User:The Prince Manifest/Draft Article
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[edit] Genocide and Ethnic Conflict in Israel and Palestine
This is a draft article to be posted on and to replace the information on the page stated above.
[edit] Overview
Post-WW2, the world has had very few significant territorial disputes, mostly as a result of the founding of the United Nations, the rise of the European Union and globalization. The most prominent of those disputes still in existence however is that of "The Twice Promised Land". The Treaty of Versailles saw the Arab inhabited territories of the Ottoman Empire being given to Britain and France, in preperation for the independence of these new Arab nations. As a result of the Great Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Turks, Britain had promised the Arabs, represented by the Hashemite families, the territories. At the same time however, the British had also promised the World Zionist Organization through the Balfour Declaration of Britain's support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine.
What resulted from the two promises was a deadlock which saw much violence and killing erupt throughout the British Mandate of Palestine. To appease the Arabs, Britain seperated from the Mandate all the land east of the Jordan River (92300km²), creating the Emirate of Transjordan. This cut away roughly 81% of the Mandate's territory. This isolated the large majority of the Mandate's population on the west side of the river, in an area of only 20,770km², as compared to the original 113070km². Jews were prevented from settling in Transjordan, although Arabs were free to move between the two, although few chose to leave. To further appease the local Arab population, Britain also enforced the MacDonald White Paper to lower immigration of Jews to Palestine. As with entering Transjordan, Arabs were still allowed to enter Palestine from neighbouring Arab countries.
Prior to the Holocaust, although the Mandate was occupied by the British, this did not stop the area from being anarchic. Many riots occured in Arab populated areas over the years, in what became known as the Great Uprising, and as a result a great many Jews died. The local Arab leadership, led by Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, did a great deal to keep Arab insurgency against the British and Jews going strong. This led to the rapid expansion of the Haganah from a small militia made to protect Palestinian Jews into a well-armed army of 10,000 mobilized and 40,000 reservist men. The tension between the Arab and Jewish populations showed that the British would not be able to make the two people share the land as was once thought.
Following the failure of the Peel Commission to bring about a solution, tension began to grow within the Yishuv about whether or not to start using force to make Britain stop to stop appeasing the Arabs and abolish the White Paper, which was becoming more and more urgent with Adolf Hitler readying Nazi Germany to slaughter all her Jews. Hitler sent SS Jewish Affairs head Adolf Eichmann to Palestine to see whether or not they would be able to deport their Jews there. The immigration authorities however refused to issue Eichmann a visa, and this possibilty was dropped. Tensions within the Hanganah lead to the splitting off and creation of the Irgun and Lehi, two groups which sought to make their case known.
The outbreak of the Second World War saw the Jews of Palestine siding with the British to fight the common enemy of Nazi Germany. This saw a temporary halt to Jewish resistence in the Mandate, with Yishuv Leader David Ben-Gurion announcing, "We will fight the war as if there were no White Paper, and we will fight the White Paper as if there were no war". While the Arab population of Palestine and of the neighbouring Arab states were not officially on the side of the Axis, the defacto Palestinian leader al-Husseini (by now expelled from Palestine) was actively collaberating with the Axis and encouraging Jihad against the Allied Forces. al-Husseini saw the Allies as oppressing Arab nationalism, which saw him travel to Germany several times to discuss how he could help the Axis. Ultimately however, al-Husseini's task, creating a pro-Axis regime in Iraq, failed, and al-Husseini fled the Middle East.
Despite a substantial number of Arabs being guilty of aiding the enemy and the position that the Jews were left in after the Holocaust, the British still refused to come up with a solution in the Mandate, seeing it more important to have Arab backing due to their interests in the Arab lands. With the war over and there no longer being any excuse to be lenient with the British, the Palestinian Jews began to revolt, their aim being to make the British solve the problem or force them out of Palestine. 1946 saw the Irgun blowing up the King David Hotel, the headquarters of the British administration, while also retaliating against Arab attacks on the Jewish population with the help of the Lehi. The Yishuv also began it's policy of haa'pala, or illegal immigration, to allow many of the DPs created by the Holocaust into Palestine.
The British initially refused to act on the situation of the Jews, however, growing international pressure over the issue of a homeland for the surviving Jews of Europe, which cultimated with the incident involving the Exodus 1947, and the pressure being put on the British in Palestine itself, saw Britain handing over the Mandate to recently formed United Nations. The UN were to solve the problem of land in Palestine. See Partition of Palestine.
Also see British Mandate of Palestine, Amin al-Husseini
[edit] The Israeli War of Independence
On May the 14th 1948, after much debate about whether or not to make it due to security threats from the neighbouring Arab states, David Ben-Gurion declared Israel's independence in the part of Palestine designated to the Yishuv by the United Nations. The declaration was backed by all nations of the world, including both the United States and the Soviet Union, who for the first time had voted together on something. This was with the exception however of the nations of the Arab League, who invaded Israel the day after the declaration, aiming to push the new nation into the sea.
See Israeli War of Independence
Although Israel won the war, which saw the Jews having their own homeland after almost 2000 years. However, with the unexpected Palestinian Jewish win over the Arab armies created a problem for the Arab states, who had told the Palestinian Arabs to move out their homes so they could throw the Jews into the sea with as little harm as possible to their ethnic brothers. Many Arabs would have been residents of the new Jewish state, yet many chose to flee.
NB, All-Palestine
[edit] Incidents
Intent:
Intro –
Israeli Intent –
Palestinian Intent –
