Hammering Back to the Future

If Zionism’s sense of history is perverse, it’s strategic implementation has been  no better.  Its teasing out of a false existential identity necessarily denies actual existence to anything which is incompatible with its theory of being.  "Incompatibility" was the cornerstone of Pinsker's "Emancipation" and it cannot but be the cornerstone of Israel's "Unfolding."   Just as Zionism ends up being a mere argument in favor of an objective, the twists and turns of Zionism in action were mere the strategies of its hidden theory.

The finale of the Great War brought the collapse of two great empires, the Austro-Hungarian and the Ottoman, the  lineal inheritors of the Roman and Byzantine Empires.   What made them great was not only their pedigree and their wealth but the vast congeries of peoples they ruled.  Neither empire was what one would call "homogeneous;" rather they were umbrellas for multi-cultural convivencia and conflict.

At the Versailles Peace Conference (1919), the Allied Powers, claiming victory, set about carving up the turkeys and ad hoc groupings of would be governments came petitioning the victors for their slice of a "national homeland."    The carving up was unjust, arbitrary and disastrous.   The only rhyme or reason as to who got (or did not get) a "homeland" was the economic or political interests of England, France and, through them, the United States. 

While the War was still raging, the English, French and, tacitly, the Russians entered into a secret protocol with respect to  Ottoman Turkey.    Under the Sykes-Picot Agreement,  (1916), Asia Minor was divided into French and English "administrative zones."   In theory, these zones were temporary measures pending the establishment of various ethnic homelands in previously Ottoman territory.  The same petitioning and politicking which took place in the Balkans agitated the Middle East with the ultimate result being the establishment of  Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, but not Kurdistan or Armenia, the latter of which was left to slaughter.

Emir Faisal I, lobbying at Versailles

The British, as usual, played their double game.  The British Government made appeasing noises toward the Arabs in general and the Palestinians in particular.   This was not generosity. During the war the British hoped to use restless Arabs against the Ottoman Turks.  Looking forward they hoped the Arabs would be compliant client states.  Nevertheless, Britain gave assurances to the Arabs that "Great Britain is prepared to recognize and support the independence of the Arabs within the territories in  [Palestine]."  (McMahon Letter, 1915 [full text].)

More or less contemporaneously, Britain promised Zionist organizations that it "favoured" the establishment of "a national home" for the Jewish people "in Palestine."  (Balfour Declaration (1917)

Britain was so duplicitous she could not even unravel her own intentions.  The cabinet was split as to what McMahon had promised and whether it included or excluded "Palestine" (which had not been referred to by name, but by the names of various Ottoman political "districts").  It was also split as to whether Balfour had given anything more than "sympathy" to "Zionist aspirations."  Much of the duplicity remained classified until 1964.

The Balfour Declaration had been issued in response to the efforts of Chaim Weizmann whose work in chemistry (acetone) had been of immense benefit to the British war effort.   In 1919,  Weizmann was elected president of the World Zionist Organizations and, as such represented "Jewish" [i.e. Zionist] interests at the Versailles Peace Conference where he declared that it was his aim to make Palestine "as Jewish as England is English."

This was apparently too much for the British, who thereupon issued a "clarification" of what they had not meant in the Balfour Letter,

"Phrases have been used such as that Palestine is to become 'as Jewish as England is English.' His Majesty's Government regard any such expectation as impracticable and have no such aim in view. They would draw attention to the fact that the terms of the Declaration referred to do not contemplate that Palestine as a whole should be converted into a Jewish National Home, but that such a Home should be founded "in Palestine." In this connection it has been observed with satisfaction that ... the supreme governing body of the Zionist Organization ... express[ed] as the official statement of Zionist aims "the determination of the Jewish people to live with the Arab people on terms of unity and mutual respect, and together with them to make the common home into a flourishing community, the upbuilding of which may assure to each of its peoples an undisturbed national development"'.    (Churchill White Paper (1922).)

The reference in the Churchill White Paper related to an agreement between Chaim Weizmann and Emir Faisal I, leader of the Arab nationalists in Syria and Palestine, during which the two leaders declared that, on behalf of their respective parties, they would undertake all necessary measures "to encourage and stimulate immigration of Jews into Palestine on a large scale," consistent with the Balfour Letter,  and "to settle Jewish immigrants upon the land through closer settlement and intensive cultivation of the soil," while at the same time protecting the rights and assisting the economic development of "the Arab peasant and tenant farmers" in the area.

Weizmann & Faisal doing "Semitic Solidarity"

For what it was worth,  the agreement between Faisal and Weizmann (each purporting to speak for their "peoples") only extended to emigration not to the creation of a Jewish state.   The text of the letter made clear that Faisal regarded European Jewish immigration to be a form of development capital which, being pledged to cooperation with the Arabs, would accrue to the benefit of the Palestinians.

But Weizmann, no less than the British, was speaking out of both sides of his mouth as well.   At different times he was wont to declare that Zionism was not founded on a sense of persecution and yet  that the "road from Pinsk" was "paved with martyrs;"  that he had no desire to repeat the "disaster of Massada" but that it is only "by the forces of a people" that "the Jewish State will become a reality."

These equivocations are beside the point.  Weizmann bought into the fundamentals of winding back  history.   When discussing where would be a good place for Jews to settle,  Arthur Balfour suggested some place in Africa.  Weizmann asked Balfour, "Would you give up London to live in Saskatchewan?" When Balfour replied that the British had always lived in London, Weizmann responded, "Yes, and we lived in Jerusalem when London was still a marsh."

Who "we"?  In so saying,  Weizmann, a Russian Jew, simply assumed as a given his and every other European Jew's lineal, physico-racial semitic descent from the "original" inhabitants of Judea. Weizmann's response seems a clever enough repost, but it implicitly espoused the mist of theories and presumptions which we have discussed and without knowledge of which the full implications would not be sniffed.

Who was living in the area at the time London was a marsh was an irrelevance.   Just as much as Central Europe,  Judea/Samaria/Palestine had been a Total Crossroads.  It is simply lunatic to attempt to trace "roots," "geneologies" and conversions over millennia.   The fact is that Palestinian Arabs were living there at the turn of the century and they aspired to an end of British rule and the formation of their own State. To this end they formed the Arab League (initially called the “Arab Higher Committee”) a multi-party agency representing Muslim and Christian Palestinians.

  

Zionists in Europe and the United States decided that Biblical Israel (Eretz Israel) should be their new homeland.  They formed a government in waiting (the Jewish Agency) and, with financial and political backing from Jews in the West, encouraged as much emigration by Jews into Palestine as possible.

Jewish Owned Land as of March1945

(likely not much more than as of 1937)

Despite the Weizmann-Faisal happy talk, the Zionists were not that interested in "co-development." The Palestinians detected a different beast beneath the sheep's clothing, one which they felt was devouring as much land for itself as possible.  This led to violent conflict and, in 1937, to a proposed partition of the land.  Both sides rejected the so-called “Peel Plan.”  The Palestinians did not feel the Jews had any rights to Palestine; the Zionist Jews felt they had a right to all of it. Had they accepted half a loaf they would have had a refuge from the Nazis.

Peel Plan Partition

After the war, the Jewish "emigration" into Palestine resumed in earnest. Western accounts refer to the conflict as a “civil war” but to do so, obviously begs the question.  From the Palestinian point of view they were resisting an invasion.

In November 1947, the U.N. General Assembly resurrected the Peel Plan and passed Resolution 181 recommending the partition of Palestine into Jewish and Palestinian states.  This time the Jewish Agency accepted half a loaf. The Arab League did not.

The 1947 Partition did not include Jerusalem
the western half of which was seized in 1948

It wasn’t much of a loaf, but the Zionists made most of the unleaven. Although Resolution 181 was only a recommendation, it gave the Jewish Agency a slice to stand on as the self-declared de facto government in the proposed Jewish Half of Palestine.

Of course de facto is as de facto does, and the British were still the accepted de jure authority in and over all of Palestine.  The Jewish Agency continued to make life as miserable as it could for the British, engaging in acts of violence and terrorism against both the British and the Palestinian population.

While the international community continued to quibble and dicker over Resolution 181, His Majesty’s Government announced that on 14 May 1948 it was washing its hands and packing its bags, which it did.

Now there was a de jure void. That very day, the Jewish Agency declared itself the official government of Israel in more or less the Jewish portion recommended in Resolution 181.  According to David Ben Gurion,

“[A]after seventy years of pioneer striving, have we reached the beginning of independence in a part of our small country.  ... "

Ben Gurion may have been subtle but he was nonetheless clear: half a loaf was only the beginning. Menachem Begin, speaking for the hardline “Revisionist” Zionists — was more explicit,

"The partition of the Homeland is illegal. It will never be recognized. The signature by institutions and individuals of the partition agreement is invalid. It will not bind the Jewish people. Jerusalem was and will forever be our capital. Eretz Israel will be restored to the people of Israel. All of it. And for ever."

Nevertheless, despite the “illegality” of the gift, Begin did not look the horse in the mouth and the statement was later dropped into a memory hole.  (See "The Revolt," by Menachem Begin (1977 edition, pre-revision. )  Like all differentiations between “moderate” and “hard-line” Zionists, these distinctions were merely semantical.  Both made clear that they regarded partition as only a beginning.

President Weizmann

Apologists for Israel have argued that they “agreed” to Partition and seek to blame Palestinians for violating the agreement.  But the question is agreed with whom?  There is no such thing as an “agreement” with one’s self.  

In lieu of a true peace and partition agreement, the Jewish Agency (now calling itself the State of Israel) negotiated de facto recognition with other states as the governing authority in the Jewish Partition.

The biggest player at the time was no longer Britain but the United States and Jewish organizations were working in tandem behind the scenes to garner U.S. recognition. Within hours after Israel’s self-proclamation, President Harry Truman recognized the “provisional government” of the “Jewish State in Palestine” as the “de facto” authority therein.  

A little less than a year later (January 31, 1949), after elections for a permanent government had been held in de-facto Israel, Truman extended de jure recognition to the new state.  In the ensuing decades, other governments followed by the 1990’s approximately 80 percent of the world’s countries have accorded either de facto or de jure recognition to Israel within the partition borders.

But the Palestinians themselves, neither agreed to nor recognized anything.  In 1948, their cause was taken up by the neighboring Arab states of Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq in what has been characterized as the first Arab-Israeli war. 

The result was a stalemate and an armistice was declared in 1949.  A direct consequence of the war was that 700,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes within Israel and their places taken by 700,000 Jews from Europe.

In 1956, in the so-called Suez Crisis, Egypt blockaded Israeli shipping and Israel responded by occupying Gaza and the Sinai. Another armistice was negotiated and the parties returned to their respective corners.

In 1967 the Arab states reaffirmed their non-recognition of Israel and Israel responded by launching a preemptive attack in which it seized the Golan Heights (from Syria), the West Bank & East Jerusalem (from Jordan) and Gaza and the Sinai (from Egypt)

In 1973, after ongoing negotiations over the 1967 seizures had proved fruitless and after the U.S. persuaded Israel to take the expected first punch, Egypt and Syria launched their own expected attack on Israel.  The attack was accompanied by an oil embargo on the West.

At this point, the Arab-Israeli conflict acquired global implications and the United States brought its influence to bear to force a peace with at least Egypt (1979) and Jordan (1994).

These wars produced a beneficial consequence for Israel. By metamorphosing the conflict into an inter-state war, Israel was able to characterize Palestinian resistance as non-official “terrorism.”  However, as with almost anything Zionist, this was simply Israel’s own ipse dixit.

In 1964, the Arab League, not wishing itself to be subsumed into other countries, met in Cairo and re constituted itself as the Palestine Liberation Organization. It declared its non-recognition of Israel and called for the return of the 700,000 exiled Palestinians to their homes and the for an independent state in (or in as much as possible of) the former territories of Mandate Palestine.

Since then, the P.L.O. has been recognized as sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people by well over 100 states.

On 14 October/November 1974, the General Assembly, through resolution 3210 (XXIX) recognized the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people and invited it to participate in the deliberations of the General Assembly  in observer status

By resolution 43/177 of 15 December 1988, the General Assembly acknowledged the proclamation of the State of Palestine by the Palestine National Council on 15 November 1988 and decided, inter alia , that the designation “Palestine” should be used in place

On 29 November 2012, the General Assembly accorded to Palestine non-Member observer State status in the United Nations, marking the first time that the General Assembly considered Palestine to be a State.

However, much like the 1948 split between moderate and hardline Zionists, in 1995 the Palestinians themselves split over how much or how little of Israel to recognize.  Like Menachem Begin’s Irgun or "Stern Gang," Hamas, towed the hardline and undertook a strategy of terrorist bombings, while Fatah, led by Jassir Arafat, played the role of Ben-Gurion, and adopted a more conciliatory approach.

Israel’s undercover poisoning of Jassir Arafat, led to a power vacuum in the P.L.O. and a battle for control between Hamas and Fatah.  In 2006 Hamas won elections in  Gaza while Fatah prevailed in the West Bank.   On June 2, 2014, Hamas and Fatah patched up their differences and formed a unity government, which Israel refused to recognize.

The Hamas-Fatah Government declared its aim as being "to reinforce Palestinian national unity for maintaining resolve and ending the Occupation, and for the Palestinian people to restore their legitimate rights, including the establishment of their independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital."

Khaled Meshaal, Chairman, of Hamas Political Bureauonly declared that Hamas'  "aim is to establish a free and completely sovereignPalestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza Strip, whose capital is Jerusalem, without any settlers and without giving up a single inch of land and without giving up on the right of return [of Palestinian refugees]."

Israel’s response was to refuse recognition of Hamas’ participation in the P.L.O., to blame Hamas for the  kidnapping of three Israeli teenaged and to launch the currently ongoing massive, terror bombing of Gaza.

Only the West is willingly fooled by Zionists' temporizing.   If they can obtain their objective by means short of bloodshed, they have done and will do so.  This does not mean that they won't resort to shedding blood as needed to achieve their goal.   Zionism's chosen paradigm is the Maccabees who hammered ("makkaba") their opposition into oblivion.   The future promises the same.

go to PART VIII

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