The
Israel/Palestine Question
By Jim Miles
24 October, 2007
Countercurrents.org
Book Review: The Israel/Palestine
Question – Second Edition Ed. Ilan Pappe. Routledge, London, 2007.
Ilan
Pappe’s highly revised second edition of The Israel/Palestine
Question offers the reader a very instructive read on changing historical
perspectives about Israel/Palestine within one over-riding theme –
land tenure and population control.
Apart from two chapters dealing
with women’s issues within Palestinian culture, this main theme
– as with most recent revisionist histories of the region –
explores the various permutations on the methods and ideas on how to
control the land and the indigenous population, its settlement patterns,
the control of resources and people, and the expulsion or marginalization
of the Palestinian population within Israel. In consideration of the
upcoming ‘conference’ or ‘peace talks’ to be
arranged by the Americans, and Condaleeza Rice’s ignorant warnings
to the Israelis about not seizing land in East Jerusalem, this volume
should be considered “required reading” for all American
participants. One must ask Ms Rice, “What about the other millions
of dunums of land already seized?” The past continues on.
As presented by Pappe, the
purpose of the book is “to introduce an interdisciplinary methodology
into the research as well as to inject a more sceptical view of the
historical narratives written under the powerful influences of nationalist
elites and ideologies.” History, sociology, and political science
are interwoven into this perspective. For those not familiar with the
histories of the Palestine/Israeli conflict, Pappe’s previous
works, A History of Modern Palestine and The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine
[1] would be a good place to start, as the first section of this collection
of essays is a difficult read without some background knowledge of the
situation.
One of the first questions
addressed is that of Palestinian national identity as located within
the geography of the Ottoman Empire. The first essay analyzes the writings
about ‘Palestine’ concentrating on a need to examine previously
ignored basic issues at the people’s level (as Howard Zinn does
with U.S. history) rather than through the official Ottoman records
during the 1700s and 1800s. That of course obviates the “Orientalist”
view (modernity versus decay/empty land rescued by Jews) and the Israeli
apologetics of their own cultural history in the region. A more specific
look is then taken at the Ottoman ‘sanjaks’ or district
provinces, with the Jerusalem sanjak “as a separate entity from
the other regions of Syria [being] of tremendous importance for the
emergence of Palestine about fifty years later.” It helped “determine
the character and future of Palestinian politics” as well as contributing
“to the emergence of Palestinian nationalism as distinct from
Syrian-Arab nationalism.” The essay is a political summary of
events in the 19th Century that helped shape the ideas of a nation of
Palestinians as compared to Palestine being just a political response
to later Jewish immigration.
The next section examines
the aspects of Jewish settlement patterns and political thought that
resemble the idea of colonization rather than the popularized and politicized
Jewish version of “self liberation” and “redemption”.
Baruch Kimmerling (sociologist at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem)
looks at Israel as an “immigrant-settler” society, who sees
three stages of the colonization process. First is land ownership or
acquisition, institutionalized through the Jewish National Fund in which
land is removed from its “capitalist” ownership to a “nationalized”
collective ownership. Following that is settlement of the land with
allocation determining its Jewish collective nature. The final stage
is coercion, initially meaning “armed defense” but after
the 1948 war Israel “could impose sovereignty on all lands within
its borders”, followed by its legitimation through a wide array
of cultural components.
Part of the difficulty in
reading this book also comes from its being a study of studies using
strong academic language, particularly of a sociological perspective
(an academic area I must admit I am not strong with) that is not at
all accessible to the general public. An example, unintelligible to
a lay reader, is a comment about Gershon Shafir’s interpretation
of events: “Both functionalist and conflict sociology err in a
teleological conception of the Second Aliya.” Much more clearly
expressed is the topic for the next paragraph, “Settler-colonial
societies are propelled by the need to acquire land and settle it,”
a phrasing with much more solidity for the average reader.
While Kimmerling saw three
stages of land acquisition, Shafir (another sociologist, University
of California, San Diego) defines six stages. But the essential message
is that the socialist ideology of the kibbutz was applied after the
fact, as “the success of the collective settlement in Israel [does]
not…attest to its attractiveness as an alternative social model,
but rather to its function as a spearhead of the project of national
colonization.” The collectivist view arose because of “the
relatively developed social conditions in Palestine” and “the
presence in Palestine of a native population which possessed the land”
making it so that “Jewish settlement institutions could not rely
on the workings of the market.” According to Shafir, the “critical
step in Israeli state-building” came in 1905 with the realization/decision
by the Jewish workers to exclude all “Palestinian workers from
the new society in the making”, transforming the “Jewish
workers into militant nationalists.”
In other terms, history is
fully revised: there was a strong Palestinian presence on the land and
an ‘apartheid’ arrangement would strengthen the Jewish presence
and growing colonial control. Eventually, the need to acquire and hold
land, and exclude or remove the indigenous population, led to the many
idiosyncratic laws in place in modern Israel (marriage laws, housing
and zoning laws, property ownership, rights of movement and transfers,
military rule, and many others up to the ideological statements made
about an exclusionary theocratic “Jewish state”). But that
is looking too far ahead – the next section of the text examines
“The New History of 1948.”
The middle section of Ilan
Pappe’s anthology explores the issues surrounding the actions
of 1948, placed in their overall historical context of the Zionist movement’s
designs on the land. The contemporary mythic cultural view is that the
Palestinians proved hostile to a reasonable UN mandated plan to share
the country. Along with this rides the myth of an outnumbered overpowered
Jewish population that near miraculously overcame tremendous odds to
defeat the combined Arab armies that had attacked them. Finally, the
third big myth is that the Palestinians left their towns and villages
at the urgings of their own leaders, leaving them empty for Israeli
occupation. The three essays discussing these myths deconstruct them
to present a significantly different picture.
Walid Khalidi first looks
at the historical amnesia concerning events before the partition, events
that demonstrate that the nakba was not the origin of the Palestinian
‘problem’ but a major catastrophe that had been long building.
Khalidi refers to the Basel Program at the First Zionist Congress in
1897, where the “hidden agenda” is “explicated with
brutal frankness and in classical imperialist fashion.” Next chronologically
he refers to the era of British rule in which “The leading Western
democratic country suspended democracy in Palestine to facilitate, with
bayonets, the laying down of the infrastructure of Zionist power.”
Contained within that is the “desperate Palestinian national rebellion”
against the British partition report (Peel Report, 1937) that resulted
in the consequent destruction of all effective Palestinian political
and military organizations.” Finally, he turns to the Zionist
ideals as expressed by David Ben-Gurion who could only foresee a military
relationship with the Palestinians, and as early as 1937 had drawn up
“a plan for the military takeover of the entire country in anticipation
of Britain’s withdrawal.”
Following from these initial
events, conveniently ‘forgotten’ in the amnesia of history,
Khalid further develops the actual historical data concerning Jewish
terror against the British, the creation of war plans, the support of
the U.S., the lack of legality of the UN 1947 partition plan (emphasizing
that there is no “compromise” when one side is outmanned
and outgunned and is up against the will of the U.S. and the U.K.) and
its unequal distribution of fertile farming lands and access to water
all in favour of the Zionists on a clear majority of Palestinian territory.
The scene for the nakba was set well before the Israeli declaration
of its independence.
A specific case history of
the nakba is presented with Ilan Pappe’s analysis of the Tantura
Case, an examination of a Jewish Defence massacre of Palestinian villagers.
Two main ideas rise from the discussion. The first one is that the nakba
“should be examined from within the paradigm of ethnic cleansing,
rather than as part of military history,” as “Tantura stands
out as a typical case in point of the reality of ethnic cleansing.”
The second related point concerns the validity of oral history with
the point being made that “Oral history…is extensively used
in the Israeli historiography of the Holocaust, but is totally de-legitimated
when attempted by Palestinian historians reconstructing the Nakba.”
Pappe sees oral history “not as a substitute for archival material”
but as a means for “filling gaps” (such as when ‘purifying’
an area is not so pure for some) further arguing correctly that “Oral
history is indeed as authentic as the documented one.”
In the final essay in this
section Avi Shlaim (Professor of International Relations, Oxford, dual
Israeli-British citizenship, “widely regarded as one of the world's
leading authorities on the Israeli-Arab conflict.”[2]) discusses
the historiographical record, its interpretation, and further, its evaluation
(while people such as myself take it further towards advocacy). His
bottom line is that “History…is the propaganda of the victors.”
After presenting the idea that the ‘revisionist’ ideas are
not really that new, he examines the main items concerning the “Debate
About 1948”.
British policy accepted and
supported the establishment of a Jewish state, but they “were
not reconciled to…the emergence of a Palestinian state.”
The Zionist view that Britain supported the Arabs and “deliberately
instigated hostilities in Palestine…represents almost the exact
opposite of the historical truth.”
The second myth of military
balance is simply over-run with statistical information showing that
the Yishuv had more and better trained personnel and were more technologically
advanced, lacking only in pure firepower which they overcame by violating
the UN arms embargo. A third myth is that of the refugee problem, of
whether the refugees were pushed out or left voluntarily. Shlaim in
my mind does not answer fully to this myth, settling on “a far
higher degree of Israeli responsibility”; but as seen above, ethnic
cleansing was part of the original Zionist plans, with Israeli plans
to clean out the Arab population long in the works.
One of the more interesting
myths is that of Arab solidarity and implacable hostility, fully challenged
by the collusion of Israeli-Hashemite (Jordanian) politicians. While
Israel and Jordan did come to blows, they pursued “limited objectives
and acted with restraint toward the other until the war ended.”
That collusion has continued through the years as witnessed by other
recent materials. [3] Related to this topic are the Arab war aims -
the Israeli view being that the Arabs were united in wanting to push
the Israelis into the sea. Shlaim argues that “The reality was
one of national selfishness….a general land grab,” stated
in the negative as the one purpose “the invasion did not serve
was the ostensible one of coming to the rescue of the embattled Palestinians.”
This trend also appears to have continued throughout the history of
the Palestinian occupation.
Finally, Shlaim looks at
the myth of the “elusive peace” and “Arab intransigence”.
A new interpretation, supported “mainly from the files of the
Israeli Foreign Ministry” indicates that the Arab states extended
peace feelers and were ready to negotiate with Israel directly and were
ready to negotiate (again looking much like a land grab). Ben-Gurion
is the deciding factor, accepting an armistice as he knew that peace
negotiations would lead to yielding of territory and return of refugees,
a price “he did not consider worth paying.”
Shlaim’s final conclusion
is the mythical version “is little more than the propaganda of
the victors,” but more than just of historical interest, as it
“cuts the very core of Israel’s image of herself.”
The text then moves into
“Women’s History”. The first essay uses Nineteenth
Century Ottoman court records to look at the institute of arranged marriage
and the various patriarchal powers and their limitations within the
Muslim world prior to colonialism and Zionism. The conclusion is open,
relating to the continued pivotal role that marriage has for communal
harmony and social organization, while at the same time possibly losing
some of the strengths – openness and support, ability to improve
status – that accompanied the previous role. The second chapter
reviews the role that women played within society itself and within
the national movement, reaching the conclusion that while women were
active within a political role during the first intifada, and while
they became aware of social issues, “the existing gender division
of labor continues to place women at the lower end of the family hierarchy.
However the emergence of women in a “saviour” role as “it
has become dangerous for men to participate in demonstrations or marches
in absence of women” may lead to weakening traditional values
and loosening “restrictions placed on women’s social life.”
The final section of the
anthology presents discussions on the Israeli Arab population and the
various political and legal forces that are imposed on them. In “Crime
and Legal Control” the Israeli criminology view of the Arab population
will “require a certain degree of revision.” Alina Korn
(Ph.D. Criminology, Faculty of Law, Hebrew University, Israel) argues
that the Military Rule imposed on Arab citizens of Israel results in
the atypically high criminal rate within the population, the Israeli
“legal system fosters selective political control of the Arab
population…[increasing] the chances of the minority committing
offences. Many of the laws were "designed to control the movement
of Arabs within the state’s domain,” and laws “designed
to control the entry of Arabs into the state, or their exit therefrom,
and which defined their sojourn within its borders as illegal.”
These laws reach back again to the standard rubric of “land control”
as the military authorities, who controlled the Arab populated areas,
used travel restrictions and closed military areas to alienate the population
from its land and to prevent any organization of protest against the
laws. In essence, the very existence of the Arab people posed a threat
to the Israeli state: the military government situated “the entire
Arab population as acting by definition in the security sphere; its
movements were suspect and…its links with the land received a
threatening meaning of danger to national security.”
The ethnocratic nature of
the state of Israel presented by As’ad Ghanem (head of the Government
and Political Philosophy Department at the School of Political Science,
University of Haifa) identifies the prevailing Zionist ideology as preventing
Palestinian citizens from being citizens with rights equal to those
enjoyed by the Jews.” While Israel may have the physical institutional
underpinnings of democracy, its ethnic logic denies equality and democracy
to the Arab citizens. There is no chance of equality as the very definition
of the state indicates a “preferential status” to the Jewish
population, resulting in a “basic legalized discrimination in
favor of Jewish citizens to the detriment of Palestinian citizens.”
Within the sphere of state funding allocations, “Palestinians
in Israel suffer ongoing discrimination in nearly every sphere of life.”
There is also a land component, as always, a “long standing discrimination
in national and regional development plans” such that “planning
policy…becomes a tool for the control of Arabs, with the aim of
preventing their “spread”. Ghanem’s final conclusion
is straightforward: “an ethnocratic regime rules in Israel, not
a democratic one….Such a regime ranks on a continuum with the
Apartheid regime in South Africa…and cannot be considered to be
a normal democratic regime,” even while Israeli academia “works
hard to market it in the West as a democracy.”
The land control issue returns
in the last chapter “Present Absentees and Indigenous Resistance”
by Nur Masalha (School of Theology, Philosophy and History
St Mary’s University
College, U.K.), again an issue that comes to the fore under the Military
Administration, which “existed only in the areas in which the
majority of Israel’s Arab population resided.” The “present
absentee” definition places the Palestinian landowner in a double
bind as “most of the internally displaced have become present
absentees by virtue of the fact that they had properties confiscated;
very few of them have ever recovered any property.” Land, once
confiscated, resides in perpetuity with the Jewish people. Superficially
designed to “protect” the property of absentee owners, the
Absentees’ Property Law (1950) has seized millions of dunums of
land and billions of dollars’ worth of property.
Having summarized the main
findings through this anthology it becomes very apparent, very clear,
that Israeli actions, Israeli law, Israeli institutions are designed
to accrue land to the Jewish population and at the same time control
the Arab-Palestinian populations within an ethnocratic state of Israel.
The very existence of the Palestinian people - from the first writ prepared
by the Zionist Congress of 1897, through the nakba of 1948 and the resultant
expropriation laws, to the present struggles of walling the Palestinians
into smaller and smaller apartheid regions - has been a threat to the
Jewish Zionist cause. It is that incorrigibility that for the foreseeable
future precludes a peaceful settlement.
While there is currently
a great deal of American noise being made about a two state solution,
and an actual political settlement, it is highly doubtful that the Palestinians
would accept any such solution imposed on them by the Israeli/American
coalition and the advocacy of their local cohort, Abbas. A good starting
point for the Americans would be to read some of the current history
as explored within this anthology, and to read other works as indicated
that demonstrate the recalcitrance of the Israelis, the illegalities
of their actions under international law, their lack of democracy within
a militaristic ethnocratic state, all towards their ongoing and determined
effort to deprive the Palestinians of any land at all.
[1] see reviews at
http://www.palestinechronicle.com/
story-092106101728.htm and
http://www.palestinechronicle.com/
story-121206162530.htm
[2] see http://www.thenation.com/doc/20040628/attapatu
[3] see Note [1] and reviews
of Between the Lines, The Palestinian Hamas, and Hamas, a History From
Within, at<www.palestinechronicle.com .
Jim Miles
is a Canadian educator and a regular contributor/columnist of opinion
pieces and book reviews to Palestine Chronicles. His interest in this
topic stems originally from an environmental perspective, which encompasses
the militarization and economic subjugation of the global community
and its commodification by corporate governance and by the American
government.
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