Hala Dimechkie Makdisi

Zionism was established at the end of the 19th century to solve the so-called “Jewish Problem” resulting from centuries of persecution of the Jews in Europe. Palestine was chosen because it was considered the “historical homeland” of the Jews even though the Jews spent less than 100 years in historic Palestine some 3,000 years ago.

INTENT

As early as 1885, the founder of the World Zionist Organization, Theodore Herzl expressed his intentions for the Arabs of Palestine. They were to be denied employment and pushed across the frontiers – but this was to be done discretely. There was no room for both Arabs and Jews. This was because the Zionists wanted the land for themselves. They wanted a Jewish homeland capable of absorbing the “millions” of Jews and so that the Jewish question would be solved once and for all. The Zionists succeeded in having the Balfour Declaration signed in 1917, which approved the establishment in Palestine for a national home for the Jewish people.

When the King-Crane Commission was set up on August 28, 1919 by President Wilson of the USA “to determine which power should receive the Mandate for Palestine”[2], a number of recommendations were made based on observations, research and scholarship. Based on its observations, the Commission noted that “the Zionists looked forward to a practically complete dispossession of the present non-Jewish inhabitants of Palestine” and that “no British officer, consulted by the Commissioners, believed that the Zionist program could be carried out except by force of arms.”[3] (more…)