The British legitimized their counterinsurgency campaign through legal means. As Matthew Hughes argues, “The law was (re)constructed to provide a veneer of legal respectability to actions carried out by servicemen operating in the field against Arab rebels ….” (2009). The high cost of the Palestinian Arab Revolt did not end there. It became the ember that lit the next conflagration between Palestinian Arabs and Jews less than a decade later. “The Revolt was the prelude to what increasingly became an inevitable all-out war between Jews and Arabs for the exclusive ownership of Palestine” (Ben-Ami, 2006, p. 7).
The Palestinian Arab and Jewish communities became “disgruntled and antagonized, and each successively rose in rebellion against British rule, which was to terminate amid bloodshed, chaos, recrimination, and ignominy” (Wasserstein, 2002, p. 82). Their respective leaders played deadly zero-sum ←28 | 29→games, even though they were of unequal influence and strength at different junctures during the British Mandate. By the early 1940s, and as a direct result of how the British squashed the Arab Revolt, “Palestinian society was economically devastated, politically and militarily defeated, and psychologically crushed” (Farsoun and Aruri, 2006, p. 93; Wasserstein, 2002, p. 145; Tamari, 1999, p. 81). As explained by Issa J. Boullata, “the Palestinian leadership was in disarray” and did not put forward well-thought out policies with regard to the British and the UN. In contrast, “the Jewish political leadership was organized and had clear-cut goals. Its military activities had strategic aims, were well supplied with weapons … and used all possible tactics to achieve their goals” (2014, p. 74).
Eventually, on November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 181 (II), calling mainly for partitioning Palestine into an Arab state and a Jewish state, for an economic union between them, and for Jerusalem to be a corpus separatum—a separate entity under a special international regime—the resolution was rejected by the Arab states and the Palestinian Arabs, but accepted by the Jews. The Arabs were angry and observed a three-day strike in Jerusalem and the rest of Palestine. The Jews were jubilant and celebrated.
Bloody engagements of both sides ensued in Palestine’s cities and towns. The violence made the lives of ordinary people “hell on earth.” They were hesitant to venture out unless it was essential. To control Jerusalem, for example, the British divided it into various security zones, with checkpoints and limited access between them. Acts of terror became common occurrences (Sarsar, 2018, p. 92–94). The list is long, and its cumulative effects propelled many to leave their homes for safer areas. In early 1948, some 100,000 Palestinian Arabs fled their homes. By April 1948, the fighting intensified and some Jewish militias resorted to terror, forced expulsions, and displacement of Palestinians. When the Zionist leadership declared Israel’s independence on May 14, the Jews in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and beyond were moved toward jubilation; the Palestinians were angered and mourned.
The 1948 war ensued between Israel and the surrounding Arab states. Israel won. The result became imprinted in the psyche of all Israelis and Palestinians, but for different reasons. It is the decisive year when the proclamation of the State of Israel and Israel’s War of Independence occurred. It is when the majority of Palestinians who lived in what became Israel lost their homes and sources of revenue, in what they call Al-Nakba. Some 726,000 Palestinian Arabs had either been ejected or fled because of war. Some wound ←29 | 30→up in East Jerusalem and others in refugee camps in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. Practically none of them were allowed to return. What materialized then, and since, has set in motion successive wars between Israel and its neighbors, including the Palestinians, and brought about fear, bloodshed, insecurity, or destitution to millions.
My own family was internally displaced during 1948 (Sarsar, 2018, pp. 96–98). They left Jerusalem and took refuge in Jericho for a few months. Upon their arrival, the city was teaming with people and bundles from all over Palestine. People were lost, trying to figure out their next move and loaf of bread. They were angry at having to leave their homes, lives, and livelihoods behind. Wasif Jawhariyyeh, who also was in Jericho at that time, reflected on the tragedy that befell Palestinians: “[E];veryone seemed as though they were at a funeral, thinking about what they had become overnight, cursing the British, the Jewish settlers, the Arabs, the states, and the armies, and crying over the destiny and the future of their children who had lost their country and were without shelter” (Tamari and Nassar, 2014, p. 255). The Sabella family also experienced dislocation and dispossession, moving from violence in Qatamon in West Jerusalem to Lebanon, but eventually returning to Bethlehem and then East Jerusalem (Sabella, 2007, pp. 1–7). Reflecting on this tough period, Hussein Ibish explains how Jews and Palestinians are two peoples who have undergone serious traumas that color their perceptions. “The difference is that the Jewish and Israeli narratives continue to be an epiphany of redemption in the founding and flourishing of the state of Israel, while for Palestinians, permanently dispossessed and living in exile or under occupation, the trauma is enduring and still unfolding” (2018, para. 16).
The UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 194 (III), resolving that
refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or equity, should be made good by the governments or authorities responsible.
Those Palestinian Arabs who remained in the newly created State of Israel constituted only 18% of the population. All were put under martial law for at least 18 years, thus relegating them to second-class citizenship. This was counter to the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel of May 14, 1948 written by the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which spelled out citizenship rights
←30 | 31→
The State of Israel … will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions … (para. 13)
Over the years, Israeli Arabs or the Palestinian citizens of Israel have had an uneasy relationship with their government and their Jewish counterparts. For example, Israeli Arabs are not required to serve in the Israeli military forces. This precludes them from certain benefits. Moreover, the government spends less on Israeli Arabs than Israeli Jews when it comes to education, housing, employment opportunities, and social services. Most Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs do not have real contact with each other, which sometimes results in tension. One Palestinian citizen of Israel attributes the above disparity to discrimination. “As Palestinians,” she writes, “… we spend every minute of our lives in the country paying for the fact that we are not Jewish” (Jiryis, 2017, p. 339).
The Six-Day War, while quadrupling Israel’s size, was a defeat and deep blow to Arabs in general and Palestinians in particular. The war and its aftermath left many with sad memories. As an 11-year old living in East Jerusalem in June 1967, I felt the sound and impact of explosions, and I only narrowly escaped death. I experienced the wretchedness of homelessness, albeit temporarily, and the meaning of human loss, the killing of two neighbors (Sarsar, 2018, pp. 10–15) Ibtisam Barakat, a Palestinian who grew up in Ramallah in the West Bank and was a little girl at the time, saw her world fall apart as she fled her home, became separated from her family, and lived in a refugee camp (Barakat, 2007). The Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands—with its military restrictions, appropriations of land, and increasing settlements—saw children and their parents face grave and hard living conditions. The young especially developed feelings of defenselessness and hopelessness, but also of boldness. The First Intifada was not totally unpredictable. Unsurprisingly, children marched at the head of demonstrations and were the first to riot against Israeli soldiers.
If Palestinian parents worry about their children, Israeli Jewish parents do so as well. They want the best for their children, but memories of the Holocaust