Historical Origins of the War in Palestine: Lecture by Madhavan K. Palat

The war in Palestine has three players: Israel; the USA, with its European satellites fully backing Israel; and Palestinians, isolated, a people without a state. How has such an asymmetrical war come about and been prolonged over a century?

The structure was set early in the 20th century. Given the permanent and rising levels of anti-Semitism in Europe, Zionists worked toward a wholly Jewish nation and sovereign state in Palestine. They sought the support of a major imperialist power, which would be strategically interested in planting such a state in Palestine. Britain guaranteed it during the First World War to establish a western rampart within the Arab world and to control both sides of the Suez Canal for imperial communication. From inception, the strategies of Israel and imperialism were perfectly aligned.

The Palestinians lived within the Ottoman Empire without their own state or nationalism. There were rudimentary Egyptian and Syrian nationalisms, but no Arab one. In the inter-war years an Arab nationalism was tentatively proposed, but limited to ideas. Opposition to the Zionist and imperialist schemes were intense in Palestine, but bereft of nationalism or state structures to devise a strategy. The expanding state of Israel was thus created in 1948, almost effortlessly. This asymmetry has persisted through the decades, with the difference that Palestinians have been constructing their nationalism during the late 20th century.

Arab nationalism is feeble, and the Arab states do not regard Palestine as their responsibility. The comparison with nationalism and imperial strategy in India is illuminating throughout.

Link to the audio visual: https://youtu.be/Iamstges-8c

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