Richard Becker - Palestine, Israel and the U.S. Empire

Contents

Copyright 2009 by PSL Publications

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be

reproduced without the prior permission of the publisher.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2009932241

ISBN: 978-0-9841220-0-4

Printed in the United States

Cover photo: Alan Pacetta

Written by

Richard Becker

PSL Publications

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A chronology of the struggle for Palestine

1882: Small numbers of Zionist settlers fleeing European anti-Semitism begin arriving in Palestine.

1894: November, Jewish artillery officer Alfred Dreyfus is falsely convicted of treason in France. The anti-Semitism surrounding the case convinces Hungarian Jewish journalist Theodore Herzl of the need for a Jewish state.

1896: Herzl publishes The Jewish State, the founding manifesto of the Zionist movement.

1897: First Zionist Congress is held in Basle, Switzerland. It articulates the goal of creating for the Jewish people a home in Palestine secured by public law.

1902: Herzl asks Cecil Rhodes for support.

1903: Russian Minister of the Interior Vyacheslav von Plehve orchestrates the Kishinev Pogrom on Easter. One year later, Herzl would obtain a promise from von Plehve for a charter for Jews in Palestine.

1904: July 3, Herzl dies.

1905: Seventh Zionist Congress votes against a national home for Jews anywhere but in Palestine. Other sites, including Uganda, had been previously considered.

1913: Arab Congress in Paris demands self-government from the Ottoman Empire. Palestinians begin to organize anti-Zionist groups.

1914: June 28, World War I begins.

1916: The Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire begins. Britain promises independence to the Arab people, but secretly negotiates the Sykes-Picot Agreement with France.

1917: Nov. 2, British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour issues the Balfour Declaration, promising the Zionists a national home in Palestine.

November, the Bolshevik party leads the victorious Russian Revolution. The new socialist government publishes the secret treaties signed by the ousted czarist government, including Sykes-Picot.

1918: August, President Woodrow Wilson writes to U.S. Zionist leader Rabbi Stephen S. Wise expressing support for the Zionist movement.

1919: The General Syrian Congress, with delegates from present-day Palestine, Lebanon and Syria, unanimously repudiates the Sykes-Picot Agreement.

August, the U.S.-based King-Crane Commission reports on its trip to Syria and Palestine, stating that the Zionist claim to Palestine can hardly be seriously considered.

1920: Britain secures a mandate over Palestine in the aftermath of World War I. Riots erupt in Jerusalem.

1921: July 22, British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour, Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann, British Prime Minister Lloyd George and Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill meet to discuss the situation in Palestine.

1923: Vladimir Jabotinsky publishes The Iron Wall, arguing that the Zionist project could only succeed through the use of overwhelming force.

1933: Adolph Hitler comes to power in Germany. A new wave of Jewish settlers arrives in Palestine.

1936: Starting with a six-month general strike, Palestinians launch an armed rebellion against the British Mandate government in a struggle for independence.

1937: The British Peel Commission recommends the partition of Palestine and the creation of a small Jewish state.

1938: November, the Kristallnacht Nazi pogrom in Germany leaves more than 1,300 Jewish people dead and 7,000 businesses destroyed in one night.

1939: Sept. 1, World War II begins in Europe as Germany invades Poland.

September, the British crush the Palestinian uprising that began three and a half years earlier. The British employ extreme violence with the assistance of the Jewish Agency and the main Zionist army, the Haganah.

1942: The Zionists shift their organizing focus to the United States and issue the Biltmore Program in New York City calling for the formation of a Jewish state in Palestine.

1944: Jan. 13, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr. issues an unusual report, protesting the U.S. governments failure to respond to the Nazi genocide. The government takes no remedial steps.

1947: November, without consulting the Palestinians, the United Nations votes to partition Palestine. War starts in Palestine between Zionists and Palestinian Arabs.

1948: March 10, Plan Dalet begins. Palestinian villages not involved in the fighting are attacked by the Haganah and the Irgun.

April 9, nearly all residents of the village of Deir Yassin are wiped out by the Irgun.

May 15, British troops withdraw from Palestine. The state of Israel is proclaimed, known as al-Nakba by the Palestinians. Arab League troops intervene on behalf of the Palestinians. By this date, 300,000 Palestinians are already in exile.

Dec. 11, U.N. Resolution 194 passes. It states that all refugees must be allowed to return and compensated for damages suffered. Israel continues to defy the resolution to this day.

1949: January, a ceasefire is reached. Israel occupies 80 percent of Palestine. 750,000 Palestinians are made refugees.

1953: August, Irans nationalist leader, Mohammed Mossadegh, is overthrown in a CIA-engineered coup. The brutal shah is returned to power.

Oct. 14, the Israeli army attacks the West Bank village of Qibya and wipes out its population.

1956: July 26, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalizes the Suez Canal.

Oct. 24, Britain, France and Israel sign the Protocol of Sevres, sealing their agreement to wage war against Egypt. France agrees to help Israel start a nuclear program.

Five days later, Israel attacks Egypt. The United States and Soviet Union, for different reasons, intervene. Britain and France suffer an embarrassing defeat while Nassers prestige soars.

1958: Fatah, the Palestine National Liberation Movement, is founded.

July 14, the Iraq Revolution overthrows the pro-British monarchy. U.S. and British troops immediately deploy to prevent the fall of the governments in Lebanon and Jordan.

1964: The Palestine Liberation Organization is founded in Cairo.

1967: June 5, the Six-Day War begins. Israel attacks Egypt, Syria and Jordan, quickly tripling in size. The rest of Palestine, as well as the Egyptian Sinai and the Syrian Golan, are occupied. U.S. imperialists are convinced that Israel will be an indispensable ally against Arab nationalism.

December, the Palestinian wing of the Arab National Movement together with a number of smaller organizations form the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and declares its adherence to Marxism-Leninism.

1968: March, about 200 Palestinian guerrillas, backed by elements of the Jordanian army, hold off a major Israeli attack in Karameh, Jordan.

1969: February, the Palestinian resistance assumes control of the Palestine Liberation Organization. The PLO adopts as its objective a democratic secular state in all of Palestine.

1970: Jordans King Hussein oversees the massacre of more than 15,000 PLO fighters and civilians. The incident is known as Black September. PFLP fighters seize three international airliners, take them to Jordan and blow them up without passengers on the airports runway.

Sept. 28, Nasser dies. Anwar Sadat succeeds him as Egyptian president and begins moving away from the Soviet Union and toward the United States.

1973: The Palestine National Front forms in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Oct. 6, the 1973 Arab-Israeli War begins. Egypt and Syria launch a war to regain territories lost to Israel in 1967. No territory changes hands, but Israel is shown not to be invincible.