۱۳۸۸ اردیبهشت ۱۳, یکشنبه




Unity
Tracing Gaza's chaos to 1948
By Mark LeVine
Flag of Israel flies over Gaza before the 2005 withdrawal [GALLO/GETTY]The roots of Gaza's misery today can be traced back to the late Ottoman period, decades before the war of 1948 transformed the Gaza Strip from a minor port and agricultural hinterland into one of the most overcrowded places on earth.
It was then, in the middle of the first great age of globalisation, that Gaza's fate was sealed, although it would take half a century for it to unfold.
At the end of the 19th century, the Ottoman empire was undergoing a process of modernisation that was opening provinces like Palestine to greater economic and cultural penetration by Europe.
It was during this period - the heyday of high imperialism - that Zionism arrived on Palestinian soil.
By the early 20th century, thousands of young and relatively unskilled East European Jews were arriving each year in Palestine desperate for work and housing.
While Gaza was never a primary location for Zionist settlement, Gaza City had a small but longstanding Jewish community, and several settlements, including Kfar Darom, were established during the British mandate (1917-1948) period and re-established after 1967.
Most of the young settlers who came during the first three waves of Jewish settlement, from the late 1880s until World War I, were unable to compete with the better-trained and cheaper Palestinian Arab work force, which itself was sustained by a larger Palestinian economy that had undergone a significant development, albeit with ups and downs, in the last century and a half.
This reality led the emerging Socialist Zionist leadership to develop two strategies, the "conquest of labour" (kibosh ha-avodah) and when that failed, the "conquest of land" (kibosh ha-karka'a) to ensure the creation of autonomous, exclusively Jewish settlements that would be free of competition from non-Jewish workers.
The bourgeois town of Tel Aviv, founded in 1909, copied the Jews-only policy of the first kibbutz, or collective agricultural settlement, Degania, which was founded the same year.
Both sought to create modern exclusively Jewish environments that would, culturally, economically, and politically, be as autonomous as possible from the surrounding environment - the older Arab/Sephardi and non-Zionist Ashkenazi Jewish communities as much as from Palestinian Arabs.
Transforming Zionism
Crucially, this early competition for jobs and land helped transform Zionism, in the words of Israeli sociologist Gershon Shafir, into a "militant nationalist movement" by the time Tel Aviv and Degania were established.
The exclusivist nationalism of the movement was exacerbated by the reality that Zionism, like American, Australian and South African nationalisms, was at the same time colonial.
A Jewish security group dedicated to protectingpioneering Zionist settlements [Getty] All were examples of "settler colonial" movements which were unique in their desire to replace rather than exploit the indigenous population of the colonised land. This strategy went well with the socialist ethos of the emerging Zionist leadership, which was ideologically committed to avoiding the exploitation of the Palestinian population.
At the same time however, many senior Zionist leaders had experience working in Europe's African colonies, which would be put to use in developing Zionist policies in Palestine.
Following the thinking of other colonial enterprises, Zionist leaders justified their project by arguing that Zionist Jews had the right to rule Palestine because they - not the Palestinians - had the ability to develop the land to its full potential and usher Palestine out of its supposed slumber and stagnation into the modern world.
In response, the Palestinian nationalism that emerged soon after the first stirrings of Zionism was equally exclusivist in its claim to the right to rule Palestine.
A "spirit of resistance" that had defined Palestinian responses to foreign incursions, whether by Napoleon's France or Muhammad Ali's Egypt, became evident as Palestinians harassed Europeans who bought land in the country even before the first Zionist settlements were founded.
Conflict with Zionist settlers occurred almost from the start of the Zionist movement's colonisation efforts.
Transition of rule
Once Palestine transitioned from Ottoman to British rule, a zero sum conflict over the country's future was inevitable, especially when the level of Jewish immigration and land purchases increased dramatically in the 1920s and 1930s.
The fact that the British government was, literally, "mandated" to facilitate the creation of a Jewish national home in Palestine while merely protecting the existing civil and religious rights of the native population, exacerbated this situation.
Thousands of East European Jews arrived inPalestine desperate for work and housingThe very structure and aims of the British mandate necessitated that any independent Palestinian leadership should be crushed.
Meanwhile, the most logical and "efficient" way to develop the economy would be through relying on the development programmes of the Zionist movement, whose ideology, political and economic discourses appealed to European imperial sensibilities and to the powerful Christian Zionist impulses that had emerged in England in the latter part of the 19th century.
Equally important, the Zionist enterprise brought a huge influx of capital into the country that enabled its development without great expense to the British tax-payer.
Ironically, Zionist leaders like Felix Frankfurter, the supreme court justice, would argue that "no cordon sanitaire" could protect Palestine from the modern world that he believed only arrived with the Zionist movement and British rule.
But in truth neither had brought modernity to Palestine because it had arrived decades earlier.
The Zionists merely replaced an emerging and increasingly cosmopolitan Ottoman modernity, one which saw Palestine undergo a rapid development in the last decades of Turkish rule (in which Arab Jews and early Zionists, as well as increasing trade and contact with Europe, played a part), with a European, colonial modernity that would ultimately push Palestinians off of, and for more than half of them out of, their land.
In the case of Gaza specifically, this meant herding Palestinians, first in 1948, then in 1967, and again during the Oslo decade of "separation" and "divorce" between Israelis and Palestinians, into a prison from which they are still trying to escape.
Flood of refugeesAt the outset of the 1948 war, the population of the Gaza region was approximately 60,000 to 80,000. By the end of the hostilities, at least 200,000 refugees had flooded what would become the Gaza Strip, whose rectangular shape roughly corresponded to (but was smaller by at least a third than) the area of the Gaza District during the mandate period.
Israel built 17 settlements inGaza from 1970 to 2000 [Getty]The exact shape of the Gaza Strip was determined by the position of Egyptian and Israeli forces when the ceasefire was announced.
The majority of the refugees came from the almost wholesale eviction or evacuation of Palestinian towns and villages from Jaffa southwards to Gaza City and the surrounding villages to the north and east that were depopulated during the war.
These refugees were housed in the ensuing years in eight camps throughout the region, many of which were former British military bases. By 2000, the last year of the Oslo peace process, the number of refugees and their descendants had swollen to well over 400,000.
The Gazan hijra
Based on several years of fieldwork interviewing refugees in Gaza, Ilana Feldman, a New York University professor, describes the typical experience of becoming a refugee in the Gaza Strip in what has been described by many Gazans as the "hijra", (adopting the Islamic terminology for the flight of the still small Muslim community from Mecca to Medina in 622) as having "happened almost without awareness...."
"They crossed no international border, but simply went down the road.... Few people imagined that they would be gone for longer than a few days or weeks," she wrote. In this thinking, Gaza's refugees were a microcosm of the larger Palestinian experience of the Nakhba, or disaster of the 1948 war.
Unlike the West Bank, which was effectively annexed by Jordan in 1950 and its population offered Jordanian citizenship, Egypt maintained Gaza under military rule until a legislative council was elected in 1957.
Moreover, unlike Jordan, Egypt had little ties with or concern for Gaza, and thus the Strip received little attention or investment in infrastructure between 1948 and 1967.










Jewish settlements
A Palestinian farmer looks on with his daughteras Israeli tanks sweep through Gaza [Getty]After its conquest by Israel, 17 Jewish settlements would be established inside the Gaza Strip between 1970 and 2000. While housing well under 10,000 settlers, the settlements came to dominate the geography of the Strip, securing access to much of the best land, water, and shore areas.
Their presence justified the transfer of only 60 per cent of the Gaza Strip to Palestinian control during Oslo. The settlers, only half a per cent of the Strip's population, controlled 40 per cent of its territory and even more of its resources.
This situation would not change significantly during the Oslo period, and when the last settler left, five years into the al-Aqsa intifada in September 2005, Gaza effectively became the world's largest prison.
Mark LeVine is professor of history at UCI Irvine and author or editor of half a dozen books dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and globalisation in the Middle East, including Overthrowing Geography: Jaffa, Tel Aviv and the Struggle for Palestine, Reapproaching Borders: New Perspectives on the Study of Israel and Palestine, Why They Don't Hate Us: Lifting the Veil on the Axis of Evil, and the forthcoming An Impossible Peace: Oslo and the Burdens of History.
Source:
Al Jazeera

Tracing Gaza's chaos to 1948







Source:
Al Jazeera

Tracing Gaza's chaos to 1948









Source:
Al Jazeera







West Bank bedouins to 'stay put'



By Zeina Awad
The bedouins fight for their livelihood which is threatened by Israeli settlement expansion [EPA]The bedouins of Umm Al Khayr, a small town south-east of Hebron, may be among the most vulnerable Palestinian refugee communities in the West Bank, but they are fighting to keep the land they have lived on for generations. They have been battling the Israeli army in the courts to prove that the land they live on is theirs, and to block a so-called security patrol road from being built.
On April 26, they faced off against the Israeli army to stop the road from reaching deep into their residential areas.
With the help of international and Israeli anti-occupation activists, the bedouins were able to prevent the bulldozers from cutting through their homes.
They scored a minor victory, but they know this could only be temporary and they recognise that their battle has just begun.
"They want to build a security road but they're building it at our expense," 23-year-old Eid al-Hathaleen, whose family owns some of the land being appropriated, told Al Jazeera.
"This is all about stealing our land and they are using security as an excuse. They didn't even tell us they were going to do this, they just started digging one day."
The 21 families living in Umm Al Khayr settled here when their great grand-parents became refugees following the creation of the State of Israel. Some of the families - like Eid's - purchased the land when the West Bank was still under Jordanian rule prior to the 1967 Six Day War.
Grazing grounds
The plots of land that have been seized by the Israeli authorities once made up some of the community's best grazing land which they had depended on for their livelihood.
In video

Bedouins fight Israeli road buildingTheir herds feed off the grass there and drink from the local well.
As the Israeli occupation authorities forbid the bedouins from building any extensions to their houses, most homes do not have indoor toilets. As a result, the community uses the open space for that purpose as well.
The families first started losing land in the 1970's, when the first plot was confiscated to build a brand new Jewish-only neighbourhood next door.
That neighbourhood today is the illegal Karmel settlement. Settlers there are known to be among the most violent in the West Bank, attacking the bedouin community on a regular basis, beating and pelting them with rocks, and stealing their cattle.
Ownership denied
In 2004, Israeli authorities began to expand beyond the security fence surrounding Karmel in the hope of expanding the settlement; the latest Israeli measure is to build the so-called security patrol road through this area.
Israel rejects the bedouin community's ownership of the land. Gayath Nasser, the lawyer representing Eid's family, has asked Israel's high court to order an immediate cessation of the road works until the case is decided.
But Nasser says the court is dragging its feet; it still has not granted him the order. He says even if he were to win the case, he will not be able to prevent damage being done to the land and property.
Al Jazeera contacted the Israeli civilian authority that is in charge of running the West Bank to hear their side of the story.
They directed us to the Israeli army, which refused to grant us an interview, sending us a statement by email instead, stating that the road is being built for security reasons and that the works have received all the necessary authorisations.
In the courts
Now, it is down to the army's word against the bedouin community's in the courts. Nasser showed us the al-Hathaleen's title deed and the map detailing the land allotment - documents he hopes will make his case. However, Nasser is aware that the odds are stacked against his clients.
"We have to deal with an Israeli court not an international one," he said.
"The authority to judge Israeli actions in the West Bank should not be in courts of the occupying state, it should be in either a West Bank or an international court."
Moreover, the land being taken falls within Area C which makes up 60 per cent of the West Bank and is under full Israeli control.
Eid says the so-called security road should be completed in the coming weeks. When it is, it will likely be fenced off and open to Jews only. But despite his community's hardships, Eid says they will stand firm.
"There is no other land we own," Eid says.
"That's why we are not going anywhere we are staying here, even if we have to suffer through violence and face ongoing demolitions, we will stay put."
Source:
Al Jazeera

Palestine's Holocaust museum



By Dania Yousef in Ni'lin, occupied West Bank
Musa says Palestinians feel sorrow for the Holocaust, but question why they are being punished
In a small anonymous home in the West Bank, a Palestinian academic has set up a project which is almost unheard of in the Occupied Territories.
Hassan Musa is the curator of a museum exhibition dedicated to the Jewish Holocaust in Europe.
The cracked white walls of this makeshift museum in the village of Ni'lin are covered from floor to ceiling with images of people forced out of their homes, tortured, imprisoned, starved and murdered.
In addition to the pictures depicting the Nazi brutality against Jews in Europe, there are also images of the Palestinian Nakba (catastrophe) following the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 and the violence in Palestine since.
On one wall, there is a picture of a scared Jewish boy holding up his hands as Nazi soldiers look on; the caption reads: "Make your final account with Hitler and the Nazi Germans, not with the Palestinians."
On an adjacent wall there are photos of dead children, demolished homes and women screaming during the Israeli war on Gaza in January.
Musa, who is also a member of Ni'lin's Popular Committee Against the Wall, says pictures of the atrocities committed against both peoples were strategically placed side-by-side to not only reflect the suffering of both and help Israelis and Palestinians better understand each other, but also to demonstrate how victims of one conflict can become the harbinger of another.
"The Palestinians have no connection to the Holocaust in Europe, but unfortunately we are paying the price of a misdeed we did not commit," he said.
'Paying' for the holocaust
Pictures of Jewish victims of the Holocaust are on the museum's walls
In the main room, a large banner sends a direct message to Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, a message: "Why should we Palestinians continue to pay for the Holocaust?"
Musa believes this question is the impetus behind the exhibit, hoping it will challenge the international community on what is happening between Israelis and Palestinians.
"The world is shamefully silent about what is happening in Palestine as a way of expressing their sorrow for the death of six million Jews, but in the meantime, they are supporting the state of occupation," he said.
Ni'lin has become synonymous with violent weekly clashes between Israeli soldiers and activists protesting against the construction of the 'Separation Wall'.
The current path of the Wall will annex 10,000 acres of Ni'lin land to Israel, leaving its residents with 30,000 acres; this is a fraction of the 228,000 acres that constituted the village in 1948.
Since then, Ni'lin residents have lost more than 85 per cent of their land to confiscation and illegal settlement building.
People in the village also accused the Israeli military of killing four Ni'lin residents since protests against land confiscation began in May 2008.
Among those was Musa's 10-year-old nephew, Ahmad, who died on July 29, 2008 from a bullet wound to the head; a number of residents and activists have also been injured in the protests.
In March, Tristan Anderson, a 38-year-old American activist acting as an observer with the International Solidarity Movement, was shot in the head with a high-velocity tear gas canister, leaving him in critical condition.
Understanding the occupier
There are also pictures depicting the Nakba in 1948 and the violence since
It is these events that make the location of the museum all the more significant, Musa says.
In a place where Palestinians struggle to fend off occupation, Musa now offers them an opportunity to empathise with and further understand their occupier.
Israeli, Palestinian and international visitors continue to trickle into the museum, though they are fewer in number than the crowds that gather for the protests.
Remaining optimistic, Musa hopes this endeavour will encourage Israelis to pressure their government to halt the occupation.
"Our message to the Jewish people all over the world is that having been victims of such a brutal genocide, we expect you to be messengers of all the principles of justice, mercy and humanity," he told Al Jazeera.
According to Musa, reaction from Palestinians, especially those in the village, has been positive; the exhibits are, in many instances, the first images they have ever seen of the Holocaust.
Musa says some Palestinian visitors leave the exhibit feeling sorrow for the Jewish people, but also with the same question posed in the messages plastered across the walls: "Why are they punishing us?"
"I lost my nephew and I know how painful it is for me," Musa says, "that's why I don't want anyone else living on this land to lose their loved ones."
Source:
Al Jazeera

Was the creation of the State of Israel in 1948 a cause for Arab unity? [AFP]



Was the creation of the State of Israel in 1948 a cause for Arab unity? [AFP]


More than any other issue the Palestinian-Israeli conflict appears to unite Arab public opinion and serve as a rallying call for Arab unity.

The fourth episode of Al Jazeera's nine-part series, A Question of Arab Unity, looks at the roots of that conflict and asks if the Palestinian question is A Cause for Unity?

In November 1947, the UN voted to divide Palestine in two. While the British accepted the resolution and made plans to withdraw, the Arabs and Palestinians rejected it.

On May 14, 1948, the day before the British withdrawal, David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, declared the creation of the State of Israel on the land granted by the Partition Plan.

The next day, as the last British troops were leaving, war broke out between Palestinians and the Haganah.

Seven Arab armies entered the war.

Hani Abdel Hadi, from the Palestinian Strategic Studies Institute, says: "You could see Arab leaders interest in having a say in Palestine, since Palestine is the core of not the Arab-Palestinian conflict or Arab-Israeli conflict, but is the consciousness of the Arab world. He who governs Jerusalem, he who has a say in Palestine will have the upper hand in the Arab World."

The Nakba

Articles in this episode

Tracing Gaza's Chaos to 1948

The Nakba: Catalyst for pan-Arabism

Opinion: Arabism's greatest loss

Realising the Zionist dream

Why the Arabs were defeated

Profile: King Abdullah I of Jordan

After nine months of fighting the Arab armies, including the forces of Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Transjordan, were defeated and the Israelis captured 75 per cent of Palestine, giving it an area one-third greater than the area assigned to them under the UN partition plan.

The remainder of Palestine, namely the West Bank, was controlled by Jordanian forces, while the Gaza Strip was left under Egyptian control.

This period is known by the Arabs as the Nakba, or catastrophe.

Abu Talab, a Palestinian refugee, says: "The Arab army didn't help. When the Jews attacked, they ran for their lives before the locals had a chance to flee. They abandoned the country and its helpless population with no means of defence."

Over 750,000 Palestinian refugees fled to neighbouring Arab countries where they were housed in camps. The camps were crowded and unsanitary and the fate of the refugees lay in the hands of their hosts.

The official policy of most Arab states was that the Palestinian refugees should be kept in a permanent state of readiness, prepared to return to Palestine at any moment.

In December 1948, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 194 which recognised the right of refugees to return to their homes.

Symbolic unity

A Question of Arab Unity Web special coverage



Arabs Seek Common Cause
Spanning 22 countries with 320 million people, they share three general commonalities.

Revolution Calling
With promises of a unified state broken, uprisings and revolt swept the Middle East.

Rising Nationalism
Secularism and Islamism emerged as political movements during the 1920s and 30s.

1948: A Cause for Arab Unity?
The creation of the State of Israel became a rallying call for Arab nationalism.

Nasser's Age of Revolution
In 1952, an Egyptian army officer stepped forward to lead the drive for Arab unity.

The occupation of Palestine and the plight of the refugees caused new awareness amongst ordinary Arabs. Now, more than ever before - united by tragedy - they began to think in collective terms.

Fawwaz Traboulsi, a political analyst, says: "The tragedy of Palestine to begin with, became a rallying point for Arabs, in a sense became one form of Arab unity, you unite around Palestine.

"Second, you can say the opposite. Palestine became a supplement or a displacement of a wish or a desire, which is not implemented, which is the desire for Arab unity. So the Arabs cannot be united effectively but they can be united symbolically around Palestine."

The unanimity on the Arab street did not translate into concerted action. Preoccupied with managing the transition from colonial domination to independence, most Arab leaders were concerned with matters closer to home.

One future Arab leader, however, gained his first battle experience in the Arab-Israeli war in 1948, and the defeat had a profound influence on him. Gamel Abdel Nasser became determined to solve the Palestinian problem and make Arab unity work.


Was the creation of the State of Israel in 1948 a cause for Arab unity? [AFP]



Was the creation of the State of Israel in 1948 a cause for Arab unity? [AFP]

More than any other issue the Palestinian-Israeli conflict
appears to unite Arab public opinion and serve as a rallying call for Arab unity.

The fourth episode of Al Jazeera's nine-part series, A Question of Arab Unity, looks at the roots of that conflict and asks if the Palestinian question is A Cause for Unity?

In November 1947, the UN voted to divide Palestine in two. While the British accepted the resolution and made plans to withdraw, the Arabs and Palestinians rejected it.

On May 14, 1948, the day before the British withdrawal, David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, declared the creation of the State of Israel on the land granted by the Partition Plan.

The next day, as the last British troops were leaving, war broke out between Palestinians and the Haganah.

Seven Arab armies entered the war.

Hani Abdel Hadi, from the Palestinian Strategic Studies Institute, says: "You could see Arab leaders interest in having a say in Palestine, since Palestine is the core of not the Arab-Palestinian conflict or Arab-Israeli conflict, but is the consciousness of the Arab world. He who governs Jerusalem, he who has a say in Palestine will have the upper hand in the Arab World."

The Nakba

Articles in this episode

Tracing Gaza's Chaos to 1948

The Nakba: Catalyst for pan-Arabism

Opinion: Arabism's greatest loss

Realising the Zionist dream

Why the Arabs were defeated

Profile: King Abdullah I of Jordan

After nine months of fighting the Arab armies, including the forces of Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Transjordan, were defeated and the Israelis captured 75 per cent of Palestine, giving it an area one-third greater than the area assigned to them under the UN partition plan.

The remainder of Palestine, namely the West Bank, was controlled by Jordanian forces, while the Gaza Strip was left under Egyptian control.

This period is known by the Arabs as the Nakba, or catastrophe.

Abu Talab, a Palestinian refugee, says: "The Arab army didn't help. When the Jews attacked, they ran for their lives before the locals had a chance to flee. They abandoned the country and its helpless population with no means of defence."

Over 750,000 Palestinian refugees fled to neighbouring Arab countries where they were housed in camps. The camps were crowded and unsanitary and the fate of the refugees lay in the hands of their hosts.

The official policy of most Arab states was that the Palestinian refugees should be kept in a permanent state of readiness, prepared to return to Palestine at any moment.

In December 1948, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 194 which recognised the right of refugees to return to their homes.

Symbolic unity

A Question of Arab Unity Web special coverage



Arabs Seek Common Cause
Spanning 22 countries with 320 million people, they share three general commonalities.

Revolution Calling
With promises of a unified state broken, uprisings and revolt swept the Middle East.

Rising Nationalism
Secularism and Islamism emerged as political movements during the 1920s and 30s.

1948: A Cause for Arab Unity?
The creation of the State of Israel became a rallying call for Arab nationalism.

Nasser's Age of Revolution
In 1952, an Egyptian army officer stepped forward to lead the drive for Arab unity.

The occupation of Palestine and the plight of the refugees caused new awareness amongst ordinary Arabs. Now, more than ever before - united by tragedy - they began to think in collective terms.

Fawwaz Traboulsi, a political analyst, says: "The tragedy of Palestine to begin with, became a rallying point for Arabs, in a sense became one form of Arab unity, you unite around Palestine.

"Second, you can say the opposite. Palestine became a supplement or a displacement of a wish or a desire, which is not implemented, which is the desire for Arab unity. So the Arabs cannot be united effectively but they can be united symbolically around Palestine."

The unanimity on the Arab street did not translate into concerted action. Preoccupied with managing the transition from colonial domination to independence, most Arab leaders were concerned with matters closer to home.

One future Arab leader, however, gained his first battle experience in the Arab-Israeli war in 1948, and the defeat had a profound influence on him. Gamel Abdel Nasser became determined to solve the Palestinian problem and make Arab unity work.

Palestine's Holocaust museum