The Palestinian Question

Date: February 22, 2024; Updated August 21, 2024

Revision: Substantially Revised: June 20. 2025

Author: Tim Platnich

I am sure hundreds of books and thousands of Ph.D theses have been written on the Palestinian Question. However, for the casual reader of news media, some 'crib notes' may be helpful. Consider the following as crib notes for the critical thinker.

Certain Palestinians, and supporters thereof, claim that Palestinians are entitled to all of the land that comprises present day Israel. They claim that the Israelis are colonists and occupiers. They talk about a 'free Palestine' from 'the river to the sea'. Let's evaluate these claims.

First, we need to define what it means to be a 'Palestinian'. More fundamentally, perhaps, we need to define 'Palestine'. The area known as Palestine before the creation of the state of Israel has a lengthy history. Although there is much debate as to what has traditionally constituted the land of Palestine, for purposes of analysis let's say that, at its greatest extent, it included the land extending in the north from southeastern Syria and Lebanon to the south being the Sinai Pennisula. From west to east, it included the land from the Mediterranean Sea to and including present day Jordan. This area included the ancient areas of Galilee, Samaria, Judea and the Negev dessert.

Since at least 1200 BCE, Hebrews lived in this area. By about 1000 BCE the twelve tribes of the Hebrews were divided into the northern tribal area, called Israel and the southern tribal area called Judah (Judea). The term 'Jew' derives from this southern geographic area and Kingdom. If we want to define 'Palestinians' at that point in time by the people who lived there, they were mostly, if not entirely, Hebrews.

In or about that period, there was a tribe of people known as the 'Philistines'. The name ‘Philistia’ had been used by ancient Greeks in referring to a small strip of land possibly occupied by Philistines in the 12th century BCE. This land was between modern day Tel Aviv and Gaza along the Mediterranean coast.

Whether this small area of land remained occupied by the Philistines over the centuries since 1200 BCE is a matter of controversy.

The ancient Hebrews that occupied Israel and Judea were colonized, and displaced. First, the northern tribal area of Israel was destroyed by the Assyrians in or about 722 BCE. The southern tribal area of Judea survived for a while as a puppet kingdom. Judea's capital was Jerusalem.

In or about 586 BCE, the Babylonians sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the Kingdom of Judea including its temple in Jerusalem. Many Hebrews (or Jews, if you will) from Judea were taken to Babylon where they were held captive - the Babylonian Captivity. The area of Judea was colonized by the Babylonians. In or about 559 BCE, Cyrus the Great defeated the Babylonians and founded the great Persan Empire. Soon thereafter, he allowed the Judeans to leave Babylon and return to their former territory. Some did, some did not.

The areas formerly known as Israel and Judea were colonized by the Persians. Between 520-515 BCE, the second Jerusalem Temple was built by the Jews. The area formerly comprised of the two Hebrew Kingdoms was held under Persian control until the Persians were defeated by Alexander the Great in or about 331/333 BCE.

After the death of Alexander, until about 168 BCE, Judea was under the alternating governance of the Greek Ptolemies and the Greek Seleucids with the Seleucids finally winning out. For a brief period, the Jews gained their independence from about 142 BCE to 63 BCE.

In or about 63 BCE the Romans annexed (or colonized) the land. At the time the Romans conquered the territory, the area was generally known as Judea. There were two major Jewish rebellions against Rome. The second resulted in the destruction of the Second Temple and the dispersal of the Jews living in the area. The Romans renamed the area of Judea to ‘Syria-Palaestina’ as part of a policy to break the Jewish identity. The Romans ruled over Syria-Palaestina until the Arab Muslim conquest in the 7th century. Before the Muslim conquest, the people of the area included Roman and Bedouin polytheists and monotheist Jews and Christians. Islam was not practiced in the area until after the Muslim conquest in the 7th century. It was during the Muslim colonization of the area that Arab Muslims migrated to the Roman area by then coined 'Palestine'.

The modern day definition of 'Palestinians' seems to refer to Muslim Arabs that lived in Palestine at the time of the first world war although at that time Jews; Arab Christians and other Christians; and Muslim Arabs all lived in the area.

Prior to the first World War, since about the 1400s CE, Palestine was part of a province under the administration of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire was administred by Turks out of Istanbul. The Ottoman's did not recognize Palestine as a separate administrative area. The population during this period included Jews, Christian Arabs and Muslim Arabs. Although the statistics are not without controversy, at the commencement of WWI, the population of Jews in Palestine was between 50,000 and 80,000. This compared to a population of about 500,000 Arabs. In the decades leading up to WWI, Jewish migration to Palestine was significant as a result of several factors. One major factor was rising anti-semitism in Europe and Russian. Another factor was the rise of 'Zionism'. Zionism was an ideology that the diaspora of Jews should seek to establish a state of their own and that state should be in Palestine. Zionism arose from the persecution of Jews, primarily in eastern Europe. Jews realized that despite decades of residence in various countries, they would never be fully accepted as equal citizens.

In the last part of the 1800s, thousands of Jews migrated to the area of Palestine, In this period of migration, the Jews bought property in Palestine from Arab landowners and, at times, from the Ottoman Empire itself. Most often the selling Arab landowners were wealthy absentee landlords who had tenant farmers on their land. Jewish purchasers expelled the tenant farmers in many cases. This led to resentment particularly in rural areas.

At some points, viturally the entire Arab world was controlled by the Ottoman Turks. In the 1800s, this control started to breakdown and some areas like Egypt, broke away. Leading up to WWI, many, but not all Arabs, hoped to be free of the Ottoman's and to seek their own independent statehood. There was rivally between different groups and leaders over who should control what areas either under continued Ottoman rule, or separate from that rule. With the outbreak of WWI, some Arab groups fought for the Ottomans, others fought for the Allies, including Britain. The Jews of Palestine fought on the side of the Allies, primarily for Britain.

In the midst of WWI, anticipating the fall of the Ottoman Empire, France and England reached an agreement on dividing up 'protection' for areas of the middle east. This agreement was known as the Sykes-Picot Agreement. The area of Palestine was not clearly dealt with in this Agreement.

Prior to the end of WWI, Britain declared its policy of support for the establishment of a Jewish homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine under the Balfour Declaration. The Declaration also provided that 'nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of exisitng non-Jewish communities in Palestine ...". The area for this homeland was not defined. Locals of the area were not consulted in advance of this Declaration.

In the course of WWI, British troops conquered the Ottoman Empire in Palestine and neighbouring areas. By this time, Britain took the view that it had protective jurisdiction over Palestine as part of the Sykes-Picot Agreement.

The end of the first World War saw the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. The issue of the administration of Palestine (and other middle eastern areas formerly controlled by the Ottomans) came before the Peace Conference of Paris in 1919. Ultimately, it was determined that Great Britain would administer Palestine, and other areas under a 'mandate'. It was also determined that France would administer certain lands, including modern day Lebanon and Syria, under a separate mandate. At this point in time it is estimated there were approximately 700,000 inhabitants of Palestine. Some were Jews and Christians but most were Muslim Arabs .

The concept of a national Jewish home in Palestine, as envisioned in the Balfour Declaration, was approved by the League of Nations Council on July 24, 1922. The Arab states, and those acting on behalf of the Arab and Christian Palestinian inhabitants, opposed the Balfour Declaration and its implementation under the British Mandate. There was also opposition in Britain as many were concerned about the effects on the non-Jewish population of Palestine.

During the French and British Mandates, various groups of Arabs vied for the establishment of separate states. Although there was some interest in forming one 'pan-Arabic' state out of the former Ottoman controlled Arab lands, ultimately those seeking power opted for separate states. In this contest, Palestine was not considered by other Arab leaders as its own state but rather as potentially forming part of their prospective states. Contenders for Palestine included those seeking to control the separate potential states of Syria, Lebanon and Transjordan.

In the meantime, Jews continued to migrate to Palestine under the British Mandate. Tensions grew between Jews and Palestinian Arabs.

WW2 and the Holocaust firmed up opinions on the international front that the Jews needed a homeland. "On November 29, 1947 the United Nations adopted Resolution 181 (also known as the Partition Resolution) that would divide Great Britain's former Palestinian mandate into Jewish and Arab states in May 1948 when the British mandate was scheduled to end."

Resolution 181 was passed by a 2/3 majority vote of the UN. The Arabs walked out declaring the resolution invalid. The Partition established by the resolution gave both the Jews and the Arabs land in Palestine. The Jewish lands (the Partition Lands) comprised only a small part of Palestine when Transjordan is factored in. The rest, except Jerusalem, was to go to the Arabs. Jerusalem was to remain internationally goverened. This Resolution was the first 'two state solution' rejected by the the Arabs, including the Palestinians.

The Resolution kicked off a civil war in Palestine characterized by guerrilla warfare between Jewish and Arab military factions. This continued for several months.

The State of Israel was established in May of 1948 by unilateral declaration of the Jews in Palestine using the boundaries as set by the Partition Resolution. This prompted an immediate conventional war between Israel and its Arab neighbours, including Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan, when the Arabs invaded Palestine. The Arabs thought the war would be short and decisive in their favour. They expected to divide up the lands of Palestine between them. Little regard was given to the fate of the actual resident Arab Palestinians. This war lasted about one year and is typically referred to as the First Arab-Israeli War.

As a result of the First Arab-Israeli War and the creation of the State of Israel, or both, it is estimated that between 520,000 and 1,000,000 Arab Palestinians fled or were expelled from the new territory of Israel into the surrounding lands including Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza. This range of numbers is hotly disputed as is the cause of their departure. Approximately 150,000 Arabs remained in Israel after this War. This made them a minority population within the borders of Israel.

The inhabitants of Palestine, including those within the territory of the new state of Israel, were displaced by the cascading results of the Balfour Declaration, WWI, the League of Nations Resolution, the British Mandate, the UN Resolution; the subsequent creation of the State of Israel and the First Arab-Israeli War. Arguably, Arab Palestinian refugees did not move out of the area that became Israel in significant numbers until the time of the 1948-1949 War. Prior to then, population displacement within what became Israel was largely the result of land sales to Jewish immigrants by Arab land-owners.

As a result of the 1948-1949 War, Israel seized additional land to that established by the UN Resolution of Partition.

There was a Second Arab-Israeli War in 1956. Between the armistice of 1949 and this second war there were thousands of annual border skirmishes between Israelis and neighbouring Arabs primarily around the West Bank, Gaza and the Sinai. Israel sought to neutralize these squirmishes, particularly in the area of Gaza. The Second Arab-Israeli War directly involved Egypt and Israel however this direct conflict was part of a broader international setting including the Cold War. Israel was backed by Britain and France due to their interests in the Suez Canal which Nasser, of Eqypt, had nationalized. Egypt was pro-Russian, another complicating factor. Israel won the war briefly occupying Gaza and the Sinai. One result of this War was a more resolute determination on the part of Arab states to destroy Israel now seen as being part of colonial Europian forces.

The next war in the series of wars occurred in 1967. This war became known as the 'Six-Day War'. The Six Day War involved Israel, Jordan, Syria and Egypt. This War resulted in Israel capturing the Golan Heights (from Syria); the West Bank (from Jordan); and Gaza and the Sinai (from Egypt). Additionally, Israel took control of all of Jerusalem. The War started with pre-emptive attacks by Israel - at least according to Israel they were pre-emptive. Needless to say, the matter is complicated and controversial. Whatever the motivation, almost immediately Israel offered to give back the Golan Heights in exchange for peace with Syria; and give back the Sinai, in exchange for peace with Egypt. Syria and Egypt rejected the overtures. Israel's stance on Gaza and the West Bank was deferred. This was Israel's first attempt at trading land for peace. It was unsuccessful.

By the time of the Six Day War, two Palestinian groups had been formed: the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and Fatah. Until this point, Arab aggression against Israel mostly involved third party states while the Palestinians themselves remained rather quiescent.

The acquisition of these additional lands created a problem within Israel as certain factions of the country wished to keep these additional lands permanently. Settlements in the disputed areas, particularly the Golan and West Bank, commenced almost immediately. The issue of such settlements remains an issue within Israel to this day.

In taking control of the West Bank, Israel also complicated matters with the Palestinians as about 800,000 of them lived in the West Bank. It was the same problem in Gaza. The Palestinians of the West Bank and of Gaza hated Israeli occupation. The occupation re-ignited Palestinian nationalism.

The UN Security Council passed Resolution 242 which required Israel to return to its pre-1967 borders but also required the Arabs to stop their belligerency and accept the sovereignty of the states of the region, including Israel. The Resolution also affirmed the need to solve the Palestinian refugee problem with no specific solution in mind.

In 1973, the region once again was at war. This was the October War also known as the Yom Kippur or Ramadan War. This time, the war was started by the Arabs led by Egypt's Anwar Sadat and Syria's Hafez Assad. Although this War was indecisive from a change or territory perspective, for the first time Israel failed to achieve military dominance. All sides started to realize that resolution of territorial issues would only be achieved through negotiation, not warfare. This did not mean peace however. It just changed the nature of the violence from being overt war to covert terrorism.

In subsequent years, various peace negotiations occured. Israel did reach a peace agreement with Egypt with the result that Egypt recovered the Sinai. Land for peace worked in this instance.

Further, until recently, Israel departed from Gaza. They remain in possession of the Golan, the West Bank and Jerusalem.

With all of this in mind, let's now examine the validity of the Palestinian claim for all of Palestine.

One argument in favour of the claim is that they were there first. Who is 'they'? The history shows that the Hebrews were there long before Muslim Arabs. A claim extending back to the Philistines seems tenuous. It is questionable that the Philistines predated the Hebrews in the area in any event.

Another argument is that the Palestinian Arabs outnumbered the Jews at all relevant points in time leading up to the creation of the State of Isreal. If head counts determine the legitimacy of claims, what does that do to the indigenous claims in the 'new world' where the indigenous people are vastly outnumbered by the new-comers. At what time do we do the head count? Now, or at some past date; if some past date, what date?

Furthermore, if the Muslim Arabs in Palestine were colonists under Mohammad and his followers, how valid is their claim given current views about colonization? Are their claims based on 'we colonized before you recolonized'?

What about a claim based on international law? Well, the State of Israel was created by international law. Having been created by international law, can it be undone by international law? Seems the horse has already left the barn on that one. It is simply impossible, short of genocide, for the Israeli state to be undone. Genocide is not an option. Here I am talking about the State of Israel within its original UN defined borders (possibly as extended by victory in the First Arab-Israeli War). Territories obtained in the War of 1967 are a different matter. At this point, given UN Resolution 242, it is arguably contrary to international law for Israel to retain the Golan Heights and the West Bank as part of Israel's territory. Israel argues that keeping these additional territories are necessary for its defence. This position has not been accepted at the international level. Russia makes the same argument in support of its invasion of Ukraine.

With the demise of the Ottoman Empire, the lands of the Middle East were in play. There were many competing interests respecting those lands. There were the interests of the so-called Great Powers: England, France and the United States. There was the interest of the newly created nation of Turkey. There were the interests of various Arab organizations, clans, kingdoms, and so on. There were the interests of the actual residents of the various lands under consideration. In many ways it was like a great game of Monopoly with various players vying for properties. Early in the piece, there was not a strong Palestinian identity. Palestinians were more defined by anti-Zionism then by a sense of national identity. Within the Pan-Arab world, Palestine was seen as land to be added to other land. i.e. divided up. Syria would get some; Saudi Arabia, some; Lebanon some; Egypt some. The idea that Palestine would be its own independent Arab state came much later in the process.

By the end of WWII, the consensus of the Great Powers was that the lands under the British Mandate would have to be partitioned. Jordan quickly seized upon this opportunity to form its own state taking all of Palestine east of the Jordan River and certain lands on the 'west bank'. This left the remaining portion of Palestine to be paritioned between the Jews and the Arab Muslims. The Arabs within and without Palestine objected to any partition that created a Jewish state. The nascent Arab states voted against the UN's Partition Resolution. Nonetheless, the State of Israel come into existence.

The two state solution was rejected twice more by the Arab world, including the Palestinians: in 1979 as part of the Egypt-Israeli peace negotiations and treaty; and in the 1990s as part of the Oslo Agreements. Since at least the end of WWII, and arguably going back to the end of WWI, the Arab Palestinians have taken an 'all or none' approach regarding Palestine and have gotten none - unless you consider Gaza as an exception. Given recent events with Hamas in Gaza, it seems that 'land for peace' and even a two state solution is unworkable.

Assuming that the State of Israel will remain, the question is what territory is it lawfully entitled to inhabit and occupy. The real areas in dispute are those areas that were occupied following the War of 1967 and which have not been given up: the Golan Heights, the West Bank; and Eastern Jerusalem. Gaza is a special case in light of the events of the last year and a half.

The options at present include: 1) Israel giving back the occupied territories to their original states: Golan Heights to Syria and the West Bank and East Jerusalem to Jordan; 2) creating a Palestinian state out of the occupied territories; 3) Israel keeping the occupied territories; and 4) some combination of the foregoing. To date, none of these options have been acceptable to the stakeholding parties. The violence continues.

A claim by the Palestinians for a state consisting of the West Bank, and possibly the Golan Heights seems defensible as a matter of international law. The principle of self-determination supports that areas where the population is almost all Palestinian should be allowed self-government. Further, the fact that Israel aquired these lands by force, favours an argument that these lands should be relinquished. A claim that the State of Israel should be dissolved is not reasonable given the facts of history, whether those facts should have unfolded as they did or not. Further, the dissolution of the Israeli State would be contrary to the Jewish inhabitants' right of self-determination as they would become a vulnerable minority in a hostile land. They may very well become subject to genocide.

The issues are complex. I hope the foregoing is helpful for the casual reader when evaluating news headlines on the subject.