750,000 Palestinians were living in squalid refugee camps,
set up virtually overnight in territories adjacent to Israel’s borders. About
300,000 lived in Gaza Strip, which was occupied by the Egyptian army. Another
450,000 became unwelcome residents of the West Bank of the Jordan, recently
occupied by the Arab Legion of Transjordan” [Israel: A Country Study,
Israel: Israeli Arabs, Arab Land and Arab Refugees at http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/iltoc.html].
According to the same report: “The property of the
Arabs who were refugees outside the state and the property expropriated from the
Arabs who remained in Israel became a major asset to the new state. According to
Don Perez, an American scholar, by 1954 more than one-third of Israel’s Jewish
population lived on absentee property, and nearly a third of the new immigrants
(250,000 people) settled in urban areas abandoned by Arabs. The fleeing Arabs
emptied thriving cities such as Jaffa, Acre (Akko), Lydda (Lod), and Ramla, plus
338 towns and villages and large parts of 94 other cities and towns containing
nearly a quarter of all the buildings in Israel” [ibid].
The usurpation of power by the Zionists and the
expulsion of the Palestinians created a piquant situation for the United
Nations, which lost no time in appointing a mediator to find an amicable
solution. In pursuance of the decision of the UN General Assembly, a committee
composed of representatives of China, France, the USSR, the United Kingdom and
the United States met on May 20, 1948, and appointed Count Folke Bernadotte,
president of the Swedish Red Cross, as United Nations mediator on Palestine. In
his progress report submitted to the UN secretary general on September 16, 1948,
Count Bernadotte confirmed that “The majority of these [Palestinian] refugees
have come from territory which, under the [UN General] Assembly resolution of 29
November [1947], was to be included in the Jewish state. The exodus of
Palestinian Arabs resulted from panic created by fighting in their communities,
by rumours concerning real or alleged acts of terrorism, or expulsion…. There
have been numerous reports from reliable sources of large-scale looting,
pillaging and plundering, and of instances of destruction of villages without
apparent necessity” [Paras 6 and 7, Section V - Refugees, Part I, UN Document
No A/648, Paris, 1948].
The report further said: “Moreover, while those who
had fled in the early days of the conflict had been able to take with them some
personal effects and assets, many of the late comers were deprived of everything
except the cloths in which they stood, and apart from their homes (many of which
were destroyed) lost all furniture and assets, and even their tools of trade”
[Para 3, Section I - Nature of the Problem, Part III, ibid].
On September 17, 1948, the day after this report was
published in Paris, the Zionists assassinated the 53 years old Count Bernadotte
in Jerusalem. It was quite apparent what they thought of his mediatory
effort![For more details, see http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/History/folke.html.]
Prior to the deluge, hundreds of Palestinians were
systematically massacred; the cold-blooded slaughter of over 350 people (254
according to some other sources) in the village of Deir Yassin on April 9, 1948
stands out as a glaring example of the extensive terror perpetrated by the
Zionist gangs. Jacques de Reynier,
member of the Swiss Red Cross and head of the international Red Cross delegation
in Palestine during 1948, who got to know of the tragedy and who managed to
reach the spot with great difficulty, was a witness to the aftermath of the
massacre. Later describing the horrifying act in his memoirs, he said “There
had been four hundred people in this village, about fifty of them had escaped
and were still alive. All the rest had been deliberately massacred in cold blood
for, as I observed for myself, this gang was admirably disciplined and only
acted under orders.”
He then went on to add: “The affair of Deir Yassin
had immense repercussions. The press and radio spread the news everywhere among
Arabs as well as the Jews. In this way a general terror was built up among the
Arabs, a terror astutely fostered by the Jews…. Finally, about 700,000 Arabs
became refugees, leaving everything behind in their haste, their one hope being
to avoid the fate of the people of Deir Yassin” [for more details, see: http://www.moqawama.org/feauters/yassine1.htm].
Menachem Begin was then heading Irgun Zvai Leumi, one
of the two Zionist terrorist gangs that had carried out the barbaric attack ---
a fact that is readily acknowledged. Begin, who went on to head the right wing
Herut (“Freedom”) Party and then the Likud (“Unity”) Party, become
Israel’s Prime Minister in 1977 and was awarded --- believe it or not --- the
Noble Peace Prize for 1978! But it may also be noted that many eminent
intellectuals especially of Jewish origin, including the noted scientist Albert
Einstein, had protested against the visit of Begin, while he was in the United
States in 1948 on a fund raising campaign, for his role in the Deir Yassin
massacre. In their protest letter, they spoke plainly while urging the US
citizens not to support Begin or the fascist political movement he represented.
The letter stated as follows: “Among the most
disturbing political phenomena of our time is the emergence in the newly created
State of Israel of the “Freedom Party” (Tnuat Haherut), a political party
closely akin in its organisation, methods, political philosophy and social
appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties. It was formed out of the membership and
following of the former Irgun Zvai Leumi, a terrorist, right-wing, chauvinist
organisation in Palestine…. Before irreparable damage is done by way of
financial contributions…the American public must be informed as to the record
and objectives of Mr Begin’s and his movement.
…Today they speak of freedom, democracy and anti-imperialism, whereas
until recently they openly preached the doctrine of the fascist state.
“…. A shocking example was their behaviour in the
Arab village of Deir Yassin…. But the terrorists far from being ashamed of
their act, were proud of this massacre, publicised it widely, and invited all
the foreign correspondents present in the country to view the heaped corpses and
the general havoc at Deir Yassin. The Deir Yassin incident exemplifies the
character of the Freedom Party….The undersigned therefore take this means of
publicly presenting a few salient facts concerning Begin and his party; and of
urging all concerned not to support this latest manifestation of
fascism”[Albert Einstein and twenty-eight other US intellectuals of Jewish
origin, New York Times, December 4, 1948].
It is the same fascist Freedom Party that has
re-emerged as the Likud Party, which has been ruling Israel for the last several
years. At least three of its members who have occupied the prime ministerial
post --- Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir [who had plotted the murder of the UN
mediator Count Bernadotte in 1948] and Aerial Sharon --- have blood on their
hands. Sharon, the present Israeli prime minister, was directly involved in the
massacre of some 75 Palestinians in the Jordanian village of Qibiya in 1953.
Efforts are currently on to try Sharon as a war criminal in a Belgian court of
law for his role in the massacre of some 3500 Palestinians at the Sabra and
Shatila refugee camps in Beirut in September 1982 [for more details, see: http://www.indictsharon.net].
His current role as prime minister is no better.
Since its creation, Israel has waged three wars
against the Arab states, i e, in 1948, 1956 and 1967, occupying more Arab lands
as well as the whole of Palestine. It has waged four wars against the PLO alone
in 1978, 1981, 1982 and 2002. Over the last 55 years, the Israeli army has
killed several thousands of Palestinians, injured ten times as many, demolished
tens of thousands of Palestinian houses in West Bank and Gaza, destroyed
standing crops in hundreds of square kilometres of cultivated area and detained
hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Israeli prisons at various times.
Selective assassination of key PLO leaders in and outside Palestine is a routine
matter for Israel’s secret police, Mossad.
Following years of desperation, frustration and
failure of the UN to solve the Palestinian question, the Palestinian people
began in the mid-1950s to organise themselves into a genuine national political
movement. Yasser Arafat, the present chairman of the Palestine Liberation
organization (PLO), founded the Fatah (Palestinian national liberation movement)
in 1958. Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) led by George
Habash was established soon after.
Both Fatah and PFLP, along with a few other groups,
later became constituents of the PLO. The PLO itself was established at the
first session of the Palestine National Council (PNC) convened in Jerusalem on
May 28, 1964. The UN recognised the PLO on October 14, 1974 as the sole
representative of the Palestinian people [UN Resolution No.A/RES/3210 (XXIX)].
The 18th session of the PNC, held in Algiers in April 1987, brought about the
much-needed unity between the different factions within the PLO. As a ripple
effect, the first Palestinian intifada (sustained protest) against
occupation began on December 9, 1987, bringing back memories of the 1936-39
revolt.
The PLO has repeatedly called for a just, durable and
comprehensive settlement of the Palestinian question on the basis of
international legitimacy and all UN resolutions supporting the various
international efforts and initiatives towards this goal. The Declaration of
Independence adopted at the 19th session of the PNC in Algiers on November
15, 1988 has outlined the structure of the future Palestinian State. According
to it: “The state of Palestine is the state of Palestinians wherever they may
be….Governance will be based on principles of social justice, equality and
non-discrimination in public rights of men or women, on grounds of race,
religion, colour or sex, and the aegis of a constitution which ensures the rule
of law and an independent judiciary. Thus shall these principles allow no
departure from Palestine’s age-old spiritual and civil heritage of tolerance
and religious coexistence…. The state of Palestine proclaims its commitment to
the principles and purposes of the United Nations, and to the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights. It proclaims its commitment as well to the
principles and policies of the Non Aligned Movement”[see http://www.al-bab.com/arab/docs/pal/pal3.htm].
While the PLO
began to move forward in a more united manner, a new organisation by the name of
Hamas (the Arabic acronym for Harakat al-Muqawamah al-Islamiyya,
i e, the Islamic Resistance Movement) appeared on the scene. The
‘Islamic Covenant’ published by Hamas on August 18, 1988 [see http://www.ict.org.il/documents/documentdet.cfm?docid=14]
clearly betrays the objectives of the movement. It purveys hatred; its language
is intemperate, vituperative and provocative. It makes extreme demands, which
can never be the basis for any amicable settlement of the Palestinian question.
It is totally opposed to the moderate and secular approach of the PLO. While
subjectively appearing to spew venom at Zionism, objectively the actions of
Hamas fit in well with the vile schemes of the Zionists. It appears that Hamas
“was at first given some encouragement by Israel, as a means of countering the
influence of the PLO.”
Israel perhaps
also encouraged Hamas because “the opposition of the Hamas to an international
conference that would adjudicate the problem of Palestine, coincided with the
policies of the Shamir government” [see http://www.mideastweb.org/hamas.htm].
It is hardly surprising that some among the Palestinians living under trying
conditions in the occupied territories flare up under the baneful influence of
the Hamas, thereby offering the fig leaf of justification for the inhuman
actions of the Israeli armed forces.
(To Be Concluded)
