OLGA RODRÍGUEZ FRANCISCO

What is Israel looking for after 5 months of massacre in Gaza

By Olga Rodríguez

Nothing that happens in Palestine can be understood without knowing the founding bases of Israel and how they have developed over the decades. Two episodes were key and still determine events today.

A colonialism of the past vindicated in the 21st century

In 1916, in the middle of the First World War, the United Kingdom signed the secret Sykes-Picot agreement with France, by which both European powers planned to share control of the Middle East in the event of a military victory over the region. France would exercise its dominion over present-day Syria and Lebanon, and the United Kingdom would control Transjordan (now Jordan), Palestine and Iraq, all of them provinces of the disintegrating Ottoman Empire. That’s how they agreed and that’s how it happened.

In 1920 Transjordan, Palestine and Iraq came under British mandate. Much of the local population reacted with indignation or distrust. The history of the following years in the entire region is woven by the construction of resistance movements against the occupying countries, in search of an independence that they progressively obtained in the decades of the thirties and forties, conquering their entity as sovereign and independent countries. All, except one: Palestine, the only trace still alive in the region of a colonialism that today is incompatible with contemporary democratic values.

What happened so that Palestine could not obtain its independence, like the rest of the territories in the region? What happened so that the native population was subjected to a process of expulsion and an occupation that, far from decreasing over the years, has been growing and becoming more sophisticated?

The Balfour Declaration

It was a public statement by the British Government during the First World War to announce its support for the creation of “a national home” for the Jewish people in Palestine. It was published in the press in November 1917, the year in which the United Kingdom occupied Palestine and began its control over that territory. In 1922, the League of Nations endorsed the Balfour Declaration, which was received with discomfort in the Arab world.

The Zionist movement

Zionism was theorized at the end of the 19th century by the Austro-Hungarian Jewish journalist Theodor Herzl, in response to the anti-Semitic wave that swept through Europe in those years, and he was inspired by the work of Moses Hess and Leo Pinsker. Herzl developed the idea of a Jewish State, with the conception of Judaism as a religion but, above all, as a national and ethnic group. Argentina and Uganda were considered as possible territories for that future Jewish State, but Palestine was always the first option, as it corresponded to the territory spoken of in the Old Testament.

Zionism pushed Jewish workers and students from 1880 onwards to emigrate to Palestine – where a small Jewish community had lived for centuries – and promoted the resurrection of the Hebrew language, which had stopped being used orally twenty centuries ago, although it was used in the liturgy and in literary texts. The first wave of migration began in 1882. Afterwards, others arrived.

The attacks by Zionist armed organizations

In the 1930s, with Nazi persecution, Jewish migration increased. The Jewish Migration Agency, under the control of an underground Zionist government, coordinated travels to the British Mandate of Palestine. In addition, several Zionist armed organizations began to operate; some, such as the Irgun and Lehi, committed car bomb attacks and another series of attacks against British and Palestinian targets.

The Irgun was led by Menahem Begin, who would become Israeli Prime Minister in 1977. Several Jewish personalities such as Albert Einstein and Hannah Arendt already warned about him and his “fascist” methods in 1948, in a letter published in The New York Times.

Lehi had been commanded by Abraham Stern and, from 1942, when he died at the hands of the British Police, Isaac Shamir assumed command. He would also be Israeli Prime Minister, in 1983.

The scenario of perpetual war is the way that makes the extension of the Israeli occupation possible.

One of the Irgun’s bloodiest attacks occurred in 1946, when it carried out an attack on the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. Half a building was blown up and at least ninety people died, most of them British. This armed group promoted other crimes, such as the kidnapping and murder of two British sergeants, Clifford Martin and Mervyn Paice, whose bodies were hung from a tree.


Another of the best-known attacks was the one carried out in January 1948 by the Haganah (Zionist armed group, seed of the future Israeli Army) against the Semiramis hotel in Jerusalem, owned by a Palestinian Christian family. A bomb killed twenty-four civilians.

Only through force can a foreign territory be controlled and essential rights denied to the native population.

The assassination of the first UN envoy

For his part, Lehi also committed attacks. In 1944, under the direction of Shamir, this group assassinated the British Minister of State for the Middle East. In 1948 Lehi members killed the first special envoy in the history of the United Nations, the Swede Folke Bernadotte, who had presented a peace plan that contemplated some rights for the Palestinian population, such as the ability to return to their homes or receive compensation if they did not.

That murder was the beginning of the conflictive Israeli position before the United Nations, whose resolutions have been breached over the decades by successive Israeli governments. The current cabinet of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defends positions contrary to those of the UN and it has declared its Secretary General, António Guterres, “persona non grata,” accusing him of being “a danger to world peace».

The use of weapons and the commitment to military means have been Israel’s path since its birth as a State, because only through force can a process of occupation of territory and a plan of dispossession and exclusion against native population be carried out.

The King-Crane Commission warned that «the Zionist program» could only be carried out «by force of arms.»

Already in 1919 the King-Crane Commission, promoted by the United States to ascertain the position of local elites, determined that “no British officer consulted by the commissioners believed that the Zionist program could be carried out except by force of arms.”

The ethnic cleansing of 1948

The situation in Palestine, with attacks and growing tension over territorial dominance, became unsustainable and it led the United Kingdom to consider ending its mandate in this region. The horror of the Holocaust pushed the General Assembly of the newly created UN to approve resolution 181 in 1947, which recommended a Partition Plan in Palestine. (Assembly resolutions are recommendations, they are not binding like those of the UN Security Council).

That plan allocated 44.8% of the territory of Palestine to a future Palestinian State and 54.7% to a future State of Israel. At that time, 70% of the population was Palestinian and 30% was Jewish. The distribution was not equitable.

In the first two quarters of 1948, the Zionist armed organizations Irgun and Lehi carried out raids and assassinations in several towns located in the corridor that connects Jerusalem with Tel Aviv, an area assigned as Palestinian territory by the UN Partition Plan. Thus, through the so-called Dalet Plan, massacres were recorded in towns such as Deir Yasin, with the aim of expelling the Palestinian population. The elite Zionist forces of the Haganah also attacked important cities with mortars, such as the coastal Jafa and Haifa, causing the flight of a large part of the Palestinian population and they took most of the western neighborhoods of Jerusalem, as well as Tiberias, Safed, Beisan or Acre.

The birth of Israel and the continuation of the war

After these operations, which led to the flight of important pockets of the native population, Israel declared its independence on May 14, 1948, and was immediately recognized by the Soviet Union and the United States.

At the same time, the neighboring Arab states, which on the one hand feared the expansion of Israeli colonialism into their own territories and, on the other, sought to take advantage of the situation, declared war on Israel. The Armies of Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian militias confronted the soldiers of the Haganah, into which the Irgun and Lehi paramilitary groups would join two weeks later, forming the Israeli army.

The Dalet plan first and the war later caused the exodus of more than 700,000 Palestinians, who fled their towns and were never able to return. Their homes were destroyed or redistributed – due to the Absentee Property Law – to Israeli soldiers and officials. This is what is known as Nakba.

Another law, the law of return, established the right of any Jew in the world to live in Israel. Their partners, children, grandchildren or great-grandchildren have the same right, as well as any person who converts to Judaism. But the Palestinians of historic Palestine who suffered forced displacement and lost their lands are not allowed to live there, nor do their children or grandchildren, nor their partners, nor those who in subsequent decades have been forced to leave their lands and homes.
750,000 Israeli settlers illegally occupy the West Bank and East Jerusalem, supported by the Army, against the UN resolutions.

750,000 Israeli settlers illegally occupy the West Bank and East Jerusalem, supported by the Army

More annexation of Palestinian territory

Within the 1948 war, Israel annexed more territory, taking 78% of the total. Only Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem (22% of the total Palestine) remained outside its reach, under the control of Egypt and Jordan until 1967, with one exception from 1956 to 1957, when Israel, France and the United Kingdom occupied Gaza.

In 1967, as part of the Six-Day War, Israel also occupied these Palestinian territories, in addition to the Syrian Golan Heights and the Egyptian Sinai. That occupation continues to this day, except for that of the Sinai Peninsula. Furthermore, in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, occupation through colonies has been spreading since then.

In 1993 there were 160,000 Israeli settlers in those territories. Today, there are more than 700,000 settlers living and illegally occupying Palestinian territory, for which they have the protection of the Israeli Army, which protects this violation of UN resolutions.

The vast majority of the Israeli Parliament voted two weeks ago against the Palestinian State, thus rejecting the UN mandate

The occupation and apartheid in the present

Several United Nations resolutions -242, 3236, 446, 497, 1515 and 2334, among others- demand the withdrawal of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. Israel systematically fails to comply with them. In fact, just a few days ago the Israeli Parliament voted with an overwhelming majority (99 votes out of 120) against the declaration of a Palestinian state.

This vote, like other positions, reveals that it is not only the Likud party and its government partners that reject the UN position: it is the parliamentary majority. Of the 193 member countries of the United Nations, 139 recognize Palestine as a State. The UN itself recognizes it.

The progressive extension of the occupation shows that this has been Israel’s purpose throughout the decades

All of this is what Israel’s war against Gaza is about. States are not motivated by mere revenge. The excuse of massacring Gaza to end Hamas is not sustainable, because nothing justifies killing 30,000 people, injuring 70,000, or destroying 70% of the infrastructure, unprecedented figures in this century.

Furthermore, no matter how much Israel continues to bomb Gaza, Hamas will continue to exist and, in the end, an agreement will be needed. The sooner it arrives, the more lives will be saved. Even if Hamas disappears completely, the rest of the Palestinian forces will continue to call for an end to the occupation and apartheid, as they did before the Palestinian Islamic organization was born in the 1980s.

Through military means, Israel has freed only 2 hostages in 5 months and it has killed at least 3. With agreements, it obtained the release of 105

Israel’s plan: more domination and colonialism

Hamas emerged in the heat of the First Palestinian Intifada, as a consequence of years of illegal Israeli occupation and systematic discrimination through a system designed to alienate the indigenous population. Hamas is a consequence, not a cause.

If Israel’s main purpose were its own security and ending attacks by Hamas or other organizations, it would end its illegal occupation and the apartheid system it applies against the Palestinian population of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.

If his priority was really the release of the hostages, it would have negotiated another prisoner exchange long ago and agreed to an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Israeli Government knows well that through continuous bombing – for five months – it has only managed to free two hostages and shoot three dead – despite the fact that they were waving white cloth -, while when agreed to a negotiation, it obtained the return home of more than a hundred Israelis in captivity. It is evident that the perpetuation of its offensive has had other purposes.

Israel’s goal is to maintain the Zionist project of a Jewish state with a Jewish majority, controlling the Palestinian territory but without Palestinians as citizens with rights. With the occupation, it also seeks to benefit from raw materials, aquifers, as well as gas fields on the coast, and even from an eventual alternative commercial route to the Suez Canal.

The gradual and progressive extension of occupation shows that this has been the purpose throughout the decades, with successive governments. To achieve this, several Israeli governments carried out ethnic cleansing in the past and is currently promoting crimes of such magnitude that the International Court of Justice itself has established that there are plausible signs of an ongoing genocide.

Israel also seeks to benefit from the gas fields on the coast and an from eventual alternative route to the Suez Canal

The force of arms to perpetuate the domination

If Israel returned the occupied territory, if it agreed to comply with UN resolutions and international law, if it stopped denying the rights of the Palestinian population, the path to coexistence, security and respect would be paved.

But the Israel government and the majority of the Israeli parliamentary arch do not want to give up even a millimeter of territory and, in fact, aspire to more. Netanyahu himself made it clear last September, before the Hamas attacks of October 7th, when he publicly showed a map on which Palestine appeared within the State of Israel, annexed, hidden, stolen. He did it at the United Nations headquarters, defying its resolutions and protected by the United States.

Israel corners two million Palestinians and kills tens of thousands to try to accelerate its colonial plans. He seeks not peace, but dominion. That is why a few days ago Netanyahu announced that, after his collective punishment against Gaza, the Strip will be under Israeli military control by sea, land and air. With this, it is committed to the continued use of force, which already conditions the dynamics of the international order because, as representatives of the United Nations repeat, «the Gaza crisis is a crisis for the UN and for humanity».