The Palestine Question

By Mamdouh Habashi

introduction

“Because those who do not know what happened before they were born are doomed to remain children all their lives! This reading will reinforce – without a doubt – our vision that we have always emphasized, which is that the conflict with the enemy is an Arab-Zionist conflict in the first place, with the Palestinian in the vanguard.”
Muhammad Hassanein Heikal

Now that the war of October 7^th 2023 has shown this high degree of polarization on the global level, I say that this conflict is no longer just Arab-Zionist, but has become a conflict between the forces of liberation and revolution and the forces of colonialism and imperialism in the entire world. Therefore, we must tell the full story – as much as possible – to the generations that did not witness the wars of this conflict before October 7^th  2023.

Israel is a colonial project

1. France

Napoleon Bonaparte – the star of that time in global history and long time after it – was the initiator and pioneer in linking and synthesizing: nationalism, the colonial race, the Eastern question, and the Jewish question^[1], all combined together in the service of one political strategy.

The Jewish question, which is the issue of a religion whose followers are distributed throughout the earth. Then, they were the target of hostility that escalated, especially around the areas where the Jewish presence was dense in Eastern Europe and Russia. At that time, 90% of the world’s Jews (their total number was 12 million) were living on the borders between Russia and Poland, and were exposed from time to time to bloody raids generated by religious, social, and intellectual frictions. The waves of immigration from the East are the critical point in the “Jewish question”, because no one wanted these Jews coming as fugitives and refugees from the East to the West. Napoleon’s idea (a colonial idea) of linking, synthesizing and exploiting emerging phenomena with the premises of the nineteenth century was represented in several steps:

1. Using the phenomenon of patriotism to awaken a Jewish consciousness that captures the idea of the right to self-determination, and demands a national homeland for the Jews that will save them from the diaspora and relieve them – and relieve Europe more – of the burden of the waves of immigration flowing from the Jews of the East.
2. Playing on the Jewish religious string and its myths, so that Palestine – which was then one of the possessions of the Ottoman Caliphate, whose inheritance everyone was competing with – would be the promised and chosen homeland of the Jews.
3. If a Jewish state was established under the auspices of France in Palestine, then this would be an important starting point for its imperial plans in the heart of the Ottoman Caliphate’s domains.
4. If these trends succeed, France will have begun the process of inheriting the caliphate, and will have obtained the largest share of the legacy before other powers take notice and take action.

Napoleon’s appeal to world Jewry was as follows:

“From Napoleon Bonaparte, Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces of the French Republic in Africa and Asia, to the legitimate heirs of Palestine. O Israelis, you, unique people whom the forces of conquest and tyranny could not rob of their lineage and national existence, even if they had only robbed them of the land of their ancestors. Rise up strong, you displaced persons in the maze. You have before you a terrible war that your people are waging after their enemies considered their land, which they inherited from their ancestors, as a spoil to be divided among them according to their whims. You must forget that shame that put you under the yoke of slavery, and that shame that paralyzed your will for two thousand years. The circumstances did not allow for announcing your demands. Or express it. Rather, these circumstances forcefully forced you to give up your right, and that is why France now extends its hand to you, carrying the legacy of Israel, and it is doing so at this particular time, despite the evidence of despair and impotence. O legitimate heirs of Palestine… the French nation that It does not trade in men and nations as others did, calling on you to protect your inheritance by guaranteeing and supporting it against all intruders. Hurry! This is the appropriate moment – which may not be repeated for thousands of years – to demand the restoration of your rights and your status among the peoples of the world, those rights that have been robbed from you for thousands of years, which are your political existence. As a nation among nations, you have the absolute natural right to worship your God, Jehovah, in accordance with your faith, and do so in public and do so forever………………Bonaparte.”

Thus, Napoleon’s strategy appeared to be first to control the southern side of the eastern corner of the Mediterranean – Egypt. Secondly, securing Syria. Then thirdly, in order to ensure that the two sides, Arab and Islamic, do not meet, he must plant something else at the point of their meeting, that is, at the center of the corner, which is neither Arab nor Islamic. However, this planting cannot be created from scratch. Rather, its creation requires seeds, even if they are from fossils anthropology, so that it can be planted in the soil. Thus, Napoleon’s Jewish card represents a vision for the future and a vision – which may not be achieved quickly – but it is achievable in the future days… With it, a Jewish homeland may be created that will be a buffer if necessary. When Napoleon became Emperor of France, Egypt was still, in his calculations, “the most important country in the world,” and the idea of a buffer Jewish homeland had taken hold. Thus, in 1807, he called for the convening of a Jewish council, “Sanhardan”, attended by all European Jews, represented by the heads of their sects. Along with their famous rabbis, to “unite the Jewish nation”, as he said, then it was striking that Resolution No. 3 of the council’s decisions, was a resolution that spoke in text about: “The necessity of awakening the awareness of the Jews to their need for military training in order to be able to perform their sacred duty that requires… To Him is their religion.”

2. Britain

As usual, the British Empire was stealing the strategies of the colonial countries that preceded it and outperforming them in its colonialism. Portugal was the first on the sea routes between the continents. Britain followed it, and preceded it. Spain was the first to colonize the New World in America. Britain followed it, and preceded it. British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston learned much from the French Emperor Napoleon, indeed. France – “Napoleon” – was the first towards Egypt and the conscious one – in the colonial era – with the importance of the strategic angle that brings it together with Syria; Britain followed it, and preceded it!

That is, global colonialism – which was led and controlled by Great Britain at the time – had thought about and commenced this project before the establishment of the Zionist movement itself. In the first half of the nineteenth century, Egypt – under the leadership of Muhammad Ali – became an economic and military power, and accordingly also a political power. This led to tensions and violent conflicts between Egypt and competing forces that feared for its political interests. At the head of these powers were Great Britain and France, which were interested in inheriting the “sick man in the Bosporus” (the Ottoman Empire). These conflicts reached their peak in 1839 at the Battle of Konya in the Balkan, where the British and French armies – in cooperation with the Turkish army – destroyed the Egyptian fleet, which led to the London Decree of 1840.

At this time, British Foreign Secretary Palmerston wrote numerous letters to his ambassador in Istanbul, Lord Ponsonby, asking him to suggest to the Ottoman Sultan that Jews be allowed to immigrate to Palestine and settle there, as he saw that the Jews could “form a human shield against Muhammad Ali and other ambitious people like him,” to prevent their future projects.^[2] In a memorandum dated February 17^th 1841, Palmerston announced that Britain considered itself responsible for the Jewish settlement project in Palestine.^[3]

Zionism

Zionism is an ideological, national, political thought that calls for the establishment of a national homeland for a social religious group, the Jewish people. The Austrian Jew, Theodor Herzl, is considered the founder or “father” of political Zionism. The Zionist movement was founded in the late nineteenth century in 1897 amid growing anti-Semitism in Europe.

It is clear from this brief historical reference that the ground had already been prepared fifty years before Herzl developed the Zionist idea, and how this idea was consistent with the needs of the colonial policies of the largest colonial empires at that time. Hence, Zionism was a purely colonial project from the beginning. According to the memoirs of Theodor Herzl, the founder of the Zionist movement, he wrote to Cecil Rhodes on January 11^th 1902, saying: “I turn to you because this is a colonial project.”^[4]

Just as the settlement project began in South Africa, the Zionist project had to begin under the protection of a major colonial power such as Great Britain, or any other power that had similar aspirations, such as Germany. Herzl imagined that the project could be built in one of several places, such as Uganda, Mozambique, Argentina, Cyprus, or Libya; although like many of his friends, he became convinced of the need to benefit from the strong myths that link the Jews to Palestine.^[5]

For the founder of the Zionist project (Theodor Herzl), all means were available to achieve the idea, which was not possible in the eyes of the majority of Jews in the world. In his advocacy, he benefited not only from religion, but also from anti-Semitism, to the point that he wrote: “The enemies of the Semites will be our best allies.”^[6]

He also benefited greatly from the rivalry between the colonial powers at that time, and presented to each side arguments that the Zionist project was beneficial to whichever colonial power he was addressing. He promised the British that he would protect the road to India in the face of German interests in the region, whilst promising Friedrich Wilhelm II that he would protect the “Berlin-Baghdad” project in the face of British interests in the region. On October 19^th 1898, he obtained the Tsar’s approval after convincing him of the role of Zionism in confronting socialism.^[7]

Herzl did not play his role in the diplomatic arena alone, but rather derived his main strength from a deep understanding of the general goal of all the Western colonial powers of his era. In the book “The Jewish State,” he stated that “for Europe, we will form the protection wall in front of Asia. We will be the line of defense of civilization against barbarism.”^[8] It was now clear that fulfilling this role in the Near East would grant the new state the full support of the Western colonialists.

The Zionist movement did not actually begin until more than half a century after the theoretical foundations of this movement were laid within the framework of colonial policy (1879). It went hand in hand with the plans of the English and French colonial powers to divide the Turkish imperial legacy. It was the Sykes-Picot Agreement, then the Balfour Declaration in 1917.

The colonial birth of the Zionist movement and the colonial policy of the intended state were the backdrop to the colonial claims still used by modern Zionism today. The Zionists worked alongside the European colonialists in the nineteenth century without any disagreement. Just as the Europeans saw Africa without the Africans, they saw Palestine without the Palestinians. This is a position that has not changed to this day.

Indeed, the well-known representative of Labor Zionism, Berl Katznelson, admitted in the 1930s that he was prepared to support a plan originally drawn up by the British to expel the Arab population from Palestine. Much of the writings of Israeli historians also prove that the ethnic cleansing carried out during the 1948 war was planned. This is the conclusion reached by historians such as Benny Morris from the far-right side and Ilan Pappé[9] on the left.

These historical references shed light on the reality of Zionism, making it clear that it was not a national liberation movement as it claimed – and in this way it was able to convince a wide audience of persecuted Jews in various European countries – rather it was essentially a project to serve the old colonial powers, just as it is now serving the contemporary imperial powers. This also explains the racist nature of the Zionist ideology, movement and practices of the State of Israel.

Racism is in the genes of Zionism

Discourse that accepts the expulsion of a people from their land as a means to achieve its goal is racist by definition, regardless of who is leading the project or how they view the expulsion process. “Transfer” becomes merely a play on words to cover up the bloody processes of expulsion, dispossession, etc. These are facts that cannot be changed, even if Chaim Weizmann claims that he has found bad assailants and others less bad within this racist movement.

In my opinion, the thesis adopted by most of the European left, especially the German left, is not logical. In a paper presented by Wolfgang Gehrke, one of the leaders of the German Left Party, he criticized many of the mistakes and sins of the communist parties in Europe towards the “Jewish question” (Judenfrage). He then referred to the speech of Andrei Gromyko, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union, in 1947, at the United Nations in the debate regarding the establishment of the State of Israel. My opinion is that Stalin’s real motives were different. In this context, we must not forget the role of Joseph Stalin, who committed many crimes, but one of his greatest crimes was the support he provided for the establishment of the State of Israel. The Soviet Union gave its diplomatic recognition to Israel on May 17^th 1948, just three days after it declared its independence.^[10] Gehrcke found the justification for the establishment of the State of Israel in the sins of the communist movement in the twentieth century and in the anti-Semitism in Europe. He says: “The widespread eradication carried out by German fascism and the European countries, and the inability or desire to help the persecuted Jews, sealed their right to have their own state, Israel.”

This is a logic that I do not accept at all. History gives us many examples of similar eradication operations of other groups, yet this did not establish their right to establish independent states. Norman Finkelstein discussed in detail the issue of limiting the Holocaust to Jews alone.^[11] Our late, great comrade Nabil Al-Hilali also wrote a book on this specific point in which he explains the communist position of this period.^[12]

I claim that the slaves who were forcibly taken from Africa to America suffered from the injustice and brutality of their executioners, exactly as the Jews suffered (and we do not seek here to make a direct comparison or classify the degrees of suffering). I also claim that these black slaves have much more in common than did the Jews who were invited from all over the world to gather in Palestine since the beginning of the twentieth century (even though the blacks belonged to different tribes and professed different religions). What is the situation if blacks in the United States demand their own state? Were the Jews one people at the beginning of the twentieth century? Did they form a single nationality? Or were they just a religious group?

Extending this argument despite its integrity, I ask myself: How can we – the political left – confront contemporary Islamists who claim that the Muslims of the world constitute a “nation” at war with the “Christian nation”? Is there no similarity between this medieval logic and the Jewish declaration? About their right to Palestine based on ancient narratives in the Bible?

Below, I support with further arguments and citations my previous conclusion that Zionist discourse is racist because of its acceptance of the idea of achieving its goals by expelling another people from their land. The Zionist leaders had no illusions regarding the realization of their project. They realized that they could only achieve it by imposing it on the majority of the Palestinian population, and they were absolutely certain that this was in stark contrast to the principles of democracy.

A few days before his death, Berl Katznelson admitted before a group of young people that establishing the Jewish state meant imposing the Jewish will on the Arabs. He claimed that although this was reprehensible (from a democratic perspective), it was inevitable that the entire Zionist project would be accomplished against the will of the majority.^[13] Yosef Gorny also quotes Ze’ev Jabotinsky as saying that since the days when Herzl proposed his idea, the Zionists were fully aware of the fact that they had to violate the democratic principle of respecting the will of the (numerical) majority,^[14] at least until the Jews outnumbered the Palestinian population. Hence, the main stream of the Zionist movement never questioned the “historical right” to impose the Jewish state by force on the local Arab population of Palestine, that is, the only right is their “right to return” to Palestine. Gorny acknowledges that the majority of Zionists believe that the best solution to the Palestinian conflict is the mass exit of the local Arab population.^[15]

The representatives of Labour Zionism^[16] never imagined that the idea of “collective transfer” could be “unruly”^[17] but were only concerned with its political effects. This was also the view of the extreme left within the Labour Zionist movement, which saw no moral flaw in the forced “mass displacement” of the Arab population. This strategy for solving the “Arab problem” enjoyed a strong consensus within the Zionist movement, and was built upon three interconnected points:

1. The Zionist movement should not expect or demand the consent of Palestinian workers.
2. The success of the Zionist project depends on the support of one (or several) major political forces.
3. The Palestinian conflict must be resolved within the framework of a regional alliance that serves the interests of this major power or powers.^[18]

Hence, I believe that it is the duty of the global left to reconsider its political expressions and terminology regarding this particular issue.

Sykes-Picot Treaty

On May 16^th 1916, the Mark Sykes-François Georges-Picot Treaty was signed between Britain and France, according to which the lands of the Arab world and the Middle East were shared between the two colonial countries. It was a secret treaty, in which Tsarist Russia participated – as it too had aspirations for the region. Tsarist Russia collapsed before these aspirations were ever realized, and when the Bolshevik Revolution triumphed, Lenin revealed the secrets of the agreement and spread them to the world^[19].

As a result of this diplomatic scandal, Britain was forced to make amendments to it, which led to the formation of the map of the Arab kingdoms and countries after World War I. But Britain reneged on its promises to the Arabs and to its partners, Russia and France, and made its famous promise to create a “national homeland for the Jews” known as the Balfour Declaration on November 2^nd 1917, which established the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The seeds of this treaty grew at the end of 1915 and during World War I, when the Ottoman Empire had turned into “the sick man on the banks of the Bosporus” and disintegrated and collapsed. The Moroccan Sultan, Mohammed V, supported by Germany, launched his call for jihad. The two major colonial powers were present in the region: France, with its economic and cultural influence in the Levant, and Britain in Egypt, which it occupied in 1882. They chose two diplomats, the Frenchman François-Georges-Picot and the British Mark Sykes, to conduct negotiations on secret arrangements that now bear their names, aiming to share land and influence in the Arab world. Russia and Italy later joined the agreement.

Sykes said that he wanted to “draw a mistake that begins with the letter Alif,” meaning the city of Akko, which in English is called “Acre” and ends with the letter K, in reference to Kirkuk”, as British writer James Barr narrates in his book “A Line in the Sand” (2011). This black line divides the Middle East in the middle on the agreement’s maps without any regard to tribal and clan distribution and religious affiliations, so that Syria becomes for the French in the north and the Arabian Peninsula for the British in the south, and the entire region is divided into five sectors. The agreement stipulates that “France and Britain are prepared to recognize and support an Arab state. Independent or confederation of Arab countries” in areas of influence A (interior Syria with Damascus and Aleppo as well as Mosul) and B (between the Sykes-Picot line and the Aqaba-Kuwait line).

The areas of direct tutelage in the north for France are coloured blue and include Lebanon and Cilicia (northern Libya) and in red in the south for Britain (Kuwait and southern Mesopotamia with an enclave in Haifa for a railway project starting in Baghdad) (and the brown colour of an area that was internationalized is Palestine). The treaty was revealed by the Russian revolutionary government in 1917. The Arabs saw it as a colonial trick and discovered the mission of the British officer Thomas Edward Lawrence, known as Lawrence of Arabia, who was charged with fueling the Arab Revolt or turning the Arabs against the Ottoman Empire during World War I, which began in June 1916.

This territorial sharing remained theoretical, as Turkish forces were still present in the areas concerned. Under the watchful eye of Picot, who became High Commissioner in Syria and Palestine, British General Edmund Allenby occupied Jerusalem on December 11^th 1917, then Damascus fell on September 30^th 1918.

As soon as the war ended, the heads of the French and British governments amended the Sykes-Picot agreement, while the importance of oil in the region began to emerge. France then abandoned Palestine and the Mosul region, while demanding its share of the oil. In April 1920, the San Remo Conference approved the mandate that was supposed to prepare for independence and entrusted it to Britain (Palestine, the eastern bank of the Jordan River, and Iraq), while France received Syria and Lebanon. In 1921, France first abandoned Cilicia, then in 1939, the Syrian Alexandretta brigade in southern Turkey. In 1922 after crushing the revolutions in Palestine, Syria and Iraq, the League of Nations approved placing these areas under French and British mandate, and the Zionist movement began to implement the Balfour Declaration to establish Israel.

Here we must point out the sectarian context of partition, or more precisely the fragmentation of the Arab world, which began after the end of the Nasserist period. Projects are being put forward forcefully to redivide the Arab world into mini-states based on sectarian affiliations, mini-states for Christians and mini-states for Shiites, Alawites, Sunnis, Kurds, or Berbers. Even Egypt was not spared, as it has Sunni Muslims, Copts and Nubians. Which gives Israel a legitimate sectarian status in the region, which is the “Jewish state”.

Balfour Declaration

On November 2^nd 1917, the fateful Balfour Declaration was issued, according to which Britain granted the Jews the right to establish a national homeland for themselves in Palestine, based on the false saying “a land without a people for a people without a land.” With this promise, the famous phrase that summarizes a situation like this was fulfilled: “Who does not have the right has given to someone who does not deserve” and that day will be a black day in the history of the Palestinian people, and indeed in the history of all of humanity, and a blow to international justice and legitimacy. This promise represented the West’s first actual step towards establishing a Jewish entity on the land of Palestine in response to the desires of global Zionism at the expense of an authentic people rooted in this land for thousands of years.

The promise came in the form of a statement addressed by the British Foreign Secretary at the time, Arthur James Balfour, in the government of David Lloyd George, to Lord Rothschild (one of the leaders of the global Zionist movement and one of the richest people in Britain), after negotiations that lasted three years that took place between the British government on the one hand, and the World Zionist Organization on the other; through which the Zionists were able to convince Britain of their ability to achieve Britain’s colonial goals and preserve its interests in the region. Here is its text:^[20]

Ministry of Foreign Affairs

November 2, 1917

Dear Lord Rothschild,

I have great pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty’s Government, the following statement, which expresses sympathy with the aspirations of Jews and Zionism, which has been presented to and approved by the Ministry.

His Majesty’s Government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which would abridge the civil and religious rights enjoyed by the non-Jewish communities now residing in Palestine, nor the rights or political status enjoyed by Jews in other countries.

I would be grateful if you would inform the Union of Zionist Bodies of this statement.

Sincerely

Arthur Balfour

The British government had presented the text of the Balfour Declaration to US President Wilson, and he approved its content before publishing it. France and Italy formally approved it in 1918, then US President Wilson followed suit officially and publicly in 1919. And so did Japan. On April 25^th 1920, the Supreme Council of the Allied Powers agreed at the aforementioned San Remo Conference to entrust Britain with the mandate over Palestine, and to put the Balfour Declaration into effect, according to what was stated in Article 2 of the Mandate, and on July 24^th of the year 1922 The Council of the League of Nations approved the draft mandate, which entered into force on September 29^th 1923. Thus, we can say that the Balfour Declaration was a Western promise, not just a British one.

On the other hand, Arab reactions to the statement varied between astonishment, denunciation and anger. In order to absorb the state of discontent and anger with which the Arabs responded to the Balfour Declaration, Britain sent a letter to Sharif Hussein, through Colonel Bast, in which the British government confirmed that it would not allow Jewish settlement in Palestine except to the extent that it was consistent with the interest of the Arab population from both the economic and political standpoints. But at the same time, it issued orders to the British military administration ruling in Palestine, to obey the orders of the Jewish committee that arrived in Palestine at that time, headed by Chaim Weizmann (Herzl’s successor). It also worked to divert convoys of Jewish immigrants coming from Russia and Eastern Europe to Palestine, and provided them with the necessary protection and assistance.

As for the Palestinian people, they did not surrender to the British promises and decisions and the practical realities that began to be imposed on the ground by the Zionist movement and its armed gangs. Rather, it fought successive revolutions, the first of which was the Buraq Revolution in 1929, followed by the 1936 Revolution.

For its part, the international Zionist movement and its leaders took this promise as a legal document to support its demands of establishing the Jewish state in Palestine, and to fulfill the dream of the Jews to obtain a pledge from one of the major countries to establish a national homeland for them, bringing together their diaspora in a manner consistent with the orientations of the Zionist movement after it moved from the theorizing stage. Its ideas came into effect following the First Zionist Congress held in Basel, Switzerland, in 1897 which approved the Zionist program and emphasized that Zionism strives to establish a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine.

Despite the emergence of strong opposition to this trend from liberal Jews who were able to integrate into the societies in which they lived, and saw in this trend evidence that the so-called anti-Semites might take of the alienation of the Jews and their inability to integrate into the societies in which they live. This opposition had no impact on the general direction of the Zionist movement. The reference to the Balfour Declaration in the text of the Declaration of Independence declared with the establishment of the State of Israel appears to be evidence of the importance of this promise for the Jews, as we read in this document “national revival in a country recognized by the Balfour Declaration…”

The Jews were able to exploit that clip issued by Arthur Balfour, known for his closeness to the Zionist movement, and then the Mandate Instrument, and the General Assembly’s decision in 1947 dividing Palestine, to achieve their dream of establishing Israel on May 15^th 1948, and for this entity to gain membership in the United Nations. Under the pressure of major powers, Israel became the first country in the history of the global political system to be established on the land of others, and to receive international support that made it arrogant in the region, expand and swallow more Palestinian and Arab lands, and oppress the remaining Palestinian people on their land without mercy.

Perhaps the motives and reasons that led Britain to adopt and issue this promise are many, the forefront of which, according to the opinion of politicians and historians, is the convergence of colonial interests and their intersection with the Zionist movement, based on the strategic value of Palestine as a gateway to Asia. In this context, Theodor Herzl described the role of the Jewish state in Palestine by saying, “For Europe, we will be part of a wall protecting it from Asia, and we will be a guard standing in the forefront against barbarism”. There are other motives and reasons, including Britain’s desire to gain the support of world Jews during World War I, to reduce the waves of Jewish immigration to Western Europe and divert them towards Palestine. Because these migrations carry burdens and consequences that harm Britain and other European countries in general.

Jurists believe that the Balfour Declaration is legally invalid. Therefore, everything that results from it, and everything that is based on it, is invalid. The British presence in Palestine was merely an occupation, and the occupation or mandate does not grant the mandatory state the right to dispose of the lands under its guardianship, or any part thereof. Palestine is not part of British property, so it can give it to whomever it wants, and because the British government announced on many occasions that the goal of its occupation was to liberate Palestine from Ottoman control and establish a national government there. Hence, international law experts believe that the Balfour Declaration is not legally binding. It is a unilateral statement, with no corresponding obligations. It was issued in the form of a letter addressed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs to a national of the same country. This statement does not have the status of a treaty, agreement, or international contract.

The Balfour Declaration made Palestine a homeland for the Jews, who were not residents of Palestine, as there were only fifty thousand Jews in Palestine out of approximately 12 million Jews in the world at that time. Meanwhile there were 650,000 Arab citizens in Palestine who, for thousands of years had been developing their lives in the desert, countryside and cities of this land. But the fateful promise ignored them and recognized only some civil and religious rights, ignoring their political, economic and administrative rights.

In addition, this promise contradicts one of the most important principles of international law: the right to self-determination, which the Allies have long called for, claimed to be biased toward, and sought to apply everywhere. But the promise issued by the British Foreign Secretary (one of the pillars of the allied coalition in World War I) denied the rights of the Palestinian people and inflicted upon them a historical injustice which repercussions we are still suffering to this day.

The crime of which the Palestinian people were victims is still visible to the world, and its effects continue to burden the Palestinian people, which continues to suffer because of this promise. The Nakba displaced them from their homes in 1948, and then destroyed their homes in 1967. Death, destruction and all forms of violations continue to this day, and the “Al-Aqsa Flood” is only a new link in this long chain of battles and repercussions.

The occupying state still finds those who promise it protection, support, care, and military superiority, while turning a blind eye to its actions and crimes against the Palestinian people. Rather, it presents the “Deal of the Century”, which is an extension of the Balfour Declaration, with the aim of eliminating and liquidating the Palestinian issue. Successive Palestinian generations will not forgive those who committed this ongoing crime that was the basis for the displacement of the Palestinian people from their homeland and their suffering in refugee camps and diaspora. All projects and plans aimed at striking our national project will fail, and we will continue to cling to our inalienable rights to freedom, independence and return.

The Nakba (The catastrophe)

Nakba is a Palestinian term that expresses the human tragedy related to the displacement of a large number of the Palestinian people outside their homes. It is the name given by the Palestinians to their displacement and the demolition of most of the political, economic and cultural features of their society in 1948. It is the year in which the Palestinian people were expelled from their home and land and lost their homeland, in favor of establishing the Jewish state – Israel.^[21]

In 1948, three-quarters of a million Palestinians were forced to leave their homeland, after the overwhelming majority of them were expelled from the cities, towns and villages occupied by Jewish settlers, either through intimidation or force of arms. Some estimates indicate that about 280,000 of these Palestinians were displaced to the West Bank of the Jordan River, 70,000 to the East Bank of the Jordan River, 190,000 to the Gaza Strip, 100,000 to Lebanon, 75,000 to Syria, 7,000 to Egypt, and 4,000 to Iraq, and the rest were distributed among other Arab countries. The destination of the Palestinians’ displacement was the closest to their location. For example, most of those who were displaced to Lebanon were from the districts of Akka and Haifa, and most of those who were displaced to Syria were from the districts of Safed, Tiberias and Beisan, while most of the residents of the cities of Lydda and Ramla were displaced to the west bank of the Jordan River, and most of the residents of the cities in the south, such as Ashdod, Al-Majdal and Beersheba were displaced to the Gaza Strip and the city of Hebron.

The process of deporting this large number of Palestinians took place in four stages, according to a Zionist-Israeli plan that emerged from geographical and demographic considerations:^[22]

The first phase began immediately after the issuance of the international partition resolution of Palestine on November 29^th 1947. It was estimated that the population of the Jewish state, the establishment of which was approved by that resolution, would reach approximately one million people, 42% of whom were Arabs. The Zionist leadership decided that the only solution to their housing problem was to displace the largest number of Palestinian Arab citizens. Random terrorist operations launched by members of the Haganah^[23] and Aragon^[24] organizations against Arab villages, towns and cities escalated. On December 12^th 1947 Aragon entered the village of Al-Tira near Haifa and killed 12 Arabs and wounded six others. On December 13^th 1947, it attacked the village of Al-Abbasiya to the east from Jafa, killing seven civilians and wounding 34 others.

However, the official beginning of the ethnic cleansing operations in Palestinian villages dates back to the end of December 1947, when units of the Haganah organization launched an attack on the village of Balad al-Sheikh, where the grave of the martyr Izz al-Din al-Qassam is located, leaving more than sixty dead. On December 28^th 1947, units of the same gang attacked the village of Lifta in the Jerusalem area, which had 2,500 residents, and expelled a number of its residents. Then, on January 11^th 1948, they completed the expulsion of those who remained in the village.

The terrorization of Haifa’s Arab population, numbering about 75,000 Palestinians, began in December 1947, causing the early departure of between 15 and 20 thousand of the city’s elite to their asylum in Lebanon and Egypt. During the month of February 1948, attacks on villages located in the Haifa area and the expulsion of their residents continued. In mid-February 1948, the village of Qysariyya was attacked, followed by the villages of Bara Qysariyya, Khirbet al-Burj and Daliat al-Ruhaa. On the night of February 14^th to 15^th 1948, elements of the Palmach attacked the village of Sa`sa’ on the way to Jabal al-Jarmak. They blew up their homes, leaving behind 35 destroyed homes and 60-80 dead.

The second phase of the forced deportation of Palestinians began with the Zionist leadership adopting the cleansing plan known as the “Dalet Plan”^[25] on 10th March 1948. This seen the transition from sporadic offensive operations on the Palestinian population to large, organized operations with the aim of controlling the largest amount of land. Before the end of the British Mandate, the first of these operations took place on April 1^st 1948, and was called “Operation Nahshon,” in the rural plateaus on the western slopes of the Jerusalem Mountains, and was carried out by Palmach^[26] units that succeeded on the ninth of that month, after intense Palestinian resistance, in occupying the village of Al-Qastal and entering the village of Deir Yassin. They committed a brutal massacre in which more than a hundred men, women and children were killed, before occupying four other neighboring villages and expelling their residents. Zionist propaganda worked to spread news of the Deir Yassin massacre throughout Palestine in order to create an atmosphere of terror among the Palestinians with the intention of forcing them to flee.

After “Operation Nahshon”, and with the continuation of its operations in the villages, the Haganah directed its attention in April and May to the Palestinian urban centers, and its first target was Tiberias, which was inhabited by about 5 thousand Arabs who fled from it after its fall on April 18^th. On the 21^st of that month the attack on Haifa began. It resulted in the escape of most of the remaining 55,000 Palestinian residents by sea to Lebanon. Then the attack on Safed continued from mid-April until the beginning of May, and its entire Arab population, which was 9,500 people, was expelled. As for the city of Jerusalem, the attack began on April 26^th after a number of its wealthy residents had left weeks earlier. The attackers succeeded in occupying 8 neighborhoods in the Greater Jerusalem area, and 39 Palestinian villages, and expelling their residents to the eastern part of the city. Then Bisan and the villages in its vicinity were occupied on May 12^th and Akka on the coast on May 16^th.

About 5,000 Haganah and Aragon fighters attacked the city of Jaffa in mid-April and imposed a tight siege on it. It held out for more than three weeks, only to fall into the hands of the attacking forces on May 13^th and all 50,000 residents were expelled, after British “mediation”. Zionist forces also occupied many Arab villages in the vicinity of Jaffa and Tel Aviv during April, destroying and expelling their residents.

The third stage of the process of ethnically evacuating Palestine took place on May 15^th 1948, after the declaration of the State of Israel, the entry of the Arab armies into Palestine, and the outbreak of the first Arab-Israeli War. Before that date, none of the sixty-four Palestinian villages remained in the area extending between Tel Aviv and Haifa after the ethnic cleansing operations in the months of May and July, only two villages were visited: Al-Furaidis and Jisr Al-Zarqa.

The massacres continued. On May 22^nd Israeli forces committed a massacre in the village of Tantura,^[27] which is one of the largest coastal villages and was inhabited by about 1500 people. According to some estimates, 230 people were killed. During June, these forces also occupied the villages located in the lower and eastern Galilees and expelled their residents.

Before the second truce took effect on July 18^th the Jewish forces succeeded in occupying the cities of Lodd and Ramla. On the 10^th, the attack on the city of Lodd began with an air bombardment, followed by a direct attack on the center of the city, which was inhabited by about 50,000 people. It continued until the 14^th, during which the attacking Jewish forces exterminated 426 men, women and children of its residents, most of whom were taking shelter in the city’s mosque. As for the attack on the town of Ramla, which was inhabited by 17 thousand people, it occurred on July 12^th and the Jewish forces entered it on the 14^th. Its residents, in addition to the residents of the town of Ramla, were forced to leave on foot, without food or drink, to the west bank of the Jordan River and many perished. Some of them died on the way because of hunger and thirst.

The attack on the city of Nazareth began on July 9^th, the day the first truce ended, and the city surrendered on the 16^th, but only a number of its residents were deported, as David Ben Gurion did not want to evacuate the city of all its inhabitants, because he knew that the eyes of the Christian world were focused on it. 16,000 people remained there, including 10,000 Christians.

The fourth stage of the ethnic cleansing process was completed between October 1948 and the beginning of 1949. On October 21^st, Israeli forces occupied the small town of Beersheba, with a population of 5,000 people, and expelled its residents at gunpoint to Hebron. On October 29^th, they committed a massacre in which 455 people were killed in the village of Al-Dawayma, located between Beersheba and Hebron, to force its residents to leave. In November 1948, Israeli forces succeeded in occupying the southern cities of Ashdod and Al-Majdal, and expelled their residents to the Gaza Strip. In the same month, they arrived in the Negev region and worked to evacuate it during December 1948 of many of the Bedouin tribes that were inhabiting it.

By the end of the war, more than 400 villages had been razed and emptied of their inhabitants, and more than 13,000 Palestinians had been killed. The emerging State of Israel now controlled approximately 77% of the area of Mandatory Palestine, from which approximately 90% of its original Arab population was displaced. After this massive uprooting and dismemberment of Palestine and the eradication of the Arab character from most of it, it is no wonder that the Palestinians refer to the events of 1947-1948 as the Nakba (The catastrophe).

What happened on the Arab and international sides?

The truth about the seven Arab armies^[28]

Many wonder how the nascent Zionist entity and the Zionist gangs were able to defeat the armies of seven Arab countries in the 1948 war?! The Zionists also talk about how their entity was under overwhelming danger from these armies in an attempt to attract sympathy, as well as to arouse admiration for what they call their “victories” over these armies, and to highlight an artificial state of “heroism” in the establishment of the entity.

The truth is that the Arab armies participating in the war when the British occupation ended in mid-May 1948 did not exceed 21 thousand in total, while the total of the Zionist Jewish forces was 67 thousand, that is, more than three times the Arab armies. Even as the rounds of fighting continued, until the end of the war, the number of Arab armies reached about 40,000, compared to the Zionist army, which increased its number to 106,000. Therefore, the illusion associated with the “seven armies” loses its meaning at the first step of comparison.

On the other hand, most of the participating Arab armies were still under colonial influence or had recently been established and independent. The Jordanian army, for example, was still under the command of the Chief of Staff, British officer John Bagot Glubb, and in the senior ranks were about 45 British officers out of a total of 50. Glubb Pasha issued strict orders not to cross the lines of the Palestine partition decision, meaning that he was concerned with confirming the partition decision, not liberating Palestine.

As for the Iraqi army, it came to the war without maps, and most of the armies had weak or non-existent information about the Zionist side. The Arab regimes did not mobilize their full energies for the battle, and their armies went to it as if they were on a military outing, completely underestimating the status of the Jewish-Zionist forces. Instead of mobilizing and arming the Palestinians, some armies disarmed the Palestinians. The Arab armies suffered from weak armament, spoilage of weapons, and the ban of major powers on exporting weapons to them during the war.

While emphasizing the courage and heroism of the Arab soldiers in combat (for example: there were remarkable heroics of the Jordanian army in Jerusalem, the Iraqi army in Jenin, and the Egyptian army in the south…), they were plagued by many incompetent military and political leaders, or by harsh conditions that did not enable them to fight on an equal footing whether in terms of military capabilities or logistical equipment.

As for the Zionist enemy, it had completed its political, military, economic, educational, training and social structures under the auspices of the British occupation, and had effective political and military field leadership on the ground, while the Palestinian leadership was absent outside Palestine. The Zionists were able to obtain specific arms deals that gave them superior advantages in combat, such as obtaining 24 British aircraft and a huge quantity of Czech weapons (with permission and guidance from the Soviet Union), including 40 fighter aircraft, and they obtained three American bomber aircraft.

The loss of most of Palestine after the entry of Arab armies

Many believe that the 1948 Palestine War began with the end of the British occupation and the entry of Arab armies into Palestine. Some may have thought that the armies preserved what remained of Palestine after their entry. In fact, the Palestine War began immediately after the issuance of the United Nations resolution to partition Palestine on November 29^th 1947; that is, about five and a half months before the entry of the Arab armies. The people of Palestine (whom the British suppressed, crushed, killed and displaced throughout the occupation, fought extensive battles with weak capabilities throughout that period, and the Holy Jihad forces, the Salvation Army, various volunteers, and others suffered from severe weakness in armament, logistical support and military mobilization, in light of the negative behavior of the Arab regimes including preventing the entry of volunteers (especially through Egypt) or severely restricting it.

However, the people of Palestine preserved more than about 80% of the land of Palestine throughout those months. Most of the Zionist expansion after May 15^th came during the presence of Arab armies; Akka fell on May 17^th the areas of Lodd, Ramla, Nazareth, and Shafa Amr fell on July 9^th to 17^th 1948, and in the second half of October, the areas of Al-Majdal, Ashdod, Iraq Al-Suwaidan, and what remained of northern Palestine fell. As for the Negev region (which represents about half of the area of Palestine), it fell in March 1949.

The decision to partition Palestine

After World War II, Britain had withdrawn from its White Paper issued in 1939, which committed itself to a Palestinian state within ten years, not to transform Palestine into a Jewish state, and to be satisfied with the implementation of the Balfour Declaration. The issue of Palestine’s future was raised to the United Nations General Assembly, which formed a special committee that recommended dividing it into two Jewish and Arab states. In the end, a draft resolution was submitted giving 54.7% of the land of Palestine to the Jewish state (14,400 km²), 44.8% to the Arab state (11,780 km²) and about 0.5% to the Jerusalem area, as an international zone.

What many do not know is that when the decision to partition Palestine was issued by the United Nations General Assembly on November 29^th 1947, the people of Palestine still owned about 94% of the land of Palestine, and that all the attempts of the Zionists, the measures of the British occupation, the methods of oppression and force majeure over the course of the previous thirty years to seize their land had failed. The Palestinians were still representing the majority of the population residing on its land by about 68.5%, although the Jews increased their numbers 13-fold through immigration and settlement (from 50,000 in 1918 to 650,000 in 1948) through immigration that took place under the auspices and protection of the British occupation. Therefore, the partition of Palestine could not have been implemented except through massacres, military aggression, and ethnic cleansing – which of course were provided with international cover and sponsorship, especially by the major powers – led by Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union, and others.

Securing the partition decision required a two-thirds majority of those present and participating in the vote, and the major powers did not have a two-thirds majority before it was taken. On November 26^th, a vote almost took place. If it had taken place, the partition project would have been dropped, but the president of the assembly – the Brazilian delegate – postponed the session. The Zionists and Americans launched a feverish campaign that succeeded in increasing the supportive votes by various means. The wives of Latin American representatives received many gifts, most of which were diamonds and expensive fur coats.

The Haitian government (which had voted against partition) ordered its delegate to vote for it, after America promised it economic assistance. American businessman Robert Nathan used his economic influence to buy Guatemala’s vote, and Firestone threatened Liberia economically if it did not switch from abstention to support. The Philippines was subjected to intense pressure, and its president intervened, ordering his delegate to approve the decision. According to these dirty games, the fate of a people was decided. On November 29^th 1947, the partition resolution was won by a majority of 33 to 13, with 10 countries abstaining.

This United Nations resolution is one of the strangest international resolutions:

1. The decision was issued in violation of one of the most important goals of the international organization, which is the right of peoples to self-determination, as the Palestinian people and their inalienable right to determine their future were ignored.
2. The decision lacks any legal basis, as the General Assembly does not have the authority to dispose of the affairs of the territories placed under the mandate, including Palestine. The United Nations established the “trusteeship” system and had to enter into negotiations to place Palestine under trusteeship, and decide to end the mandate over Palestine, if it had achieved its goals of preparing the country for independence.
3. The Charter of the United Nations or any of its principal bodies does not have the authority to divide an internationally defined territory against the wishes of its inhabitants.
4. In international jurisprudence – prevailing at the time – this decision was considered a non-binding recommendation, issued in accordance with Article 10 of the United Nations Charter, and it could not affect the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people.
5. The division decision – arguably – is contrary to justice in distribution, as it does not take into account the percentage of land ownership (the Jews do not own more than 6%), nor does it take into account the percentage of the population (the Jews are 31.5%).
6. When the partition decision gave 54.7% of the land of Palestine to the Jewish state, half of the population of this land was still Palestinians, and according to the natural increase, the Palestinians would have obtained the majority according to the natural increase in a few years. Therefore, it was implicitly understood that the Zionists would (with international cover or silence) displace the Palestinian people to ensure a Jewish majority.
7. Although the Zionist Jews made a desperate effort to make the decision a success and received it with great joy, the Zionist entity never “officially” recognized this decision, and treated it as a fait accompli and a procedural issue. It then sought to bypass it by launching military campaigns that expanded its entity to 77% as a result of the 1948 war, and more than 800,000 Palestinians were displaced, out of about 925,000 who resided in the land on which the entity was established. After the end of the 1948 war, the United Nations or the major powers did not oblige the Zionist entity to return to the borders proposed in the Palestine partition resolution. Rather, they sought to install the armistice lines as new borders for the borders proposed in the Palestine partition resolution.

Likewise, the State of Israel – to this day – has not approved a constitution that specifies the borders of this state like the rest of the world. In general, the partition decision legalized injustice and provided cover for the usurpation of land and sanctities, in a way that contradicts the foundations on which the international system and human rights were built.

Displacement of Palestinians 1949-1956

The expulsion and displacement of Palestinians continued in the period between 1949 and 1956 from the lands controlled by Israel after the signing of the 1949 armistice and in the context of the establishment of the State of Israel. This period was pivotal for the forced displacement of Palestinians and the escalation of tension on the ceasefire lines, until the tripartite aggression in 1956.

Between 1949 and 1950, according to right wing Jewish historian Benny Morris, Israel displaced about 30,000 to 40,000 Palestinians and Bedouins. It also destroyed and evacuated many villages along the ceasefire lines and the Lebanese border area, and then resettled many villages for Jewish immigrants and military forces.

In the period following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Israel held its first general elections on January 25^th 1949, with Chaim Weizmann becoming Israel’s first president, and David Ben-Gurion of the Mapai party becoming prime minister, as he was in the interim government. Ben-Gurion confirmed his strong rejection of the return of Palestinian refugees in an Israeli Cabinet decision in June 1948, and in a letter to the United Nations dated August 2^nd 1949, which included the text of a statement issued by Moshe Sharett on August 1^st 1948, clarifying the basic position of the Israeli government, which is to seek to find a solution, not through the return of refugees to Israel, but through the resettlement of the Palestinian Arab refugee population in other countries.

The Israeli government believed that the armistice agreements gave them 3 indisputable rights:

1. That the ceasefire was binding on regular armies, paramilitary forces and civilians.
2. The Cessation Line should be treated as an international border, and be formally recognized in the final peace agreement.
3. The right to settle Jews on all lands within their territory, with the right to develop the economy without regard to the rights of previous owners.

On the contrary, the Arab countries saw that the General Armistice Agreements affirmed 3 rights:

1. The agreements were a truce and did not end the state of war.
2. The cease-fire lines were temporary and not international borders.
3. The ceasefire agreements did not cancel the refugees’ right to return.

The Tripartite aggression

In late October 1956, Israeli, French, and British forces launched a joint war on Egypt. Although these forces achieved rapid military successes at first, international pressure exerted by the United States and the Soviet Union greatly restricted their freedom of movement. The result of this war, which was later known as the “The Tripartite aggression” became clear: the decline of Britain’s imperial power; the strengthening of the American presence in the region; the emergence of Cairo as a symbolic center for Arab resistance; and even at the level of the peoples of the entire Global South, Israel’s natural alliance with colonial countries, and the continued determination of Palestinians to resist their expulsion.

Despite the military and social “crushing” that the Palestinians faced in the 1948 war, they refused to surrender and to submit to the post-war reality. A number of those who were deported or forced to leave their homes during the war returned to their lands and family members in Palestine. Despite the lack of Arab coordination and institutional support, and Israeli attempts – often fatal – to halt or reverse these return efforts, they returned and increased the population of 1948 Palestinians by approximately 30% by the early 1950s.

In a related matter, when Israel launched the war that David Ben-Gurion called the “war of infiltration” against Palestinian infiltration operations to attack the Israelis along the border, the Palestinians organized their resistance into paramilitary groups known as the “Feda’yeen”, and were stationed around the Israeli border with the fundamental goal of restoring their rights within the borders of their homeland.

The brutality of Israeli reprisals increased. In August 1953, an Israeli unit led by Ariel Sharon attacked the Bureij refugee camp in the Gaza Strip and killed at least 50 Palestinians. In mid-October 1953, an Israeli force led by Sharon also raided the town of Qibya in the West Bank and committed a massacre that killed 69 men, women and children. At the end of March 1954, Israeli forces launched an attack on the village of Nahalin in the West Bank, destroying seven homes and the village mosque, and causing the death of five members of the Palestinian National Guard, three members of the Arab Legion in eastern Jordan, and a Palestinian woman. During the years 1955 and 1956, Israel launched a number of large-scale attacks on the Gaza Strip, the first of which, on February 28^th 1955, claimed the lives of 38 people. However, the Palestinian Feda’yeen continued their resistance, and in 1955 the Egyptian government supervised the training of Feda’yeen operating from Gaza and East Sinai.

The desire to punish the Feda’yeen prompted Israel to begin planning an attack on Egypt. Egypt’s submission, which constituted the main point of the conflict, would lead to a broader regional surrender. It found an ally in France, which strongly sought to consolidate its relationship with Israel following the outbreak of a war of liberation against its colonialism in Algeria in 1954. It also found an ally in Britain, after its long-term dominance over Egypt was shaken when Gamal Abdel Nasser assumed power in 1952 and the signing of the Evacuation Treaty in 1954.

The Suez Canal, which connects the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, was a pivotal cause of the war. The Egyptian-British confrontation over the canal and the presence of the huge British military base there preceded and accelerated the “Free Officers” Movement in 1952, led by Gamal Abdel Nasser, who following the overthrow of the monarchy launched an anti-colonial policy, first against Britain and France, and then later the United States of America. Rejecting American demands to integrate Egypt into the Baghdad Pact against the Soviet Union, Nasser purchased weapons from the Eastern Bloc; supported the revolutionaries fighting against French colonialism in Algeria; and attempted to manoeuvre between the parties of the Cold War to secure his country’s interests. On July 26^th 1956 Nasser announced Egypt’s nationalization of the Suez Canal and closed the canal to Israeli navigation.

Following the closure of the Suez Canal, France and Israel began planning the war against Egypt independently, and by the end of September, they began developing battle plans. France and Israel had hopes that Britain would join them, until this accession was agreed upon in a secret meeting held between October 22^nd and 24^th in Sèvres – France, after which joint political and military plans were drawn up between the three countries to overthrow Nasser’s regime. The French Prime Minister, Mollet, met with the British Prime Minister, Anthony Eden, and the Israeli Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, and concluded a secret agreement that Israel would attack Egypt, providing a pretext for an Anglo-French invasion of the Suez Canal. Ben-Gurion ordered General Moshe Dayan, his chief of staff, to plan an attack on Egypt. On October 29^th 1956, the Israeli attack was led by an air landing to take control of the Mitla Pass in Sinai, and heavy fighting ensued. The joint plan stipulated that Israel would invade Sinai first, and Britain and France would then intervene under the pretext of putting an end to hostilities, to force the withdrawal of both parties – Egypt and Israel – from the canal zone to protect international navigation.

The 1967 war was a continuation of the military operation that failed in 1956, which France, England, and Israel waged against Egypt, indicating that Egypt’s acquisition of Soviet weapons in 1955 was the first spark of these wars and the real reason for their outbreak.

One Hebrew website said that the most dynamic leader of Israel at the time, General Moshe Dayan, the Israeli Minister of Defense during the 1967 war, was the architect of victory in the two wars against Egypt and the Arabs, as he was considered the political successor to David Ben-Gurion, the first prime minister of Israel. Dayan was the one who planned for the war from October 1955, when the scope of the first Soviet arms deal with Egypt became clear. Ben Gurion decided that Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser must be “crushed,” explaining that the Suez War in 1956 was directly related to this issue. The Hebrew website explained that the Israelis, with the help of the British and French, overrun most of the Sinai Peninsula in 1956 and broke the back of the Egyptian resistance within five days, as the site published maps of military progress, day after day, in the decisive period of the war.

On October 29, the Protocol of Sèvres came into force.

The story of Suez 1956 topped studies on the principles of political science, the story of the rise and fall of empires, and the victory of popular resistance after joining the political leadership. Thus, the tripartite aggression against Egypt remained a witness to the decline of the times of the British and French empires, a record of the stage of change in the Middle East region, and an equation of balance of the powers in the world, as a result of Egypt’s victory in a war launched by Britain, France, and Israel in 1956 following leader Gamal Abdel Nasser’s nationalization of the Suez Canal. Nasser acted intelligently and thoughtfully when nationalizing the canal, when he announced Egypt’s readiness to pay for Britain’s share in the Suez Canal Company, using at the same time Egypt’s sovereign right to nationalize a water canal that is part of its territory. Thus, he deprived Britain of the legal justification to launch aggression or rejection.

Israel carried out its attack on Sinai and the war broke out. Britain and France issued an ultimatum to stop the war and to force the Egyptian and the Israeli armies to withdraw to a distance of 10 kilometers from both banks of the Suez Canal, which meant that Egypt lost its control over the Suez Canal. When Egypt refused, British and French forces landed in Port Said and the Suez Canal area. It was clear for all to see that the unravelling events were a conspiracy between the three countries.

With the beginning of the tripartite aggression against Egypt, Gamal Abdel Nasser ascended to the pulpit of Al-Azhar Mosque, and addressed his people directly from heart to heart in the darkest and most difficult circumstances, and shouted: “We will fight until the last drop of blood! We will never surrender.” This was the way in which the young leader (38 years old) responded to the developments of the crisis that worsened until it reached the point of the brutal military invasion of Egypt due to the repercussions of his decision to nationalize the Suez Canal. At the time that Nasser was delivering a speech at Al-Azhar, the huge British royal fleet consisting of aircraft carriers, battleships, destroyers, and speedboats, along with its French ally, was anchoring on the shores of northern Egypt and beginning their attack; targeting the cities of Port Said and Port Fouad and their surrounding neighbourhoods.

The aggression forces prepared for their attack on the Canal Zone with a concentrated aerial bombardment on Cairo and Alexandria, which hit many targets, including the Egyptian Radio building. The number of British and French forces attacking Egypt reached 80,000, in addition to the forces of the Israeli entity. The situation was extremely frightening, as Egypt – whose army had not recovered from the effects of defeat in the 1948 Palestine War – let alone 70 years of British occupation, was being subjected to a comprehensive attack, while “Great” Britain, which was leading the attack, had emerged victorious a few years earlier from World War Two.

In light of the inequality in military power, Nasser called on his people to engage in popular resistance and a guerrilla war to confront the British-French enemy forces that had begun landing in Port Said. He decided to open the Egyptian army’s coffers to the people to obtain weapons that would enable them to confront the invaders, and he began organizing the popular resistance.

Immediately, US President Dwight D. Eisenhower applied significant diplomatic pressure, through the United Nations and outside, to stop the conflict. Soviet Prime Minister and Defense Minister Nikolai Bulganin sent “warning messages.”

On November 5^th 1956, Minister Marshal Nikolai Bulganin issued an ultimatum in letters to the Prime Minister of France, Guy Mollet, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Anthony Eden, and the Prime Minister of Israel, David Ben-Gurion, to stop military operations against Egypt. He threatened to hit Paris, London, and Tel Aviv with missiles if they did not withdraw their forces from Egypt. Here is the text of the frank and famous Soviet ultimatum to the British Prime Minister that was issued after the legendary steadfastness of the valiant people of Port Said during the tripartite aggression against Egypt, which began on October 29, 1956, and ended with the defeat of the aggression countries and their withdrawal on December 23^rd 1956:

Sir Anthony Eden,

The Soviet Government considers it necessary to draw your attention to the aggressive war which is being waged by Britain and France against Egypt, which has the most dangerous consequences for the cause of general peace. The special session of the General Assembly adopted a resolution for the immediate cessation of hostilities and the withdrawal of foreign troops from Egyptian territory. Ignoring this, Britain, France and Israel are intensifying their military actions, continuing their barbaric bombardment of Egyptian towns and villages, and landing troops on Egyptian territory. The British Government, together with France and Israel, have thus embarked on a path of unprovoked aggression against Egypt. “The reasons given by Britain to justify the aggression are completely unacceptable. The British Government declared that it had intervened in the Israeli-Egyptian conflict to prevent the Suez Canal zone from becoming a theatre of hostilities. With the Anglo-French intervention, the Suez Canal zone has become a theatre of war. Traffic on the Canal has been disturbed, bringing harm to the interests of States using the Canal. “The aggression against Egypt cannot be justified by the special interests of France and Britain in navigation on the Canal. The Governments of Britain and France cannot usurp the right of decision in matters concerning freedom of navigation on the Canal, because there are also other interested Powers. These Powers condemn the aggressive actions of Britain and France and demand that peace and order should be preserved in the Middle East. It is well known that freedom of navigation on the Canal has been fully ensured by Egypt. The problem of the Sues Canal was merely a pretext for Anglo-French aggression, the aims of which are more far-reaching than appears. “It cannot be concealed that an aggressive war is being waged against the Arab Peoples, against the national independence of the States of the Near and Middle East, for the purpose of restoring the regime of colonial slavery rejected by those peoples. Nothing can justify the fact that the armed forces of Britain and France—two great Powers, both permanent members of the Security Council— have attacked a country which only recently gained its independence and which does not have sufficient means for its defense. “In what position would Britain have found herself if she had been attacked by more powerful States possessing every kind of modern destructive weapon? There are countries which need not have sent a navy or air force to the coasts of Britain but could have used other means, such as rocket techniques. If rocket weapons had been used against Britain and France, they would probably have called it a barbarous action. Yet in what way does the inhuman attack made by the armed forces of Britain and France on Egypt differ from this? … “We maintain that the British Government must … put an end to the war in Egypt. We call upon you, upon Parliament, upon the Labour Party, upon the trade unions and the people of Britain— stop aggression stop the bloodshed. War may spread to other countries and become a third world war.

Marshal Bulganin

The British government announced a ceasefire on November 6^th. By the end of December, British and French forces withdrew and were replaced by units of the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF). As for the Israeli government, it initially resisted withdrawal from Sinai and Gaza, and Israeli officials hoped to annex them, but international insistence ultimately led to its withdrawal from them in March 1957.

As always, Israel accompanied its military operations with massacres against Palestinian civilians, even inside Israel itself. On October 29^th 1956, and in an attempt to pre-empt any interference from fighters (Palestinian or Jordanian) from the West Bank, Israel imposed a curfew starting at five in the afternoon on seven villages. Including the village of “Kafr Qasim” in the Triangle border area. Despite not receiving any notification of the curfew before they had arrived home from their work outside the village. Israeli border police opened fire and killed 48 Palestinians, including 6 women and 23 children. On November 3^rd under the pretext of war, Israeli forces killed 275 Palestinians in the town of “Khan Yunis” in the Gaza Strip. After the fighting ended, Israel killed another 110 Palestinians in “Rafah”, on the border between Gaza and Egypt. During its withdrawal from Sinai, the Israeli army destroyed the infrastructure in the areas it had previously occupied.

Despite their initial military success, the three allies against Egypt suffered a serious diplomatic and political defeat by the end of the war. The colonial regime, represented by Britain, France, and Israel, paved the way for a new Cold War in which the United States and the Soviet Union would shape international relations. One of the indicators of this transformation is the US President’s announcement, in a speech he delivered before Congress on January 5^th 1957, of what was known as the Eisenhower Doctrine, which focused on the project of defending the Middle East against the Soviet Union.

Under the leadership of Nasser, Egypt emerged as a prominent leader in the Non-Aligned Movement at the international level, and a role model for the Arab national resistance against Israel at the regional level, which strengthened the belief of many Palestinians that the Arab countries would lead them to liberation. Immediately following the 1956 War, Palestinians also began to organize their own guerrilla struggle. Undoubtedly then 1957 was the genesis of the “Fatah” movement – which in time would become the most prominent Palestinian armed group.

Palestine from 1956 to 1967

On March 8^th 1957, Egypt and Israel agreed to settle the “Suez Crisis” with complete Israeli withdrawal from the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip, after they had occupied them following the tripartite aggression against Egypt in 1956. The two parties also agreed on the entry of United Nations (UNEF) forces into the areas from which they were withdrawn, for the purpose of protecting and monitoring the ceasefire. At the time, Israel considered that Egypt’s closure of the waterway near the island of Tiran to Israeli ships would be considered a “sufficient reason” for war if it happened.

The residents of the Gaza Strip rejected the idea of the presence of international forces in their area, and went out in demonstrations against the international forces that lasted a whole week, demanding the return of the Egyptian administration to the Gaza Strip, and the withdrawal of UNEF from it. In the face of this rejection, the international force were unable to manage the Gaza Strip and withdrew to its borders with the Sinai Desert, and the Egyptian administration returned to controlling security and managing the affairs of the Gaza Strip’s residents. This step helped improve the relationship of the residents of the Gaza Strip with the Egyptian administration at that time.

The Setback

In June 1967, the Third Arab-Israeli War broke out, at the end of which Israeli forces were able to occupy Sinai, the Syrian “Golan” Heights, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The Israelis called the war the “Six Day War” because in six days they achieved a crushing military victory over the armies of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan. In the Arab world, it became known as the setback. On the Palestinian side, the results of the war represented a major setback, as the remainder of historic Palestine fell under Israeli military rule, and on the regional level, aspirations for Arab unity seemed more distant than ever before.

When Israel decided in 1963 to divert the water course of the Jordan River, the political climate in the region did not predict the possibility of war, so the Arab response was limited to holding the Arab summit in Cairo in January 1964 and adopting a decision to plan to divert the tributaries of the Jordan River, and to establish a Palestinian political entity. However, tension began to escalate rapidly from the beginning of 1965, when the “Fatah” movement, supported by Syria, began sending its armed groups to Israel, and Syria and Jordan began preparing for a project to divert the tributaries of the Jordan River.

The spring of 1967 witnessed a new escalation in tension resulting from increasing Israeli threats to launch a massive attack on Syria, which continued to provide support for Palestinian guerrilla operations, and signed a mutual defense treaty with Egypt in November 1966. On April 7^th 1967, Israel carried out its threats and attacked the Syrian border areas. Its aircraft clashed with Syrian aircraft over Damascus, shooting down six Syrian MiG-21 aircrafts.

In the face of the increasing possibility of Israel launching a comprehensive attack on Syria, especially after information was received from the Soviet Union on May 13^th 1967, indicating that Israel was mobilizing its forces along the Syrian front, the Egyptian government announced on May 15^th that its armed forces were on alert, and the next day demanded a withdrawal of the United Nations Emergency Forces UNEF, established after the 1956 war, from “Sharm el-Sheikh” and Gaza also decided on May 22^nd to close the Strait of “Tiran” (at the entrance of the Gulf of “Aqaba” to the Red Sea) to Israeli navigation.

On May 30^th Jordan joined the mutual defense treaty between Egypt and Syria, after its government became certain that war was imminent. Meanwhile, the formation of a “national unity” government was announced in Israel, in which Menachem Begin, leader of the right-wing Herut Party, participated for the first time. While the administration of US President Lyndon B. Johnson was publicly claiming to seek to ease tensions in the Middle East and urging Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser to “avoid hostilities”, it was continuing to supply Israel with modern weapons and sending signals that it would not oppose an attack by its forces against Egypt with the aim of destroying the Egyptian army, shaking Abdel Nasser’s leadership position in the Arab world and weakening the influence of the Soviet Union in the region politically and militarily.

On the morning of June 5^th 1967, Israel launched a surprise attack on the Egyptian Air Force; with its planes succeeding in just two hours in almost completely destroying the Air Force and the runways of Egyptian airports. The battles in the West Bank were accompanied by a large population displacement, especially from the Palestinian refugee camps in the Jordan Valley. Palestinians from the Gaza Strip also attempted to migrate towards the West Bank to move from there into Jordan. In the Golan Heights, Israeli forces expelled most of the Arab population.

The defeat was particularly harsh on President Gamal Abdel Nasser, who announced in a speech to the Egyptian people on June 9^th that he alone bore responsibility for the defeat and would therefore resign from office. However, the million-man demonstrations that broke out in the streets of Egyptian cities over two days forced him to retract his resignation, after which he turned to trying to unite the Arab ranks. His efforts culminated at the end of August 1967 with the holding of the Arab summit in Khartoum, in the absence of Syria. The summit witnessed a reconciliation between Abdel Nasser and King Faisal, King of Saudi Arabia, following the agreement to withdraw Egyptian forces from Yemen. Among its results was the agreement of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Libya to provide significant financial aid to Egypt and Jordan.

After the head of the Palestine Liberation Organization, “Ahmed Al-Shugairi”, threatened to withdraw from it, in protest against what he called the Arab countries’ willingness to “betray” the Palestinian cause, the Khartoum Summit, at the end of its work, on September 1^st 1967, approved the “Khartoum Statement,” which affirmed the Arab countries’ determination to act collectively. In order to secure the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Arab lands they occupied after June 5^th 1967, “on the basis of principles recognized by all Arab countries, which are: no conciliation, no recognition and no negotiation with Israel, and guaranteeing the rights of the Palestinian people in their homeland.”

And after Five months of deliberations, on November 22^nd 1967, the Security Council reached Resolution No. 242, proposed by the British envoy, which affirmed the necessity of Israel’s withdrawal from (the) territories it occupied during the war in exchange for ending the state of hostility and recognizing the right of all countries in the region to live in peace within borders. Safe and free navigation in the Suez Canal and the Gulf of Aqaba, and achieving a just solution to the refugee problem.

The June War provided an opportunity for Israel to achieve its goal of regional expansion. The Zionist leadership did not see Israel’s post-1948 borders as permanent borders, and remained hopeful of recovering what had become in its hands in 1956 and then escaped due to international pressure. In addition, the war contributed to alleviating the severity of the economic crisis that Israel was witnessing, the results of which were the unemployment rate reaching 10% and the decline of Jewish immigration. Israel quickly began to reap the fruits of the victory it had achieved, as it decided to annex East Jerusalem. It followed the annexation decision with rapid steps, from the first days, to intensify settlement operations. It also initiated projects to build Jewish settlements in the Golan Heights.

The defeat of the regular Arab armies in the June War led to an intensification of Palestinian guerrilla action, and the transfer of the leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to the hands of armed Palestinian organizations. However, at the regional level, it caused the decline of the Arab nationalist movement in exchange for the beginning of the awakening of the Islamic movements and the acceptance of the Arab regimes of the presence of Israel as a fait accompli in the region, especially after Egypt and Jordan agreed to Security Council Resolution No. 242, and the goal of “removing the effects of aggression” replaced the principle of “liberating Palestine”.

On the international level, the war increased the importance of the Middle East as a major arena of the Cold War, as Israel imposed positioned itself as a strategic asset for the United States in the region. And the Soviet Union, despite the painful blow inflicted on its Egyptian and Syrian allies, became the only international power capable of rebuilding Arab armies and supporting Arab demands on the international scene.

The history of the Arab Levant region, Palestine, and the Zionist regime took a different path launched by the results of the June 1967 war, and for this reason it is possible to talk about what came before and after the 1967 war.

The June defeat represented a turning point in contemporary Arab history, and Arab countries and peoples are still experiencing its repercussions to this day, despite the Arab regimes’ efforts to camouflage the defeat, first by softening the word itself, that is, turning it into just a “setback.” Secondly, by going beyond that in an attempt to turn the defeat into a victory, because Israel did not succeed in overthrowing the so-called “progressive regimes.”​

Sinai Liberation

Introduction

The setback led to an atmosphere of general Arab frustration, and to the emergence of surrender tendencies and self-flagellation amongst dozens of Arab intellectuals. On the other hand, a kind of radicalization appeared in the political discourse of the Palestinian National Action factions and others. Gamal Abdel Nasser was rebuilding the Egyptian army and waging the fiercest wars of attrition against the enemy shortly after the setback, when death overtook him on September 28^th 1970. Although his successor, Anwar Sadat, fought a successful battle against the enemy in 1973, with the army built by Nasser, it became clear that that battle was aimed at initiating the surrender process rather than completing the liberation of Arab land. Only a few years passed until Sadat visited the Zionist entity and began negotiations with it under American “sponsorship” at Camp David. With Egypt’s official withdrawal from the field of conflict with the enemy, the latter found a wider scope to invade Lebanon in 1978 and then in 1982. The series of Arab “peace” agreements with the enemy rolled on, always with the same “sponsorship”: from the May 17^th 1983 agreement concluded by the Lebanese Phalange authority with the enemy, through to the Oslo Accords in 1993 between the PLO and this enemy, to “Wadi Araba in” 1994 between the Jordanian authority and the same enemy. Israeli embassies, commercial and representative offices were opened in places other than an Arab capital. Steps for artistic, sports, economic, academic, and “religious” normalization were repeated between the enemy and some Arab countries, such as the Emirates, Qatar, and Bahrain. Ending with the “Abraham Accords” for gradual Arab-Israeli normalization, but free and comprehensive in its ultimate goals. Until we have reached the nadir today with regimes that have never participated in the battle to liberate Palestine, such as the UAE regime, concluding a peace treaty with “Israel,” and with shameless steps such as the UAE ambassador’s visit to the entity’s chief rabbi to obtain his “blessing.”

Sinai Liberation War

The October 1973 War changed the course of history, as the Egyptian Armed Forces were able to inflict heavy losses on the Israeli occupation; from the destruction of the impregnable “Bar Lev Line” (as described by Tel Aviv) to the liberation of the Sinai Peninsula, following its occupation in 1967.

As for its names, it ranges from the October War (Egypt) to the Tishreen War (Syria) and the Ramadan War (Islamic), and on the other hand, the Kippur War (Israeli). It was also described according to its goals and objectives among the Arab parties participating in it. Syria wanted liberation; whilst Egypt’s goal was mobilization or just bringing movement in the process, knowing that they coordinated it and fought it together, that, the names were multiple, the goals varied and the war was the same.

Between the defeat of 1967 and the Fourth Arab-Israeli War in 1973, many events occurred on the Arab side, and many leaders disappeared until new leaders emerged. The most prominent events during the six years were the absence of President Gamal Abdel Nasser; the arrival of Assad Snr to power in Syria; the Baath Party assuming power in Iraq; the emergence of new leaders in both Libya and Sudan; and a new leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Then came the Battle of “Karama” (dignity) in March 1968, which the Jordanian army fought, creating a state of optimism that restored confidence and hope to the Arab citizen and soldier in the possibility of confrontation and even victory, so that the Palestinian organizations adopted this victory and exploited it to their advantage. Then conditions fluctuated between them, leading to an armed clash in September 1970, known as “Black September” in which thousands of Palestinian resistance fighters were killed. The conflict leads to the final departure of the organizations from the longest front with Palestine, and the organizations are subsequently deported to Lebanon, and after a few years, strife occurs again. But the war of attrition that took place on the Egyptian and Syrian fronts reflected an Arab spirit that did not submit, and Israel realized that the matter did not end with what it achieved in 1967. Aside from the armed struggle, political efforts were also ongoing at this time aimed at returning Israel to the pre-1967 borders; however these endeavors failed and ultimately led to the next war.

On Saturday, the sixth of October, corresponding to the tenth of Ramadan in 1973, at two in the afternoon, both Egypt and Syria launched an attack at the same time by air and land. “Yasser Arafat” (PLO leader) always said that the war was not only on two fronts, but on three, as the third front was the Palestinian front from southern Lebanon, and “Israel” too recognized this.

Whilst it was undoubtedly a military victory; but none of the stated aims of this war were actually achieved. Syria lost the Golan Heights. The Syrians accused President Sadat of deception, and the Iraqis who participated returned to their country angry, objecting to Sadat’s ceasefire. Sadat stopped the attack while he was at the height of his advance, contrary to the battle coordination with his Syrian ally and the advice of the military leaders who made his victories possible. He was outwardly fighting Israel, but inwardly he was seeking to negotiate with the Americans and replace them with the Soviets, with whose weapons he fought. Sadat was the leader of his rising class in reversing all of Nasser’s independent nationalist and anti-colonial policies, which is most important. Therefore, reconciliation with Israel, or more correctly, liquidation of the Palestinian issue, was one of his most important priorities.

Sadat completely apostatized from the line of Nasser, not only economically, socially, and culturally, but on the political level, internally and externally, and thus on the Arab level. The liberation of Sinai, or more precisely, this apostasy had the most severe consequences for the Palestinian cause. Of course, this apostasy had negative repercussions foremost on Egyptians as well at all levels, but that is not our topic here.

Suddenly, after four wars with the Zionist enemy, our problem with the enemy was no longer the issue of its occupation of Arab land and the displacement of its people, but rather it became a “psychological” problem, which can be solved by smiles and perhaps hugs, so it was his dramatic visit to Israel and his speech in the Knesset, which led to disintegration. The gradual breakup of the collective Arab system, which also began – gradually – to evade the three “no’s” that resulted from the Arab summit conference in Khartoum shortly after the defeat of 1967 (no reconciliation – no recognition – no negotiation).

The first steps on this gradual way path were in June 1974 when the Palestine Liberation Organization PLO adopted the Ten-Point Program, which allowed for reaching compromise solutions with Israel with the aim of restoring Palestinian control over all of the historic land of Palestine. Some factions broke away from the PLO and formed the “Rejection Front.” In October of the same year, the Arab League recognized the Palestine Liberation Organization as “the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people” and made it a full member of the League.

Camp David Agreement

On September 17, 1978, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin signed the Camp David Accords, which were framework agreements for concluding the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty in 1979. They represented the first expression of an Arab country’s desire to reach a separate peace agreement with Israel outside of framework of any comprehensive agreement. This development – coupled with the importance of Egypt in the Arab world – constituted a serious blow to the negotiating positions of other Arab countries; in particular to the Palestinians who were also excluded from the negotiations. But the main source of danger in these agreements was the marginalization of the prevailing concept that Israel could not achieve Peace with its Arab neighbours without addressing the Palestinian issue first.

Following the election of Jimmy Carter in 1976 as President of the United States, his administration reconvened the Geneva Conference under joint US-Soviet auspices (which only saw one session held, on December 21^st 1973) to negotiate an Arab-Israeli settlement following the 1973 war. Although some progress was made, the prospect of a comprehensive agreement was in doubt, due to internal Arab conflicts and the victory in Israel in May 1977 of Menachem Begin’s Likud Party, which demanded full Jewish sovereignty over “Greater Israel” (including Jordan), which – from the first moment – prompted him to intensify settlement activity in the West Bank and Gaza. Faced with the impossibility of achieving a comprehensive settlement and the desire to prove the sincerity of his loyalty to the West, Sadat decided to enter into bilateral talks with Israel. He announced in early November 1977 his readiness to go to Jerusalem to address the Knesset; so that Begin, after seeing an opportunity to break the united Arab front against Israel, issued an invitation to Sadat, who arrived in Jerusalem on November 19^th.

In the Knesset, despite Sadat’s conciliatory tone, and despite the fact that his presence before the Knesset was evidence of “the Arabs’ agreement to live with you in lasting peace based on justice,” his speech was met with sharp rejection from Begin, who placed the blame for the failure to reach peace on the Arab countries, reiterating Israel’s fixed conditions for any agreement. However, as Sadat went ahead with the Egyptian-Israeli talks, he had lost the support of all Arab actors and was dependent only on continued American support. His political speech at this stage was a disdain for the Arab role and a glorification of the American role, with enviable frankness.

Sadat had abandoned the balance of a united Arab front and the card of recognition of Israel that he had lost as a result of his visit to Jerusalem. He was under great pressure to leave Camp David with some kind of agreement. As for Begin, he was not facing significant internal pressure, because his negotiating position was strong, which was that Sinai was the main bargaining chip, and his willingness to exchange only its land for peace without giving up any part of “Greater Israel.”

The negotiations that US President Carter invited both Sadat and Begin to the Camp David resort reached the text of a “framework for a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel,” according to which Israel would withdraw from Sinai in exchange for normal diplomatic relations with Egypt and freedom of passage through the Suez Canal and the Strait of Tiran, in addition to restricting Egyptian armament in Sinai and establishing a demilitarized zone along the Israeli border. On March 26^th 1979, Sadat and Begin signed a peace treaty based on these principles in Washington.

As for the “Framework for Peace in the Middle East” agreement, it stipulated principles for a comprehensive peace process based on UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 “in all their parts.” The first part of the “framework” called for the election of an “autonomous authority in the West Bank and Gaza” from the residents of those areas, as part of a process agreed upon during negotiations between Egypt, Israel, and Jordan, after which a “transitional phase” of five years would begin, during which negotiations would be held to determine the status. The final agreement for the West Bank and Gaza, and its culmination will be a “peace treaty between Israel and Jordan”.

The second part deals with Egyptian-Israeli relations, which will be governed by a peace agreement between the two parties. A third part stipulates the provisions that must be applied in peace treaties between Israel and neighboring Arab countries; including full recognition, economic development, and ending the boycott, in addition to the United States playing a distinct role in the negotiation process.

Many Arabs considered the “Framework” agreement doomed to failure, as it was negotiated without the involvement of most of the key actors, most notably the Palestine Liberation Organization, and was extremely vague on key issues (such as Jerusalem, which was not mentioned as Begin and Sadat were unable to reach an agreement on this topic).

After facing great pressure within his party, Begin began to evade: Israel, as he claimed, would never give up sovereignty over the West Bank and Gaza, and the “elected self-governing authority” mentioned in the agreement was little more than limited administrative self-rule (as Begin explained Security Council Resolution 242 publicly states that it does not oblige Israel to cede the West Bank and Gaza).

The Palestine Liberation Organization rejected the agreement for a number of reasons, the most important of which is that accepting a “transitional phase” lasting five years without stipulating the fate of the occupied territories after its expiration gives the occupation legitimacy and gives it time to establish more settlements. The UN General Assembly also rejected the Framework for the Middle East Peace Process because it was concluded without its participation and that of the primary interested party, the Palestine Liberation Organization. On November 5^th 1978, the Arab Summit in Baghdad condemned the Camp David Accords and warned Egypt that it would be subject to an economic and political boycott if it concluded an independent peace with Israel. It also moved the headquarters of the Arab League from Cairo to Tunisia.

The signing of a bilateral agreement between Israel and the largest and strongest Arab country did not break the Arab front only, but it made it difficult – almost impossible – to reach a settlement formula based on the principle of land in exchange for peace on other fronts and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.

On the way to Oslo

In addition to many armed resistance operations that took place inside and outside the occupied territories – there is no point in enumerating them here – there are some stations that must be mentioned to complete the picture.

In June 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon again and expelled the Palestine Liberation Organization from Beirut, where the resistance had sought refuge after its expulsion from Jordan in the Black September massacre of 1970. In September 1982, Israel’s Lebanese allies committed a massacre in the “Sabra and Shatila” camps in Beirut. Hundreds of Palestinian refugees were killed. The leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organization moved to Tunisia after Israel’s siege of Beirut and its storming, and remained in Tunisia until its move to Gaza in 1994. In December 1987, the first Palestinian “Intifada” (Uprising) erupted in the occupied Palestinian territories, and the Muslim Brotherhood in the Gaza Strip established the Islamic Resistance Movement (HAMAS), which adopted armed resistance as a path to liberation.

Oslo

The Oslo Accords between the PLO and the Israeli occupation state are considered one of the most miserable, disappointing and condescending of these agreements. 30 years have passed and they have not been fully implemented in the first place. This agreement, which promised the Palestinians a state and a prosperous economic future, was a political, economic, and even security failure. This is what has been proven by the successive uprisings since the Jerusalem uprising in 2000, and has also been proven by the individual resistance operations in the West Bank; the “Al-Aqsa” Gates movement; four wars on Gaza; and the recent uprising of Jerusalem, “Sheikh Jarrah”, and the occupied interior, which continues until now.

Although the international community has spent more than $30 billion on the Palestinian economy since the signing of the Oslo agreement in 1993, the Palestinians live in a very weak economic climate, dependent on a good security relationship and on “sacred” security coordination with the occupation. Their work depends entirely on the occupation (employing thousands of Palestinians as workers in the interior occupied in 1948) and in paying taxes and in import – export business. Also, the Paris Protocol (the economic annex to the Oslo Accords) did not clarify political, geographical, security, or economic borders! Gaza has been suffering, especially since 2006, from a sharp rise in poverty and unemployment, destruction of infrastructure due to repeated wars, and a blockade that restricts the import of food and medicine and prevents the export of agricultural and industrial products from Gaza, which has increased the economic misery of the Palestinians.

For the Palestinian leadership to agree to an agreement that gives it Gaza and Jericho first (i.e. 1.5% of the land of Palestine) is either stupidity or naivety. To trust a colonial enemy whose only concern is to replace you is stupidity and naivety, or it is a full-fledged crime of collusion. After Gaza and Jericho, the agreement defines a Palestinian state on 22% of the land of Palestine, while about 60% of this limited area is Land C, over which the Palestinian Authority has no authority – not merely to pass water pipes or open a road – without the permission of the occupation. In the end, Oslo effectively granted the Palestinians 10% of historic Palestine, while the other 10% (Land C) is home to more than 670,000 settlers. In Jerusalem there are about a quarter of a million settlers, in addition to 94 Israeli military bases in the West Bank. It is worth mentioning that on the eve of the 1993 Oslo Accords, the number of settlers in Jerusalem was 153,000 thousand, and their number in the West Bank was 105,000 thousand. What kind of peace is this that enhances the colonizer’s expansion and penetration into the land or area that he is supposed to have “given up” by agreement?! What kind of peace is this when the issue of Jerusalem is suspended forever and ever? When one party announces its annexation, disregarding the agreement, the other party comes out threatening and intimidating, but it does not withdraw from the agreement and does not hold its enemy accountable!

Giving up 78% of historic Palestine and accepting what Oslo offered is a voluntary abandonment of the inherent right of the Palestinian people to remain on their entire land as it was before 1948. Giving up 78% of Palestine means accepting the colonizer and his right to establish and maintain an entity.

Card shuffling tricks

Because the project of the State of Israel is colonial in origin, and because global colonialism is unable to always protect this entity by armed force, it has sought, from the very beginnings of its project until the present day, to create an entire intellectual system to “legitimize” this “implantation” process. This system was built on a number of lies, and it was and is still changing to adapt to the geo-strategic changes around it. The lies began that it was “a land without a people for a people without a land”, even though the whole world knows very well that this land has never been without a people for thousands of years and that this people is rooted in it and has its own civilization and history. As for what was called the landless people, it was not a people but a religious group gathered from the ends of the earth under the pretext of religious persecution.

As for the greatest catastrophe, it is the legality of usurping this land based on the promise of the gods of the Old Testament in the Torah, which gave the Jews of today this right after more than two thousand years. So, what do you think the world would look like today if we ignore modern human rights declarations and gave interpreters of different and contradictory religions the right to manage our world today? Religious massacres would certainly explode in all parts of the earth, engulfing Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, and the huge number of African and Asian religions. All of these religions would come upon us with groups like ISIS and its derivatives. Modern Zionism – represented by the hawks of the current Likud government in Israel – is nothing but the Jewish version of the Islamic ISIS. The persecution of Jews by Christians since the Middle Ages is nothing but proof of the fact that what distinguishes the modern era from the Middle Ages is the transfer of the legitimacy of political power from religion to the people. All constitutions of modern countries that aspire to democracy begin with the phrase “The people are the source of power”, meaning that the king, tsar, caliph, or other titles of power are no longer at the command of the Lord. Then the Zionists came in the middle of the twentieth century to turn back the clock of human development by more than a century and a half.

In our Arab countries, colonialism had its own policies. First, I rely on spreading this type of lie on ruling classes whose interests – and even their very existence – are linked to it, in order to dissolve the Arab bond in its view of the centrality of the Palestinian issue. The saying spread, “The Palestinians are the ones who sold their land.”. Fifty years after the “Nakba”, new historians from within Israel itself opened the files and revealed to the whole world that it is an obscene lie. They exposed the Zionist movement to the world with historical documents, saying that what happened in 1948 was massacres and ethnic cleansing.

This game of shuffling cards is also evident in the colonial media, and its negative effects are reflected at the global, regional and local levels, in the deliberate confusion between three different terms: Israeli, Zionist and anti-Semite. An Israeli is a citizen who holds Israeli citizenship, whatever his religion is, including many Palestinians who remained in their land after the Nakba. This capacity is nothing more than a legal paper. As for the Zionist, he is the person who embraces the principle of the right of the Jews to return to their historical “land” according to the promises of the Torah, and who calls this idea the Jewish National Liberation Movement. This principle is necessarily racist, because it is based on the preference of human beings over other human beings, and this is the definition of racism. As for anti-Semitism, it is a description of religious hostility that began in the ancient era, since the exodus of the Jews in the Roman Empire, and extended into the Middle Ages, with its intensity varying across geography and history, as a result of Christians’ persecution of Jews on the basis of interpretations of the Christian holy books in their Old and New Testaments. Then it reached its peak with the Nazi Holocaust of the Jews in the Third Reich, “Das dritte Reich”.

Confusing these terms leads to serious consequences in dialogues between different political forces, i.e. not only to misunderstanding, but to hostilities between comrades in the same trench, and, most dangerously, to rooting false and dangerous lies and concepts in the collective consciousness of the supporters of the cause, those who are expected to struggle for it. It is used against them as colonial propaganda.

We are certainly not against the Jews, as this is a religion like any other religion, and we are not against any religion or religious people. Rather, we are not against the “Israelis” as citizens. We are against the occupying “state” of Israel, which is based on apartheid. The state – everywhere – is a governing body based on a set of principles, and we are against these principles on which the State of Israel was founded and is still rooted in it, namely Zionism. For this reason, the State of Israel never agreed to the two-state solution, not even with the signing of the Oslo Accords. In fact, this country never wanted to reach real peace at all, except after completely getting rid of the Palestinians, meaning evacuating them all from all of Palestine… to where? It doesn’t matter.

War can be avoided, but peace cannot be avoided. For these combined reasons, I believe that peace must be achieved one day. I hope it will be soon, but unfortunately, I do not expect that. The solution – as it was the case in the recent past with fascism and Nazism in 1945 or the apartheid regime in South Africa in 1994 – will only come through victory over them, and after this victory a process begins, which may last decades, or even generations, but it is necessary and inevitable, as history has proven. After World War II in Germany, this process was called “Entnazifizierung” or denazification, which means “the removal of Nazism”. Therefore, I do not see peace prevailing in this entire region except in the solution of a single, democratic, secular state, on whose land all its citizens live with the same rights and the same duties, for each language or religion. Only in this way can peace come one day. But this directly conflicts with colonial interests. Therefore, peace will come in Palestine with the escalation of the pressure of the anti-colonial movement worldwide to the point that the occupying colonizer is forced to undertake the process of extracting Zionism, or dezionization. [29], [30]

Where are we now?

The Al-Aqsa flood operation has changed the Arab collective conscience, and the barbarism and criminality of the Israeli aircraft carpet bombing has changed the trends of Western and international public opinion. This will increase in light of the human tragedy of innocent Palestinian children, women and the elderly, the collective punishment and siege of the Gaza Strip, and the insistence of the Israeli rulers to continue this barbarism and blatant violation, not only for international law, but also for humanitarian law, despite this global rejection, and even from within Israel as well.

This led to the largest process of polarization at the global level, the impact of which may exceed what humanity witnessed in the early 1970s in the campaigns of solidarity with the Vietnamese people against the barbarism of the United States of America. Of course, modern social media has contributed to the speed and depth of influence. But the most important thing is that the ugly face of global colonialism has emerged with such clarity and spread, I think for the first time in history in this way. Humanity lined up behind Palestine and colonialism entrenched itself behind Israel.

Here we have to return to one of the most important conclusions of the late great Samir Amin when he asked the simple question: What is the difference between the form of colonialism before and after World War II?

Humanity has been plunged into two terrible world wars, in which it has no choice but to make, because they were simply wars between colonial powers (the countries of the center) among themselves to re-divide the cake of the colonies (the countries and peoples of the peripheries). Then the three decades after the Second War from 1945 to 1975 witnessed a process of restructuring this colonialism as a result of the fundamental developments that occurred of the means of production, that is the technological revolution that led to raising the productivity of the global monopolies in the center countries – traditionally colonial – to a level that necessarily made the entire world their economic sphere of influence. The partial spheres of influence over which they have competed with others before the WW II have become not enough for their economic growth. The new form of global colonialism became the unification of the countries of the center (the United States, Western Europe, and Japan) with each other against the countries of the peripheries, that is the rest of the countries of the entire world, in what Samir Amin called “collective colonialism”. The colonial countries were no longer competing with each other for the spoils and spheres of influence, but have begun to cooperate to collectively exploit all the capabilities of the Earth.

This restructuring had a natural reaction at all levels, especially at the ideological and geopolitical levels. It was the era of the Cold War and the bipolar world. This phase ended in the early 1990s with the massive collapse of the Soviet Union along with the rest of the “actual” socialist countries, as they called themselves. Humanity then entered the stage of unipolar world and complete chaos, the stage of capitalism’s savagery on a global level. This new and terrible situation was reflected in all liberation movements in the world, especially the Palestinian issue. We see this through the journey of the struggle of the Palestinian people, which we presented previously very briefly, which I hope did not short.

From the above, it can be said that the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation will constitute a point of change in policy paths, not only in the Middle East region, but also at the global level, which now constitutes a new phase, the multipolar world. The most important thing is the return of the spirit of mass solidarity of the younger generations around the world with the Palestinians, and also the popular revival of the Arab idea, on the ruins of the idea of “each country first” in terms of its national interests, regardless of the comprehensive Arab issues. This new polarization at the global level links the fate of the Palestinian issue to the path of the struggle for the liberation of humanity. In the future, the Palestinian issue will affect and be affected by this struggle, but more than at any time in the past.

Colonial propaganda today, that is, essentially Western, has tried – and is still trying – to obscure the facts of the liberation battle launched by the Al-Aqsa flood. First, that it is a “terrorist operation”, and second, that “Israel has the right to defend itself”, and that Hamas is a “terrorist organization” because it is an Islamic organization that only wants to kill Jews, so its war is a “religious war”, meaning that it is an “anti-semitic” organization, and that Israel is the victim, and many other methods of blinding, misleading, distorting and even manipulating public opinion.

In order for Western propaganda to be able to achieve this, it was forced to abandon one of the most important “values” or principles that it boasts to the world, which is the freedom to access information and interact with and exchange different opinions and… and… The result was the opposite of what policy makers in the West expected, as this is no longer possible in the era of the information revolution, Social Media, so it became clear to everyone far and wide how hypocritical these policies are, and it was translated into massive demonstrations of solidarity with Palestine and not the other way around.

We tell them: HAMAS is an integral part of the multidirectional Palestinian resistance. Although it is an Islamic proposition, which we as Left disagree with on the basis of our ideology. But when the armed struggle begins all intellectual or ideological differences have to retreat to make way for the restoration of the cohesion of the Palestinian resistance. Neither HAMAS nor other resistance factions are fighting a religion, but an occupation. After many decades of attempts to beg for peace, the Palestinian people have nothing left but this path. Often war is necessary to achieve peace. When Nazi German forces occupied France in 1940, the French’s killing of the occupying Germans was rightly called “resistance” and not terrorism. As for the claim that Israel has the right to self-defense, international law has a completely different opinion. Israel, as an occupying state, does not have this right. Rather, it belongs to the Palestinian people. Noting that what Israel has done and is doing in Gaza and the West Bank is collective revenge and ethnic cleansing and not self-defense.

The “flood” that exploded on October 7^th 2023 is considered an indisputable milestone in the history of the Palestinian issue.

Salute to the heroes who restored joy and pride to the hearts of the oppressed peoples of the world.

The Al-Aqsa Flood is a history that is excavated on the rock with the blood of the martyrs:

The will is stronger than the weapon, and the truth is stronger than the oppressor…

​

^[1] On the Jewish Question Karl Marx 1843.

^[2] The Balfour Declaration, Stein, Leonard, S. 7

^[3] The Foreign Policy of Palmerstone 1830 – 1841, Webster, (London, Bell, 1951), Vol. II, 762 – 763, Note I, England and the Near East, Temperley, (London, Longmans, 1936), p. 444

Diplomatic History of the Jewish Question, L. Wolf, (London, Longmans, 1919), p. 102

History of Zionism, N. Sokolov, (London, Longmans, 1919), 2 Volumes, Vol. 1, p. 116 – 117

^[4] „Auseinandersetzung mit dem Israelischen Zionismus“ (Discussing Israeli Zionism“, Roger Garoudy, Arabic translation, EL SHOROUK Verlag, 1. Edition, 1999, S. 33

^[5] op. cit., p. 34, ff

^[6] op. cit., p. 34, ff

^[7] op. cit., p. 39, ff

^[8] Die Holocaust Industrie, Wie das Leiden der Juden ausgebeutet wird, (The Holocaust Industry. How the suffering of the Jewish people is being exploited), Norman G. Finkelstein, German Edition, Piper Verlag GmbH München 2001.

[9] https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/57540

^[10] https://www.defenddemocracy.press/how-joseph-stalin-helped-create-the-state-of-israel/

^[11] Hier Autor, Titel des Buches, Verlag, Verlagsort, Erscheinungsjahr, S.303

^[12] Ahmed Nabil Al-Hilali; The slandered communist left and its card shuffling game.

^[13] Op. cit., p. 54

^[14] Der Konflikt zwischen Israel und den Palästinensern, Mythos und Realität (The conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, Myth and Reality), Norman G. Finkelstein, German Edition, Hugendubel, 2002 (Diederichs), S. 45 ff

^[15] Op. cit., p. 55

^[16] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_Zionism

^[17] Op. cit., p. 59 ff

^[18] This would probably explain ‘confusions‘ in Wolfgang Gehrcke’s paper: „II.  From the legitimating the anti-imperialist fight to certainties and confusions in the Middle-East debate.“ Gehrcke’s opinion is, that the national movements one had to show solidarity to at their time were not always ‘good’ or ‘nice’ movements (an expression coined by Walden Bello). In the first half of the 20^th century all Arabic regimes were guided by colonial powers, even in the war of 1948. The national and liberation movements that came up in the post-war era were somehow distorted to be popular, and they were tinted by all these confusions, because they were derived from different layers and interests of class and Society, although all in all each had a “bourgeois” national project. After ca. 1975 and after the failure of all National projects, the global capitalism managed to “compradorize” the ruling bourgeoisie in those countries of the South. With the rule of the “Comprador-Bourgeoisie” in nearly all countries of the South, the policy of ‘development through confrontation with imperialism‘ was substituted by a policy made by the Centres and in the service of the Centres. And this not only economically, but also in a political, military and cultural way…

^[19] https://aawsat.com/home/article/640436/100-%D8%B3%D9%86%D8%A9-%D8%B9%D9%84%D9%89-%D8%A7%D8%AA%D9%81%D8%A7%D9%82%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D8%B3%D8%A7%D9%8A%D9%83%D8%B3-%D8%A8%D9%8A%D9%83%D9%88-%D9%88%C2%AB%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AA%D9%82%D8%B3%D9%8A%D9%85%C2%BB-%D9%85%D8%B3%D8%AA%D9%85%D8%B1

^[20] https://info.wafa.ps/ar_page.aspx?id=2n8Bx7a27458074050a2n8Bx7

^[21] https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/42231#

^[22] https://www.palquest.org/ar/highlight/287/%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%86%D9%83%D8%A8%D8%A9

^[23] http://dspace.univ-msila.dz:8080/xmlui/bitstream/handle/123456789/879/%D8%AF%D9%88%D8%B1%20%D9%85%D9%86%D8%B8%D9%85%D8%A9%20%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%87%D8%A7%D8%BA%D8%A7%D9%86%D8%A7%D9%87%20%D9%81%D9%8A%20%D8%AA%D8%AC%D8%B3%D9%8A%D8%AF%20%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%81%D9%83%D8%B1%D8%A9%20%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B5%D9%87%D9%8A%D9%88%D9%86%D9%8A%D8%A9%20%D8%A8%D9%81%D9%84%D8%B3%D8%B7%D9%8A%D9%86.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

^[24] https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/42231

^[25] https://www.palestine-studies.org/sites/default/files/attachments/jps-articles/Plan%20dalet.pdf

^[26] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmach

^[27] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iKzPWlb5FU&t=71s

^[28] https://www.alzaytouna.net/2023/05/12/%D9%85%D9%82%D8%A7%D9%84-%D8%AD%D9%82%D8%A7%D8%A6%D9%82-%D9%88%D8%A3%D9%88%D9%87%D8%A7%D9%85-%D8%AD%D9%88%D9%84-%D9%86%D9%83%D8%A8%D8%A9-%D9%81%D9%84%D8%B3%D8%B7%D9%8A%D9%86-1948-%D8%A3/

[29] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0oy-NicIgE

[30] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iKzPWlb5FU&t=71s

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