Well there it is. I have had a sort of writers block. Not because there is little relating to health of interest, but that so much of it seems trivial compared to the historic horror unfolding before our eyes in the middle east, which I view with astonishment.
The latest chapter in this long history of conflict opened with the October 7th attack by Hamas and others which was a killing spree and war crime. At first glance it seems madness for this to happen; firstly as Hamas must have known that such an outrage would be returned with violence many magnitudes worse – it always is – Israel has 2,200 tanks, Gaza 0. Secondly it also appears to have been an astonishing Israeli security lapse.
Since then we have descended into the mass murder of Palestinians and the destruction of Gaza as a habitable space with anything labelled as ‘Hama Infrastructure’ bombed – this seems to include over 60% of buildings, most hospitals, schools, and public services. No where is safe and the human toll is bewildering.
This is the first of three posts on Gaza, first the a short history, then the current situation and then to what might happen in the future – a future which will affect us all.
A glimpse at the complex history is essential in trying to make any sense that can be made of all this, heavily influenced as it has been by Europe and it’s wars and Western, particularly British and French involvement in the region as well of course religious conflict. The history of the region goes all the way back to when humans first migrated from Africa but a look back at the last century sets the scene.
1917
The area had been ruled by the Ottoman Empire for 400 years before its defeat and dissolution in World War 1. To achieve this the Allies enlisted the help of Arabs with promises of an Independent Arab state after the war. However, the ‘Balfour Declaration’ in 1917 signalled the West’s acceptance of the establishment of a state of Israel in Palestine and wartime promises to the Arabs were discarded with Armistice.
The region was carved up by the secret 1916 secret Sykes Picot agreement and many subsequent treaties. Essentially, this was an agreement between Britain and France – with the permission of Russia and Italy – and carved up the area between them after the war and led to the subsequent British and French Mandates established by the League of Nations in 1920. This was not accepted by the people who already lived there, nor by the increasing population of immigrants and was a recipe for conflict between occupiers, occupied and immigrants.
Despite stated sensitivity to Arab aspirations in the written agreements, the French in particular ruthlessly put down Arab efforts to achieve autonomy and exploited of the population. Hopeless but stubborn resistance cumulated in the Battle of Maysalun which is widely known acknowledged in the Arab world to represent a pattern of Arab resistance against superior foreign forces.
The French occupiers used forced labour for colonial style construction and when the Great Syrian revolt came in 1925, the French bombed Damascus, (12 years before the better publicised German bombing of Guernica) burned villages to the ground, and made public exhibits out of dead Arabs. The Damascus neighbourhood of Al-Hariqa, referring to the great fire triggered by French bombs, keeps its name today from that episode.
Incredibly, due to ongoing French atrocities in 1946, the British invaded Syria and escorted the murderous French out. DeGaulle had to back down to avoid war between France and Britain and in 1946 the Syrians had their independence.
Arab revolts in 1920 and 1939 were forcefully ‘put down’ and led to first expulsions of Palestinians from land they had seen as their own. 10% of the Arab population were killed, injured or expelled even before WW2, scenarios which sadly echoed down the following century.
1947
Zionism had taken form in 1880 due to Tsarist Russian persecution of their Jewish population. The emigration from Russia to Palestine before WW1 accelerated in the light of ongoing antisemitism across Europe and was given understandable urgency by further eastern European pogroms and the ultimate evil of the Holocaust.
The Zionist dream of a safe place for persecuted Jewish people can be understood, particularly when the West failed to offer Jewish people sufficient refuge before, during and after the war – but Palestine was not empty. Further conflict was inevitable between the thirst for land of the Zionist settlers and the scattered and previously disparate Palestinians who had occupied the land for centuries.
The British Mandate had been initially assisted by the Israeli settlers who were attacked by Arabs and led to the establishment of Israeli militias who would turn on the British after WW2. The first British High Commissioner was a Zionist. Yet when Britain attempted to restrict further immigration of Jewish people escaping the chaos of post war Europe they were fought by Israeli Nationalists who were labelled as the terrorists’ of the day, as they too kidnapped and executed hostages and bombed civilian targets.
The British, who all around the globe seem to have a habit of leaving a divided mess behind them, departed in 1947, after the newly formed UN agreed division of land into two states. Again this was also not accepted by the indigenous Palestinians – though they certainly would accept such a deal now in the light of what has happened since. Escalating tension between colonisers and colonised led quickly to further acts of violence, revenge and atrocities committed by both sides.
The 1948 War of Independence was the first of four Arab-Israeli wars and started when the Arab nations collectively decided to prevent the establishment of Israel. It was decisively won by Israel who claimed two thirds of the Mandated Territories leaving Gaza and the West Bank more or less as we see them today, with Gaza under Egyptian control and the West Bank under the control of Transjordan. Ben Gurion, Israels leader, resisted suggestions from his generals to conquer the West Bank all the way to Jordan at that time.
Nakba
750,000 Palestinians out of a Mandate population of 1.2 million, fled or were expelled from their homes without compensation. Many live, with their descendants, in a vast diaspora in refugee camps to this day. Palestinians call this the “Catastrophe” (Nakba) which is acknowledged on the same day Israel celebrate its creation. More seeds for future conflict were sown and fertilised.
Wars and rebellions
This lack of any political momentum led to the 1967 and 1973 wars after which 300,000 more Palestinians fled occupied lands and which have more or less brought us to where we are today. Further Israel military victories led to occupation of the Golan heights, from which 70,000 Syrians fled, and against Egypt with the occupation of Sinai, with the Suez crisis almost a footnote in this complex history.
The Camp David agreement in 1978 resolved matters between Egypt and Israel, but divided the Arab world and led to the assassination of Anwar Sadat, the Egyptian leader who negotiated the deal, which provided a framework for peace rejected by the UN and the Palestine Liberation Front due its many unaddressed issues.
On to the Oslo Accords in 1993 where agreement was reached between the Palestine Liberation Organisation of Yasser Arafat (who survived many assassination attempts) and the Israel prime Yitzhak Rabin (who was assassinated) for a semi-autonomous West Bank and Gaza strip. Yet fundamental differences were unresolved and lip service was paid to an ultimate “Two State Solution”. The next round of talks at Camp David in 2000 failed due to lack of agreement on land, the sanctity of the Temple Mount, the right to return and security issues and led to the first Intifada or rebellion.
2005
Israel evacuated their Gazean settlements in 2005 and withdrew their military, largely due to the demography of expanding Palestinian population in Gaza and also with a view to expansion in the West Bank and Jerusalem. Despite Israeli departure, Gaza was widely considered to be an occupied territory due to its limited freedoms. This isolation has since increased with a fence all the way around Gaza with entry and exit strictly controlled by Israel, stifling Gaza’s economy from the first year onwards.
In a nutshell
In other words, this history set the scene for further conflict between a well armed and ever more powerful Israel and increasingly marginalised, persecuted, impoverished and desperate Palestinians with more extreme leadership emerging on both sides.
It seems little significant was ever truly resolved; the fundamental basis of hatred and conflict have been magnified through subsequent and expanding generations and the bloody history continues to unfold.
The Zionist aspiration for a homeland can be understood in the light of persecution of Jewish people in so many ways for so long, so too can Arab resistance to simply giving their land away to occupiers without compensation. Might has continually been on the Israeli side with Arabs resorting to what is called terror or resistance depending on perspective.
While the history is encyclopaedic and complex, these are the basic threads. Zionism as a consequence of persecution of Jewish people and communities, Arab nationalism as a consequence of their persecution as they continue to pay the price for European antisemitism.
Perhaps, along with the conflict in the Ukraine, the after-shocks of the Second World War continue to haunt us and have brought us to where we are now, the subject of my next post.