The Palestine-Israel Conflict: A Basic Introduction

276 Pages·2008·3.34 MB·English

by  Gregory Harms

The Palestine–Israel Confl ict
A Basic Introduction
Second Edition
Gregory Harms
with Todd M. Ferry
P
Pluto Press
LONDON (cid:127) ANN ARBOR, MI
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Second edition published 2008
First published 2005 by Pluto Press
345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA
and 839 Greene Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48106
www.plutobooks.com
Copyright © Gregory Harms 2005, 2008
The right of Gregory Harms and Todd M. Ferry to be identifi ed as the
authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 7453 2735 8 hardback
ISBN 978 0 7453 2734 1 paperback
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data applied for
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from
fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and
manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the
environmental regulations of the country of origin.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Designed and produced for Pluto Press by
Chase Publishing Services Ltd, Fortescue, Sidmouth, EX10 9QG, England
Typeset from disk by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton, England
Printed and bound in the United States of America
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for my brother, Jason
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Contents
List of Maps ix
Acknowledgments xi
Preface to the Second Edition xiii
Introduction xvii
Part I: Background History
1 Ancient History: Canaan–Palestine
From the First Foot Falls to Rome 3
(by Todd M. Ferry)
2 Muhammad, Islam, and the Arab Empire 23
3 The Crusades to the Ottoman Empire 35
Part II: Pre-confl ict
4 Jewish Persecution and Zionism 47
5 Palestine 57
6 World War I to World War II
The Genesis of Confl ict 65
Part III: Confl ict
7 1947–1967
Confl ict: Partition, Israeli Statehood,
and the Six-Day War 87
8 The 1970s to Lebanon 1982
The Continuation of the Arab– Israeli Confl ict 117
9 The Intifada and the Peace Process 141
10 Into the Twenty-First Century
Camp David II and the Bush II Era 159
Conclusion: Current Developments 194
vii
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viii Contents
Appendices
1 Chronology 203
2 Israel’s Prime Ministers 206
3 General Data: Israel, Palestine 207
Notes 209
Suggested Reading 236
Select Bibliography 242
Index 246
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Maps
1 The Middle East and Southwest Asia xxiv
2 UNGA Partition Plan, 1947 (UN 181) and Armistice
Lines, 1949 92
3 Post-June 1967 War: Territories occupied by Israel 114
4 Oslo II, 1995 157
5 Projection of West Bank Final Status Map presented
by Israel, Camp David II, July 2000 167
6 Fragmentation of the West Bank (June 2007) 177
Maps 2–5 courtesy of PASSIA. Map 6 courtesy of UN-OCHA.
ix
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Acknowledgments
I would like to offer profound thanks to: Scott Darley, Ben
Nowicki, Shawn Mitchell, Annie Higgins, Jeffrey Ball (Dove
Booksellers), Shany Shlomo, Lahan Sarid, Ali Abu Shawish,
Naim Toubassi, Zaid Alayobi, Ryan Robinson, Jerilyn Tabor,
Michael Pugh, Alfonso Flores V, Clement Cherian, Jan Larsen
(the Herald News), and George David Miller. Many thanks
are owed to Alex Lubertozzi and Jennifer Fusco at Prologue
Publishing for much-needed direction and guidance. To Roger
van Zwanenberg, Julie Stoll, David Castle, Robert Webb, Matthew
Seal, and everyone at Pluto Press I am thankful for realizing
this project. I am grateful to Professor Arthur Goldschmidt Jr
and Professor Charles D. Smith for their availability, honesty,
and advice. I am indebted to my mother, Martha Harms, and
George Savich for their early and much-needed help. Grant and
Genevieve Harms (both of whom passed during the writing
of this book, and a second dedication would go to them), and
my father, Joseph, and Diana Harms all provided me with
humbling support and hospitality at the farm.
I am grateful for immediate and unbending support of this
project to Mark Eleveld, who upon my initial consideration of
the idea fi rmly encouraged me to get started. Special thanks go
to my friend and colleague, Todd Ferry, who thoughtfully came
along at the right time and whose knowledge and expertise
made a superb contribution to this book. Vikram Sura, who
I met in Jerusalem, has been a tremendous source of support
and counsel ever since. For innumerable reasons I am indebted
to Michael Slager, countless conversations with whom have
sharpened my thinking on all manner of subjects (thanks,
Michael). I owe an impossible amount of gratitude to Tom
Jasper for his selfl ess generosity and encouraging fi reside chats
(and to Givon and Madison Jasper for helpin’ their Uncle G).
xi
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xii Acknowledgments
Lastly, I am grateful to the people in Israel and Palestine
who, far too numerous to list here, showed me hospitality,
friendship, and openness during my time spent researching
there in June 2002. It is in these qualities and people that their
leaders can – and must – fi nd an exemplar.
All those noted above contributed to this project in a
multitude of ways, the sum total of which made this possible.
For the existence of this book they have an equal share in
its arrival; for the contents and any errors therein, I alone
am responsible.
Gregory Harms
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Preface to the Second Edition
“Who’s fighting and what for?”
Mick Jagger, Altamont Raceway, 1969
One would be hard pressed to pick up a newspaper, or turn
on the evening news, and not come across words and phrases
like “West Bank,” “Hamas,” “Zionist” or “Arab–Israeli peace
process.” The Palestine–Israel confl ict is a permanent fi xture
in news media the world over. And though geographically
tiny, the tensions between Israel and the Palestinian territories
send shockwaves around the globe. Oftentimes, in reaction
to news or conversation about the confl ict, you might hear
people make remarks such as, “Those people have been
fi ghting for thousands of years!” Given the way the confl ict
is presented in the media, as a perpetual tallying of deaths on
each side with no historical context, it’s not surprising that
many commonly make such judgments. But like most things,
what actually lies beneath the surface bears little resemblance
to what it’s presumed to be.
So, where is someone to go and get a basic understanding of
the most notorious confl ict of the twentieth and now twenty-
fi rst centuries? As mentioned, the network and cable news
outlets tell you almost nothing except for dutifully reported
fatalities, the classrooms of American high schools are
uncontaminated with discussion of it (though the September
11 attacks opened things up a bit), and though there are
mountains of books on the subject, they tend to be 500 pages
long, or focused on a particular aspect, or both. People with
families and jobs typically don’t have the time to pore over
cumbersome monographs on history and political science.
For years I stared blankly at the shelves of the Middle
East section in countless bookstores wondering to myself,
xiii
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