Chapter I: INTRODUCTION (continued)

It is difficult to find a logical historical starting point in an examination of the legal and political issues arising from this long-standing conflict.

Since much of the Palestinian argument settles around the "illegality" of Israeli action and Israeli "legitimacy" as a sovereign Jewish state, the material contained in this resource book will centre on these issues. They must, however, be examined against the backdrop of the political, social and economic components of the situation to which they gave rise.

• At the local level most of the conflict revolves around Israel’s purported expulsion of Arabs who claim to have held land in Palestine from "time immemorial.”
• Regionally, especially after 1967, Israel's presence in the Middle East is viewed as a destabilising factor. Its democratic government and society – with the freedom of expression and religion- is very different to that of its neighbours and presents a threat to the more or less autocratic secular and theocratic Arab governments in the Middle East which are still tribally constituted.
• Globally, both from a secular and religious perspective, which is now beginning to express itself far beyond the confines of the Middle East,
  • the commercial demands by Western states, particularly America, for a politically free and stable access to Middle Eastern controlled oil must be ensured; and
  • expansionist Islam is unable to accept the existence of a Jewish state asserting sovereignty over territory considered as part of Islam’s hegemony and the fact that some of its religious adherents are placed under the "domination" of a dhimmi people (inferior “protected”) is anathema.

The Revd. Dr. James Parkes (1896-1981), one of the most remarkable figures in British Christianity in the twentieth century ( http://www.soton.ac.uk/parkes/about/jamesparkes.html ) has taken a different view from that described above and looks at the centrality of Palestine – the Land of Israel - from the religious perspectives of Islam, Christianity and Judaism. He concludes that the connection between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel lies at the core of Judaism, whereas in Christianity and Islam it is more peripheral. (James Parkes, A History of Palestine from 135 A.D. to Modern Times, Victor, Gollancz, London, 1949; also Whose Land? A History of the Peoples of Palestine, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, Mddx,1970)

In Parkes’ opinion, Palestine owes its unique position in the international political arena because the members of three world religions - Judaism, Christianity and Islam - are concerned in its destiny despite the fact that most of their respective adherents do not dwell in the country. Nevertheless, Palestine (the historical Roman name applied to the land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean coast) has an unequalled prominence in Judaism which placed, and still continues to place, an emphasis on its physical occupation different from that expressed in Christianity and Islam:

• For Muslims, the issue is not Palestine as a Holy Land, but Jerusalem as a Holy City - third holiest shrine in Islam - where according to Muslim belief, it was to and from “the furthest mosque” that Muhammad was miraculously transported in order to make his ascent into heaven.

”Glory to He who took His servant by night from the Sacred Mosque to the furthest mosque”. (Subhana allathina asra bi-‘abdihi laylatan min al-masjidi al-harami ila al-masjidi al-aqsa.)

However, the Koran makes no specific reference to Jerusalem. Only some considerable time after Mohammad’s death, and for political reasons, did Islam link the “furthest mosque” to Jerusalem.

In contrast, Jerusalem (and its synonym, Zion) appears 823 times in the Jewish Bible and in the Christian New Testament, Jerusalem is mentioned 154 times and Zion 7 times. (Daniel Pipes, The Muslim Claim to Jerusalem, Middle East September 2001 http://www.danielpipes.org/article/84#Aqsa )

In Islam, the central emphasis of religious practice is on the submission of the individual to the will of Allah. The Koran is not the history of the Arab people; all Muslims are equal, whatever their colour, nationality or country.

• For Christians, Palestine is the Holy Land in which Jesus Christ lived his earthly life. In this sense it is unique and has no rival. But Christianity is neither tied to any particular geographical area nor to any particular people. Its central religious emphasis is on personal salvation and on the “second coming” of the Messiah –Jesus - marking the end of the world and the final judgment. Apart from pilgrimage, Christianity is disconnected with the Land; there is no religious obligation to settle there as there is in Judaism.

The New Testament contains the history of no country; it passes freely from the Palestinian landscape of the Gospels to the Hellenistic and Roman landscape of the later books and in both it records the story of a group of individuals within a larger environment.” ( Parkes, p.172)

• For Jews, Palestine is a Holy Land in the sense of being a Promised Land where the destiny of and self-determination for the Jews is integral. They have an intense relationship with the Land going beyond that of either of the other two religions. Throughout the centuries Judaism has espoused the idea of settlement and repatriation of its adherents and possesses an all-pervading religious centrality possessed by no other land. The essential objective of the Jewish Messiah is seen in the restoration of the Jewish people from all the lands of its dispersion to the Holy Land-Palestine-Israel.

The central emphasis in Judaism, however, was and is the divine revelation of a way of life to be lived by men in community in this world. It relates to the whole life of a people on earth - domestically, socially, commercially, and its relations with other peoples (pre-modern ‘international’ relations) - as much as with its religion and its relations with its God.

Jewish laws and customs are based on the land and climate of Palestine; its agricultural festivals of Pesach (Passover), Shavuot (Pentecost or Feast of Weeks) and Sukkoth (Tabernacles), follow the Palestinian seasons. Its post-biblical historical festivals are linked to events in Palestinian history, such as the joyful rededication of the Temple at the feast of Hanukkah and the mourning for its destruction on the ninth day of the month of Av in the Jewish calendar.

Unlike Christianity and Islam, Judaism places much less emphasis on life hereafter than do Christianity and Islam and retains its central spiritual, physical and political existence in the geographical actuality of Palestine –Israel.

During the period of the exile from Palestine and its dispersion from the second to the eighteenth century, the Jewish people were recognised as both as a religion and as a nation. As a religious group, they were compared to Christians and Muslims and as a Nation, they could be compared to Turks or Frenchmen. 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 other than second-class subjects.

In their dispersion Jews built up a double religious life:

• their loyalty in the lands of their sojourn was governed by the general principle that 'the law of the land is law';
• Although religious observance in each community had to adjust Biblical and Talmudic law to the actualities of life under different rulers, nevertheless a continuous correspondence between communities and outstanding rabbis of the day ensured the continuity of traditional Jewish customs and ordinances as far as circumstances allowed.

But behind these local adjustments, Jewish religious interest still centred on the Bible, on the Mishnaic code and on Talmud whose integral fulfilment could only take place in the Land of Israel. (Parkes p.173)

For other more secular observers of the Middle East, the resolution to the conflict was to be found in the return of land to the Palestinians in exchange for peace. However some have concluded that this is merely an interim stage in a longer process. The real conflict is still one of Islamic fundamentalist ascendancy.

Professor Benny Morris views the conflict thus:

“It has become clear to me that from its start the struggle against the Zionist enterprise wasn't merely a national conflict between two peoples over a piece of territory but also a religious crusade against an infidel usurper. As early as Dec. 2, 1947, four days after the passage of the partition resolution, the scholars of Al Azhar University proclaimed a "worldwide jihad in defense of Arab Palestine" and declared that it was the duty of every Muslim to take part.

…Those currently riding high in the region-figures like Hamas's Ismail Haniyeh and Khaled Meshaal, Hizbullah's Hassan Nasrallah and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad-are true believers who are convinced it is Allah's command and every Muslim's duty to extirpate the "Zionist entity" from the sacred soil of the Middle East.

For all its economic, political, scientific and cultural achievements and military prowess, Israel, at 60, remains profoundly insecure -- for there can be no real security for the Jewish state, surrounded by a surging sea of Muslims, in the absence of peace.”

(Benny Morris, From Dove to Hawk, Newsweek, May 8, 2008, http://www.newsweek.com/id/136085)

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It is against both a secular and religious backdrop that the resource material presented here has been prepared. It demonstrates Jewish historical attempts to attain peace with their Arab neighbours and emphasises, within a historical and political context, the legal aspects of these attempts and the factors which have thus far frustrated their attainment.

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