The solution to the Palestinian cause is in ending occupation, otherwise the ground will continue to be fertile for revenge and bloodshed.
New Delhi: When the Jebusites (Canaanite people), the true inhabitants of Palestine, built Jerusalem, they named it Jebus or the city of Jebusites, 3,800 years ago, or Shalim with reference to the God of Peace in Canaanite. It was later named Jerusalem by the Israelites. Hence, Jerusalem became the centre of importance for Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
The historical debate never ended. Some call the claim a myth and others agree that there were many Semitic and non-Semitic tribes settled in Palestine—the Amorites, the Moabites, and the Hittites who they say continued to live there even before the kingdom of Israel and Judah.
Beyond the religious claim and counter claim, the earlier inhabitants of the city and the whole of Palestine are suffering for more than a century. With the rise of a right wing party in Israel, much of the history of the city is taught in Israeli schools to suit the new migrated Jewish settlers and justify their claim over more than Jerusalem.
Palestine is a victim of colonialism ever since the Balfour declaration in 1917 when colonial Britain promised the Jews a homeland in Palestine. During the British mandate on Palestine from 1918 to 1948, the Jewish people were encouraged to migrate to Palestine in small numbers, but the exodus happened after the Holocaust. This began even earlier, after signing the Haavara agreement (25.8.1933) with Nazi Germany. In fact the first ship arrived in Palestine with Jewish refugees in 1937 in a ship with a Nazi flag. The Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin Al-Hussaini wrote a strong letter to Hitler objecting to this. Britain systematically helped ensure Jewish emigration till the number of Jewish settlers reached a viable number to help divide Palestine at the UN Security Council in 1948, with the help of the winners of World War II, i.e. the Permanent Members of UNSC. The sufferings of Palestinians have never ended ever since, and war after war led to Israel capturing more Palestinian territories and using truce and peace deals to swallow the whole of Palestine land.
The war on Palestinian is not over, only the bombing of Gaza strip for now and the firing on Israeli cities. This unprecedented escalation put the Palestinians as a top priority of the international community in general and the new US administration in particular. The problem will be inside the occupied territories now. It started in Sheikh Al-Jarrah, in East Jerusalem. And West Bank annexed by Israel in the 1967 war. Jewish settlers increased 10 folds from 1,250,000 settlers before the Oslo agreement of 1993 to more than 7,380,000 settlers; so building activities for Jewish settlers on Palestinian houses under protection of Israel military never stopped in order to make a demographic change in the holy city. This is against international laws that consider it under Israeli occupation and which will always call for no changes of its demography. The Israeli settlers and their right-wing party supporters claim that Sheikh Al-Jarrah enclave belong to the Jewish people, as it is promised in the Old Torah. They are trying to remove Palestinian houses by a draconian law that gives only the Jewish people the right of citizenship, housing and use of all means to replace Palestinians in the old city. Some cases are in Israeli courts. The Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu used the provocation against Palestinians to divert world attention for his personal advantage, since he is indicted by the court on corruption charges. The misadventure and pretext of teaching the Hamas a lesson will not spare him a prison sentence because of the indignation of the Israeli street against him, and because the global public is against the actions by the Israeli army against the Palestinians.
The world is now realising who is the victim of aggression and occupation and who is responsible for these wars and suffering. Social networks, bloggers and mushrooming websites highlighted and exposed the “false flags”. The propaganda machine led by Netanyahu to deceive public opinion even inside Israel has failed miserably. In fact, he caused a rift within Israeli society, where there were many voices inside Israel against this genocide. He united the Palestinians to resist Israeli occupation. Many will now visit the British archive and learn more about the deeds committed against Palestinians for the last one century, including the terrorist attacks in Haifa market by two Jewish gangs on 6.3.1938 where 18 Palestinians were killed and 38 injured, followed by another massacre in the market on 6.7.1938 where two car bombs blew up and killed 21 and injured 52 Arab Palestinians. Massacre after massacre continued in most of the densely populated Palestinian areas including Jaffa, Jerusalem. In the Deir Yassin massacre on 9.4.1948, they killed 250 people and shouted slogans of their glory. All this continued unabated till the public opinion in Israel started moving back to the Madrid conference era, when Israelis were willing for peace with the Arabs and a two-state solution, the only option for lasting peace. The lesson learned from this horrifying assault on Gaza strip and retaliation by Hamas is that the solution to the Palestine cause is in ending occupation, otherwise the ground will continue to be fertile for revenge and bloodshed.
The deal of the century which former US President Donald Trump tried to implement as a new peace plan for the Middle East failed to bring peace. Arab countries that were pressured by the Trump administration to normalize relations with Israel will be questioned by their own people. If Israel failed to protect itself from Hamas and Hezbollah in Lebanon, how will they protect the Arab peninsula from Iran?
What next? Giving a religious tag to the recent crisis in East Jerusalem and creating an outcry about the danger to Al Aqsa mosque, followed by the attack on Gaza surely will be a dangerous trend since the Palestinian cause is not religious but historical, political, humanitarian and existence. Even after the US Security Council resolution #181, on 29 November 1947, divided Palestine between the majority Palestinians and minority Jewish people, a special international regime on Jerusalem was created because it is a holy city for three major religions—Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
If the situation that keeps the region unstable and on the brink of an all-out war is not changed, welcome to an unstable Middle East. Peace is a strategic option, and all must work to achieve it.
Dr Waiel Awwad is a South Asia based, award-winning senior foreign journalist since 1979 and an expert on the Middle East.