One cannot help feeling extremely sorry for the plight of Palestinians in Gaza. They are living through another war that will be lost to their more powerful neighbour. Sadly, it is one of many wars that the people of Palestine and the Arab world, have lost to Israel. The just never win. Nearly 30,000 Palestinians in Gaza have lost their lives since Hamas, without thinking about the backlash, launched its October 7 attack and yet, no one on the Palestinian side seems to have figured out why they always lose.
For the Palestinians, everything began to go wrong with the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after World War I. Before the world war could end, in November 1917, the British government released the Balfour declaration announcing its support for creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. So, at the end of the war when Britain became the de facto ruler of Palestine the writing was on the wall for Palestinians.
This policy led to the first revolution by Palestinians in 1934. According to James L Gelvin, author of ‘The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict’, the revolution was the birth of Palestinian nationalism. Unfortunately for the Palestinians, they picked the wrong enemy — the British. The Great Revolt, as it came to be known, was put down with a heavy hand and with some help from Jewish underground groups.
With Jews and Palestinians warring with each other, Britain finally decided to quit Palestine. But in order to have some influence in the area it decided on a partition plan. In November, 1947, this plan received formal recognition by the UN, which passed a resolution creating the state of Israel. Depending on how one looks at it, this was also an opportunity to create a Palestinian state. The partition deal gave 42 per cent of the land to Palestine, 56 per cent to Israel and the remaining 2 per cent, comprising Jerusalem and Bethlehem was to remain as a international zone. Had the Palestinians to agree to the deal, they would have had a state of their own today. Instead, they chose war.
The surrounding Arab nations went to war with Israel on behalf of the Palestinians, but failed to win. At the end of the war, Israel declared itself a sovereign state, while the Palestinians experienced a colossal disaster. Now, Israel controlled 78 per cent of the land while the Palestinians retained the remaining. The Gaza Strip and West Bank were occupied by Egypt and Jordan respectively.
Something else, more devastating than the war happened as a consequence — the exodus of Palestinians. Nearly, 750,000 Palestinians, who were resident in villages that fell in Israel left to escape the war or were forced out through terror tactics (massacre and rape) adopted by the Israeli army. It became known as the ‘nakba’ which translates to catastrophe. But some chose to stay and they now comprise nearly 18 per cent of the population in Israel.
If the Palestinians had accepted the UN partition plan and those in Israel had opted to stay back, Israel would probably have become a nation with roughly equal number of Jews and Palestinians. What kind of a Jewish homeland would that be?
From 1948 to 1967, the Gaza Strip and West Bank remained in the possession of Egypt and Jordan respectively. During those 19 years, neither Jordan, Egypt nor the Palestinian leadership thought of creating a Palestinian state and another opportunity was lost.
In 1967, the surrounding Arab states made another attempt to defeat Israel. It started with Palestinian guerrilla groups based in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan launching attacks. After the Israeli Air Force shot down six Syrian MiG fighter jets, Nasser of Egypt mobilized his army and simultaneously signed a defence pact with Jordan which placed Jordanian forces under Egyptian command. Iraq also joined the alliance.
On June 5, 1967 Israel staged a surprise attack on Egypt destroying 90 per cent of its Air Force. It also incapacitated the Syrian Air Force. In three days Israel captured the Gaza Strip and all of the Sinai peninsula. On the Eastern Front, Israel drove Jordan out of the West Bank. At the end of what became known as the six day war, Israel was in possession of all the land and brought over one million Palestinians under its rule.
After the war, the UN passed Resolution 242 which called on Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories in exchange for peace. The Israelis never obliged. And this became the basis for the 1973 war, with Egypt and Syria launching surprise attacks on Israel, which suffered significant casualties. Nonetheless, it managed to turn the tide with US help. For the Palestinians, nothing changed because Israel proved that its military could fight a multi-front war with Arab nations and win.
Every war against Israel came at a heavy cost to ordinary Palestinians. Surprisingly, the only gain made by the Palestinians (Oslo pact) came after the first Intifada, a non-violent spontaneous uprising, that broke out in 1987. A year later, the PLO, which was in exile in Tunisia, went on record to support the two-state solution and in 1993 the first Oslo Accord was signed which recognised partition, 45 years after the UN resolution and after almost everything had been lost.
Was it a recognition, that violence had failed to achieve a Palestinian state? For the PLO, probably yes. But not for Ahmed Yassin, founder of Hamas, which, ignoring history and the strength of Israel, went back to armed struggle, a strategy of diminishing returns.
(Derek Almeida is a former editor who always took the road less travelled)
