What is taking place right now in Palestine, rather in the rump “22 percent” Palestine, is incredible. The Palestinian Authority, an entity which was established to partly undo the historical injustices and partly to satisfy the Palestinian grievances, redeeming hundreds of UN resolutions in support of Palestine’s 1948 victims, is being systematically destroyed by a discredited mad general who has been indicted in his own country for his leading role in the Sabra and Shatila massacres, and who is facing genocide charges in a Belgian court at this very moment. This maniac precipitated the current, second uprising, intifadah, by insisting on visiting Islam’s third holiest shrine, Al-Aqsa mosque, under the protection of over 2000 Israeli soldiers in September 2000. The events hurled him to the post of prime minister in a country which has been carved out of Palestine by deceit, outright terrorism and stealing others’ lands and expelling the rightful inhabitants by sheer force.

After the initial grab, Israel has been trying ever since to capture even those lands it could not get a hold of during the initial period 1948-50. Even after ceasefire in 1948 it occupied more Palestinian lands, including Umm al Rashrash port, now “Eilat,” which gave it access to the Red Sea. In 1948 Israel’s illegal forces and terrorist gangs like Palmach, Haganah, Stern, Lehi and Irgun, used widespread terror to grab land and expel as many Arabs as possible from those lands. These refugees now continue to live in camps in the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.

Israel is the only country in the world that owes its “legal” existence to the United Nations. With no authority in its charter to create new states, the UN succumbed to the Western pressure of the “recommended” partition of Palestine into Arab and Jewish states in 1947. It was created to settle Europe’s Jewish problem away from Western countries. And when the international body sent its envoy, Count Bernadette, to Palestine to settle the issues, he was assassinated by Zionist terrorists in broad daylight in Jerusalem.

Thanks to Western pressure, especially American and British, Israel was admitted to the UN after offering solemn pledges to implement the UN resolutions regarding Palestine, and specifically permitting the Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and lands, a pledge which has been observed ever since only in violation. Nothing of the sort ever happened in the Middle East’s “only democracy.”

As Palestinian refugees still live in shantytown on all sides of Israel’s land borders, Jews from all over the world enjoy automatic “right of return” - they become Israeli citizens simply by placing there feet on the soil of Eretz Israel. This concept itself is a major part of the Zionist problem. In simple language, “Eretz Israel” means “Greater Israel” which has various definitions. The maximalist definition includes the land from the eastern flank of the Nile in Egypt to the western flank of Euphrates in Iraq, including Khaibar in the south. The minimalist version includes the whole of Palestine, and that includes what was carved out of mandated Palestine by the British to partly satisfy their wartime promises to the Sharif of Makkah and is now known as the Kingdom of Jordan. Many Israelis believe in the “transfer” of the Arab Palestinians to what they call “Jordan is Palestine.”

West Bank settlements

According to Zionism, Jews have a God given right to this land and are entitled to live anywhere within its boundaries. This vision led to sprouting Jewish settlements in the territories occupied in 1967. Today, outside the traditional Arab habitations, all land has been occupied or acquired by Israel for building or expanding Jewish settlements. These settlements received a great boost when Menachem Begin’s Likud party came to power in 1977. Despite Camp David, Madrid and Oslo, this activity has continued unabated even though the world perceives the settlements as illegal entities and a clear obstacle to peace. Palestinians see with their naked eyes the ever shrinking space they have in the remaining part of their homeland after the emergence of Israel on lands far in excess of what was envisaged in the UN partition plan of 1947.

From around 57 percent of mandated Palestine earmarked for the Jewish state, Israel now has 78 percent and eyes the 22 percent left with the Palestinians. Israel has no serious interest in the emergence of a viable Palestinian state so that it may continue to exploit its land and resources. It wants to keep tabs on everything within any Palestinian entity, which must be demilitarized while Israel retains the Middle East’s most powerful army thanks to American largesse. Land and water resources in the areas occupied in 1967 are openly stolen while Palestinians are denied any control over them.

It was within this scenario of ever-expanding settlements and misappropriation of Palestinian rights and resources that the Palestinians’ sole representative, the PLO, agreed to the Oslo accords in 1991 forsaking legitimate claims to what now masquerades as “Israel.” Under these accords the sovereign Palestinian state should have emerged three years ago with defined borders to exist side by side with the Jewish state. But nothing of the sort has happened. Israel still controls most of the West Bank and Gaza and keeps re-negotiating issues long settled and offers crumbs as final settlements with a take-it-or-leave-it attitude. The crucial issues of Jerusalem and the Palestinian refugees expelled from their homelands since 1948 have not even been discussed until now while the Jewish settlements keep sprouting and expanding.

It was the Israeli assumption that somehow the Palestinians will accept the “municipality” being offered in the name of a “state” while they control the Palestinian state’s security, foreign policy and borders. But this did not happen. And here lies the crux of the issue. The pent-up anger, frustration and daily humiliation by the occupiers, have rekindled resistance, which is the birthright of every nation whose lands are occupied by foreign powers. This right is recognized by international law. But, thanks to the current American obsession with “terrorism” in the wake of September 11th, Israel thinks that it can lump genuine resistance as “terrorism” and enlist the support of the world’s lone super power while the whole world watches in utter disbelief the butchery to which the Palestinians are subjected simply for daring to demand their natural rights.

The current onslaught is only a new leaf in Zionist terrorism and the perpetrators will pay for it sooner or later. Such tactics will only hasten the dismantling of the unjust entity called “Israel.” Oslo allowed them a golden opportunity to gain legitimacy by securing the acceptance of their victims, but they have fretted away that chance and the current onslaught is the last nail in the coffin of Oslo.

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