Illusions of Peace

By Nizar Sakhnini

10 July 2006

PROLOGUE:

Escalation of the atrocities against the Palestinian people had nothing to do with freeing a war prisoner. Gilad Shalit is used as a pretext to justify an all out war aiming at pushing the Palestinian people into submission to the Zionist diktat. This all out war started in April 1948 and never stopped ever since. It aims at creating a Jewish State that is cleansed from its Palestinian owners.

Destruction of the infrastructure and killing of innocent civilians, including children and women, are part and parcel of the pre-meditated and pre-planned designs to ethnically cleanse the country of its indigenous population. It is a replicate and a continuation of all the massacres committed in cold blood since Deir Yassin, which are part and parcel of the combined Zionist-Imperialist designs for hegemony and control since the beginning of the Nineteenth Century.

DER JUDENSTAAT:

The first call for the creation of a Jewish State did not come from the Jews. It was initiated by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1799. Bonaparte realized the value of the services such a state would provide to help his imperialist designs.

In 1862 Moses Hess published Rome and Jerusalem, which called for a Jewish state that would serve Western imperial interests and bring “Western civilization to the backward East”.

Hovevei Zion societies, the precursor of the World Zionist Organization, were developed in Russia in the early 1880’s to promote Jewish colonial settlement in Palestine.

Theodor Herzl published his Der Judenstaat in 1896 stressing that the Jewish State would, “form a portion of the rampart of Europe against Asia, an outpost of civilisation as opposed to barbarism. We should, as a Neutral State, remain in contact with all Europe, which would have to guarantee our existence…”

The Balfour Declaration, which was a result of discussions between the Zionist Organization and the Western Imperialist powers led by the British, was declared in 1917 and opened the doors of Palestine for Jewish emigration.

LAND GRAB AND ETHNIC CLEANSING:

The ‘Jewish State’ proclaimed in 1948 controlled about 77 % of Palestine. This was a first step, a starting point that had to be followed by other steps aiming at more ethnic cleansing and land grab.

In 1967, Israel occupied the remaining parts of Palestine that were not occupied in 1948 in addition to Sinai and the Golan Heights.

Building of Jewish settlements in the Palestinian areas occupied in 1967 started in 1970 when Gush Emunim built Kiryat Arba near Hebron. Ever since, more settlements and bypass roads connecting these settlements with Israel proper were built in the newly occupied Palestinian territories.

The Likud party was victorious in the elections held for the 9th Israeli Knesset on 17 May 1977. Its leader, Menachem Begin, became the Prime Minister. In a press conference early in the morning of 18 May, Begin announced that he would invite President Sadat of Egypt, Assad of Syria and King Hussein to “come and start with us together...face-to-face, direct negotiations to sign peace treaties between their states and Israel without any prior conditions”. When asked about the Occupied Palestinian Territories, he snapped at a journalist: “What occupied territories? If you mean Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip, they are liberated territories. They are part, an integral part, of the Land of Israel”.

CONFRONTING THE ‘DEMOGRAPHIC THREAT’:

On 11 May 1986, the Israeli government devoted a special session to the ‘demographic problems’ of Jews in Israel. Shortly after, the government established a working group formed by representatives of various ministries and the Jewish Agency and coordinated by the Demographic Center to prepare a program for demographic policies. (Nur Masalha, A Land Without a People: Israel, Transfer and the Palestinians 1949 - 96. London: Faber and Faber ltd., 1997, p. 150)

Annual conferences were held in the Institute of Policy and Strategy at the Interdisciplinary Center – Herzliya to discuss and confront this basic and strategic threat to the ‘Jewish State’. The first conference was held on 19-21 December 2000. (Journal of Palestine Studies 121, Volume XXXI, No. 1, Autumn 2001, pp. 50-61)

In his speech at the Herzliya Conference on 24 January 2006, Ehud Olmert stated, “…Two years ago, at this Conference, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon delivered his speech later known as ‘the Herzliya Speech’, the speech in which he announced the Disengagement Plan… That speech, and the Disengagement Plan which followed, are milestones in the history of the State of Israel… He [Sharon] knew it was better for Israel to initiate political steps, and not be dragged into dangerous moves forced on it by others… that the most important and dramatic step we face is the determination of permanent borders of the State of Israel, to ensure the Jewish majority in the country…” Olmert added, “Zeev Jabotinsky defined the importance of a Jewish majority in his insightful and keen way: The term ‘Jewish nation’ is absolutely clear: it means a Jewish majority. With this, Zionism began, and it is the basis of its existence, it will continue to work towards its fulfillment or it will be lost...”

Sharon came to power on 7 February 2001 with a publicly stated goal: to end the Intifada within 100 days. On the other hand, he made it clear, although in an indirect way, that he wants to end the job that was left incomplete in 1948. (Interview with Ari Shavit published in Ha’aretz on 12 April 2001)

ILLUSIONS OF PEACE:

Peace requires recognition of the other, respecting the other, living with the other as an equal human being with equal human rights. Zionism is based on rejecting the other, disrespecting the other and exclusion of the other. Accordingly, calls for peace with Zionism are a mere illusion. This was proven by the failure of all the efforts for peace that started with Folke Bernadotte in 1948.

Nizar Sakhnini, 10 July 2006