Recently, I’ve noticed that the media is trying to describe the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as objectively and neutrally as possible. Perhaps they don’t want to receive angry letters from supporters of both sides. However, I see a stance that aligns with that of Israel-supporters everywhere. Take, for example, this quote from Sacha Kester in the daily Volkskrant, titled “Everything you need to know about the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians”:
“In 1947, the British hand over the mandate of Palestine to the United Nations. They vote to divide the area and establish both a Jewish and an Arab state. The city of Jerusalem is to come under international administration. The plan is accepted by Jewish leaders but rejected by the Arabs and will never be implemented.
The Jews do not let go of the dream of their own country, and when the British officially withdraw on May 14, 1948, Israel declares itself an independent state. The next day, Arab troops from Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan invade the area with the aim of liberating Palestine.
Despite the overwhelming odds, the Arabs lose this war.”
The reality is more nuanced. In his book “Mythologies Without End,” published by the prestigious Oxford University Press, Jerome Slater writes the following:
• The UN Partition Myth: Slater’s book challenges the Zionist myth that the Palestinians started the war by rejecting the 1947 UN partition and attacking the Jews.
• Palestinian Willingness to Compromise: Slater shows that many Palestinians and their leaders were willing to negotiate and make peace with the Zionists, but these attempts were ignored or rejected by Ben-Gurion and other Zionist leaders.
• Zionist Expansionism: Slater argues that the Zionists never truly accepted the partition but tactically did so to buy time and build up their military power. Their real aim was to conquer all of Palestine and expel the Palestinians.
• Palestinian Resistance: Slater contends that the Palestinians rightly resisted the Zionist plans, which were based on their ideology of ‘transfer’ and their behavior in the decades leading up to the partition. He argues that this resistance cannot be viewed as an unprovoked attack, nor as a justification for the violent expulsion of the Palestinians in 1947-48.
Here is the full quote:
“The UN Partition Mythology
It is true that most of the Palestinians rejected partition and, following the passage of the UN plan on November 30, 1947, engaged in a number of attacks on the Jews. On the other hand, a number of Palestinians and their local leaders recognized that they could not defy the Zionists and the international community and that partition was unavoidable; consequently, they were prepared to compromise. As Simha Flapan observed: ‘The evidence is so overwhelming [of local Palestinian attempts to avoid a violent conflict with the Zionists] that the question arises how the myth of a Palestinian jihad against the Jews could survive so long.’ Flapan notes the many Palestinian villages that sought non-intervention agreements with their Jewish neighbors, with hundreds of non-aggression pacts signed all over the country.Ben-Gurion was fully aware of these efforts by many Palestinians as well as their Jewish neighbors, admitting that ‘it is now clear, without the slightest doubt, that were we to face the Palestinians alone, everything would be all right. They, the decisive majority of them, do not want to fight us, and all of them together are unable to stand up to us.’
Benny Morris and Avi Shlaim reached similar conclusions. Summing up the evidence, the American scholar Steven Heydemann wrote, ‘Both Morris and Shlaim provide graphic evidence of the way in which efforts at accommodation, both with Abdullah [the king of Jordan] and with the Palestinians were consistently refused by Ben-Gurion, Moshe Dayan, and many others in the military establishment who regarded compromise as unnecessary in light of Israel’s evident military superiority.’
In short, as I have previously argued, the evidence is overwhelming that the Zionist leaders had no intention of accepting partition as a necessary and just compromise with the Palestinians. Rather, their reluctant acceptance of the UN plan was only tactical; their true goals were to gain time, establish the Jewish state, build up its armed forces, and then expand to incorporate into Israel as much of ancient or biblical Palestine as they could.
The Palestinians knew of these Zionist intentions, both because of their well-known ideology—‘transfer’—and from their behavior in the decades preceding the UN partition. Consequently, their resistance—however unwise as it subsequently proved, in practice, to be—could hardly be described as an unprovoked launching of the conflict. Nonetheless, because ‘they started it,’ the Zionist canon holds, they are responsible not only for the 1948 war but, in many versions, the continuation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict ever since. In any case, I argue that even if the ‘they started it mythology had been true, it would hardly have justified the violent expulsion of the Palestinians during the 1947–48 period.”, 1Slater, J. (2021). Mythologies without end: the US, Israel, and the Arab-Israeli conflict, 1917-2020. Oxford University Press.
• The 1948 War Timeline: Slater’s book debunks the Israeli myth that Arab attacks were provoked by UN support for a Jewish state in November 1947. The Arab invasion only took place in May 1948 and had several other motives.
• Palestinian Expulsion: Slater demonstrates that Arab states were enraged by Zionist massacres and forced expulsions of Palestinians that had already begun before the invasion. He quotes Tom Segev, who states that the Arabs attacked Israel because it had displaced and expelled 400,000 Palestinians.
• Zionist Aggression: Slater shows that in the six months leading up to the war, the Zionists primarily seized land that the UN had allocated to Israel. The Arab intervention only came after the Zionists began to conquer land that had been allocated to the Arabs. A U.S. memorandum concluded that the Israelis were trying to conceal their own armed aggression against the Arabs.
• Inter-Arab Rivalry: Slater contends that the primary reason for the Arab invasion was not sympathy for the Palestinians, but inter-Arab monarchical and territorial rivalry, particularly the fear that King Abdullah of Jordan would annex the West Bank and use it as a stepping stone for his dream of a Hashemite kingdom. He quotes Avi Shlaim and Simha Flapan, who argue that there was no Arab plan to strangle the Jewish state but rather inter-Arab fears and rivalries.
Here is the full quote:
“Understanding the timeline of the 1948 war is crucial: contrary to the Israeli mythology, it was not the November 1947 UN support for the creation of a Jewish state that precipitated the Arab attacks, for that did not occur until May 1948 and was principally motivated by several other factors.
First, while none of the Arab states were interested in the establishment of a Palestinian state—that would interfere with their own territorial ambitions in the area—there is no reason to doubt what they said at the time, namely, that they were furious at Zionist massacres and forced expulsion of the Palestinians, which began well before the invasion. Tom Segev put it this way: ‘The possibility arises that . . . the Arab states attacked Israel—among other reasons—because it had chased out and expelled 400,000 Palestinians.’
Moreover, there had been no Arab state intervention in the six months preceding the war—the civil war period between the Jewish and Palestinian peoples, as it is often termed—during which the Zionist forces mainly seized only the areas that the UN had allocated to Israel. The intervention came only after the Zionists began seizing land allocated to the Arabs. Noting that fact, a State Department memorandum of May 4, 1948, concluded that the Israelis ‘will use every means to obscure the fact that it is their own armed aggression against the Arabs which is the cause of Arab counter-attack.’
In any case, the Israeli New Historians agree that the primary cause of the Arab invasion was less that of sympathy for the Palestinians than the result of inter-Arab monarchical and territorial rivalries, especially the fears of other Arab monarchs that King Abdullah of Jordan would seize the West Bank and then use it as a springboard for his long dream of creating a Hashemite kingdom extending over parts of Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, and Iraq.
Avi Shlaim summed up the evidence: there was no Arab plan ‘directed at strangling the Jewish state at birth,’ but rather ‘inter-Arab fears and rivalries.’ Similarly, Flapan wrote that ‘although militarily this was a war between Arabs and Jews, politically it was a war between Arabs and Arabs. The issue was not the existence of the Jewish state, because [the Arab leaders] were ready, under certain conditions, to recognize the new realities.’”, 2Slater, J. (2021). Mythologies without end: the US, Israel, and the Arab-Israeli conflict, 1917-2020. Oxford University Press.
Were the Arabs Warlike?
Supporters of Israel claim that Arabs were warlike. In reality, both Syria and Egypt repeatedly tried in 1947 to have the conflict decided by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) through an advisory opinion. Although advisory opinions are non-binding, the Arabs were willing to recognize them as such. They wanted to ask various questions: Were the Balfour Declaration and the mandate legal? Was the mandate in conflict with Britain’s earlier promise of an independent Arab state? Was the UN competent to partition Palestine? Shouldn’t the local population decide the fate of Palestine based on the principle of self-determination?
In 1948, the Arabs wanted to pose new questions: Was Israel’s declaration of independence legal? Who had sovereignty over Palestine when Britain left? Were the Arabs or the Israelis the aggressors?
Israeli Opposition to an advisory opion
The Israelis consulted two prominent jurists: Shabtai Rosenne and Hersch Lauterpacht. Lauterpacht was one of the greatest scholars in international law and later a judge at the ICJ. (He was one of my heroes because I argued in my master’s thesis in philosophy that individuals should be able to sue states in international courts. Lauterpacht wrote a book advocating for the establishment of an international court for human rights.) Rosenne and Lauterpacht advised avoiding the ICJ because it was not evident that the Israelis were right. The court could easily decide that Palestine belonged to the Palestinians. In fact, Lauterpacht found the Israeli arguments to be nonsensical.
Lauterpacht’s Hypocrisy
Countries are not obligated to settle their conflicts in international courts. Lauterpacht, however, fought to make international courts obligatory. He also wanted ICJ advisory opinions to have more weight. Only UN bodies like the Security Council and the General Assembly can request an advisory opinion. Lauterpacht, on the other hand, wanted individual countries also to be able to request opinions. Therefore, according to his ideals, Syria and Egypt should themselves have been able to request an advisory opinion. Contrary to his philosophy, Lauterpacht advised against seeking an advisory opinion. The Israelis successfully lobbied to prevent the Arabs from gaining sufficient votes.
In conclusion: is what the media writes really all we need to know?
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