- PROLOGUE: The Zionist propaganda began with a big lie
claiming that Palestine was a "land without people for a people without
a land". Palestine, however, was not a 'land without people'. Accordingly,
creation of a 'Jewish State' with a 'Jewish Majority' implied getting rid
of its indigenous population and stealing their homes and lands. The pre-planned
and pre-meditated Zionist efforts for Ethnic Cleansing and Land Theft started
in 1948 and never stopped to this date.
-
- HISTORICAL BACKGROUND: The first people to settle in
Palestine were the Cana'anites. After the Cana'anites, outsiders almost
continuously occupied Palestine. As a result, Palestine, received an admixture
of blood from each of the invaders: Egyptians, Hyksos, Israelites, Persians,
Philistines, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Turks, Crusaders and others.
-
- There is no doubt that the Israelites had a historical
relationship with Palestine. Palestine, however, was not their birth land.
They came to Palestine as invaders, like the many other invaders before
and after them.
-
- However, following the Medes and the Persians conquest
of the Babylonians, Cyrus, the King of Persia, gave the Jews permission
to return to Palestine and rebuild the Temple. Accordingly, some Jews
left Babylon and began the long journey to Palestine. Yet, most of the
Jews did not want to return. They no longer saw physical possession of
the 'Holy Land' as essential to the Jewish identity. (Karen Armstrong,
Holy War: The Crusades and Their Impact on Today's World. Macmillan, London,
1988, pp. 12-14)
-
- Moreover, when Moslem Arabs conquered Palestine, Caliph
Umar took possession of the holy city of Jerusalem and invited the Jews
to return to the holy city. Seventy families from Tiberias came to settle
in Jerusalem, establishing a quarter for themselves beside the Muslim community
at the foot of their old Temple Mount. Umar also purified the site of
the ancient Jewish Temple, which had remained in ruins for nearly six centuries.
Umar built a simple wooden mosque at the southern end of the cleared platform,
where al-Aqsa Mosque now stands. For this piety, some Jews hailed the
Muslims during the seventh century as the precursors of the Messiah. (Karen
Armstrong, Journal of Palestine Studies, The Holiness of Jerusalem, Volume
XXVII, Number 3, Spring 1998, p. 15)
-
- When the Crusaders conquered Jerusalem in the year 1099
some 30,000 Jews and Muslims were killed in two days. The Crusaders founded
several states on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean including the
Kingdom of Jerusalem. The Crusades ended in 1291 and Islamic rule was
re-established in the area. (Karen Armstrong, Holy War: The Crusades and
their impact on Today's World. See also Journal of Palestine Studies,
The Holiness of Jerusalem, Volume XXVII, Number 3, Spring 1998, p. 5)
-
- Judaism is a religion. It is not a nationality. The
Jews of today are in no way the descendents of the old Israelites or Hebronites
who were driven out of Palestine by the Romans two thousand years ago.
Most of today's Jews were a result of conversions to Judaism from different
ethnic and religious groups that were not related to the original Israelites.
The Ashkenazim, for example, carry a large proportion of Khazar ancestry
in them. The Khazar converted to Judaism in the 7th century and, when they
were driven out of their empire in Khazaria by the end of the 10th century,
emigrated to Russia and Poland.
-
- THE ZIONIST PROJECT: The call for the creation of a 'Jewish
State' was made during the second half of the eighteenth century.
-
- In 1862, Moses Hess argued that Anti-Semitism would prevent
the Jews from assimilating in Christian society and, consequently, they
needed to establish their own national state in Palestine. He pointed
out that, "The state the Jews would establish in the heart of the
Middle East would serve Western imperial interests and at the same time
help bring Western civilization to the backward East". (Benny Morris,
Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-1999.
New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1999, p. 15)
-
- In 1882, Leo Pinsker called upon his people to go and
settle in Palestine and founded the society of Hovevi Zion, which sponsored
emigration of Jews to Palestine. (Hans Kohn, Zion and the Jewish National
Idea, from The Menorah Journal, XLVI, Nos. 1 & 2, 1958, reproduced
in Walid Khalidi, ed., From Haven to Conquest: Readings in Zionism and
the Palestine Problem until 1948. Beirut: Institute for Palestine
Studies, 1971. Second Printing, Washington, 1987, pp. 813)
-
- In 1896, Theodor Herzl published his Der Judenstaat.
In 1897, Herzl convened the first Zionist Congress (ZC) in Basle, Switzerland.
The delegates in the ZC adopted the Basle Program, created the Zionist
Organization (ZO) and elected Herzl as its president.
-
- Herzl made it clear that the 'Jewish State' would form
a colonial outpost in Palestine if the Great powers granted it to them
and guaranteed their existence. "We would there form a portion of
the rampart of Europe against Asia, an outpost of civilization as opposed
to barbarism. We should, as a neutral State, remain in contact with all
Europe, which would have to guarantee our existence". (Theodor Herzl,
The Jewish State: An Attempt at a Modern Solution to the Jewish Question.
London: H. Pordes, Translated by Sylvie D'avigdor - 6th Edition, p. 30)
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- BORDERS OF THE 'JEWISH STATE': During the Paris Peace
Conference in 1919, the Zionists asked for the territory outlined within
a line running east from Sidon in Lebanon to a point South-East of Damascus.
The line then goes south along a line parallel to the Hijaz railway and
ends in Aqaba in Jordan. From there, the line goes northwest to Al Arish
in Egypt. (David McDowall, Palestine and Israel: The uprising and Beyond,
Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1989, p. 20, gives
a map outlining this area. See also: Simha Flappan, The Birth of Israel:
Myths and Realities, New York: 1987, p. 17). This area includes all of
Mandate Palestine, the Golan Heights, the Jordan River, and the southern
of Lebanon up to and including the Litani River.
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- IMPERIALIST DESIGNS: The Middle East, in general, and
Palestine, in particular, were at the crossroads of the ancient world and
still are at the crossroads of the modern world. This strategic geographic
feature exposed Palestine and the surrounding areas to invasion by powers
aspirant for hegemony and control and empire building. (For more details,
see: Ilene Beaty, Arab and Jew in the Land of Cana'an Political Rights,
Chicago: Henry Regnery Co., 1957. Reproduced in Walid Khalidi, ed, From
Haven to Conquest: Readings in Zionism and the Palestine Problem until
1948, Beirut: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1971, pp. 3-23)
-
- The strategic geographical significance of the area was
enhanced with the discovery of huge oil reserves towards the end of the
nineteenth century. In 1871 a mission of German experts visited Mesopotamia
and reported the availability of plentiful supplies. In 1907 a German
technical mission reported that Mesopotamia was a veritable "lake
of petroleum". In March 1914 the Turkish Petroleum Company was incorporated
in Britain to acquire and exploit the oil resources of northern Mesopotamia.
As a result of the breakout of WWI, this agreement was never ratified.
According to the San Remo Oil Agreement of 24 April 1920, the French replaced
the Germans and acquired 25% share of the company. (The Royal Institute
of International Affairs, The Middle East: A Political and Economic Survey,
London & New York. Second Edition, 1954, p. 15)
-
- Accordingly, imperialist designs to invade and grab the
area were prepared and put into action during WWI and were reflected in
the Sykes-Picot agreement of 16 May 1916 and the Balfour Declaration of
2 November 1917.
-
- The U.S.A. blessed and endorsed the Balfour declaration
by a Joint Resolution of the Congress in 1922.
-
- The Balfour Declaration launched a state of cooperation
between the Zionists and the Imperialist powers. This relationship provided
the Zionists with the power to occupy and create a state in Palestine.
-
- PARTITION: In August 1946, the Zionist executive meeting
in Paris approved a plan for partition of Palestine. The U.S. accepted
the plan and "transmitted an appropriate message to the British government."
At the 22nd ZC in Basle, in December 1946, Ben-Gurion emerged as the unchallenged
leader of the Zionist movement and started immediate action in putting
his thoughts and ideas into action. From the establishment of the Sonnenborn
Institute in New York, to his request for the defense portfolio of the
Jewish Agency Executive, Ben-Gurion had long been forecasting and planning
for the war. (Michael Bar-Zohar, Ben-Gurion: A Biography. New York: Delacorte
Press, 1977, pp. 135 and 141)
-
- On 29 November 1947, UN General Assembly Resolution #
181 (II), outlining a partition plan for Palestine, was adopted.
-
- The Arabs rejected the resolution partitioning their
country and giving a large part of it to strangers. In protest, the Arab
Higher Committee proclaimed a three-day strike. Incidents grew progressively
graver, sudden clashes erupted between Jews and Arabs, and small battles
were fought using antiquated light arms.
-
- Tensions went high and violent clashes began between
the Palestinians and the Jewish community in Palestine. These clashes
were of a limited nature, using antiquated light arms.
-
- The Irgun used the Arab rioting in early December in
protest of the partition resolution as a pretext to launch a murderous
terrorist campaign that claimed the lives of many Arab civilians in numerous
towns and villages. The Irgun leader Menachem Begin later explained his
attitude during this period: "My greatest worry in those months was
that the Arabs might accept the UN plan. Then we would have had the ultimate
tragedy, a Jewish State so small that it could not absorb all the Jews
of the world." Irgun terrorism, however, would make sure that no
agreement would be possible. (Michael Palumbo, The Palestinian Catastrophe:
The 1948 Expulsion of a People from their Homeland. London/Boston:
1987, pp. 34-35, citing Nicholas Bethell, The Palestine Triangle, p. 354)
-
- 1947: THE STARTING POINT FOR ETHNIC CLEANSING AND LAND
THEFT: In a speech at the Mapai center on 3 December 1947 following the
UN Partition resolution # 181 of 29 November 1947, Ben-Gurion outlined
that the emergent Jewish State's main problem is its prospective population
of about one million, 40% of which would be non-Jews. According to Ben-Gurion,
with such a population composition, "there cannot even be complete
certainty that the government will be held by a Jewish majoritythere can
be no stable and strong Jewish State so long as it has a Jewish majority
of only 60%." The Yishuv's situation and fate, he went on, compelled
the adoption of 'a new approachnew habits of mind' to 'suit our new future"
(Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949,
Cambridge, 1987, p. 28, citing David Ben-Gurion's War Diary, pp. 22-3)
-
- On 5 December 1947, Ben-Gurion ordered "immediate
action to expand Jewish settlement in three areas assigned to the Arab
state: the southwest (Negev), the southeast (Etzion bloc) and Western Galilee".
If Ben-Gurion had any intention of respecting the boundaries created by
the partition resolution, he would never have sent Jewish settlers to live
permanently under Arab rule. His action in ordering the expansion of Jewish
settlement in the area proposed for the Palestinian State must be seen
within the context of Plan Dalet. It proves that the Zionist leader wished
to strengthen Jewish 'forward bases' in anticipation of conquering Arab
territories. (Michael Palumbo, The Palestinian Catastrophe: The 1948 Expulsion
of a People from their Homeland. London/Boston: 1987, pp. 40 - 41,
citing Political and Diplomatic Documents of the Jewish Agency, 1947 -
1948, No. 12)
-
- On 19 March 1948, Warren Austen, the American Ambassador
to the UN, unaware of his President's acceptance of partition, requested
a special session of the General Assembly to work out a plan for trusteeship
to replace partition temporarily in Palestine. Austin sought recognition
in the Security Council to declare that so far as the U.S. was concerned,
partition was no longer a viable option, and therefore his government favored
international trusteeship over Palestine.
-
- From Tel Aviv came the angry response of Ben-Gurion:
"It is we who will decide the fate of Palestine. We cannot agree
to any sort of trusteeship, permanent or temporary the Jewish State
exists because we defend it." Four days later, the Jewish Agency
formally announced that it would establish a provisional Jewish government
by May 16, 1948. (Peter Grose, Israel in the Mind of America, New York,
Alfred A. Knopf, 1983, pp. 274-275. See also UN Doc. S/PV 271 dated 19
March 1948)
-
- To avoid trusteeship and to enhance the chances of creating
their 'Jewish State', the Zionist leadership launched Plan Dalet in early
April 1948. Arab cities and villages were attacked pushing Palestinian
Arabs into flight. The British were still responsible to keep law and
order in Palestine. Yet they did nothing to stop Zionist atrocities against
the Palestinians. All that the British did was to offer trucks and boats
to carry the Palestinians fleeing in panic especially in Tiberias, Haifa
and Jaffa during April and May.
-
- On 16 November 1948, the Security Council decided that
"in order to eliminate the threat to the peace in Palestine and to
facilitate the transition from the present truce to permanent peace in
Palestine, an armistice shall be established in all sectors of Palestine".
-
- Armistice agreements were accordingly concluded between
Israel and Egypt on Feb. 24; Israel and Lebanon on March 25; Israel and
Jordan on April 3; and Israel and Syria on July 20, 1949.
-
- Over 750,000 Palestinian Arabs ended up as refugees in
neighbouring Arab countries and were not allowed to return to their homes
and lands, which were stolen and used to accommodate Jewish immigrants
coming from all corners of the globe.
-
- EXPANSION: In a round table meeting with the French at
the Sévres Conference in preparation for the Suez Canal War, Ben-Gurion
proposed eliminating Nasser in Egypt and partition of Jordan, with the
West Bank going to Israel and the East Bank to Iraq. In exchange, Iraq
would sign a peace treaty with Israel and undertake to absorb the Palestinian
refugees. Moreover, Israel would annex southern Lebanon up to the Litani
River, with a Christian state established in the rest of the country.
-
- On 29 October 1956, Israeli forces over-ran Gaza on their
way to the Suez Canal. On 8 November, Ben-Gurion, under pressure from
the U.S., announced that the army was going to withdraw from all territories
occupied during the war and Israeli plans for expansion and rearrangement
of the Middle East had to wait for a more convenient time and a more acquiescent
President in the U.S.A. (Michael Bar-Zohar, Ben-Gurion: A Biography.
New York: Delacorte Press, 1977, pp. 236-253)
-
- The opportunity came in 1967 with President Lyndon B.
Johnson.
-
- On 1 June 1967, General Moshe Dayan was invited by Levi
Eshkol to join an Israeli government of national unity as defence minister.
On 5 June Israel attacked and destroyed Egyptian air force bases and advance
positions in Sinai, occupied the West Bank, Gaza Strip, all of Sinai and
the Golan Heights, as well as the Eastern parts of Jerusalem. Another
250,000 Palestinian Arabs became refugees.
-
- WAR OF ATTRITION: Egyptian President Gamal Abd-Al-Nasser
began a war of attrition in March 1969 tin order to force Israel to withdraw
from the areas occupied in 1967. The sporadic military actions by Egypt
escalated into full-scale fighting.
-
- On 9 December 1969, U.S. Secretary of State, William
Rogers, announced a peace plan based on the exchange of land for peace.
Rogers' efforts, however, failed as a result of Israeli rejection of the
plan. (Norman G. Finkelstein, Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine
Conflict, London/New York: Verso, 1995, pp. 153 - 154)
-
- On 19 June 1970, Rogers made new proposals calling for
a cease-fire in the war of attrition in the Suez Canal for 90 days and
for a UN effort to initiate negotiations between Israel and the Arabs for
a solution based on Security Council resolution # 242. The proposals came
to be known as the Rogers Initiative. The Egyptian-Israeli cease-fire
based on Rogers' initiative was accepted and came into force in August
1970.
-
- On 29 September1970, Nasser died and was succeeded by
Anwar Sadat.
-
- A CONCOCTED WAR: The 1973 war was concocted between Sadat
and U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in order to form a prelude
for a Negotiated Peace. (For details see: Sadat's secret pipeline to Kissinger,
by Ze'ev Schiff, Ha'aretz, 3 November 2004)
-
- In July, 1972, Sadat issued orders for all Soviet advisers
in the Egyptian armed forces to leave within ten days, starting on 17 July;
all Soviet military installations were to be placed under Egyptian control;
and all Soviet military equipment was to be sold to Egypt or taken out
of the country. (Jon Kimche, Palestine or Israel: The Untold Story of
Why we Failed. 1917 - 1923, 1967 1973, London: Secker & Warburg,
1973, pp. 330 - 331) If Sadat was really serious about going to war, he
would not have made such orders, which gives credibility to Ze'ev Schiff's
story.
-
- As a result of Kissinger's shuttle diplomacy, Israel
and Egypt formally signed a truce on 11 November ending the hostilities.
The truce was signed in a tent at Kilometer 101 on the Cairo-Suez Road.
On 17 January 1974, Egypt and Israel agreed to a disengagement accord
mediated by Henry Kissinger. This agreement became to be known as Sinai
I according to which Israel agreed to withdraw 9 12 miles (15
20 kilometers) to allow for a UN buffer zone with Egypt. The 2nd agreement
was signed in November, according to which Israel withdrew its forces completely
from the west bank of the Suez Canal.
-
- Syria and Israel agreed on 29 May 1974 to the disengagement
mediated by Henry Kissinger. The agreement was signed in 1975.
-
- On 19 November1977, Sadat, made a surprise visit to Jerusalem
marking the beginning of a new era with respect to the Zionist-Arab conflict.
-
- A Camp David summit between Carter, Sadat, and Begin
was held during the period 5-17 September 1978 and produced the 'Camp David
Accords'. That led to a Peace Treaty, which was signed between Egypt and
Israel at the White House on 26 March 1979.
-
- A STRATEGY FOR ISRAEL IN THE 1980's: Oded Yinon, a journalist
and analyst of Middle Eastern affairs and former senior Foreign Ministry
official wrote an article, which appeared in the World Zionist Organization's
periodical Kivunim in February 1982. In his article, Yinon outlined 'A
Strategy for Israel in the 1980's', which called for the dissolution and
fragmentation of the Arab states. (Nur Masalha, A Land Without a People:
Israel, Transfer and the Palestinians 1949 - 96. London: Faber and Faber
ltd., 1997, pp. 196 - 198, citing Oded Yinon, A Strategy for Israel in
the 1980s, [Hebrew], Kivunim, Jerusalem, No. 14, February 1982, pp. 53
- 58)
-
- PNAC: On July 8, 1996, Richard Perle, a former head of
the Defense Policy Board in the Pentagon, delivered a document to the Israeli
PM Benjamin Netanyahu. Perle, and a team of American neo-cons, had been
tasked by Netanyahu to draft a new Israeli strategy that would abrogate
the Oslo Accords and overturn the entire concept of 'comprehensive land
for peace' in favor of a policy of military conquest and occupation.
-
- A Washington-based neo-conservative think-tank, The Project
for the New American Century (PNAC), was founded in 1997 to 'rally support
for American global leadership'. The events of September 11, 2001 provided
a window of opportunity for furthering PNAC's agenda. The 'Cold War' was
replaced with a new war against 'Islamic Terror', which is used as a pretext
to justify Imperialist and Zionist wars.
-
- THE DEMOGRAPHIC THREAT HAUNTS THE ZIONISTS: Figures
published by the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics on 22 April 2007
indicate that the population of Israel number 7,150,000 of whom 5,725,000
(80%) are Jewish. Arabs living within the borders of Mandate Palestine
are approximately 4.5 million. Within ten to fifteen years, Arabs living
within the borders of Mandate Palestine would become the majority even
if the Palestinian Refugees living outside Palestine were not allowed to
return to the homes and lands that were usurped from them.
-
- Accordingly, a systemic effort to confront the 'demographic
threat' was introduced by the Zionists according to which annual conferences
were held in the Institute of Policy and Strategy at the Interdisciplinary
Center Herzliya. In these conferences, the Zionists discuss and
confront this basic and 'strategic threat' to the Zionist entity. The
first conference was held in December 2001.
-
- ILLUSIONS OF PEACE: Peace with the Zionists is a mere
illusion. 'Peace Talks' are used as a cover for continued Ethnic Cleansing
and Land Theft.
-
- Following the 'Middle East Peace Conference' that was
convened in Madrid on 30 October 1991, Israeli PM Shamir declared that
he wanted the negotiations in Washington (following the Madrid conference)
to continue for 10 years, if need be, so that he had enough time to keep
on going with planned Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories
(OPT) and leave nothing for the negotiations to talk about. (Mohammad
Hassanine Haikal, Secret Negotiations between the Arabs and Israel, in
Arabic, Cairo, 1996, Volume III, p. 254)
-
- On 17 June 1996 Israel's PM Netanyahu's office released
a statement outlining his government's guidelines with regard to the 'peace
processes'. It said no to withdrawal from the OPT, no to a Palestinian
State, no to an official Palestinian presence in Jerusalem, and no to the
refugees' right of return "to any part of the Land of Israel west
of the Jordan River". (Elia Zureik, The Palestinian Refugees: Background.
Institute for Palestine Studies, Washington, 1996. p. 127)
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- EPILOGUE: The Zionists' latest hysterical, wicked, criminal
and genocidal war in the Gaza Strip reflects their realization of the reality
in Palestine. In spite of all their efforts and in spite of all the support
they get from the American and European Imperialist powers, Palestinian
Arabs did not vanish into thin air.
-
- The 'Zionist State' in Palestine is a mere illusion whose
fate would not be better than that of the Crusaders. The Crusaders ruled
for about 200 years in Palestine. The Zionist entity would not last that
long.
-
- Nizar Sakhnini, 24 February 2009
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