ON PALESTINE, ISRAEL AND BLOODSHED After the defeat of Imperial Germany and the Ottoman Empire in World War I, an International League of Nations was formed and legal Mandates were signed between all parties, for administration of the defeated territories on behalf of the League of Nations. The United Kingdom was given the Mandate to administer, among other parts of the erstwhile Ottoman Empire, the territories of Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan and Mesopotamia (Iraq). In 1937 the Peel Commission suggezted the partitioning of Mandate Palestine into an Arab state and a Jewish state. Though this was regarded as unworkable, it led to the Arab Revolt of 1936-39. After World War II, the question of Palestine and a Jewish state was handed over to the newly formed United Nations Organization (UNO). This resulted in UN Resolution 181(II), to split the area under the erstwhile Mandate Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab State. The resolution was accepted by the Jews but rejected by most of the Arab populace. On 29 Nov 1947, resolution 181(II) was put to vote in the UN General Assembly, with the result of 33-13 in favour of the resolution, with 10 abstentions. The Arab nations who had opposed the resolution, went in appeal to the International Court of Justice, challenging the competence of the General Assembly in partitioning a nation against the wishes of a majority of its inhabitants, but were again defeated. United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181(II) for the partitioning of erstwhile Mandate Palestine thus came to pass. Palestine was divided between the Arab and the Jewish inhabitants. Clause 3 of the resolution provided for independent Arab and Jewish States and an International Regime for the city of Jerusalem. Riots broke out in Arab dominated areas. In the ensuing violence, the US proposed a truce while matters were sorted out. On 12 May 1948, the Jewish Peoples Administration (Hebrew: Minhelet HaAm) was convened to vote on a declaration of independence or the proposed US truce. The vote was 6-4 in favour of declaring independence. Initially the name Palestine was suggested for the new state but as Palestine would in any case be appropriated by the new Arab state, finally Israel was chosen from among several names. The State of Israel had taken birth. Immediately after the declaration of independence, troops of Egypt, Jordan, Iraq and Syria engaged Israeli troops within the area of the erstwhile Mandate Palestine, with the aim of recovering the entire territory, thereby starting the Arab-Israeli War of 1948, ending on 24 Jul 1949 with the signing of an armistice agreement with Syria. By the end of the Arab-Israeli War, Israel had increased its land area by 50% as compared to the original United Nations Partition Plan. In the three years following the 1948 war, about 700,00 Jews immigrated to Israel. Till the early 70s 800,000-1,000,000 Jews left, fled or were expelled from their homes in Arab nations, to immigrate to Israel. At the same time, about 700,000 Arabs left, fled or were expelled from areas which were now Israel. Many quirks of history led to the formation of Israel. But the turning point in the history of Israel-Palestine was the decision of Egypt, Syria, Iraw and Jordan to start the Arab-Israeli War. After a year of fighting, each of those nations signed treaties with Israel and withdrew, some even acceding territory to Israel, while leaving the Palestinians to their own devices. The territory the Palestinians would have owned today, was lost by the decision of their Arab friends to risk Palestinian tertitory in a war with the Israelis. Israel made strategic territorial gains in the 1948 Arab Israeli War. The world changed rapidly after that. Israel went on a massive spree, upgrading its educational facilities, making investments in Science and Technology, massively upgrading the Israel Defence Force (IDF) and making social and cultural inroads into the rising superpower, USA. The Arab states, in the meantime, for reasons best known to them, stayed static or came under increasing internal pressures that ultimately militated against holistic progress. While they had money, thanks to the natural gift of oil, they failed to develop the geopolitical vision to convert their wealth into the strategic assets of a rapidly changing world, namely education, intellectual property and the social environment to promote excellence. Meanwhile the Palestinians, left absolutely on their own, found only lip-service from what they thought were their Arab brethren. Fortunately Palestine was able to throw up a charismatic leader in the person of Yasser Arafat. A personable leader, Arafat was able to make inroads into the hearts and minds of most world leaders, to the great diplomatic chagrin of Israel. Arafats death was a blow to the Palestinian cause. Left leaderless, with no one to don Arafats mantle, the Palestinian cause went rudderless, till the Palestinians, in one of their most unfortunate moments, in the 2006 Palestinian Parliamentary elections, decided to elect the Hamas, an extreme right wing, violent organization, with the avowed aim of decimating Israel, to replace the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) aligned Al-Fatah. The Hamas, since 2007, administers the Gaza Strip. With no apparent geopolitical or military strategy or purpose, they have unleashed random and continuous violence against Israel - hardly conducive to a peaceful poltical settlement. Their muscular approach towards Israel has stirred the imagination of Arabs throughout the world and contributions and lip-service have flowed in generously. The Palestinians however, are now more victims of the Hamas than anyone else. The Hamas has cottoned on that, in order if preference, dead babies, dead women and destroyed homes bring in the maximum benefit from their Arab brethren. Dead men are, in any case, cannon fodder, being gods warriors. Witness therefore, that of the pictures that emanate from that theatre of conflict, the above priority list applies. A typical Hamas attack against an unimaginably more powerful enemy, consists of launching a rocket attack from a heavily populated area, never from an open space. Within 3 seconds of the rocket becoming visible to Israeli fire-control radar, the Israeli response system has the coordinates from where the attack was launched. They are now faced with two mutually exclusive aims - first being the destruction of the rocket launcher device and person(s) and the second being minimizing civilian casualty. Whatever decision matrix Israeli professional soldiers use, they arrived at a solution - they fire a dummy rocket at the coordinates calculated by the fire-control radar. The rocket hits the intended target, emanating only a puff of smoke and a loud sound. This is warning for people to take cover. 60 seconds later, a fussilade of rockets with Armour Piercing Incendiary (API) warheads follows, flattening the target area and hopefully the perpetrators of the rocket attack. Anyone can imagine how paltry 60 seconds is for anyone to get away to at least 100 metres from the target. But the enemy unfortunately, has aim number one to achieve too - the destruction of the rocket launcher and its crew. The upshot of this sad state of affairs is civilian collateral damage. This is what the Hamas capitalizes on. After the Israeli attack, they will return with cameras to film the carnage and upload it to the Internet. As I wrote earlier, the hierarchy of pity now kicks in, bringing in enormous financial benefit to the Hamas from across the world. When there arent enough gory photographs available from the Palestinian conflict, the Hamas uploads gory pictures from elsewhere - currently the Syrian conflict and the ISIS depredations in Iraq. I urge readers to verify pictures with the reverse picture search engine Tineye. To find the provenance of a picture you find anywhere, use Tineye (tineye) to find when and where that picture was posted on the Net the first time. And therein may lie many stories of falsification. Coming back to Palestine, what can be the way forward given its history? One thing is certain - no peace can come to Palestine till the Hamas exists. I invite reasoned comment. All communal comments and comments expressing rage will be deleted and commenters blocked.
Posted on: Sun, 13 Jul 2014 16:41:26 +0000
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