TODD DUGAN: The Real Reason Israel Has A Right To Exist

Lately there has been much focus and discussion on all things Israel. As a result, people who previously had little knowledge or concern about the geopolitical situation and history of the state of Israel form opinions.

But as always, it’s wise to gather facts to make an informed opinion, even if they don’t align with your present or preferred beliefs.

One of the subjects circulating lately on Israel relates to the question, “Does Israel have the right to exist?” Supporters of Israel say it does. Critics of Israel have questioned whether this means Israel has a special right to its present statehood that no other nation has. This is a misinterpretation of the question and answer.

The reason for the proclamation that Israel has a right to exist is because many believe Israel does not have a right to exist, an illegitimate state created in violation of international law, whose creation should be reversed, by force if necessary.

While many Jews hold dear the promise by God of the land to his people, found in The Old Testament and Torah, surely modern international law cannot rest on ancient religious texts. It’s worth noting that not a small percentage of Muslims in the region also believe that God wants them to possess the land in question and that he will one day deliver it to them with a final defeat of Israel on the battlefield.

One of the often-repeated conclusions of the Arab-Israeli conflict is that the situation is extremely complicated, as it dates back thousands of years and involves deeply-held religious beliefs. I counter that the dilemma is not very complicated at all, and there is no need to invoke religion or go back in time before 1947 to fairly sort it all out.

If we ask the question, “Who does a land belong to?” then the fairest answer is the following: “to the citizens who actually live there.”

Indeed, one of the tenets of democracy is that people have a right to self-determination and self-governance. For example, no lover of democracy would contest that all of the citizens of Great Britain should be afforded full rights to the democratic process there, not merely white, Anglo-Saxon citizens, but brown, immigrant, minority Muslim citizens also. So now that we know who has the right to continue to live in and participate in the governance of a land, the million-dollar question is “Who was living in Palestine when the state of Israel came into existence there in 1948?”

The territory of Palestine by 1948 had never been self-governing in modern history. For hundreds of years prior to WWI, it was ruled by the Ottoman Empire. With the Turks on the losing side of The Great War, governance fell to the British of the winning Allies side. Although there has been unbroken Jewish presence in the land dating to ancient times, a renewed Jewish immigration began in the late 1800’s with Zionism, a movement of Jews to return to the land to which they are indigenous and to establish a national homeland or “safe space” for this historically oppressed minority group.

During the period between WWI and WWII, under British occupation of Palestine, Jews, mostly from Europe, continued to immigrate legally there in increasing numbers. It was not until WWII, when Great Britain closed Palestine to Jews escaping the mass genocide known as the “Holocaust,” that Jews resorted to illegal immigration into Palestine. As Jewish immigration increased in this period, so did clashes with the local Arab Muslim population, who resented the increasing presence of the minority Jews. This British Mandate Period, as it’s known, was stained by numerous “pogroms” or massacres of vulnerable Jews by local Arab Muslims and resulted in an increasingly militant Jewish self-defense.

It’s worth remembering that tens of thousands of Arabs also immigrated to Palestine during this period, attracted by emerging work opportunities resulting from Jewish development.

In 1947, with the dust of WWII settled and in the continuing business of creating actual nations with borders out of the vast unincorporated territories of The Middle East, such as Lebanon in 1943 and Syria and Jordan in 1946, it was now time for Palestine to stand on its own two feet also. Great Britain — all too eager to leave behind the thankless and tireless job of getting in between the regular and violent clashes between Arab Muslims and Jews — asked The United Nations, formed in the wake of WWII, to address “The Palestine Question,” which centered on what to do with a territory in which the two dominant peoples just could not get along.

At that time in 1947, approximate numbers are as follows; 630,000 Jews comprised 32% of the population of Palestine, while 1.18 million Arab Muslims constituted 60%, with the remaining 8% composed mostly of Christians and Druze. They were all “Palestinians,” citizens of Palestine at the time. Although not a sovereign state yet, Palestine had its own stamps and its own currency. Citizen’s passports showed an origin of Palestine. The Jewish residents of Palestine in 1947 were minority citizens, not colonial conquerors.

The U.N. Special Committee on Palestine made a fair conclusion, which was that both of the two dominant peoples living there at the time, Arab Muslims and Jews, had an equal right to self-determination, and thus Palestine should be partitioned into two separate states, with Jerusalem to be an international city, neutral and U.N.-administered.

The Jews accepted the plan. The Arab Muslims rejected it, not because they felt that their piece was not big enough, but because they opposed the creation of any Jewish state on what they viewed as Muslim land.

An important historical footnote is that, in the area of Palestine ear-marked for the Jewish state by the U.N. in 1947, Jews were already a majority.

The Partition Plan: Background And Overview

Partition was the most sensible option. Had the British simply created a single state out of Palestine and withdrawn their occupational forces, a bitter Civil War between Muslims and Jews would have ensued.

That is what ended up happening anyway, but the U.N. Partition Plan sought to fairly avoid that. Not wanting to wait any longer on the Muslims, and with a clear mandate for Jewish statehood from the U.N., the State of Israel declared its independence in 1948.

Neighboring Muslim armies from The Middle East converged on Palestine with the goal of ending once and for all the Jewish minority’s dream of a state of their own in Palestine, either by genocide or ethnic cleansing.

In what can fairly be called a “miracle,” a grass-roots band of Jewish fighters defeated the Arab Muslim armies and were even able to capture a greater portion of Palestine in the fighting for the new Jewish state than the U.N. Partition Plan for Palestine, which was never implemented, had allocated for. Over 700,000 Arab citizens voluntarily fled the fighting or were forced to leave by Jewish forces and were never allowed to return to the newly formed Jewish state.

Also important to remember is that within a few years of the birth of the State of Israel, over 250,000 Jews also voluntarily fled or were chased from surrounding Muslim-majority states to Israel.

So you see, the Jewish state of Israel has a right to exist not because of the interpretations of sacred scripture, but because there were over 600,000 Jews living as citizens in Palestine in 1947 at the time that the Mandate for Palestine had come due and also because the world’s court, The United Nations, approved the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine to settle the question of how to proceed.

But the U.N. also approved the creation of an Arab state. Those citizens of Palestine also had or have a right to self-determination. But sadly, from that time until today, too many Palestinians have chosen “resistance,” declining the offer of statehood again most recently in 2000 at Camp David.

It must be recognized that “resistance” in this context means resistance to any Jewish state in the former Palestine, not merely resistance to the occupation of the disputed remaining territories of the former Palestine. Yes, the pro-Palestinian phrase “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” means exactly what it says, referring to the Eastern and Western borders of the former Palestine, the Jordan River and The Mediterranean sea, respectively.

Since 1967, Israel has occupied The West Bank, a large part of the former Palestine outside the borders of Israel established at its founding in 1948. People living there do not enjoy equal rights to citizens of Israel. This is an injustice.

The Arabs living there should either enjoy Israeli citizenship, as Arabs comprising 20% of the population of Israel do now, or enjoy a sovereign state of their own.

Yes, of course a Palestinian state also has the right to exist, if it wishes. But such a state should concede that it will never include land from the former Palestine, which is currently within the borders of Israel established at its founding in 1948. An Arab voluntary state of Palestine should fairly thrive in the context of respect for and in peace with its neighbor, Israel.

These seem to be the only two fair and democratic options to finally settle the question of Palestine, the status quo not justly respecting the human dignity of everyone in the land. But outsiders cannot force terms upon a people. We can and must, however, pray for the “peace of Jerusalem.”

Todd Dugan is a freelance writer. He enjoys golf, pizza, and solving geopolitical dilemmas.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

(Featured Image Media Credit: The White House)