From the Ottoman Empire to Israel's birth and expansion

Almost throughout the nineteenth century Palestinian economy was mostly a rural one: most people would live in villages ruled by sheiks, selling agricultural and handicraft products to cities through the trading activity of Bedouins, nomadic people based in the Negev desert. During the Egyptian occupation of Ibrahim Pasha (1831-40) land, until then mostly collectively owned, began to be concentrated in the hands of big absentee landlords. After the end of the Crimea war (1856), with the Ottoman Empire already breaking down, there began a subterranean colonisation of Palestine, that was to become more and more definite during the rest of the nineteenth century and the early twenty years of the twentieth: missionaries and investors from European countries produced a turning point in traditional life and economy. Railways were built and, especially along the coast, a new type of agricultural began, no longer one of subsistence but of specialised production (oil, citruses, sesame) for export. Expropriated peasants became labourers or workers, urban population was increasing, and throughout society there was a major cultural flourishing: schools (often foreign, for studying languages and modern science) were created, libraries were established, widespread journals and newspapers were published (in 1912 the "Filitin" newspaper was being read in villages' squares to crowds of still illiterate peasants), political participation was active. Through its high degree of education, Palestinian bourgeoisie was an elite in the Arab political and business world.

While in the early nineteenth century the population, impoverished and crushed by taxation, was reduced to a historical minimum (275,000 inhabitants, including 7,000 Jews and 22,000 Christians), by the end of the century it had grown to about 600,000, of which 95% Arabs and 5% Jews (mostly in Jerusalem, where they made up about half of the inhabitants).

In 1882 there began a series of five immigration waves (alia') of East European Jews fleeing from persecutions and pogroms, that became more and more frequent in Russia and Poland. As a consequence of the Dreyfus affair (1894), too, the Zionist idea of an independent Jewish state, preferably in Palestine, became widespread. While this idea has been historically consequential, it has always remained confined to a minority of Jews and was long opposed by most rabbis. In 1896 Herzl published The Jewish state, the manifesto of Zionism. In the early twentieth century the phenomenon of Jewish migration intensified, especially after the 1917 Balfour Declaration (Britain's commitment to support the creation of a Jewish "home" in Palestine) and during the British Mandate, decided by the League of Nations in 1922, as part of the colonial partition of the Middle East after the colonial powers' victory over the Ottoman Empire. At the beginning immigrants settled in the land bought from absentee landlords, driving out local peasants (the first Kibbutz was founded in 1909).

Zionists' colonialism was an atypical one: since there was no homeland they could come back to, they had to settle in the new country for an indefinite time. They could do that in a peaceful and cooperative way, or impose themselves by force, expelling local people to occupy their land. The former way was uphold by a few (Martin Buber, Judah Magnes; see the 1950 paper - a bit naïve and not always well informed, but insightful - by Hannah Arendt; see also Danilo Zolo, Is a Palestinian state still possible?); the second way was adopted by Zionist leaders and became prevalent both in the Labour (Ben Gurion, Abba Eban, Golda Meir) and in the right wing (Begin, Jabotinsky, Shamir).

Clashes between the newcomers and native inhabitants began soon, for every settlement took land, resources and labour from local people: the Zionist policy was to create its own separate economy that did not allow the employment of non-Jewish workers.

Before the British Mandate Palestinian workers had created their own trade unions (see Marie Badarne, Separate and unequal), that were to merge into the Histadrut, the Jewish trade union established in 1920 which had entrepreneurial and quasi-state functions, too (see a history of Histadrut in Salvo Leonardi, Quando il sindacato si fece stato). But they soon left it, seeing that the policy of anti-Arab discrimination prevailed over workers' solidarity (as part of the so-called "conquest of labour" Jewish entrepreneurs who hired Arabs were boycotted). There were bloody armed confrontations in 1929. During the following years with the arrival of new Zionist settlers the economic situation of local population was made worse by both the new expulsion of peasants from the countryside and the discrimination of Arab workers in wages and hiring. In 1936 Palestinian workers reacted to this through a six months general strike, followed by an armed revolt that continued for three years and was bloodily crushed by the British with the help of Haganah, the Jewish self-defence organisation. In addition, in 1931 the Irgun extremist group had seceded from Haganah. In 1937 Irgun, who argued for a tougher confrontation with Arabs, became the armed wing of the extreme right wing revisionist group created by Vladimir Zeev Jabotinsky, and since then it spread terror among Palestinian civilians. In 1937 Britain put forward the idea of a partition of Palestine between the two people. Palestinians instead proposed a stop to Jewish immigration and the creation of one state, with measures to protect minorities. For a deeper understanding of the developments before 1948 see parts II and III of Badil-Cohere 2005 (in The seizure of land. Colonization. The building of the Wall).

After World War II Jewish immigration in Palestine had intensified as a consequence of Nazi persecution and the Shoah: in 1947 Jews made up 36% of inhabitants and had bought 6% of available land. Clashes between Zionists and Palestinians would go on, as well as between extremist Zionists (Irgun, by then led by Menachem Begin who was to become a Prime Minister of Israel, and the Stern Gang, originated by a split of Irgun) and Britain. On November 29, 1947 the United Nations, after much debate within the General Assembly (see Gromyko 1947 for the position of USSR, firstly doubtful then favourable to the partition), recommended the end of the British Mandate and the partition of Palestine into two states (see UN Partition Plan, with Resolution 181 and the partition map): the Jewish state was assigned 56,5% of the territory (inhabited by 498,000 Jews and 325,000 Palestinians), the Palestinian state 43,5% (inhabited by 807,000 Palestinians and 10,000 Jews). Jerusalem, inhabited by 100,000 Jews and 105,000 Palestinians, should have been kept under international control. On May 14, 1948 the state of Israel was proclaimed.

Palestinians and neighbouring Arab countries did not accept the partition, and moreover reacted to expulsions and mass flights of people, terrified by military operations and even massacres such as that of Deir Yassin (the result being the driving of over 750,000 inhabitants out of the territory of the future state of Israel; see Refugees of 1948 and 1967. An unresolved problem). The following war (from May 15, 1948 to March-April 1949 and beyond) allowed Israel to expand up to the so-called "Green Line", a border which was to be accepted at the international level and gave Israel 78% of Mandate Palestine. The West Bank and East Jerusalem were annexed to Jordan, the Gaza strip remained under Egypt's military rule.

The use of the term "ethnic cleansing" to describe Israeli actions in 1947-48 and beyond has been disputed. But the Israeli historian Benny Morris claims that this practice was justified and necessary for Israel and indeed criticises Ben Gurion for failing to carry out the work: see his interview with Shavit and his discussion with Siegman.

By way of illegal retaliation against Arab threats, on June 5, 1967 Israel started a preventive war against Egypt, Syria and Jordan, and in six days conquered the parts of Mandate Palestine that it had not gained in 1948: the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza strip, as well as Sinai (Egypt) and Golan (Syria). The Security Council of the United Nations asked for the withdrawal of Israel with its resolution 242, never considered. The new refugees were about half a million, but most importantly Israeli leaders realised that through the occupation they had got hold of the territories where most of the refugees expelled twenty years before were living precarious lives. Tom Segev, one of new Israeli historians, provides a detailed account of the debate about how to get rid of these undesired Arabs, whether to persuade them with the offer of jobs elsewhere (in Brazil, in Australia), or to promise money for the travel, or more simply to make their lives impossible. Actually there began a tough military occupation of these regions, with expulsions and deportations, house demolitions, detention without trial, annexations and seizures of land (see also The seizure of land. Colonization. The building of the Wall).

In 1973, with the so-called "Yom Kippur war", Egypt and Syria tried in vain to retake their territories; but Israel's counterattack was blocked by the Security Council resolution 338, supported by the United States (in order not to fall out with Saudi Arabia). Note that very few of the many resolutions passed by the Security Council concerning Israeli policies have been applied.

Within the territories occupied in 1967, the political organisations that would lead Palestinian resistance were already developing in the 1950s and 1960s (see a brief history of them). Arafat, that founded Al-Fatah in 1965, had already made a reputation for his determination; in 1969 he became president of the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization), that until then had been an instrument of the Arab League that had created it in 1964.