[Wasn’t sure if this was best for IMHO or here, but it is an explosive topic…]
It seems to me that all of the different groups which are interested in issues surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict attempt to base their agendas mainly in historical arguments. Here’s my problem: Israeli history is very disputed amongst academics. Even the New Historians themselves are extraordinarily critical of their colleagues’ scholarship . For people like me who aren’t enmeshed in primary source literature regarding 20th century Israeli history, how do we adopt our own views and understanding of the conflict?
Well I myself haven’t done vast amounts of research on the topic, but I think even people like you and me can see the basics of whats happening. The main Palistinian argument is that they were there first…however that comes full circle when we also know that the Israeli’s where there first. I personally think that the answer comes down to a simple–however unsatisfying–conclusion that they simply need to deal with it and make some sort of peace compromise with concessions on both sides.
And unfortunately the way you spot out a successful compromise is a compromise that leaves no one happy, so we’d know if it worked out alright.
Benny Morris is a New Historian, but Ilan Pappe isn’t actually one of them, even though he sometimes gets linked with them. He’s a Communist who’s goal isn’t objective history, but instead to combat what he sees as the imperialist colonialist Israeli regime, and he’s not considered credible by either traditional Israeli historians or the New Historians.
So my recommendation, if you want to know Israeli history, don’t read Ilan Pappe.
and which events, may I ask, are in dispute? The land purchases by American Jewish organizations and immigration of Polish and German Jews? Various British Mandate acts? The “Great Arab Revolt” of late 30s? The setting up of the IDF during and after the war as a draft-based mass mobilization military, paralleled by only feeble attempts by the Arabs that never rose above the level of “gangs”? The defeat of the Jordanian, Syrian and Egyptian interventions in 1948? The IDF-Irgun conflict? And so on.
AFAIK the history is indeed pretty well documented and interesting to read. It does not answer certain people’s yearning for a morality tale with the favorite side smelling like roses, but it does clear up why things have happened the way they happened.
My general impression from reading it all boils down to “it’s easy to win against people who are all political talk but cannot get any work done”. As noted above, the IDF was setup from scratch in several years, just in time for the War of Independence. Palestinians are still at the “guerilla” level of organization 60 years later and getting nowhere politically, economically or in any other field of human endeavor. Oh, and the only Arab military that did well in 1948 were Jordanians led by a British general
Don’t go in with a lot of preconceptions, one way or the other. There are plenty of good unbiased sources for the history of the region…it’s not like these events happened centuries or thousands of years ago after all. The basic core historical events are pretty easy to read through and digest. I’d suggest reading the bare bones facts and events without any spin at all, just to digest what actually happened. Then go back and read both sides spin on it (plus the spin put on from the various European powers that were involved at one time or another) to get their take on what those events meant to them, and how they viewed them.
Then form your own opinion. I think what you will find is that it’s not nearly so black and white as some people try to portray it, and that the events were extremely muddled and confused…and that both sides truly see the events that transpired in completely different ways and from completely different perspectives. Plus, they both tend to highlight the events that make them look best while trying to handwave those that don’t.
Knowing Israels history isn’t that hard. Little of it is in dispute. It was founded in 1948. It immediately was in a war. Then another war. And another war. And… well, look it up on wikipedia. The basic facts are easily found.
Well, what largely is in dispute is the origin of the Palestinian refugees. The “Old Historian” view, i.e. largely nationalistically motivated, was that all refugees either left voluntarily (as encouraged by their own leadership) or simply fled as a result of hostilities.
Figures like Pappe or Chomsky hold that the Palestinian refugees were a result of a planned and conscious act from Hagana, using Stern and Irgun as proxies, to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian mandate from arabs.
The “New Historian” view (as represented by Morris, the arguably most vocal of the group) is that the refugees were mostly a result of the ongoing conflict, with a sizable minority being either the result of ethnic cleansing performed either by individual commanders or as a result of strategic military interests (cleaning out arab communities holding strategic positions or threatening supply lines).
Of dispute is of course the number of initial refugees, which is difficult due to lack of accurate census, as well as later purported inflation of numbers by the UNWRA.
In my mind, Occam’s razor usually wins these kinds of debates.
Hang on, how many Israelis were in Palestine in 1944? A few, sure, but a tiny number in both absolute and proportional terms. In contrast 100% of the Palestinians who were alive at the time were there.
There hardly seems to be any comparison on this point. As such it’s a bit disingenuous to argue that the Israeli’s where there first. Maybe their ancient ancestors were, but that hardly seems to invalidate an argument from people who personally owned and worked the land.
And thus the same debate as we always have begins once anew.
How many Jews were in Palestine 1944?
How much land did the JNF and other entities legally buy during Ottoman rule?
How much land did the Palestinian Arabs actually own (instead of being fedayeen)? And does it matter if you owned the land your ancestors tilled?
How many Arabs lived in Palestine prior to Jewish immigration and introduction of modern farming techniques?
Why is the issue of refugees’ right to property lost being debated in this conflict, but historically no others?
I am on the other hand the decedent of holocaust survivors (which of course doesn’t entitle me to call myself one), and of those who fought and were wounded in the 1948 independence war. I’m also related and close to a fair number of people who call both the geographical area and the state of Israel home, and who wish to create an existence where they can coexist with the other ethnic groups in the region. So I suppose the answer is pretty clear to me anyway.
Not much debate as fair as I know, but compensations have been made to survivors. primarily for suffering caused through persecution and murder, and for slave labor. The chances of my grandmother ever regaining her family’s farm in Hungary are actually pretty darn slim though. Lucky she’s made a new life for herself.
I’ve never heard of reparations being made to Jews who fled Europe prior to the holocaust proper. Cite please?
For that matter, no discussion has ever been held about compensating the part of my family which fled persecution in Imperial Russian in the beginning of the 20th century either.
You’re describing a land grab from an indigenous population, not a group of war refugees denied reentry to lost territory.
Territorial conflict, non sequitur.
Not that I’m aware of. Cite?
On the other hand, compensation for the nearly 12 million germans expelled from surrounding countries following WW2 has never been lifted, for displaced people from the former republic of Yugoslavia, for political refugees from Chile and Iran, and I can just go on. Or what about the 850,000 displaced jews from the surrounding Arab countries created in 48-49? Or the Jewish population of Poland which was persecuted in 1968?
If I don’t, then one of us is an alien, and that would be totally awesome.
I’m saying that logically, it’s a pointless statement. The Palestinians are, by definition, the Arabs living in Mandatory Palestine in 1948 and their descendants (with a few exceptions, such as the Druze and the Bedouins). Saying that all the Palestinians lived here in 1948 is a redundancy, and therefore meaningless. I was merely pointing that out.
To make a (perhaps futile) attempt to drag this thread back from its usual trajectory …
The best way to resolve historical controversy in one’s own mind is by becomming well-read in the area. There are plenty of useful secondary sources. by reading ones from various viewpoints (and discarding those with an obvious ideological bone to pick), one can become reasonably familiar with the facts, most of which ought not to be particularly controversial in and of themselves.
Their interpretation as to significance is then up to you.
It clearly is not pointless or meaningless, although Zionists and their supporters might like to persuade us that it is. Just because a fact is a logical truth, it does not follow that it is unimportant to real word concerns.
I think the answers to the first two questions is relatively clear within a range.
I think it is pretty clear how much land was owned in what capacity (fee simple, communal ownership, perpetual lease, etc.) based on Ottoman and british land records.
I think we can make a very good guess about the arab population in palestine before 1948.
I agree with you that the descendants of the refugees should be allowed - encouraged, in fact - to leave the refugee camps. It’s a big world out there.
