Ivan Strenski is a Distinguished Emeritus Professor of Religious Studies. He may be reached at strenski@ucr.edu.
To the UCR Community:
An Open Letter about Israel & Palestine
I write as a recently retired UCR professor with 20 years of proud service at UCR. In that time, I learned much from our richly diverse student body and faculty about the Middle East. I eventually put some of these lessons to work in my new book, “Muslims, Islams, and Occidental Anxieties: Conversations about Islamophobia” (2023). There and here, my own preferences for the two-state vision embodied in the Arab (or Saudi) Peace Initiative should become clear.
After Oct. 7 and the passionate reactions to it, I was troubled by the number and character of some unhelpful accusations, made from both sides, about Israel-Palestine fundamentals. In this opinion piece, I seek to focus our minds and moral energies in ways that will help, nor hinder, deeper understanding of the Palestine-Israel conflict. Before smarter views of the Israel-Palestine situation can prevail, I propose that, at least, these four assumptions need to be examined.
- “From the River to the Sea”
However catchy, this slogan, if enacted, would spell practical disaster for either Jews or Arabs. Arab-Jewish violence did not begin in Oct. 2023, or 2006, 1982, 1973, 1967, 1956, or even with the 1947-48 Palestinian “Nakba” or Israel War of Independence. 100 years or more of horrendous murders, assassinations, rebellions, ethnic cleansings, mutual refusals of recognition, etc. by both Jewish and Arab populations preceded it. That history tells me a single-state solution, “from the river to the sea,” is not realistic.
- “Israel Is a ‘Settler-Colonial’ Power”
I condemn most Israeli West Bank settlements since 1967 as larcenous, murderous — illegal — seizures of Palestinian land.
But equating this illegal post-1967 Jewish colonialist expansion with the legal 19th and 20th-century Jewish settlements into “Ottoman Syria” and, later, British “Mandatory Palestine” confuses the issue. Under Ottoman and British rule, Jews legally purchased land for settlement -– just as immigrants elsewhere do routinely. Further, these Jewish ‘pioneers’ joined an established Jewish community, descended from the Jews who never left the Levant – even after the First Roman-Jewish War (66-73 CE). Jews are, thus, as indigenous to ‘Palestine’ as Arabs came to be by their military operations, dating from the 7th century CE.
- “The 1948 UN Partition of Palestine Favored Jews at the Expense of Arabs”
This claim is only half true, given that the UN Resolution 181 partition terms discriminated equally against both Arabs and Jews.
From one perspective, the UN partition disadvantaged the Jews because the Israeli partition — 500k Jews — included a nearly equal population of Arabs — 420k. By contrast, the Arab partition — 810k total — included only 10k Jews.
But seen from the viewpoint of designated territorial surface area, the UN resolution favored the Jews. While Jews only owned about 6.6% of the total area of Mandatory Palestine, Israel received 57% of it in UN Resolution 181. Given that disproportionate distribution of land, Arabs had reasons to feel cheated. This grievance was only to be compounded, and Jewish ownership increased to 79% by Jewish expulsions of Arabs during the 1947-48 war.
However, complicating calculations of injustice, this 57% Israeli share of Mandatory Palestine included the then barren wasteland of the Negev Desert. Of this 57%, then, 60% of 1948 Israel was desert wasteland. As a result, Jews felt aggrieved in having received about 22% — 40% of the 57% — of the arable landmass of Mandatory Palestine, despite their being 30% its total population.
The UN Resolution partition was arguably unfair to both Jews and Arabs.
- “Israel is a Racist, Apartheid State”
I agree that actions pursued by the post-1967 colonial settlements supported by Netanyahu and other rightist governments lend support to these charges.
But today’s 7 ½ million Jewish Israelis dwarf the 600k West Bank colonialist settlers. That 7 ½ million Jewish Israelis is today a ‘brown’ country by virtue of its recent incorporation of over 900k Mizrahis Jewish refugees. These so-called “Arab Jews” (and Iranians) had been either forced to flee or suffered expulsion from their Muslim home countries of which they had been citizens for many hundreds of years. Victims of grievous politico-religious persecutions, these Mizrahis were guilty of only one ‘crime’ — being Jews. Their incorporation into Israel constitutes a “second” founding, creating a polyglot racially, ethnically and culturally pluralistic Israel unique in the Middle East. Today, these “Arab Jews” even make up a plurality — 45% — of Israel’s population.
Aside, then, from the West Bank settlement and the egregious policies of rightist Israeli governments, Israel’s vast majority speak of a vibrant ethnically, racially and culturally pluralist society. While I disapprove of establishing religion as the basis of nation-state unity, many countries celebrate it. The result? An Israel, united by Jewish identity, does not then differ in this respect from the many polities where the established religion has been Islam for some time. As long as an Islamic Republic of Iran, Pakistan, UAE, or a Saudi Kingdom of Arabia are recognized worldwide, how can a Jewish state of Israel be denied the same rights?
Op-Eds are not edited by The Highlander, excluding those related to grammatical errors and AP requirements. Op-Eds do not reflect the opinion of the Editorial Board and are not written by Highlander contracted writers.
