Seeing The Palestine-Israel Conflict From Both Sides
(published by Jews of Conscience, P.O.Box 445, Petaluma, CA 94953)

In this paper we’d like to summarize for you here how the current state of moral collapse, on both sides, has come about. Our intent is to show enough of the history, and where crucial decisions were made, so that it should be clear what a just solution ought to look like. All the information here has been gleaned from reputable historical research, much of it from Israeli professors, journalists and peace activists. Some sources used are given at the end.

Our basic assumption in this discussion is that Jews and Palestinians are all just people, after all, with the same needs for security, for a place to call their own, and the same inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This should be self-evident, but unfortunately it is missing from most of the discussions on this issue.

To start at the beginning, the Jewish people came into existence about 3000 years ago as one of many tribes residing in Palestine. They controlled much of the land for several hundred years before the time of Christ. But there were many other tribes who also lived there and were the dominant society at other points.

In the 1st century AD, the Romans expelled the Jews from the Holy Land and we were dispersed to various locations in the Middle East and Europe for the next 1900 years. The rest of the indigenous population of Palestine remained on the land, passing it from father to son, even as they were under the control of various empires over the centuries. The Arabs conquered Palestine in the 7th century AD, and settled down and intermarried with the indigenous population. So the great majority of people in Palestine have been Arabs for about 1200 years*—a long time.

There was always a small minority of the population that consisted of Jews who remained there for religious reasons. Unlike our experience in Europe, the Palestinian Jews were basically left alone by the majority Arab population, with remarkably little conflict between the two groups over the centuries. So the current crisis is not a result of the two groups being enemies for thousands of years. As we will see, this is basically a struggle about control of the land, not religion.

In the late 19th century, the Zionist movement was born in Europe, consisting of Jews who felt that our people needed a place of our own where we could be masters of our own fate—a reasonable idea given the centuries of repression, discrimination and periodic violence we had experienced in Europe and Russia.

At the behest of the Zionists, the British passed the Balfour Declaration in 1917 which “looked with favor” on the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. But, as Lord Balfour himself stated, “In Palestine we do not propose to even go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country.” Needless to say, the 700,000 Arabs who lived there were not happy about this idea, but in true colonial fashion their wishes simply didn’t count, and British troops stationed there made sure that this policy was enforced.

The intent of the Zionist movement all along was to become the majority of the population of Palestine through Jewish immigration and displacement of the Arabs by buying up their land. This would then allow them to control their own territory—otherwise what was the point? Then, as now, only a minority of Zionists were religious fundamentalists who believed that God had literally deeded the Holy Land to the Jews, but the great majority of Zionists were looking forward to as exclusively Jewish a state as possible.

This is the first bad decision and the real beginning of the conflict, as we see it. There were a minority of Zionists, like theologian Martin Buber, who foresaw trouble because of the displacement of the indigenous Arabs. They advocated for a bi-national state with equal rights for all, but they were outnumbered by those who wanted the Arab’s land without the Arabs on it.

Given the real and growing dangers of anti-Semitism to Jews in Europe, Jewish immigration to Palestine continued to grow in the 1920s and ‘30s and, in response, Arab opposition (sometimes violent) occurred, since the British refused their repeated requests to stop allowing Jewish immigration, which they knew would spell the end of Arab society in Palestine. The Zionists too used violence in this period before the establishment of the state of Israel, both against Arabs and against the British at various times.

Here we have a real moral conundrum since both sides had compelling reasons why their needs should have been met, and those needs were mutually exclusive.

Then came World War II and the Holocaust, in which about 2/3 of the Jews in Europe were murdered by the Nazis (something the Palestinians had nothing to do with).

In 1947, when the United Nations proposed splitting Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab territories, the Arabs were not thrilled, as you might imagine. At that point, they still were about two-thirds of the population and were incensed that control of their ancestral homeland was being given away to recent immigrants without their consent. But Western guilt over the devastation of the Jews in the Holocaust trumped everything else, and so the state of Israel came into being in May of 1948.

The surrounding Arab countries immediately declared war on Israel, not out of anti-Semitism we believe, but rather to try to undo the injustice that had been done to their Palestinian cousins. None of the Arab countries had strong military forces and consequently Israel defeated them all. In the course of the 1948 war, over 750,000 Palestinians fled their homes, either to avoid being in the way of active fighting, to avoid massacres of civilians like the one at Deir Yassin, or because they were forced to leave at the point of a gun by the Israeli army. According to the historical record, radio broadcasts from Arab leaders telling Palestinians to flee simply did not happen.

Unlike refugees from previous wars, the Palestinians were never allowed to return to their homes and, in fact, Israel leveled over 400 Arab villages to prevent that. As Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan stated, “There is not a single community in the country that did not have a former Arab population.”

After the 1948 war, the state of Israel consisted of 78% of the land of Palestine, not the 50% the UN gave them, because in the 1948 war they conquered about half of what was supposed to be the Arab part of Palestine. The 750,000 Palestinians displaced from their homes became refugees in the West Bank, Gaza and other surrounding Arab countries, many living in UN refugee camps until today, 60 years later.

Here is the second bad decision, in our humble opinion, even though, given Jewish history and especially the trauma of the Holocaust, it certainly is emotionally understandable. After being victorious in their war of independence, Israel could have abided by the UN partition boundaries, withdrawn from the Arab territories it had conquered, and been satisfied with a Jewish-majority state in their half of Palestine. The decision to expand Israel’s borders and ethnically cleanse it of its indigenous Arab population, as much as possible, created the problem of hundreds of thousands of people living as refugees, sometimes within sight of their former homes. The bad will created by that decision lives on to this day.

In 1967 there was again another war between Israel and their Arab neighbors. This had little to do with the Palestinians who, it must be noted, did not take up arms against Israel until well into the 1970s. In the 1967 war, Israel conquered the rest of Palestine—the West Bank and Gaza—and the Israeli army continues to occupy the West Bank until today, as well as blockading all entrances and exits to Gaza, which under international law makes them the occupying power there as well.

The occupation of the Palestinian territories was initially justified on security grounds, but the historical record shows that there have been dozens of peace plans proposed since 1969 that all included international guarantees for Israel’s security in exchange for Israel withdrawing from all land conquered by force of arms, as is required by the United Nations charter and several UN Security Council Resolutions.

Israel, with the crucial diplomatic backing of the United States, has refused to accept any of these proposals. Instead, immediately following the 1967 war, the Israeli government started moving their citizens into the Occupied Territories, building Jewish-only “settlements” connected to Israel proper by Jewish-only highways, and defended by Israeli military forces. This was then, and remains to this day, completely illegal under the rules of the Geneva Conventions, which has the force of international law.

Here we find the third bad decision, in our estimation. Just because you can get away with something doesn’t mean that it won’t come back to haunt you, and Israel’s decision to occupy and unilaterally annex parts of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967 has been the main cause of the bloodshed between the Israelis and the Palestinians for the last 42 years.

In response to this, in the 1970s we saw the rise of various armed Palestinian groups who kidnapped and killed Israeli civilians, and attacked Israel in whatever limited ways they could. While their outrage at being dispossessed of their ancestral homeland is understandable, the decision to use violence against civilians was, and is, a morally bankrupt policy that has caused the Palestinians to alienate people of good will all over the world. Had they been able to keep their protests non-violent, like Gandhi did in India, then my belief is that they would by now have had some semblance of justice, and their own state. To us, this was the fourth bad decision in this conflict.

In the 1980s and ‘90s, things only got worse and worse for both Israelis and the Palestinian people. The Israelis were subjected to increasing numbers of random acts of terrorism against their civilian population, something no people should have to endure. The Palestinians too have suffered. They have been forced into smaller and smaller cantons by the Israeli government, have watched their land and water being confiscated from them acre by acre, have been forced to live under an increasingly brutal foreign military occupation (including decades of systematic torture of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Israeli jails from about 1970 to 1999), are subject to having their homes demolished, have watched their kids being killed for throwing rocks at tanks and members of their community killed by rockets coming out of the sky in “targeted assassinations”, and they see no indication—since the collapse of the Oslo Process—that they will ever be able to have their own state. Using the Golden Rule, it is not hard to imagine why some of them fought back with the only weapon they could use—their own lives. Thus was born the suicide bombers.

Now understanding why someone does something does not, of course, condone their actions, and I personally find all violence against any innocent people morally reprehensible. Especially given the long history of Jewish persecution by the outside world, the use of terror tactics against random citizens of Israel has completely hardened most Israeli hearts towards the Palestinians, as the recent Israeli attacks on Gaza clearly show. But as Mahatma Gandhi said, “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”

So what should be done? Fortunately, there is a real answer to that question. Their original charter notwithstanding, Hamas (as well as almost all other currents of Palestinian opinion) is at this point willing to co-exist in peace with Israel, as long as Israel withdraws to its pre-1967 borders, and removes its Jewish-only settlements and military occupation from Palestinian territory, as is required of them under international law.

All that is needed in return are ironclad assurances that Israel’s security will be guaranteed by the international community. As stated, this has been part of many peace offers in the last 40 years, including the Saudi Peace Plan of 2002 that would have completely normalized relations between Israel and virtually all the Arab countries.

The question of the “right of return” of Palestinian refugees from both the 1948 and 1967 wars is an outstanding issue, but should be solvable in the context of the creation of a viable Palestinian state for the refugees to settle in. Extremists on both sides who consider that the Holy Land is theirs exclusively will have to be reined in, but they are a distinct minority of both Palestinians and Israelis. Hopefully the will of the majority of their people that lasting peace is more important than anything else will force these extremists to accept the reality of the other side’s existence.

Unfortunately, both sides have been so traumatized that it looks like they will be incapable of resolving things without being coerced into it by outside forces. Specifically, the United States holds the real key to peace in the region. Simply by insisting that international law be fully respected, our government could force both parties to come to a workable agreement. This has not happened before because the US has always taken Israel’s side, as shown by the dozens and dozens of UN votes that are 150-2, for example, with the United States and Israel standing alone against world opinion. As soon as our government assumes the role of an even-handed broker, instead of an advocate for one side, then and only then will peace be possible.

(For documentation and more information, please see Jewish Voice for Peace, Common Dreams | News & Views, MERIP - Middle East Research and Information Project and Foreign Policy in Focus - A Think Tank Without Walls, Welcome to Gush-Shalom, Israeli Peace Bloc, and www.icahd.org)