In the news what has become a perennial geopolitical issue has once again reared its head. Though the latest fighting ended in a ceasefire on May 21, 2021, the Arab-Israeli conflict has in some form or another been raging for over 100 years, with no discernible end in sight. Many libertarians have spoken on the conflict, but what we at Springtime of Nations aim to do is to give a brief summary of the history of the conflict before we make our position clear.

From a libertarian lens I think it’s useful to breakup the modern history of Israel and Palestine into 3 periods: The pre-state period (c.1880-1947), the early state period (1947-1967) and the late state period (1967 onwards)during the pre-state period, neither “side” had their own polity, and much of the Arab population were actually pre-state tribalists such as the Bedouin. Both were under the rule of the ottoman empire and later the British empire. Fleeing what they saw as a rising spectre of religious bigotry in Europe, thousands of “Zionists” or Jewish nationalists immigrated to the land they had inhabited until the 2nd century AD. The Jews created their own communities voluntarily, some of them were simply european style cities, others were  communes and other intentional communities. violence not only against the rulers, but also between the two stateless communities erupted periodically, in the form of pogroms or riots. Historically, the perpetrators were usually the Arab majority who saw Jewish immigration as a threat to their resources and eventual independence. The Jews formed self defense organizations (like Haganah) as well as overt terror groups (such as Irgun) both to protect their nascent communities and also to wage war on the British occupiers, who had promised national self-determination to both sides during world war I. During the 1936 Arab Revolt the Haganah made the strategic choice to side to with the British army in crushing the Arab nationalists, although this did not convince the British to raise immigration restrictions on European Jews seeking to come to Palestine, even while the jaws of the Nazi war machine were closing in on them. 

Near the end of the pre-state period, militias of the Arabs and Jews clashed far more between eachother as Arab nationalism reached its peak in the levant, with Lebanon, Syria and Jordan receiving independence in the mid-40s. At this point, we get into the well known dates and facts of the Arab-Israeli conflict: The newly formed UN seeks to solve what has become a rising conflict zone with a partition plan in 1947. At this time the Jewish population was highly concentrated in the northwest of the country around fertile agricultural centers, whereas the Arab population was broadly rural and often nomadic. With a broad brush, the UN sought to simply split the country in half, which resulted in the majority Bedouin Arab but sparsely populated south of Palestine being granted to the Jews. seeing the plan as a very favorable offer at the time, the Jews eagerly accepted it while the Arabs were outraged. This led to the Israeli declaration of independence and the consequent Arab-Israeli war of 1947-1948.

The palestinians had powerful allies in the newly formed arab nationalist states of the Levant as well as other large arab countries such as egypt and saudi arabia. israel during this conflict stood mostly alone, with some fortuitous weapons deals being made secretly with czechoslovakia and aid from diaspora Jewry helping them secure not just what was “granted” to them by the partition plan, but large sections of the arab areas as well. Hostile and neutral arab villages that fell under control of the Israeli Defense Forces were deported to jordanian and Egyptian controlled areas of what are now the gaza strip and west bank. As the arab populations streamed out of mandatory Palestine at the end of a gun, jews were likewise forced or pressured out of arab states during the period 1948-50 and sought refuge in israel. Several massacres of all the men in arab villages occurred during the war as well as pogroms against jewish civilians.

During the early state period, israel and its arab neighbors were engaged in a simmering border conflict, which boiled over many times. displaced palestinians formed a large part of the forces engaged in these conflicts, known as the Fedayeen. In 1956, Israel joined the British and French attempt to retake the Suez canal from the Egyptians as a way to seek and destroy Fedayeen fighters in the Gaza Strip. By 1967 the arab nations again sought to crush the jewish state in the six day war. By this time, the IDF was both a mature fighting force that had powerful allies in the west, in this period especially france who provided top of the line jet fighters and tanks to israel. By the end of the war, israel had seized not only all of the land given by the partition plan, but a chunk of southern syria called the golan heights and the sinai peninsula of egypt. The west bank and the gaza strip, full of arabs who had fled or been pushed out of palestine, was now directly controlled by their hated enemies the israelis. Israel administered these areas as a military occupation, with strict curfews and other population controls.

The Six Day War fundamentally changed the nature of the conflict, wherein the israelis held all the territory and resources, and the Palestinians being reduced to refugees and/or 2nd class citizens in the lands of their forefathers. The United States also became the main benefactor of Israel after 1967, and a generous partner it was. Israeli lobbying groups in the United States  have secured billions of military aid to Israel every year on top of preferential weapons deals, and the powerful veto of the United States regarding United Nations sanctions on Israel for actions it takes that violate international treaties. Between 1967 and the 1994 Oslo accords, the palestinians (that is, those arabs in Israeli territory without citizenship, some 70% of them) had no local civilian control at all. The Oslo accords granted them some autonomy in a limited territory, while most of the west bank was ultimately controlled by the israeli military. The military outposts of the IDF were secretly a backdoor to changing the demographics of the Occupied Territories, and “Settlements” as they were to be later called sprung up all over, full of ultranationalist israelis. Over a hundred “settlements” exist now, with another hundred so called “outposts”, settlements illegally formed in contravention of the Oslo accords. A few of these have been grandfathered into the network of legal settlements by the israeli government. These settlements are strategically founded to thwart contiguous arab territory, an obstacle to the palestinian independence that the settlers see as a threat. 

there are two major Palestinian political parties/movements currently: “Fatah” (victory) and “Hamas” (strength). Fatah is the elder of the two, forming the core of the Palestinian Liberation Organization from the 1970s onward. Under the command of Yassar Arafat, Fatah continued the legacy of the Fedayeen, with its paramilitary forces attacking Israel from bases in Lebanon. These attacks lead to the Israeli invasion of 1982 and the subsequent occupation of South Lebanon. Fatah among other minor Palestinian organizations launched the Intifada in 1987, a mass outbreak of violent protests against the Israeli occupation which lead to hundreds of Israelis and thousands of Palestinians dying. In 1988, Arafat shifted his tactics, repudiating “terrorism in all forms” and laying the groundwork for what became the 1994 Oslo accords. Fatah governed the autonomous areas of the West Bank and Gaza from 1996 until the 2006 elections in Gaza ousted them in favor of Hamas. Hamas, a group formed in 1987, continued the terroristic ideals of pre-Oslo Fatah. Formed from radical Islamist groups in contrast to the more secular nationalist Fatah, the founders of what became Hamas actually got funding by the Israelis who sought to pit the two factions against eachother. Fatah was seen by many Palestinians as weak, compromising, and perhaps most importantly corrupt. Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas paid the price for negotiating for peace after the Second Intifada between 2000-2005 even while he secured a complete pullout of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip. Indeed, Fatah cancelled the 2006 elections in the west bank to prevent the young turks of Hamas from kicking them out from there as well. The long-term policy of Hamas is that of no peace until a total return of the lands taken in the six day war. Like Fatah, Hamas has not conducted any consequent elections in its territory as well. Since 2006, the Israeli defense forces have reacted to attacks from Gaza with overwhelming force, causing international outrage. Additionally it has subjected Gaza to a naval blockade. Only official Israeli channels are allowed to conduct humanitarian aid or commerce in the territory. The blockade especially has kept Gaza extremely poor, with Gazan fishermen only being given a tiny catch area, one of the historical occupations in the increasingly crowded region. The GDP per capita of Gaza is about half the west bank’s.

The existence of the Jewish people has never been not in itself an “aggression” on the Palestinians. Nor is their desire to have a Jewish state as opposed to having to live under an Arab one. In this sense, Zionism is simply an expression of a people’s natural desire to live under their own rule. However, the history of the state of Israel presents clear deviations from what Springtime of Nations would categorize as righteous and just expressions of national self-determination. Israel has suppressed a parallel movement for independence from the Palestinian Arabs, through violence and legal sanction. It uses its powerful friends in the west to shield it from international consequences for its actions, and even now, as Israeli police and soldiers imprison Palestinian protesters and bomb Palestinian civilians, the United States and other countries stand silent. Libertarians should stand with Palestinians and their right to their own destiny, not years from now, not months from now, but today! Long live Palestine and may 1000 flowers bloom!