Palestine

Palestine at the time of Ptolemy 100-170AD

Palestine (Canaan) before the arrival of the Jews, populated by the Canaanites etc., ancestors of today's Palestinians.

Palestine (The Holy Land) is a geographical and historical territory in the Levant and part of the Middle East region, today bordered by Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea. It is the national homeland of the Palestinian Arabs, who are generally Christian or (since circa 700 AD) Mohammedan; their race are largely descended from the Ishmaelites, an Abrahamic Semitic people native to the larger region, as well as other native elements. Palestine is currently occupied by Israel. Related conflicts include those between Palestinians and the immigrant Jews.

Palestine may also refer to the "State of Palestine", a modern, partially recognized state in the Middle East. In October 2014, when Sweden officially recognized the Palestinian state, Israel recalled its ambassador from Sweden in protest.

Colliers World Atlas & Gazetteer

Early history

In the time of the biblical Joab (c. 1000 BC) in Psalm 60 in the Old Testament "Philistia" is specifically mentioned among other small states of the area. The term "Palestine" first appeared in the 5th century BC when the ancient Greek historian Herodotus wrote in The Histories of a "district of Syria, called Palaistinê" between Phoenicia and Egypt. Over several thousand years Palestine has been ruled by many great powers, including the Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonian Empire, Greeks, Roman Empire, Byzantine Empire, as well as the short-lived 'kingdoms' of Judea,, the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Mohammedans, the Ottoman Empire, the British (League of Nations Mandate 1920-1947).

The country has slender natural resources although it is possible to trace for at least six millennia the story of organized and civilized human life in the countries on either side of it, Palestine has been the seat of an independent national state for only a few centuries in all. No great material discovery was ever made there; no characteristic form of art was ever developed within its borders, and, except in the realms of politics and religion its thought has been negligible.

The Christian Bible affords an overview (the Old Testament from a purely Jewish perspective) of the invasion of the Jewish tribes from Egypt and their fanciful version that God gave them the extensive lands of Canaan, which were already inhabited by others, presumably also children of God. The ancestors of the people whom we know today as the Jews seem, at the time of their first appearance in history, to have been nomads, possessing little in the way of material civilization. The New Testament is hardly much better in its overview of the territorial history of this region. One must therefore look to other sources, original (Herodotus has already been mentioned) and recent, for detailed history.

The first-century Romano-Jewish historian Josephus wrote copiously about the final days of the Jews in Judea and Galillee, the revolt against Roman Imperial rule and, finally, their expulsion from the region in 70AD, leaving the original Arab population in situ.

Following the Muslim conquest of Palestine in 636–640, several Muslim ruling dynasties succeeded each other: the Rashiduns; the Umayyads, who built the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem; the Abbasids; the semi-independent Tulunids and the Ikhshidids; the Fatimids; and the Seljuks. In these centuries the native inhabitants of Palestine were forced to accept the Islamic faith. In 1099, the Christian Crusaders established the Kingdom of Jerusalem in Palestine, which, however, the Ayyubid Sultanate defeated in 1187. The Crusaders failed to retake Palestine despite further attempts. The Egyptian Mamluks took Palestine from the Mongols (who had conquered the Ayyubid Sultanate) in 1260. The Ottomans captured Palestine in 1516 and it became part of their dominions until after The Great War.

The Great War and after

The end of The Great War.

Between October 1917 and September 1918 the whole of Palestine was occupied by British Imperial forces. On 2nd November 1917, under pressure from the Jewish Zionist Movement, the British Foreign Secretary, A.J.Balfour, wrote to Lord Rothschild a letter in which he said:

"His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a National Home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."

This rather vague statement has come to be known as the Balfour Declaration. It was approved by the USA's President Woodrow Wilson before its publication, and, on the 14th February and 9th May 1918, the French and Italian Governments publicly endorsed it.

However, Article 22 of the subsequent Covenant of the League of Nations, signed on 28th June 1919, stated:

Certain communities formerly belonging to the Turkish Empire have reached a stage of development where their existence as independent nations can be provisionally recognised subject to the rendering of administrative advice and assistance by a Mandatory Power until such time as they are able to stand alone. The wishes of those communities must be a principal consideration in the selection of the Mandatory.

British Palestine railway services.

20th century Occupation of Palestine by Jews displacing the indigenous Palestinians.

President Wilson sent an American Commission which toured these areas in June and July 1919 and reported that the native Arabs wanted complete independence for a united Syria and Palestine, but, if supervision was necessary, their first choice was the United States, their second Great Britain. Meanwhile on 18th December 1918 the American Jewish Congress adopted a resolution asking for the Mandate to go to Britain and the same request was made in a scheme submitted by the Zionist Organisation to the Supreme Council of the Peace Conference on 3rd February 1919. On the 25th April 1920 the Supreme Allied Council, sitting at San Remo, allotted the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine to Great Britain.

Land

Following the enactment of the Ottoman Land Code, 1858, the Turkish Government passed the Land Registration Law that year. Imperial Land Registers were established and the authorities organised local land registries in the various parts of the Ottoman Empire. The registries in Palestine were opened between 1867 and 1873. Surveys were taken in every town and village. Claims (often supported by documentation) were submitted for registration, were investigated and if successful claimants had their rights recorded in the registers. The British built upon these registers in 1927 by introducing registration of title based upon the Torrens system, in use in Australia and other parts of the British Empire. In 1928 the Land (Settlement of Title) Ordinance legislation was enacted. Title already accepted by the Ottoman Imperial Registers was acceptable. Jews were a tiny minority in Palestine, yet when the last Ottoman Census was taken it appeared Jews owned 650,000 dunums (251 square miles) of land at that point, almost entirely through Jewish Associations based abroad.

Partition reports

In October 1936 there were large-scale Palestinian riots across the Mandate protesting against increasing Jewish immigration into their country. By the mid-1930s the Jewish Press across the world was passionately advocating the establishment of a Jewish State and the greatest possible extension of Jewish territory in Palestine. Zionist leaders were quietly approaching western governments everywhere for support. As a result the Arab world began to mobilize the world press and to direct attention to the danger of a Jewish State in Palestine; they were supported by other Arab States especially Iraq and Egypt. British Foreign Minister Anthony Eden stated in June 1937 that the solution of the Palestine question was one of the most difficult problems of British foreign policy. As a result of the aforementioned riots the Palestine Royal Commission (more commonly known as the Peel Commission) was sent to Palestine. A German Foreign Ministry Circular dated 22 June 1937 noted that

"one must not overlook the fact that international Jewry, especially in the U.S.A., is trying to influence the decisions of the British Government, and not without success."

The following month Lord Peel's Commission recommended the partition of Palestine into three parts: one Jewish, one Palestinian Arabs, and one as a permanent British Mandate. There was considerable opposition to the Report in both British Houses of Parliament. Both the Jews and the Palestinian Arabs rejected this proposed partition. Iraq's Minster-President, Sulyman Hikmet, told the German Ambassador in Baghdad that Iraq was counting on the support of Italy and Turkey in the League of Nations to fight the partition plan. He added that the British were placing financial pressure on Iraq to back off. The League of Nations Permanent Mandates Commission, however, were in favour. There followed widespread Palestinian Arab riots in Palestine in the Autumn. On 28 February 1938 a Palestine Partition Commission under the Chairmanship of Sir John Woodhead was appointed by the British Government to draft a definite partition scheme. The Commission visited Palestine April to August 1938 and submitted a report to the British Government that the original partition plan was impracticable. As a result the Government dropped the whole plan.

End of Mandate

Throughout the British Mandate of Palestine, Jews continued to pour into Palestine, as often as not illegally. Equivalent to Europe's 21st century illegal immigration nightmare. The British administration struggled to keep the Jews and the Palestinian Arabs apart, and the Jews formed three major terrorist organizations, the Stern Gang, Haganah, and the Irgun, to attack both the British and the Palestinian Arabs at random. With the Second World War British troops were needed across the globe and the garrisons in Palestine were thinned out. This meant greater levels of Jewish immigration with little effective policing by the British. This continued in even greater numbers after the war due to the destruction across Europe and the displaced persons.

The American Jews were by this point in time in a very significant position of power and influence through a variety of lobby groups. They placed great pressure upon the government of the USA to persuade the United Nations, which the Americans had moved from Geneva to New York where they could control it, to terminate the Mandate. The negative publicity caused by the deteriorating situation in Palestine and the violence erupting on both sides made the mandate increasingly unpopular in Britain and was instrumental in the British government’s announcement of its intention to terminate the mandate and return the Palestine question to the United Nations (UN). After the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution to partition Palestine on 29 November 1947, Britain announced the termination of its Mandate of Palestine, which became effective on 15 May 1948. At midnight on 14 May 1948, the Jewish State of Israel declared its independence and almost immediately proceeded to dispossess the Palestinian Arabs.

1967 War

In a war with Egypt, Jordan and Syria, known as the 1967 War, or the June War, Israel delivered what came to be known as the “Naksa”, meaning setback or defeat, to the armies of the neighbouring Arab countries, and to the Palestinians who lost all what remained of their homeland. The Naksa was a continuation of a prior central event that paved the way for the 1967 war. Nineteen years earlier, in 1948, the state of Israel came into being in a violent process that entailed the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Zionist forces, in their mission to create a “Jewish state”, expelled some 750,000 Palestinians from their homeland and destroyed their villages in the process. Shortly after Israel declared statehood, units of the neighbouring Arab country armies came in to fight for the Palestinian nation. The 1948 war ended with Israeli forces controlling approximately 78 percent of historical Palestine. The remaining 22 percent fell under the administration of Egypt and Jordan. In 1967, Israel absorbed the whole of historical Palestine, as well as additional territory from Egypt and Syria. By the end of the war, Israel had expelled another 300,000 Palestinians from their homes, including 130,000 who were displaced in 1948, and gained territory that was three and a half times its size.

Genocide

Since the 1940s the Palestinian Holocaust, a slow motion genocide of the Palestinian peoples, has been carried out by the continually immigrating Zionist Jews with the enthusiastic support of the World Jewish Congress, the official voice of organised Jewry. Jewish supremacists dehumanised the Palestinians by saying that they are simply "terrorists" and "Islamofascists" just as they also say today that Europeans are "racists" and "Nazis". They postulate that "all we both want are freedom and independence for our peoples and a future for our children's children."

The Zionists have ethnically cleansed Palestine of over 750,000 Palestinians since 1948. Israelis continually engage in random attacks against native Palestinians, such as an innocent worker who was shot and killed while salvaging building materials from a landfill. Israel has also been known to fire tear gas into the homes of random people. This can kill people with asthma. If Israel merely suspects a Palestinian of a crime, they are known to blow up all the homes of their families.

There is today an apartheid wall between the Jewish and native Arab areas. Should a small hole be made in the wall, the Israeli military will lock down the entire adjoining Arab city. Israeli occupation forces will raid Palestinians' homes arresting children as young as four. While the Western mainstream news media, mainly owned by Jews, only reports Palestinians planning bomb attacks on Israelis, Israeli civilians also do the same thing in return which goes unreported.

Harvesting olives from was a major activity for Palestinians. However, illegal Israeli settlers regularly destroy nearly all the olive trees. The UN reports that Israeli settlers had damaged or destroyed 9,400 olive trees by the end of October 2013, compared to 8,500 trees in all of 2012. They also killed and injured numerous civilians whilst in the act of destroying the trees.

They also destroy other fruit trees. On the Nassar farm, which was named the 'Tent of Nations' in 2000 with a programme "to bring people of various cultures together to build bridges of understanding, reconciliation, and peace" the Israelis burnt down the 1500 fruit trees.

It is a regular occurrence for Israel to bulldoze an entire Palestinian village. It's also a daily occurance for the Israeli military to go through Palestinian villages, causing property damage, and abducting dozens of random civilians.

Jews also will even walk into Palestinian homes and declare that the home now belongs to them, kick the occupants out, and take it over. Today, all Palestinians are heavily monitored by Mossad.

Palestinians are banned from riding in the same buses as Jews.

Israel has also located landfill garbage dumps next to Palestinian farms and villages. It has been suggested that as a result locals have contracted illnesses and cancer. The rotting waste also produces methane gas and all the toxins in the dumps seeps into the ground water.

In October 2023 a new bloody conflict arose between the Palestinians and Israel. The far-off British Government told the Israelis "We stand with you and want you to win!"

Gallery

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  Critics of the creation of Israel abound

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  Palestinian village emptied of its people. Jewish settlers houses in the background.

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  Anti-Zionist members of Neturei Karta Orthodox Jewish group protest against Israel's treatment of Palestine

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  Palestinian conflict deaths 2008–2020

See also

• Palestinians
• Amin al-Husseini
• West Bank
• Gaza Strip
• Well poisoning

See also

• The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine

Sources

• Great Britain and Palestine 1915-1945, Information Papers No.20, Royal Institute of International Affairs, London, 1946, 178 pages.
• Britain's Moment in the Middle East 1914 - 1971 by E. Monro, Chatto & Windus, London, 1981, ISBN: 1-7011-2555-1
• Palestinian Rights and Losses in 1948 by Sami Hadawi, London, 1988, ISBN 0-86356-157-8
• Bitter Harvest - A Modern History of Palestine, by Sami Hadawi, revised edition, U.K., 1990, ISBN 0-905906-85-3
• The Controversy of Zion - How Zionism tried to resolve the Jewish Question, by Geoffrey Wheatcroft, Sinclair-Stevenson, London, etc., 1996, ISBN: 1-8561-9344-6
• Policy of Deceit, by Peter Shambrook, Oneworld Publications, London, 2023, ISBN: 978-0-86154-632-9

External links

Encyclopedias

• Ancient History Encyclopedia: Palestine
• Encyclopedia Britannica: Palestine
• Encyclopedia Britannica 1911 Edition: Palestine
• Encyclopedia.com: Palestine