THIS month Israel celebrates the 60th anniversary of its founding. Participated by international celebrities and politicians the celebration took place amid deep unease.
Israel tried its best to hide the skeletons in its closet. Anxieties about an uncertain future make many Israelis question whether the state should have gone for such celebrations of its 60th anniversary.
Before Israel's founding, Palestinians of all religions made up two thirds of the population of Palestine, while Jewish immigrants, who arrived from Europe, made up most of the rest.
The deep unease is caused by 41 years of occupation bombing of Gazastarvation there the unjust separation wall, encroachment of Palestinian land build illegal Jewish settlements, the denial of the right of the Palestinians to return, the regular killings, torture, imprisonment and harassment of Palestinians, the denial of basic human rights of the Palestinians and Israel's contempt for international law.
On April 9, 1948 during the infamous Nakba massacre. Israeli soldiers entered villages carrying machine-guns to randomly kill many unsuspecting Palestinians.
In 14 Palestinian districts, Israeli soldiers destroyed villages, including Gaza, Jerusalem, Haifa, Jaffa, Nazareth and Hebron. One was Deir Yassin in the Jerusalem District.
The surviving villagers were assembled and murdered in cold blood without sparing even children, infants and the elderly. Women were first raped, and then killed.
Dozens more were killed in the fighting that followed. Later, many other villages met the same fate in the systematic cleansing operations against the Palestinians to seize as much of their land as possible leaving the fewest Palestinians Arabs to survive.
In December 1947, Jews in Palestine numbered 600,000 compared to 1.3 million Palestinians. Ben-Gurion, the first prime minister of Israel, ordered them removed with commands like: "Every attack has to end with occupation, destruction and expulsion."
Ben-Gurion order meant depopulation; obliteration; homes blown up, burned or bulldozed; their inhabitants inside killed; shooting anything that moved, especially fighting-age men and boys who would put up resistance; leaving behind rubble, a forgotten landscape and a proud history erased.
The Lifta ruins can be seen from Jerusalem. All that was left in Dayr Aban were piles of rubble, collapsed roofs and parts destroyed walls. Only two houses remained in Barqa. Its Jewish population is now about 117,000.
The only surviving Arab relies in al-Faluja are the village mosque foundations and fragments of walls. The Israeli town of Qiryat Gat now stands on land between al-Faluja and Iraq al-Manshiyya and at al-Faluja as well. Hundreds of other Arab villages had similar fates. They were destroyed and replaced by Jewish-only settlements.
In fact, the Jews held a clear advantage. As long as the British stayed out and they did, the outcome was never in doubt. Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq held off intervening as long as possible, then reluctantly stepped in with token forces. It was too little, too late, and, for its part, Jordan with its potent military stayed out in return for most of the West Bank as a payoff.
Intervening Arab forces performed poorly. They overstretched their supply lines, ran out of ammunition, mostly used antiquated weapons, and had no effective command and control. It was a testimony to their lack of commitment, not their ability to fight.
Jews, in contrast, were supplied effective armaments from Soviet Russia and other Eastern bloc countries. They easily outgunned the Arabs and outclassed and outnumbered them as well. The outcome the emergence of Israel, a new Jewish state, was not in doubt.
On May 14, 1948, Israel signed separate armistice agreements with its four major warring opponents. It gave Israel 78 per cent of British Mandatory Palestine, 40 per cent above its UN allotment. Palestinians got the other 22 per cent comprising the West Bank and Gaza.
On December 11, 1948, the General Assembly passed UN Resolution 194 consisting of 15 articles. Four were most important. Article 7 protected and provided free access to the Holy Places. Article 8 demilitarised Jerusalem and placed it under UN control. Article 9 called free access to Jerusalem, and Article 11 is most remembered for granting Palestinian refugees the right of return or to be compensated for their loss if they chose not to.
From 1948, to the present day, Israel defied the UN mandate and got away with it. It was because of western support and Arab indifference. As a result, it is able to terrorise remaining Arabs inside Israel, and set in motion the Gaza and West Bank occupation.
Throughout 1949 in the war's aftermath, Israel continued with its war of terror against the remaining Arab population. It set a six-decade precedent. Israel now belongs to the Jews. Arabs were unwelcome. State security forces cracked down to show what it can do.
Thousands of displaced Palestinians were rounded up and imprisoned. Others were targeted, harassed and abused. They lost everything -- their land, homes, fields, crops, places of worship, freedom of movement and expression, and any hope for fair treatment in the new Jewish State.
Human rights abuses were appalling. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) documented them. Palestinians, who became Israeli citizens, got no protection and were offered no rights.
They were subjected to relentless abuses. Their mosques were profaned, schools vandalized, homes robbed and at times stripped bare in daylight. Palestinians reported that not a single home or Arab shop escaped the onslaught. Authorities did nothing to deter it.
The ICRC and UN reported beatings, rapes and other abuses. Israel was undergoing transformation. Its Arab character was being erased. It affected about 150,000 remaining Arab Israelis in the new Jewish state.
Formal ethnic cleansing ended in 1949, dispossession and displacements nonetheless continued, and a new Committee for Arab Affairs was established to defuse growing international pressure to enforce UN Resolution 194, especially the right of return under Article 11.
Arab Israelis lost all their rights and were placed under military rule. In addition, discriminatory laws were passed, like the Law of the Land of Israel. It stipulated the Jewish National Fund (JNF - the Jewish State landowner) was forbidden to sell or lease land to non-Jews.
From beginning, Israel has had no formal constitution. It's governed instead by its Basic Law. Nine laws were passed between 1958 and 1988, all of which applied to the institutions of state. No basic rights were enacted until 1992.
Palestinians have endured six decades of shattered hope and dreams. They were uprooted from their homes, denied their basic rights, given little outside recognition or aid, blamed for Israeli crimes, terrorized without mercy, falsely promised peace, yet condemned to siege under which nothing will change without outside pressure to force it.
Since 1948, Palestinians have lived in limbo. Their Nakba never ended. What's left of their country is occupied. They have no recognized nation and no power over their daily lives. They live in constant fear.
They're economically strangled; dispossessed of their land and homes; isolated under siege; collectively punished; denied free movement; casually murdered; ruthlessly arrested, imprisoned and tortured; afflicted by random curfews; invaded, bombed, and shot at; extra judicially murdered; and constricted by roadblocks, checkpoints, electric fences and the Separation Wall the World Court ruled illegal.
(The writer, a tea planter, columnist and researcher, can be reached at email : Billy Ahmed )
