The freedom of Palestine from the clutches of foreign occupation is not an easy task, especially when we find that the only super power of the world the U.S is in unconditional support of the occupation forces. The other major powers of the world also supporting the occupation forces in Palestine but with some loose conditions which may not be acceptable to the natives of Palestine. A successful strategy for the freedom of Palestine must take into account the causes of support of the occupation forces.
The problem
Israel was built upon the land and homes of the Palestinian natives who were exiled through terrorism, murder and plunder. Israel continues to survive under the same conditions it was created; Israel is a colonial power. Israel was established with the mighty European and American guns, intelligence and guidance. Palestine is a Muslim-Arab land under the occupation of a European American colonial power.
Importance of the land
The Holy Land is a term which in Judaism refers to the Land of Israel. The term is also used by Muslims and Christians to refer to the area between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea.
Part of the significance of the land stems from the religious significance of Jerusalem, the holiest city to Judaism, the assumed place of Jesus’ ministry, and the Isra and Mi'raj event in Islam. The perceived holiness of the land to Christianity was part of the motivation for the Crusades, as European Christians sought to win the Holy Land back from the Muslim Seljuk Turks. They had taken it over after defeating the Muslim Arabs, who had in turn taken control from the Christian Byzantine Empire.
Zionist movement
The turn of the 20th century saw a Jewish nationalist movement springing up with Theodor Herzl as its founder. This ideology was named Zionism and its supporters are called Zionists, the name derived from Zion, Jewish synonym for the land of Israel. The goal of this movement was to gain Holy Land back and to create a Jewish homeland in the country of Palestine.
It is known that the idea of Jews returning to the Holy land was supported not only by the Jews but some prominent figures like King Edward VII, Queen Victoria, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Henry Dunant of the Red Cross and the political leaders of United States, South Africa, Czechoslovakia and Italy.
1st world war and British promise
The start of the 20thCentury brought with it a period that was to define some substantial events in the history of Palestine. The major elements of the situation at present were primarily activated by these crucial events which lasted from World War I to the British Mandate. The British Prime Minister issued a document in 1917 known as the Balfour Declaration. The declaration announced the support of the British government for establishing a home for Jews in Palestine, and during the early period of Zionism the world was told the lie that
“Jews were a people without a land and Palestine was a land without a people.” There was also a third promise where Britain and France agreed to divide the control of the acquired Ottoman lands by carving it up.
Adolf Hitler and Jews
"In his madness Hitler was convinced that the 'Jewish poison' had done the same thing to his beloved Germany in 1918 what the 'cancer poison' had done to his beloved mother in 1907,"
Hitler divided humans into categories based on physical appearance, creating higher and lower orders, or types of humans. At the top of his list is the Germanic man, with fair skin, blond hair, and blue eyes. He called this type of person an Aryan. For him, the Aryans are the supreme race. The inferior are Jews and Slavic people, mainly Poles, Czechs, and Russians. He believed that the Jews were the root cause of all of Germany's troubles. He blamed them for everything from conspiring to control world finances to promoting prostitution.
Before the mass murder (knows as the concentration camps) Hitler and the Nazis made laws that Jews can’t go to restraints, doctors, stores, ext. he would close their businesses and eject them from jobs. He put signs in front of Jews businesses that said "don’t buy from Jews.
During the mass murder Hitler put the Jews in concentration camps where they were forced to labor. For the sick, disabled and old he would take them to this place disguised as a shower but when you open the nozzle deadly gas comes out. He would also take babies, throw them in the air and then use them as machine gun targets. He would take children (especially twins) and do medical experiments on them.
Independence of Israel
The period ranging from 1947 to 1949 is regarded as the crucial one in the history of the Middle East. This period witnessed the formation of the State of Israel and beginning of the Palestinian refugee problem. The events and attacks conducted during the 1948 War of Independence exposed Israel’s ulterior motives to the world and the entire region was put in danger because of that. By the end of this period, the United Nations accepted the rights of Palestinians to return to their homeland through the adoption of UN Resolution 194. But it did very little for the poor Palestinians who were facing forced kicking out and massive bloodshed on the hands of Israeli forces. The British Mandate expired on November 29, 1947 and the UN General Assembly adopted the Partition Plan that divided Palestine into two states, a Jewish state and an Arab state. After the British withdrew from Palestine, the Jewish State of Israel was proclaimed on May 15, 1948.
The Jewish land ownership in Palestine saw a massive increase from 6% to 77% before and after the eviction of the Palestinians, which alarmed international community to a great extent. Considering this, the UN adapted a resolution on December 11, 1949 which proclaimed the Palestinian right of return.
Arab Israel wars
Arab-Israeli Wars, conflicts in 1948–49, 1956, 1967, 1973–74, and 1982 between Israel and the Arab states. Tensions between Israel and the Arabs have been complicated and heightened by the political, strategic, and economic interests in the area of the great powers. But the consequences of these wars were against the Arabs and they lost every single battle against the Israel.
Palestine liberation organization (PLO)
The Arab League established the PLO in 1964 as an effort to control Palestinian nationalism while appearing to champion the cause. The Arab defeat in the 1967 war enabled younger, more militant Palestinians to take over the PLO and gain some independence from the Arab regimes.
The PLO includes different political and armed groups with varying ideological orientations. Yasser Arafat is the leader of Fatah, the largest group, and has been PLO chairman since 1968. The other major groups are the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) and, in the occupied territories, the Palestine Peoples Party (PPP, formerly the Communist Party). Despite factional differences, the majority of Palestinians regard the PLO as their representative.
The PLO was initially committed to the dissolution of Israel, mainly through the use of armed force. Since its founding, the organization has sponsored innumerable guerrilla raids on Israeli civilian and military targets. In 1974 the PLO received UN recognition, and a government in exile was recognized by Arab nations as a basis for a future Palestinian state, to be formed from land regained from Israel along the west bank of the Jordan River. In 1976 the PLO was granted full membership in the Arab League.
Arafat was elected president of the Palestinian-controlled territory in 1996. Following Arafat's death in 2004, Mahmoud Abbas succeeded him as PLO chairman and in 2005 as Palestinian president.
Yasser Arafat and his services
Yasir Arafat leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the coordinating body for Palestinian organizations, and head of Al Fatah, the largest group in the PLO. He served in the Egyptian army during the Suez campaign (1956) and the following year moved to Kuwait, where he trained Palestinian commandos and edited Our Palestine magazine.
Arafat helped found Al Fatah in 1959 and in 1965 returned to Egypt to head Al Assifa, the military arm of Al Fatah. He went on to become leader of Al Fatah, and when the group gained control of the PLO (1969) Arafat, Shimon Peres, and Yitzhak Rabin shared the 1994 Nobel peace prize for the 1993 accord. Arafat was elected president of the Palestinian-controlled territory in 1996.
In 1999, Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak signed an agreement to finalize their borders and determine the status of Jerusalem by 2000. Although Arafat brought international attention and support to the Palestinian cause, he was ultimately unable to secure an independent state, and at his death left behind a PLO that was divided within and challenged from without by other Palestinian groups (especially Hamas).
UN and Palestine
The United Nations activities played a significant role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its intervention has brought about renewal of its diplomatic efforts in the Middle East. The continued support and efforts of the United Nations in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have kept the peace process on track through its peacekeeping operations, Despite all the peace arrangements by the United Nations, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has remained on its agenda. That is, among the most critical and persistent conflicts on the United Nations agenda is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The United Nations has failed to curtail the Israeli- Palestinian conflict at the initial stage, it has allowed the grudges between the two antagonists to fester and develop into serious and wider problem. The United Nations peace efforts did not stop the protagonists from returning to military force, terrorist actions and incessant killings. This was as a result of the inability of the Organization to address the underlying issues that precipitated the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the first place. It has been unable to address the domestic sources of the conflict. The violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms of the Palestinian people have led to an accelerating sequence of violence, attacks and reprisals. Despite all the United Nations peace resolutions, there has been no substance or major breakthrough in either the bilateral negotiations or the multilateral negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians. The implementations of its holistic approaches are severely hampered by the uncoordinated programmes of the United Nations.
Conclusion
the real solution for Palestine is not in Palestine, not in Israel, but in the United States, particularly in the hands of Muslims living in America. All Palestinians living in their country can do is to resist enslavement and to never surrender their right of freedom and keep their struggle alive at any cost of their lives, property, educational opportunities, economy and every other way.
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