The
"a
common history, an extraordinary future"
|
The Narrative |
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE NARRATIVES ©
We assert and it has been spoken by many
leaders in
The created common
historical narrative, when accepted by the mainstream populations of
The following pages
presented here are in two sections. The first section contains the opposite and
mutually contradictory national historical narratives of the Jewish Israeli and
the Arab Palestinian peoples. No such account can accurately reflect all
of the strands of thought existing in either peoples.
Our attempt was to represent, as accurately as possible, the dominant and
mainstream stories that are held in the consciousness of each side. The
first eight sections are presented here as a sample of the common narrative.
The second section
contains the first eight sections of the common historical narrative.
In both cases, all of
the texts were developed in dialogue between a major in the Israeli army and a
Palestinian journalist, each representing their respective mainstream
populations. The dialogues occurred over the space of a year in
weekly conversations recorded by a member of a four-person international
support team.
The common narrative
was approved, with minor changes, by the Israeli historian, Moshe Ma’oz at
You will likely
experience being moved by one side or the other and may find your sympathies
shift on occasion. We request that you stay with the seeming intransigent
positions expressed in the first section and continue to the common narrative,
which follows.
Jack Berriault
Executive Director
The
“a common history, an extraordinary
future”
The
510 593 5322
THE CONFLICTING NATIONAL HISTORICAL NARRATIVES ©
1.
Why are there Jews and Arabs in the
Jewish Israeli
The
Jewish “immigrants”
(returnees) were refugees from the last and most horrible instance of 2000
years of relentless anti-Semitism that Jews experienced in the Diaspora.
We needed no further justification and we didn't care who was there. It
was our natural right to go back to our land when it became possible.
Arab Palestinian
Arab Palestinians
were living and continue to live in
We completely deny
the ancient and ongoing presence of the Jews in this land. The presence
of Jews in
2.
Zionism Early Waves of Jews
Jewish
The Zionist Movement
is the national Liberation Movement of the Jewish people. It aimed to
restore Jewish life in the homeland that they had been cruelly pushed out
of. The Zionist movement was the mechanism the Jewish people chose to
implement their right of return and it was recognized by the whole world.
Jews had always had
Naturally the
Zionists cooperated with the superpowers, especially the British, to help them
establish a foothold in what was their rightful place in the world. They
had every right to do so.
Arab Palestinian
Zionism is a racist
movement that concentrates the interest of its people for (and sometimes
against) colonialist expansion. They exclude and ignore the existence of
the Palestinian people and its culture. It is not sufficient for Zionism
to have
The British used the
war and the Holocaust as an excuse to dump the Jews in
3.
Balfour Declaration
Jewish Israeli
Arab Palestinian
The Balfour
Declaration was part of the international imperialistic plot to deprive the
Palestinians of their rights for British strategic purposes. The British
wanted to secure the region and their interests in the
The British certainly
knew that the country was full of Arabs, but they still thought that the area
of
4.
(Editorial Note: The
Jewish Israeli
The Hebron Massacre
shows the nature of the Palestinian people as murderers, and people with whom
it is impossible to live in peaceful co-existence. If they are capable of
murdering their neighbors of centuries, we cannot live with them.
The events at
Arab Palestinian
This event came as a
spontaneous reaction to the targeted killing of civilians at the holy Al
Burak. The Arabs involved in the incident came from the villages
surrounding
Hebron is a symbol of
Abraham, and traditionally Arabs relate to Abraham as the father of
Islam. So here the Jews wanted to get control of the symbol of Islam.
Al Burak was a wall
that Mohamed tied his horse of the same name, before he ascended to Heaven.
5.
Arab Revolt
Jewish Israeli
The Arab revolt was
an organized attack on peaceful Jewish settlements, by Arabs who showed their
violent nature and their hatred toward the Jews by conducting viscous attacks
on innocent Jewish civilians. Israelis wanted to live in peace and quiet and
the Arabs used all possible means to take away our livelihood and destroy
the peace.
Arab Palestinian
After decades of
peaceful struggle to regain independence and re-establish our nation and state,
Palestinians found out that the only way to achieve their goals was to
fight not only against Jews that were lying, stealing, cheating,
exploiting and murdering, but also the people who were behind the
scenes. Rebellion was the answer to the state of an oppressed people who
were seeking freedom and independence. This came from a shift in
perception of the struggle on the part of the Palestinians, who realized that
the Jews could do nothing without the British. The revolt was partly
to undermine the British support.
We sacrificed in those
three years 6 % of our population. We were, and are, an oppressed
people. We sacrificed the gold of our women to purchase weapons to fight
for our freedom, and then sacrificed our lives in the fighting. The
whole time we only wanted the natural, normal right to rule ourselves, while
the British wanted the Jews to rule us so that the British could rule us
indirectly for their own purposes.
6.
The Peel Commission
Jewish Israeli
All the land between
the
The Peel Commission, which
was essentially a gratuitous renunciation of the Balfour Declaration, was
denounced by the Jewish people as a betrayal of Jewish interests, a
capitulation and a conciliatory gesture to the rioting Arabs. The British
were preparing themselves for a war with Hitler, and had other things to worry
about without having to deal with problems in
Arab Palestinian
Although the Peel
Commission was originally constituted to appease the Arabs, in the end we found
ourselves betrayed again. We had great expectations from Mr. Peel. We
were cheering for him, and singing what eventually became a popular song, “Welcome
Mr. Peel, it could be solved by your hand.” (Editorial Note: Rhymes
in Arabic)
The Commission
betrayed the Arabs because it included “ethnic transfer” (forcible displacement
and land transfer) and recognition of a Jewish entity that would continue in
the same direction of annexing land and abusing the rights of the Palestinians.
The imperialistic plans for the region actually continued, though perhaps
a little more slowly for awhile.
7.
The Holocaust
Jewish Israeli
Jews had been
suffering horribly from anti-Semitism for over 100 generations because they had
no home; they were strangers everywhere in the world. Hitler was raised
on this theme and when he came to power he implemented the most horrible form
of anti-Semitism that the world had ever seen. Six million Jews were
slaughtered in his gas chambers, by starvation, and other means. The
Jews, as well as the rest of the world, came to the logical conclusion that the
only way to prevent such an event in the future was to let the Jews have their
own nation-state (as did all other peoples) within the Holy Land which
had been our dream for 2000 years. It was universally recognized that
such a state was the best place of refuge for the Jewish people after the
Holocaust, and to prevent future holocausts against them. The
decision by the international community to create a state of
Arab Palestinian
The Jews manipulated
what was called the Holocaust for their benefit and for the advancement of
Zionism by exaggerating the numbers. Even now the Jews
and Zionists continue to exploit this event and extract money, guilt and
sympathy from the whole world, especially the Germans. They elicit sympathy for
Zionism was not
interested even in saving Jews from the Holocaust. They concentrated on
bringing Jews to
Were Jews killed in WWII? Of course Jews were among the 50
million people killed in World War II. There were probably somewhere
between 300,000 to a maximum of 1 million Jews killed in the camps, but 6
million is just a story. The myth of the 6 million is one of the most
powerful weapons in the arsenal of the Zionist imperialistic drive for
domination of the region. Pervasive Jewish control of the media and
the US Congress makes it easy for Zionists to keep using this issue for
promoting the Jewish/Zionist agenda.
8.
The Deir Yassin Massacre
Jewish Israeli
The operation at Dier Yassin was a part of the campaign for
securing the area. Palestinian gunmen used civilian houses as
shelters. Unfortunately therefore, Palestinian civilians were
killed. The Jewish forces did not systematically kill women and children,
as in the stories told by Arabs. The Arabs exaggerated the numbers of
deaths, and made up stories of rapes that never occurred. The
exaggerations were used by the Palestinians in order to gain attention and
sympathy for their cause.
These exaggerations by Palestinians caused local Palestinians to
abandon many other villages on their own initiative. Many Palestinians
also left their homes because the leaders left first and asked others to
leave in order to leave the battlefield empty for Arab battle troops to be
successful.
This is the outcome of the war that was initiated by the
Arabs and we had to fight to defend ourselves. The refugee problem that
resulted is not our fault. The blame is with the Palestinians. They
simply ran away and didn't remain in their homes. A war is a war, and in
every war, one side wins and the other side loses and the loser pays the
price. We won that war because justice was on our side.
Arab Palestinian
Dier Yassin was a particularly calm village where the Arabs agreed
with their Jewish neighbors not to let armed Palestinians use the village or
stay in the village. But this did not exempt the village from violent
attacks where Jewish Israeli thugs abused, tortured and raped. Some
pregnant women were stabbed in the bellies. Some children
were massacred and buried in mass graves.
Some 250 people were killed that day. The brutal actions
spread throughout the country. Some people from other villages fled when
they heard that the gangs were on the way to visit their brand of ethnic
cleansing on them, so that the Jews could get as much of the land as possible while
leaving no Arabs living there. Dier Yassin was only one of the many
atrocities in hundreds of villages all around the country. Many people
were killed in some of them. The Zionists took care not only to expel
people from their homes, but also demolished the villages behind them. It
was pure bloodthirsty opportunism at its worst, and it was the beginning of the
end of Palestinian hopes for justice. From this came Menachim Begin's
famous quote, “Without Dier Yassin the state of
A
COMMON HISTORICAL NARRATIVE ©
1. Why are Arab Palestinians and Israeli Jews
living in the
Palestinians were always there living on the land ... a land
attractive to waves of immigration throughout history especially from
surrounding Arab lands. At the beginning of the 20th century most of the
inhabitants of the
The Jews made a claim to
The earliest Jewish immigrants came to
The Jews bought lands under existing Ottoman and then British law.
The result of which displaced the Palestinian peasants. The displacement of the
Palestinian Arab peasants was the beginning of the conflict.
2. Zionism, Early Waves of Jewish Immigration into the
The reality that most European Jews had to live with in the late
nineteenth century was unrelenting anti-Semitism, discrimination, and
exclusion. While some had achieved a measure of assimilation, others lived in
perpetual fear of the cycles of virulent anti-Semitism and fierce pogroms
especially in
Hovevi Zion, the Lovers of Zion, started in 1881 in a number of
Russian cities, as a response to on-going persecution. This organization and
others like it, promoted immigration and settlement in the
This wave of immigrants, many of them young and idealistic, was
imbued with the fervor of creating a socialist society. They characterized
themselves as pioneers and were intent on creating a new kind of society in the
Influenced by the prevailing European political trends that were
sweeping through Europe, including nationalism, socialism and colonialism,
which were perceived idealistically at the time, Zionism as a political
movement was born at the first Zionist Congress, held in Basle, Switzerland, in
1897 and as it grew, shifted its focus to gaining support for the creation of a
Jewish homeland from the great world powers. After the first Zionist Congress,
the rabbis of
A Zionist catchphrase, which eventually grew into a myth, arose:
“A land without a people for a people without a land". This slogan was
repeated often and with such fervor that many settlers, upon their first
arrival in the Holy Land, were surprised to find the land inhabited by Arab
people, and replete with fields and orchards carefully tended and
well-cultivated. Most of the Palestinian people that the newcomers encountered
lived in and tilled fields, orchards and gardens in hundreds of cities, towns
and villages that dotted the Holy Land, a land with a vibrant culture. The
export of agricultural products to
While the political leaders of the Zionist movement in
The clashes that planted the seeds for what eventually became the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict occurred in the first difficult encounters between
the indigenous peoples who had lived on the lands for hundreds of years and the
zealous newcomers.
Confrontation became more and more common during the first decades
of the twentieth century and mutual feelings of separation, resentment and
rejection. Palestinians voiced their fear about possible loss of their land and
way of life in media outlets and other venues. Voices of rage and protest were
also raised to an unresponsive Ottoman government (and later to the British
government). Nothing seemed to stem the tide of ever more Jewish settlers
arriving. Two peoples were separated by culture, religion, education and world
view, and they did not have a common language with which to talk to each other
about the grave conflict which was growing daily in their midst. Violent
eruptions began to break out sporadically; a sign perhaps, of what was to come.
3. The Balfour Declaration
of 1917 & the British Mandate
The Balfour Declaration came about by the
The Jews in
Sir Herbert Samuel, a Jewish diplomat, was appointed by British Government as High
Commissioner according to a mandate given by the
The indigenous Palestinians saw the Jewish immigrants had a
completely different culture as changing the face of their land. Jewish capital
was used for sake of the Jewish immigrants. In general, Palestinians were not
part of the new industry and the new job markets created. The local people were
displaced by Jewish capital buying land. Until 1948, the Jewish people owned 6%
of
Extract from the Balfour Declaration: "His Majesty's
Government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home
for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the
achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be
done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish
communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in
any other country".
The British Mandate of
Palestine was passed by the
4. The
The Hebron Massacre was part of
the riots that broke out in the holy land on the issue of use of the Western
Wall or Al Buraq, believed by Jews to be part of the
Some Arab rioters killed 67-69
Jews in
The roots of the conflict lay
deeper in Arab fears of the Zionist movement. The graveness of the traumatic
event which happened in
5. The Arab
Revolt - 1936-1939
The Arab revolt, known by the
Arab world as "The Great Uprising", occurred between 1936 and 1939.
By the year 1936, the conflict in the
This revolt was triggered by the
further acceleration of Jewish immigration in the 1930s, and the ever-worsening
economic conditions, much of which was caused by the global economic depression,
but which the Palestinians still experienced as being part of the same
problem. Part of the revolution was internal subversion against local
leadership. Traditional Arab leadership sought a partnership with the British.
The peaceful alliance with the British, however, was not effective in stopping
the Zionist project from being implemented. A new leadership with a new
vision was emerged, represented by Sheik Iz id-Din Al Qasam who felt that the
real enemy was the British and must be countered by armed struggle.
Palestinians began a civil
disobedience campaign, went on strike from their jobs, stopped paying their
taxes, boycotted the British Mandate administration, sabotaged British military
and industrial equipment and infrastructure, and attacked Jewish settlements
and Arabs viewed as collaborators.
The British did everything
possible to suppress the revolt with fierce brutality. The Jewish Yeshuv
(community) which felt targeted was mobilized within this effort to end up the
revolt. Kanafani, a Palestinian scholar and novelist estimated the
killing of a 6% of the Palestinian population during this period. Many
Palestinian Arab leaders were killed or assassinated, leaving Palestinians with
no coherently organized leadership.
With the coming war on the
horizon, the British felt that a political end of the revolt could be achieved
by reconciliation the Arabs. The result was the British White Paper of 1939,
which essentially repudiated British support for a Jewish state, called for an
independent Palestinian state within ten years to be jointly administered by
Arabs and Jews, and severely limited Jewish immigration. This deeply embittered
the Zionist movement, especially later, when so many of the Jews trapped in
6. The Peel Commission
Following the outbreak of the
Arab Revolt, a Royal Commission chaired by Earl Peel was appointed in August
1936 by the British government to examine the
In their Report of July of 1937,
the Peel Commission attributed the underlying cause of the Arab revolt to the
desire of the Arabs for national independence and their hatred and fear of the
establishment of a National Jewish Home. The Commission recommended freezing
Jewish immigration at 12,000 per year for five years, that a plan for partition
of the land be developed and population transfer.
With regard to partition, the
Peel Commission advised the partition of Palestine into a Jewish State (along
part of the coastal plain, to include the Jezreel valley - Marj Ibn Amer and
most of the Galilee) and an Arab State - to include most of the remaining
territory as well as Transjordan - and a British controlled corridor from
Jerusalem to the coast at Jaffa.
As a method of dealing with the
delicate population balance between Jews and Arabs in the proposed Jewish
state, the commission recommended the idea of population transfer. The
population exchange, if carried out, would have involved the transfer of
approximately 225,000 Arabs and 1,250 Jews.
The Arabs, who had great hope
that their grievances would come to their end, for they even composed verses
that show their hope in Peel to solve their problem, were disappointed. The
Arab leadership rejected the plan] as keeping the process of colonialization of
their land, depriving them from a precious part of it, and deepening their
grievances by large population transfer. On the other hand, the Jewish opinion
remained heatedly divided. After considerable debate, the Zionist executive
accepted the Peel plan, despite the small size of the state on offered, because
of the urgent need, that was felt even then, to provide a haven for the Jews of
Europe.
Despite strong objections to the
Plan raised in the Zionist executive because of doubts about the morality of
transfer, influential leaders of the leading Mapai party such as Berl
Katznelson favored transfer, including "compulsory" transfer saying:
"My conscience is absolutely clear in this respect. A remote neighbor is
better than a close enemy". Ben-Gurion
too wrote in its favor: "The compulsory transfer of the Arabs from the
valleys of the proposed Jewish state could give us … an opportunity which we
never dared to dream of in our wildest imagination. This is more than a state,
government and sovereignty---this is a national consolidation in a free
homeland"
Deliberation over the plan
continued in different manners and forums. Following the recommendation of the Wood
head Commission that partition was impracticable and the failure of the
The publication of the White
Paper should be understood within the wider context of the escalation of
hostilities possibly threatening the Middle East corridor to India, and the
essential source of oil, it was clear to foreign policy experts that it would
not be in Britain's interests to offend the sensibilities of the Arab and
Muslim world.
7. The
Holocaust
The systematic execution of Six
million European Jews in gas chambers was a sophisticated killing machine
produced, enhanced and executed by the Nazi party and its leader Adolph Hitler,
the Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945.
In his book "Mien Kemp",
the Nazis' Manifesto, Hitler composed the fiercest racist ideas that praises
the superiority of the Aryan race over all others and denounces the Semitics
especially the Jews as the source of evil in the world. A "final
Solution" of the Jewish problem was proposed.
The Nazis
gained power during Germany's period
of crisis after World War I. They used propaganda
and charismatic oratory,
emphasizing nationalism, anti-Semitism,
and anti-Communism.
After restructuring the economy and rearming the military, a totalitarian
dictatorship
based around the "Führer", the almighty leader, was
established, and gave a push to a fierce campaign against all opponents,
adopted a harsh discrimination policy that targeted all those who were
considered inferior, different or in a word not superior like the Aryans.
With the Rise of Hitler to
power, especially after what was known as the night of crystal, (Leil ha Bdolah
in Hebrew) in which Jewish homes and shops were attacked, it became clear that
the Jews were left with no choice but to leave Germany, and other surrounding
European countries.
The Final Solution plan was the
extermination of the Jews, based on Hitler's racist ideas. Adolph Eichmann, who
was appointed a minister to his cabinet, created a wide, sophisticated and very
efficient system, comprised of ghettoes, transportation lines and special
trains to take the Jews from their homes to concentration camps, in which men,
women, children, sick and elderly were forced to work up to exhaustion and then
face their bitter fate in gas chambers with zyklon B gas, other
deaths were caused by systematic starvation, forced labor, lack of disease
control, individual executions, and cruel medical experiments.
During WWII, that was
principally initiated by Hitler, the final solution for the "Jewish
problem" became possible not only in
By the end
of the war, Hitler's policies of territorial conquest and racial subjugation
had brought death and destruction to around tens of millions of people,
including the genocide
of some six million Jews
in what is now known as the Holocaust. The international community and
its leaders were fighting the Nazis in a total and comprehensive war in which
around 50 million were killed. However they did not act directly to stop the
genocide against Jews and others by the Nazis. For although the Allies,
(United States, The Soviet Union, Britain and France) fought the Nazi military
in Europe and North Africa, and there was talk of bombing the gas chambers
where the mass of people were killed, no bombings were made and the military
campaigns had little effect, if any, on the death camps. Only when the war
ended in 1945 and British, American and Russian troops entered the concentration
camps, a clear picture of the horrible acts in those camps became known.
The whole world was shocked,
horrified, traumatized and outraged by this grave revelation, and became full
of guilt for not stopping it. Awareness of the magnitude of the Holocaust and
the sense of guilt that followed it enabled the Zionist movement and its
prominent leaders of the time, Weismann, Ben Gurion and others to bring the
idea of establishing the state of
The Zionist movement which had
already established a consolidated civil and economic infrastructure with
hundreds of thousands of people in the
For the Palestinians, the
genocide was not widely known and the reports of the killing of 6 million
Jewish people seemed unbelievable. Yet many regarded it as a real and tragic
event, but used politically to justify the Zionist colonizing of
The Holocaust became a
rallying point for support for the creation of the Jewish State, among the
group of Western nations, eventually culminating in the UN declaration 181. In
later stages, Palestinians feel their own tragedy of the Naqbah is minimized or
denied while the Holocaust is given full attention.
However, the Holocaust made the
Jews feel at the end of the day that they have nowhere to go but to consolidate
themselves in what became their renewed homeland.
8. The Deir Yassin Massacre – a triggering action of the
Palestinian Catastrophe – The "Nakba"
On
Several days after the horrific
events at Deir Yassin, the New York Times (April 13, 1948) reported that 254
people had been killed there and that women had been raped. The Times report,
and others like it with exaggerated numbers, were based on the desire of both
sides to intentionally inflate or minimize the numbers killed for their own
purposes. The exact death toll remained unclear for decades, until Palestinian
scholars revealed the actual facts, forever ending the debate about what
happened at Deir Yassin.
The Jewish command, in the
actual period, wanted to intensify the effect of the event, to instill fear in
Arab population and drive them off their lands and cause them to flee away for
their lives to avoid a similar fate. Arab and Palestinian leadership wanted to
excuse its defeat and explain the loss of the land by the argument that they
were concerned with ensuring safety of their families and the sanctity of their
women. Later, the Jews denied it and either minimized the numbers or tried to
claim the action as being from a dissident group that did not represent the
Jewish community. As for the Arabs, in later stages of the conflict, they used
Deir Yassin and its horrific events to denounce the Jews as killers and
rapists.
According to UN Resolution 181
on 29 November 1947 partitioning Mandatory Palestine into two states, an Arab
state and a Jewish state, almost half a million Arabs (49 per cent of the total
population) were allotted in the Jewish State. Within the context of the Jews
trying to clear up their state and enlarge it gaining more territory with less
Arab people, the Zionist mainstream devised Plan D to expel the Arabs. The
Jewish military groups took the initiative in the ensuing actions that would
lead the Arabs to believe they were no longer safe in their villages because of
Deir Yassin.
Plan D for the displacement of
Palestinians from their homeland that was for a long time denied by Israel, was
a strategic plan that was implemented by several military operations, such as Hanson
and others, launched in March 1948 by the Havana, the military power of the
mainstream in the "Yeshuv", the Jewish community. Quoting from
Shlomo Ben-Ami, Scars of War, and Wounds of Peace: „English edition... “the Haganah would now respond to Arab attacks with decisive
blows against Arab villages and with the expulsion of their residents...".
Ben Ami adds saying: "for Plan D went beyond just securing the boundaries
of the Jewish state as defined in Resolution 181. The initiative was taken to
target Arab villages and cities ..."
The Massacre and the whole
expelling and displacement process were controversial even among Israeli
historians. Those historians who revealed the plans for cleansing
The Killing and murders in Deir
Yassin and other villages that occurred in different places in
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