Original on Tuesday, 20 September 2011, updated 9 March 2012
This is a response to a video made by Israel's Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Danny Ayalon which purports to explain 'the historical facts relating to the Israeli Palestinian conflict'.Like most subtle propaganda it is not what is said in the video that is significant, but what is omitted. In the video Danny Aylon says he will not go back to Biblical mandate, but I believe that in order to see the current conflict in context that is exactly what you must do. I have tried to summarise, and although I may have left something out myself, the intention is show that neither side are actually striving for peace, but both using and abusing systems of power in an effort to control the opposition. Danny Ayalon's point that we should not refer to 'occupied territories' but 'disputed territories' is at variance with the language actually used in UN resolutions related to Palestine.
BC 2100: God promises land to 'descendants of Abraham'. The description of that land includes what we currently know as parts of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and the whole of Israel/Palestine. Abraham had two children and from those two siblings are both the Jews and the peoples who currently inhabit Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt and Saudi Arabia and the whole of Israel. Thus the creation of the two semitic peoples: The Jews and the Arabs.
The promise to Abraham was displaying our Father's heart. It was not merely a promise to bless, but showed His heart for the world: I will bless you so that you can bless the nations. It is not blessing for it's own sake, but blessing to communicate the love of our Father to the whole earth.
BC 1900: Joseph expresses this promise to the Egyptian people. As he is blessed so he blesses those he is in contact with. The twelve brothers eventually learn this 'blessing others' and become the fathers of the tribes who make up that side of the family.
BC 1446 to BC 300: The family feud continues with the twelve tribes battling with those from Abraham's other son over which part of land belongs to which side of the family. What is noticeable during this time is that for most of these 1100 years neither side of the family remember the clause to 'be a blessing' but are very happy to be on the receiving end of blessings.
BC 1150: Earliest record of Palestinians by name (Peleset People) in Egyptian writing during twentieth dynasty of Egypt. As a people they were sufficiently large to invade Egypt during Ramses III’s reign. We can assume therefore they have been around for hundreds of years to have grown to a number sufficient to invade Egypt. This is obviously at variance to Israel’s claim that Palestinians are a recent people group in the area and some misguided people assuming Palestinians were the Philistines mentioned in the Bible. Nor is the invasion a blessing to the Egyptians!
BC 300 to AD 0: The silent years. Our Father is brooding over the planet preparing for a major change.
AD 0 to AD 33: Our Father sends His son to reiterate that those who are to receive His blessing are those who should bless. He demonstrates that His way is not the way of power and might and that those who follow the way of power and might are against our Father. The twelve tribes are hoping for something rather different and so disinherit the promise by rejecting our Father. No longer is the promise for the physical children of Abraham but for the spiritual offspring: Those who chose the path of peace and who share our Father's blessing with the world. These are called the followers of the Way.
BC 64 - AD 324: The Roman's use power and might to subjugate the whole Mediterranean basin including Palestine.
AD 313: The Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity, while at the same time maintaining the Empire by power and might and not promoting blessing of others. Whether this was the intention of our Father is open to debate.
AD 324 to AD 636: Byzantine rule of Palestine, where Eastern Orthodox control was maintained by power and might. Very few Jews lived in Palestine (10%-15% of the population). This diaspora, which continued till the 20th Century, should have allowed the Jews to demonstrate being blessed in order to be a blessing around the world. Sadly they failed to do so.
AD 636 to AD 1096: Rule by power and might changed control of Palestine, demonstrating again the way of those opposed to the Way of our Father. This time it was those claiming a revelation of strict adherence to law that used the sword to crush the people living in the area.
AD 1099 to AD 1260: We see the Way of peace trampled by those claiming to be Christians. Battling with swords and horses they sought to liberate land rather than hearts and thus entirely missed our Father's commendation to be a blessing.
AD 1260 to AD 1517: Power and might succeed in ejecting the 'Christians' and rule of Palestine is by an Egyptian Sultan. During this time the Jews, having failed to demonstrate our Father's call to be a blessing are significantly persecuted by those who claimed to replace them in the promise and have now, themselves, forgotten the call to peace and to be a blessing to others. It is a bloody awful mess.
AD 1516 to AD 1917: Palestine was conquered by power and might by the Turkish Sultan Selim II and was a conquered state being a province of Syria till Britain, the new world power demonstrated it's might.
AD 1897: The 'Zionist Organisation' was founded with a specific aim to 'to establish a home for the Jewish people in Palestine secured under public law.' One of the slogans used was 'A land without a people for a people without a land'. This totally ignored the large non-Jewish Palestinian population living there. However, Christian 'Restorationists' decided, somewhat arbitrarily, that despite their numbers, these Palestinians were not sufficiently coherent to be considered a 'people'. This was definitely at variance to our Father's call to be a blessing to the nations and showed how they had become corrupted by power.
AD 1916: Three great powers connived together to control the area. This came out in what is known as the Sykes-Picot Agreement. It was, at the time, a secret agreement between the governments of the UK and France with the assent of Russia. The aim was to define their influence in what we call the Middle East. Hence the French influence in Lebanon, Syria and Turkey and the British influence in Palestine, Jordan and Iraq. They were planning how they would carve up the Middle East and control it pending the downfall of Ottoman control in the region.
AD 1914 to AD 1918: TE Lawrence (a British Army Officer) honed and developed urban guerilla warfare techniques throughout the region, working with the Arabs. He is hailed as a hero, but had the victor been the other side, he would have been known as a terrorist. These techniques were embedded into the psyche of the people of the region.
AD 1917: The British foreign minister sent a letter to Lord Rothchild. That letter became known as 'the Balfour Declaration'. It included two significant phrases, that the British Government viewed with favour 'the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people' and that it was 'clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine'. It could be construed that this demonstrates a desire to be a blessing, both to the Jews and to the Arabs in the area.
AD 1922 to AD 1948: Britain wished to establish it's power and might and so after the First World War, the League of Nations was established in Europe. Unsurprisingly the 'British Mandate' which gave them control of the region called Palestine was confirmed by the League of Nations, which included the Balfour Declaration. The USA, staying clear of the League of Nations, endorsed this mandate. During the whole interwar period, the British, keeping in mind power and might, rejected the principle of majority rule or any other measure that would give the Arab majority control over the government of Palestine.
AD 1919 to AD 1923: Many thousands of Jews migrated to Palestine. This created stress between Jews and Palestinians. The family feud started some 4000 years earlier has still not been resolved.
AD 1920 to AD 1921: Jewish immigration and the way the British implemented the Balfour Declaration/British Mandate led to Arab riots. The British then started a system of immigration quotas. Attacks on Jewish settlements, which the British failed to protect, led to establishment of a Jewish militia to attempt to defend those settlements.
23 and 24 August 1929: Sixty-seven Jews were killed in a massacre in Hebron by Palestinians. This was the tipping point to violence for the Jews who formed the group called the 'Irgun Tzvai Leumi', which itself carried out many terrorist activities, as a result.
AD 1939 to AD 1945: The second world war, which became known as 'the war to end all wars' raged throughout the world. Sadly, it was not the war to end all wars and some people claim there has only actually been 26 days of peace since that war. During the war Hitler raged against both the Jews and the Christians killing them in roughly equal numbers in camps like Auschwitz. The Jews appropriated this to themselves, calling it the 'Holocaust', a strange name for it since they were killed not by fire but by gas. Rather than being a blessing to others they saw themselves in the role of victim.
AD 1945 to AD 1947: The British Empire was severely weakened by the second world war and the power base moved from the League of Nations, which it somewhat controlled, to the United Nations, somewhat controlled by the USA. Power and might had moved its centre from Geneva to New York. In Palestine, Jews were secretly smuggled into the country (about 110,000 of them) and a terrorist group similar to al Qaeda called 'Haganah' waged war on the British.
July 1946: 92 British people were killed in the King David Hotel when it was bombed by Irgun Tzvai Leumi. The result was that Tel Aviv was placed under curfew and over 120,000 Jews were questioned by the police. Since power had moved to North America, when the USA criticized British handling of the situation and delayed loans which were vital to British post-war recovery it forced the British Government to refer the Palestine problem to the United Nations. Terrorism by Irgun Tzvai Leumi continued using techniques similar to those developed by TE Lawrence in the First World War.
29 November 1947: UN General Assembly ratified a plan to create two states: Israel and Palestine, partitioning the land between the descendants of the two brothers who had the squabble some 4000 years earlier. Jerusalem would be under direct UN control since it was such a sensitive issue. The West Bank and the Gaza Strip plus some land in both the north and the south of Palestine was to be the Palestinian homeland. This was significantly more than is currently under dispute as being 'occupied territories'.
AD 1947 - AD 1948: The partition never happened because the struggle for power between the Brits and the Americans (through the UN) meant the Brits failed to withdraw in time. Though ratified, it was thus never implemented. Three way hostilities continued for two years between the British, the Jews and the Palestinians. Eventually enough was enough and the Brits withdrew. None of the three protagonists seemed to recognize a desire for peace or to be a blessing to others.
14 May 1948: David Ben-Gurion, declared the establishment of the State of Israel, in accordance with the 1947 UN Partition Plan. Ben-Gurion became Prime Minister of the new state. Both superpower leaders, U.S. President Harry S. Truman and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, immediately recognized Israel. At this time the Jewish population of Palestine was approximately 650,000, the Arab population around 1.2 million. Hence, had it been a single state the Arabs would have outvoted the Jews 2:1. The Palestinian state was not formed at that stage.
AD 1948 to AD 1967: Two significant, but short conflicts between the Arabs and Palestinians on one side and the Israelis on the other. The Israelis did better than the Arabs. In part this was because they were significantly better trained, but also because they were better navigators. There is also the reason that they were supplied with extra armaments in direct violation of a UN Security Council Resolution. The 1947 partition line became confused and it was clear that both sides wanted 100% of the land. The Israelis ended up in control and the United Nations passed resolution 242 which required Israel to withdraw 'armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict'. This is the context of what we now call the 'occupied territories'.
AD 1948: During the conflict many Palestinians in areas occupied by the Israelis were forced from their homes and fled to other countries like Lebanon, Jordan and Syria. In every other situation people fleeing for their lives are referred to as 'refugees'. However, Palestinians are not treated like this and are not dealt with by UNHCR but by UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency). There are now three or four generations of Palestinians who cannot return to their homeland, who have no passport and for whom it is illegal to work with aid provided for education and health care by UNRWA.
AD 1982: United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) defined piracy as 'any illegal acts of violence or detention, or any act of depredation, committed for private ends by the crew or the passengers of a private ship… on the high seas… or against persons or property on board such ship… against a ship, aircraft, persons or property in a place outside the jurisdiction of any State'. The aim was to protect individuals sailing in 'International waters'.
AD 1987-1993: The First Intifada. The ‘shake off’ began in the Jabalia refugee camp and quickly spread throughout Gaza, West Bank and East Jerusalem. Palestinian actions primarily included nonviolent civil disobedience and resistance, and it was the first time that Palestinians acted together and as a nation. There were general strikes, boycotts on Israeli products, refusal to pay taxes, graffiti, and barricades, but the Palestinian demonstrations that included stone-throwing by youths against the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) defined the violence for many. However, intra-Palestinian violence was a prominent feature of the Intifada, with widespread executions of alleged Israeli collaborators. While Israeli forces killed an estimated 1,100 Palestinians and Palestinians killed 164 Israelis, Palestinians killed an estimated 1,000 other Palestinians as alleged collaborators, although fewer than half had any proven contact with the Israeli authorities.
15 November 1988: The Palestinian Declaration of Independence, written by Mahmoud Darwish and declared by Yasser Arafat which broadly similar to the 14 May 1948 statement by David Ben-Gurion. It does not of itself recognise the state of Israel, but an accompanying document citing UN resolution 242 was considered enough to invite Arafat to address the United Nations General Assembly. A UNGA resolution was adopted ‘acknowledging the proclamation of the State of Palestine by the Palestine National Council on 15 November 1988’ 104 states voted for this resolution, 44 abstained, and 2 – the United States and Israel – voted against. By mid-December, 75 states had recognized Palestine as a country, rising to 89 states by February 1989.
September 2000 - today: Second Intifada or ‘shake off’. Palestinian terrorists launch attacks against Israel and Israel launched attacks against Palestinian territories. Like two teenagers squabbling… but with much more serious effects. Wikipedia lists the casualties as 719 Israeli civilians were killed and 334 Israeli security force personnel were killed, 2,204 Palestinian civilians were killed and 1,671 fighters were killed, a further 870 Palestinians were killed and it is unclear if they were civilians or fighters.
Somewhere between 2005 and 2008: It is possible that it changed to what is known as the Third Intifada, but this definition, along with claims it is a battle of words not of violence is disputed. During that time Israel has blockaded parts of Palestine refusing to allow sufficient food and medical aid into Gaza. Followers of the Way, including at least one highly qualified doctor who I personally know, tried to take medical supplies in by sea and were chased out by Israeli gunboats.
31 May 2010: Israeli Defense Forces attack a flotilla of ships carrying aid supplies heading towards Egypt in International Waters. International waters starts where territorial waters cease, which is approximately 14 miles from the coast. At that stage they had not turned towards Gaza which was their announced destination. The ban on entry to Gaza by sea was made by the Israeli military after the flotilla were already en route. Initial contact was 120 miles northwest of Gaza and 80 miles west of the southern border of Lebanon. Under the 1982 definition this is International Piracy, however, the power base in the United Nations refused to condemn the action as such, though a UNHRC fact-finding mission described six of the nine passengers' deaths as "summary execution" by the Israeli commandos.
AD 2011: Palestinian Authority declared it wished to have full membership of the UN. At that stage it was reported that 126 (65.4%) of the 193 member states of the United Nations had recognised the State of Palestine. A successful application for membership in the UN would require approval from the UN Security Council and a two-thirds majority in the UN General Assembly (128 states). On the prospect of this being successful, the USA alluded to possible withdrawal of UN funding, which would destabilize the whole UN. This is power and control without blessing. However, when addressing the UNGA directly President Obama proposed a more conciliatory approach, ‘Each side has legitimate aspirations -- and that's part of what makes peace so hard. And the deadlock will only be broken when each side learns to stand in the other's shoes; each side can see the world through the other's eyes. That's what we should be encouraging. That's what we should be promoting’. That is the Way of truth and reconciliation.
18 July 2011: Syria announced that it had formally recognised the State of Palestine. Events in 2011 and 2012 suggest that other nations may no longer recognize the Syrian administration who made this declaration.
23 September 2011: Mahmoud Abbas delivered to the UN Secretary-General the official application for recognition of a Palestinian state by the UN and a membership of the UN. The UN Security Council began deliberations on the matter on 26 September.
31 October 2011: The General Council of UNESCO voted in favour of admitting Palestine as a member state.
4 November 2011: Israeli Defense Forces attack a flotilla of ships heading to Gaza carrying aid supplies. Initial contact was made 48 nautical miles from the coast, well into International waters. The crew of the boats didn't help themselves by failing to observe correct maritime radio protocol. They were boarded soon after. Under the 1982 definition this is International Piracy. Blockading Gaza and stopping delivery of medical supplies is also in direct violation of United Nations Security Council resolution 1860.
TODAY: Some areas of the 1947 partition are under Israeli control and others under Palestinian control. Millions of Palestinians, possibly in the order of six million, live outside of Palestine, not only with no hope of return to their homeland, but many of them as stateless persons, without passport, without right to work and totally reliant on UN aid for education and health care. More than three million Palestinians live inside Palestinian controlled areas and are struggling for education and health care blocked by Israel. As many as eight million Jews live outside of Israel, with the right to return to Israel and with legal passports both from their host country and from Israel.
My comments: What we observe is a spin on stories from both sides of the dispute, often playing clever word games on whether 'occupied territories' are 'disputed territories'. We see power play between super powers, minor powers and micro powers. We don't see either side seeking blessing for other nations. Thus both sides have forgotten or are ignoring our Father's blessing and his call to be a blessing to others.
But that is not the whole story. Behind the scenes there is a small group of followers of the Way who call themselves 'Musalaha' which is the Arabic word for reconciliation. It is a group who take protagonists from both sides out to the Negev desert, not to play with words, not to argue who is right and wrong, but to try to bless. Individual followers of the Way in other countries like Lebanon have also tried to bring about musalaha/reconclliation and have been persecuted and in some cases forced to become refugees as a result. There are also individual followers of the Way trying to be a blessing. I have a British friend who is a surgeon in Gaza and tried to take in needed medical supplies to her hospital by sea on a 36 foot catamaran. She was turned away by the Israeli Defense Force.
As followers of the Way ourselves, our brothers and sisters working for Musalaha and others, like my doctor friend who are bringing blessing are the people in need are those we should specifically bless and pray for. Also, despite everything, we should seek to show our Father's blessing to protagonists on both sides. However, Propaganda is propaganda, spun to gain power and control. That is not the way of our Father.
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