THIS is an emboldened truth of history that the foundation of a Zionist State –Israel in the Palestinian lands–owes its great credit to the ideologues of western imperialism-cum-Zionism for whom the establishment of an Israeli State in the MENA region remains the fulfilment of their geopolitical and geo-economic interests. Thus, the United Nations partitioned the mandatory Palestine —into two halves, Israel and the State of Palestine in November1947 under the UNGA resolution 181—through a plan that never went into full effect. While the State of Israel was established on 14 May 1948 and admitted to the United Nations, a Palestinian State was not established.
Israel, a western project: From 1882, the Rothschilds, a powerful banking Jew family started to buy the Palestinian lands on behalf of others. Later on, the Balfour Declaration, which resulted in a significant upheaval in the lives of Palestinians, was issued on November 2, 1917, was the brainchild of western imperialism. The declaration turned the Zionist aim of establishing a Jewish State in Palestine into a reality when Britain publicly pledged to establish “a national home for the Jewish people” there. Subsequently, The League of Nations formally adopted a British mandate for Palestine in July 1922, which incorporated the principles of the Balfour Declaration in the mandate. Arab nationalists opposed the establishment of a Jewish State in Palestine.
Further, the Peel Commission in its report published in 1937 admitted that the British mandate was unworkable because Jewish and Arab objectives in Palestine were incompatible. The 1946 Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry (AACI) dispatched to Palestine was of the thinking that Europe’s evils of barbarity could be exorcised by giving its victims given a state in Palestine. Ironically, the European tragedy of Holocaust was cleverly used as a pretext to founding a Zionist state in Palestine. Conversely in a 1938 speech, Einstein said, ‘’my awareness of the essential nature of Judaism resists the idea of a Jewish State, with borders, an army and a measure of temporal power, no matter how modest’’. He asserted that “I would much rather see a reasonable agreement with the Arabs on the basis of living together than the creation of a Jewish State.”
Moreover, the UN partition plan of the British mandatory Palestine was announced in November 1947 under the UNGA resolution of 181.The remaining territories of pre-1948 Palestine, the West Bank – including East Jerusalem- and Gaza Strip, were administered from 1948 till 1967 by Jordan and Egypt, respectively. The UN Partition Plan was the de- facto inculcation of the western efforts of securing international recognition of Jewish sovereignty in Palestine, which resulted in the establishment of the state of Israel in May 1948, albeitat the cost of a humiliating expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their lands. Nevertheless, the Balfour declaration is generally viewed as one of the main catalysts of the Nakba (the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in1948.
In a recent interview with Anadolu, Ussama Makdisi, Professor of history and Chancellor’s Chair at Berkley University underlined that the ‘’Balfour Declaration’’, which recognized the civil and religious but not political rights of Palestinians, was the beginning of colonial Zionism. “And the egregiously pro-Zionist British mandate, in its political structures, transplanted European-made Zionism into Palestine, he added.
Israel-West honeymoon: from past to present: Arguably, the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 and the subsequent Six-Day War in 1967 have had lasting impacts— on the region—thereby resulting in the displacement of the Palestinian people. Moshe Dayan, former chief of staff, Israel Defence Forces during Six Day War in 1967, said, “Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab village ….because geography books no longer exist …..There is not one single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab Population.” Analogically, how different the past 75 years would have been if the western world had treated the events of 1948 as ethnic cleansing and the decades since as a settler-colonial project –unjustly preventing the return of the Palestinian refugees.
It is ostensibly clear that for decades because of an alleged western support, Israel has been enjoying the liberty to tear the fabric of international law, humanity and civil values to achieve its fascist goals—endorsed by these ominous developments: US is continuously vetoing the UNSC ceasefire resolution; under the false pretext of self-defence, Israel has ruthlessly killed more than 30000 Palestinians; and Netanyahu’s post war Gaza plan is void of any Palestinian state. This all is good enough to reflect that Netanyahu wants full control of the Gaza Strip via permanent transfer of the Palestinian population.
Needless to say, the creation of an independent Palestinian state yet remains an incomplete agenda of the Partition of the mandatory Palestine in 1947.Nonetheless, because of their vested interests, the Western powers are not opposing the Israeli policies. Thanks to the influence of the Israeli lobby, Washington has always vetoed anti-Israel UNSC resolutions, given full diplomatic support, granted the largest military aid, while ignoring a stockpile of 400 Israeli nuclear warheads. Needless to say, Israeli and American Jews cast an unremitting impact on the Congress, media and academia via donations or by using lobby firms like AIPAC, ADL, JINSA, etc. The truth proclaims that there would not be a Zionist state called Israel had there not been Western affirmation. Sadly, the West has chosen a very vicious path
Israel has turned Gaza into a heap of rabbles. The ongoing Gaza war prompts perceptivity that the western powers– being silent spectators of Israel’s genocide in Gaza–have dangerously attempted to weave a new tapestry of social contract of barbarity and terrorism. And thus, in order to achieve their ends, they instrumentalise anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. But should not the West realise that this illegal, immoral and unilateral support for Israeli is lethal to its own social order? In order to restore its global image, the West must defend the norms of human rights, not geopolitics. Thus, the West must uphold the Palestinian right to self-determination.
—The writer, an independent ‘IR’ researcher-cum-international law analyst based in Pakistan, is member of European Consortium for Political Research Standing Group on IR, Critical Peace & Conflict Studies, also a member of Washington Foreign Law Society and European Society of International Law. He deals with the strategic and nuclear issues.
Email: [email protected]
views expressed are writer’s own.
