Handala is the most amous oPalestinian political cartoonist Naji al-Ali’s characters. Depicted as a ten- year old boy, he rst appeared in 1969. In 1973, he turned his back to the viewer and clasped his hands behind his back. The artist explained that the ten-year old Handala represented his age when he was orced to leave Palestine and would not grow up until he could return to his homeland; his turned back and clasped hands symbolised the character’s rejection o“outside solutions.” He wears ragged clothes and is bareoot, symbolising his allegiance to the poor . Handala remains an iconic symbol oPalestinian identity and deance. Let him share his story with you. Meet Handala Welcome. This series oeducational panels is oered as an introduction to a deeper understanding oboth the history and present realities othe Palestinian struggle or justice. We believe that the acts have been largely presented in a biased and misleading way in the mainstream media, leaving many people with an incomplete and oten incorrect understanding othe situation. Please take a ew minutes to stroll through our exhibit. Please open your hearts and minds to a larger picture othe confict.
This document is posted to help you gain knowledge. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think about it! Share it to your friends and learn new things together.
Zionism, in its political maniestation, is committed to thebelie that it is a good idea to establish, in the country o Palestine, a sovereign Jewish state that attempts toguarantee, both in law and practice, a demographicmajority o ethnic Jews in the territories under its control.
Political Zionism claims to oer the only solution to the supposedly
intractable problem o anti-Semitism: The segregation o Jews outside
the body o non-Jewish society. The transormation o the Arab country o
Palestine into the Jewish Land o Israel is supposed to be such a solution.
It is oten claimed that Zionism, and hence Israel, is the“legitimate national liberation movement o the Jewishpeople.” National liberation movements can best
be characterized as the struggle o an indigenouspopulation attempting to remove an occupying powerand regain its independence. Zionism, on the otherhand, is a colonial-settler enterprise based on the massexpulsion o the Palestinian people and the usurpationo their properties.
The mass expulsion o an indigenous people is dened asa crime against humanity in international law.
The Jewish National Fund (JNF) is one o the mostprominent Zionist colonization enterprises. It wascreated to acquire land in order to establish Jewishcolonial settlements in Palestine. According to its original
Memorandum o Association, its “primary objective” was“to purchase, take on lease or in exchange, or otherwiseacquire any lands, orests, rights o possession and otherrights...or the purpose o settling Jews on such lands.”
The JNF was given extremely wide powers to develop the land but not
to sell it. The Fund can lease the acquired lands to any Jew, body o Jews
and to any company under Jewish control. The lessee or sub-lessee, their
heirs, employees, as well as anyone to whom the lease is transerred or
mortgaged must be a Jew. Arabs and non-Jews generally, are prohibited
rom living or working on JNF land. The JNF holds such lands on behal
The objective o Zionism has never been merely tocolonize Palestine. What distinguishes Zionism romother colonial movements is the relationship betweenthe settlers and the conquered peoples.
The Zionist movement sought to achieve a Jewish majority and to establish
a Jewish state on as much o the land as possible. The methods included
promoting mass Jewish immigration and acquiring tracts o land that
would become the inalienable property o the “Jewish people.” This
prevented the indigenous Arab residents rom attaining their national
goals and establishing a Palestinian state, and displaced Palestinians rom
their lands and jobs when their presence conficted with Zionist interests.
The avowed purpose o the Zionist movement was notmerely to exploit the Palestinian people but to disperse
and dispossess them. The intent was to replace theindigenous population with a new settler community,to eradicate the armers, artisans and town-dwellers o Palestine and substitute a new workorce composed o the Jewish settler population.
In 1895, Theodore Herzl, Zionism’s ounder, wrote in his diary:
“We must expropriate gently the private property on thestate assigned to us. We shall try to spirit the pennilesspopulation across the border by procuring employmentor it in the transit countries, while denying employmentin our country...the process o expropriation and the
removal o the poor must be carried out discretely andcircumspectly.”
The dispossession and expulsion o a majority o Palestinians were the
result o Zionist policies. Zionism ocused on two needs irrespective o
the indigenous population: to attain a Jewish majority in Palestine and to
acquire statehood. Non-recognition o the political and national rights o
the Palestinian people was an essential component o Zionist policy.
Zionists advocated a “Jewish State” not just in Palestine, butalso in Jordan, southern Lebanon, and the Golan Heights.
In 1918 Ben-Gurion described the uture state’s rontiers:
“to the north, the Litani river (in southern Lebanon), to thenortheast, the Wadi ‘Owja, twenty miles south o Damascus;the southern border will be mobile and pushed into Sinai atleast up to Wadi al-’Arish; and to the east, the Syrian Desert,including the urthest edge o Transjordan.”
Zionist leaders recognized that they needed an externalpatron to legitimize their presence in the internationalarena and to provide them legal and military protection.Great Britain played that role in the 1920s and 1930s, asdid the United States in the mid-1940s.
Theodor Herzl wrote that the Jewish community could be: “part o a wall
o deense or Europe in Asia, an outpost o civilization against barbarism.”
The British Foreign Secretary, Arthur James Balour,wrote to Jewish leader Lord Rothshild, to assure himthat his government supported the ideal o providing ahomeland or the Jews. The British hoped thereby to winmore Jewish support or the Allies in the First World War.
Foreign Oce, November 2nd, 1917
Dear Lord Rothschild:
I have much pleasure in conveying to you on behal o His Majesty’s
Government, the ollowing declaration o sympathy with Jewish Zionist
aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet:
His Majesty’s Government view with avor the establishment in Palestine o
a national home or the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors
to acilitate the achievement o this object, it being clearly understood that
nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights o
existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political
status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.
I should be grateul i you would bring this declaration to the knowledge
o the Zionist Federation.
Yours,
Arthur James Balour
The “Balour Declaration” became the primary basis orinternational support or the ounding o Israel.
Ahad Ha’Am, a leading Eastern European Jewish essayist, visited Palestinein 1891 or three months. He wrote:
“We abroad are used to believe the Eretz Yisrael is nowalmost totally desolate, a desert that is not sowed .....But in truth that is not the case. Throughout the countryit is dicult to nd elds that are not sowed.”
Moshe Dayan addressing the Technion (Israel Institute o Technology),
Haia (as quoted in Ha’aretz, 4 April 1969):
“Jewish villages were built in the place o Arab villages. You do not even know the names o these Arab villages...because geography books no longer exist, not only
do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not thereeither. Nahlal arose in the place o Mahlul; KibbutzGvat in the place o Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the placeo Huneis; and Kear Yehushu’a in the place o Talal-Shuman. There is not one single place built in thiscountry that did not have a ormer Arab population.”
David Ben Gurion, addressing Zionist executive in 1937 and 1938:
“The acceptance o partition does not commit us torenounce Transjordan... We shall accept a state in theboundaries xed today--but the boundaries o theZionist aspirations are the concern o the Jewish peopleand no external actor will be able to limit them.”
“[I am] satised with part o the country, but on the basiso the assumption that ater we build up a strong orceollowing the establishment o the state--we will abolishthe partition o the country and we will expand to thewhole Land o Israel.”
Menachim Begin, on the day ater the UN partition vote:“The partition o Homeland is illegal. It will never berecognized. The signature o institutions and individualso the partition agreement is invalid. It will not bindthe Jewish people... Eretz Israel will be restored to thepeople o Israel. All o it. And orever.”
It should be noted that
the UN partition plan is, initsel, morally questionable.
The UN partition plan was usedas a pretense or taking over mosto Palestine.
Zionists did not accept the UN Partition Plan. The story is that
“Jews declared Israel and then they were attacked.” The act
is rom November 1947 to May 1948 the Zionists were on the
oensive and had already attacked Arabs. Prior to partition the
Zionists had already driven 300,000 non-Jews o o their land and
had seized land beyond the borders o the proposed Jewish State.
January 1947 to March 1948: Approximately 30,000Palestinians were orced to leave the country.
March 1948 up to May 1948: Over 300,000 Palestinians,including those who survived the Deir Yasin massacre,let West Jerusalem, Tiberias, Haia, Jaa, and Beishan.
May 1948 to December 1948: The Israeli armed orcesdeported approximately 100,000 Palestinians rom Lodand Ramlah to Jordan.
In view o the Israeli hostilities, which continued evenater the 1948 war, over 200,000 Palestinians wereorced to move to the Gaza Strip.
“By the end o the 1948 war, hundreds o entire villageshad not only been depopulated but obliterated, theirhouses blown up or bulldozed. While many o the sitesare dicult to access, to this day the observant travellero Israeli roads and highways can see traces o theirpresence that would escape the notice o the casualpasser-by: a enced-in area, oten surmounting a gentlehill, o olive and other ruit trees let untended, o cactushedges and domesticated plants run wild. Now and thena ew crumbled houses are let standing, a neglectedmosque or church, collapsing walls along the ghost o a village lane, but in the vast majority o cases, all that
remains is a scattering o stones and rubble across aorgotten landscape.”
Walid Khalidi, Palestinian author, “All That Remains”
Al Nakba:
The Catastrophe
Palestinian woman outside her destroyed home, 1948
During the creation o the Zionist state in 1948,approximately 750,000 Palestinians were orced tobecome reugees.Together with their descendants, morethan 4.3 million o these reugees are registered with theUnited Nations - over 1.7 million are not.
One-third o the registered reugees live in 59 UN-run camps in Jordan,
Lebanon, and Syria, and in the West Bank and Gaza Strip sections o
Palestine. Most o the rest live in and around cities in the West Bank and
Gaza Strip and neighboring countries.
All 1948 reugees and internally displaced persons arelegislated as “absentees.” Thus some 4 million 1948reugees today outside the “Green Line” have been
alienated to all rights to Israeli citizenship, to their landsand to their properties in Israel.
250,000 o the approximately one million PalestinianArab citizens o Israel are internally displaced persons,so-called “present absentees,” are likewise denied allrights in their pre-1948 properties insside Israel.
Despite the act that they were issued Israeli c itizenship, the state has
denied them the right to return to their homes or villages.
Conscated Palestinian land makes up 90% o Israel.The Jewish National Fund (JNF) is a private corporation ounded to buy
land or the Jewish people and that is its purpose to this day. 13% o
Israel’s land belongs to the JNF, and the JNF does not lease land to non-
Jews. Approximately 80% o JNF land was not purchased, but simply taken
rom those who fed during the war in 1948, and transerred to the JNF or
the sole use o Jews.
This “redemption o land,” which means the transer o lands rom Arabs
to Jews, is still going on. A subsidiary o the JNF, Himnuta, is even involved
in “redeeming” land in the occupied territories.
In 1961 it was agreed that JNF land and the stolenstate land be managed by a government body, theIsrael Lands Administration (ILA), under the same rules
adopted by the JNF in 1906, i.e., denial o its use, lease,development or access to any non-Jew. The ILA manages92.6% o the land in Israel. In addition to the propertyo the reugees, Israel took 76% o the land o theremaining villages in Israel.
The JNF touts its “reorestation” as “environmentalism”when, in act, many o these orests are planted over theremains o destroyed Palestinian villages.
The JNF has graciously announced, however, that historical inormation
plaques erected in JNF parks and orests will cite the names o the Arab
“Apartheid” reers to any institutionalized regime o systematic oppression and domination by one racialgroup over another. While “Israeli Arabs” can vote,they are a subordinated and marginalized minority.
The Law o Return grants rights o automatic citizenshipto Jews anywhere in the world, while those rightsare denied to 750,000 Palestinian reugees and theirdecendants who were orced or fed in ear rom theirhomes in what became Israel in 1948.
When Palestinian citizens o Israel demand that theirstate become the state o all its citizens, a democraticand secular state, they are denounced or imperiling theJewish nature o the state.
Israel’s Basic Law o Human Dignity and Liberty establishes it as a “Jewish
democracy,” although 24 percent o the population is non-Jewish. Israel
denes itsel as the state o the Jewish people, including Jews throughout
the world who are not its citizens, not the state o its actual citizens (who
include a million non-Jews).
Most o Israel’s land is the property not o the Israeli people, but o Jewish
people everywhere. As non-Jews, Palestinian citizens o Israel are barred
rom access to state land and land owned by the Jewish National Fund;
approximately 90% o the state.
Israel’s nationality law prohibits Palestinian citizens o Israel rom marrying
Palestinians rom the occupied territories and living with their spouses in
Israel. The same law does not apply to Jewish Israelis who marry Jewish
settlers living in the occupied territories. Similar legislation had beenproposed in South Arica at the peak o Apartheid, only to be rejected
by that country’s supreme court. Israel’s nationality law was endorsed by
Israel’s High Court in 2006.
“He who is not ready to recognise Israel as a Jewish andZionist state cannot be a citizen in the country.”Avigdor Lieberman, Minister o Strategic Threats
When the West Bank and Gaza Strip were occupiedin 1967, the UN reported that approximately 200,000Palestinians fed. These reugees and their descendantsnumber about 834,000 persons.
The stage or the continued ethnic cleansing o Palestinians has been set in the Occupied Territories, andis in progress. The prime tool is, orever, Palestinian landgrab in conjunction with settlement expansion. Variousstages o annexation are in evidence in the originallyrural part o the West Bank, constituting sixty percent o its area.
Outside o 1948 Israel, in the occupied territories,all Jewish “settlements,” the Jewish-only roads thatserve them, the military zones, and lands taken orthe construction o the apartheid barrier are on stolenPalestinian land.
The state earmarks huge tracts or the settlements in order to prevent
Palestinian construction in those areas. Once an area is closed to
Palestinians, the settlers begin seizing adjacent Palestinian lands, oten
privately owned, that lie outside their jurisdiction. According to B`Tselem,
the Israeli human rights organization, already in 2002, 41.9% o the West
Bank was assigned to the Israeli regional councils.
As a result o home demolitions, revocation o residency rights and construction o illegal settlementson stolen Palestinian land, at least 57,000 Palestinianshave become displaced in the occupied West Bank. Thisnumber includes 15,000 persons so ar displaced by theconstruction o Israel’s Annexation/Apartheid Wall.
None o the measures taken by Israel in the OPT and against the
Palestinians can be explained or justied by security. This is true o the
demolition o Palestinian houses, the “wall” that is eectively annexing
another 10% or more o the OPT to Israel, hundreds o actions disrupting
movement within and between Palestinian communities (as opposed to
movement o Palestinians into Israel), or the series o seven settlement
blocs that place hundreds o thousands o Jewish civilian communities
deep in Palestinian territory. Such measures have expanded Israel’sterritory and control o water and other resources, urther divided the
Palestinian population rom its land and rom one another, and rendered a
Palestinian state impossible.
In the remaining West Bank, Palestinians have become virtual prisoners
in their own towns and villages. Every aspect o normal Palestinian lie
- economy, health, education, is being crushed by a well organized and
deliberate military-bureaucratic machine, masquerading as a security
establishment. Ethnic cleansing, by means o home and eld demolitions,
is also pursued diligently by the State o Israel towards its own Bedouin
citizens residing in the Negev desert.
In the years 2000 through 2007, Israel destroyed 1,663Palestinian homes in the West Bank and 608 in East
Jerusalem. A total o 1,045 Palestinian homes weredestroyed in 2007 alone, 759 o which were in Israel.
A total o 18,000 homes have been destroyed by Israelsince 1967.
During the last 20 years, Israelis killed more than ourtimes as many Palestinians and nine times as manyPalestinian children as Palestinians killed Israelis andIsraeli children respectively.
Between the time o Israel’s “disengagement” rom Gazain September 2005 and November 2006, an estimated13,000 artillery shells were red into Gaza. While onthe Palestinian side, approximately 1,300 crude Kassammissiles were red into Israel.
In the rst six months o 2006 alone, approximately 80Palestinians were killed in Gaza by Israeli artillery, while
in the entire period between 2001 and mid-2006 exactlyeight Israelis were killed by homemade Kassam missiles.
During the Al-Aqsa Intiada, massive, disproportionate Israeli
repower and military hubris led to an escalation o violence and
the Palestinians’ use o suicide bombings.
In 1994, Hamas violated their own prohibition against using
suicide bombings that target civilians ater Israeli Baruch Goldstein
opened re on Palestinian worshippers in Hebron (killing 29 and
wounding more than 100). In 1996, Hamas ended an ongoing
inormal truce ollowing the Israeli liquidation o a leading militant.
Homemade Kassam Rockets
Israeli F16
Throwing Stones
Myth: The violence is perpetrated byPalestinians or no reason other than anirrational hatred o Jews.
Israel claims that they target only combatants whileseeking to spare civilians, but human rights and medicalorganizations have documented that hal o Palestinianchildren killed by Israeli small arms re (69% o allPalestinian child deaths) were hit in the head and uppertorso – the unmistakable mark o snipers. Former IDFsoldiers have spoken out about the policy o intentionallytargeting civilians.
While Palestinians have indeed used violence in resisting Israeli occupation
and ethnic cleansing, including violence directed against civilians (a human
rights violation and cannot be condoned), the number o Palestinian acts
o violence has been astonishingly small considering the appalling level o
Israeli violence and aggression directed at them over the last 60 years.
September , 000
through February , 00
Palestinians killed by Israeli military
Palestinians killed by Israeli civilians
Israeli civilians killed by Palestinians
Israeli military killed by Palestinians
West Bank
& Gaza
4494
43
234
239
Inside
Israel
67
473
87
Totals
4561
43
707
327
Source: B’Tselem, The Israeli Center or Human Rights in the Occupied Territories.
These numbers do not include civilians and combatants killed by members o their
own nationality (Palestinians killed by an explosive device that they set or was on their
person, Israelis killed in ‘riendly re’ incidents, etc.), nor do they include the sizable
number o Palestinians who died as a result o inability to reach medical care due to
Israeli road closures, curews, etc.
From the UN assembly 63rd plenary meeting, 14 November 1980:
“...rearms the legitimacy o the struggle o peoplesor independence, territorial integrity, national unityand liberation rom colonial and oreign dominationand oreign occupation by all available means, includingarmed struggle.”
Myth: The violence is perpetrated byPalestinians or no reason other than anirrational hatred o Jews.
In the U.N. Security Council, the U.S. has cast its veto 47times to shield Israel rom resolutions that condemned,deplored, denounced, armed, endorsed, called uponand urged Israel to obey the world body.
Until the Nixon administration, the United States had never employed its
veto power in the U.N. Security Council. The rst U.S. veto was cast on
March 17, 1970 over Southern Rhodesia. The second came in 1972 when
Washington sought to protect Israel rom a resolution condemning Israel
or one o its attacks on its neighbors.
Myth: The United States is
an honest broker or peace.
Israel is the largest recipient o U.S. nancial assistance.According to the Congressional Research Service, since1949 the U.S. has given Israel more than $101 billionin aid, as o 2007, $53 billion o which was military aid.Annual military aid appropriations are scheduled to riseto $3.1 billion by 2018.
All U.S. aid programs have built-in mechanisms to prevent aid rom being
used to commit human rights abuses. According to U.S. law, countries that
commit human rights abuses are to be sanctioned and aid is to be cut o.
The Arms Export Control Act stipulates that countriespurchasing or receiving U.S. weapons cannot use themagainst civilians and must restrict their usage to “internalsecurity” and “legitimate sel-deense.” According tothe Foreign Assistance Act o 1961, “No assistance maybe provided... to the government o any country whichengages in a consistent pattern o gross violations o internationally recognized human rights.”
Israel has an atrocious human rights record, as documented by Palestinian,
Israeli, and International human rights organizations.
Palestinian reugees represent the longest suering andlargest reugee population in the world today.
“Everyone has the right to leave any country, including hisown, and return to his country.”The Universal Declaration o Human Rights
“State parties undertake to prohibit and to eliminateracial discrimination on all its orms and to guarantee theright o everyone, without distinction as to race, color,or national or ethnic origin, to equality beore the law,notably in... the right to leave any country, includingone’s own, and to return to one’s country.”
The International Convention on the Elimination o All Forms o Racial Discrimination
“No one shall be arbitrarily deprived o the right to enterhis own country.”The International Convention on Civil and Political Rights
“the reugees wishing to return to their homes and liveat peace... should be permitted to do so at the earliestpracticable date, and that compensation should be paidor the property o those choosing not to return and orloss o or damage to property which... should be madegood by the Governments or authorities responsible.”UN Resolution 194, adopted December 11, 1948
Since its introduction in 1948, Resolution 194 has been armed by the UN
over 130 times with universal consensus except or Israel and the U.S. It
was urther claried by the UN General Assembly Resolution 3236 which
rearms “the inalienable right o Palestinians to return to their homes and
property rom which they have been displaced and uprooted,
The right o reugees to return is not only sacred andlegal but also possible. Studies show that 80 percento Israelis live in 15 percent o the land and that theremaining 20 percent live on 85 percent o the land thatbelongs to the reugees.
By contrast, more than 6,000 reugees live per squarekilometer in the Gaza Strip, while over the barbed wiretheir lands are practically empty. 97 percent o thereugee population currently lives within 100 km o theirhomes, 50 percent live within 40 km, while many livewithin sight o their homes.
Israel rejects the return o the reugees because itwould change what it calls the “Jewish character” o thestate. The Jewish character is based on a permanentJewish majority, special privileges or Jewish citizens,residents and non-residents, set orth in Israel’s laws,and permanent Jewish control o land and propertyconscated rom the reugees.