Over the past weeks, most of my time has been spent in the conservatory, both in preparing my own students for upcoming exams, and also in covering the teaching of a colleague performing the three-monthly visa renewal trip. Therefore, I have not had much to write about, though I just came across the following few paragraphs that I wrote back in January and never got round to posting, following the visit of George W. Bush to the Middle East. Unfortunately, they seem as relevant now as they did back then.
From the inside, it appears that the world is watching, but it also seems like it doesn’t see anything. Certainly, George W. Bush didn’t see much on his recent visit to Palestine, other than the inside of a few offices and of his own motorcade. For if the world saw what was happening here, its reaction would be different. The reason I have come to this conclusion is that what is happening in Palestine is very simple, and always has been very simple. It is often dressed up as something incomprehensibly difficult to understand, but that obfuscation only serves to hide the truth - the facts, and the true intentions. To understand both these things, we must know a little of the history to the current situation.
Palestine’s fate was sealed when the UN agreed to cut the country in half, to accommodate the roughly 30% Jewish population with their own state. Almost all of this 30% were first generation immigrants. The indigenous Jewish population of Palestine was around 4% at the close of the 19th Century, and until the massive immigration during the early 20th Century they enjoyed good relations with their Muslim and Christian Arab brothers. Yes, the Jews of Palestine were Arabs too. In fact, this was one of the few corners of the world where Jews lived entirely without persecution. It is ironic then, that it was this particular spot that was made to pay the price of Europe’s calamitous treatment of Jews in the decades leading up to the Second World War. The second nail in the Palestinian national coffin was when the new State of Israel was left unchecked, and unpunished, for its expansion into 78% of the country of which it was originally given half, and its murderous ethnic cleansing of that area. These acts attracted sensible enough UN Security Council resolutions at the time, but as soon as it became clear that these resolutions would never be enforced, Israel became above the law, and has remained there ever since.
The widely held belief that Israel was attacked first and that the Palestinians fled out of fear from the invading Arab armies is easily shown to be false by the fact that 300,000 Palestinians had fled their homes, to become refugees until this very day, before a shot was fired between the Arab Liberation Army and the State of Israel. Over 700,000 would be made refugees by the end of the offensive. The UN resolutions made in connection with these events are unequivocal in that the refugees of this ethnic cleansing must be given their right of return, or compensated. No President, or anyone else for that matter, can change this fact by stating that we must move on since ‘things didn’t work out’. To add insult to injury, the Jewish ‘Law of Return’ is an absurd piece of blatantly racist legislation that states if you are Jewish, then you have the right to settle in Israel. Who thinks that it is acceptable to move onto the land of someone forced from it at gunpoint and forbidden to return, on the basis that you are the right religion, and they are the wrong religion?
This policy continues today. The residents of the West Bank, where they are unlucky enough to live on land desired by Jewish Settlers, are under pressure. Their presence in these parts is being made increasingly tenuous by restriction of movement to the point they cannot work, and military domination. In addition, the settlers too are under pressure – financial pressure. If you are willing to break international law by living in occupied land, then you get a loan that you don’t have to repay if you stay ten years. Why is it that the Israeli government can actively encourage these illegal acts of settlement in occupied lands, acts which were agreed would be stopped as part of the ‘Road Map’, and not a word is mentioned on it. Against this backdrop, Israel’s criticism that Palestine has not honoured its obligations under the ‘Road Map’ seems ridiculous. Especially so, as Israel clearly has the ability to honour its obligations, yet a profoundly weakened Palestine since the international boycott of the democratically elected Hamas, has not.
So it is no surprise that we have arrived at an impasse. Or rather, that we have been at one for some time now. Equally, it should be no surprise that we are not going to move from that impasse any time soon. And this is the problem for Palestine - the impasse suits Israel just fine.
Let us consider Palestine’s viability. I heard a good comparison between Palestine and a prison, but not for the usual reasons of describing the treatment of Palestinians at the hands of Israeli soldiers (even the army is euphemistically called the Israeli Defence Force). If you look at the map of a prison, the prisoners appear to have rather a good deal. They have lots of space when you add up all the cells, the cafeteria, gym, library, exercise yard and so on. All the guards have is a few offices, a few corridors and a few keys. Having 95% of your territory is not enough, if the 5% is retained by a system designed to imprison you, and this is exactly what is happening in Palestine. While the Israeli settlements remain, Palestine is simply not a viable country, and therefore the two-state solution is also clearly not viable. And the longer this goes on, the less likely anything is to change.
Towards the end of the 20th Century, we realised that cold wars were not a great idea, and we have known for a while that hot wars are no better - especially not in this part of the world. So Israel has formed the perfect response. It is waging a long and warm war, and as long as the rest of us allow it to pass under the radar, it will continue to be devastatingly successful.
