The plight of the Palestinians has been a major tragedy in recent world history. It can be shown that during the course of the last Century the Palestinian people have been excluded from Statehood and systematically robbed of their land.

     A major misconception has been propagated that Palestinians have no history and therefore did not really exist before the foundation of the Jewish State. This is quite clearly a falsehood, because, at the time of the Balfour Declaration, which agreed with the principle of a Zionist State, the Jewish population numbered only 56,000 against an Arab population of 600,000. Any denial of this is a manipulation of demographic facts.

In l937, in response to rising Arab nationalism, the British Government set up the Peel Commission to deal with the Jewish question in Palestine. The outcome was a plan to partition the region into a large Arab State and a small Jewish State, retaining a British mandate in Jerusalem.  The Zionists were particularly unhappy with this plan because it demonstrated their minority status and frustrated the expansionist mentality.

     After the Jewish Holocaust there was a greater international recognition of the rights of the Jews to their own State. In 1947 the General Assembly of the United Nations passed Resolution 181, which was the first stage in the legitimisation of Israel. The l947 U.N. resolution on Palestine was not concerned with the partition of a country along old Colonial borders, as was the case in Africa and Latin America. Resolution 181 set out to divide a multi-ethnic mixed region using arbitrary borders.  In many ways this was a precedent for the division of Yugoslavia which occurred more recently. Under the U.N. plan Israel was ceded a much larger area than under the previous Peel Plan. This territorial expansion was completely unacceptable to the Arabs, who resisted the new status quo. The outcome was the 1948 Arab/Israel War, which resulted in calamity for the Palestinians, defeated by Israel. After this war of independence the Israelis expanded their territory from 55% of the mandatory Palestine allocated by the U.N. to a stunning 79%. The armistice agreements of 1949 with neighbouring Arab countries confirmed this arrangement for years to come. The remaining Palestinian territories were controlled by these neighbouring countries, which each had their own territorial ambitions. Jordan occupied the West Bank and Egypt the Gaza Strip. Demilitarised zones were set up in contested areas bordering Syria.

     The Israelis used the Arab Israel War as a means to solve their own demographic problem, to effectively exclude Palestinians from their land. Within the newly formed State there were only 92,000 Arabs opposed 716,000 Jews.  700.000 Palestinian refugees were forced to flee their homes and spend the rest of their lives in camps in Lebanon, Jordan, West Bank and Gaza Strip. For the Israelis the war achieved a major objective, the expansion of Israel and the exclusion of Palestinians. For Israel this was an ideal conclusion to the problem of co-existence, but unfortunately for them things did not stop there !!

     The main fault in Israeli policy was that they did not promote an autonomous Palestinian State. Successive Governments denied the Rights of Palestinians to return to their homes or to receive compensation. No accommodation between the two sides was sought and Israel aggressively pursued its own policy of national self-interest, with complete disregard for Arab neighbours. This strategy culminated in the Six Days War in 1967 with Israel’s annexation of the Gaza Strip, West Bank, Sinai and the Golan Heights. This expansion of the Jewish State meant a re-integration of 1,250,000 Palestinian people back into Israel without any substantive change in their living standards. A further UN resolution (242) embraced the principle that Israel should withdraw from territories occupied during the 1967 war and countries should live in peace within secure boundaries.  Despite this ruling and further diplomatic efforts supported by external powers Israel did not make any substantive effort to withdraw from Palestinian land. Golda Mier, who was the Israeli leader 1969-1974, refused to acknowledge the rights of the Palestinians to national self-determination. The Palestinians became effectively second-class citizens and the problem of co-existence once again became a major factor and source of conflict.  In 1973 Moshe Dayan (hawkish defence minister at time of 1967 war), advocated Jewish expansion into the occupied territories.  The policy which was adopted was not to explore peace with the Palestinians but to draw a new map for Israel, creating realities on the ground that could not be altered in times to come.

It is my opinion that the suffering of the Jews in the Holocaust does not justify a further injustice on their part. The Jews should pull back from the brink and withdraw their settlements from the occupied territories.  It is fallacious to regard the promise of a Palestinian State in the Oslo Accords of the 1990s as a fair deal. Under the agreement the Palestinians were only offered 18 per cent of the west Bank and 60 per cent of Gaza. Since then the Israeli government has consistently failed to fulfil their part of the agreement and there has been an increase in the construction of settlements in the West Bank in contravention of the 4^th Geneva Convention. Since Ariel Sharon became president, Israel has built 34 new settlements in the occupied territories. In fact the Palestinians are paying a high price for the Oslo agreement, because they were given various bits of land, lacking any demographic coherence.  The Jewish settlements are located in such a manner as to strategically split the Palestinian territory and reinforce Israeli military control over the region. As Israel also controls the economic resources of the region, the Palestinians are relegated to a position of subservience to Israel. Nothing less than a return to the pre-1967 borders is an acceptable solution.  It should also be recognised that Palestinian refugees have a valid right to compensation for the loss of homes and property which has been their lot under Jewish occupation.