Pearls and Irritations

The birth of Israel on 14 May 1948 is said to be based on three related claims. Some people regard these claims as questionable. They form the basis for why Israel’s birth is said to be illegitimate.

Firstly, a claim much set in concrete is that Israel is the “promised land” of the Jews. However, there is no one clear-cut definition of who is exactly a Jew. Besides, the idea of a ‘promised land’ is disputed by the Roman Catholic Church which reportedly declared the idea of a promised land is but “an opinion within the realm of permitted theological speculation.” In plain English, that’s almost saying it’s based on much imagination.

Secondly, the claim is linked to the 1917 Balfour Declaration and the 1937 Peel Commission. Both proposed a ‘Jewish home’ in areas where there was a clear Jewish majority. They were, however, misconstrued as a British promise to give them a home-land. Besides, it is based on a weird assumption, viz the UK can give title to some part of land belonging to another country, viz the then Ottoman Empire (Turkey).

Thirdly, the claim is that Jews (a tiny part of the population in Palestine in the 1940s) are entitled to resettle in 77% of Palestine just because some of their ancestors had, once upon a time, lived there many thousands of years earlier. That’s as dangerously valid as any other tiny ethnic group claiming ownership of a big part of your country just because their ancestors had once lived there.

Besides, Palestine in 1948 was already “a distinct political entity for the first time in centuries” and the Zionists had simply taken over (robbed) some 77% of state land belonging to another group of people. Yet it had the support of the US President (Harry S Truman) who, amazingly, purported to recognise Israel as a new nation on the very same day.

In contrast, the Arab world does not forget that what the Zionists claimed was not at all vacant land. Also, it was not peacefully “taken.”

Instead, the establishment of Israel as a state was the result of massacres of countless Palestinians and the destruction of 400 – 600 Palestinian villages. For example, the merciless Zionist massacre of Deir Yassin village on 9 April 1948 resulted in killing at least 107 Palestinian villagers, including women and children. It temporarily shocked the conscience of the Western world and led to Albert Einstein being one of many distinguished people to sign an open letter to the New York Times in 1948 criticising the massacre.

Distinguished historians, Ilan Pappé and Walid Khalidi, saw it as the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. This catastrophe (“nakba”) for the Palestinians was a total destruction of their society and the suppression of their culture, identity and sense of self-determination. Even village wells were poisoned in a biological warfare programme. Many thousands – an estimated 711,000 – were forced to flee from the land to become refugees, never allowed to return.

In December 1948, the UN General Assembly (UNGA) responded. Through Resolution 194 (II), it called for the return of the refugees, property restitution and compensation for the Palestinians. However, Israel chose to totally ignore not only that resolution but also similar countless other UN resolutions over 75 years up to now. Needless to say, surviving Palestinian refugees and their descendants have yet to be allowed to return to their land in Israel or be compensated for what they had lost and suffered.

And yet, with further undying support from its powerful ally (USA), Israel gained membership of the UN on 11 May 1949.

However, UN approval of Israel’s membership was subject to Israel’s pledge to fulfil two conditions. Firstly, Israel was to withdraw from its illegal occupation of certain parts of Palestinian territories and its boundary confined to that indicated in UN Resolution 181(II) of 29 November 1947. Secondly, it was to allow the 1948 Palestinian refugees to return to their homes as required in UN Resolution 194(II).

But as soon as it became a UN member, Israel refused to fulfil both pledges to the UN. In other words, the legitimacy of Israel’s membership of the UN is also questionable.

Worse. Not too long after, in 1967, Israel added more pools of Palestinian blood to Israel’s bloody birth. Contrary to its membership pledge to abide by international law, Israel took illegal occupation of the rest of the Palestinian territories, viz Gaza strip, West bank and East Jerusalem. It caused an estimated 500,000 Palestinians to flee from it.

Since then, Israel has acted as if these illegally occupied Palestinian Territories are part of a “greater” Israel stretching from the Jordan river to the Mediterranean Sea. Indeed, it has also been acting as if Palestine does not exist as a state.

This is even though, for example, the effect of General Resolution 181 of the United Nations General Assembly in 1948 (a proposal to partition Palestine into two states, Israel and Palestine) in effect constituted a de jure (legal) recognition of Palestine with its boundary line as shown therein.

Given this history it’s time Australia joins the rest of the world to confirm International recognition of Palestine’s sovereignty, bearing in mind that, out of 193 members of the United Nations General Assembly, 143 had already voted in favour of Palestine being a member of the United Nations.

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