Did the Jews have the right to declare Israel as an independent state in 1948?

After the mess that the British Mandate left after realising the serious issues that had been caused by the unorganised mass migration of Jews into Palestine, Britain had officially handed over responsibility of the land to the United Nations to lead negotiations towards a two-state resolution comprising of an Arab state and a Jewish state.

The 1947 UN Partition Plan was then drafted. This plan would have been the only source of "potential" credibility for anyone to claim any legitimate bordering, but it was rejected by the Arabs.

The main reason for this was that it seemed totally unbalanced to provide the Jews with 56% of the land when they only comprised approximately 15% of the population. The following map describes the situation more accurately:



The Arab's disapproval was presented to the UN so that they could go back to the "drawing board" and re-draft another resolution. It was obvious why the Jews would agree to such an advantageous portion of land, but in the manner of speaking with regards to the interests of both parties, a better resolution was obviously required to be reconsidered.

As far as the Partition Plan was concerned, the land of Palestine was still considered disputed territory during the conflict because neither agreed on a final decision, and therefore neither was able to claim authority or to declare independence.

The establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 as an official member of the UN was therefore in direct contradiction of the Partition Plan since it was created without the involvment of the Arabs and therefore deemed a unilateral move made by the Jews in conjunction with the UN during the dispute.

The absence of a bilateral agreement only increased the unrest, and further festered amongst Arab nations until a lack of confidence in leadership brought rise to radical groups.

Some Israelis claim that since the land was "up for grabs", the Arabs should have taken their portion and declared their own independence as well, but that would have meant agreeding to the grossly unbalanced partition.

Almost 20 years later, Israel annexed the rest of the land regardless of any UN agreement, or any international recognition. Israelis now seemed to have forgotten that Arabs originally lived there before the State of Israel was declared and pretend that the history of the land began in 1948.

The real question therefore is, do the Palestinians have a right to exist on the land that was taken from them?

Why have their rights been forgotten?

The Hamas complex

Many have proclaimed Hamas a terrorist organisation before they even had a chance to govern Gaza, and even though they were democratically elected by a majority Palestinian vote. It is unfortunate that the opportunity finally arose to allow Palestinians to choose their own leader, only to be bitterly condemned by the "democratically free" world for providing a representative that didn't sit well with their own Western way of life. This hypocrisy was exposed in Vanity fair:

"...it was Bush who had pushed legislative elections in the Palestinian territories in January 2006, despite warnings that Fatah was not ready. After Hamas — whose 1988 charter committed it to the goal of driving Israel into the sea — won control of the parliament, Bush made another, deadlier miscalculation.

Vanity Fair obtained confidential documents, corroborated by sources in the U.S. and Palestine, which lay bare a covert initiative, approved by Bush and implemented by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams, to provoke a Palestinian civil war. The plan was for forces led by Dahlan [Fatah’s resident strongman in Gaza], and armed with new weapons supplied at America’s behest, to give Fatah the muscle it needed to remove the democratically elected Hamas-led government from power...


But the secret plan backfired, resulting in a further setback for American foreign policy under Bush. Instead of driving its enemies out of power, the U.S.-backed Fatah fighters inadvertently provoked Hamas to seize total control of Gaza."


...Wurmser [U.S. chief adviser for the Middle East in July 2007 who subsequently resigned] accuses the Bush administration of 'engaging in a dirty war in an effort to provide a corrupt dictatorship [led by Abbas] with victory.' He believes that Hamas had no intention of taking Gaza until Fatah forced its hand. 'It looks to me that what happened wasn’t so much a coup by Hamas but an attempted coup by Fatah that was pre-empted before it could happen,' Wurmser says.

'There is a stunning disconnect between the president's call for Middle East democracy and this policy,' he says. 'It directly contradicts it.'"

[David Rose - http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/04/gaza200804]

There is no doubt that over the years Hamas has proven to be an organisation that hasn't lived up to Palestinian expectations. Falling into the trap of provocation only to give the green light for Israel's collective punishment over the masses to continue year after year.

The question of course is; are they really the cause of the conflict in the heart of the Middle East?

Hamas these days seems more suited to play the role of the scape-goat that Israel have been finally looking for. Every oppressor needs one, and the Israeli government is no exception. How else could they justify the murder of 1400 men, women and children using chemical weapons in densely populated areas such as schools and hospitals in 2009? Their hands, however, have been dipped in blood long before then. People fail to remember that Hamas was only in power for 6 years, Israel’s oppression has existed for over 60 years.

An interesting argument made in the form of argumentative sarcasm was put forward by Sumud regarding Hamas when comments were made that the organisation is "significantly responsibility for the chain of events in the region" to which the reply was as follows:

If it weren’t for Hamas the holocaust would never have occurred – which gave hundreds of thousands of European Jews no choice but to flood into Palestine, and several years later dispossess 80% of the indigenous population, stealing their land and looting their property.

If it weren’t for Hamas, Zionist militants would never have had to invade and occupy areas not allocated to them by the UN Partition Plan in 1948 and 1949.

If it weren’t for Hamas, Israel would never have had attack Egypt in June 1967 and begin the longest military occupation [of Palestine] in modern history.

If it weren’t for Hamas, Israel would never have had to build settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories starting in the 1970s with a population ballooning to 500,000.

If it weren’t for Hamas, Israel wouldn’t need to steal 80% of the fresh water supply of the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

If it weren’t for Hamas, Israel wouldn’t have to consistently and grossly violate it’s Geneva Convention obligations.

If it weren’t for Hamas, Israel would not have had to build a sieve-like 'security fence', 80% of which is built on Palestinian territory, which is easily circumvented, which at points completely encircles Palestinian villages and separates Palestinians from Palestinians, and which – despite promises from Israeli politicians – is now being used in an attempt to facilitate the theft of even more Palestinian land.

If it weren’t for Hamas, Israel ('the only democracy in the Middle East') would never have had to team up with the US, Egypt and Fatah to subvert fledgling democracy in Palestine, as revealed in Vanity Fair’s article ‘The Gaza Bombshell'.

If it weren’t for Hamas, Israel would not escape accountability internationally as a result of the US abusing the privilege of being a veto power on the UN SC.

Yes indeed... Hamas does bear 'significant responsibility for the chain of events in the region'"

[http://mondoweiss.net/2011/04/gideon-levy-says-goldstone-has-given-green-light-to-cast-lead-2.html]