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Recently I visited with a young soldier who had just finished his tour of duty. When he discovered that I worked in the field of peace and reconciliation he said, “Can you help me understand what the Middle East conflict is really all about?”
Imagine that – he had been trained in weaponry, in tactical strategies for waging war, how to march and carry out orders, how to kill, shipped to a very unfamiliar part of the world and given his marching orders – but, other than vague statements about ‘terrorists’ and ‘enemy combatants,’ he was never taught anything about the source of the conflict he found himself thrust into.
“Does the year ‘1948’ mean anything to you,” I asked? “No,” he said. “How about 1967?” “Um, was that the year the Beetles split?” I sensed this could be a long conversation. “Let me frame the political climate of a post-WWII and post-holocaust world,” I said.
“After these events, parts of the world were sensitive to the idea that it would be good for Jewish people, who had suffered so much – death, displacement, dispossession – to have a homeland. The logical place to try to establish such a state would be what we today call ‘the holy land’ – i.e., Palestine (or ‘Israel’ as many prefer).
The United Nations attempted to divide this land based upon demographic concentrations, asking ‘where do most of the Palestinians live versus most of the Jews in the region?’ The problem was that the two peoples were so intertwined that such a division became practically impossible. But the UN was undeterred, parceling off 55% of the country to a Jewish people who previously held as little as 6% of the Land while constituting just 33% of the country’s population. As if this inequity were not a large enough offense to Palestinians, the areas allocated to the Jewish state included the valuable port cities of Tel Aviv and Haifa as well as the Sea of Galilee and the abundant resources of the Negev.
While the Jewish community was obviously amenable to such a distribution of land and resources, understandably the Palestinians (and other Arab countries of the region) were not.”
“Wow,” he said, “if I were a Palestinian I think I’d be more than a little upset about this, too! So what happened?”
“A war that culminated in 1948 – known to the Israelis as the War of Independence – not surprisingly known by the Palestinians as simply ‘the Naqba,’ meaning, ‘disaster.’ It isn’t difficult to see why the Palestinians would call it this. When the dust cleared, Israel possessed 78% of the land – including half of what the UN had designated as Palestinian property – and some 750,000 Palestinians were displaced, many relocated to refugee camps – camps that still stand to this day. This means that you could be 62 years old and have been born and still reside in a refugee camp.”
“I think I’m beginning to understand why there’s such rage over there,” he said. “And let me guess, the U.S. supported Israel, effectively alienating the rest of the Arab world, right?”
“Partially, yes, along with Great Britain. Both were in support of a political view called ‘Zionism,’ – the idea that Israel had a right to a Land that held so much history for them. But here’s where it gets even more tangled: In 1967 there was another war. This time Israel conquered the additional territories of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza. But by then something else had entered the mix – the ‘political’ view of Zionism was now accompanied by a ‘religious’ view of Zionism – a narrow theological reading of the Bible that justifies Israel possessing the Land as a perpetual gift from God.”
“Oh great,” he said, “religion AND politics – what could be worse?”
“Exactly,” I replied. “The combination proved lethal then and continues to this day.”
“Then how do we untangle it,” he asked?
“You can’t,” I replied.
“So there’s no solution? You just continue to fight and defend until only one man is left standing?”
“No, not at all,” I replied. “I think you pick up where we are today, evaluate the situation realistically, uncover the injustices taking place and seek reparations through more equitable strategies – strategies that take into account both peoples. But make no mistake – there are plenty of injustices that must be understood before such solutions will be sought. And if these injustices are not brought to light, the world will not awaken to action. And if the world continues turning its back on this region, I fear the results could be nothing short of catastrophic for us all, not just the Palestinian people.”
“Scary,” he said. “So what sort of injustices are taking place that – if more people knew about them – might move the nations to finally address the situation?”
[And that is where we’ll pick it up in our next post]
10 comments to “Israel Report Pt. 3 “In the Beginning””
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Excellent article…while generally economic and political gains usually drive geo-political situations, religious zealots and zeal go a long way to justifying and exacerbating the situation. My hope is that cooler religious heads will ultimately prevail.
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Check out http://www.freedocumentaries.org The document entitled Occupation101. Good article!
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Great history lesson! Looking forward to the rest of the story (sorry, Paul)
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Keep writing!!! Everyone I know needs to read this!
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And that is part of the problem…parts of the story instead of an empathic one. Good for you for enlightening. I truly do believe, though, that these soldiers do believe they are being humanitarians. Good vs Evil instead of a peaceful resolution. My heart is with a particular soldier who is on his 5th deployment to Iraq, and his belief in humanitarianism is waning…conflict within ourselves and the outer world can only go on for so long…
Alicia
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Yes. Peace and justice.
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Didn’t the 1948 war happen because Palestinians and neighboring Arab countries didn’t want to abide by the UN’s partitioning? Yes, Israel ended up with more land than they should have – but I think there’s blame on both sides.
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I’m really happy to see this post. Thanks so much for writing it, Tim. Now I’m going to pass the link onward.
What a superb summary of the situation. I’m saving this for reference, and await the completion. Thanks, Tim.