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This concise research intends to deal with the Zionist settlement.
On first consideration, a question would rise about whether this
issue is to still able to hold more deliberations, especially that
many researches had been developed in this regard focusing on its
various aspects, in away that made a new attempt to broach it look
like calling back something already known. However, the mere fact
that settlement fashions the basic embodiment of the Zionist
project, keeps this issue alive and always subject to more
discussion in any review approaching the Zionist move which aims
straightaway at perpetuating a continued and reinforced settlement
clearly identified as an attempt to achieve the objective of
judaizing Palestine and providing for one of the basic components of
Zionism as a settlement movement.
This research is supposed to discuss the direct role of settlement
in the Zionist rejection of the Arab- Palestinians' right to return
to their homes, lands and properties from which they were forcefully
uprooted, and also the role of settlement in undermining any
prospect of establishing a Palestinian state on the territories
occupied in 1967.
At the beginning, it is worth indicating, as an important
circumspection concerning settlement and the right of return, that
many studies have been published on this matter, discussing the
issue and making clear that, in the Palestinian territories occupied
in 1948, there are certain areas where the main Zionist Jewish
settlements had been concentrated (the centre area) and other areas
with less concentrated settlements. Accordingly, it has been
concluded that the Palestinians could return to the areas unoccupied
by Zionist Jewish settlements if the Zionists were ever to claim
there is not enough land to absorb the return of the Palestinian
refuges. Based on the conclusions drawn from some of these studies,
it seems as if the Palestinians were the ones concerned with
searching for a place to return to, or as if the whole problem lay
in finding this suitable place, which is still void of settlers.
In one of these studies , the focus was that the empty areas in the
Negev region are wide enough to absorb a great number of Palestinian
refugees, meaning that the Zionists lie when they say:"… there is no
place for the Palestinians here".
Perhaps these studies aim to discuss the matter from a certain point
of view and depend on condensing certain components in order to
refute one of the Zionists' predicaments. However, such kind of
conclusion runs against the "right of return" concept, natural and
self evident as it is, and even contradicts the U.N resolution
concerning the Palestinian refugees' right of return, with all its
successive emphases and interpretations, since this resolution
provides for the right to return to the homes and properties from
which the Palestinians had been displaced, rather than to
uninhabited areas still being searched for and never occupied by the
Zionist settlers before. Conforming to the logic of these
conclusions ultimately leads to a denial of the right of return, on
the ground that the Zionists' settlement occupies the Palestinian
territories conquered in 1948. Certainly we do not think that this
is the aim of these studies.
Having noted this circumspection, first, it follows that the Zionist
settlement in Palestine does not call off the right of return.
Alternatively, any other argument would mean that this settlement
has accomplished all its objectives and that the uprooting and
transplanting processes have ended where the Zionists wanted them to
end.
Regarding the settlement process and the issue of the Palestinian
state, it is safe to assume that the Zionists aim to draw the shape
of this state- if and when established- through settlement, which
even with its present shape have made it fragmented and
disconnected.
It is conceivable, though, that any viable Palestinian state- justly
or unjustly established, notwithstanding- can never come into being
unless after all settlements in the territories occupied in 1967
were completely dismantled.
Always considering there two circumspections, this research would
seem exempt from a few explanations perhaps needed in the text in
its final revision and its two main sections that will discuss the
two subject of:" settlement and the return" and "settlement and the
state"...
Top
The Zionist settlement and the Palestinian right of return
Ever since the Zionists had mixed the individual religious Jewish
dream of coming to
"Zion" with the fabrication of the establishment of the "Jewish
national homeland", on the basis which defined Judaism as a
"religious- national peculiarity", the second step had been to make
the Jews come to Palestine and gather them there, in order to create
a new different reality. Thus, the Zionist settlement is a kind of
policy practiced to create new facts on the ground. To borrow Ben-
Gurion's words," unless the area of the Jewish settling of the land
is extended, our efforts will end up with nothing, as the actual
accomplishment is a more powerful proof of a more profound effect…"(1).
Creating new facts on the ground is a two- fold processes: uprooting
the Palestinians; and settling down the Jews in their places, away
from the lies contained in the predicament of "a land without a
people for a people without a land".
The Zionists were not surprised to find Palestinian Arabs on the
Palestinian Arab lands. From the beginning, it was clear that
transplanting the Zionist Jewish settlers in this land would mean
the displacement of the Palestinian Arabs from it. If the first
appearances of settlement had not demanded massive displacement and
eviction operations, the expansion of the "settlement core" and the
intensity of the Jewish immigration to Palestine incorporated into
the Zionist agenda the uprooting of the Palestinians as a clear
presage of the establishment of the Zionist entity.
For the Zionists, the ultimate goals were evident and "… while the
Arabs did not understand the dimensions of the displacement plan,
the idea of the displacement was not conceivable for people, even at
the beginning of war, after the united nations had adopted the
partition resolution of 1947…"(2).
Based on those clear objectives, arguments over the act of
displacement were on since the inception of the Zionist movement.
However, these arguments intensified with the introduction of the
British plans to partition Palestine (the Bill commission plan and
Lockheed plan). It did not mean that the abovementioned arguments
opted for purging (3) certain areas –consecrated
to the Zionist under the partition proposals- of its Arab residents,
but rather for uprooting the Palestinians from the entire
Palestinian land and Trans-Jordan.
The 1937 report presented by Ben-Gurion to the "world Congress for
the workers of Zion"(4), under the title:" Our
political orientations", included important references to prevalent
views among the central Zionist stream at that time:"... we hear
from the special royal committee a promise, in front of the entire
Jewish people to establish an independent Jewish state for it on the
"Land of Israel"… the declaration did not define the country's
borders, because this was very difficult in view of the successive
alterations and the many changes that happened regarding these
boundaries overtime… no doubt that the country will also encompass
the whole trans- Jordan, including the region north of Yarmouk,
which had not been annexed to the province given to Abdullah to
establish his emirate, since it was under the French mandate… the
Jewish state offered to us, with its present borders, can neither be
the desired solutions to the Jewish problem nor the aim that has
long been sought after by Zionism… even if these borders is to be
rectified as possible and needed for our sake, they cant be accepted
as a first basic stage in the process of establishing the greater
Zionist homeland, through building up a massive Jewish force inside
it, as soon as possible, then occupying the rest of the regions that
we have aspired to occupy through history… the same committee did
not overlook the narrowness of the area offered to us in order to
build the Jewish state on it. However by displacing the Arab
residents from the country – either kindly or forcefully- it would
be possible to expand the area of the Jewish settlement in the
future…"(5).
These indications will have increasingly been reflected through the
Zionists' overall debate which would partly witness, in the
following period, a manipulation of the "moral purport" of the
displacement and uprooting processes. Here, the literal meaning of
morals was describing a complete Zionist innocence pf what had
happened, justifying the …" transfer of Arab residents to the Arab
countries"…
In Eliazar Kalven's words:"… we are not talking expulsion, but
rather about transferring the Arabs from the Hebrew state to the
Arab states, where Arab people live…also, we seek to provide for
them living conditions that will not be much worse than the
conditions under which they have lived here…"(6).
The same purport was echoed through the words of
S.Leva'a :"… our demand that the Arabs leave the country and
evacuate it for us is based on their being capable of leaving to
many other places inside Arab countries, where they can take up
residence…"(7).
The idea of "demographic transfer" dominated a wide spectrum of the
Zionist debate at that time. It was seen as an "excellent moral
solution" by the Zionist leaders, of whom one claimed that
evacuating people is "… one of my charming dreams, because I do not
deny our full moral right to seek a demographic transfer… and I see
no moral defect in that at all… on the contrary . I see in that a
legitimate aspiration to lay down the grounds for a healthy national
life that may become one of the greatest dreams for humanity in a
new global system…"(8).
In such a context of splendid expressions, the head of the eastern
sects department in the "Histadroot", A. lulu, insisted on
presenting his similar point of view:"… regarding the ominous
deportation issue, I say do not be exceeding just… second, there are
about one hundred thousand Jews in such Arab countries as Iraq,
Syria, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Thus, we can work- with the consent
of state officials- on making population transfers with them and pay
the Arabs who immigrate from Israel the price of their properties,
so that the can buy pieces of land in Iraq, and settle down there…
of course, there is no harm in achieving this through forceful
deportation, because moral missions are similarly ordained,
especially that we are convinced of the justice of our cause…
moreover. If we were to reject our right to evacuate them, then we
shall be obliged , as such , to denounce what we have done until
now… so, on whose account could be established our settlement in
Bisan valley, and from Sharon to Ephraim mountains?..."(9).
Many voices did not support forceful deportation, not even after
finding an alternative (10). However, those voices
were lost in the middle of a tremendous forceful deportation –
oriented drive and never gained any fundamental stand strong enough
to reject the uprooting of Palestinians, rather, people who raised
their voices against such process were concerned about their
security in the future. True that they preferred Palestine without
any Palestinian on its land, but the were certainly looking for ways
to make the Palestinians evacuate their land willingly or agree to
sell it out to them.
Deep inside, the Zionists were all consent to the evacuation of the
Palestinians. Kettsy Nilson, one of the socialist Zionist movement's
theorists, disapproved this future "security" idea, saying:"… A
thousand enemy outside the house is easier than one inside…"(11).
This predicament encapsulated the entire Zionist thought concerning
the Palestinians and was the basis for the uprooting processes that
reached their peak between 1947 and 1948 and went on after that. As
for the behavior that embodied this thought on the ground, Zionism
was totally insensitive to the means as long as it guaranteed the
realization of the desired end: uprooting the Palestinian citizens
from their land in order to transplant the settlers in their place.
This trend manifested itself in the series of massacres perpetrated
against the citizens who owned the land. But these massacres were
never completely exposed, because true narrations about the
uprooting are still dispersed and incomplete (12).
In spite of what the Zionists had done, they could not completely
accomplish the uprooting project. About 150 thousand Palestinian
citizens remained in the territories occupied by the Zionists in
1948. Later on, these citizens will be the focus for the successive
Zionist plans.
At first, the Zionist effort was dedicated to accomplish the
deportation process, though not completely, in order to get rid of
the bulk of the Palestinians who remained in their lands and allow
the least possible number of them to stay. The efforts in this
process were of two directions:
1-
the directed deportation operations that forced the Palestinians to
move beyond the borders, as was the case with communities of "Krad
el-Baqqara" and "Krad- el- Ghannama" and other villages, in addition
to other deportations to non occupied parts of Palestine, as
happened to "Jahhaleen" Arabs, while forbidding the Palestinian
refuges from returning to their villages.
2-
The internal deportation and displacement operations, as was as the
case with the communities of "Iqrit" and "Kofr Ber'em" and others.
All these practices were to harass the Arab citizens and coerce them
into moving, or turn them into a marginalized minority deprived of
their land, which was the source of living for the most of those who
remained in the Palestinian countryside.
In the first direction, the Zionists actively worked on what was
called the "resettlement" of the 48 Palestinians in some Arab
countries like Libya and Egypt and other foreign countries like
Brazil and Argentina. Nour- E-Deen Masalha (13)
observes another aspect of the discussions that had been in progress
inside the Zionist circles regarding the ways of treating the
Palestinians who did not leave their lands. Again, one can find here
a sweeping disposition to carry on forceful expulsion and
deportation (14). Aside from these discussions,
Msalha looks into number of expulsion processes that took place
after the Zionists had declared the establishment of their entity on
the occupied parts of Palestine in 1948. These processes were
continued in the territories captured after the declaration and were
intended to include all the Palestinian Arabs, as expressed by
Eliyahu Hackermely: "… I do not intend to accept not even one Arab…
Not only any Arab but also anyone who is not Jewish… I want the
state of Israel entirely Jewish, for the progeny of Abraham. Isaac
and Jacob…"(15).
The deportation processes examined by Masalha involved forceful
expulsion and shooting at the uprooted Palestinians, who faced
either displacement or "death", to the degree that many of them died
of hunger and thirst, when bullets could not reach their chests.
After the establishment of the Zionist entity, the Zionist resumed
the uprooting and expulsion process with a varying recurrence, at
times to the extent of perpetuating massacres or individual
killings.
Indeed, the uprooting of Palestinians from all the Palestinian
territories still constitutes the core of the Zionist thought.
As a result of expulsion and uprooting, the Zionists managed to
control 20 million dunoms of the Palestinian lands, the ownership of
which up till 1949 was disturbed as follows:
-
The state and the national development authority: 15,205,000 dunoms,
approximately 76%.
-
The national Jewish fund: 3570000 dunoms, 18%.
-
Private Arab and Jewish properties: 1480000 dunoms, 5%.
These areas comprised about 77% of the lands of Palestine, instead
of the fifty six percent which the partition resolution (181) had
allocated for the Zionists (16), who managed to
increase their share steadily through the uprooting measures taken
in the Negev and the "small triangle".
The Zionists embarked the appropriated houses and lands for setting
down tens of thousands of Jews who were brought over from abroad.
All those efforts were effectively directed toward creating new
facts on the ground, in the hope that these facts would become final
and established as a dam in the face of the Palestinian refugees'
return, which was adamantly rejected by the Zionists who never
displayed readiness to accept it under the U.N resolution (194).
Upon the creation of the Zionist entity, the springboards of the
Zionist thought started to reflect the shape of the Zionist trends
that aimed to render the return of the Palestinians impossible.
Those springboards are:
1-
That the state was established on part of the historic "land of
Israel", as a mere step towards achieving the Zionist objectives.
2-
The need to activate the Jewish immigration to Palestine and
strengthen the collective Zionist belief that Israel is not like the
rest of the states in the world, but rather a leading state
representing a nucleus for the world Jewry, with special bearings to
Jews all around the globe, from whom it derives its strength,
continuity and development.
3-
The need to build a pure Jewish state by getting rid of the Arab
population inside and guaranteeing the Jewish hold on the country.
4-
The need to focus on the Arab danger that keeps threatening the
Zionist entity while empowering the role of the military might as
the only means for securing the settlers community in Palestine
(17).
Expansionism made up an essential facet of Zionism. The insistence
on the notion that the Zionist entity was created on part of what
the Zionists consider "their land" drives the mind towards the idea
of confronting expansionism, rather than towards redeeming the
usurped land. In the same vein comes the second springboard which
laid stress on the continuity of the expulsion and uprooting and not
on returning the uprooted people to their country. As for the third
starting ground, it refers to immigration in parallel with
uprooting, so as to prop up settlement, all of which serves to build
up a huge military force that guarantees the continuity of
aggression and expansion, on the one hand, and portrays the entity
as military invincible on the other hand.
Settlement policies grew in the soil of the springboards. As such, a
series of decisions were made to control the Palestinian Arab lands,
perpetuate and advance the Jewish immigration to Palestine, orient
the newly attracted immigrants to the countryside and attempt to
strike some balance with respect to the distribution of the settlers
on different parts of Palestine.
After several decades, during which these policies were widely
practiced. The Arab ownership of land considerably decreased.
However, settlement concentrated on the central part of Palestine,
occupied in 1948, the "Center". The Zionist renewed their policies
in order to completely Judaize the Galileo and the Negev and ban
once again the Arabs of the Palestinian territories occupied in 1948
from maintaining their congregational life, as was the case in the
Galileo. This judaization process leads to the "land Day uprising"
in 1976 and to clashes between the Zionists and the Palestinian Arab
citizens in the late nineties.
The successive Zionist governments worked hard in order to achieve a
bifurcate objective, which is: the completion of the Judaization
process and the rejection of any discussion of the Palestinian right
of return. These objectives express itself sometimes under the title
of "the demographic threat" and- at other times- under the title of
"transfer", as a punishing measure against the Palestinians. Anyway.
The two titles involve an inherent Zionist desire to accomplish the
uprooting and displacement process.
Clearly, the springboards of the Zionist settlement thought stand in
sharp contradiction with the Palestinian right of return. These
basic grounds are constantly renewed in order to create new facts
capable of rendering the Palestinian return impossible, because
there is …" no room for them…" according to reality set and
controlled by the Zionists themselves . The recent Zionist
conventions, as well as the declarations and actions of the Zionist
officials, are supportive of the efforts made to attract more Jews,
after the main immigration sources ran empty and the levels of
migration in the opposite direction increased considerably. Hence
the claim that there is an Indian tribe of more than one million
people who descend from a lost Jewish straight- similar to the "Falasha"-
and the focused efforts to encourage the European Jews to
immigration to Palestine.
Top
Settlement and the
Palestinian state.
The Zionist settlement thought has not witnessed any fundamental
change since the aggression of June 1967 and the occupation of whole
Palestine, in addition to other Arab territories; the essential
mission of Zionism remained unchanged: to create new facts on the
ground and try to eternize these facts.
The Zionists insisted that the state they had established in 1948
represented a minimum stage in their phase plane. Hence, they looked
at the occupation of the rest of the Palestinian territories as the
second stage in this plan. However, they fed their discourse about
occupation with a charge of predicaments claimed to be drawn from
the Torah, while attempting to bestow upon the occupation operation
some kind of sacred nimbus, since it makes an advanced stage in the
process of observing the commands of "God" and achieving the "return
to the real land of Israel".
In the wake of the 1967 war, Reuvin Avenoam described his sentiments
as follows:"… I felt as if a new chapter of the holly scriptures
were being prescribed there… A great, marvelous and fantastic
chapter, so much like the previous ones- Jericho, Hebron, Nablus…etc…
the whole promised land has become in our hand…A splendid feeling of
ancient glory generated by traveling up and down the country and
extending its borders to places which should have resided long ago,
on the "land of Israel", the land of the forefathers is assuming its
deal significance…"(18).
This mix of religious affection and sense of greatness which fueled
the desire for control over the "… whole magic land of the
Apocalypse…"(19), had ab-initio driven a wide
sector of the Zionists to determine that the observance of the
"divine Commandment" and the enforcement of the "law of the World"
have already been achieved in the "land of Israel" which has been
redeemed to its legal owners – the Jewish people- , and that this
was the "Nation's land integrity law" raised by Jabotinsky as a
banner and embraced by all of the latter's followers. This law is
not one of a nationalistic movement or a political party, rather it
is the law of Moses… the law of god… and any one prone to reject
this commandment of the religious law ( the heritage of the land of
Canaan with its boundaries) would certainly deny the quintessence of
this religious law and deride it…"(20).
Against such a backdrop of religious incitement and with this
perception of the newly shaped reality, came the consideration that
"… every terrain invaded during the war shall legally be considered
a liberated area to which our claims are no less valid than that to
the Negev, the Galileo, Sharon or Jerusalem… (the duty to hold on
to) every piece of the liberated land is ordained in the light of
security considerations… considerations that arise from our duty
towards our existence and future…"(21).
The abovementioned clauses bear many clear indications with regard
to the future of the occupied territories, which the Zionists have
embarked on shaping as far back as 1967. However, the essay of
"Yitzhak Tanpenikn" (a founding member of Ahdo Ha'afuda, [Labor
Party]) shows more particularization and clarity of scientific
procedural treatment. According to Tanpenikn ,"… the immediate
settlement and direct development of the liberated areas… the aims
of our entire project was ,and still is, the whole land of Israel,
with its ancient and natural borders, from the Mediterranean sea to
the desert… and from Lebanon to the red sea, since it is the renewed
home to all or most of the Jewish people … the political struggle is
but another form of the struggle for existence that must be waged
without concealing its Zionist content…. The people who speak in the
name of the state of Israel must appear as general commissaries who
attend to the historic needs of the world Jewry… but, our friends
and foes must hear from us, with a clear language, that all that can
possibly be developed on the land of historic Israel, before us,
must be dedicated to the Jewish immigration, which is –for us- equal
to salvaging the Jews…"(22).
It is conceivable that these Israeli and similar writings were
generated out of a sense of an easy triumph in 1967, to give the
false impression of a quick digestion of modern geography. On the
other hand, these writing comprised the basis fir the
crystallization of subsequent plans about keeping the territories
occupied that year, not only by revisiting the same old concept (the
land of the lord) pr deploying the army along the new borders, but
also through the establishment of the Jewish settlement, which
causes the Zionist presence to become an acknowledged reality in the
occupied territories (23)
Tanpenikn's call for immediate settlement was practically translated
at once, in a way that it was difficult to differentiate between the
beginning of the occupation and the inception of settlement
operations that have really started to represent the most prominent
feature of the Zionist policies pertaining to the territories
occupied in 1967. Various Zionist trends worked on mapping out
certain programs in this field according to the components of the
new reality while craving for the embodiment of the Zionist project
without overlooking the signs of what was dubbed as "long shots" or
"a compliance with the teachings of the Torah" shortly after the
June 1967 war.
"Keeping the land" was the main organizer of the Zionist programs
pertaining to the occupied territories. According to different
elements, it was possible to determine the size and status of what
should be kept (by means of settlement as a perfect tool to impose
the new reality) either to answer to some security- religious needs
or to make use of a bargaining card, with a possible observation of
some clear overlapping between these three levels (security needs,
religious needs and the bargaining card).
It is widely known, for example, that the security driven settlement
was crystallized by the leaders of the Zionist labor party. However,
any likud leader like shorn would also consider keeping the land for
security reasons:"… the security of Israel must be the most elements
in the Israeli position on the occupied territories ... The
security of Israel imply never relinquishing the west bank …"(24).
Similarly, "security factors" and historic and Torah considerations
overlap in the settlement operations in Jerusalem and Hebron, as an
example.
Nevertheless, two main directions can be identified in the setting
of the Zionist settlement programs for the Palestinian territories
occupied in 1967:
-
The first direction centered on the security motives behind
settlement activities and was mainly represented by the labor party.
Its adherents believe that settlements play a strategic role in
consolidating the security reality and providing a firm basis for
Israel's demand of "peace with secure and defensible borders"… they
also see that the aim of settlement is to "renew" and expand these
defensible borders.(25)
In their settlement projects, the adherents of this direction
highlighted the "security aspect", considering it a strong
justification behind border adjustments and the retaining of the
Jewish settlements which the labor government called security areas
(26). It is noticeable that all labor governments
orientated settlement towards strategic areas. Moreover, projects
presented by labor party leaders – during and off their terms in
power- acknowledged that any political process necessitates keeping
the security settlements in order to actively defend the security of
"Israel". On his part, Rabin reaffirmed the positions of this
direction, after the labor party's victory in 1992 elections, as did
his labor successors.
The second direction is mainly represented by the likud, and its
adherents support continuous control by Israel "… over all parts of
mandatory Palestine…"(27) in its appeal for
settlement, this political current depends on religious and dogmatic
bases. It does not find it necessary to make the political process
with the Palestinians conditional on halting settlement activities,
but rather considers the discussion of the issue of self government
– in the west bank for example- separate from any concession on the
part of Israel regarding its right to develop that area and build
settlements in it.(28) Represented by the Sharon
government, this direction practically translated its understanding
of the relation between settlement and political compromise during
its preparations for the Madrid peace conference and the subsequent
bilateral talks' sessions in Washington, where it resumed its
settlement programs. It is clear now that Sharon was talking about
his agreement on the American road map, which stipulates freezing
all settlement activities. But, at the same time, coalition
agreements between the Likud and other political parties in the
Sharon government not only provided for maintaining settlement
activities, but for supporting these activities as well.
In this regard, many observers remember that the Zionists have
always sought to concentrate their settlement activities, in
parallel with the political initiatives and "any compromise that
looms in the horizon"… with their political schemes ( ex. The Alon
plan) provide for keeping settlement activities with in certain
limits, the Zionists effectively work on increasing the number of
political and security settlement whenever they discuss the future
of the territories occupied in 1967. This is exactly what happened,
for example in the aftermath of Camp David accords, and also during
the preparations for the Madrid conference and before and after the
Oslo process, and still happening until now.
The Zionist behavior is often understood on two levels:
1-
that it aims to hamper and undermine any political process and;
2-
That the Zionists wish to use the new settlements as a bargaining
card and do not really consider the idea of returning back to the
1967 borders. Perhaps all this is somehow true. However, does not
this real scene of current settlement, in light of the Zionists'
insistence on resuming their settlement activities, raise a more
profound question that allows to better understand the Zionist
attitude?
Zionists, who have always rejected the establishment of an
independent and sovereign Palestinian state or even a Palestinian
entity of any kind, express this rejection by attempting to
undermine the basis on which a Palestinian state or entity can be
created : the land on the road to the complete undermining, they
turned the Palestinian and occupied in 1967, which came to represent
the extreme limit of all official demands from 1974 and on, into
isolated islands cut across with settlements and highways, not to
mention that this land had already been divided as a result of the
first occupation in 1948, so that it would not be possible to
establish any Palestinian sovereignty over it in case Israel was
forced to enter a political settlement before the final annexation
of the Palestinian west bank and Gaza strip. It is worth mentioning
here that declaring the annexation seems more consistent with a
Zionist project involved in a political settlement and the Zionist
entity is certainly seeking to achieve this objective through the
settlement itself.
It has always been known and physically verified that the
involvement of any Zionist government in the political process does
not at all mean that it has forgone the desire for expansion and
gaining more land.
Basically, Zionism assumes that the land is the main issue behind
the conflict and that as much as the Zionists control this land they
will be able to say the last word about their future.
Perhaps the post- Oslo agreement events provided a clear evidence of
what had already happened. After the signing of this agreement, some
illusionists attempted to "market an invalid commodity" by saying
that Zionism has given up its "Erits Yizrael" strategy and that the
international changes have eventually knocked down the Zionist
Ideology, which causes Israel to begin to accept concessions in
favor of peace.
Regardless of Israel's view of this "peace" as a mean of achieving
the Zionist project according to new mechanisms, facts and –
previously- theoretical responses have come to prove the falsity of
this saying. Zionism has never disclaimed its ideology. Even if some
would assume that the redeployment of the "Israeli" forces in the
west bank and Gaza strip ( according to Oslo agreements) was
tantamount to ceding the land, it has been clear that this
assessment was but a mere slander, because occupation still exists
and Zionists are reverting to it, as evidenced by facts currently
existent on the ground.
No doubt that a final control of the Palestinian territories
occupied in 1967 has always been a strategic aim for the Zionists,
who never overlook any immediate objective which could be achieved
through settlement in the course of seeking the ultimate end.
Using religious and Torah- based motives and claims, the Zionist
settlement policy aimed to achieve two immediate objectives by means
of settlement itself:
1-
drawing a new security – isolation line, to be used as a temporary
border line, along the Jewish settlements and;
2-
The establishment of a compulsory passage for the Palestinian
citizens who wish to move from one place to another and isolating
the Palestinians inside confined residential areas.
The achievement of the first objective depends on establishing
Jewish settlements in the valleys and near cross- roads, while the
realization of the latter necessitates settlement after the pattern
of blocs and centers, that generally start as mere pits, then grow
to provide geographic continuity with other settlements and finally,
comes the role of the streets and highways that turn around
settlements, sweeping vast areas and isolating Palestinian
population centers, while providing – at the same time- for the
establishment of additional civil towns and military outposts to
complete the Zionists' signing process.
In the Palestinian territories occupied in 1967, after the Zionists
had established huge settlement blocs around Jerusalem and in
addition to other settlements that encroach upon the city and its
periphery, the successive Zionist governments turned the Palestinian
cities into units separated by Jewish settlements, so that any
Palestinian citizen traveling from the city center to any nearby
village would have to pass through one of these settlement
conglomerates.
In Gaza, for example, one can observe three separate areas cut
through by settlements while, in the west bank, the situation looks
much like a spotted leopard's fur or a piece of Swiss cheese, where
any talk of a sovereign state would sound like a silly joke, even if
the settlement activities were to be stopped immediately, because
the most generous Zionist offers stipulate for the big settlement
blocs to be included in the intended state. These blocs serve as
containment and isolation belts never consistent with any talk of a
geographically continuous district connected to a state.
Top
Conclusion
It is conceivably easy to imagine the portrait drawn by the
occupation and the connection between it and the Palestinian state.
Nevertheless, it is important to note the following points:
1-
This portrait- drawn by the Zionists- of the territories occupied in
1948 must be confronted by the insistence on the natural and
legitimate right of each Palestinian to return to his land and home.
It is not the duty of the Palestinian people to search for a place
as long as their right to their homeland does not become null and
void in time, nor can it be changed by new facts.
2-
An independent Palestinian state in the west bank and Gaza strip, as
a provisional solution, can never be viable unless after all the
settlement blocs and pits have been dismantled- rather than freezed
or reduced, or even conglomerated- in the territories occupied in
1967.
3-
The approval of any return or statehood determined by settlement
would entail a downright approval of a; this settlement's explicit
and implicit objective.
Notes
1-
Cited by Dr. Nitham Barakat in: " the Israeli settlement in
Palestine: between theory and implementation", Arab Unity studies
center", Beirut, 1st edition, 1988, pp. 44-5.
2-
Ilyas Shoufani, "A Disclosure within the limits of the Permissible:
dialogues with mostafa El-Wali", Abdo El Saadi, p.26.
3-
The Zionists used the terms "purging and cleansing" with reference
to the "uprooting" procedures.
4-
Najeeb El-Ahmad, "The working out of Zionism in Terms of thought,
Aim and practice", Bureau of Palestinian studies, Damascus, pp.81-3.
5-
Al-Ahmad, p.85.
6-
Ibid, p.87.
7-
Amir ling, one of the founders of "Mapam party" and a minister in
the first Israeli government, see also: Najeeb El-Ahmad, op.cit,
p.90.
8-
Ibid, pp.90-1.
9-
Among them were cooper, who refused the idea of deportation based on
the fact that it may cause a lasting conflict, and luker, who agreed
with him on that.
10-
Op.cit.Al-Ahmad. P.97.
11-
The phenomenon of the new historians in the Zionist entity disclosed
facts about a number of these massacres and presented these facts in
a way that contradicted the official Zionist story about what had
happened in the 1948 war. However, those new historians did not
present the whole true details, as was the case with the disclosure
of the facts concerning the Tantoura massacre.
12-
See his important book: " more lands and less Arabs: the Transfer
Israeli policy applied", Beirut, 1st edition 1997.
13-
The infamous diary of Yussef vice, a former head of the lands and
forests branch in the Zionist entity is fraught with ample evidence
of forceful ousting and deportation measures. In June, Vice
described a plan to solve the problem of the "Arabs in Israel" by
making the ongoing deportation an authorized and established
procedure. In another piece, he also wrote about the crystallization
of a deportation process, and the denial of any return of the
displaced Palestinian citizens. In addition, vice pointed, in august
1948, to the deliberations made by a Zionist committee, maintaining
that he had suggested the adoption of the "no return of refugees"
concept, as a basis for the Zionist position, "no matter what it
takes"… in the same month, he elaborated upon some ideas concerning
the prospect of absorbing Palestinian refugees in the Arab
neighboring states… in September, vice deemed it was important to
continue the war, in order to expel the Arabs of the Galileo,
boasting that he answered a question posed by Ben-Gurion, about the
best way to deal with the Arabs of the Galileo, with three words:
pursuit , hunt and harassment… see excerpts from vice's diaries, in
:najeeb ElAhmad, op.cot.pp.119-74.
14-
Cited by Nour-E-Deen masalha, op.cit.p.14.
15-
For more details, see: Dr. Nitham Barakat, op.cit.pp 78-81.
16-
For a detailed discussion of the basic starting points of the
settlement thought, see: Barakat, op.cit.pp.82-93.
17-
Reuvin Avenoam, "Twenty years of struggle for the independence",
publications of human resources branch in the Israel ministry of
defense, may 1968.
18-
Quoted from:" Excerpts from the Zionist archives" Texts and
documents compiled by Israel Shahak", research center, the
Palestinian liberation organization, Palestinian books' series, 66,
1st edition, Beirut, January, 1975, p.65.
19-
As expressed by L.Shalom, quoted from an essay published in Mozaneem,
July 1967; se also:" Excerpts from the Zionist archives…" op.cit.
20-
D.Y.L Rabinotvitch, " Conquest and liberation", Yom Israeli daily,
4/8/1967; see also:" Excerpts from the Zionist archives…" op.cit.
21-
Zevi Shilwah," what the Jews will do is important", Davar, 3/7/1967;
see also:" excerpts from the Zionist archives..." op.cit.
22-
Yitzhak Tanpekin, "Peace limits for Israeli", Madav publications,
Tel Aviv, 1967; cited also in "excerpts from the Zionist
archives"... op.cit.
23-
Yigal Alon, Jerusalem post, cited by Dr.Nitham Barakat, in:"
Palestine between theory and implementation", national culture
series 15, Arab unity studies center, 1st edition,
Beirut, February 1988, p.128.
24-
Ariel Sharon, Maariv, 17/11/1976, cited by Dr. Nitham Barakat in:"
the Israeli settlement in Palestine"... op...cit.
25-
Yitzhac Rabin, Jerusalem post, 7/1/1977; quoted by Dr.Nitham Barakat
in:" the Israeli settlement in Palestine"… op.cit, pp.137-8.
26-
Walid el Ja'afari, "the Israeli settlement and the peace process",
Amman – Tunisia, 90 m November- December, 1992, p.12.
27-
Ibid.
28-
Dr. Oman Abu Sbeih , " the reality of settlement in the west bank
and Gaza strip, "Amman- Tunisia", 90, p.25
[i]
Nafeth Abu Hasna is Palestinian writer and researcher.
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