A History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Second Edition

Mark Tessler

• Éditeur: Indiana University Press
• Année: 2009
• ISBN:
  9780253013460
• Édition: 2
• Sujet: Storia
• Sous-sujet: Storia mediorientale

Mark Tessler's highly praised, comprehensive, and balanced history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the earliest times to the present—updated through the first years of the 21st century—provides a constructive framework for understanding recent developments and assessing the prospects for future peace. Drawing upon a wide array of documents and on research by Palestinians, Israelis, and others, Tessler assesses the conflict on both the Israelis' and the Palestinians' terms. New chapters in this expanded edition elucidate the Oslo peace process, including the reasons for its failure, and the political dynamics in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza at a critical time of transition.

PART I

Jews and Arabs before the Conflict

The Congruent Origins of Modern Zionism and Arab Nationalism

THERE ARE SEVERAL reasons to begin a study of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with a general survey of Jewish and Arab history. One is to dispel the common misconception that the current struggle in Palestine is an extension of an ancient blood feud, fueled by ethnic or religious antagonisms dating back hundreds of years. This view is not only inaccurate, it is also potentially damaging; it promotes distorted judgments about both Jewish and Arab behavior while at the same time diverting attention from considerations that are central to a proper understanding of the conflict in the Middle East.

Present-day issues must be approached with a recognition that neither the Arab-Israeli dispute in general nor the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in particular is based on or driven forward by primordial antagonisms, and that it has in fact been less than a century since Jews and Arabs began to view one another as enemies. A review of Jewish history and Arab history makes this clear, revealing that each unfolded in response to interaction between its own internal dynamics and the wide sweep of world events, and that, in Palestine as well as more broadly, each people occupied but a peripheral place in the evolution of the other until the beginning of the twentieth century. Indeed, as recently as the eve of World War I, the legacy of Jewish-Arab relations was untarnished to the extent that contemporary Zionists and Arab nationalists deemed it worthwhile to explore the possibilities for an alliance between their two movements, with a view toward making common cause in the face of challenges from Europe.

Equally or even more important, not only the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but the parties to this conflict must be understood in a manner informed by history, with a foundation of knowledge that makes it possible to separate fact from propaganda. To arrive at such an understanding and provide this foundation, it is once again necessary to examine Jewish and Arab history during the long centuries before the two peoples confronted one another in Palestine. Neither Jews and Israelis on the one hand nor Arabs and Palestinians on the other can be understood properly if seen primarily, or in the first instance, through the prism of the present-day struggle in the Middle East. Each people must rather be comprehended on its own terms, free from stereotypes and in the context of its own history and culture, and only secondarily, if at all, with reference to the complaints of its adversary. To understand the aspirations and behavior of Jews and Arabs, including the Arabs of Palestine, it is thus essential to examine the historical experiences that have shaped the character of each people and forged its identity and outlook, and to trace this evolution across the centuries and even millennia that preceded the emergence of the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Such an account will lay a foundation for thinking accurately about the parties to the current conflict in Palestine. More positively, it should also foster recognition that, however valid may be the grievances of those with whom each people is presently locked in combat, both Jews and Arabs have ambitions that are legitimate and even praiseworthy.

There is also a remarkable congruence between Jewish and Arab history, and herein resides yet another reason to examine the experience of each people prior to the conflict in Palestine. Indeed, this may be the most important reason of all in the long run. Despite a present-day view that places emphasis on the hostility and conflict between Jews and Arabs, there exists a striking symmetry in the general flow of Jewish and Arab history, and also in the particular way that nationalist movements within each community took shape and entered the arena of contemporary world politics toward the end of the nineteenth century. This symmetry provides a rich resource for dialogue and cooperation should Israelis, Palestinians, and other Arabs one day agree on a formula for resolving the conflict in Palestine and, looking to the future, seek to focus attention on the common elements in their respective national destinies. Should this occur, each people will receive from a knowledge of the other’s history not only the insights necessary for accurate judgments about its adversary but also benefits of a more positive nature, including the discovery that Jews and Arabs have much in common, and that each is well suited as a consequence of its own historical experience to appreciate and lend support to the aspirations of the other.

The congruence of Jewish and Arab history prior to the conflict in Palestine is visible in four distinct areas, each of which will be highlighted in the next two chapters. First, Jews and Arabs are both ancient Semitic peoples, with centuries-old bonds of solidarity based on religion, culture, and language. Each constituted a coherent political community long before concepts of modern nationalism were known in Europe, and in each case this community believed in its own Divine origins and sacred mission. The history of the Jews is the history of a people intertwined with that of a religion, and the history of the Muslim religion is equally central to that of the Arabs, such that both Jews and Muslim Arabs established early political communities which they believed to be an expression of God’s will. Moreover, again in both cases, this Divine writ was preserved in the form of holy law, the core of which was believed to have been revealed directly by God, and the temporal legitimacy and worldly character of each people’s corporate existence was accordingly fashioned in large measure by its acceptance of this body of law as a national constitution. Thus, during their respective classical periods, Jews and Arabs both possessed the elements of peoplehood and transformed themselves into viable political kingdoms, with the members of each polity united by respect for an authoritative legal system and by shared bonds of religion, culture, and civilization.

Second, there is symmetry in the periodization of Jewish and Arab history, both in general and with respect to the emergence of modern nationalism. Each people had once enjoyed an age of high accomplishment, a golden age during which it was able to fulfill its national destiny through action at the center of the Western world’s political stage. In each case, however, this classical era was followed by long centuries of decline, by an age of darkness and slumber marked by the loss of political independence and unity and also by a conservative and traditionalist normative ethic. Finally, Jews and Arabs entered a period of renaissance and revitalization in the nineteenth century.

Both peoples characterize this latter period as a time of reawakening, and in each case the timing and the stimuli are highly comparable. Currents of emancipation and nationalism on the part of European states upset the tranquility of traditional communities and led to the emergence of new ideas. Moreover, this parallel history fostered among Jews and Arabs a similar psychological outlook, based on a belief that their ancient identities and destinies remained as relevant as ever, but that the intellectual vigor and political might of other nations could not be denied and, accordingly, that intensified contact with the latter should be an occasion for critical self-examination. With the revered if somewhat idealized memory of a golden age embedded self-consciously in their collective and institutionalized memory, yet recognizing that they were separated from these past glories by many centuries and that they had in the interregnum experienced defeats and indignities and lost the ability to control their own affairs, elements within each community sought to legitimize an accommodation with the modern age and to fashion a strategy of national reconstruction.

A third area of congruence between Jewish and Arab history is to be found in the striking similarity of each people’s response to challenges from Europe during the course of the nineteenth century. At the outset this challenge was primarily intellectual, or moral, and the first response of Jews and Arabs was a debate within each community about the relative value of continuity and change. Moreover, as the century wore on and these debates matured, parallel divisions of opinion were in evidence among both peoples. There were radicals, or messianists, whose vision of the future was based on sweeping change and who called for bold new definitions of historic identities and a fundamental transformation of ancient ways of life. Only by embracing the wisdom of the modern age without reservation, they asserted, could their community be truly rejuvenated. There were also orthodox and conservative elements in the ranks of each people. Articulating the viewpoint of the true believer, these individuals rejected calls for modernization and change, insisting that the destiny of their community was in Divine hands and that man must not substitute his own judgment for that of the Creator. These pious traditionalists also asserted that revitalization was a false goal, a pursuit which, however well-intentioned, would in the end rob their community of the very elements that gave it spiritual sustenance and a proud civilization. In between these two positions were Jewish and Arab moderates, men who sought to borrow selectively from European culture and who worked to fashion an authentic synthesis of tradition and modernity. Their goal was to rediscover and preserve the dynamic spirit of their sacred law and venerable culture, and thereafter to use this wisdom to transcend the minutiae of ossified religious practice, which they deemed responsible for stagnation and inner decay, and with it to embrace the opportunities offered by the modern age.

A fourth common element is the manner in which this intellectual ferment and concern with modernization were transformed into nationalism. By the latter years of the nineteenth century, both Jews and Arabs had come to believe that the nations of Europe posed more than an intellectual and cultural challenge. Jews were physically threatened by outbreaks of anti-Semitism in many parts of Europe. Arabs were already under the domination of European colonialism in a number of countries and were confronted by imperialist ideologies based on a foundation of cultural racism. To combat these political and physical challenges, Jews and Arabs both began to articulate platforms possessing nationalist content, calling for political arrangements that would enable each people to organize in its own defense and to manage its own affairs without interference.

Modern political Zionism sought the establishment in Palestine of an autonomous and self-sufficient Jewish colony. This national home would restore the Jewish people to the Biblical Land of Israel, offer Jews a refuge from persecution, and permit construction of a spiritual center where Jewish religious and cultural norms could be put into practice and thereafter evolve. Nationalism in the Arab world, in Palestine as elsewhere, was similarly preoccupied with self-rule and auto-emancipation. Its goal was the construction of political communities run by and for the benefit of the indigenous population. These polities would defend their Arab inhabitants against the challenge of European imperialism, manage the task of improving the material circumstances of Arab life, and provide a framework within which the Arab world could at once defend and revitalize its classical civilization. Although Jews and Arabs would soon clash in Palestine, each people at the outset was irrelevant to the nationalism of the other. Zionists and Arab nationalists were both responding, in very similar ways, to a troubling new aggressiveness on the part of Europe.

These commonalties may one day offer a foundation for reduced hostility between Arabs and Jews, should there eventually be a settlement of the present-day conflict in Palestine, and should the two peoples then seek to understand one another better and to cooperate in charting the future of the Middle East. Indeed, although it is unlikely in the short run, awareness of the congruence of their respective histories might even to some degree lead each people to recognize the legitimacy of the other’s aspirations and to approach the conflict between them with greater willingness to seek accommodation and compromise. In the meantime, while attention to the rich and parallel history of Jews and Arabs before there was a conflict in Palestine should not, and will not, divert attention from developments that subsequently placed the two national communities in opposition to one another, this early history remains the logical point of departure for a study of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Knowledge of this history is necessary to avoid misconceptions and to put the conflict itself into proper perspective. Even more important, it is essential for a full and proper understanding of the Jewish people, Zionism, and Israel on the one hand, and of the Arabs, the Palestinians, and the nationalism of each on the other. Thus, with these purposes in mind, the next two chapters summarize the history of Jews and Arabs before these two ancient peoples clashed in Palestine and came to regard one another as mortal enemies.

1	Jewish History and the Emergence of Modern Political Zionism

Early History and Foundations of Nationhood

IT IS INADEQUATE to describe the Jews as a religious group in the modern-day sense of the term. Like Muslims, they are more appropriately regarded as a national community of believers. The Jews’ sense of peoplehood is extremely well developed, inextricably bound up with their collective historical experience, with the Land of Israel where they built their ancient kingdoms, and with the sociological and political content of their law.

All of these elements defining the bonds of Jewish peoplehood are made sacred in the eyes of the true believer by the Divine origins attributed to them. The Jewish people considers itself to have been chosen by God, indeed to be the people chosen to receive the Holy Testament. Moreover, the role chosen for the Jewish people is not merely to receive the word of God and thereafter to proclaim His existence and transmit His commandments. It is also to found a society and a polity in which men and women will live in a fashion pleasing to the Creator. It is in this sense, too, that believing Jews regard themselves as the chosen people, selected not only to be God’s messenger but also, as the orthodox among them say, to be a light unto the nations. Finally, Jewish doctrine asserts that God has granted His chosen people dominion over the Land of Israel, Eretz Yisrael, in order that they possess a country in which to construct their commonwealth based on His law. Located in the territory today known as Palestine, and known to the ancients as the Land of Canaan, Eretz Yisrael is held to have been promised by God to the patriarch Abraham and his descendants. This promise was reaffirmed and implemented in the form of a solemn covenant between God and the Jews during the time of Moses.

The character of the Jewish people is thus defined both by the temporal aspects of its historical legacy and by a belief that the experience of the Jews is part of a larger Divine plan. The former involve a strong communal identity and the land and the law which in ancient times gave tangible expression to this national spirit, and which continued to shape Jewish thought even after the people of Israel had been driven into exile and dispersed. The latter is the conviction, held not only by devout Jews but also by the true believers of other religions which accept the Hebrew Bible, that the course of Jewish history has been shaped by God’s promise of guidance and protection. Therefore, again, the Jews are more than a religious group. They are also a historically legitimated political community possessing many of the attributes associated with nationhood. This duality is well-described by James Parkes, who chooses the term “people” to define the collective consciousness of the Jews. He writes that their history is “that of a people inextricably interwoven with that of a religion. Neither can be told apart from the other. . . . It is best to describe them as a people.”¹

Biblical record and archaeological evidence indicate that the Jews conquered and began to settle the land of Canaan during the thirteenth century before the Christian era (B.C.E.). Moses had given the Israelites political organization and led them out of Egypt, bringing them to the borders of the Promised Land. Then, under Joshua, they initiated a prolonged military campaign in which they gradually took control of the territory and made it their home. Most contemporary scholars believe that it took the Jews many decades to establish hegemony over Eretz Yisrael, and that even after it was secured and occupied, Canaanite enclaves remained for some time. Despite accounts in the Book of Joshua which suggest that the land was conquered in a single campaign, planned in advance by Moses and later Joshua, other Biblical testimony is consistent with those archaeological indications suggesting a struggle that lasted as much as a century.² In any event, by the twelfth century B.C.E., the period of Judges, the Jews were firmly established in ancient Palestine, and the area of their control included substantial tracts of territory on both sides of the Jordan River. Map 1.1 shows the extent of Israelite control during the century following the conquest. It also indicates the particular region inhabited by each of the original twelve Israelite tribes.

The Israelite political community developed steadily, marked by the growth of national consciousness and the emergence of national institutions and reaching its apogee during the period of monarchical rule under David and Solomon. The establishment of the monarchy, which took shape in the latter half of the eleventh century B.C.E. under Samuel and Saul, modified existing patterns of political organization. Prior to this period, leaders had held temporary mandates and were regarded as thoroughly submissive to the will of God. Now, however, although David and Solomon were both devout and God-fearing leaders, they assumed vastly increased po...