Thursday, March 28, 2024 -
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125-year denial

It’s not the West Bank. It’s not Israel. It’s not even the Balfour Declaration of 1917.

Stretch your imagination to reach the heart of the opposition of the Palestinian leadership to Israel.

Stretch — how far? Back to the Six Day War of 1967 that left the West Bank of the Jordan River in Israeli hands? Is this the heart of the Palestinian opposition to Israel? If so, then the earlier years between Israel’s creation in 1948 and the Six Day War of 1967 would have seen peace between Israel and the Palestinians of the West Bank, who were in another country, Jordan. But these years saw unceasing terrorism against Israel and the formation of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, whose charter called for Israel’s destruction, in 1964.

OK. Stretch further back to Israel’s War of Independence of 1948, when Israel did not control the West Bank. Is Israel’s creation the heart of the Palestinian opposition to Israel? If so, then the earlier years before 1948 would have seen peace between Israel and the Palestinians throughout Palestine. But these years saw unceasing terrorism against Israel, especially in 1920 in Jerusalem and from 1936 to 1939 wherever Jews lived in Palestine.

OK. Stretch further back to the Balfour Declaration of 1917, when Great Britain declared its intent to recognize and facilitate the creation of a “Jewish national home” — not a state — “in Palestine” — not of Palestine. Is the Balfour Declaration the heart of the Palestinian opposition to Israel? If so, then the earlier years before 1917, when Arabs vastly outnumbered the Jews in Palestine, would have seen peace between Palestinian Jews and the local Arab population. But these years saw steady attacks on the small Israeli settlements in Palestine. In fact, these years saw the beginnings of what became the Palestinian Jews’ military force, the Palmach. It was necessary for self-defense.

OK. Stretch further back to 1897, when the Zionist movement was created in Basel, Switzerland. Is this declaration of the Zionist movement outside the land of Israel the heart of the Palestinian opposition to Israel? Perhaps so, for the 125th-anniversary of the First Zionist Congress in 1897, observed this week in Basel, Switzerland, drew threats of Palestinian disruption so severe that Switzerland had to halt all boat traffic on the Rhine River and close the airspace above Basel.

Not, however, that a formal Zionist movement was necessary to elicit Palestinian opposition to the pre-1897 Jewish presence in the Holy Land, tiny as it was: a Jewish majority in one single city, Jerusalem, and a few agricultural settlements in the land. They, too, required self-defense.

This is disputed by Palestinian apologists, who say that it was Zionism’s creation in 1897 that created the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Before Zionism, everything was sweetness and light. However, scholarship long ago by Neville Mandel disproved this.

Any Jewish presence — Zionist or not, a majority or not, with international sanction or not, politically independent or not, controlling the West Bank or not — has elicited violent opposition by local Arabs.

That’s the heart of the Palestinian opposition to Israel: opposition to a Jewish presence anywhere, of any size, of any strength, in the Holy Land.

That is what Switzerland’s radical security steps at a celebration of the formal founding of Zionism outside the land of Israel, 125 years ago, says.




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