According to this narrative the current conflict in the Middle East begins with the arrival of European Jews in the late nineteenth century who subjugated the local Arab population in true colonial fashion. This "colonialism" peaked in 1948 when the local Arab population was forcibly evicted from their lands during Israel’s War of Independence. According to the narrative, since that time, the Arabs and their supporters have been struggling to recover what was wrongfully taken from them.
The implication of this is that the Palestinians are victims and the Israelis oppressors. The Palestinians are cast as displaced aboriginals – "Indians of the Middle-East" if you like, who are entitled to aboriginal rights while Israelis are invaders with no rights. Most people are automatically sympathetic to the cause of displaced aboriginals and unsympathetic to colonialism.
It is easy to see how this narrative leads to the charges that Israel is racist and aims to create an apartheid state.
The false narrative ignores the key facts from which any consideration of the competing territorial and existential claims of Palestinians and Jews at the center of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East should begin.
After living as a nation in their historic homeland for over 1,000 years until being colonized and expelled by the Romans, Jews maintained a small but continuous presence there for nearly 2000 years until the turn of the last century. Then, in 1897, responding to violent anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe, the Zionist movement, motivated by Jewish self-preservation, purchased lands from the owners, many of them absentees, to create settlements and agricultural communities. This effectively made the Jews, the longest surviving indigenous people of the land (all others with prior claims having long since disappeared) its modern sovereigns.
Zionist settlement undertaken as part of a movement motivated by self-preservation rather than for the economic benefit of some distant foreign power is easily distinguishable from all forms of Imperialism.
Local residents displaced by this process outnumbered the Zionists and were descended from Arabs who had come to the region as conquerors in the 6th century and had immigrated from neighbouring countries. The 1948 War following the Arab rejection of the two-state solution envisioned by the UN Partition Plan resulted in some 800,000 Arab refugees, most of whom remain in refugee cities. After the 1967 Six Day War, these refugees, along with their brethren living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, forged a political identity separate from the other Arabs and became known as the Palestinians.
On their behalf, the PLO employed terror in a vain bid to replace Israel with a Palestinian state. However, since the 1993 Oslo Accords, Palestinians have officially committed themselves to seeking a state that would live peacefully next to Israel and Israel has recognized as legitimate the goal of an independent Palestinian state. Still, many Palestinians adhere to the original formulation and terrorist attacks have increased dramatically since Oslo.
This background is the point of departure for a narrative in which the Jewish people are the displaced aboriginals of the Middle East.
Previously colonized and dispersed by the Romans (Europeans), elements have returned to their ancestral homeland, Israel which the Romans had renamed "Palestine".
Yet that return to "native soil" was complicated by the dislocation of the local Arab population, the descendants of Islamic conquerors who came out of Arabia in the 6th century, long after the dispersion of the Jewish community by the Romans.
Thus having first been colonized and expelled by Rome and then enduring centuries of persecution in Europe as a result, the returning indigenous Jews had to contend with the effects of the subsequent Muslim colonization of their homeland and the surrounding region.
The return of the Jewish people to their ancestral homeland as an empowered indigenous people is an event that ought to be viewed with sympathy and satisfaction by individuals from across the political spectrum. This is particularly true regarding those on the political left who ironically are now the most vocal opponents of Zionism.
Indeed, except for Israel, the Middle-East is entirely dominated by undemocratic states populated by the descendants of those same Muslim conquerors. States that have refused to absorb their displaced brethren, the Palestinians, have consistently denied the legitimacy of the single non-Muslim state in the region and have waged 3 unsuccessful wars to conquer the state and expel its Jewish inhabitants.
In contrast, Israeli Jews attempted to negotiate compromises with the Palestinians who they acknowledge also have claims to the land by virtue of having lived on it for centuries. This included early support for partition as well as subsequent offers to cede part of their ancestral homeland to create a Palestinian state in exchange for peace.
In response, the Palestinians have denied the legitimacy of the Jewish state and with the support of the surrounding Arab states have employed unspeakable violence in an effort to terrorize the Israelis into leaving their homeland. If successful, the Palestinian project would eliminate the only non-Arab democratic state in the region, dispossessing the Jewish aboriginals and re-establishing Arab Muslim rule over the entire region.
Particularly troubling is the Palestinian success in garnering world support by means of a deceptive and revisionist historical narrative. A narrative designed to permit Palestinians to tap sympathies ordinarily reserved for people of the de-colonized developing world who continue to suffer from the effects of European Imperialism.
What is chilling is the opposition of the world community, particularly the European countries and the nations of the developing world, to the efforts of the Jewish people to decolonize their own ancestral homeland and to liberate themselves from centuries of persecution as a dispersed minority.
Editor's Notes:
1. About the authors: Howard Gerson practices law in Toronto. Harold Waller is professor of political science at McGill University. At the authors' request, the following diaclaimer is added: "The authors do not share the views of some IsraPundit contributors on the creation of a Palestinian State, and believe that a Palestinian State on parts of the West Bank and Gaza should be established as part of a comprehensive peace settlement."
2. This article, originally posted at http://list.haifa.ac.il/pipermail/alef/2005-March/010793.html, is reproduced here with the author's permission.
3. Debunking the myths of "Palestine", "Palestinian" and similar fairy tales is very important, for, it undermines a major block of excuses used by Israel's enemies. At the same time, it bolsters Israel's claim over Yesha; as Shakespeare said, "Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just" (Henry VI Pt 2, 3:3). For more on Israel's just claim, see "23 Reasons".
Who are the indians of the Middle East? by Howard Gerson and Harold Waller
See notes at article's end.
There is an assumption among leftists and in certain media circles concerning the truth of certain facts underlying what can be referred to as the "Palestinian narrative" of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
This Palestinian narrative is at the centre of the debate on Israel’s security fence now being considered by the International Court because it touches on the issue of the status of the land on which the fence is being constructed.
According to this narrative the current conflict in the Middle East begins with the arrival of European Jews in the late nineteenth century who subjugated the local Arab population in true colonial fashion. This "colonialism" peaked in 1948 when the local Arab population was forcibly evicted from their lands during Israel’s War of Independence. According to the narrative, since that time, the Arabs and their supporters have been struggling to recover what was wrongfully taken from them.
The implication of this is that the Palestinians are victims and the Israelis oppressors. The Palestinians are cast as displaced aboriginals – "Indians of the Middle-East" if you like, who are entitled to aboriginal rights while Israelis are invaders with no rights. Most people are automatically sympathetic to the cause of displaced aboriginals and unsympathetic to colonialism.
It is easy to see how this narrative leads to the charges that Israel is racist and aims to create an apartheid state.
The false narrative ignores the key facts from which any consideration of the competing territorial and existential claims of Palestinians and Jews at the center of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East should begin.
After living as a nation in their historic homeland for over 1,000 years until being colonized and expelled by the Romans, Jews maintained a small but continuous presence there for nearly 2000 years until the turn of the last century. Then, in 1897, responding to violent anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe, the Zionist movement, motivated by Jewish self-preservation, purchased lands from the owners, many of them absentees, to create settlements and agricultural communities. This effectively made the Jews, the longest surviving indigenous people of the land (all others with prior claims having long since disappeared) its modern sovereigns.
Zionist settlement undertaken as part of a movement motivated by self-preservation rather than for the economic benefit of some distant foreign power is easily distinguishable from all forms of Imperialism.
Local residents displaced by this process outnumbered the Zionists and were descended from Arabs who had come to the region as conquerors in the 6th century and had immigrated from neighbouring countries. The 1948 War following the Arab rejection of the two-state solution envisioned by the UN Partition Plan resulted in some 800,000 Arab refugees, most of whom remain in refugee cities. After the 1967 Six Day War, these refugees, along with their brethren living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, forged a political identity separate from the other Arabs and became known as the Palestinians.
On their behalf, the PLO employed terror in a vain bid to replace Israel with a Palestinian state. However, since the 1993 Oslo Accords, Palestinians have officially committed themselves to seeking a state that would live peacefully next to Israel and Israel has recognized as legitimate the goal of an independent Palestinian state. Still, many Palestinians adhere to the original formulation and terrorist attacks have increased dramatically since Oslo.
This background is the point of departure for a narrative in which the Jewish people are the displaced aboriginals of the Middle East.
Previously colonized and dispersed by the Romans (Europeans), elements have returned to their ancestral homeland, Israel which the Romans had renamed "Palestine".
Yet that return to "native soil" was complicated by the dislocation of the local Arab population, the descendants of Islamic conquerors who came out of Arabia in the 6th century, long after the dispersion of the Jewish community by the Romans.
Thus having first been colonized and expelled by Rome and then enduring centuries of persecution in Europe as a result, the returning indigenous Jews had to contend with the effects of the subsequent Muslim colonization of their homeland and the surrounding region.
The return of the Jewish people to their ancestral homeland as an empowered indigenous people is an event that ought to be viewed with sympathy and satisfaction by individuals from across the political spectrum. This is particularly true regarding those on the political left who ironically are now the most vocal opponents of Zionism.
Indeed, except for Israel, the Middle-East is entirely dominated by undemocratic states populated by the descendants of those same Muslim conquerors. States that have refused to absorb their displaced brethren, the Palestinians, have consistently denied the legitimacy of the single non-Muslim state in the region and have waged 3 unsuccessful wars to conquer the state and expel its Jewish inhabitants.
In contrast, Israeli Jews attempted to negotiate compromises with the Palestinians who they acknowledge also have claims to the land by virtue of having lived on it for centuries. This included early support for partition as well as subsequent offers to cede part of their ancestral homeland to create a Palestinian state in exchange for peace.
In response, the Palestinians have denied the legitimacy of the Jewish state and with the support of the surrounding Arab states have employed unspeakable violence in an effort to terrorize the Israelis into leaving their homeland. If successful, the Palestinian project would eliminate the only non-Arab democratic state in the region, dispossessing the Jewish aboriginals and re-establishing Arab Muslim rule over the entire region.
Particularly troubling is the Palestinian success in garnering world support by means of a deceptive and revisionist historical narrative. A narrative designed to permit Palestinians to tap sympathies ordinarily reserved for people of the de-colonized developing world who continue to suffer from the effects of European Imperialism.
What is chilling is the opposition of the world community, particularly the European countries and the nations of the developing world, to the efforts of the Jewish people to decolonize their own ancestral homeland and to liberate themselves from centuries of persecution as a dispersed minority.
Editor's Notes:
1. About the authors: Howard Gerson practices law in Toronto. Harold Waller is professor of political science at McGill University. At the authors' request, the following diaclaimer is added: "The authors do not share the views of some IsraPundit contributors on the creation of a Palestinian State, and believe that a Palestinian State on parts of the West Bank and Gaza should be established as part of a comprehensive peace settlement."
2. This article, originally posted at http://list.haifa.ac.il/pipermail/alef/2005-March/010793.html, is reproduced here with the author's permission.
3. Debunking the myths of "Palestine", "Palestinian" and similar fairy tales is very important, for, it undermines a major block of excuses used by Israel's enemies. At the same time, it bolsters Israel's claim over Yesha; as Shakespeare said, "Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just" (Henry VI Pt 2, 3:3). For more on Israel's just claim, see "23 Reasons".
Posted by Joseph Alexander Norland at March 8, 2005 09:47 AM