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OpEdNews Op Eds    H3'ed 11/21/17

70 Years of Broken Promises, The Untold Story of Israel's Partition Plan

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From Telesur

Thousands of Palestinians were killed in the rebellion as they continued to reject the prejudicial partition.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Speech
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Speech
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In a recent talk before Chatham House think-tank in London, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, approached the issue of a Palestinian state from an intellectual perspective.

It is not the first time that Netanyahu discredits the idea of a Palestinian state. Despite clear Israeli intentions of jeopardizing any chances for the creation of such a state, the US Administration of Donald Trump is, reportedly, finalizing plans for an "ultimate peace deal." The New York Times suggests that "the anticipated plan will have to be built around the so-called two-state solution." Before we think of establishing a Palestinian state, he mused, "it is time we reassessed whether the modern model we have of sovereignty and unfettered sovereignty, is applicable everywhere in the world."

But why the wasted effort, while all parties, People in the United States included, know that Israel has no intention of allowing a Palestinian state and the U.S. has no political capital, or desire, to enforce one?

The answer may not lie in the present, but in the past.

A Palestinian Arab state had initially been proposed as a political tactic by the British, to provide a legal cover for the establishment of a Jewish state. It continues to be used as a political tactic, though never with the aim of finding a "just solution" to the conflict, as is often propagated.

When British Foreign Secretary, Arthur James Balfour, made his promise, in November 1917, to the Zionist movement to grant them a Jewish state in Palestine, the once distant and implausible idea began taking shape. It would have been effortlessly achievable, had the Palestinians not rebelled.

The 1936-1939 Palestinian rebellion revealed an impressive degree of collective political awareness and ability to mobilize, despite British violence.

The British government then dispatched the Peel Commission to Palestine to examine the roots of the violence, hoping to quell the Palestinian revolt.

In July 1937, the commission published its report, which immediately ignited the fury of the native population, who were already aware of the British-Zionist collusion.

The Peel Commission concluded that "underlying causes of the disturbances" were the desire of the Palestinians for independence and their "hatred and fear of the establishment of the Jewish national home." Based on that view, it recommended the partition of Palestine into a Jewish state and a Palestinian state, the latter to be incorporated into Transjordan, which was itself under the control of the British.

Palestine, like other Arab countries, was supposedly being primed for independence, under the terms of the British Mandate, as granted by the League of Nations in 1922. Moreover, the Peel Commission was recommending partial independence for Palestine, unlike the full sovereignty granted to the Jewish state.

More alarming was the arbitrary nature of that division. The total Jewish land ownership then did not exceed 5.6 percent of the total size of the country. The Jewish state was to include the most strategic and fertile regions of Palestine, including the Fertile Galilee and much of the water access to the Mediterranean.

Thousands of Palestinians were killed in the rebellion as they continued to reject the prejudicial partition and the British ploy aimed at honoring the Balfour Declaration and rendering Palestinians stateless.

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Ramzy Baroud is the Managing Editor of Middle East Eye. He is an internationally-syndicated columnist, a media consultant, an author and the founder of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold (more...)
 

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