In 1929, as a result of extreme British mandatory forces’ oppression and a huge increase in Jewish immigration to Palestine, the beleaguered Palestinians showed their first act of defiance. They announced a general strike and raised black flags. The British Government’s answer to that legitimate protest was to hang the three leaders of the resistance; Hijazi, Zeir and Jamjoum.
Their graves are still in Acre with the message to Arab leaders:
“Never trust foreigners.”
How wise that advice was. And how unheeded.
As a result of even further increases in Jewish immigration and the trafficking of arms to the Jewish militia in Palestine, another general strike in 1936 was called and it lasted six months, the longest in history. What ensued was calamitous. King Abdul Aziz, the founder of Saudi Arabia and Emir Abdullah of Trans-Jordan, both British collaborators, urged the Palestinian leadership to come back, sit at the negotiating table and give the British the benefit of the doubt. What those two did was nothing short of treacherous. They twisted the arms of the Palestinian leadership and convinced them to end the strike and trust British good-will towards us Palestinians. What a mistake. 72 years later we are still waiting.
The strike was called off on those empty promises. Our leaders, looking for justice were to be rewarded by imprisonment and exile. The next year, 1937, the culmination of that treachery and double-dealing by the British was revealed. It was called “The Peel Commission” and was a plan which divided Palestine into two states, one for Jews and one for the Palestinians.
The legitimate owners of the land, the Palestinians were offered the lowest percentage and the Jews, who were at that time in the minority were to be given the majority of the fertile land. Sound familiar? Not dissimilar to Mr Trump’s uniquely appalling ‘Deal Of The Century’?
Of course, the Palestinian leaders rejected it, as they are doing now, and were disbanded, imprisoned, and exiled for daring to question the wisdom of foreign intervention with its unjust and unfair plan. Will history repeat itself again as Mr Trump’s ludicrous deal is properly examined by the international community and the media?
The same scenario occurred in 1947 when Britain abandoned us to our fate and dumped the Palestine question in the lap of the United Nations. The result? Another partition plan, worse than the Peel Commission whereby the Jewish settlers, still in the minority, were given 56% of Palestine and we, the legal owners of the land 43%. The remaining 1% which was Jerusalem was considered corpus separatum, and put under international jurisdiction.
History is littered with examples of western so-called honest broker policies on Palestine. Our cemeteries are jammed with the bodies of our men, women and children who dared to raise their voices, wave our flags, protest at the imprisonment and torture of our people.
It seems that when it comes to us Palestinians words don’t matter. Our words that is. Our voices. Our demand to be treated as human beings and to be given our basic rights as accorded to any human being on this earth by the United Nations and the Universal Human Rights conventions. Why not?
Because, the Israelis and their Zionist supporters, both Christian and Jewish, consider us sub-human and inconsequential, irrelevant, just not worth considering. How else could you explain the latest move by foreigners to crush us under the Israeli boot and deprive us of our land, our freedoms, our dignity and our very humanity.
Last Tuesday January 28th 2020 two alleged criminals, both indicted in their respective neighbourhoods, President Trump in Washington and Prime Minister Netanyahu stood together in the White House, arrogantly driving a bull-dozer through international law, international conventions, human dignity and peace. Yet they called the utter garbage that spewed from their mouths ‘a peace plan’. Mr Trump described it as a win/win.
Mr Netanyahu called the 28th January 2020 a date that would go down in the annuls of history. He spoke to his friend, Donald Trump, saying that “On this day you became the first world leader to recognise Israel sovereignty in the areas of Sumaria and Judea which are vital to our security and central to our heritage. On this date you too have charted a brilliant future for Israelis, Palestinians and the region by presenting a realistic path to a durable peace.” He even had the nerve to say, “Since its inception Israel has yearned for peace with the Palestinians and with its neighbours.”
How can “yearning for peace result in brutal, violent sieges, destroying entire villages, homes and killing thousands of people over and over again? As UN special coordinator for the Middle East, Nikolay Mladenov said as he watched the killing fields around the Gaza security fence during the Great March of Return, “How does the killing of a child in Gaza today help peace? It doesn’t! It fuels anger and breeds more killing. Children must be protected from violence, not exposed to it, not killed!”
How is it a win situation for the Palestinians when this so-called ‘deal of the century’ gifts Israel:
All of historic Jerusalem as their undivided capital.
Legalises the illegal settlements in the Occupied West Bank.
Legalises the annexation of the Jordan Valley, the most fertile piece of land in Palestine and considered to be the ‘the basket’ of Palestine.
Puts the security of the so-called ‘new’ Palestinian state in the hands of Israel forever.
Gives the Palestinians a miniscule, uncontiguous state to be connected to Gaza by a tunnel.
This new Palestinian state to be de-militarised.
This new Palestinian state not to be allowed to join any international organisations or forums without the specific prior approval of Israel.
This new Palestinian state to be unable to forge treaties with other nations without the consent of Israel.
Most important of all, no right of return.
No compensation, no reparation, no acknowledgement of any responsibility on the part of Israel for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine and the violence against Palestinians by Israel to the ratio, according to UN figures of 80:1.
Not only that, Jewish people who left their own countries in the Arab world to go to Israel and elsewhere, whether by choice or if they were compelled to leave are to be compensated for properties they left behind in their countries they came from.
All of the above generosity by the United States of America and Israel is conditional on this new Palestinian state behaving itself for a period of four years.
It doesn’t stop there. The new Palestinian state, for the loss of Jerusalem, of one third of the West Bank will be given, in return, three Arab towns in Israel, together with their entire Arab/Israeli population. 250,000 Arab/Israelis to be disowned by Israel and deprived of their Israeli citizenship.
Of course, there is a bribe to make the Palestinians accept this. $50 billion. Not American money. Not Israeli money. But Arab money. Three Arab ambassadors were there at that White House debacle, from Oman, from Bahrain and from UAE. What are our Arab ‘brothers’ thinking of here? What is the major prize they believe will be handed to them from their foreign benefactors? That remains to be seen.
As for the Palestinian Authority, Mr Abbas, during his speech at the Arab League yesterday, threatened, not for the first time I may add, that he will stop the security co-ordination with both Israel and the USA and will hand the responsibility of the occupation onto the Israeli occupiers to deal with. This, of course, also remains to be seen.
What I find extremely hard to fathom and explain is how the Jews, who suffered so much in Europe, when they mention the Holocaust and say “never again” they do the same to us again, again and again.
It’s a strange old world.
Jafar M Ramini is a Palestinian writer and political analyst, based in London, presently in Perth, Western Australia. He was born in Jenin in 1943 and was five years old when he and his family had to flee the terror of the Urgun and Stern gangs. Justice for the people of Palestine is a life-long commitment.
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