Forum discusses Palestine's history

BY PAM CURRIE

BRISBANE — A November 7 forum here heard a member of the local Palestinian community, Saleh, and Democratic Socialist Party activist Stan Thompson, speak on the situation in Palestine.

Saleh gave a detailed introduction to the long and often turbulent history of the area, going back to 3000BC, and the Biblical tales of Moses leading the Jews into the land of Canaan. The Crusaders' bloody entrance in the 11th century and British colonialism's arrival in the 20th century were described.

Saleh emphasised that prior to the creation of Israel, the area's Arab majority lived harmoniously with Jewish and Christian minorities. This changed as Zionist and imperialist forces engineered a Jewish state in Palestine, displacing the Palestinian residents.

In 1947, the problem passed to the UN, whose division of the country was unacceptable to the Palestinians. The largely unarmed Palestinian population was defeated in the resulting civil war and hundreds of thousands became refugees. Saleh himself was born after his mother fled to Jordan; his father, a guerilla fighter who had stayed to defend his land, was killed shortly before his birth.

Israel's domination of the area further extended with the 1967 occupation of large areas of neighbouring Palestine, Egypt and Syria, including the West Bank and Gaza.

Thompson explained how the 1990s "peace process" has contributed to the latest fighting in the area. Heavily armed Jewish-only settlements inside Palestinian areas, together with apartheid-style restrictions on the movement and settlement of Palestinians, have generated huge anger in the Palestinian community, with widespread support for resistance to Israel.

The meeting was left in no doubt that the "peace process" is in fact nothing of the sort; with the US playing a treacherous role in supporting Israel in crushing Palestinian protests to maintain their economic, political and military control of the region.

From GLW issue 428