Having secured its independence in 1948, the world expected that the new Jewish state of Israel will cooperate and allow the creation of a state for the Palestinians in keeping with the resolution of the United Nations. For the leaders of Israel, however, this was never in their consideration. Their vision and plan were for a so-called ‘’Eretz Yisrael’’ or greater Israeli state which included not just the land of Palestine but almost half of the entire Middle East region. This by the reckoning extended as far as Medina in Saudi Arabia including parts of Syria, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon. This is what formed the kernel of the Jewish Zionist vision in the Middle East for which they were not prepared to allow the establishment of a Palestinian state.
To actualise this vision, the Jews had set up military organisations like the ‘Haganah’ and ‘Palmach’ tasked with attacking and expelling Palestinian settlements to make way for the expected thousands of Jewish ‘’Aliyah’’ immigrants pouring in from across the world. The Haganah and Palmach groups were made up mostly of men who had enlisted and served on the side of the British Army during the Second World War. Men like David Ben-Gurion, Moshe Dayan, Yitzhak Sadeh, Yigal Allon, Yitzhak Rabin etc, all of whom will come to play prominent roles in the post-independent Israeli military, political and intelligence sectors.
For the past 75 years of its independence, Israel had steadfastly pursued this policy of blocking the establishment of a Palestinian state in defiance of world public opinion through a variety of ways including expulsion of Palestinians from their settlements, diplomatic exclusion, denial of basic infrastructure and amenities, annexation and resettlement of Palestinian areas with Jews etc. Down the years after independence, such incidences of expulsion and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their ancestral lands were to be repeated including the most prominent Deir Yassin and Sabra and Shatila massacres perpetrated by the Israelis on Palestinians. The latest debacle in Gaza involving Israel and Hamas is, therefore, neither new nor surprising. It follows a pattern of the well-laid-out plans of the Jews in preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state.
In place of a Palestinian state the only accommodation Israel is willing to make for Palestinians is for those who chose to remain behind to renounce their identity as Palestinians and accept Israeli citizenship under Israel which in many respects is racist and discriminatory to them.
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The persistent denial by the state of Israel for the establishment of a Palestinian state is embedded in the concept in which the Jews consider themselves as the ‘chosen’ people of God in relation to other peoples of the world. After the Second World War in which Jews were victims of the Holocaust by Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler, the resolve of the Jews to have a state exclusive to them, took an added momentum. Under such circumstances, a Palestinian state would be a hindrance and obstructionist to the goal of a ‘Greater Israel’ as envisioned by the Jews.
With what is happening now in Gaza, 75 years of Israeli policy on Palestine has reached a tipping point.
First of all, it is now clear to the world that Jewish claim to being the ‘chosen’ people of God is a blasphemous fallacy. Although in socio-anthropological context, every tribe of people try to hold this view of themselves especially as against others, the Jews have promoted theirs to the point of unreasonableness.
Behind the claims by the Jews of their being favoured exclusively by God is an abiding fear and a sense of inadequacy which seeks refuge in dubious exceptionalism. And over the centuries this has all too often constituted an existential danger to them wherever they happen to find themselves. Yes, in the Bible, Quran and the Torah, there are mentions of them as people deserving of the special graces of God, but there are accompanying caveats in which God himself admonished the Jews to observe if they hoped to continue to enjoy his graces. But repeatedly the Jews have continued to blaspheme and transgress from his covenant with them which almost always results in incurring God’s wrath.
Similarly, the Jewish claim to a ‘greater Israel’ exclusively for the Jews in the greater part of the Middle East is also highly contestable. History records that they were not the only ancient people who lived in that land. A succession of peoples including the Sabateans, Sumerians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Babylonians, Persians, Phoenicians and Philistines from whom the Arab-speaking peoples of present-day Syria, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon and Palestine descend can also justifiably make similar claim to the area as the Jews.
Yet again, the massive military security shield including the nuclear arsenal that Israel possesses may come to no avail if by acts of commission or omission the Israeli-Hamas war escalates into a regional war. Although it will be difficult to prejudge the outcome of such a war, one certain thing is that Israel like every other country in the region will be a victim.
And finally, Israel must brace itself for the inevitable fact that a Palestinian state which they have expended so much effort in trying to prevent over the years cannot continue to be avoided. Like East Timor and South Sudan out of Indonesia and Sudan respectively and the fall of apartheid South Africa, the Jews of Israel cannot stand against the overwhelming tide of world public opinion which has said it loud and clear, that it is time for a Palestinian state. (Concluded)
