The culture of resistance: the 1967 War in the context of the Palestinian struggle.

• Author: Nassar, Jamal R.
• Position: Israeli-Arab war of 1967; Palestinian displacement by creation of Israel

587771 INO What is a rebel? A man who says no, but whose refusal does not imply a renunciation. He is also a man who says yes, from the moment he makes his first gesture of rebellion. . . .

Albert Camus

INTRODUCTION

While Palestinian resistance is generally seen as a reaction to the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, its causes have deep roots at many levels. First, it is a response to Zionist colonization of Palestine. Second, it is driven by psychological motivation to recover lost rights. Third, and, perhaps most important, Palestinian resistance took root in the absence of meaningful peaceful channels for legitimate change. If Palestinians were given peaceful means for achieving justice, they would not likely have felt the need for revolutionary resistance.

It is, therefore, the unique circumstances that the Palestinian Arabs have faced which molded them into the culture of resistance through a variety of methods. The highlight of their resistance was the Intifada (uprising). But the Intifada was not a transitory phenomenon that sprang from nowhere. Rather, the Intifada represented the acceleration of an ongoing process of resistance. It, then, reflected continuity as it did innovation in the long struggle of the Palestinian Arabs in their quest for justice and independence.

PALESTINIAN RESISTANCE: HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The rise of Arab nationalism in Palestine paralleled its development among other Arabs. With the defeat of the Ottoman Empire at the hands of the Allied forces in 1918, Arab expectations of independence and unity were high. After the 1918 armistice, the Arabs came to be aware of the conflicting Allied promises and felt a deep sense of betrayal.

The year 1917 marked a turning point in the history of Palestine. It witnessed the issuance of the Balfour Declaration and the beginning of British rule. In December 1917, General Allenby's forces entered Jerusalem and set up a British military administration in Palestine. On the basis of previous British promises, the Arabs of Palestine welcomed Allenby as a liberator, hoping that they would soon attain independence within a larger Arab state. These hopes were soon dashed, as the British began working on a program to place Palestine under their mandate. Moreover, the Balfour Declaration, promising British support for the creation of a "Jewish National Home" in Palestine, was incorporated into the mandate resolution of the League of Nations in 1922.

Arab nationalism in Palestine rapidly took shape in response to British rule and Zionist plans for their homeland. By the 1930s, their resistance manifested itself in organized political and armed activities. During this decade, Palestinian Arabs witnessed the emergence of their earliest guerrilla groups. Also, a number of political parties were formed. These parties, regardless of loyalty or ideology, all advocated national independence and opposed political Zionism which aimed at creating a Jewish state in Palestine.

It was during the 1930s that the notion of popular armed struggle emerged in Palestine. One of the earliest such groups was the movement of Shaykh Izz al-Din al-Qassam. Qassam was able to mobilize a peasant following and train them in the use of arms. He advocated Arab unity and independence for Palestine. Qassam also vowed to wage armed struggle against the British and the Zionists. But before he could start his revolt, Qassam and a dozen of his followers were ambushed by the British. Instead of surrendering or escaping, Qassam fought on. He and some of his followers were killed in battle on 19 November 1935.

Qassam's death made him a symbol of self-sacrifice and martyrdom and contributed to the spread of his ideals across the country. It was his followers who actually began the campaign of armed struggle and organized, with others, the famous Arab Revolt of 1936. That revolt represented the climax of Palestinian resistance during the mandate. It lasted until 1939 and was seen by the British as a major revolution to be suppressed. It is estimated that 5,000 Palestinians were brutally killed by British forces and Zionist militias during this period.(1) While the revolt officially ended in 1939, violence persisted.

As Europe was self-destructing during World War II, Palestine was feeling the ramifications of European atrocities. New waves of immigrants, legal and illegal, were arriving in the country to escape Nazi terror. The Zionist enterprise, moreover, gained further international support and was solidified in the face of Hitler's plans for the Jews of Europe. In Palestine, Zionist violence grew to new heights and effectively divided the country into Jewish and Arab domains.

The violence continued unabated after the end of World War II. In 1947, the British Government announced, after many attempts at a solution, that "the mandate has proved to be unworkable in practice, and that the obligations undertaken to the two communities have been shown to be irreconcilable."(2) By this time, the conflict between Arabs and Zionists had truly become irreconcilable. Palestine's Jewish population had reached 30 percent and had become a formidable force in the country.

It was at this juncture that the United Nations began to play an important part in the affairs of Palestine. The General Assembly delegated a special committee to travel to Palestine and investigate the situation. The report submitted by the UN Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) incorporated two proposed plans: Partition and Federation. The majority of UNSCOP members favored the first plan to partition the country into two states, Jewish and Palestinian Arab. The minority of UNSCOP members favored a federal state in Palestine. To insure the passage of the majority plan, Zionist pressures were applied inside and outside the U. N. As president Truman of the United States confirmed, "So much lobbying and outside interference has been going on in this question [the partition plan] that it is almost impossible to get a fair-minded approach to the subject."(3) Later Truman reminisced:

As the pressure mounted, I found it necessary to give instructions that I did not want to be approached by any more spokesman for the extreme Zionist cause.(4)

The Arabs of Palestine did not have the means to counteract the Zionist lobbying activities in the United States or other countries. In the U.S., politicians found it expedient to capitalize on Jewish concerns about the Nazi victims. The Arabs had no such appeal. Moreover, the Zionists had the necessary organizational infrastructures in the U.S. while the Arabs had none. In addition, many Americans viewed the notion of a Jewish state in Palestine as a fulfillment of biblical prophecies. Thus, on 29 November 1947, the General Assembly adopted the partition plan.

According to this plan, Palestine was to be divided into six parts-three of which (56 percent of the total area) were to become a Jewish state, and the other three (43 percent) were to become an Arab state. Jerusalem and environs were to fall under UN administration. This resolution meant that the Jewish state would include 498,000 Jews and 497,000 Arabs (excluding the nomadic inhabitants of the Negev), and the Arab state would include 725,000 Arabs and 10,000 Jews.

The Palestinian leadership rejected the partition resolution. They argued that it violated the provisions of the UN Charter on self-determination. The Palestinian rejection also was based on demographic and legal ownership facts. In the proposed Jewish state, half the population was to be Palestinian-Arab while its Jewish population owned less than ten percent of its total land area.

THE CREATION OF ISRAEL

The reaction to the partition resolution among the Palestinians resulted in a wave of protests, demonstrations and disturbances throughout Palestine. Soon after the adoption of the resolution, British forces began to withdraw from specific areas. Both Arabs and Zionists attempted to gain control of those areas leading to attacks on local inhabitants. As Edgar O'Ballance testified, "it was the Jewish policy to encourage the Arabs to quit their homes," and "they ejected those who clung to their villages."(5) Other Arabs, according to Sir John Bagot Glubb, were "encouraged to move by blows or by indecent acts."(6) Ethnic purification was important to Zionist planners because of the demographic factors involved. Given that Jews were less than 30 percent of the population of all Palestine, and a mere 50 percent in their allocated Jewish state and given the high birth rate among the Arabs, it was imperative to rid their forthcoming state of as many Arabs as possible. Otherwise, the Jewish state would have an Arab majority in a very short time.

Confronted with the tragic situation in Palestine, the leading champion of partition, the United States, began to have second thoughts. Consequently, the U.S. submitted an alternative proposal to the UN Security Council on March 19, 1948. It proposed a temporary UN trusteeship over all of Palestine.

As the United Nations was reexamining the Question of Palestine, Zionist planners were busy establishing their authority on the land of Palestine. As Dr. Chaim Weizmann, president of the World Zionist Organization, reminisced: "Our only chance now . . . was to create facts, to confront the world with these facts, and to build on their foundation." Later, he was able to proclaim that "while the United Nations was debating trusteeship, the Jewish State was coming into being."(7)

The manner in which the Jewish state "was coming into being" was not peaceful, rather, it was characterized by "violence and bloodshed," as UN mediator Count Folke Bernadotte put it.(8) The most frequently mentioned incident among the many contributing to a panic flight of the Palestinian inhabitants was the massacre of Deir Yassin. On 9 April 1948, 254 men, women and children in the village of Deir Yassin were massacred by Irgun attackers. The Irgun was...