Presently, the Arabs and the Palestinians are at it again. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the most enduring issues in international politics since the UN-system was created in the aftermath of World War II. It is a conflict that spans across generations and has repercussions and linkages to international law, global politics and contentious politics both within and between states. Its origin could be traced to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip reaching 73 years. In the latest conflict, at least 243 people, including more than 100 women and children, were killed in Gaza, according to its health ministry. Israel has said it killed at least 225 militants during the fighting. Hamas has not given casualty figures for fighters. But in Israel 12 people, including two children, were killed, according to its medical service [1]. This scenario has been recurrent and borne out of the contentious issue of the creation of the State of Israel in Palestine by the British in 1949. Before this period, more than 90% of the total population of the Palestine were Arabs while there were no more than 65,000 Jews. Even among the latter, more than half were immigrants who had arrived in Palestine some three decades before 1917, driven out of various European cities. Regarding the ownership of land, by the period in question, the Palestinian Arabs possessed 97.5% while the Jews, indigenous and foreign, possessed only 2.5%, unable despite the English government encouragement during its mandate period, to exceed [2]. But nevertheless and despite all these facts, by 1949 when the state of Israel was formalised, 80.48% of the land of Palestine became under the Zionist effective domination while a larger population of Palestinian people were to be found in various Arab cities as refugees [3]. Different explanations have been given for this change of tide.

Samir Amin argues that “it was not the implacable power of Zionism’s penetration which opened up the possibility of Israel’s establishment; rather it was the weakness of the Arab nations (or nation)” [4]. Tabitha Petron saw the establishment of the Jewish state as a result of the interaction of Zionism and Nazism [5] While Edward W. Said would have us believe that the contest in Palestine came as a result of the 19th century drive for the seizure of the relatively backward, more or less traditional cultures by the supposed superior and developed ones Said E. [2]. This paper examined these and other explanations given as the causes that led to the establishment and contend that it was indeed the development of European imperialism from the late 19th century that brought about Israel. Before going further to validate such an argument, however, the next section discusses, albeit, briefly about Palestine and Jewish Diaspora. It will look into some happenings and events related within and without Palestine to the emergence of Israel in 1949. This is because it is only by so doing could the picture be brought into light.

The Palestine and Jewish Diaspora

It is very difficult to know who the original residents of Palestine were, but the earliest residents of that area who are known to history are the people referred to in the Old Testament of the Bible as the Canaanites and the Philistines [6]. Towards the second millennium, B.C. the country where they lived was invaded by a people calling themselves the sons of Israel and possessing a monotheistic religion known in English as Judaism. These people, known to us as Jews, established their dominion over the original residents of Palestine, claiming that this land had been promised to them by God. But their kingdoms in Palestine did not survive, and were eventually conquered by the Romans round the beginning of the Christian era. The Romans at Palestine persecuted the Jews on a large scale to the extent of destroying their capital in A.D. 70 and again in A.D. 132 [6]. 

The persecution of the Jews by the Romans via actual massacre and expulsion led to their dispersal into other countries henceforth called Diaspora. At their adopted countries the Jews never assimilated but rather remained as separate communities preserving their own religion, language and general culture. During the centuries of their Diaspora the Jews continued to suffer intermittent persecution, particularly in Christian countries where they settled. Initially the hostility shown towards them was religious in nature as Christians regarded them as the people who had killed Jesus Christ. But eventually it became economic because the Jews became rich through commerce and practice of usury. Thus in Europe the Jews were isolated into ghettos from the Christian population of the cities, from time to time suffered violent persecution (pogrom), and were driven out some countries altogether, as were the Jews of Spain in the 17th century [6]

In the late 19th century there was a revival of this persecution in Eastern Europe after the murder of the Czar Alexander II of Russia in 1918. And in 1900s the famous Dreyfus case [7] in France revealed widespread hatred of the Jews in that country especially among the Roman Catholics. This produced the first of all wave of Jewish emigration from Europe. For example, by 1914 the Jewish population of Palestine, still under the Ottomans, rose to 80,000. Second, it produced the Zionist movement [7].

These said, we shall now go forward and one after another discuss the various positions we highlighted above as the causes of the creation of Israel and later attempt to position our stand on this matter.

The Role of Zionism

The origin of Zionism is today a subject of great debate among scholars. Abdulkadir as-Sufi argues that Zionism has being in force from time immemorial. The success of the French revolution owes a great deal to it and it also played a prominent and decisive role in the success of the Russian Revolution with the hope that when it succeeds they would find a home in Russia [8]. Scholars like Sami Hadawi, however, saw Zionism officially emerging earlier during the first Zionist Congress held in Basle in 1897, under the presidency of Theodore Herzl [9]. Be it what it may, it is worth noting that Zionism has always stands for the creation of Israel. It is a philosophy whose main objectives, as far as the 19th century Zionist leaders were concerned, was to create in Palestine a homeland for the Jewish people and the integration of all the Jews of the world [9]. Thus from the very the Zionist knew exactly what they wanted. Theirs was not the Iraq or Cyprus, East Africa, Argentina or other places promised by the British, but the ‘promised land’ – Palestine. And the latter they were ready to get at all costs even at the expense of other Jews in Europe who consider the latter as their home. 

The role played by German Zionist in welcoming the Nazi rise to power clearly drives home this point. In Germany these people offered the Nazi government their cooperation in finding a solution to the Jewish question having frankly told the German audience that “each country can absorb only a limited number of Jews if she does not want disorders in her stomach” [5]. They were also the first to agitate German Jews to wear the yellow star six years before the Nazi ordered it and capitalised on their position as the only Jews able to associate with the Nazi. It was on this line that the Nazi government and the Jewish agency concluded an agreement under which Zionist selected Jews were permitted to immigrate to Palestine. However, Zionist emissaries came from Palestine – in the worlds of Zionist Kinche brothers – not to save German Jews: that was not their job [10]. Zionist leaders themselves insisted that their major concern was not to rescue the Jews in the wake of Hitler’s holocaust but the establishment of Jewish state in Palestine. In 1943, at the height of exterminations, Itzhak Greenbaum, head of the Jewish Agency Committee declared: “If I am asked could you give from UJA (United Jewish Appeal (moneys to rescue Jews? I say ‘No’, and I say again, ‘No’. In my opinion we have to resist the wave which put Zionism activities in the second line” [11]. The American Zionist leader Rabbi Abba Silver was also quoted to have stated in 1946, “that the rescue of a certain number of refugees, however vital and urgent is not Zionism and that the clear purpose of Zionism was and is to give Jewish people the state of a nation” [12].

Meanwhile, the Zionist propaganda that Zionism was a movement to free Jews and solve the problem of anti-Semitism in the west, that Palestine was a territory where there existed a spiritual bond between God and Jews and that Palestine was a backward province in a backward empire where the Jews enjoying a unique historical privileges could reconstruct and reconstitute into a Jewish homeland, brought the liberal minds to its side. The advent of fascism added a moral prestige to the Jews. Here, it was lamented, were people being in Diaspora for so long a time. Palestine was thus to the liberal the answer to Jewish problems. To oppose this notion means to find one with nowhere in the west. This is true more or less of today.

When the Zionist moved its power base from Europe to the US during the World War II, the Jews here also continued with the same campaign that there was only one solution to their problem – the creation of Israel. “For while many Americans might not support a Jewish state”, wrote Richard Stevens, “Traditional American humanitarism could be exploited in favour of the Zionist case through the refugee problem. Indeed the refugee problem had to remain unsolved in order to ensure the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine” [13]. To further enhanced their cause, the Zionist with US collaboration even went to the extent of publicly bribing the UN delegations in 1946 (when the matter of partition was raised) with mink coats for the delegates’ wives and threat of economic reprisals to compel the General Assembly where the necessary votes had been lacking three days earlier to adopt the partition Resolution of November 1947.

From all these pieces of evidence we can see that right from the start the Jews (Zionists) knew exactly what they wanted. To them the establishment of the state of Israel in Palestine was above all else – even if it were the lives of their kin and kith that were killed in millions in German camps and gas chambers. The Arabs on the other hand, as we shall see below, little conscious of all these developments and activities did little or nothing but demonstrating against Jewish activities in Palestine, Egypt and Syria and waiting for the British to resolve the issue. It was only when they realised that the Jews have seriously came to stay that they started taking up arms.

The Weakness of the Arabs

Vis-à-vis the Zionists implacable efforts to see the creation of Israel by hook or crook was the weaknesses and perhaps the collaborationist attitude of the Arab countries towards the cause of Palestinian Arabs. In Palestine, even during the Othman period, the Arab nationalist could not be but anti-Zionist. These people couldn’t also have failed to see that the establishment of Jewish settlements in Palestine as the beginning of European colonialism. The Ottoman administration, already itself semi-colonised, could therefore offer them little or no protection. Naively, the Arabs turned to the English during the World War I unknown to them the alliance between British imperialism and Zionism was already signed and sealed by the Balfour declaration. Upon knowing about this alliance the Arab desert kinglets accepted the deal. Faycab, the eventual king of Iraq, according to Samir Amin, was the first to commit an open treachery, as asking the price of his throne. In 1919 he signed an agreement with Weizman, which stipulated that ‘in drawing up the constitution and in its administration, every step will be taken to ensure the implementation of the Balfour declaration as indicated in these Faysal Macmahon agreements’ Amin S, op.cit) Faysal is also reported to have said that he was quite in sympathy with both international control of Palestine and the encouragement of Jewish settlements there. An eye witness to Faysal and Weizman talks at Aqaba in June 1918, Colonel Joyce, thought that the Faisal would “welcome a Jewish settlement if it assisted the Arab expansion further north” [14]. This makes it clear that from the start the some Arab leaders were more concerned with their individual selfish ends and expansion than any other cause. And of course the Zionists were then not asking more than that.

A more lukewarm Arab attitude towards the Palestinian question can be seen in their response to the commission set up by the British to look into the Arab riot that erupted in 1929 [15]. The Commission, as reported, recommended help to the landless Arabs, partial restriction of Jewish immigrations and total restriction on land. Hearing about these recommendations, the Jews not only went to lobby the Chancellor Weizmann but carried out in Palestine various atrocities that forced the British government to release a new white paper on this issue. This paper promises the Zionist that there would be no stoppage of Jewish immigration. The Arabs duped again, only called this letter the ‘Black letter’, but did not immediately vent their dismay in violence as they are expected to do partly because of the gracious reception given to their delegation in London by Weizman and partly due to some excellent citrus harvest which at the time accounted for about four-fifth of Palestine (Monroe I.E, op.cit).

Perhaps the Palestinian Arab rebellion of 1936-9 caused by the fear of increasing Jewish population and discovery that the Jews were smuggling in arms in large scale, would have given the Arabs the ground to finishing once and for all the Zionist colonialism of their land. At first the rebellion was seriously in favour of the Palestinian Arabs. But instead of giving the necessary support to the Palestinian Arabs, the Arab countries only formed an Arab High Committee headed by Hadj Amin al Hussain with pro-imperialist governments in Egypt and Iraq and declared general shake and preached civil disobedience on Ghandi model. While the British foreign office even succeeded in encouraging the Arab kings to press their masses who took up arms to lay off arms thus directly helping the imperialists to disarm the revolt (Amin S, op.cit)

The 1942-4 Jewish activities also clearly manifested the nonchalant Arab attitude towards the Palestinian cause. Here the Zionist started with systematic stealing of British arms in Palestine and perpetrating some symbolic murders. In 1944, for example, they successfully murdered British Minister in Cairo, Lord Monroe. All these activities only revived Arab fears [16]. The Palestinian Arabs lacking leadership only resorted to demonstrations in other Arab states. This development led the Arab countries to form the Arab League headed by one Musa al-Alami that succeeded in doing nothing over than calling meetings. The Arab High Council (AHC) that was to later emerged also became nothing but a toothless bull-dog that after the UN voted for partition had to wait for four good months before suggesting that the Arab officials should plan to take over their departments once the British had left [17]. In this way the coordination of Arab groups after its British occupation on 14 May 1948 became completely inadequate to the task ahead.

A more betrayal of Palestine Arabs by other Arab countries could also be found during the war of 1948. The newly independent Arab countries didn’t commit any substantial number of men and equipments to the battle. Of the promised troops only some 25,000 actually entered Palestine. Egypt contributed the largest force. Jordan, Syria, and Iraq sent at least 2,000 – 3,000 men each. Saudi Arabia which promised to be a major participant ended up with less than 1,000 men. All these outsiders lacked the necessary leadership, cooperation, spirit and high motivation that characterised the Jewish forces at the outset of the war [18].

During the same war, the Palestinian Arabs were also promised large stock of arms by the Arab countries on the assumption that they themselves would supply the bulk of the defensive force. However, while these people surely possessed the will, they lacked the basic expertise, advance planning and united leadership necessary to combat the highly organised Jewish troops. Anyhow, even if these were available the Palestinian Arabs wouldn’t have won the struggle, for the promised arms never arrived. Each Arab state also had its own aims, some of them even selfish and thus contrary to the independence Palestinian aspirations. The 6,000 Palestinian Arabs could thus never be compared with the 32,000 Jewish veterans (Ibid). Other great landowners such as the Shaykh of the Bani Sakhr, Mithqal Pasha al Farz also favoured Jewish settlement and colonization. They were also said to have formed a party with Desert Echo as their organ working relentlessly in favour of the Zionist [19].

The role played by the Arab landowners, Absentee Landlords and British authorities in paving the path for the eventual seizure of Palestinian mass land to the Zionist colonialist should also never be underestimated. The former two while publicly claimed to oppose a Zionist takeover took advantage of the higher prices offered by the Jewish National Fund to sell their agricultural land to the Jews. Palestinian largest landowners, the Abd al Hadis, for example, were said to have sold huge tracts of land to the Zionist (E. Monroe op.cit). In 1933, the emir of Trans Jordan himself leased to the Jews 65,000 durams (one duran equals 900 sq metres) in the Ghor al Kabio for 99 years for 20,000 Palestinian pounds (Aroian L, et. al op.cit).

During the period of its mandate, the British authorities also greatly favoured Zionist settlements in Palestine. Seeing this, the Palestinians protested. There were demonstrations, assassinations and savagely repressed riots. Shaken, the Arab ruling classes sold their lands to the Zionist but the peasants refused to do so despite great pressures. As all these transfer of land was taking place, the so-called pressure Arab states only sat behind and watch, so that it was only in 1930 that the Arabs press started to agitate for an end to land sells to Jews. But then even after the campaign the land transfers proceeded. Thus by 1945 significant and sizeable land tracks have already passed to Jewish control, especially in the fertile coastal plain near Haifa and Jaffa where citrus was highly developed Hadawi S, [20]. The implication of all these land transfer is that by 1947 the Zionist which started with only 2.5% had now controlled 5.7% of the land making it very clear that only a political power could enable them to eject the Arabs from their country. And this, the British and later American provided.

Lack of superior weapons, effective methods of warfare and leadership are some other factors that hindered Palestinian resistance to the occupation of their country by the Zionist. As far as the latter was concerned, this issue has long been settled. Their intention (aim) was the dispossession of the indigenous people as this they were well prepared for. They have all the latest models of guns and local arms factories producing as much as 100 sub-machine guns a day, 400,000 rounds of 9 mm ammunition per month, anti-tank guns and large number of other guns ((Ibid). With all these in their hands, Menachem Begin was in April 1948 to boast that, “of the about 800,000 Arabs who lived in the present territory of Israel, only some 165,000 are still alive” (Petron T, op.cit)

The Arabs on the other hand had no full time military force, no consolidated organisation units, no unified command no naval strength. Instead their most powerful military institution runs the age-old system by which a sheikh or village chieftain could call up his followers for specific purposes for a few days. And again not one Arab in a two had any experience in modern ways of warfare or warfare at all. To add salt to injury, Palestinians were only armed with rifles left over from the 1936 rebellion. And when in January 1948 volunteers from other Arab states begin crossing to Palestine, this so called Arab Liberation Army became non-descript and badly or incongruence armed with outdated rifles and pistols some of them even dating back to the World War I. 

With these therefore even a blind can see that any efforts by these people without military training or experience, without unified leaders and arms to hold on their country and home in the face of ruthless Zionist machines powered by alliance and arms coming from all over the world would be nothing but a failure (Petron, ibid).

The Role of the External Forces 

Another force that has largely aided to the establishment of Zionist state is the external supports it received and continues to receive from the western European countries and the US. From the earliest period of its modern evolution until when it culminated into the creation of Israel in 1949, Zionism appeared to European audience whom the classification of overseas territories and natives with various uneven classes was canonical and natural. That is why Zionism co-incidence with European imperialism became easily acceptable to Europeans. Both the two systems are one in the same package with the role of seizure of indigene’s land and exploitation. That explains why, for example, every single state in formerly colonised territories in Africa and Asia never support Israel but always identifies with, fully supports and understand the Palestinian question Said E.W, [2]

The Balfour Declaration of 1917 which clearly expressed the British intention to assist the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people should therefore come as a surprise to no one. Apart from this co-incidence of imperialism and Zionism, the British also support the Jews of the whole world to establish a home for its war preparation and hoping that the latter would also convince and influence the governments of various countries to side with them (Petron, op.cit).

But then nothing made sealed the British-Zionist alliance than the establishment of British World Zionist organisation condominium to rule Palestine. By this act the British now clearly came to assist the Zionist to build a state within a state by granting the Jews everywhere in the world passports to enter Palestine and allowing them to built their arm forces, their own socially exclusive schools, labour and concessions to exploit all Palestine (Said op.cit). While in 1944 the British labour party national executive backing a Jewish Palestinian state clearly came out advocating forceful removal of the Arab population and extension of Palestinian borders at the expense of the Arab states (Hadawi S, op.cit). Apart from all these supports, financial aid was also readily available to the Jews. In the period 1919-1948, for example, the British contributed to the Zionist state building ₤300 – ₤350 million pounds sterling (Petron op.cit).

Getting out of the 1939 Arab revolt with great difficulty, the Zionist found that to survive they needed a new protector. This they found with the United States. The latter not only started providing Israel with the necessary weapons it needed from then but also other aids as well. The total aid of US government excluding military to Israel, for example between 1946 and 1965 equals 1045 8 million dollars whereas the amount of aid received by the 134 Arab states equals 3219.9 million (Said op.cit). From this figures we can deduce that Israel receives ⅓ of the total amount of economic aid offered to Arabs(Ibid).

The role played by United States in 1947 whereby blackmails and scandalous methods were used to forced many states to vote in favour of the partition of Palestine, by which the Zionists who had till their only 57% of the land, obtained 57% of the territory clearly shows the American imperialist handing over to Zionism the basis of its stat (Amin S, op.cit). In short the Zionist relationship with the United States can be considered as a marriage that had brought and continue to bring to the Zionist the necessary infrastructure they needed in the establishment and continuity of the state of Israel today.

In conclusion one can rightly argue that it was not so much the weakness of Arab nations (or nation) that led to the establishment of Israel as Samir Amin would want us to believe, but rather the whole episode centres around the roles played by so many forces we have seen. To limit the creation of the state of Israel, for instance, to the weakness of the Arabs is to undermine the role played by the Arab countries in the 1967 war where by the Arabs not only for the first time presented a common front against Israel to the extent of liberating many of their territories out of Zionist control but also even threatening the foundation of the state itself. Were it not because of the role played by the United States in supplying Israel with all the necessary equipments that she needed to win the war, all will agree that history would have taken another course. It was of course this that led scholars like Edward Said to argue, and rightly too, that it was the world (the West and US) that made Zionism possible.

1. BBC News, Middle East. “Gaza-Israel conflict in pictures: 11 days of destruction.” 22 May 2021, https://www.bbc.com/news.

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3. Sayegh, F. “Did you know?” Palestine: Crisis and liberation, Havana, 1970.

4. Amin, S. The Arab nation: Nationalism and class struggles. Translated by Michael Pallies, London, 1976, p. 8.

5. Petron, T. “‘Palestine, the Arabs and Zionism.’” Palestine: Crisis and liberation, 1970.

6. Smith, A. “‘Historical origins of the Palestine problem.’” ABU Zaria, 1973.

7. “In Dreyfus affair: Topics in chronicling America.” https://guides.loc.gov/chronicling-america-dreyfus-affair.

8. As-Sufi, A. Kufr is one system. London, 1979.

9. Hadawi, S. “‘The zionist movement.’” In T. Petron, Palestine: Crisis and liberation, 1970.

10. Arendt, H. Eichmann in Jerusalem. London, 1963.

11. Hecht, B. Perfidy. New York, 1961.

12. Crossman, R. Palestine mission. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1984.

13. Stevens, R.P. American Zionism and U.S. foreign policy. New York, 1962.

14. Monroe, E. “‘The origin of the palestinian problem.’” In The Middle East: A political and economic survey, edited by Peter Mansfold, London, 1973.

15. United Nations. Ad hoc committee on the Palestinian question: Communication from the United Kingdom delegation to the United Nations. United Nations Information System on the Question of Palestine, 1947.

16. Saidel, J. “Yitzhak Shamir: Why we killed Lord Moyne.” 2012.

17. Hurewitz, C. The struggle for Palestine. New York: Schocken Books, 1950.

18. Aroian, L.A. et al. The modern Middle East and North Africa. New York, 1948.

19. Alon, Y. The shaykh of shaykhs: Mithqal al-Fayiz and tribal leadership in modern Jordan. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2016.

20. Hadawi, S. Land ownership in Palestine. New York, 1957.