Double-Reflection on The Hundred Years War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi and The Only Language They Understand by Nathan Thrall

           I decided to read two books about the Israel/Palestine conflict simultaneously to do a sort of learning unit on the subject. One is The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonial Conquest and Resistance, 1917-2017, (HYW) by Rashid Khalidi, and The Only Language They Understand: Forcing Compromise in Israel and Palestine (TOL) by Nathan Thrall. In short, I would say Hundred Years’ War was the better written book. The Only Language was more academically written, and more detached. HYW was way more personal, since Khalidi is personally involved in the conflict, and it is told from the first-person point of view.

My biggest takeaway from both books is how lopsided the Oslo Accords were, as Israel came out firmly on top long term. Israel may have formally acknowledged that there was a Palestinian people and that the PLO represented them, but it did not actually recognize Palestine as a state, which the Palestinians thought would come soon after. Israel really got an amazing deal when Arafat gave up the 1947 borders for the 1967 borders, where Palestinians gave up half of the land they were left with.

Thrall points out in TOL that the Oslo agreement was nearly identical to the framework established in 1978 at Camp David that was not enacted w/r/t Palestine. Both promised a Palestinian government in the West Bank and Gaza, both redeployed Israeli forces to other locations, both created Palestinian national elections and the creation of a local Palestinian police force, and neither allowed Palestinian refugees to return to Israel. Both required Palestinians to recognize Israel’s right to exist. It took 16 years for this agreement to come into being, from 1978, when Carter, Begin, and Sadat negotiated it, to 1994, when Clinton, Rabin, and Arafat agreed on it. However, there was a critical difference. In 1977, Begin was planning to give citizenship to all residents of Mandatory Palestine in the interim period before the two-state solution was achieved, which would have forced Israel to pull out as it would have ended the Jewish character of the Israeli state. Because that never happened, Israel has had no incentive to give up the occupied territories, and instead tightens its grip on them with Jewish settlements throughout the West Bank (formerly Gaza too until the 2006 pullout).

The result of the Oslo accords allowing the PLO to move from Tunis to the West Bank seemed like a good thing for Palestinians, as their leadership was allowed back into the country, but it backfired. Because the plan did not result in sovereignty, the PLO leadership was essentially imprisoned, and could be humiliated later on, stopped from leaving. Now, instead of Arafat and PLO leadership being kept out of Israel against their will, they were kept in the West Bank against their will.

Thrall also writes that Israel does not greatly desire a peace agreement because it has an excellent fallback option. In the long term, Israel can continue to occupy the West Bank and Gaza and has every interest in doing so to preserve its own security. It used to be that Israel would need to make an agreement to get peace with the other Arab states, but Israel has had de facto peace for years, and now many gulf states have turned it into full recognition.

From the beginning, in the 1948 war, the Zionists were organized and Arab states were not super concerned with Palestine if they couldn’t rule over the Palestinians and their territory. They were just monarchs who looked out for their own holdings, so after the War of Independence, Arabs didn’t offer much help to the Palestinians, who were still under the control of Jordan and Egypt. Therefore, the Israelis had the momentum with them in the war. But in spite of that momentum, Israel had a long-term problem. Khalidi quotes historian Tony Judt who said that Israel’s big error was arriving too late. The Zionist movement would have fit in perfectly in 1847, but not in 1947, which was right at the beginning of a huge wave of decolonization. As a result, the world has criticized Israel heavily because the world has moved on.

            There are some broader obstacles to peace that have stopped or slowed the process for decades. The problem is well-stated by former head of Mossad Efraim Halevy, who said, “Imagine that Hamas does disperse its military units and they lay down their arms. What will Israel do if it doesn’t kill them? What incentive will we have to negotiate with them if they are no longer a threat to us?” Similarly, if Israelis laid down their arms, religious extremists on the Palestinian side would certainly kill all the Israelis they could get their hands on.

I didn’t realize that Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon was meant to defeat the PLO, which was operating within the country. I learned that while Israel was able to crush the PLO, it backfired and strengthened the Palestinian national movement within the occupied territories. The invasion of Lebanon resulted in Israel capturing 6,000 PLO guerrillas, forcing Arafat to capitulate, but the Oslo accords wouldn’t come for another 12 years, as the First Intifada intervened in 1987. An interesting thing that Thrall pointed out is that the Palestinians need to constantly be in negotiations to get Western funding. They have to sort of perform the peace process and progress to get money, which they need more than Israel. As a result, there is substantially more external pressure on Palestine than Israel to make peace. Thrall writes that Israel’s most difficult issues are that the borders be based on the pre-1967 lines and that the Palestinian capital would be in Jerusalem. For the Palestinians, it is hardest to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, the absence of a timeline for Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank, and that there would be no right of return for Palestinian refugees to Israel.

While I would definitely recommend both books, I would say that both writers are biased towards the Palestinian side of the conflict, especially Khalidi for obvious reasons. Both writers seem to dip into the passive voice when describing violence on the Palestinian side, as if it was an unavoidable consequence of Israeli actions. They don’t seem to give the Israelis the same benefit of the doubt.

I think a major truth of Thrall’s book, that is not so much a concern for Khalidi is that Zionism cannot achieve its purpose until it gains recognition from the Palestinians. As long as the two people remain in conflict, the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is not a fully moral endeavor. However, Thrall makes a very good point that it unfortunately seems the only way that either side can get anywhere is through violence. And if violence is the only thing that both sides understand, that does not bode well for peace.

Miscellaneous Facts:

In the 1936-39 Great Arab Revolt, ten percent of the male population was killed, wounded, imprisoned, or exiled.

The 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine quoted from the Balfour Declaration, but neither document had any significant, direct legal effect.

During the eight years of the First Intifada, 1,600 people were killed, 88% Palestinians and 12% Israelis. In the four calmer years, 90 people died (22% Israelis). Then, in the eight years of the Second Intifada, 6,000 people died (17% Israelis). So the Second Intifada was way more violent than the first.

One important point Khalidi makes about the Second Intifada is that the campaign of suicide bombings backfired on the Palestinian movement by uniting their adversaries against their brutal tactics. Suicide bombings were even opposed by a majority of Palestinians.

Israel collects taxes in the occupied territories on behalf of the Palestinian Authority for a 3 percent fee. The PA in Ramallah collects taxes on all goods entering Gaza, but does not have to spend them in Gaza, a source of conflict between Gaza and the West Bank.

In an Arab summit conference in 1967, after the Six-Day War, Arab states tacitly acknowledged the legitimacy of Israel’s gains in the 1948 war when they demanded Israeli withdrawal from only the “lands which have been occupied since the aggression of June 5.” However, they also proclaimed “no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with it,” which received much more press. This statement was known as “the three noes.”

One of the biggest mistakes Arafat/ the PLO made was supporting Iraq in the Gulf War. It completely delegitimized the Palestinian leadership in the eyes of the world, even Arab states, which uniformly opposed Iraq’s aggression against Kuwait.

While Ehud Olmert progressively offered more and more of the Occupied Territories to the PA, starting under 70% and eventually going as high as 99.5%, Mahmoud Abbas did not accept because Olmert was unpopular and embroiled in scandal. Abbas felt that a new Prime Minister would not honor such a deal.