A group of experts discuss the roots of conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. This is a must-read piece, a starting point for understanding for the genocide happening in Gaza today:
Nadim Bawalsa: The mandate period sets a precedent for how Palestine will be handled at the international level, which is to say as an exception to the law. Britain started off as the military occupier of Palestine at the end of World War I and then unilaterally altered its own status to civil administrator, even though it didn’t have the power to do so under international law. The League of Nations then left it to the British authorities to manage Palestine however they saw fit.about:blank
Around the same time, local Muslim-Christian associations were springing up all over historic Palestine, in Haifa, Jaffa, Nablus, Jerusalem. They would convene regularly to draft grievances and submit them to the British authorities in Jerusalem.
The local associations convened a Palestine Arab Congress, which met between 1919 and 1928.They always made the same demands: self-determination as part of an undivided Arab Syria and opposition to Jewish immigration and land acquisition.about:blank
So the British were very much aware of exactly what it was that the Arabs or the Palestinians wanted. But to serve their own interests, they pitted the Palestinians against one another. Right after the Nebi Musa riots, they sacked the mayor of Jerusalem and appointed Raghib al-Nashashibi in his place. He was of the Palestinian nationalist elite who opposed Zionism, but he was more obedient and agreeable to British interests. The British also created the Supreme Muslim Council to oversee Islamic property, endowments, schools and courts and appointed Haj Amin al-Husseini, from a rival elite family, to head the council as the grand mufti of Jerusalem.
Al-Husseini was chosen for mufti by the British high commissioner of Palestine after he stated his “earnest desire to cooperate with the government and his belief in the good intentions of the British government towards the Arabs,” according to Rashid Khalidi. A mufti can issue rulings based on Islamic law.He was seen as more of a people’s leader, but he also collaborated with the British. The point is that during the 1920s and early ’30s, Palestinian nationalists could oppose Zionism all they wanted so long as they didn’t get in the way of Britain’s goals.
And of course, all of this falls short of actually giving the Palestinians national and territorial rights.
Derek Penslar: Many Zionists wanted to believe that they represented progress—they would come with their technology and electricity, with better farm machinery, and improve everyone’s lives. Ze’ev Jabotinsky, whose version of Zionism was the precursor to Likud, the party of Benjamin Netanyahu, had a more realistic vision. He said: Don’t condescend to the Arabs. They have every reason to oppose Zionism, and they will do so, until they are met with overwhelming force.
Rabinovich: In 1923, the British offered to have a legislative council in which the Arabs would have had a larger share than the Jews, but they boycotted the elections for it. And this is a theme I think that we need to follow all the way from 1920 to 1948—the theme of missed opportunities, mostly by the Palestinians.
Dallasheh: This council was not supposed to be proportional or truly representative. The Zionist movement was never willing to accept that because until 1948, any such voting body would have meant a decisive Palestinian majority.
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