Alternative Insight

A Critical Evaluation of Israel's Actions
in the Mid-East Conflict

Critical examination of Israel's creation and motivation


Part II-From War to Democratic Compromises

The Mid-East wars

The UN Partition Resolution 181 could not stop military engagements. Israel may have been technically correct in its claim that several Arab countries had attacked it. However, only Syria, Jordan and Egypt had any semblance of a military. Jordan had the Jordan League, 15,000 soldiers under British command that confined itself to the Jerusalem area. The total number of military personnel in the Arab armies confronting Israel did not exceed 10,000. The Palestinians had no regular army and no unified command. During the struggle, they had about 7,000 fighters. Israel had a regular army of 15,000 and another 45,000 persons who had armaments. It had unified commands in the Irgun and Haganah, weapons that included artillery, which had been captured from the British, and a military trained during World War II and by post-war battles with the British. The Zionists did not have tremendous military power. Nevertheless, their armaments and organization exceeded those of the powers in conflict with them.

In 1956, Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, an event that greatly affected France's and Great Britain's economies and their international prestige. At that time, closing the canal and Straights of Tiran to Israel, only mildly affected Israel's trade. To Israel, Egypt's action continued an undeclared war in which insurgents were entering Israel through Egypt, and forecasted future problems for the Israeli state. Its strategy for survival dictated it had to act from strength and reduce their adversary's strength. Israel seized the moment. It invaded the Sinai and, within a few days, its armies, almost unopposed by any Egyptian force, reached the Suez Canal. Coincidentally, French and British Paratroopers, assumed to be acting in coordination with Israel, attacked Egypt. Eisenhower forced the attackers to retreat, restored the status quo and brought the downfall of the Eden government.

Why didn't Israel voice its complaint against Egypt to an international body, such as the United Nations? By its aggressive operation, the Israeli government demonstrated it felt the UN proclamation had not made the proper guarantees, the UN had already failed in its endeavors to resolve disputes and the conflict the UN had created in 1948 had not ended and reached another level.

Before the 1967 war, Israel claimed that Arab armies had been preparing an attack and thir behavior forced Israel to defend itself. Again, charges provoked counter charges, hostile movements provoked hostile movements. The involved countries remained fearful and on edge. Israel reacted to events with provocative behavior and initiated the offensive that started the 1967 war.:

As in previous engagements, Israel fought a defensive war in an offensive manner and seized large amounts of territory. The war created another flood of Palestinian refugees. A total of 300,000 fled the West Bank and Gaza, of which 180,000 were first time refugees and another 120,000 were already refugees from previous actions.


In the 1973 war, Egypt and Syria tried to regain the land they lost in 1967. This is the one time that Arab nations can unequivocally be termed the sole aggressors. Their aggression intended to regain their stolen lands and topple Israel. They failed in war, but Egypt managed to regain its territory in a peaceful arrangement.

In 1982, Israel continued defensive actions with its invasion of Lebanon. At that time, no aggressive actions, such as border raids, had occurred between Israel and the PLO for more than one year. The war resolved a significant issue for Israel --the PLO was forced to leave Lebanon and retreat to Tunisia.. Attacks against Lebanon became a permanent feature for 20 years, with continuous bombing of "hostile targets", retaliatory strikes and "accidental" killings of civilians.

Israel's population expansion
The dramas of the last fifty years have shadowed the mighty drama started 100 years ago as only a dream of a few Zionists. From the beginning, Zionism did not fully clarify its motives. Scholars still debate Herzl's reasons for wanting a Jewish state. Some believe the Zionists feared democratic revolutions would absorb the Jewish community and emancipation would enable them lose to their identity. Others attributed the Zionist movement to anti-semitism, that the Dreyfuss affair stimulated Herzl's Zionist leanings.

If population increases coupled with a lowering death rate are clues to a group's progress, then emancipation enabled the Jews to greatly advance themselves during the 1800's. The Jewish population in Europe increased from 2 million to 7 million during the period of 1800-1880. From 1880 to 1914 the Jewish population expanded from 7 million to 13 million. A survey in Frankfurt, Germany in the year 1855 showed Jewish life span averaged 48 years and 9 months compared to 36 years and 11 months for non-Jews. In European Russia, where the more deprived Jews lived, the Jewish death rate was only 14.2/1000 per year compared to 31.8/1000/year for the Russian Orthodox majority. (Paul Johnson, History of the Jews)

Nor were doors locked to Jewish migrations. Between 1881 and 1914, 2.5 million Jews migrated from Russia--2 million to America and only 30,000 to Palestine. Another 500,000 went to the large capitals of Western Europe. (Bernard Avishai, The Tragedy of Zionism)

Anti-semitism may have existed, but Jews had become well integrated into high echelons of European society and had elevated economic and social opportunities. The fact that 2.5 million Russians chose to migrate to America rather than Palestine, indicated that even the more oppressed Jews did not consider the Zionist movement as a valid alternative, at least in the early 1900's. Social stability and economic welfare proved more motivating than idealistic thoughts of establishing a Jewish state in an undeveloped land. It wasn't until the revelations of the horrible tragedy to the Jewish people in WWII that Zionism achieved mass appeal within the Jewish community.

The plight of the surviving concentration camp inmates stimulated the belief that a Zionist state could serve as their safe haven. Before the creation of the state of Israel, and during the years of the Nazi oppression (1935-1945), 180,000 Jews emigrated from Europe to Palestine. In the post-war years from 1945-1948, as the creation of Israel became formally debated, another 216,000 Europeans migrated to Palestine. If British immigration restrictions and available finances had not limited the emigrations, then the Zionists may have provided a haven for many more Jews previous to the war and during the war years. Relatively large, but lesser emigration from European countries to Israel occurred between 1948, the year of Israel's creation, and 1951. The Zionists in Palestine performed an admirable service by providing a safe haven for a great number of refugees. Nevertheless, by 1949, the vast number of Jewish refugeees in Europe were not "unsafe" and the refugee crisis had diminished. The facts don't support an often stated thesis that Israel was solely created to provide a haven for Holocaust survivors. More likely, the Holocaust memory influenced the UN and the world community to support the Partition Resolution.

In a reverse twist, that has provoked a ferocious debate, major Zionist leaders have been accused of inappropriate actions against fellow Jews. Bernard Avishai in The Tragedy of Zionism asserts that David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, did not properly assist the Jews caught in the Holocaust and quotes him as saying: "If I knew that all the Jewish children of Europe could be saved by settlement in Britain and only 1/2 could be saved by settlement in Palestine, I should choose the latter." Avishai accuses Ben Gurion of refusing to give support to agencies that attempted to save the European Jews. Johnson (A History of the Jews) involves ex-prime minister Begin in the bombing of the King David Hotel in order to liquidate British soldiers. Seventy seven Jews died in that terrorist act . The battles between rival Zionist groups during the 1930's resulted in Ben Gurion, fearful of angering the British who seemed to be supporting him, ordering the sinking of the ship Altea that Begin had chartered to bring Jewish refugees. In the sinking, 14 Jews died. Another Israeli leader, Yitzak Shamir, has been identified as a member the Stern gang which has been accused of initiating talks with the Italians and Germans during the Second World War to mutually combat the British troops in Palestine.

Another troublesome point: Although, in one sense, it was a great humanitarian effort, was it wise, immediately after the war, to transport to Palestine those already debilitated by years in concentration camps and have them face uncertainty and possible harm in a troubled area of the world? Was it humanitarian to bring the refugees to an existing Palestine in older ships, some of which had to be abandoned. The British had declared the immigration to be illegal and refused to admit them. Some died in the transport and many had to return. Would it have been preferable to assist them in finding, at least temporarily, a more peaceful and suitable environment? One refuge could have been the small Dominican Republic which offered to resettle 100,000 Jews, about 45% of the European refugees eventually taken to Palestine.

The Jews living in Western countries and Russia, for whom the Zionists had most struggled to create a homeland, remained in their own homelands. Jews from impoverished North African countries constituted the largest immediate post war emigration to Israel. Bernard Avishai, Tragedy of Zionism, estimates that 400,000 Sephardic Jews from North Africa emigrated to Israel between 1956 and 1963. Another immigration came from countries such as Ethiopia, in which people were caught in a temporary conflagration. Much later, Russians (>1,000,000) who looked at Israel as a way to depart from their troubled homeland, arrived in the Holy Land. A by-product of the emigration from Arab lands has been the destruction of a strong Jewish history and presence in these lands, in Baghdad, Cairo, Kairouan-Tunisia and other places. Areas that sustained segments of the Jewish people and enabled their survival for several centuries, became a footnote to history.

In 1949, Israel airlifted about 50,000 Yemenite Jews to their new state. These Jews are related to the Jewish people by their use of the Torah. They don't follow the Jewish Talmudic laws.

Afterwards, Jews from many Mid-East and North African countries came to Israel. The 1956 Israeli-Egyptian war did not endear these people to their native moslem countries. The Mid-East and Northern African immigrants had different religious ceremonies, and a different perspective of Judaism than that of the European Ashkenazi Jews. The spiritual leaders of the Ethiopian Jewish community, Falasha, are not authorized to officiate at ceremonies, such as weddings and funerals, as they had in Ethiopia and the Orthodox Israel rabbinate has not allowed the Ethiopian spiritual leaders to be called rabbi. When Menashe Zemo, the last remaining spiritual leader of the Ethiopian Jews died, Israel television reported that no representatives of the Israel's Orthodox rabbinate were present. For several reasons, some of which may have been discriminatory, Israel's radio and television authorities refused for many years to air oriental music. Except for using circumcision and believing in the Old Testament (as do many other religions), the newcomers felt alienated from the native Israelis.

In the 1960's and early 70's, partly due to Israel's prestige after the 1956 and 1967 wars, idealists, adventurers, experimentalists and reawakened Jews migrated to Israel. After Israel conquered Jerusalem and cleared an area in front of the Western Wall, Orthodox and Messianic Jews began to arrive in relatively large numbers in the Holy Land. The Orthodox Jews brought a strong belief that Jews should settle all Palestine and they have labored to convert the entire area to a Jewish presence.

From the 1970's to the 1990's, Russian Jews were eager to leave a land that had a limited future and had become increasingly inhospitable to its minorities. The Russian Jews realized an opportunity to leave the Soviet Union and more than one million eventually received permission to migrate. Many disembarked in Austria and detoured to the United States where they created communities in Brighton Beach, New York and other parts of the United States. Not all Israelis received them as lost brethren. The Sephardim community attempted to halt the Russian immigration because it interfered with their own welfare.

Many of these Russian immigrants had professional degrees. Despite their advanced education, they did not readily find employment and suffered economic hardships. A generation that had grown in the atheistic atmosphere of the Soviet Union could not be intensely religious or follow Judaic customs. Their attitudes and customs set them apart from previous immigrants and prompted them to form a new party, aptly named The Immigrant Party, and led by Natan Sharansky. Among them were many non-Jews married to Jews, who had no right under Israeli law to migrate to Israel. Their arrival prompted some forces in Israel to request a change in the Right of Return doctrine that had been made law in 1950.

The Jewish Student Online Research Center summarizes the immigration to Israel after 1948:

While mass immigrations to Israel have mostly been from countries of distress, immigration of individuals from the free world has also continued throughout the years. Most of these persons are motivated by idealism. This aliyah gained strength after the SixDay War, with the awakening feelings of Jewish identity among Diaspora Jewry.

The demographics of the emigrations to Israel describe a nation that has an uneven focus and lacks uniformity. The people are all Jews, but the many groups, as they arrived, had little affinity with those who were already there. Often, they didn't share the same cultural outlook, exacting religious customs, social beliefs, world outlook or even respect. The differences have created social problems in the past and these social problems might continue in the near future.

The Ignored UN Resolutions
Although a UN resolution created Israel, the country has ignored almost all other UN resolutions. In many of these resolutions, the UN has considered Israel's lack of attention to be a threat to a peace initiative.

... the Assembly adopted six resolutions on the Palestine question. It reaffirmed the inalienable rights of the Palestinians, including the right to their own State, and demanded that Israel withdraw from the Arab territories occupied since 1967. It expressed strong opposition to all partial agreements and treaties which violated Palestinian rights, and determined once more that Israeli measures to alter the character and status of Jerusalem were null and void and a threat to international peace and security. The Assembly decided to convene an International Conference on the Question of Palestine not later than 1984, and authorized continuing work by the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People and the United Nations Secretariat's Special Unit on Palestinian Rights.

On 16 December, the General Assembly adopted seven resolutions on this subject. One of them contained the Assembly's strong condemnation of a series of Israeli policies and practices, including annexation, establishment and expansion of Israeli settlements, expulsion and transfer of Arabs, confiscation of property, transformation and pillaging of cultural property, destruction of houses, mass arrests, ill-treatment of detainees, interference with religious freedoms, family customs, education, development and freedom of movement, and illegal exploitation of natural resources and population. The Assembly demanded that Israel desist from those policies and practices and, by another resolution, determined that Israeli measures designed to change the legal status, geographical nature and demographic composition of the occupied territories, including Jerusalem, had no legal validity. By four other resolutions, the Assembly demanded that Israel facilitate the immediate return of the Mayors of Hebron and Halhul and the Islamic Judge of Hebron, report on assassination attempts against three other mayors, rescind orders for the closure of three universities and desist from repressive measures against Syrians in the Golan Heights. The Assembly also reaffirmed that the 1949 Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War was applicable to the occupied territories and demanded that Israel comply with its provisions.

In separate resolutions relating to the occupied territories, the Assembly demanded that Israel cease implementing its project for a Mediterranean-Dead Sea canal(36) and desist from excavations and transformations of the historical, cultural and religious sites of Jerusalem. It called on States and institutions not to assist Israel in exploiting the territories' resources. It condemned Israel for the Palestinians' deteriorating living conditions and requested a report on the matter, from the Secretary-General.

Following the Israeli Parliament's decision on 14 December to apply Israeli laws, jurisdiction and administration to the Golan Heights, both the Security Council and the Assembly demanded on 17 December that Israel rescind its decision, which many countries characterized in the debate as tantamount to annexation.

Compromises to Israel's democracy
Israel has democratic processes that have earned world respect. Nevertheless, the democratic processes seem to favor the Jewish majority of their citizens. Israel has no written constitution. The state proclaims that any Jew, and only a Jew, can migrate to Israel. The Law of Return prevents the return of those who had their property and land expropriated, and allows the expropriated property to be given to those who have the "right to return." Those given the "right" have never been to the area, and those denied the "right" are related to families that have lived in the area for several generations. Only Jews are permitted to purchase property in Israel. Christians can buy property in some rare circumstances, but not Moslems. Israel law actually forbids giving back appropriated land to a legitimate Palestinian owner. This violates the General Assembly order of December 11, 1949: The (Palestinian) refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do this at the earliest possible date

All weddings must be performed in conformity with Jewish law. The state does not legally allow inter-marriage in Israel and there is no separation between church and state. These arrangements prevent a satisfactory and broad interchange betwen Jewish and Palestinian Israelis. Palestinian rights are not well protected. B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights group has testified in their 1999 report, that since 1987, Israeli civilians have killed 113 Palestinians and in only two of these murders have the murderers been convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. In both cases, Israel's president reduced the sentence. Killings and wounding of Palestinians by the Israeli "defense" forces greatly increase the "official" death tolls.

The Washington Post Foreign Service in an article titled Rights Group Accuses Israel of Violence Against Children in Palestinian Uprising stated:

..the Swedish Save the Children organization charged that in the first 30 months of the Palestine uprising, (Intifada) between 50,000 and 63,000 Palestinian youths had been treated for injuries and more than 150 youths had been killed due to actions by Israeli forces.

The Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem reported similar figures. Israeli government authorities and another Israel human rights advocate characterized the figures as inflated and the report as one-sided

It is well documented that Israel Arab citizens and their communities receive few scholarships, mortgages, government investment and public works. News reports, testimonials and documents describe the discrimination, injustices, false imprisonment, beatings, illegal land seizures, destruction of houses and communities, closing of schools, destruction of olive trees, damming of water wells, etc; directed against the Palestinians. They are part of an everyday historical record for anyone to read. One particular injustice is most vicious: the seizure of Palestinian lands. In December 1950, a Kibbutz seized 1200 acres of fertile coastal land from Arabs who stayed in Israel and expected to be part of a democratic state.-(Danny Rubenstein, The People of Nowhere) This aggressive process has not stopped. Arab lands are continually seized for the construction of military camps. These land seizures happen to both Arab Israeli citizens who live in Israel and Arabs who live in the West Bank. It never occurs with Israeli Jews. Only recently, in a Northern Israel Arab village, Israel seized many acres for a military encampment. A peaceful Arab community lost their land in a "democratic" state.

Some thoughts on the historical perspective
The UN created a conflict with a naive partition plan and could not guarantee its imposition. The partition plan resolution established a non-viable and non-accomodating Jewish state that could only become viable by expansion and discrimination. The resolution established an amorphous Palestinian state that had no preparation for establishment or existence. After considerable damage to all parties in the dispute, Count Folke Bernadotte formulated a reasonable and hopeful plan for coexistence. Bernadotte's 1948 plan may be a suitable basis for a year 2000 reconciliation plan.

The impoverished conditions and social and economic problems of the Palestinian people resulted indirectly from Israel's War of Independence and its later policies. That situation must be rectified. Otherwise, "peace" will be forever accompanied by a stigma: that the Jewish people abandoned their Judaic principles and performed intolerable acts, similarly to those that victimized Jewish people in the past.

Israel's demographics and the nature of the waves of emigration don't definitely indicate that the immigrants carried a unique Jewish identity into the new state. It is entirely possible that the immigrants arrived for other reasons--the major reasons being their personal hardships and sufferings in impoverished and politically repressive countries. They might have been more eager to migrate to other Western countries that allowed them entry and a future they couldn't ordinarily achieve in their present countries. The Zionists assumed that conflicts would occur if they governed together with a large Palestinian minority. Instead they have had greater conflicts with Arab nations and serious conflicts in trying to govern a rapidly changing population that contains disparate cultural and social outlooks. Israel deserves much credit for the adjustments that have intergrated these disparate social groups. Indirectly the same policies disintegrated Palestinian culture and society.

During the last half century the Jews in Israel have suffered from more calamities, including terrorism, than the Jews in other areas. The principal strength of the Jewish people is in the United States. The Jewish community in the United States has physical and economic superiority and a cohesion that Israel can never match. Without U.S. support, Israel could not easily survive. Yet, israel has endangered the American Jews and their own survival by rash acts--using American citizens to spy, attacking an American ship, selling armaments to China, competing with the United States in armament sales, etc. If world Jewry depends upon the United States Jewry for sustenance, then Israel has been careless in its obligations to the Jewish people.

Presently (2000), almost 20% of the Israeli citizens are Palestinian and the West Bank Palestinians are under de facto control of Israel. The country has two predominant languages. In 1948 Israel should have been a bi-national state. The Zionists would not permit that. In the year 2000, according to the demographics, Israel is a "quasi" bi-national state, similar to Canada or Belgium. The present government won't admit that. A recognition of that fact, backed by democratic regard for minorities and retribution to the Palestinian people for their losses may be demanded by those who hold one set of the "keys" to peace.

Hopefully, all those who have been involved in the Mid-East conflict will embark on a new path of reconcilation and seek justice that includes all antagonists. Justice and truth cannot be easily separated. Each demands the other. Not being attentive to historical fact, preventing crucial information from being disseminated and using control to exercise more control distorts the outcome of a punishing confrontation.This is one principal lesson of the Mid-East struggle. Both the Israelis and Palestinians have been victims of those who suppressed truth and failed to recognize the meaning of justice.

alternativeinsight
january, 2000

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