This is the final post (I promise!) in a series about the history of the war on Palestine. Part 1 told the history of the conflict from the beginnings of Zionism to the Nakba and the creation of Israel. Part 2 covered the formation of the PLO and its guerilla campaign. Part 3 covered the First Intifada and the Oslo Accords, and Part 4 discussed the Palestinian Authority and the rise of Hamas. In this final post I want to look at the wider context of Zionism, and the implications for where we are at right now. One of the slogans frequently used by Zionists in the 19th and 20th centuries was ‘a land without a people for a people without a land’. The phrase was first coined by Christian Restorationists (what we now more commonly call Christian Zionists) in the mid-19th Century and was later picked up by some of the Zionist leaders, including Chaim Weizmann, David Ben-Gurion and Yitzhak Ben-Zvi. At one level, the first part of the statement is simply absurd. The area w
In Part 1 of this series I dealt with the rise of Zionism, the British Mandate in Palestine, the Nakba and the creation of Israel. Part 2 dealt with the creation of the PLO and its guerilla warfare against Israel, leading to its expulsion from Lebanon in 1982. Part 3 dealt with the First Intifada and the Oslo Accords. Here I bring the story up to the present day. With the implementation of the Oslo Accords in 1994, the war shifted decisively into Palestine itself. The PLO leadership moved into the occupied territories and took up the leadership of the Palestinian Authority (PA). They clearly hoped that this was the first step on the road to nationhood and a lasting settlement, but they were quickly disappointed. Administrative Zones as per the Oslo Accords - this is a simplified version Rashid Khalidi characterises the PA’s role as primarily related to security – Israel retained effective control of water supply and electricity, border control and large aspects of land use.