A-Infos (en) The Israeli–Palestinian Conflict and the Zionist Solution By Yisrael Puterman(i)

It is becoming increasingly evident that governance of the Occupied Territories is 
assuming permanent form. Israel’s regime is becoming established as apartheid: one legal 
system for Israeli citizens, based on the ‘Jewish and democratic’ version of Knesset 
legislation (incorporating discriminatory laws applied to Arab citizens, land 
expropriation, dispossession, restrictive measures such as delays in approving 
construction plans, deprivation in resource allocation, etc.); and another legal system 
–military rule – for the Palestinian population in the OTs, without any pretence of 
democratic rule. -------- For a little while after the occupation of 1967 it could have 
been thought that the Israeli occupation was indeed temporary, and the settlements were a 
sort of whim, an impulse of groups of the old ‘pioneering’ Zionist left and the new 
nationalist-religious right, trying to fulfil an outdated dream. But the subsequent 
intensive construction in the OTs, building of roads and other infrastructure, transfer of 
large Israeli-Jewish population into these territories, which required enormous 
multi-billion government expenditure – all this indicates clearly that Israel aims at 
permanent colonization of the OTs and creating there an irreversible state of affairs that 
will prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state and will preclude any solution other 
than continued Israeli rule.

The establishment of Ma‘ale Adumim, the disengagement from the Gaza Strip instigated by 
Sharon, as well as the construction of the Separation Barrier – all these are clues to the 
solution that Sharon and others have intended for the Palestinian population: 
concentration in autonomous Bantustan-style pockets. This setup has actually been 
implemented in Gaza, with well-known results.

Israel is not the only player in the arena. Resistance of the Palestinians to any solution 
that would not satisfy their minimal demands cannot be ignored. However, the Palestinians 
are divided between Fatah and Hamas regarding conditions for ending the conflict. Fatah, a 
movement representing the Palestinian bourgeoisie, seeks to resolve the conflict by 
establishing an independent Palestinian national state supported by the US and integrated 
in its regional order. A pre-condition for this is recognition of Israel, which Fatah (the 
leading movement of the PLO) has therefore accepted.
By contrast, Hamas, whose supporters are among the Palestinian proletariat and mainly the 
refugees, opposes a solution that would not resolve their problem. For them the problem is 
Zionist dispossession. Hence their demand is the restoration of their rights in the whole 
of Palestine, to be achieved by struggle.

But even the minimal moderate demands of Fatah – a state based on the pre-1967 borders 
including east Jerusalem and some kind of solution the problem of refugees (sufficient to 
mitigate their resistance) – are inacceptable to Israel, which shows its real intention by 
persisting with its policy of dispossession and construction in the OTs. The rhetoric of 
the ‘peace process’ can deceive no one, not even Abu-Mazen.

The US supports in general terms this solution (which, as mentioned above, implies 
integration of the Palestinian state in the regional imperialist order), but dare not 
impose it on Israel, so as not to antagonize and destabilize its main protégé. On the 
other hand, the Netanyahu government not only rejects this minimum solution but keeps 
raising the ante by demanding fresh conditions that make it impossible even to start 
negotiations. It must be said that should a left-Zionist led government be formed – which 
is in any case an unrealistic prospect in the foreseeable future – it would be unable, and 
most probably unwilling, to implement such a solution because of the reality that has been 
created on the ground, and mainly because of the massive opposition of the settlers, whose 
political muscle is greater than their electoral weight.

The resulting political deadlock, and the adherence to it of the Netanyahu government, 
appears to be leading to a bi-national state or an apartheid state. According to warnings 
issued by persons belonging to various shades within the left-Zionist camp, that would be 
the end of the Zionist dream. On the face of it, they seem to have a valid point: the 
Zionist right is leading Israel to an impasse. But this view – as though all Israeli 
governments have for years been investing billions in a pointless project and, with eyes 
wide open, leading Israel into a dead end – is one of denial and refusal to face the 
facts. Whoever is prepared to examine the system thoroughly will discover that there is 
method in this madness.

The colonial essence of Zionism

The terms ‘colonialism’ and ‘ethnic cleansing’ are not deemed to be politically correct in 
the Israeli-Zionist discourse. There is a weighty reason for this: the need to repress and 
ignore the fact that the Israeli–Palestinian conflict is essentially one between 
colonizing settlers and an indigenous people, that the Zionist project is fundamentally 
colonial, implemented via dispossession and ethnic cleansing. One of the thinkers who 
spoke about this openly and bluntly was Israel Zangwill, a Zionist leader admired by 
Benzion Netanyahu, the prime minister’s father, who quotes him approvingly in his Hebrew 
book The Road to Independence. This is how Zangwill put it:

“There is, however, a difficulty from which the Zionist dares not avert his eyes, though 
he rarely likes to face it.  Palestine proper has already its inhabitants....  So we must 
be prepared either to drive out by the sword the tribes in possession as our forefathers 
did, or to grapple with the problem of a large alien population, mostly Mohammedan and 
accustomed for centuries to despise us.”(ii)

Zangwill was by no means the only Zionist leader to see that the implementation of Zionism 
must involve ethnic cleansing. Most of the Zionist leadership, from Herzl to Ben-Gurion, 
supported population transfer; but for the most part they understood that openly 
advocating it would be politically harmful to the Zionist project and tarnish its image, 
so they took care to speak and write about it off the public record. Quotations from their 
speeches and writings on the subject, as well as a wealth of information about the 
implementation of transfer in various places and the war crimes that it involved, can be 
found in the literature.(iii)

It should be pointed out that the aim of Zionist colonization was not to exploit the cheap 
labour power of the natives but to displace them, as was done by the settlers in North 
America and Australia, and replace them by Jewish immigrants.

Most of the leading circles of Palestine’s Arabs had no illusions about what the Zionist 
project meant for them. As far as they were concerned the danger became especially real 
following the Balfour Declaration, which meant that the British empire – the country’s new 
ruling power – supported the Zionist plan. As was to be expected, the Arabs’ reaction was 
implacable opposition.

As in the aforementioned colonies, the settlers in this country formed a new, 
Israeli-Jewish, nation. But unlike what happened in those countries, where the indigenous 
people were exterminated or overpowered and marginalized, the indigenous population here, 
part of the Arab nation, became a people possessing Palestinian national consciousness, 
whose specific identity was formed in the struggle against the Israeli-Jewish settler 
nation. This is why the Israeli–Palestinian conflict has the appearance of a national 
conflict over a piece of territory, to be resolved by territorial compromise.

The following two excerpts, taken from a Matzpen editorial of 10 December 1966, describe 
the essence of Israel’s regime; they are as topical today as they were then:
“The policy of Israel’s regime is a consistent extension of that of the Zionist movement 
since its beginnings: it consists in creating new facts and entrenching them by all 
available means, while planning and seeking to create new facts.”

“Since the existing Zionist regime of Israel cannot impose itself on the Arab World by 
persuasion, it needs to resort to violence. But as its own force falls short of 
subjugating the Arab World, it must seek the support of the power or powers that it 
regards as dominating this region.”

The ultimate solution: ethnic cleansing

The dispossession of Arab tenant fellaheen started right from the early days of Zionist 
activity in Palestine: land was bought from absentee landowners residing in Beirut or 
Damascus, and the tenants, whose families had worked the land for generations, were 
evicted by the British police. This is what happened in the Valley of Jezreel (Marj Ibn 
‘Amer), in Hefer Valley (Wadi Hawarith), and wherever land inhabited by tenant fellaheen 
was purchased. The accumulated Arab indignation, caused by British-supported Zionist 
activity, resulted in the 1936–39 Arab uprising against the British authorities and the 
Jewish immigrants. The uprising was suppressed by the British forces, using tanks and 
aircraft. As a result, the Palestinians’ military, organizational and political backbone 
was broken and demoralization spread in their ranks. The leader of the Palestinian 
uprising, Hajj Amin al-Huseini, fled the country. (As is well known, he later collaborated 
with the Nazis against the British and the Jews.)

The momentous ethnic cleansing, the Palestinian nakba, took place during the 1948 war. 
Sporadic terrorist actions by both sides turned into a war following the November 1947 UN 
partition resolution, and subsequently escalated. It must be emphasised that for the most 
part the Palestinian population had little interest or involvement in the clash, and 
wished only to be left alone. Nevertheless, although the Zionist leadership was aware of 
the Palestinians’ powerlessness, it spread fear in the Jewish yishuv, as though it was in 
danger of extermination. This made it possible to expel the Palestinians from villages and 
mixed-population towns, which were conquered more or less rapidly, without the slightest 
protest even on the part of those Zionists who had supported a bi-national solution and 
were supposedly against ethnic cleansing.

The Zionist leadership was indeed surprised by the feebleness of Palestinian resistance 
and the hasty escape of the population, but it knew how to exploit the situation in two 
ways. On the one hand it claimed that the the flight was ordered by the Palestinian 
leadership, wishing to prepare a clear operational arena for the Arab armies; on the other 
hand it intensified expulsions, especially from the areas conquered in the south following 
the Egyptian invasion. About 400,000 Arabs were expelled before the invasion of the Arab 
states’ armies, and about another 350,000 after it.

It is important to understand that process of flight and expulsion in order to infer what 
may happen in future. Spokespersons of the Israeli authorities and establishment 
historians claim, first, that the Arabs fled and were not expelled; and, second (in 
support of the first claim), that there had not existed a plan for expulsion, so that the 
flight of the Arabs must have been spontaneous or a response to an 
instruction/recommendation of the Arab leadership.

As for the first point: indeed the Arabs generally fled, because they realized right from 
the start of the hostilities that Palestinian resistance was weak and unable to withstand 
the Zionist military organizations and their attacks on centres of defenceless civilian 
population. In those few places where there was resistance, or where the Zionist forces 
wished to accelerate the flight, massacres were perpetrated.

The second point is of special importance for our present consideration: a detailed and 
comprehensive plan for expelling the Arabs and destroying their villages did not exist, 
nor was it needed. Transfer was an integral part inherent in Zionist ideology and 
practice. Every commander understood what was required of him; and if he was not sure, a 
small gesture of the hand was sufficient to make matters clear to him.

The same pattern was repeated in the 1967 war: immediately following the conquest of the 
West Bank and the Golan Heights, a ‘spontaneous’ process of transfer and destruction of 
villages was put in motion. By the time this move was stopped under American pressure, 
about 250,000 inhabitants had been expelled (‘fled’) from the West Bank and about 100,000 
from the Golan Heights.

The facts that have been established on the ground and the political deadlock designed to 
allow continued settlement construction in the OTs have created a void into which may be 
drawn the classical ultimate Zionist solution – ethnic cleansing. Groups of settlers, 
motivated by an open ideology of transfer, are already creating provocations in the OTs, 
designed to ignite a major flare-up that would allow transfer to take place. The fact that 
the ‘security forces’ refrain from stopping them is a pointer to where this is leading. 
The Netanyahu government is aware that a confrontation, however great, confined to the OTs 
might attract international and internal opposition capable of preventing the 
implementation of the scheme. For this purpose what is needed is a regional large-scale 
conflagration lasting sufficiently long.

The scenario of the nakba may be repeated: a rocket attack may panic the Israeli public 
into supporting, or at least accepting, any action justified by ‘security needs’. It must 
be noted that the Zionist left and right do not differ regarding the Zionist aim: a 
‘Jewish and democratic’ state over the largest possible territory with as few Palestinians 
as possible. The Zionist left supports territorial compromise when conditions do not allow 
this aim to be implemented in the entire area; but if that would become possible, some of 
them would give it their blessing, and others would perhaps accept it with regretful 
‘understanding’, shedding crocodile tears. Of course, this scenario depends on the 
occurrence of a suitable international conjuncture, and on the acquiescence of the 
‘international community’ (the states obedient to the US). In such circumstances the 
Palestinians would not stand a chance.

Israel’s role in the service of imperialism, and the international situation

The idea of establishing a state for Jews in Palestine was mooted in the British 
government as early as the mid-19th century,(iv) in the heyday of British colonialism, 
decades before Herzl and the Zionist movement. At that time Britain had no foothold in the 
Arab east. The idea was that a Jewish state, alien to the Arab peoples, would be totally 
dependent on it British sponsor and serve its interests. This idea, proposed to Moses 
Montefiore, found little support among Jews at that time.

When favourable conditions materialized and the idea started to be implemented in 
Palestine, it didn’t quite work out as planned: support for Zionism created difficulties 
for relations between the British empire (and later the US) and the Palestinians, as well 
as the Arab states that coveted the territory and wished to annex it. (These states 
themselves were created through the division of the region according to the imperialist 
interests of Britain and France, following their conquest of the Ottoman empire.) Also, 
the prospective creation of an alien Zionist state and the dispossession of the indigenous 
Arabs caused internal unrest within the Arab countries, which destabilized their regimes 
and unsettled their relations with the British empire.

This ambiguous situation continued after the British domination of the region was replaced 
by that of the US and lasted until the June 1967 war. Since that war, the clear preference 
of the US was to support Israel as the principal and most stable mainstay of American 
hegemony in the region. The turning point was Israel’s decisive victory over Nasser’s 
Egypt, Syria and Jordan. This crushing victory also led to the downfall of Nasserism, 
which had posed the most significant threat to US domination of the region, and eventually 
to the collapse of Soviet influence in the Arab east. Thus the US achieved almost 
effortlessly an unprecedented gain during the cold war. Since then, the alliance with 
Israel has been a firm and unassailable feature of US policy in the region, granting the 
Israeli regime virtually absolute military, economic and political support. For its part, 
dependence on the US has become for Israel an existential necessity, so that continued US 
domination of the region is a vital Israeli interest.

At the same time it must be noted that, notwithstanding all the fine talk of shared 
values, democracy etc., and the influence of the Jewish lobby, US support for Israel is 
conditional on the latter’s role as watchdog of the imperialist order as well as on its 
meshing with US regional policy. This premise is now being put to the test, which 
threatens Israel’s strategic regional position.

The global crisis of capitalism has created shock waves around the world. Among the first 
to be hit were the corrupt regimes of the Arab world. The Arab Spring, the popular 
uprising that has spread almost everywhere in the region is undermining ‘stability’, that 
is to say the regional imperialist order and US hegemony.

We cannot go here into an analysis of the various events in the countries in which the 
Arab Spring manifested itself, so far with diverse outcomes. What is clear is that the 
opposition, generally led by the parties of political Islam, that has managed to achieve 
power, has no solution for the social problems of the masses, which had mainly caused the 
unrest in the first place. Therefore the insurgency has not had its last say, and 
stability has not been restored. It is also clear that the US has no intention of 
endangering the huge profits of the oil corporations, which depend on its strategic 
domination of the region.

Obama’s re-election, the ebbing of internal American support for the strong-arm policy 
initiated by G W Bush in Afghanistan and Iran, as well as the capitalist crisis and the 
Arab spring, have created a new situation, inviting reassessment of US policy in the 
region. Unlike his predecessor, Obama is reluctant to apply American military force 
directly (although he has not hesitated to do so by proxy: using NATO in Libya, Saudi 
Arabia in Yemen and Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Qatar in Syria). He is attempting to apply 
softer force and more conciliatory policy wherever possible, so long as this does not 
threaten basic US interests, particularly in relation to the biggest and most important 
countries of the region, Egypt and Iran. In Egypt the change in the style of US policy was 
illustrated by its acquiescence in the overthrow of Mubarak and acceptance of the Muslim 
Brethren opposition. Regarding Iran, it is illustrated by readiness to negotiate with the 
regime and accept some accommodation with the latter’s interests.

These changes in the policy of the Obama administration’s policy may reduce to some extent 
Israel’s strategic importance, and increase the importance of Palestinian demands, as part 
of the new stability that Obama is attempting to promote in the region.

The Netanyahu government, alarmed by these prospects, took unprecedented steps in an 
attempt to reshuffle the cards and lead back to the old strong-arm policy: it announced 
its intention to attack Iran without a US green light (an idea that was blocked at the 
eleventh hour), and made a hare-brained attempt at intervening in the US presidential 
election campaign, based on the assumption that a Republican administration would oppose 
Obama’s conciliatory policy and revert to the old policy that secures the position of Israel.

Obama’s policy has no better than even chance of working out. He has been revealed as a 
weak president, whose hesitancy may lead him to draw back from his plan. On the other 
hand, the uprising in the Arab world may continue, because the peoples’ hardship cannot be 
truly resolved by this or that imperialist settlement. In this situation, the entire 
region may be plunged into chaos and war. In such a scenario, in which Israel is supposed 
to play a major role, it could be rewarded by its pound of flesh: a large-scale expulsion 
of Palestinians from the West Bank and possibly also from Israel. This would spell 
calamity for both peoples.

Conclusions

The realization of Zionism depends on three main elements, which have been addressed in 
the present article: first, colonialism; second, ethnic cleansing; third, association with 
a foreign power that dominates the region. Without any one of these, Zionism is but an 
insubstantial idea. Therefore, irrespective of which ideological current is leading a 
Zionist Israel, these three elements will perennially determine the reality created by 
Zionism and its consequences. This is the essence of the problem; but Israeli politics, 
the Zionist parties and the media, do not address it but are engaged in debates about 
sorting out its symptoms.

This forecast of the outcome of the process just described is not a prophecy; it is 
inferred from the whole history of Zionist practice in Palestine. The fact that Israel 
prefers political deadlock and continued colonization to any solution, albeit partial, 
that would dampen the flames of the conflict; the extremely asymmetric balance of power 
between Israel and the Palestinians as well as between imperialism and the ‘international 
community’ and the peoples of the Arab east – all these suggest a process that may lead to 
an apocalypse. True, this is not the only possible outcome, and unforeseen circumstances 
may well arise, forcing all forecasts to be altered. But it would be wrong to bury one’s 
head in the sand and ignore the dangers.

In any case, it is clear that the Israeli–Palestinian conflict will not be resolved within 
the narrow framework of Israel-Palestine: it is inseparably bound up with the geopolitical 
situation in the entire region. Neither the existing imperialist order, nor nationalist or 
theocratic regimes, can genuinely solve the problems of the peoples of the region, which 
are basically social.

The Arab Spring – a popular uprising that will re-emerge so long as the problems that 
engendered it have not been resolved – is a struggle against all the ills of imperialism 
and its partners, the reactionary Arab regimes and Zionism; it renews the relevance of 
internationalist socialism as the solution to the region’s social problems and conflicts. 
Far off as it may seem to be, it has no real substitute.

Socialism (not modelled on the discredited Soviet regime) can also attract the 
impoverished Israeli working class, as well as the white-collar workers who are forced 
down into the ranks of the proletariat together with other disadvantaged strata, all those 
who came out in the social protest of 2011, to renounce Zionism, capitalism and dependence 
on imperialism, which shackle the Israeli people to endless wars, isolate it from the 
peoples of the region, and endanger its existence in confrontation with the Arab world.

I.  Hebrew text posted 27 December 2012 on Hagada Hasmalit This translation by Moshé Machover

II.  “Zionism and England’s Offer”, The Maccabaean (American Jewish journal), December 
1904. Quoted in http://chaimsimons.net/transfer07.html

III.  See, for example, Nur Masalha, Expulsion of the Palestinians: The Concept of 
‘Transfer’ in Zionist Political Thought, 1882–1948 (Washington, DC: Institute for 
Palestine Studies, 1992); Ilan Pappé, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (London: Oneworld, 
2006).

IV.  See British Support for Jewish Restoration, http://www.mideastweb.org/britzion.htm
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