Australia/Israel Review

To sum up the fundamentals of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Israeli intellectual and author Dr Einat Wilf likes to cite a quote from Britain’s Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin’s speech to the British Parliament on February 18, 1947. Explaining the reasons for his Government’s decision to return the British Mandate for Palestine to the UN, Bevin lists the considerable efforts British authorities had made to find arrangements agreeable to both the Jewish and Arab communities in the territory, and the conclusion that was reached from them:

His Majesty’s Government have thus been faced with an irreconcilable conflict of principles… For the Jews, the essential point of principle is the creation of a sovereign Jewish state. For the Arabs, the essential point of principle is to resist to the last the establishment of Jewish sovereignty in any part of Palestine.

That last sentence summarises the Palestinian ethos to this day (even if many Arab countries no longer back it): “to resist to the last the establishment of Jewish sovereignty in any part of Palestine.” Not to establish Palestinian statehood. Not to achieve self-determination. And it’s nothing to do with the policies of any Israeli government. The “essential point” is to reject any Jewish state or sovereignty on even one centimetre of what they regard as “Palestine”.

In this column, I have brought evidence time and again – using both official Palestinian speeches and media, and credible opinion polls – that this “essential point” remains the Palestinian nationalist goal for both the PA and Hamas, and is reflected in majority public opinion. Indeed, there is a lot of evidence, also previously cited in this column, that a substantial proportion of Palestinians do not merely reject any Jewish sovereignty in the land; they reject any Jewish presence there whatsoever – hoping or expecting that Israel’s seven million plus Jewish citizens can be ethnically cleansed from it. 

But here’s my point. The rejection of any Jewish sovereignty was sort of understandable – even if immoral and short-sighted – in the context of 1947. The argument by Arab leaders in Mandate Palestine (they were not generally called Palestinians at the time) as explained in Bevin’s speech is as follows:

For the Arabs, the fundamental point is that Palestine should no longer be denied the independence which has now been attained by every other Arab State and that in accordance with the accepted principles of democracy the elected majority should be free to determine the future destiny of the country…  they are therefore unwilling to contemplate further Jewish immigration into Palestine.

In other words, their demand in 1947 was that Palestine should be treated the same as the other Arab states then being created by the former colonial powers in the Middle East, regardless of any Jewish claims or the terms of the Mandate calling for a Jewish National Home. That majority Arab state would then have the right to bar all Jewish immigration. 

As I said, this view is understandable to some degree, given the context at the time.

Yet it is now more than 75 years later – at least two full generations of Israeli Jews and Palestinians have grown up in a land with Jewish sovereignty in place, while all the dozens of ancient Jewish communities across the Middle East have been almost completely obliterated by Arab hostility. It is simply bonkers to today still assert the same demand of no Jewish sovereignty whatsoever anywhere. Even if you believe Israel’s creation was fundamentally unjust, demanding that history be rewound and the past 80 years undone – regardless of the human cost – is extreme nationalism on steroids. Historically, it is hard to think of many other modern nationalist movements dominated by such extremist views. 

It is this reactionary extremism in Palestinian nationalism – demanding that history be rewound to 1947, or even 1917, and then rerun to give them everything they feel they should have gotten at the time – that explains why Palestinian leaders have rejected three Israeli-supported two-state peace offers that would have given them everything the “international community” thinks they should want. And it is why a peace will not be possible until something alters Palestinian society enough to shift the core tenets around which Palestinian nationalism has been built since the 1930s. 

Most Gazans want to leave

After Feb. 6, when US President Donald Trump announced his controversial “Gaza Riviera” plan to rebuild the Strip as a tourist mecca full of hotels and resorts, including evacuating the population to facilitate reconstruction, many commentators were rightfully and understandably concerned about hints the President might be advocating forceful removal of people from the area. However, many others insisted even voluntary evacuations were unacceptable to Palestinians, maintaining they would demand to stay on “their land”.

Well, Gazans don’t agree with that at all. A majority of them say they would leave if given the chance, according to a recent Gallup survey published in the UK Telegraph. The poll of 532 Gaza residents aged 18 and older, conducted between March 2 and13, found only 39% indicated they would remain in Gaza with no plans to leave, while 38% said they would consider temporary relocation with the intention to return later, and 14% saying they would leave permanently if possible. That’s 52% ready to leave, at least temporarily. 

This should be no surprise – many Gazans have already been doing so,  both in the past and during the war.

For instance, a 2023 Palestinian research study noted regarding Gaza, “Since 2007, local reports have confirmed that over 250,000 youths migrated from the Gaza Strip in pursuit of a thriving life in Europe.” 

Meanwhile, Israeli reports say at least 1,000 residents left Gaza permanently via Israel in the first half of March, while another 600 were expected to do so by the end of the month. 

The whole “Palestinians will steadfastly stay on the land” theme in much media commentary on the Trump plan was actually part and parcel of abusive romanticisation of Palestinians as symbols of “resistance” and “steadfastness”, which has caused the world to keep Palestinians in refugee camps across multiple generations, rather than help them resettle and build normal lives.