For over 60 years since its establishment in 1948, Israel has been constantly under both military and political attack by Arab nations as being a usurper of Palestinian land and a foreign intruder into dar Islam- the domain of Islam - (a more geographical and physical term than “the world of Islam” which is conceptual.) From a secular and political perspective, even as early as the1920’s, the Arabs developed an expressed opposition to Jewish settlement in Palestine, particularly where such settlement might have brought about a Jewish majority and political ascendancy over the indigenous Arab population. Perhaps the best expression of this opposition was given in the 1947 Anglo-American Committee's Report commissioned by the British and American governments following the conclusion of World War II when the full extent of the Holocaust was beginning to be realised.
The fundamental structural elements of the Arab case encompass the following assertions:
In particular, the Palestinians asserted that the promises made to the Arabs by Great Britain in 1915 in the Hussein-McMahon correspondence, and the later assurances given to Arab leaders by Presidents Roosevelt and Truman concerning Palestine, had been understood as recognition of the principle that Palestinian Arabs should enjoy the same rights as those enjoyed by the populations of the neighbouring Arab states. Thus the emergent opposition to the idea of a Jewish National Home predated the issue of the Mandate in 1922 and again before the 1942 Biltmore Program expressed its support for a Jewish State. (See Anglo-American Committee of Enquiry, Chapter VI, paras. 2 and 3 http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/anglo/angch06.htm)
Since by 1947 all the surrounding Arab States had been granted independence, Palestinian Arabs argue that they were just as advanced politically as were the citizens of the nearby States, and the suggestion that self-government should be withheld from Palestine until the Jews had acquired a majority was outrageous.
Immediately following Israel’s declaration of Independence in 1948 five Arab armies invaded the territory lying to west of the Jordan River. This resulted in Israel retaining the area designating by the United Nations the territory of the Jewish State, but it also encroached on some of the territory designated for the Palestinian Arab state. The balance became occupied mainly by Jordan, and small areas by Egypt and Syria.
After 1948, but before 1967, the Palestinians added one further claim in addition to those mentioned above. Those Palestinians who had fled, been driven out, or otherwise dispossessed of their lands located in what subsequently became the State of Israel as a result of the War of Independence (Israeli nomenclature) or "al-Nakba", the "catastrophe" (Palestinian Arab nomenclature) have the "right of return" to their original homes.
Following the Six Day War in 1967, the Palestinians assert further that the following Israeli acts are illegal and contrary to international law:
In response to Palestinian claims, Israel argues that the Jewish people, whom she represents in part, has had an unbroken connection with the land from before the rise of Christianity and Islam, notwithstanding their exile by the Romans in the first century. Until the eighteenth century, the Jewish people in the Diaspora were seen both as a religion and as a nation.
However, civic unity in Christianity and in Islam especially, was based on uniformity of belief, within neither of which could Jewish destiny be fulfilled. This made it absolutely impossible for a Jewish group to be anything other than second-class subjects.
It needed the sixteenth century reformation in Christianity and the rise of the nation state in the eighteenth, for Jewish religious imperatives to be redirected and asserted towards the possibility of reviving the notion of a Jewish State in Palestine. However, religious motivation from within was insufficient to meet the challenge. It required the addition of European anti-Semitism later in the nineteenth century to motivate secular and emancipated Jews to organise politically - in a decentralised movement, meeting centrally at its annual congresses - to advance their political objective for matters.
The emergence of the possibility of the establishment of Israel as a Jewish State came to materialise as a consequence of World War I which saw the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire and World War II which saw the decline of the British Empire. As central power became less effective, so burgeoned the demand for self-determination and the illegitimacy of colonialism backed by American democratic ideals.
In the political restructuring of Europe and the Middle East following the conclusion of WWI, the articulated voice of the Jewish people made itself heard among the nations as did the voices of the Arabs. Although both Zionists and some Arab leaders saw the possibility of working together in regional co-operation, the Great Powers had their own interests in the Middle East to consider:
For the Allies, an independent and unified Arab Middle East did not bode well if they were to achieve these diverse and conflicting objectives. To the extent that Jewish interests coincided with those of the Great Powers generally, and of Great Britain in particular, they were accommodated, but in so doing they were played off against Arab tribal sensibilities and Islamic religious principles.
Israel’s contemporary claim to legitimacy is premised on:
Notwithstanding attempts by the British mandatory power to frustrate the clear objectives of the Mandate, and despite the fomentation of Islamic religious opposition against the establishment of a Jewish homeland, the Jewish people succeeded in creating a viable political and economic entity.
British financial investment and a colonial style of government coupled with an infusion of Jewish capital, migration and labour brought a higher standard of living to the Palestinian population – both Arab and Jewish - than that enjoyed in the neighbouring states.
However, the economic advances in Palestine attracted Arab immigration from outside of its borders. Rather that regulating such Arab migration, the British Administration, contrary to the terms of the Mandate, placed restrictions on Jewish immigration to Palestine which prevented the creation of a Jewish majority in cis-Jordan – Palestine;
World War II intervened, creating the Holocaust.
Although this tragedy gave a big impetus towards partition, British policy remained steadfastly against any change in its Palestinian immigration policy, with the result that Jews became actively obstructive to continued British rule, both civilly and militarily:
Britain decided to surrender its mandate and military conflict broke out between Jews and Arabs with the British Administration publicly taking a more or less neutral stand while surreptitiously assisting the Arabs.
On the day following the final British withdrawal on May 14, 1948:
Instead,
In the process,
A humanitarian problem was thus created:
The United Nations ultimately arranged a cease fire between the belligerents:
However:
In 1967,
Israel’s appeals to the Security Council were in vain and on June 5, 1967 she executed pre-emptive self defensive strikes against Egypt, and Syria and retaliated against Jordanian attack, in what later became known as the “Six Day War.”
With intensive American support, extended peace negotiations took place between Israel and her adversaries in the 1980’s and a cold peace reigns between Israel and Egypt which regained all of the territory it lost in 1967.
A slightly warmer peace pertains with Jordan which relinquished in favour of the Palestinians all its claims to the territory lying to the west of the Jordan River.
In taking military control of the West Bank and Gaza, over which no state has exercised legitimate sovereignty since the Ottoman defeat in 1920, Israel has the best claim to title based on the Treaty of Sevres 1920, Article 95; Palestine Mandate 1922, Article 8 and on the UN Charter, Article 80.
Following secret direct negotiations between Israel, led by Yitzhak Rabin, and the PLO, headed by Yassir Arafat, the parties succeeded - with Norwegian and American assistance – to agree the Oslo Accords in 1993 which included:
The Accords resulted in:
Unfortunately the parties have been able to resolve the political issues which appear to remain outstanding between them- sovereignty over Jerusalem, the extent of territorial; adjustments secure borders and the “Right of Return” of Palestinians refugees. Neither has there been a cessation of Palestinian violence. In 2000, final status negotiations between Israel and the PLO broke down and the Palestinians resorted to armed attack on Israel’s civilian population waged by suicide bombers recruited, trained, armed and operationally directed by Hamas, an organisation linked to the Muslim Brotherhood and Fatah, one of the militant wings of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation.
To counteract these attacks Israel has:
The barrier has dramatically reduced Israeli civilian casualties but its erection has brought international condemnation and an adverse advisory non-binding opinion issued by the international Court of Justice (ICJ). The opinion has, however, been subjected to serious professional criticism as being politically motivated and based on incorrect factual information. The ICJ opinion is inconsistent with a number of rulings made by the Israel Supreme Court based on detailed and actual facts on the ground.
International intervention in the search for a resolution to the conflict has been renewed as part of a global concern over continuing instability in the Middle East generally which has given rise to fears of an interruption or even a cessation in oil supplies to the West and the bringing into question by certain Middle Eastern powers of Israel’s very legitimacy.
The United States, under its own auspices and those of the United Nations, the European Union and Russia initiated a new peace proposal – “A Performance-Based Roadmap to a Permanent Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict” (Road Map) in 2003. Thus far, the initiative has failed to produce any concrete results towards a rapprochement between Israel and the Palestinians.
In order to reduce continuing military confrontation between Israel and Palestinian militants, Israel took unilateral action and withdrew her military occupation and civilian settlements completely from the Gaza Strip in 2005, leaving the physical infrastructure and economic assets in the form of extensive greenhouses available for Palestinian use.
Palestinian elections held in 2005 brought victory to the Hamas party, whose declared political and military objectives are the elimination of Israel as an independent Jewish State. Since then an internecine conflict has been carried on between Hamas and Fatah for control over the Palestinian Authority, its assets and political largesse funded from abroad.
The Gaza Strip, now completely controlled by Hamas, is currently (2008) being employed both for smuggling weapons and ammunition from Egypt contrary to the Oslo Accords and as a staging area for the launching of short and medium ranged rockets directed against Israel civilian targets located inside Israel ‘proper’ i.e. well within the ‘green’ 1948 cease fire line.
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