Cheng Yao Student ID : S06089
Law School 
Research Paper Supervisor : Dr. Sekou Conde
Minzhu University of China 
2006-2007 Academic Year

The Israel-Palestine Problem reveals a series of stylized facts about both modern politics and modern ideas. Canaan, the Promised Land, now seems to be the prohibitive land, for no government can justifiably afford continuous loss of innocent lives. Imperialism and nationalism, war and peace, terrorism and anti-terrorism, belief and rationality, all these key terms could easily be linked to the Israel-Palestine Problem. In this sense, it serves as an epitome of our times------“the best of times” and “the worst of times”.
This essay serves as a brief survey of the problem. The author seeks to interpret those commonly accepted materials and well-known incidents under a grand background of modern history, and tries to understand them coherently and comprehensively. It is no surprising at all then for him to discuss how political crisis are inherently related to crisis of modern ideas.
 
A. From Belief to Reality
 
“I also established my covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they resided as aliens.”----Exodus 6
“I will set your borders from the Red Sea to the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the Euphrates; for I will hand over to you the inhabitants of the land, and you shall drive them out before you…….They shall not live in your land, or they will make you sin against me.”----Exodus 24
 
As is taught in the Book, the story is about a land promised to a group of inhabitants and the exile of its other inhabitants. Palestine, which is east of the Mediterranean Sea, west of the Arabic Desert, north of the Red sea, and South of Syria has a body of inhabitants consisting of various peoples. The Jewish people believe they are promised of this land, while they hardly ever form the majority of local inhabitants during the centuries. Whether destined or not, this land was ruled by a number of well-known empires in sequence: the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, Macedonia of Alexander the Great, the Romans, the Muslim Arabs, and the Turks. A basic fact is to be emphasized here: that during the centuries, the policy of exile has never been completely successful, though from time to time the Jewish people did become victims of such policies. Palestine has always been home of different peoples.
Of courses, there were revolts and suppressions, but they are the common elements of any chapters of ancient history, and nothing special. In most cases, the conflict was between the inhabitants and the rulers, say, the Romans or the Turks, not among local residents themselves.
At this stage, a significant gap between the ancient and the modern needs to be mentioned, which lies within the ambiguous notion of “nation”. It should not be taken for granted that the cause of the Israel-Palestine Problem could be directly traced back to ancient times. First of all, despite of what is taught by the Book, there doesn’t seem to be sufficient evidence to show that the Jewish people have an eternal will to drive other peoples out of Canaan; at least, it has never been carried out through political actions. Furthermore, the Israel nation and the Palestine nation should not be viewed simply as descendants of those ancient inhabitants, for “nation” could not be defined before a thorough understanding of “nationalism” is acquired. And according to Eric Hobsbawm, “nationalism” stands for the following doctrine: a nation should be equalized to its political unit, the nation-state, which is obviously a modern creature.         
In this case, a question to be asked in not time is then, when does the modern history of Palestine start from? Since I seek to tell the story under a grand background, I take the rise of the Zionist Movement as an historic landscape. This happened when the French revolution emancipated European Jews, and brought them into the modern world, exposing them to modern ideas. Zionism might be described as a mixture of liberalism, nationalism and traditional Jewish ideas. It made the tradition of living in the land of the Jews and return to Zion practical goals of European Jews. Starting from East Europe, the Zionist movement became a formal organization in 1897 with the first Zionist congress established in Basle.
This is a most important event in modern Palestine History: for first time there was an organized political body seeking to build a homeland for the Jews where Arabs still form the majority of population. (By 1914, the total population of Palestine stood at about 700,000. About 615,000 were Arabs, and 85,000 to 100,000 were Jews.) 
If the “homeland” is designed as a Jewish nation-state, the constitution of population must be taken into consideration: the people of the state have to view themselves as Jews, because this is what a nation-state is meant for (considering the definition of nationalism). Therefore, no matter what founders’ initial purpose was, the foundation of a new state demands more Jewish people moving in and more Arabs moving out. The only question is: why should the Arabs move out?
Since no one could provide a convincing answer to this question, the result is simple and no surprising at all: the Arabs refuse such demand, and declare the legitimacy of an Arab state instead.
The rest part of the story is a mixture of imperialists’ ambitions, national autonomy, UN resolutions, antagonism between superpowers, and endless military conflicts. As Harry S. Truman once commented, "no two historians ever agree on what happened, and the damn thing is they both think they're telling the truth", it would be futile to justify the position of a certain party using all those declarations, pacts, treaties and resolutions. Maybe only one thing is certain, every time when order is established, it is almost destined to be ruined. And when it is ruined, the fragility of modern ideas is revealed to all. Yet it is thought-provoking to discover that though the beliefs of both sides are contradictory, the catalyst that turns these beliefs into political motivations is the same.  
In the following parts, I’ll focus on the modern history of order establishment in the Promised Land. I shall comment on every significant attempt towards final settlement. Notice how “rationality” worked and failed in human affairs.
 
B. Towards a Framework of Continuous Conflict:
 
(1) The Balfour Declaration
   In November 1917, before Britain had conquered Palestine during World War I, Britain issued the Balfour Declaration. The declaration stated Britain's support for the creation of a Jewish national home in Palestine, without violating the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities.
I shall not focus on why the British government promised its support to Zionism----researchers have only paid too much attention to such issues, with the seemingly self-evident hypothesis that all men are born rational, and hence all incidents are open to analysis. But “rationality” itself is a most ambiguous term of out times. I do not fancy the idea that every event could be explained from its cause to its result, while in most cases it is not necessary to do so. For example, it may be far more efficient to discuss the special features of the British support. The power that was bringing the Jews back to their homeland is not purely ideological, taken the anti-Semitism tradition in Europe in consideration. When such tradition met with modern nationalism, it provoked the quest for identity among the Jews. But self-identification is only realized with the existence of others; in this specific case, the Arabs played a significant role, for the British which are also European, are those to whom the Zionists turned to. By doing so, they actually practiced the controversial ideas of Carl Schmitt, who later argued that all political actions or motivations consist of distinguishing friends from enemies.
It’s all very well then for the British government to choose its position. But being the friends of one party, means being the enemy of another. To guarantee the independence of both parties on the same land is inherently contradictory, and it would not generate the legitimacy needed for the declaration to be accepted by all parties, no matter how rational it appeared to be. Ironically, “rationality” is merely the cloak of “force”, and “force” is the haven of “rationality”. It does not mean that those rational plans are nothing but hypocrisy. In fact, it is a myth that “rationality” will eliminate the use of force. Rationality within multilateral affairs will lead to discussion, to reasoning and bargaining before making a final decision, only and if only a common belief exists that such discussion would be worthwhile. Such a common belief could be reached by rational (or realistic) considerations (eg. If we do not discuss the matter, we shall be eliminated.); or, it could be procured upon spiritual basis (eg. We feel relieved when we discuss the matter with you. ). If neither of the two approaches is available, “rationality” of the other party is first refused, and then denied. At such [...]

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