Our Roots Are Still Alive History Of Palestine

171 Pages·1977·10.95 MB·English

by  Peoples Press Palestine Book Project

Our Roots Are Still Alive
The Story of the Palestinian People
Written by the Peoples Press Palestine Book Project:
Joy Bonds, Jimmy Emerman, Linda John, Penny Johnson, Paul Rupert
Illustrations: Ron Weil of Gonna Rise Again Graphics
Design: Leah Statman of Gonna Rise Again Graphics
Layout: Joy Bonds and Leah Statman
Institute for Independent Social Journalism
NewJerseySolidarity-Activists for the LiberationofPalestineMain Site

Introduction
Chronology
Chapter 1-Our Roots AreEntrenchedDeepin the Earth
Chapter 2-Zionism:The False Return
Chapter 3-World War 1:Pledgesand Betrayals
Chapter 4-Building Zion Underthe BritishGun
Chapter 5-1936:The Palestinian Revolt
Chapter 6-World War II:ChannellingEurope's Jewsto Palestine
Chapter 7-Green Light from the White House
Chapter 8-Clearing the LandofPalestinians:The 1948War
Chapter 9-The Exile:From Bitterness to Strength
Chapter 10 -Building the Jewish State
Chapter 11 -Birth ofthe Fedayeen
Chapter 12 -The Road to War
Chapter 13 -June1967:Seizing NewArabLand
Chapter 14 -PalestineLives
Chapter 15 -Black September
Chapter 16 -The October War:The OliveBranchandthe Gun
Chapter 17 -Our Roots AreStill Alive
Chapter 18 -The Battle ofLebanon
Conclusion:Revolution Until Victory
Postscript:"WeShallNeverForget Palestine!"
Recommended Reading
Published by the Peoples Press, New York, 1977.
Our Roots Are Still Alive - Chronology
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Chronology
1517 - Ottoman Turks conquer Palestine.
1881 - Pogroms begin in Russia. First wave of Jewish immigration to Palestine.
1897 - First Zionist Congress, held in Basle, Switzerland, proclaims goal of a "national home
in Palestine for the Jewish people."
1913 - Arab Congress in Paris demands self-government from Turkey. Anti-Zionist groups
begin to form among Palestinians.
1916 - The Arab Revolt against the Turks begins. Britain promises the Arabs independence,
but negotiates the secret Sykes-Picot treaty with France to colonize the Arab countries.
November, 1917 - Britain's Balfour Declaration promises a "national home" in Palestine to
the Zionists.
1920 - World War I ends. Britain is granted a mandate over Palestine. Riots in Jerusalem.
1921 - 1929 - Series of Palestinian protests against British rule and increased Jewish
immigration culminate in major incident at Wailing Wall in 1929.
1933 - Adolph Hitler comes to power in Germany. New influx of Jewish settlers to Palestine.
1936 - 1939 - Palestinian general strike and armed rebellion against the British Mandate
government, demanding independence for Palestine. Heavy fighting throughout the country.
1939 - British issue White Paper restricting Jewish immigration to Palestine. World War II
begins.
1942 - 1946 - Zionists shift organizing focus to the U.S. and issue Biltmore Program in New
York City calling for the formation of a Jewish State in Palestine. Open warfare flares between
Britain and the Zionists.
November 1947 - The UN votes to partition Palestine. War begins in Palestine between
Zionists and Palestinians.
May 15, 1948 - State of Israel proclaimed. Arab League troops intervene in Palestine on
behalf of Palestinians.
January1949 - Ceasefire. Israel occupies 80 percent of Palestine. Three-quarters of a million
Palestinians made refugees.
1956 - President Nasser of Egypt nationalizes the Suez Canal. Israel, France and Britain
invade Egypt. On the eve of the invasion, Israeli soldiers massacre 37 Palestinians at Kfar
Kassem. Israel withdraws from Egypt after six months of occupation.
1958 - Fateh - the Palestine National Liberation Movement - is founded.
1964 - Palestine Liberation Organization founded in Cairo.
1965 - Palestinian guerrillas launch armed struggle against Israel.
June 5 - June 11, 1967 - War between Israel and the Arab states of Egypt, Syria and
Jordan. Israel triples in size, occupying the rest of Palestine, as well as the Egyptian Sinai and
the Syrian Golan.
March1968 - Palestinian guerrillas hold off major Israeli attack at Karameh, Jordan.
February 1969 - Palestinian Resistance assumes control of the Palestine Liberation
Organization. PLO adopts goal of a "democratic secular state" in all of Palestine.
September 1970 - King Hussein launches all-out attack against Palestinians in Jordan.
May 1973 - Palestinians and Lebanese supporters defend refugee camps against attack by
Lebanese Army.
August 1973 - Palestine National Front formed in the Occupied Territories - the West Bank
and Gaza Strip.
October 6, 1973 - Egypt and Syria start limited war against Israel. After the ceasefire, U.S.
Secretary of State Henry Kissinger begins "shuttle diplomacy" to try to reach a settlement
favorable to U.S. interests.
November 1974 - PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat addresses the United Nations. PLO granted
observer status at UN. First General Uprising in the Occupied Territories.
April 1975 - Lebanese rightists begin civil war in an attempt to crush the Palestinian
presence in Lebanon.
September 1975 - Kissinger engineers Israeli-Egyptian agreement.
November 1975 - UN condemns Zionism as a form of racism and recognizes the "national
rights" of the Palestinians. Second General Uprising in the Occupied Territories.
January1976 - Beginning of Third General Uprising in Occupied Territories when U.S. vetoes
resolution supporting the national rights of the Palestinians in the UN Security Council.
May 31, 1976 - Syria invades Lebanon to tame Palestinians and prevent a leftist victory in
the war.
August 12, 1976 -The refugee camp of Tal al Zaatar falls to the rightists after seven weeks
of siege.
October, 1976 - Riyadh Summit Conference establishes an uneasy peace in Lebanon.
March 1977 - Palestine National Council affirms independence of the Palestinian movement
and its goal of a democratic secular state.
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Our Roots Are Still Alive - Introduction
Table ofContents Next:Chronology
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Introduction
Our Roots Are Still Alive is a book about the Palestinian people. It is the story of a people
uprooted by force of arms from their homeland, deprived of their means of existence, branded
as refugees. Yet the Palestinians have survived, kept alive their history and culture, and have
unceasingly sought to return to their homeland.
This is the story of a people who have faced immense difficulties. It is not a difficult story to
understand, yet it is rarely told in the United States. Understanding what has happened to the
Palestinians unlocks the history of the Middle East in this century: for the Palestinian people are
at the heart of the conflict in the Middle East today.
This book is necessarily a story of war and conflict. It tells how powerful European countries
fought to control the land, waterways and rich resources of the Middle East; how Jews from
Russia and Europe, in a movement called Zionism, fought to establish the state of Israel on
Palestinian soil; how the United States became involved in the Middle East, what its interests
are, and how it uses every weapon at its command to protect those interests.
This book is also a story of the human spirit - its strength and vision. The Palestinians are not
exceptional people. They share with people everywhere a most common and persistent longing:
to live in peace, with the dignity possible only in a society that is free and just. Only their
particular circumstances and history set them apart. It is here, in their story, that the spirit of
sacrifice and determination emerges once again, as it does among all people who take their
hopes and dreams in hand, to forge a better future for themselves and their children.

Our Roots Are Still Alive - Chapter 1
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Here -wehave a past
a present
a future.
Our roots are entrenched
Deepin the earth.
Liketwenty impossibles
Weshall remain.
-Tawfiq Zayyad
For centuries, the peasants of the Palestinian village, al-Yahudiyya, were a people wedded to
their land. Their village rested in a valley among the hills of central Palestine, near the port city
of Jaffa. Like other Palestinians in the thousands or so villages that dotted the countryside, they
had painstakingly terraced many of the hills, converting them to usable land. Irrigation ditches
built by their ancestors centuries before brought water to the land which yielded citrus, olives
and grain. On the rocky hills bedouins - nomadic people - followed the spring grasses with their
herds, and villagers tended sheep and cattle. The people of al-Yahudiyya used the nearby land
for grazing their animals. In the late 1880s, two moneylenders gained formal ownership of this
land as payment for village debts. As the peasants considered use of the land a God-given
right, the passing of ownership did not worry them. But soon, these traditional assumptions and
the villagers' way of life were challenged by newcomers to Palestine.
In 1878 Jewish settlers from Europe bought al-Yahudiyya's grazing land from the two
moneylenders. They established an agricultural colony, Petah Tiqva, but remained aloof from
the surrounding Palestinian villages. After several years the new settlers ordered the Palestinian
peasants to stop using the pastures for grazing. However, the peasants continued to use the
land, and tempers flared quickly on both sides. One day in March 1886, the Jewish settlers
seized ten of the Palestinians' donkeys - an act which sparked an attack by fifty angry villagers
from al-Yahudiyya. Turkish authorities, who ruled Palestine at the time, immediately sent
soldiers to protect the settlers at Petah Tiqva. Two days later the Turks arrested thirty-one
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Palestinians from al-Yahudiyya and ordered them held for trial.
The fighting at Petah Tiqva was the first skirmish in what has become a century-long battle
between the Palestinian people and Jewish settlers from Europe for the land of Palestine. But
the incident at Petah Tiqva was not the first time foreigners and Palestinians clashed for control
of this small strip of land by the Mediterranean Sea. The history of Palestine is one of frequent
invasion and repeated resistance.
Crossroads for Empire
Palestine lies at the crossroads of three continents - Europe, Asia and Africa - and is a holy land
to three major religions - Islam, Christianity and Judaism. A succession of empires and
conquerors have sought control of Palestine's port cities and trade routes, its land and people.
Each newcomer eventually was either absorbed into the population or replaced by yet another
conqueror. Since the seventh century, the people of Palestine have been Arab, with a common
language and culture. Palestinian cities like Jerusalem were centers of Arab civilization where
scholars, poets and scientists congregated. Over the centuries, most Palestinians became
Moslems, although small communities of Jews and Christians maintained their faiths.
The Sultan of Turkey conquered Palestine for his Ottoman Empire in 1517. For the next four
hundred years, the Turks ruled Palestine as part of an administrative area called Greater Syria -
which was to become the countries of Palestine, Syria and Lebanon in the twentieth century.
Although Palestine was not a precisely defined geographic area until that time, the people of
Jerusalem, Jaffa, Haifa, Gaza and Nablus and the peasants in the surrounding countryside used
the term Filastin or Palestine to describe their land.
Even under the rule of the Turks, and for as long as the villagers could remember, the land of
Palestine belonged to those who worked it. The peasants had to pay heavy taxes on the land,
and many lived their lives in debt to local merchants and tax collectors. Drought, locusts, bad
harvests and occupying armies plagued their way of life. But as long as the peasants worked in
the orchards and fields, buried their dead o the land and raised their children to till it, they
believed no one would dare to take their land. Events outside of Palestine were soon to prove
them wrong.
The Turkish Empire had weakened in the years since it captured Palestine, and the Sultan had
been forced to rant many concessions to the rising empires of Europe. Britain was especially
interested in gaining control of the Middle East. For over two centuries the ships and agents of
the British Empire had roamed the world, plundering the wealth of Asia, Africa and the
Americas. The slave trade from Africa and the seizure of gold, silver, cotton, spices and other
goods had made Britain the most industrialized country in the world. As British factories
produced more goods, Britain searched for new markets for its products. In 1838 Britain signed
the Anglo-Turkish Treaty which allowed British merchants complete freedom to sell their goods
in Arab markets. Over the next ten years, British exports to Greater Syria tripled. As Britain's
economic stake in the area grew, it looked for a way to extend its political influence.
The British thought they could gain a foothold in Palestine by offering "protection" to one of its
religious minorities. Other European powers had given protection to small Christian sects,
granting them special privileges, including immunity from trial by Turkish courts and exemption
from many taxes. In 1840 Britain set up a consulate in Jerusalem for the protection of the
twenty thousand Jews who lived in religious communities in Palestine.
The protection of these Jews was only a first step. Once Britain had taken the Jews of Palestine
under its wing, some British politicians began to envision a more powerful method of control -
the founding of a European Jewish settler colony on Palestinian soil. In 1840 Lord Palmerston, a
powerful British aristocrat, asked his government to give its official seal of approval to the
2
immigration of European Jews to Palestine. He argued that this scheme would serve the larger
interests of the British Empire. The trade routes across Palestine were, as one official said, "the
high road to India." India was Britain's richest colony, a major source of cotton for the
flourishing British textile industry. A grateful and dependent community of Europeans in
Palestine would make this strategic way-station between England and India friendlier to British
interests.
In 1875 the British gained control of the newly built Suez Canal in Egypt. Now British merchant
ships could sail from Europe to India in half the previous time. Securing Palestine would give
the British a buffer zone to the east of the vital canal. The proposal for Jewish colonization of
Palestine became more appealing to British ruling circles. Lord Shaftsbury argued its merits in
1876:
Syria and Palestine will before long become very important. The country wants
[lacks] capital and population. The Jews can give it both. And has not England a
special interest in promoting such restoration? It would be a blow to England if
either of her rivals should get a hold of Syria. Her Empire reaching from Canada in
the West to Calcutta and Australia in the South East would be cut in two... She
must preserve Syria to herself... To England then naturally belongs the role of
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favoring the settlement of the Jews in Palestine.
European Settlers Come to Palestine
Palestinians in the port city of Jaffa took note of the first great influx of European settlers in the
1880s. During these years the Czar of Russia encouraged a series of attacks on Russian Jews.
Under the banner of Zionism (which we will explore further in the next chapter) thousands of
European Jews came to Palestine. Most of the new immigrants settled in Jerusalem or Jaffa.
Many were anxious to find work or open shops in the cities; but others wanted to farm. Jewish
settlers formed eight agricultural colonies in these first years. Since there was very little
uncultivated land in Palestine, each land purchase by Jewish settlers displaced Palestinian
peasants. As the incident at Petah Tiqva showed, the presence of European settlers caused
friction from the very beginning. On a visit to Palestine in 1891, Ahad Ha'am, a famous Jewish
writer, observed the high-handed manner of the settlers:
[They] treat the Arabs with hostility and cruelty, deprive them of their rights,
offend them without cause and even boast of these deeds; and nobody among us
4
opposes this despicable inclination.
Palestinians rebelled against such treatment and the loss of their lands. In addition to the attack
on Petah Tiqva in 1886, there were minor incidents over the next several years at many of the
Jewish settlements and a major attack on the colony at Rehovet in 1892. Some Palestinians
began to demand that the Turks prohibit land sales to Europeans. In the towns and cities, too,
there was growing unrest. Wealthy Palestinian families watched uneasily as control of trade in
the cities passed slowly to Europeans. Many of these prominent Palestinian families had
prospered under Turkish rule. Along with other powerful families in Greater Syria, they had
often been able to pressure the Sultan on matters which affected them. But in the last years of
the nineteenth century, their influence diminished as the Europeans gained more power over
the Turkish Sultan.
British strength in particular continued to grow. In 1881, the same year the first Zionist settlers
came to Palestine, the British conquered Egypt. During the next twenty years Britain frequently
imposed its will on the Turkish Sultan. A test of Palestinian and British influence with the Turks
came in 1903 when Zionists asked to establish the Anglo-Palestine Company in Jaffa. The
company was a bank designed to help Zionists buy land in Palestine. Palestinians in Jaffa
demanded that the Sultan stop the bank, and at first he agreed. But when the British informed
the Sultan that they backed the bank, he gave in. The Sultan's action angered Palestinians, and
some of them began to sharply criticize Turkish rule over their country.
Palestinians became more hopeful in 1908 when the Young Turks, a group of Turkish military
officers, overthrew the Sultan. The Young Turks promised equality for all peoples in the empire
and convened a parliament with representatives from all the Arab provinces. In order to secure
goodwill for the new government, the Young Turks lifted the censorship which had been
imposed by the Sultan.
Throughout the Arab provinces, aboveground and underground movements emerged,
demanding greater freedom for the Arab peoples. Most Arabs were not yet demanding complete
independence from the Turks, hoping instead for reforms within the empire. Palestinians were
part of this young Arab nationalist movement. As soon as the censorship ended, prominent