Learning about Israel

Ponte Corvo sent me One Palestine, Complete, a book about Jews and Arabs under the British Mandate. Heavy book, it seems to equal in page count with one of the later Harry Potter-books.

As I don't have that much knowledge about Israel (beyond that which was teached on the ninth grade of compulsory school (age 15), in high school (age 17) and newspapers thereafter) this is bound to be interesting read. If nothing else, it will afford a new perspective not mentioned in Finnish history books and media obsessed with the current events.

As I was thinking of my education, I remembered that my mother asked me to take my old school books with me when I left after the last visit. I therefore had my 9th grade book easily at hand, and decided to see what it said about Israel. I was somewhat surprised by the clunkiness of the text, but I should probably understand that not all people of that age were really comfortable with books. I decided to translate the chapter to show Finnish view on Israeli history looks like.
I have tried to make the translation easy to myself by keeping many Finnish turns of phrase that might not be entirely at home with the English language - I'm in a bit of a hurry with this text, as I'm leaving home for the weekend and I want this out of the way first.

My history book was called Horisontti - Napoleonista nykypäivään (Horisont - from Napoleon to modern day) and was written by Lappalainen et al, published by Otava in 1995.

The political situation of Middle-East in the mid1980s. The map shows the political areas of influence and local crisis points. A constant threat was that the small clashes on the area might develop into wars between the superpowers. Full fledged war was on between Iraq and Iran. There had been islamic revolution in Iran, where ajatollah Khomeini had ceased power from shaah [?] Riza Pehlevin. Iran was left in discord, which Iraq leader Saddam Hussein tried to take advantage of. The countries had arguments over borders and waterways. Hussein failed, but the war lasted nearly the whole 1980s.

Chapter 73: Middle-East in world politics
Area and its problems
The area shown in the map is called Middle-East. The area's belonging to it range from Egypt to Iran and also include Kypros and Turkey. Middle-East is a political, not geographical term. It is one of the focal points of world politics, and local skirmishes tend to unfold into international matters. The background of the problems is a mixed bag of religious, economical and geographical factors. Middle-East is the cradle of three world religions - judaism, Christianity and Islam. Of the 200 million people on the area the majority are muslims, who have divided into Sunni and Shiia-factions. Of Christians, there are also many factions. The different religious groups have often tried to force their own views with violence. The steepest differences are between the Jews and and arab-muslims.
[About the different nations on the area. ]

The Palestine Question
At the beginning of our recounting of time, Palestine was Judea-named province of Rome, where the majority of people were Jewish. When the Jews rose into rebellion, the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in the year 77. The name of Judea was switched into Palestine, and for Jews diaspora began, the scattering to different parts of the world.
After Romans Palestine has been under the control of Arabs, European crusaders and- after 16th century- Turks. When the Turkish realm started to weaken in the 19th century, a powerful Arab kinship was born, which was first targeted against Turkish control but also against European nations. They too started to be interested of the lands in control of the ebbing Empire. England and France took Egypt under their control when the Suez Channel was built. The First World War meant the final strike to Turkish control, and vast arab-areas were thrown under European control under mandates granted by League of Nations. Great Britain got Palestine, which it hand occupied during the war from Turkey.
During the World War Great Britain promised Jews national home in Palestine and assured that this move would not stamp the rights of Arabs. The promise was the beginning of Jews' exodus to Palestine. It was hastened in Europe - specially in Hitler's Germany - by persecution. On the year of 1918 84 000 of the people in Palestine were Jews - 11%, but by 1948 they were a third of population of two million. This led into clash of interests and violent incidents with Arabs and proceeded to situation where the Brits could no longer contain the situation. On the year 1947 Great Britain decided to subject the future of Palestine to UN to solve.

The birth of Israel and enlargement
The UN had two suggestions. The Arab states suggested proclaiming Palestine as independent nation, where both Arabs and Jews would live. The other suggestion maintained that the area should be divided into Arab and Jewish nations. The second suggestion got the favour of majority vote, and so the Brits left the country and Israel declared itself independent nation in May 1948. Immediately after Israel's neighbours attacked the young nation with the help of Iraqi and Saudi Arabian battalions from every side.
Israel won the war and expanded its area. This happened three times later, as the maps of the next page shows. In 1956 Egypt nationalized the Suez Channel, which led to Israel attacking with France and England against Egypt. In 1967 the president of Egypt Gamal Abdel Nasser closed Israel's access through Akaba Bay to Harbour of Eilat. This led to so-called Six Day war, during which Israel invaded the whole Siinai, strip of Gaza, West Bank and Golan's Heights as well as Arab East-Jerusalem. In 1973 Egypt tried again. Its forces crossed the Suez and dug into defensive lines. At the same time Syria attacked Golan. Israel got weaponry assistance from the United States and blocked the attack. UN tried to instill cease fire and sent to the area peacekeepers, which Middle-East already had had.
In addition to peace negotations UN insisted Israel to leave the occupied areas, but for no effect. On the other hand, peace offering from Egypt led to President of Egypt signing a peace treaty with Israeli Prime Minister Menahem Begin at Camp David in United States. Accoarding to the pact Israel forfeited in 1982 Siinai to Egypt and evacuated the settlements. Egypt in turn recognized the Israeli state and stopped making demands for the independence of Palestine. Arabs declared the Egypt president a traitor.

Refugees and terrorism
When Israel became independent in 1948, most of the Arabs on the area fled to neighbouring states, where they were relocated on camps designed as short-term solution. The amount of refugees was then 700 000-800 000. Similarly over half million Jews moved to Israel. When Israel in 1967 invaded West Bank, the amount of refugees rose to 1,5 million. Today there are over two million on Israeli occupied areas, and the same amount as refugees on Arab countries. All of them have dreamed of founding their own nation.
On the refugee camps people are uneasy, and on them many terrorism using Palestinian resistance organisations have gained support. The operation of these organisations was centred specially in Lebanon, when other border neighbours of Israel had extorted the guerilla fighters from their area in fear of revenge strikes. In 1982 Israel attacked Lebanon, invaded its capital Beirut and finally forces Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) to leave Lebanon.

Surprising pact
In 1987 started on Israeli occupied areas Palestinian uprising, intifada, to which Israel answered with force. The uprising seriously disturbed peace negotiations, which United States as middleman had been able to be initialized between Israel and and the Arabs. In the negotiations Arabs demanded Israel to leave the occupied areas, which Israel saw as important for its security. In September 1993 these negotiations surprisingly led into a pact which has been thought as historical: Israel and PLO recognized each other. At the same time Israeli cabinet agreed on pact which gave Gaza and the town of Jericho autonomy. This pact happened in 1994, when Israeli occupiers left Gaza and Jericho. The pact opened a door for the continued peace progress in the Middle East. In October 1994 Jordan as well did a peace treaty with Israel and in November of the same year Jordan and Syria tied peace between each other as well.

Jewish elder stepping to "promised land". Arabs feared Jews would gain majority in Palestine. They got the Brits to limit immigration as early as 1939. After Germany's surrender the limit was pushed down to 1 500 per month. This led to rampant illegal immigration, that Brits tried to stop even by shooting illegal crossers.