Security, Peace and Realities in the Middle East (1)

1- Introduction
One of the major developments that occurred after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War was the usurper Zionist government and the Arab states moving toward peace in the Middle East. Madrid Conference in 1990 was the beginning of the peace process. A set of internal, (within Palestine and Israel), regional (crisis of Persian Gulf and war and occupation of Kuwait) and international factors (the end of the Cold War and the new Soviet position on the Middle East) was the ground for holding the Madrid Peace Conference.
Israeli government along with these super powers and Arabic countries entered peace process and pretended that is willing for peace in the region. What factors led to the Israeli government, which wanting expansion has been and is its integral nature, to be prepared to have peace negotiations with Arabic countries? Can Israel’s seeking for genuine peace in the region be realistic regarding the fundamental objectives Zionism which is formation of Israeli state from the Nile to the Euphrates? What relationship does peace and security in sight of Israel’s state have with each other and what kind of peace does this country want? The main aim of this paper is that considering expansion loving, adjective of Israel government and lack of resisting on special borders, this country has never been looking for real peace and peace seeking of this state in recent years has been shallow and unreal and is mainly due to some internal factors and weaknesses. Uncertain borders of Israel, lack of execution of United Nations resolutions, and ignoring Palestinian people’s rights depict well that peace seeking of Israel is a tactical issue not a strategic one, and policies of state of Netanyahu prove this claim. In this paper, firstly we analyze security issue in outer policy of Israel.
The concept of security in viewpoint of the state is based on two main pillars which include:
A - Immigration of Jews around the world to Israel
B - Expansion and expanding borders of Israel and as a result, imposition of supremacy of Israel over the region.
In the second section of the paper, we will solely examine the major causes of Israel’s presence in the Middle East’s peace process. Intifada of the Palestinian people, economic problems and issues and gaps within Israeli society are being considered of the main causes of tactic change in Israel's foreign policy. Finally, we will conclude that as long as the Israeli government does not stop his expansion (whether externally or internally in the case of the expansion of Jewish settlements or increasing them) and ignoring the rights of the Palestinian people, peace in the region is not possible.
2. Security concept in Israel's view
Self-preservation and security are of the main objectives of the foreign policy of all countries. Naturally, the Israeli government has pursued such goals in its foreign policy since its establishment. On the one hand, the Israeli government has tried to maintain the Jewish country, and on the other hand, with a broad effort, to maintain the security of the country. The government has sought to decrease all visible or invisible threats against them.
The most important and the most principal goal after establishment of Israel state has been turning Jews into Jewish nation, making all the world’s Jews belong to this nation, and fighting for their emigration to the Palestine.
Naturally and forcedly, this purpose and belief led Israeli government to expansion, expansion of borders and creation of a vital atmosphere. Not only a country as a base and a refuge for Jews must have been built, but also to maintain this country’s security, other nations would have gone to destruction. This disaster went to Palestinians, and they were expelled from their land, and oppression and dominance (hegemony) of Israel was established on the occupied territories and even on the whole Middle East. It seems that Israel's security has two principles:
All over the world’s Jews’ immigration into Israel on the one hand, and expansion and expansion of borders and domination and imposition of Israeli hegemony over the region is on the other.
Here is a brief review of each of the bases is covered:
2-1-immigration of Jews around the world to Israel
One of the fundamental bases to form a government is the presence of people who live in a specific territory. Zionist leaders to form Israel's government, after the determination and the occupation of Palestine as a Jewish state, have tried so hard were to make the Jews around the world come to Palestine.
With the advent of political Zionism in Wing Congress in 1897 led by Theodor Herzl and determination of Palestine land as the Jewish future country, masses of Jews moved to the "Promised Land". In the fifth Zionist Congress in 1901, a foundation was established as the Jewish National Fund and was missioned to purchase the lands of Palestinian Arabs and register them as Jews’ eternal home. In 1905, Zionists’ seventh Congress declared in a resolution that Palestine should be exclusively used as the Jewish national home.
The Balfour Declaration in second of November 1917 was a turning point in Palestinian history causing an influx of Jewish immigrants into the Palestinian side. According to official statistics of the Israeli government, since 1882 that Jewish immigration to Palestine began seriously to 1919 about 70 thousand people immigrated to Palestine. But since 1919 until the formation of the state of Israel in 1948, migration flows were increased and figures equivalent to seven times more than past and reached to 482,857 people. The highest number of immigrants was in the years 1948-1951 which is a number like 687624 people. In the 1952 -1954 due to socio - economic problems of Israeli society of those days migration process was restricted to the number of 55 thousand people. Totally, according to the official statistics of Israel’s government, in the years between 1882 and 1995 about three million and five hundred thousand people have immigrated to Palestine that from this number, about 14 percent had immigrated before the formation of Israeli state, and 86 percent of them had immigrated after establishment of Israel’s state.
To encourage the Diaspora to immigrate to Palestine before and after the establishment of the State of Israel, methods and tools have been used by the Zionist leaders that the most important ones are:
Legend of the Jewish people being elected, anti-Semitism and the Nazi Holocaust. Political leaders of Zionism by mentioning the slogan of the Jews being elected tried to remove the Jews from around the world under the banner of world Zionism and encourage them to immigrate to Palestine. On the prospects of political Zionism, Jews, first and foremost, were considered a nation. Theodor Herzl, who said that he was influenced by the Dreyfus affair, achieves the following results from it:
- Jews around the world and in every country they are living constitute a single nation.
- They have been tortured in every time and place.
- They cannot melt and be colored as the people who they live among them. From this claim we can find out that Herzel recognized Jewish nation as elected and better nation, and he looks at Jews as a selected nation due to specific features of them which distinguish them from other nations, and he thinks that Jews are a superior nation.
Leobinsker says about the authenticity of the Jewish race:
"Jews must be released as well as blacks and women. But this matter for them, the Jews, has a worse appearance, because unlike Negroes they belong to an original race.” All Jewish architectures and leaders emphasis in a way that Jewish inhabitants of different countries are mostly in exile, and their freedom and equality with other nations are impossible.
Leobinsker says elsewhere:
"Jews are a separate element ... Jews live among the people with whom they are alien elements".
Different theories from Zionism leaders were expressed which all were in the direction to collect Jewish nation in a specific country and pretend it in a way that Jews are distinguished from others and so they need to gather together in a special place and establish Jewish stat.
Anti-Semitism or enmity against the Jews, both theoretically and practically has had backgrounds in the history of Europe. 25 thousand Jews were expelled from England in 1290 AD on the orders of Edward I, and the expulsion of thousands of them from Spain in 1492, and the Dreyfus case (1894-1906) based on the claim of the Zionists, are of the major manifestations of this issue.
Christian hostility to Jews has had various reasons. The Jews’ thought that they are specific and selective ethnic in human society and are unique in consciousness, arts, technicians and other good virtues among human races was effective more than any other cause in hurting and incitement of non-Jewish. Jews getting involved in trade and usury and their accumulation in certain cities and in the neighborhood known as the Ghetto made them be distinguished communities and have closed social life.
One of the most important reasons of enmity of European Christians with the Jewish may be sought in the history of the Jews in the crucifixion of Jesus (PBUH). As it is known, Christians believe that the Jews were agreed with the Romans in torturing and hurting Jesus (Peace be upon him) and the decision to arrest and excommunication of Jesus (Peace be upon him) comes from the Sanhaduvin, the Council of elders of the children of Israel, and it was based on this decision that Pontius Pilatus, the Roman governor of Palestine, ordered to kill Jesus.
The other factor of enmity with the Jews, whether in the East or in the West, is fame of these people for solidarity with capitalism and speculation around the world. wherever Jews have lived, they have always been considered as the most nimble and most successful capitalists, and even in cases where the opposite was true (such as the status of Jews in Russia before the revolution that Jews were among the poor and downtrodden people) still most people were willing to consider them as hidden capitalists and attributed all the ugly aspects of capitalist such as exploitation and usury and hoarding and monopoly and overcharge to the Jews’ fraud and corruption.
Any way enmity with the Jews specially in Europe on the one hand, and the thought of being the elected nation on the other hand, had led Jews to maintain distinguished among the communities they were living in, and in many cases, led them feel like aliens among other nations. Zionist leaders used this psychological factor in the best and most useful way for displacement of the Jews all over the world to Palestinian land. Zionist leaders set anti-Semitism as one of the most important means of their propaganda and took advantage of the slightest hint of it. Herzl in this regard says: "I know anti-Semitism as a strong and somewhat unknown force which is not harmful for status of the Jews," Jabotinsky in this regard stated that:
"Anti-Semitism has been one of the most important pillars for the accuracy of Zionists’ propaganda and is obviously very useful and convenient."
By regarding these points, it can be concluded that anti-Semitism has been one of the important tools of Zionists for encouraging Jews from around the world to remove to Palestine.
Considering the definition of Anti-Semitism, it was theorized that misbehaving and enmity of other with the Jews will be their fate since Jews have gone away from Palestine and till they are scattered in the world and in any where they live separately. There is only one solution for the Jews in order to get rid of bothering of enemies, which is that all of them must live in the same place and together and that same place should be Palestine. According to this matter made by Zionist leaders, as Jewish nation or race or tribe is the purest, and as they have a specific origin in human society, they have been suffering from the worst disasters so far, and they conclude that they cannot be safe anywhere but in their real home, Palestine.
Herzl said in this regard:
"Nations where Jews live among them are Anti-Jewish without exception either openly or in secret".
Leobinsker repeatedly says that enmity with the Jews and having fear of them is a fatal sickness that has become inheritable and has been inherited from a generation to the next one as an illness and is not capable of healing.
Chaim Weizmann in this regard stated that:
“Anti-Semitism is a germ that any non-Jewish is infected to, wherever he is and whether he denies it or not.”
Anyway, Zionist leaders took the most advantages of Anti-Semitism in two aspects, one as a facility to separate world’s Jews and moving them to come under the flag of Zionism and making them immigrate to Palestine and the other as a tool to frighten Zionism’s oppositions.
Another factor that the world's Zionist leaders used for Jews’ displacement to Palestine was the issue of mass killings of Jews at the hands of Nazi Germany. The issue was used mostly after the end of World War II for immigration of Jews to Israel. Zionism attracted the West world public opinion which was affected by the killings. However, the West world was not directly involved in these killings, but their silence was a kind of supporting Hitler’s actions, and now they felt guilty and shameful inside, so Zionists could use this issue in the best way about public opinion of Western countries. They suggesting the issue that Jewish is the same Zionism, tried to win the support of public opinion of the West could take urgent steps in achieving their main objective, the establishment of the Israeli government. It was said that Israel is the Jewish people, and therefore people’s good faith was used to Jews with the help of Israel. West saw himself forced to make up all cruelties against Jews with the support of Israel that apparently knew himself as historic reprehensive of whole Jewish tribe.
2.2 expansionism and expanding borders of Israel and imposing its hegemony over the region
Zionists to bring the Israeli government had to provide its essential foundations, including land, population and political power. One of the major goals since the advent of political Zionism was occupation of Palestinian lands. After the establishment of the State of Israel, expansion and extension of the borders of Israel was and is Zionism’s major goal. Based on the vision of Zionism, Israel still has unclear borders and the fate of the occupied lands by the Israeli army is unknown.
In the process of creating the state of Israel and after that, Zionists used the policy of force, violence, threats and intimidation in occupation of the Palestinian lands. It is true that background of territorial expansion seeking of the Jews in Palestine goes even before the first World Zionist Congress in 1897, but this expansion was not in large volumes. Since the establishment of the State of Israel the volume of expansions has been added. Since this time, seize of rest of the lands was in charges of the government, so that facilities and tools of this policy was totally changed. Till the year 1948, Zionists were obliged to operate their actions in hidden ways, and even in some cases they needed to seize Arabs’ lands and Palestine with gentleness and in the case of opposition with pressure and force. However, after the establishment of the State of Israel, those many obstacles of before were disappeared, and the Arab nationalist elements were unable to resist on land sales to Jews. Israel's government could seize large territories in the early days after the expulsion of masses of Arabs from villages and towns. At the time of founding the state of Israel in 1948, land takeover was in this way that with the leadership of the armed forces Arab lands were arbitrary confiscated and Palestinian Arabs were displaced and were sent to areas under Israeli territory. However, later Israeli officials found out that this method is inappropriate in achieving their goal, and it might be hazardous to the future of Israel, because the issue of vagrants could lead to stimulation of world’s conscious and feelings and Arabic countries and jetting Arabs from their territories by the help of force majeure will provide reaction of Palestinian Arabs and Arab neighboring countries. The sensitivity of world opinion and fomenting the events by the Arab states, made Israeli government to seek other ways to confiscation and confiscation and occupation of Palestinian land. Formalities of dispossession of Arab farmers have been completed by decree dated June 30, 1948, an extraordinary statement November 15, 1948 about the ownership of those missing, the law of the lands of those missing dated March 14, 1950, the law on the purchase of lands dated March 13, 1953 and set of decisions About legitimizing land grabbing with forcing the Arabs to leave their land in order to settle Jewish immigrants in it.
Israeli authorities in addition to internal violence against Palestinian Arab people committed violence outside of its borders against Arab neighboring countries so that not only expand these borders, but also to prove their superiority over the Arabs. The uncompleted invasion of the Arab countries to the Palestine in 1948 gave the best chance to Israel’s state to show his expansion seeking nature and strengthen his state’s bases in the war as much as possible. In this war that lasted eight months, the Arabs suffered an utter defeat. At the end of the war, Israel could occupy 77% of the Palestinian territories. It was done in a situation that on the basis of United Nations, 56% of Palestinian land was transferred to the Israeli government. Moreover, the war of 1948 led the Israeli government to establish the foundations of their rule to show Arab countries and the world that the Zionists do any effort to protect their new0established country, Israel. In fact, by victory in this war, Israel could introduce himself as a country and independent state to the world.
Wars of 1967, 1956 and 1973 between Israel and Arabs met the other part of the Israeli government’s demands. It is clear that based on the expansionist nature of Zionism, when the state of Israel was established in Palestine, it recognized its borders and made efforts to develop them more and more. The basis of Zionism, turning Judaism into a nation and country and knowing all Jews of the world to this nation and also fighting for their immigration to this country, led the Israel state’s efforts to be done in direction of expansionist repeated wars for conquering a wider vital space.
This sentence of the book of Torah that says:
"I give this land from the Nile to the Euphrates River to your descendants" became as a political and military program for Zionism. Based on the idea of a Greater Israel, Israeli leaders have constantly justified expansionist policy, aggression and annexation of Arab territory. Ben Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, says in this regard:
"All you should know that Israel is established by resorting to war and will never feel satisfaction about the borders of Israel Empire will be extend from the Euphrates to the Nile ".
It can be concluded that the state of Israel after the victory against Arab forces in the 1948 war, had called for the continuation of the war and the expansion of their lands. As General Alon who had important posts during the war, says:
"When the prime minister and defense minister Ben Gurion (that US’s President, Truman, had strongly pressured him) issued orders to halt our army, we were on the winning edge ... of the Litani River in Lebanon in Lebanon to Sinai desert in the south west was under our domination. A few more days of fighting would have given us possibility to free our territory".
Most researchers and analysts state the nationalization of the Suez Canal as the main motivation of the 1956 war, and as a result, it is concluded that the planned invasion of Britain and France to Egypt, an set an opportunity to Israel to kill the attacks of Palestinian Fadaian within the lines of cease-fire forever and pony with Egypt regime which was considered as source of mentioned support, but what is true is that Israel state at least since fall of 1952 had have the plan of a serious and strict war with Egypt in order to occupy the Gaza strip and Sinai.
Although Israel in this war did not achieve his goals which were mentioned in this this article for some reasons, this war had trade military benefits for Israel that include:
1. Israel state understood that in future possible war with the Arabs, he should not be the starter, but he needs to do something to show results of war and occupation of lands as self-defend. In this war, Israel was forced to vacate his seizing in Gaza and Sinai.
2. Israel must give importance to Arab military power.
3. War with the Arabs must be rapid and blitz.
Arab-Israeli Six-Day War in 1967 met all the demands of the Israeli government. In a short period, Israeli government was able to control and have all of Palestine including all of Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank of the Jordan, the Golan Heights, the Sinai Peninsula and the Suez Canal and the Straits of Tiran. After the Six Day War, the Israeli government fixed its position on the following topics:
(A) Not returning to pre- 1967 borders.
(B) The rejection of a accepting any Palestinian state on any part of Palestine
(C) Rejecting the Palestine Liberation Organization
(D) Not giving up on Jerusalem, which considers it as his eternal capital.
Israeli government over the law on June 27, 1967, announced the entire city of Jerusalem including the Old City (East Jerusalem) that most holy sites of three religions, Islam, Judaism and Christianity were there and were in the hands of Jordan before the 1967 war as part of Israeli territory. Israel state in spite of declaring the acceptance of 242 resolution of United Nations, always talked about that part of resolution which was related to conclusion of between Arabs and Israel and believed that such thing is possible only through direst narrations between Arabs and Israel. In this way, in fact the Israeli government covered up on the issue of full discharge of occupied territories.