Palestinian-Israeli Conflict

1. Palestinian-Israeli Conflict Background, the Creation of Israel, and the Palestinian Nakbah

2. Geography of Conflict

3. Note: Unless otherwise noted, all maps in this presentation from http://www.dartmouth.edu/~gov46/

6. These maps prepared by pro-Israeli sources show the size of Israel-Palestine relative to other parts of the world.

7. Why did the Zionists want to found a state? Why in Palestine? On what grounds did Palestinians and other Arabs resist them and challenge their plans? Why did they believe they were entitled to stop them?

8. Zionism: principles and context • Basic tenets: • Jews constitute a nation • Jews should establish a Jewish state in Palestine • Largely secular (secular nationalism) • Context • Centuries of Jewish persecution • Western Euro assimilation, Russian & Eastern European persecution & pogroms • Age of Nationalism, European colonialism • National state as solution • Ignorance and stereotypes about Arabs • Why Palestine? • Religious significance: Before the Jewish diaspora • Jerusalem • Kingdom of Israel, 1000 BC (lasts in unified form about 70 years) • Before that? 3000-1500 BC Canaanites; 1200-1100 BC Philistines & Jews invade & settle the area • 722 BC-600s AD various Jewish states rise & fall but area mostly under control of empires (Babylonian, Roman, etc.)

9. Theodor Herzl, The Jewish State “The distinctive nationality of the Jews neither can, will, nor must be destroyed. It cannot be destroyed, because external enemies consolidate it. It will not be destroyed; this is shown during 2000 years of appalling suffering. It must not be destroyed, and that, as a descendant of numberless Jews who refused to despair, I am trying once more to prove in this pamphlet. Whole branches of Judaism may wither and fall, but the trunk will remain.” “We are one people– our enemies have made us one without our consent, as repeatedly happens in history. Distress binds us together, and thus united, we suddenly discover our strength. Yes, we are strong enough to form a State….” “It might be suggested that our want of a common current language would present difficulties. We cannot converse with one another in Hebrew! Who amongst us has a sufficient acquaintance with Hebrew to ask for a railway ticket in that language!” “Shall we end by having a theocracy? No, indeed. Faith unites us, knowledge gives us freedom. We shall keep priests within the confines of their temples in the same way as we shall keep our professional army within the confines of their barracks.”

10. Palestinian resistance: motivations and context • Politics and Identities, early 20th century • Self-identification as familial/local, Palestinian, Muslim, Arab, Ottoman • Palestine as southern Syria under Arab rule? • British wartime promises of Arab independence • Long-term Arab settlement and use of land • Area under Ottoman rule, 14-20th c. • Local autonomy under Palestinian notables • Customary land use • 70% population rural • Landowners and tenants • Jerusalem • Arab demographic majority • 1878: 443,000 Arabs; 15,000 Jews • 1914: 560,000 Arabs; 80,000 Jews. • Arab pop: 84 % Muslim (mostly Sunni), 16% Christian • Jewish pop: about 70% longtime inhabitants, about 30% Zionists • 1933: about 950,000 Arabs; 280,000 Jews • 1946: 1.26 million Arabs; 608,000 Jews

11. Why did the Zionists succeed in founding a Jewish state in Palestine?

12. #1. Diplomatic Pressure & Influential foreign allies • British (London) support for Zionism, 1917-1939 • Balfour Declaration • Palestine Mandate (mixed policies) • BUT…. The White Paper (1939) • U.S., Russian support

13. #2. High level of organization and multiple repertoires of contention • Creating facts on the ground: Immigration and land transfers • World Zionist Organization/Jewish National Fund • Five aliyah • Proto state-building • 1929: Jewish Agency in Palestine (quasi-governmental) • Histadrut- Jewish labor organization • Haganah- Jewish defense forces • Armed pressure • BUT… Internal differences • Labor Settlement Movement (Labor Zionism) – 1904-1914 • Land Purchases • Socialism • Self-reliance & “closed shop” labor • Revisionist Zionism (“Eretz Israel” -- territorial maximalization) - 1920s onward

14. Above, David Ben-Gurion, leader of labor Zionism and Israel’s first prime minister. Undated picture from http://www.law.harvard.edu/library/collections/special/exhibitions/portrait_exhibit/David_Ben-Gurion.php. Below, Vladimir Jabotinsky, leader of Revisionist Zionism. Vladimir Jabotinsky, leader of revisionist Zionism. Palestinian resistance leader Abd al Qadir al-Husayni, 1930s.

15. |#3. World War II & the Holocaust • Renewed Jewish emigration to Palestine • Arming and training of Jewish units • Wearing down of British resolve • New conflict between British and Zionists in 1940s • Jewish perspective: Jewish state needed for their protection • Arab perspective: Arabs shouldn’t have to pay for Europe’s injustice towards Jews Jewish passengers from the damaged ship, the Exodus, disembark after the war in July 1947 at the port of Haifa before being forcibly returned to camps. Photograph from the Government Press Office, Jerusalem, courtesy of the USHMM Photo Archives.

16. What obstacles did the Palestinians face in stopping the movement and establishing a state of their own?

17. Along with economic, military, diplomatic disadvantages… political fragmentation and suppression • Internal divisions among the Palestinians and Arabs • Class divisions • Rising land prices = Absentee land sales and displacement, impoverishment of tenant farmers • British policies, etc • Palestinian revolt, 1936-1939 • Leaves at least 3,000 Arabs, 2,000 Jews, 600 British dead • Decimates Palestinian leadership • Ideological/national differences: Pan-Arabism vs national states One depiction of the Arab Revolt.

18. UN Partition Plans propose 2-state solution 3 Phases of war: 1) Attacks by both Jews and Arabs on British forces, 1945-1947 2) Palestinian & Zionist civil war, 1947-48 3) Arab states vs Zionists 1948-1949 British Withdrawal & UN Partition Plan 1947 Civil war 1947-48 Bombings and terror used by both sides Deir Yassin 04/1948 14 May 1948 Israeli Proclamation of independence Arab-Israeli wars, 1948-49 Transjordan, Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon vs Haganah and other Jewish fighters Establishment of Israel, 1948

19. Expanded Israel state boundaries 77% of mandate territory Jordan controls West Bank; Egypt controls Gaza 700,000 Palestinians expelled or fled from Palestine (al-Nakbah) 470,000 enter camps in Arab Palestine & Gaza Rest dispersed (Palestinian Diaspora) Exodus of 325,000 Jews from the Arab world to Israel End of 1949: Israeli population about 1 million Results of the War

20. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians lost their homes in the fighting after 1948. This woman sits across from her home, separated from it by the new border. On May 14, 1948, on the day in which the British Mandate over a Palestine expired, the Jewish People's Council gathered at the Tel Aviv Museum and approved a proclamation declaring the establishment of the State of Israel.

21. Why didn’t the Palestinians get a state in what was left of the Palestine Mandate after the establishment of Israel in 1948?Why did so many Palestinians end up as refugees after 1948?