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Remembering two catastrophes

Jun 07,2016 - Last updated at Jun 07,2016

Within a span of less than one month, the Arab world remembers two catastrophes that befell the Arab Nation. Last month, on May 15, we remembered the Nakbeh, the catastrophe that occurred in 1948, when Arab League member states’ armies failed to rescue Palestine from the Zionist invasion that ethnically cleansed about three-quarter-of-a-million Palestinians in order to make room for the newly created state of Israel.

In 1948, 78 per cent of Palestine fell into Jewish hands and became Israel. The remaining 22 per cent of the total land of Palestine consisted of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which was defended by the Jordanian Arab army, and Gaza Strip, which was left under Egyptian control when the armistice agreements between Israel and the neighbouring Arab states were signed in 1949.

The second catastrophe occurred 49 years ago, on June 5, 1967, the day that Israeli forces launched a massive tripartite invasion on three Arab fronts: on Egypt across the Gaza Strip and Sinai; on the Golan Heights against Syria; and on the West Bank, including Jerusalem, against Jordan.

Although referred to by Israel as the “six-day war”, it took the invading Israeli forces much less than six days to complete their conquest and total occupation of the entire Sinai Peninsula, including the Gaza Strip, up the Sues Canal, the entire Golan Heights and the West Bank including East Jerusalem.

The Arab states did not like to name their major defeat in June 1967 as another Nakbeh, preferring the tag of “Al Naksa” (the setback) instead. 

The term Al Naksa, which literally meant a temporary setback that would soon be followed by counter Arab military action to liberate lost territory from enemy hands, was the choice of Egyptian president Gamal Abdul Nasser who accepted responsibility for that humiliating Arab defeat and, as a result, tendered his resignation.

Across the entire Arab world, Arab masses, deeply demoralised by the disastrous loss of land as well as of honour at the hands of the Israelis, were in no mood to add their “hero” to the war casualty list.

There were massive calls for the “hero” to stay and lead, and he did. But there was no recovery: the military defeat was overwhelming.

Nasser died of a heart attack three years later, in September 1970, without one square foot of the lost land regained.

Up to this day, 49 years since that Arab debacle, Israel continues to occupy all of Palestine, with the Gaza Strip under Israeli tight siege from land, sea and sky; all of Syrian Golan Heights; and parts of Lebanese territory.

The Israelis, who were stunned by the ease with which they managed to win that war against three large Arab armies, must have been tempted not to deliver on their claim that they were keeping the occupied Arab land until the Arabs decided to recognise and to make peace with them.

From day one, Israel started to colonise the occupied Arab lands on all three fronts.

East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights were officially annexed to Israel. Construction of Jewish settlements continues relentlessly in the West Bank and around Jerusalem.

The idea is to create irreversible facts on the ground in order to prevent any possibility of sparing much territory to form any kind of Palestinian state under the much talked-about “two-state” solution.

As an expansionist state, Israel has no intention of ending its occupation of Palestine; apparently it never thought of leaving all of Golan Heights even as part of peace with Syria.

In 1979, under intense American pressure, Israel reached an agreement with Egypt to leave Sinai and to demolish all settlements that had already been constructed there, under stringent specific terms though, because Israel could not possibly maintain the occupation there indefinitely.

In 2005, the Israeli government decided to unilaterally end its occupation of Gaza, remove the Jewish settlers and, like in Sinai before, physically demolish the settlements built there to deprive the Palestinians of the possibility of using them.

That was because Gaza turned out to be a huge security burden. But the strip was then put under siege and has been ever since, practically placing the 1.8 million people there under a much worse type of occupation.

As a state, Israel is strong enough to maintain an occupation that can be challenged neither by the Arab states nor by the Palestinians.

The Palestinians are banned by their “Authority”, in addition to everyone else, from protesting against the occupation by any method, even peacefully.

Calls for boycotting the occupier are often condemned as acts intended to delegitimise Israel. Palestinian resistance, even against the non-civilian occupation symbols, is routinely deplored as acts of terrorism.

And as a state with very influential lobbies worldwide, Israel has thus managed to ban any international action that may demand compliance with the international law and respect for UN resolutions that require respect for the Palestinian rights and termination of the illegal occupation of Arab lands.

However, none of that has been conducive to the establishment of normal conditions for Israel and its people.

With the passage of time, contrary to what the Israelis must have initially believed and expected, the problem continues to grow rather than diminish.

More people worldwide are opening their eyes to the abnormal situation in the region and starting to ask questions about Israel’s outlandish illegal conduct and continued occupation of other peoples’ lands, and most strikingly, the number of Palestinians in Israel and the occupied territories is reaching record figures, almost surpassing the number of the Jews.

These facts, that also grow as fast as the Israeli illegal settlements, are also irreversible.

By not only delaying, but also by blocking any objective effort to reach a reasonable settlement for the historic conflict, Israel, not the Palestinians, has been missing precious opportunities to normalise its existence in the Arab region.

It is already too late. No land has been left for the Palestinians on which to create their state.

The 22 per cent that they accepted has been reduced to less than half, and that half is not in one piece, as a result of Israel’s intensive colonisation programme.

All Israel is left with is one state for all its citizens.

A minority cannot continue to rule a majority, particularly when that majority is made up of the indigenous owners of the country.

Obviously such an option is unthinkable for Israel, as it was once also unimaginable in apartheid South Africa before that country was liberated.

 

It seems that time works better than the UN in handling such chronic disputes.

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