the boiling cauldron that is the modern middle east
I have to admit I’ve never quite got-to-grips with the shenanigans in the Middle East and have viewed it with a mixture of ignorance and complacency in a kind of ‘as it was always thus’ manner. However, with the US and Iran now irrevocably involved I guess it’s time to appreciate and understand exactly how the bitterly contested Israel-Palestine conflict came about, where the apparent red lines are drawn and what any potential future may hold.
By the mid-19th century, the Jewish population of the then massive Ottoman empire was tiny, about 10,000 strong, but the dream of a home in the ‘holy land’ had been deeply rooted in the Zionist culture for centuries and immigration to the perceived promised-land saw this number rise to 85,000 by 1914. Having sided with Germany in the first World War, much of the Ottoman empire was ceded to the victors and, in 1920, Britain was awarded the newly created territory of Palestine by the League of Nations. During the war, to ensure their support we had promised self-determination to the Arab population, nevertheless, post-war we came out in favour of the country becoming a national home for the Jewish people.
The rise of Hitler in the 30s witnessed 170,000 European Jews flee to Palestine, doubling its population, and after the Holocaust, the moral case for a Jewish homeland was widely accepted by world opinion, if not by Arab opinion! In 1947, the UN General Assembly successfully approved a partition plan giving 55% of Palestine to the Jewish state, leaving 43% to Arabs, with a neutral and international Jerusalem. With, perhaps, the writing already on the wall, the British cut and ran; the last chief secretary, Sir Henry Gurney, left the keys to his office under the mat, and this somewhat arbitrary dividing-up of the country with a two-thirds Arab/Jew population split, has been at the heart of the Arab grievance ever since.
Needless to say it all immediately kicked-off and the neighboring states of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq all entered the civil conflict with Palestine to destroy the nascent Israeli state with their infamous ‘three nos’: no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiation with Israel. The subsequent defeat of the Arab armies, along with the later Six Day War and Yom Kippur, saw Israel expand to fill almost 80% of Palestine, while the areas of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip were annexed by Jordan and Egypt respectively. By 1949, Palestine had disappeared from the map, half the population had fled or been expelled and only 160,000 remained in Israel.
The Intifada (Palestinian uprising of 1987) and the subsequent rise of Hamas, saw pressure being brought to bear on both the Israeli government and Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organisation to engage with each other. Secret negotiations ultimately lead to the Oslo Accords where the PLO recognised the State of Israel for the first time and Israel recognised the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people, and allowed for a level of self-administration within the major Palestinian areas. Sadly, the process floundered on all the other issues: exact border placement in the West Bank, the status of Jerusalem, the fate of refugees and descendants, Israel’s ‘occupied territory’ settlements and long-term security. Which begs the question as to whether a two-state solution is ever going to be possible?
At times, negotiators have come tantalisingly close to a deal but the stumbling blocks of land ownership (in a state not much larger than Wales), self-determination and refugee return have always scuppered the deal. There are now also sizeable entrenched constituencies on both sides that want no compromise whatsoever and both have their rival narratives and grievances, some perceived, some real. The Palestinians point to the loss of land since 1948 and the subsequent repression and control; Israel to the constant attacks and incursions, including the most recent of 7th October. Now, with both sides more distrustful and traumatised than ever, and potentially being used as proxies in a bigger chess-game, a solution has never seemed further away.
