Dome of the Rock & Al-Aqsa Mosque
Palestine is the name given to a small geographical area between the
Mediterranean sea to the West and the Jordan River to the East. It extends no
more than a few hundred kilometres north to south, from {Lebanon} to the Red Sea
respectively. For centuries it was home to Palestinian Arabs and a very small
number of Jews. Many armies had
invaded Palestine durring the millenia that
history can recall, but always the inhabitants remained. The original
inhabitants can trace their origins to Semitic tribes, who travelled from the
Arabian peninsula to
Palestine, Egypt, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon at around 3000 BC.
Those remaining in
Palestine became known as the Canaanites. The Ottomans (emanating from
present day Turkey) invaded in the 16th Century and occupied until the British
defeated the Turks towards the end of the First
World War in 1917. Britain was given the League of nations mandate over Palestine
and shortly after the mandate was instigated it issued a
declaration stating that it supported the creation of a "National home for
the Jewish people in Palestine. The declaration, infamously known as the
Balfour Declaration
was a catastropy for the
Palestinians, because their homeland and birth right were signed away in just a few
sentences which were the culmination of Zionist pressure on
Britain and Britain's own imperialist ambitions.
Encouraged by the declaration, massive Jewish immigration to Palestine
took place between the two world wars, ceased briefly durring the years of WWII
and then resumed, fuelled by Europian guilt at having allowed the genocide
of Jews in Nazi Germany.
As the situation became more politically unstable, with Palestinians
resisting further Jewish immigration, the British pulled their
forces from Palestine and left each side to fight it out. Similtaneously
the newly created United Nations announced a plan (UN Res. 181, 29 Nov 1947)
that would partition
Palestine 51% in favour of the Jewish population. With such huge support
from what was effectively the western allies acting through the UN, Israel
declared itself a state shortly afterwards. Outraged, the Arab Armies of Egypt,
Syria and Jordan rose to defend Palestine but were hoplessly defeated by the
well organised Zionist militias. 1948; The Palestinian tradgedy begins.
For decades after the creation of Israel there was an almost universal denial
of the existence of a Palestinian people. Golder Mier, a former prime minister
of Israel infamously once said that "There are no Palestinians". The world was
subjected to a constant stream of propaganda claiming that the "promised
land" was a barren and empty place with nothing but a few primitive Bedouin
and that the new occupiers had made the "desert bloom.
Hundreds of Palestinian villages
that supposedly did not exist were
razed to the ground. The inhabitants were either chased into the remainder
of Palestine (euphemistically known as the West Bank)
where they lived in refugee camps, or they were hounded into neighbouring Arab
countries where they remain stateless to this day.
In June 1967,
fearing that Palestinians would no longer tolerate being refugees in there own
homeland and also driven by economic and resource (mainly water) crises, Israel
launched a vicious and ruthless attack on the remainder of Palestine in the
West Bank and Gaza. The Six Day War as it came to be known, was a crushing
defeat to the Palestinians and the Arab armies that rallied to defend them.
More refugees were added to the hundreds of thousands that already existed
and Israel moved quickly to ensure that none who fled the boarders with
Jordan and Syria could return. Durring subsequent years much land was
expropriated from Palestinian peasents, sometimes uprooting whole villages
to make way for Israeli settlements. To this day land theft by Israel
continues and the settlements increase, "manned" by extreem right wing jews.
The Palestinians have become effectively a surf class providing a cheap source
of labour
and a captive (sic) market for Israeli goods. Palestinians are forced to pay
taxes to Israel in contravention of international law governing the
administration of occupied land. They are not free to move without identy
cards issued by Israel and even where such movement is allowed it is
restricted and frought with delays and humiliating interogations.
Travel to
Israel is srictly forbidden except where a work permit is issued for work
with an Israeli employer.
Lengthy cerfews are imposed on whole towns, villages
and refugee camps for reasons ranging from anti-Israeli graffiti to stone
throwing at Israeli patrols.
Palestinian land is still being "confiscated" by the Israeli government for
Israeli settlements and many families who once lived in beautifull homes are
forced into the refugee camps.
Durring the Intifada, the mass Palestinian
uprising that started in 1987,
tens of thousands of young palestinians were detained for months without
charge under
a law entitled "Administrative Detention" dating back to when Britain had
control of Palestine. Detainees are
routinly {tortured} and denied access to family and legal representatives.
Israel is the only country in the world that legitimises torture. Many
Palestinians have died in Israeli jails and thousands remain detained
indefinatly without charge or trial.
The above can only be the briefest history of the Palestinian struggle against
oppression and a more detailed and comprehensive treatment can be found in
the many other web pages and books written on the subject.
Al-Aqsa MosqueThe situation now
Al-Aqsa Mosque
