Fourteen

The Origins of the

Israeli-Palestinian Dispute
The British short story writer Saki (H. H. Munro) once described the island of Crete as a place
that has produced more history than could be consumed locally. The same might be said of
Palestine, the territory that includes the contemporary state of Israel and the occupied
territories. The territory itself is quite small. It stretches from the Mediterranean Sea in the
west to the Jordan River in the east, and from Lebanon in the north to the Gulf of Aqaba and
the Sinai Peninsula on the south. The state of Israel is roughly the size of New Jersey. And
Israel comprises almost 80 percent of historic Palestine.
The population of Palestine is also small. Israel's population is about 6.5 million, less than
10 percent of the population of Turkey, Iran, or Egypt. There are approximately three to 3.5
Palestinians in the Occupied Territories - roughly the population of Chicago. (Estimates for
total number of Palestinians in the world run as high as nine million.) Since 1948, wars
between Israel and its neighbors have claimed upward of 150,000 casualties. These wars were
certainly tragic, but they just as certainly pale in horror when compared with the most
grievous squandering of lives in the region during its recent history. During the Iran-Iraq War,
which lasted from 1980 to 1988, there were 500,000 to one million deaths and one to two
million wounded.
In spite of the fact that the size of Palestine and the number of people directly affected by
its political problems are minuscule in comparative terms, the dispute between Israel, on the
one hand, and the Palestinians and various Arab states, on the other, has been at the forefront
of international attention for over fifty years. The so-called Arab-Israeli dispute has gone on
for such a long time and has been the subject of so much heated debate that it is easy to lose
sight of the fundamental issue involved. The dispute is, simply put, a real estate dispute.
Jewish immigrants and their descendents, united by their adherence to the nationalist ideology
of Zionism, and the Palestinian Arab inhabitants among whom the Zionists settled both claim
an exclusive right to inhabit and control some or all of Palestine.
Zionism is a nationalist movement that redefined a religious communityJewsas a national
community. Like other nationalist movements, Zionism asserts the right of this nation to an
independent existence in its historic
206

The Origins of the Israeli-Palestinian Dispute

207

homeland. The Zionist movement

was
typical
of
nationalist
movements that arose in Europe
during the nineteenth century.
And, like other nationalist
movements, the Zionist movement
has its own pantheon of heroes
who were instrumental in
articulating its doctrines and
organizing for its goals.
Perhaps the most important
figure in the early history of
Zionism
was
a
Viennese
journalist, Theodor Herzl (18601904). Herzl was the son of a Hungarian merchant whose family
had moved to Vienna at a time
when that city seemed to
promise so much to upwardly
mobile Jews who wished to
assimilate
into
mainstream
European society and culture.

Palestine and the Middle East

Herzl
received
a
secular
education and acquired a
doctorate in law. He went on to
become
the
French
correspondent for a prestigious
Viennese newspaper. It was while
he was in Paris that Herzl
became a Zionist.
According to many accounts,
Herz]. converted to Zionism as a
result of the Dreyfus Affair. In
1894, Alfred Dreyfus, a French
army captain, was accused of
spying for Germany. Dreyfus
was, like Herzl, an assimilated
Jew. The trial of Alfred Dreyfus
became a cause clbre in France
and the rest of Europe. For

208

The Modern Middle East

many, it was clear that Dreyfus had been guilty of little more than being a
successful Jew in Catholic France. Among these was the French novelist
Emile Zola, who condemned those who accused Dreyfus in the following
words:
It is a crime to poison the minds of the small and simple and to excite the
passions of reaction and intolerance while seeking refuge behind that
hateful anti-Semitism of which great liberal FranceFrance of the rights
of manwill die, unless she is cured of her disease.
The Dreyfus Affair demonstrated to Herzl that if France could play host to virulent anti-Semitism, Jews could not be secure anywhere. What the Jews needed was
a homeland of their own in which they would form a majority of citizens.
At first, Herzl was ambivalent about just where that homeland should be. In
various writings, he advocated establishing a Jewish home in Argentina or in
the western United States. Others were not so ambivalent. Since the first
century, when Jews were exiled from Palestine by the Romans, Palestine was
remembered in texts and rituals of Jews who lived, sometimes uncomfortably,
sometimes in peril, as a scattered -community throughout the world, Thus,
Zionism combined Herzl's call for the establishment of a Jewish national home
with the historical memory of Palestine.
Theodor Herzl was not the first Zionist. Nor was he the movement's most
brilliant advocate. Indeed, there were a number of Zionist thinkers who contributed more ideas to Zionism than Herzl. But few offered more passion.
Herzl's organizational talents proved essential for the success of the Zionist
cause. In 1897, Herzl organized the First Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzer1and. The Zionist Congress createde the-World Zionist Organization continues
to speak for the international Zionist movement. It also issued the Basel
Program, which not only called for the establishment of a "Jewish home" in
Palestine, but specified the tactic to achieve that goal. The Basel Program
stipulated that Zionists should commit themselves to obtaining that home
through diplomacy.
While Herzl and others attempted to gain support from a variety of pow ers
(including the Ottoman Empire), the Zionist movement achieved its first real
success in 1917 when the British issued the Balfour Declaration. The Balfour
Declaration stated, in part, "His Majesty's Government view with favor the
establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will
use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object..." This
declaration marked a milestone in the efforts that culminated in the creation of
the State of Israel. The British, who received the mandate for Palestine from
the League of Nations, allowed Zionist immigration to Palestine (which, after
the creation of Trans-Jordan, they defined as the territory between the
Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River).
Jewish immigration to Palestine began even before the Balfour Declaration
was issued and continued long after the end of the war, however. Immigra tion
took place in waves, called in Hebrew "aliyot" (sing.: aliya). The first aliya
was significant because its members attempted to install a settler-plantation
colony in Palestine similar to the French settler-plantation colony in Algeria.
For the most part, their efforts failed. The second and third aliyot, which took

The Origins of the Israeli-Palestinian Dispute

209

The Jewish settlement Nes Zionah, near Jaffa, was established in 1883. (From: The Collection
of Wolf-Dieter Lemke.)

place during 1904-1914 and 1918-1923, had more lasting results. During these
aliyot, sixty-thousand Jews emigated to Palestine from Europe. These
immigrants. shaped many of the institutions and ideals that still exist in Israel.
Influenced by both socialism and romantic, back-to-the-land ideas that were
then popular in Germany, the new immigrants established agricultural set tlements, including collective farms (moshavim, sing.: moshav) and communal
farms (kibbutzim, sing.: kibbutz). They organized a labor federation (the Histadrut), which established schools and hospitals and which provided a vari ety
of social and welfare services for the immigrant community. And they resurrected
the biblical language of Hebrew for use as the national tongue.
Perhaps most important for the future of the Middle East was the labor
policy adopted by the new immigrants. The Zionists of the second and third
aliyot expressed their aspirations in two slogans: "conquest of land" and
"conquest of labor." The first slogan refers to the need these Zionists felt to
make their imprint on the land of Palestine by "taming the wilderness"
through settlement activity. The second refers to the need these Zionists felt
to remake the Jewish people by having Jews fill all jobs in the economy.
Whereas the peculiar circumstances of Jews in Europe had restricted them
to certain urban occupations, these Zionists wanted Jews to expand beyond
commerce and the professions. Only by doing this, they believed, could Jews
overcome their crippling experience as an exile community and become a
true nation. The belief that the Jewish nation had to purge itself of the ill ef fects of centuries of exile is called "the negation of exile." It, too, played a
central role in Zionist polemics.

210

The Modern Middle East

Although the "conquest of labor" idea had its ideological roots in utopian
socialism and romanticism, there were practical reasons for European Jewish
settlers to shun Arab labor. Although one of early Zionist slogans was "a land
without a people for a people without a land," Arab labor was, in fact, plentiful
and Arabs were willing to work for lower wages than would European
emigrants. The expansion of the labor force to include low-wage workers
would drive wages down and discourage the immigration of new settlers. As
a result, influential Zionists felt that the success of their project depended on
severing the economic links connecting the two communities. Thus, after the
Zionists bought land, often from absentee landlords, they frequently displaced
Palestinian farmers whose services were no longer required.
The indigenous inhabitants of Palestine did resist Zionist settlement poli cies.
This resistance took a variety of forms, from land occupations to vio lence
against settlers and destruction of property. But, while the indigenous inhabitants
of Palestine resisted Zionist settlement from the start, this resistance was
mainly defensive, devoid of political goals, and rather haphazard. No
Palestinian national movement existed until after World War I. Even then it had
to compete with other nationalist movements for support. Before World War 1,
most educated Palestinians viewed themselves as Ottoman subjects and later as
Ottoman citizens. As we saw in Chapter 13, the fact that educated
Palestinians would express their political aspirations in the form of
nationalism was inevitable. That they would advocate Palestinian nationalism
was not. After World War I, when an Ottoman identity was no longer a viable
option, some Palestinians were attracted to Arab nationalism. Others viewed
themselves as Syrians.
In addition to the competition a Palestinian national movement faced from
rival national movements, there were other factors that hindered its
consolidation. The Palestinian community was hardly as well organized or as
unified as the Zionist community. As citizens of the Ottoman Empire, there had
been no need. Although the Zionist community was notorious for the fractiousness of its politics, most of its members did, after all, play by the same rule
book. The Zionist community embraced the mandates system and or ganized
itself accordingly. Political elites in the Arab community in Palestine accepted
neither the Balfour Declaration nor the British mandate, They thus did not
organize themselves in a way that could take advantage of the mandate. Further
hindering the organization of a unified Palestinian national movement was the
problem of internal fissures in the Arab communityfissures that were
exacerbated by British policies. While political elites had competed with each
other for positions and prestige under the Ottomans, the British were not
reluctant to use that competition for their own ends. The British also continued
the Ottoman policy of allowing each religious community to organize its own
affairs. Because the Arab community of Palestine included both Muslims and
Christians, each community maintained parallel but separate institutions for
such functions as social welfare and law.
Over the course of the mandate period, both the Arab nationalist and the
Syrian nationalist options became less and less viable. The mandates system
not only divided the Arab world into a variety of states, but severed Palestine

The Origins of the Israeli-Palestinian Dispute

211

from Syria. Because the Palestinian Arab community could not reasonably expect to unite with
Syrians, the lure of Syrian nationalism eventually lost its hold on it. Over time, the history
and institutional development of Palestine and Syria also diverged. Syrian elites, for example,
would further their education by studying in France and felt at ease in French culture. Since
Britain held the mandate for Palestine, educated elites in Palestine would often learn English,
complete their studies in Britain, and come to regard British institutions and traditions, not
French, as a model to be emulated.
But there was a second reason why a separate Palestinian identity began to emerge during the
mandate period. The inhabitants of Palestine faced a problem that no other inhabitants of the
region faced: Zionist settlement. Zionist settlement was very different from the imperialism
practiced in Syria or Iraq under the mandates system. The British and French ruled their
mandated territories indirectly, through local collaborators. They did not appropriate land,
establish a rival and competing economy, or establish rival and competing political structures.
Because they faced a different type of adversary, the response of Palestinians was different
from the response of their neighbors.
The fact that Palestinian nationalism developed later than Zionism and, in fact, developed in
response to Zionist immigration does not mean that Pales tinian nationalism is any less
legitimate than Zionism. All nationalisms arise in opposition to some internal or external
nemesis. All are defined by what they oppose. Zionism itself originally arose in reaction to
anti-Semitic and nationalist movements in Europe. It would be perverse to judge . Zionism as
somehow less valid than European anti-Semitism or those nationalisms. Furthermare,ZionismitselLwas.also.defined byits opposition to the indigeno . Palestinian inhabitants of the
region. Both the "conquest of land' and the "conquest of the labor" slogans that became
central to Zionist thinking originated as a result of the confrontation of Zionism with its
Palestinian "other."
During the late 1920s and 1930s tensions between the two communities escalated. Both
local and international events contributed to these tensions. As a result of the spread of antiSemitism in Europe during the 1930s, Jewish immigration to Palestine expanded dramatically.
From 1931 to 1935, the Jewish population of Palestine rose from 175,000 to four hundred
thousand. To put it another way, the Jewish population expanded from 17 to 31 per cent of
the total population in Palestine. Zionist land purchases struck a Palestinian population
already reeling from an agricultural crisis. Palestinian society was predominantly rural, and
the collapse of agricultural prices and international trade caused by the Great Depression
had put it under tremendous strain. By 1931, Zionist land purchases had led to the ejection
of approximately twenty thousand peasant families from their lands. Close to 30 percent of
Palestinian farmers were landless and another 75 to 80 per cent did not have enough land for
subsistence.
Thus, in 1936 Palestine exploded in violence. What Palestinians call the Great Revolt was,
after the 1948 War, the most traumatic event in modern history for Palestinians. The British
quickly suppressed the revolt in urban areas, but met with more difficulty in rural areas.
There, the revolt lasted three years. By the autumn of 1937, up to ten thousand rebels
roamed the

212

The Modem Middle East

countryside. To put down the revolt, the British launched a brutal counterinsurgency campaign, employing tactics all too familiar to Palestinians today:
collective punishment of villages, "targeted killings" (assassinations), mass arrests, deportations, and the dynamiting of homes of suspected guerrillas and
their sympathizers. The revolt, and the British reaction to it, ravaged the natural leadership of the Palestinian community and opened up new cleavages
in that community. Many wealthy Palestinians fled rather than face what they
considered to be the extortionate demands of rival Palestinian gangs, while
the British imprisoned many of the community's leaders or forced them into
exile. Palestinian society never recovered. The roots of what Palestinians called
the nakba (calamity) of 1948 can be found in the Great Revolt.
In the wake of the Great Revolt, the British attempted to find some diplo matic solution to the Palestine imbroglio. In 1937, they proposed dividing
Palestine into two separate territories, one Zionist, one Palestinian. In 1939,
they backed away from partition and issued a White Paper that had just the
right ingredients to offend leaders of both communities. The White Paper
of 1939 advocated putting restrictions on (but not ending) Jewish immigra tion,
closer supervision of (but not ending) land sales, and independence within
ten years. Both communities felt betrayed by the White Paper. Both
communities rejected it.
Although the White Paper remained official British policy during World
War II, Palestine was relatively quiet. Much of the Zionist community balked
at the idea of sabotaging the British war effort against the Nazis, and the Arab
community of Palestine was still recovering from the trauma of the Great
Revolt. Furthermore, the war was an economic boon to Palestine, as it was to
much of the rest of the region. But the lull was not to last. As the
ten-year deadline stipulated by the White Paper loomed on the horizon,
the struggle between the two communitiesand between the two communities
and the Britishresumed. By 1947, at a time when India was about to achieve
independence and the cold war was in its initial stages, the British had to station
one hundred thousand soldiers in Palestine to keep the peace. Their soldiers
and diplomats targeted by Zionist splinter groups, their economy in sham bles, the British decided that enough was enough and dumped the Palestine
issue in the lap of the newly established United Nations. The United Nations
was, after all, the successor organization to the League of Nations, which had
granted Britain the mandate to begin with. Following the recommendations
of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP), the General
Assembly of the United Nations voted to terminate the mandate and partition
Palestine between Zionist and Palestinian communities.
In the wake of the United Nations' vote to partition Palestine, a civil war
broke out between the two communities. The civil war was followed by the
intervention of surrounding Arab nations on behalf of the Palestinians. The
war for Palestinecalled by Israelis the War of Independence and by Palestinians the nakbaaffected all combatants in dramatic ways. For Zionists,
the war led to the creation of the State of Israel whose de facto borders cor responded to the ceasefire lines. Although the state quickly received inter national recognition, no peace treaties were signed between Israel and its

The Origins of the Israeli-Palestinian Dispute

213

Palestinian houses
demolished by the
British during the
Great Revolt.
(From: Fondation
Arabe pour limage,
Beirut.)

X-

neighbors - only armistice

agreements. For the next
forty-five years, the

attention

focus: on :getting Israel and its neighbors to sign

such treaties. In
other words, for the
next16ity:fie years
most Of the nter
national community
chose to view the
conflict
between
two
peoples
Zionists
and
Palestiniansas an
"Arab-Israeli"
conflict
among
sovereign
states.
After more than
half a century, only
two peace treaties

'4^

between Israel and

any of its neighbors
have been signed:
one between Israel
and Egypt (1979),
the other between
Israel and Jordan
(1994).
On the other hand,
the war devastated
Palestinian society.
About
720,000
Palestinians
fled
their homes and
were
trapped
behind enemy lines,
unable to return.
Although
the
reasons for their
flight have been a
subject of debate for
over fifty years, a
consensus has begun
to emerge in the
scholarly
community, mainly as a
result of research
undertaken by a
group of Israeli
scholars called the
New
Historians.
Most scholars now
agree
that
a
combination
of
factors led to the
birth of the Palestine
refugee problem. On
the
one
hand,
Palestinians,
like
most
refugees,
naturally fled from a
war zone. On the
other hand, there
were
expulsions,
particularly in the
north, while other
Palestinians
were
deliberately
frightened
into
leaving by acts of

terror committed by
Zionist forces. In the
village
of
Dayr
Yassin
alone,
between 110 and 240
men, women, and
children
were
butchered, and the
bodies of many
were stuffed in the
village well. Acts
such as that one
were hardly kept
secret. After all, as
Lenin once put it,
the
purpose
of
terrorism
is
to
terrorize.
Most Palestinian
refugees ended up
in the West Bank
(which
was
occupied by Jordan
until 1967), the
Gaza Strip (which
was occupied by the
Egyp-

214

The Modern Middle East

Israel/Palestine, 1921, 1948

tians until the same year), and neighboring Arab countries.

Those who had an education or money tried to rebuild their
lives as best they could on their own. Others who were not so
lucky ended up in camps supported by the United Nations
Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), where they and their
descendents have lived to this very day. Those Arabs who
remained in Israel were subject to martial law until 1966.
The 1948 war also affected Arab statesnot just those that
fought in the war, but states throughout the region. Groups of
military officers in Egypt,

Documents
215

Syria, and Iraq felt they had been betrayed by their governments. While the Palestine war was not
the only reason these officers were dissatisfied, the Arab defeat came to symbolize a host of
grievances these officers held against their governments. They accused those governments of
entering the war half-heartedly (which they did) and blamed their defeat on the incompetence and
corruption of those governments. They also equated the defeat of the Arab forces with the inability
Or unwillingness of Arab governments to promote the sort of economic and social development that
would have assured success on the field of battle. Taking matters into their own hands, these officers
launched coups d'etat in Syria (1949), Egypt (1952), and Iraq (1958) against their governments. As
we shall see in the next chapter, these coups would change the course of Arab politics and transform
the bond connecting the states of the Middle East with their citizens.