A very brief history…
It is a common misconception that the struggle in Israel/Palestine has gone on for thousands of years and thus will never be resolved. Actually, problems only began in the late 19th Century, when in response to anti-Semitism in Europe, Jewish Zionists began to migrate from Europe to Palestine, with the long term goal of creating a Jewish state in Palestine.
At that time, over 90 percent of the inhabitants of Palestine were Palestinian. Over the following decades, Zionists continued to settle on Palestinian land. In 1948, the UN partitioned Palestine into two sections, of which 55 percent went to Israel. The Palestinians viewed this deal as fundamentally unfair, because they were given less than half the land even though they formed the majority of inhabitants, and because 450,000 Palestinians lived in the section given to Israel, a Jewish State. They therefore rejected the UN deal, and the Israel Arab War followed.
By the end of the war, the better-armed Zionist forces controlled around 80 percent of Palestine. 750,000 Palestinians were forcibly expelled from their homeland, and to this day they and their descendants have not been allowed to return. After the 1967 War, Israel controlled all of Palestine, including the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, lands known as the Israeli Occupied Territories. Today, the majority of Palestinians live under military occupation.
Current situation…
International Law recognizes the right of Palestinians and Israelis to have their own independent state. However, Israel has been occupying Palestinian lands since 1967, making a Palestinian state impossible. This military occupation is full of human rights abuses and humiliations for the Palestinians. Military checkpoints make it extremely difficult, sometimes impossible, for Palestinians to go to work, school, or even visit their families.
In the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the Israeli Government protects illegal Jewish settlements, which steal valuable land and resources. Palestinians, on the other hand, are often prohibited from even building their own houses, many of which are destroyed every year by the Israeli military. Palestinians have almost no legal rights in the Occupied Territories and it is common for people to spend months or years in jail without a trial.
In Gaza, the Palestinians live in desperate circumstances under a blockade in what has been called the largest open-air prison in the world. They have to endure massive and vicious military attacks from Israel resulting in high civilian casualties, as in the cases of Operation Cast Lead in 2008 and Operation Protective Edge in 2014.
Palestine and the Israeli Occupation
Zionism 101…
Zionism is a form of Jewish nationalism, and is the primary ideology that drove the establishment of Israel. Zionism began in the late 19th century in the context of a set of huge changes in political, cultural, social landscape of Jewish life in Europe, along with the general rise of nationalist movements and nation-state political forms. For Jews in Europe, this meant a sharp rise in violent antisemitism. Jewish people – even though they had lived in Europe for centuries – were fundamentally excluded from the ways European nations defined themselves. This resulted in violent, targeted, anti-Jewish massacres in Russia, known as pogroms; the development of anti-Jewish conspiracy theories like Protocols of the Elders of Zion; and the re-emergence of older antisemitic tropes, like blood libels, which claim that Jewish people use the blood of Christian children in rituals.
Some Jewish people responded to this antisemitism by attempting to assimilate into the European countries they lived in; this often proved impossible. Many Jewish people – over 2.5 million – left as refugees, coming to the United States or other parts of Europe. Others, most famously the Bund, rejected the concept of nationalism altogether or turned to revolutionary socialism. And some, notably Theodore Herzl, often seen as the founder of Zionism, thought that Jews themselves constituted a separate people, and should therefore have a state of their own. Herzl and other early Zionist thinkers were also very influenced by European settler colonial thinking, often explicitly making the case that a Jewish state in Palestine would be a European colony similar to the British presence in India.
The political ideology of Zionism, regardless of which strain, has resulted in the establishment of a Jewish nation-state in the land of historic Palestine. In 1948, 750,000 Palestinians were expelled as part of that process, their homes and property confiscated. Despite recognition of their rights by the United Nations, their rights to return and be compensated have long been denied by the US and Israel. In 1967, Israel occupied what is now known as the Occupied Palestinian Territories, putting millions of people under military rule. Longstanding systemic inequalities privilege Jews over Palestinians inside Israel and in the Occupied Territories.
Our responsibility as US citizens…
Although Israel is a wealthy, modernized, nuclear-armed state, the U.S. government gives over 3 billion dollars to Israel in military aid every year. This aid dwarfs the amount given to any other country in the world. In addition, the US seat on the UN Security Council is used to block any censure of illegal Israeli actions. Thus our government is enabling the oppression of the Palestinians through its blind and uncritical support of the state of Israel.
It is therefore our responsibility as Americans to stand up for Palestinians and help them resist these grave human rights abuses. We can urge our elected representatives in Congress to halt military aid to Israel. Meanwhile, personal and institutional purchasing choices can have an effect. We can join the international movement to boycott companies which profit from the military occupation of Palestine.
The conflict between Israel and the Palestinians has destabilized the entire region and is a major obstacle to peace in the world. An end to the Israeli military occupation will remove a source of conflict, as well as reduce antagonism toward the US. We can play a large part in bringing human rights to all citizens in Israel and Palestine, and help provide a path to peace for Israelis, Palestinians, and the world at large.