The history of the Palestinian people is a sad and chequered one. In 1922 668,000 Arabs owned and lived on 98% of the land of Palestine. Today their entire country is controlled by the Jewish state of Israel and the Palestinians are scattered through-out the Arab countries. While international negotiators wrangle over talks to discuss the Palestine question and Israel creates new settlements on the occupied territories of the West Bank, a whole generation of young Palestinians who have never seen their home-land is growing up in squalid refugee camps.

Balfour Declaration

[unclear: In] any debate of the Palestinian question large number of declarations and letters [unclear: are] usually cited by each side as proof that [unclear: e] group they support has 'historical [unclear: ghts'] to Palestine. For instance, Zionist [unclear: aims] to Palestine rest heavily on the [unclear: four] Declaration of 2 November 1917[unclear: n] which the then British Secretary of [unclear: oreign] Affairs pledged British support for [unclear: e] "establishment in Palestine of a national [unclear: ome] for the Jewish people." This is a fine ample of the completely opportunist role [unclear: he] British have played in the region. Before [unclear: the] Declaration the British Government had [unclear: ade] several promises to the Arabs of [unclear: suprt] for their independence (including [unclear: destine]) in return for Arab help in the war [unclear: ainst] the Turks. Moreover the original [unclear: four] Declaration pledged to protect the [unclear: hts] of non-Jews in Palestine, yet on [unclear: ugust]11, 1919 Balfour wrote:

[unclear: in] Palestine we do not propose even to go rough the form of consulting the wishes the present inhabitants of the country.." [unclear: is] control of the Suez canal, and later oil [unclear: terests], assumed greater importance, [unclear: tish] pledges to the Palestinians were [unclear: nveniently] forgotten and the coincidence the interests of Zionism and British [unclear: imrialism] led to British support for the [unclear: onist] cause.

[unclear: to] how did Israel come into existence? [unclear: ter] World War One, the League of Nations [unclear: anted] Britain a mandate over Palestine, [unclear: ainst] the wishes of the Palestinian people. [unclear: is] mandate lasted from 1922 until the [unclear: itate] of Israel" was declared in 1948. [unclear: troughout] this period Jewish immigration Israel continued apace. - 1922, 83,794 [unclear: ws], 1931 174,610 Jews, 1944 554,000 Jews [unclear: e] Jewish Settlers attempted to purchase [unclear: ge] amounts of land but met with strong [unclear: retance] from the Palestinians. Most of the [unclear: 0,000] acres they did succeed in buying [unclear: niinly] from absentee owners) became the [unclear: operty] of the Jewish National Fund. This [unclear: nd] was then regarded as the inalienable [unclear: operty] of the Jewish people and the lease-[unclear: lder] was forbidden to employ 'non-Jewish. [unclear: bour.]

[unclear: eanwhile] the Palestinians stepped up [unclear: rikes] and armed struggle against the British [unclear: ministration,] and the increasing Jewish [unclear: Ionisation] continued. The Zionists formed [unclear: rrorist] organisations (including the Irgun, which current Israeli Prime Minister [unclear: fnahem] Begin was leader). These well-[unclear: med] organisations used violence as part of [unclear: the] Zionist moves to seize Palestine.

[unclear: the] largest single such act of violence [unclear: occured] on 22 July 1946 when a wing of the King [unclear: vid] Hotel in Jerusalem, housing the [unclear: Govern-cnt] secretariat and part of the military [unclear: quarters] was blown up, causing the [unclear: heath] of about 100 people (including many wish and Palestinian civilians).

1947 the British Government announced [unclear: at] the mandate had proved unworkable and [unclear: acting] arab proposals for independence (which included guarantees for Jewish minority rights) it placed the Palestine question before the United Nations.

Partition

A General Assembly Special Committee drew up a resolution (the 'partition resolution.) which divided Palestine into 6 principal parts. 3 of these parts (56% total area and most fertile land) were reserved for a Jewish state, the other 3 (43%) for an Arab state, with Jerusalem to be an international zone.

The Arabs (2/3 majority of country) rejected the partition on the grounds that it violated the provisions of the UN charter which gives a people the right to decide its own destiny. Zionists placed enormous pressures on member states opposed to partition. For instance, a Liberian delegate reported to the US State Department that the manner in which he had been approached to support partition amounted to 'attempted intimidation."

On November 29, 1947 the General Assembly adopted the plan of partition (33 - 13, 10 abstentions), and violent demonstrations broke out throughout Palestine. The UN met to consider suspending the partition plan and the Zionists decided to take the law into their own hands. Violence increased and the Irgun led by Begin, attacked the village of Deir Yassin; 254 men, women and children were massacred. In six months the Zionists drove 400,000 Palestinian arabs from their homes. Refugees poured across the borders into adjacent arab countries and to protect the Palestinian Arabs, arab armies entered Palestine.

In May 1948 the 'State of Israel' was declared; by the time armistices were concluded in early 1949 Israel controlled ¾ of the total land area of Palestine. As Moshe Dayan has said (Maariv 16-2-73)"to have a Jewish state one sovereignty must take the place of another, and Jews must take the place of arabs." The Zionists took the unusual step of not declaring the boundaries of the state and David Ben Gurion, the 1st Prime Minister of Israel, later stated that they extended "from the Nile to the Euphrates". It was obvious Israel's expansionism was not at an end.

Israel's Discriminatory Laws

There is no law in Israel which prevents discrimination against non-Jews. All such discrimination is completely legal. It is legal for a person to refuse to let a flat to an arab for instance. Insidious discrimination against non-Jews, such as this condoned by the law, is an everyday fact of living for Palestine arabs living in Israel.

As well as this unwritten discrimination, many of the actual laws of Israel are essentially anti-non-Jew. Some of these were passed soon after the 'State of Israel' was declared in 1948 and have never been repealed.

The Law of Return (1950) allows any Jew from anywhere in the world to immigrate to Israel and to reside there, yet Palestinian refugees do not have this right. Any Jew arriving in Israel automatically gains Israeli Nationality (Nationality Law 1952) yet a Palestinian arab must be 'naturalised' and fulfill stringent conditions to gain citizenship.

A series of land laws passed between 1945 and 1950 enabled vast areas of land belonging to Palestinian arabs to be confiscated. For example The Emergency Land Requisition (Regulation) Law, 1949 allowed government-appointed "competent authorities to requisition land or buildings needed for a number of purposes, including state defence, public security and the absorption of immigrants. Defence (Emergency) Regulations, 1945, article 125 granted military Governors the power to declare specific areas closed. Palestinian arabs were thus forbidden to enter those areas to cultivate their land. These "uncultivated" lands could then be confiscated by the Minister of Agriculture under Emergency Regulations (Cultivation of Waste (Uncultivated) Lands) 1949. Then, under Land Acquisition (Validation of Acts and Compensation) Law, 1953, ownership of this confiscated land could be transferred to the State of Israel.

Powerful Foreign Friends

Israeli propaganda often tries to paint a picture of Israel as a weak unarmed country fighting alone. This is not true. The basis of the state of Israel is aggression. It is supported with arms, ammunition and funds by the USA, West Germany, Great Britain and France. In fact it is the watchdog of these countries in the Middle East and in 1968 Israel received about 10% of all aid given to under-developed countries. In 1972 there was an estimated $US760 million given to Israel in gifts, $US950 million in loans and US$12 million in investments. Only 3% of this flow of capital into Israel is in a form which calls for a return outflow of dividends, interest or capital. In short, Israel is a client state of imperialism.

Israel is the principal military power in the Middle East. In periods of full mobilisation it can field as many soldiers as its three principal bordering states. It has more tank specialists and pilots than all the arab countries put together. Furthermore Israel possesses nuclear reactors and has produced plutonium stocks estimated at enough for 20 bombs. Although consistently cagey on the question of its nuclear capability a delegation of 13 US Senators were recently refused permission to visit one of Israel's nuclear research reactors at Dimana in the Negev, a move which is seen as putting Israel's "peaceful" nuclear intentions in doubt.

The PLO

The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) is the umbrella organisation comprised of a number of Palestinian groups, which represents the Palestinian people and has been recognised as their sole representative by the UN and by a range of countries including Finland, Malaysia and China.

The main aim of the PLO is the creation of a democratic secular state of Palestine, in which Muslims, Christians and Jews would share equal rights. It would not, as is commonly thought, mean Jews would be 'thrown into the sea, but, as the Palestinian National Council reiterated in March this year "All Israeli Jews who rejected the sectarian and discriminatory basis of Zionism would be free to remain as citizens of the new state".

Conclusion

In recent years the Palestine question has been increasingly in the news, and more and more people are aware of the sad plight of the Palestinian people. - a whole people either under occupation or uprooted from their homes. The justice of their struggle for self-determination is being realised. Even US President Jimmy Carter has mentioned the need for a Palestinian homeland. It seems that at last we are removing from the Palestinians the stigma of a forgotten people - and from ourselves the shame of having forgotten them.