Conflict is not that complicated

While asserting the Palestine/Israel impasse is a “very complex situation,” Steve Lockhart wrote, “...Palestinians rejected a UN-proposed two-state plan (UN Resolution 181).”

Yes, since the partition would have given most of Palestine’s arable land to recent arrivals from Germany, Poland, Romania and Russia, who were bent on domination rather than assimilation, Palestinians rejected the US and British strongarm tactic called UN Resolution 181. Would Steve Lockhart agree to cede most of America’s cultivable land to immigrants determined to supplant Americans?

Per “this very ‘complex’ situation,” contrary to widespread conditioned belief, it’s not a complicated centuries-old conflict. It’s a phenomenon that began during the late 19th century with the ascendency of Zionism/Jewish nationalism.

As evidenced by Ottoman census reports, for hundreds of years before the rise of Zionism, Jews, Muslims, Christians, and Druze coexisted in Palestine peacefully. Indeed, they lived side by side, and it was difficult to tell them apart.

During the First Aliyah, Palestinians established generous education funds for newly arrived Ashkenazi Jewish children who had escaped European pogroms. Palestinians also taught their farming methods to the new arrivals. Unfortunately, insularity-inducing Zionism, complete with its arrogance and all-encompassing racism, destroyed all that.

Concerning the right of Palestinian self-determination, Palestinians’ right of return, Jewish-only squatter settlements, and the standing of East Jerusalem, there’s no complexity, only simplicity. Regarding apartheid rule, (all) human rights organizations agree that Israel inflicts a system of racial separateness in historic Palestine.

Steve Lockhart quoted a West Point document as saying, “...Hamas’ sharp tactical shift only underscores that the group never abandoned its fundamental commitment to the creation of an Islamist state...”

However, Arab nationalism didn’t exist before Zionism. It was a dialectical process that unfolded because of the rise of Zionism. It was a defense mechanism erected in response to an existential threat, which is simple to understand.

Additionally, if Britain hadn’t seized Jerusalem during WWI, if Britain hadn’t decreed the anti-Jewish Balfour Declaration, and if the League of Nations hadn’t given Britain the Mandate for Palestine, what followed wouldn’t have occurred.

On November 16th, 1956, Moshe Sharett wrote in his diary, “I have learned that the state of Israel cannot be ruled in our generation without deceit and adventurism. These are historical facts that cannot be altered.”

For example, the deceit of “A land without people for a people without land” and the deception that asserts that this easy-to-understand genocidal project is “very complex.” Guy Marsh

Lancaster