This week Israel will celebrate 75 years since its declaration of independence in 1948 while Palestinians will remember the Nakba (“catastrophe” in Arabic) in which over 700,000 Palestinians were driven off their land by Israeli militias in 1947-49.
There are not contradictory anniversaries. They are complementary; one leading directly to the other.
Those who have been paying attention will know Palestinians have suffered the colonisation of their country with the theft of their land and denial of their fundamental human rights just as Māori, Aboriginal, black South Africans and “first nations” people across the world suffered similarly under European colonisation.
Israel’s master plan for the clearing out of Palestinians, Plan D, which had been prepared alongside the high command of the Haganah, the main Jewish military wing, includes a description of the methods to be used by Israeli militias:
“Destruction of villages (setting fire to, blowing up, and planting mines in the debris), especially those population centers which are difficult to control continuously. Mounting search and control operations according to the following guidelines: encirclement of the village and conducting a search inside it. In the event of resistance, the armed force must be destroyed and the population must be expelled outside the borders of the state.”
Israeli propagandists say Palestinians left of their own accord – yeah right!
Similar orders were given to colonial soldiers as they invaded the Waikato and the Māori settlement of Parihaka in the 19th century and Maungapōhatu in the 20th. The problem here for the colonial forces was there was nowhere to expel Māori “outside the borders of the state”! In Palestine it meant murder and mayhem for the local population and forcibly moving Palestinians, many on “death marches” to Gaza and Jordan.
Meanwhile people who haven’t been paying attention will blame Palestinian “militants” and “terrorists” for the never-ending violence in the Middle East. They will believe this because that’s how Palestinian resistance to colonisation and occupation is portrayed in our media, many instances of which can be found in just the last week.
The reality for Palestinians is that the Nakba has never stopped. Not a day goes by without evictions, house demolitions and forced displacement of Palestinians to make way for Jewish settlers. The Israeli leadership has 19th century European attitudes to the indigenous people of Palestine.
Colonial oppression has resulted in what Israel’s largest and most respected human rights group, B’Tselem, describes as “A regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan river to the Mediterranean Sea: This is apartheid”.
For Israel’s side it says the land of Palestine is the traditional homeland of the Jewish people as declared in holy scriptures and that Jews and only Jews have a right to self-determination there. In 2018 Israel’s Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan declared: “We are telling the world that it doesn’t matter what the nations of the world say. The time has come to express our biblical right to the land”; or as Israeli Professor Ilan Pappe puts it bluntly “most Jews are atheists but they believe God promised them Palestine”.
The “faith history” declared by Gilad Erdan is deeply rooted in mythology which in recent decades historians have comprehensively debunked.
Israel also says its military occupation of all historic Palestine is “temporary” until a final settlement is negotiated. But recent Israeli leaders have repeatedly said they have no intention of negotiating peace with Palestinians. But for Palestinians in any case, negotiations are a dead end. The power imbalance between Israel and the US on one side of the table and Palestinians on the other is a recipe for some token “concessions” from Israel but many more decades of Israeli oppression and Palestinian resistance.
So how will governments respond to the complementary commemorations next week?
Most Western governments will write polite press releases congratulating Israel on its achievements, but none will write messages congratulating Palestinians for their heroic resistance to military occupation and Israel’s attempts to undermine and delegitimise their struggle for self-determination.
No western governments will demand Israel allow Palestinian refugees to return to their land and homes in Palestine despite annual UN General Assembly resolutions (UNGA 194) demanding this every year, dating back to 1948.
And none will demand Israel abide by international law and United Nations resolutions – a demand which is the key to resolving the situation for a Middle East peace based on justice – the only peace possible.
But Palestinians have the tide of history on their side. Opinion around the world is overwhelmingly on their side and is increasing – the Israeli narrative has run out of steam. People are no longer buying the idea of Israel as a valiant little state facing hostile hordes of Arabs which my generation did growing up the 1960s.
People are seeing that for the myth it always was. Israel has always been a colonial aggressor which uses false smears of anti-Semitism as its main defence against its critics.
As was the case with South Africa, international solidarity with Palestine and demanding accountability from Israel are the way forward. Leaving the issue to western politicians in a recipe for never-ending violence.
Do West Papua and Xinjiang next.
The world no longer cares. Not even the Arab nations can be bothered with Palestine anymore. They’re more interested in signing up to the Abraham accords and fostering trading relations with Israel.
Julian+Springer – Very true…they (Arab nations) got sick of the greed of the Palestine leadership…and there tactics of putting suicide vests on young children
A credible link to that please: there tactics of putting suicide vests on young children
sorry but I disagree..possibly the world with internet connections agree because of what Snowden said, all comms are routed through Herzliya by NSO – https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/press-release/2021/07/the-pegasus-project/ and 5eyes.
But do they really care?
And if they do care, what is it that “they” care about.
Yes, John. But I think the BRIICS+ the Arab League have re-organised and have decided to work together in that very region. I think Israel’s reign of terror is about to come to an end.
Who ever thought that anyone could have brought the Saudis and the Iranians together?
What is the solution?
Forcefully relocating white squatters to prevent black on white violence?
How do we create better solutions where there are conflicting interests. Surely not by stoking the fires of grievance and entitlement. This is outrageous. We can do better.
Someone with our life experience owe society to be more reflective and leave protest to the youth. But victimhood and outrage present easy escape from reality.
Those that didn’t heed the inflammatory rhetoric from Syrian and Jordanian radio and stayed, have prospered. Today over 1.5 million Arabs in Israel have full citizenship, vote and elect representatives to the Knesset.
There at least four political parties in the Knesset that represent Arab aspirations.
Andrew I never understand why you and others keep saying that they are all second class citizens, 65 laws discriminate against them.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/7/19/five-ways-israeli-law-discriminates-against-palestinians
You’re confused.
Israeli citizens of all races and creeds have equal status.
What you’re referring to are ‘Palestinian’ citizens in the West Bank and Gaza enclaves.
It is easier when one has a large moat to define your boundaries.
The border in that region is defined by walls and other border delineations. Many argue that the Israelis should not be there in the first places….
Even the UN is confused, but what is new?
What is the solution?
Forcefully relocating white squatters to prevent black on white violence?
How do we create better solutions where there are conflicting interests. Surely not by stoking the fires of grievance and entitlement. This is outrageous. We can do better.
Someone with your life experience owe society to be more reflective and leave protest to the youth. But victimhood and outrage present easy escape from reality.
You’re dreaming mate.
You see the true jew is just as indigenous to the area as the true palestinian. I mean where else are jews going to be indigenous to?
Israel has powerful allies and it doesn’t matter if 90% of the world turn against them: they will still survive.
This is a religious power struggle and basically israel hold all the power and will slowly strangle palestine,
is that right? probably not but is that reality? Yes
They will only survive until America gives them the heave ho and that time is coming.
Their $3.8b annual cheque from the US is about to bounce. With the US Empire in its death throes, so will be Israel’s.
The US is already repossessing its arsenal of weapons. The nukes they hold and deny they have will also be removed from them in due course and then the fight will be a little bit fairer.
This is the one of the few humanitarian justice issues, like West Papua, that has not made much progress in all the years I have been politically aware and active since the 70s. The Israeli Apartheid regime’s terror campaign against Palestinians is blatantly obvious and the question as always is what to do about it.
From this remove in Aotearoa, there is only one serious option–BDS, Boycott, Divest, Sanction–strangle the Israeli zionists and military by economic and cultural pressure just as the international solidarity movement did with South Africa. And before anyone starts–SA Apartheid was ended–tick–a major victory, it was always up to the SA people to chart their new course.
BDS will work over time as those who remember the wailing from the Israeli troll farms online when Lorde said she would not perform in Israel would be aware, look at how Roger Waters got treated by Germany recently…in the UK there are moves to outlaw practicing BDS! The right wing poms would not do that if BDS was ineffective.
Basically the filthy Israeli nuclear equipped state will continue until economically hurt, or US Imperialism turns the tap off on finance and arms. But there is indeed some light with the realignment of some of the Mid East and Gulf forces.
Shame on anyone who supports the Israeli State and Military.
Palestinians are not the indigenous people of the region. They are Arabic people who came from Arabia not Palestine.
There were the 3 great Abrahamic religions that came out of the area called Palestine. Muslims, Jews and Christians all living peacefully in that area in 1948. Only 5% of them were Jews. The majority of Jews hit by the appalling events of the second world war moved not to the homeland that the Brits (guilt, guilt, guilt) gave them, Palestine but to Canada, America, Australia, NZ. The holocaust is used constantly as an excuse to say you cannot criticise us. The people being criticised are the Israeli government who are treating the Palestinians appallingly just as the Jews were treated in WWII. Does this help, does this make any sense?
When is John Minto returning to his ancestral home?
I don’t disagree with John in that the tactics Israel use to extend their hold on the area has led to unacceptable violence. However the misinformation he continually puts in his posts is mischievous in that those who read his articles and have never done a fact check may believe all that he says. For example, “Those who have been paying attention will know Palestinians have suffered the colonisation of their country with the theft of their land and denial of their fundamental human rights just as” and so on.
Palestine was never a country it was a territory administered by a whole host of countries over time including Israel. Palestine was officially recognised as a state in 1988. You can argue about the fairness of the situation endlessly but John never lets the facts get in the way of a good story.
How fascinating, if that were true why would I have ancestors in the 1500s who went to Palestine to fight – this is in the history books -why at the bridge of remembrance is the name Palestine up there?
The history of Palestine is the study of the past in the region of Palestine, also known as the Land of Israel and the Holy Land, defined as the territory between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River (where Israel and Palestine are today). Strategically situated between three continents, Palestine has a tumultuous history as a crossroads for religion, culture, commerce, and politics. Palestine is the birthplace of Judaism and Christianity, and has been controlled by many kingdoms and powers, including Ancient Egypt, Ancient Israel and Judah, the Persian Empire, Alexander the Great and his successors, the Hasmoneans, the Roman Empire, several Muslim Caliphates, and the Crusaders. In modern times, the area was ruled by the Ottoman Empire, then the United Kingdom and since 1948 it has been divided into Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Not a jot of misinformation there, just legalism on your part.
So a people who had a life expectancy just over thirty, an inordinate likelihood of being slaughtered in an attack or if surviving that to be enslaved for whatever the victor ordained, very probably being kept alive in the absence of refrigeration, canning or freezing as fresh meat in the absence of any alternative storage system, to walk almost everywhere unless a waterway of sufficient size to enable a big hollowed out totara log to be an Uber, no roads, no telephones, not even smoke signals or flags, no armour, security by walls of timber that when dried very prone to fire, no bows and arrows such as carried the day over a thousand years earlier at Agincourt, a people who suddenly acquired muskets in rudimentary buy sell and exchange that exponentially increased the mortality in battle, no rudimentary medical knowledge such as had became de jour in China centuries earlier, zero metallurgy only worn down stones for weapon enhancement,no fabrics beyond woven dried flax, no sanitation, no running water no bricks, corrugated iron, planks or nails, no monetary exchange, yet consider all the benefits of civilisation. from Chinese, Persia, and european advancement as merely colonisation; Geez that is one hell of a stretch.
We did good then by conquering people? How come all the conquered peoples of the earth still ruled by their conquerors are not happy? How come we reduced the richest country in the 1600s , India, to poverty? How are the Palestinians doing?
I think it would be better to leave them to themselves.
When is John Minto returning to his ancestral home?
Very well said botox.
The headline suggested you’d address our similar colonization. Which, as a colonial, is a problem. I’m interested in that. How I devised the difference: the Brits and Zionists doing the last colonization into our modern faces, and doing it at a majority population.
Reading Leon Uris and James Michener, the Jews asking the Arabs to stay but they were scared off by Arab propaganda. Yeah, nah. We all thought the Israelis were the idealists.
A foulness in return for a foulness, the Holocaust, and the stupid sympathy of the new UN. Just unfavourable politics established Israel, on the country of its people.
Israel — propaganda much?
The Arabs colonized the entire Levant, North Africa and as far as Spain in the 7th century, destroying, converting or enslaving millions. They are the true invaders and conquerors. Mr Minto is either historically illiterate or willfully malicious.
Gaby’s favorite Israel politician ….
This Israeli Minister Hates Palestinians So Much, Even EU Avoids Him https://youtu.be/UStt2e0f0yU
Reality matters. Look back to 1920 and the next 20 years in Palestine.
Correct again Gaby . . the Arabs even got as far as central France until they were pushed back at the Battle of Tours in 732.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tours
Your argument invalidates your argument. You’re making a case against Arabs generally as so that has an application to now. Like a certain religious book’s promises. Look into 1920 Palestine — the majority inhabitants didn’t want you there. And they fought to prevent you coming there.
You’re the latter-day Leon Uris.
You’re disproving your case by talking. You remind me of born again christians. Fantasy has nothing to do with anything. Truth comes from proof.
Wilfully malicious off the back of being historically illiterate,is my view Gaby.
Why is there never any mention of the Sykes, Picot ‘Secret’ Agreement? Those wankas caused this problem. The Johnnys come lately, the Americans just hijacked the gig after Britain shot its load in the Suez and then the middle east for good.
A bit of recent history matters.
For a full account, J.M.N. Jeffries’ ‘Palestine the Reality: The Inside story of the Balfour Declaration.’ is worth reading. The first edition of the book was destroyed when Longman’s warehouse was destroyed in the first blitz. It was not republished until 2017 when the Balfour Declaration was celebrated.
Jeffries’ book, first published in 1939 contains the details of Woodrow Wilson’s ‘King/ Crane Commission’ of which Britannica has a brief account.
Jeffries regretted the fact that he had neither the tine nor the money to fully cover the American part in the story. But in 2014 an interesting American journalist, Alison Weir published ‘Against Out Better Judgement’ which tells of ‘the hidden history of how the U.S. was used to create Israel.’ The story is short and easy to read and the reference section or ‘end notes’ and bibliography longer than the actual text.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/King-Crane-Commission-
https://archive.org/details/alisonweiragainst
sorry this is a bit late but, well, reasons…
Nakba Day May15
Bbm Ebm F
What is this cruelty coming to????
the sentiment is coming through –
Zion makes the people blue
Oh Palestine!
Money out and money in
shelling out for crates of gin
coke is cheaper here than agua
life is but a colander
Oh Palestine!
75 long years ago, run out of their homes and
made to leave the land they loved, the ancient olive groves.
Poisoned, tortured, terrorised, right before the generals’ eyes!
Justified for what, by who? an answer that we never knew..
What for? a Balfour valve is all..
what for? a way to bleed us all..
what for? the bitter tears all fall
all fall for Palestine…
Oh, boycott Israel…. we are dying…
for they come saying “Yours is Mine!”….
for what? the harvesting of blood…
the children’s cries are hid with lies….
Oh tears for Palestine…
To quote Christopher Hitchens. “There will never be peace in the Middle East– most of world believe that there is a two state solution– but it will never happen. The EU have failed, the UN have failed, the tri-something has failed, Tony Blair failed, Barack Obama failed. There will NEVER be peace because they parties of God have a veto (Christ, Muslim & Jew). There will NEVER be peace as they all see it as their holy land. And while you are willing to kill your neighbour, and your neighbour’s children over a rock, a cave or a tablet or scroll, or a sacred whatever– there will NEVER be peace. Because of religion” RIP The Hitch. gone but not forgotten.
Disagree about the religious basis of the conflict. The Palestinians were run off their land. Agree the 2 country solution is difficult to impossible. My moral support goes to the Palestinians, whatever they decide.
Chris could be downright. I guess ‘heroes’ isn’t an adult thing. At 56. Still like sensationalism in my reading matter. Thought I’d be through that by now.
Israel, ay. The last conquest.
What to do with a country that doesn’t accept that? Despite accepting Germany’s heart-felt apologies for the Holocaust.
I support the Palestinians. For ever and a day.
Germany should say that, being the greatest moral country now.