A Boring Dystopia

Somehow, I'm not convinced you read any of the links. Did you know over 250 thousand Palestinians were forcibly displaced before Israel declared independence?

There are more than 50 laws that discriminate against Palestinian citizens of Israel. directly or indirectly, based solely on their ethnicity, rendering them second or third class citizens in their own homeland.

By August 1937, "transfer" was a major subject of discussion at the Twentieth Zionist Congress in Zurich, Switzerland. Alluding to the systematic dispossession of Palestinian peasants (fellahin) that Zionist organizations had been engaged in for years, David Ben-Gurion, who would become Israel's first prime minister in 1948, stated: "You are no doubt aware of the [Jewish National Fund's] activity in this respect. Now a transfer of a completely different scope will have to be carried out. In many parts of the country new settlement will not be possible without transferring the Arab fellahin." He concluded: "Jewish power [in Palestine], which grows steadily, will also increase our possibilities to carry out this transfer on a large scale."

By the time the state of Israel was declared on May 14, 1948, more than 200 Palestinian villages had already been emptied as people fled in fear or were forcibly expelled by Zionist forces, and approximately 175,000 Palestinians had been made refugees. By 1949, at least 750,000 Palestinians had been made refugees, losing their land, homes and other belongings in what became known as the "Nakba" ("catastrophe").

Between 1948 (when Israel declared independence) and 1966, Palestinian citizens of Israel were subject to military rule. After 1966, martial law was lifted but to this day they continue to suffer from widespread, systematic and institutionalized discrimination affecting everything from land ownership and employment opportunities to family reunification rights. Today, there are approximately 1.9 million (Updated December 2019) Palestinian citizens of Israel, comprising about 21% of Israel’s population.

The documents describe detailed preparations that were made in the military in the years before 1967, with the intention of organizing in advance the control of territories that the defense establishment assessed – with high certainty – would be conquered in the next war. A perusal of the information indicates that the takeover and retention of these areas – the West Bank from Jordan, the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip from Egypt, and the Golan Heights from Syria – were not a by-product of the fighting, but the manifestation of a strategic approach and prior preparations.

Following the 1967 war, martial law over the Palestinian population as well as the Jordanian, Syrian, and Egyptian populations in these areas was put in place. In 1993, the Oslo I agreements facilitated limited self-rule for Palestinians under the Palestinian National Authority. Officially, only parts of Area C in the West Bank are under martial law.

The first intifada erupted 25 years ago. What started as local demonstrations snowballed into a sweeping popular uprising that did not die down until the convening of the Madrid peace conference at the end of 1991. The intifada reinvigorated the Palestine Liberation Organization, which was at a low ebb in its history after its forced evacuation from Lebanon and the concomitant loss of the military and political option. More important, the intifada shifted the focal point of the Palestinian national struggle from the “outside” to the “inside.”

The Second Intifada, was a major uprising by Palestinians against the Israeli occupation, characterized by a period of heightened violence in the Palestinian territories and Israel between 2000 and 2005. The general triggers for the unrest are speculated to have been centered on the failure of the 2000 Camp David Summit, which was expected to reach a final agreement in July 2000. An uptick in violent incidents started in September 2000, after Israeli politician Ariel Sharon made a provocative visit to the Al-Aqsa compound, which is situated atop the Temple Mount in East Jerusalem; the visit itself was peaceful, but, as anticipated, sparked protests and riots that Israeli police put down with rubber bullets, live ammunition, and tear gas. Within the first few days of the uprising, the IDF had fired one million rounds of ammunition.

The “great march” entailed weekly demonstrations by Palestinians near the fence that since 1996 has separated Gaza and Israel (along the Green Line traced by the armistice agreements of 1949), demanding that the blockade imposed on Gaza be lifted and the return of Palestinian refugees. Prior to the first demonstration, Israeli forces reinforced their positions at the fence with additional troops, including more than 100 sharpshooters. They permitted snipers to shoot at the legs of “main inciters” as a means to prevent a demonstrating crowd from crossing the separation fence.