THE BUSH "DECLARATION", FROM DEIR YASSIN TO JENIN TO FALLUJA

By: Nizar Sakhnini

THE BUSH "DECLARATION":

A replication of the Balfour Declaration that might lead to another Nakba much worse than that of 1948

FROM DEIR YASSIN TO JENIN TO FALLUJA:

War crimes committed as part and parcel of imperial designs for control and hegemony

Bush had finally made it clear: no return to the 1949 armistice lines and no right of return for the Palestinian refugees.  He put it in writing replicating the notorious Balfour Declaration.

What does that mean?  It means that the game of deceit is over.  Those deluded with the possibility of peace with the racist and colonialist project in Palestine should wake up to the reality of the situation.  Political Zionism and Arab aspirations for freedom and descent life in their homeland are mutually exclusive.  The conflict in Palestine is a conflict between two parties.  On the one hand, an indigenous people for whom the land meant their sustenance.  On the other hand, we have racist colonialists whose greed for wealth and power knows no limits.   

The Middle East, in general, and Palestine, in particular, was, and still is, at the crossroads of the ancient as well as the modern world. This strategic geographic feature made Palestine "the passage way, the sea outlet, the cross-roads across which all the surrounding nations could jump at each other, perhaps annihilate each other. By taking and holding the Cross-roads, any one of them could also bar all the others out of this highway intersection." (For more details, see: Ilene Beaty, Arab and Jew in the Land of Canaan – Political Rights, Chicago: Henry Regnery Co., 1957. Reproduced in Walid Khalidi, ed. "From Haven to Conquest: Readings in Zionism and the Palestine Problem until 1948", Beirut: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1971, pp. 3-23)

Towards the end of the nineteenth century, the strategic importance of the area was enhanced as a result of the discovery of large reserves of oil.  In 1871 a mission of German experts visited Mesopotamia and reported the availability of plentiful supplies.  In 1907 a German technical mission reported that Mesopotamia was a veritable "lake of petroleum".  In March 1914 the Turkish Petroleum Company was incorporated in Britain to acquire and exploit the oil resources of northern Mesopotamia.  As a result of the breakout WWI, this agreement was never ratified.  According to the San Remo Oil Agreement of 24 April 1920, the French replaced the Germans and acquired 25% share of the company. (More elaboration was given by the Royal Institute of International Affairs, in: The Middle East: A Political and Economic Survey.  London & New York.  Second Edition, 1954, p. 15)

Secret deals were made during WWI in order to ensure imperialist control and hegemony in the area.  According to these deals, the area was sliced into a number of pieces that were allotted to Great Britain and France.  A major part of these deals was reflected in the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which represented the official starting point for cooperation between the World Zionist Organization and the Imperialist powers.  The U.S.A. blessed and endorsed the declaration by a Joint Resolution of the Congress in 1922.

Contrary to the general perception that the Balfour Declaration was a one-sided promise, it was a result of lengthy negotiations between Great Britain, in consultation with other Western powers, especially the U.S.A., and the WZO.  (A number of articles presenting very interesting analysis related with the Balfour Declaration and the Zionist-European-American contacts that led to the Balfour Declaration were reproduced in Walid Khalidi, From Haven to Conquest: Readings in Zionism and the Palestine Problem until 1948.  Beirut: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1971, pp. 143-188)

The British mandate in Palestine as approved by the League of Nations was drafted to accommodate the objectives of the Zionist movement.  Even before the mandate was approved, the British Government decided, on January 1918, to send a Zionist Commission, headed by Chaim Weizmann, to assess the prospects of Zionist progress in Palestine. 

The Palestinians realized the danger facing them.  They never accepted the British mandate and its role to facilitate the creation of a Jewish national home in Palestine.  Palestinian resistance and protests against the mandate and Jewish immigration started before the end of WWI and never stopped ever since.  National Palestinian Committees were established all over Palestine in 1936.  This marked the beginning of the Arab General strike and the Great Rebellion of 1936 (April - Oct.).  An Arab Higher Committee was formed to assume the overall Palestinian leadership of the movement and to coordinate the activities of the various nationalist parties. 

In February 1939, Britain convened a round-table conference in London to discuss a solution to the dispute.  No agreement was reached. For more than two decades, Britain failed to arrive at a compromise that may satisfy the mutually exclusive national aspirations of the Zionists and the indigenous people of Palestine.  Accordingly, Britain referred the Palestine problem to the UN and quit the country.

The Zionists felt betrayed by the British White Paper of 1939, which decreed a limitation to Jewish immigration and land purchases and outlined a plan for an independent state in Palestine after a transitional period of 10 years.  Britain was no longer seen as a promoter of Zionism.  Zionist allegiance therefore was switched from Britain to the US.  The Biltmore Program was adopted declaring an unequivocal intention to create a "Jewish State" and all efforts were dedicated to achieve this goal in the shortest period of time.  Eruption of WWII may have delayed the timing, but the efforts were on the move.

In April 1948 an atrocious massacre was committed in Deir Yassin and over 250 innocent civilians were massacred in cold blood.  Deir Yassin and other massacres and atrocities committed while the British Mandate was still in control of Palestine were designed to intimidate the Palestinians into flight and ethnically cleanse the land from its indigenous population.

The Zionist forces started their ethnic cleansing operations in early April 1948 by launching Plan Dalet, which was designed to conquer and ethnically cleanse the country and was not a defence against an Arab invasion as claimed.  The Arab armies did not enter Palestine until after the British left on 15 May.  When they entered, it was too late.  The Zionist forces had already conquered a major part of the country and driven out most of its inhabitants.  Any way, entry of the Arab armies did not make any difference.

The ethnic cleansing operations were carried under the protection of the British who were still responsible to keep law and order in the country.  Britain could have stopped the genocide.  Instead, their stance was meant to facilitate the tacit agreement between the Zionist leadership and Emir Abdullah to share control over Palestine.

When the Arab armies finally crossed the borders on 15 May 1948, the "State of Israel" had already been proclaimed.  Entry of the Arab armies was a hoax. The Arab armies, which crossed the borders on 15 May, did not go to fight Israel.  Rather, they were more concerned with frustrating Abdullah's plans for a "Greater Syria".  They did not make any preparations for war and there were no serious plans for the war.  (A detailed discussion of the agreement between King Abdullah and the Zionist leadership were given by Avi Shlaim in his book Collusion Across the Jordan: King Abdullah, The Zionist Movement, and the Partition of Palestine.  New York: Columbia University Press, 1988)

The new Bush Declaration threatens the Arabs with a new disaster that is worse than that of the 1948 Nakba unless the Arabs learn the lessons of the first one.