The Chosen Ones

History is always written by the winners. When two cultures clash, the loser is obliterated, and the winner writes the history books - books which glorify their own cause and disparage the conquered foe. As Napoleon once said, 'What is history, but a fable agreed upon? ― Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code

As Palestine was once again thrust into the spotlight a few weeks ago with the bombing of buildings and the killing of innocent children, and Israel crying victim, the world had to revisit its history books to remind itself how we got to this situation.

The Balfour Declaration, one of the most controversial and contested documents in modern history, was Britain's attempt to create a national home for the Jewish people after World War One. This piece of paper allowed the Zionist's agenda to be set in motion. It sealed the fate of the Palestinians whose land was given to other people without their consent in true colonial imperial style.

What followed can only be called a catastrophe, termed an-Nakbah in Arabic. The Declaration led directly (or indirectly) to the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people from the land in 1948 and helped create the state of Israel on 14 May 1948.

The ethnic cleansing continues to this day. The latest village, Sheikh Jarrah, is fighting to remain Palestinian even though Israeli Courts have authorized the eviction of Arabs that have lived there for generations to make way for an Israeli settlement. This "property dispute" sparked off the latest violence with Hamas sending rockets into Israel, and Israel bombing buildings housing civilians and media outlets and killing over 200 civilians, a third of which were children.

Daniel Seidemann, an Israeli lawyer who has been charting Jewish settlement activities in East Jerusalem for 30 years, comments, "You have one city, one war, two peoples, both losing property. .. One can recover the property; the other cannot. That is the original sin of Sheikh Jarrah."

The ceasefire declared on 21 May 2021 and celebrated as a victory by both sides was always too fragile to last.

The truth is that Israel is known internationally as the Apartheid State. It claims to be the only true democracy in the Middle East, yet its laws are divisive instead of inclusive. Arab Israelis and Jewish Israelis are not afforded the same privileges.

Palestinians are even worse off than Arabs holding Israeli citizenship. The huge wall built by Israel separates Palestinian villages in the West Bank from each other more than it separates Palestine from Israel. It is meant to cause hardship as it separates farmers from their land and Palestinians from their places of work. Palestinians need to pass several Israeli military checkpoints to get from one Palestinian village to another. They are often denied entry into Israel or to visit the Al Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site for Muslims.

While Hamas is often blamed for why peace talks fail, Israel's contentious Law of Return, passed in 1950, giving Jews from anywhere in the world the right to come and live in Israel and gain Israeli citizenship, adds insult to injury. Palestinians who fled the Nakba and other countless evictions remain refugees in foreign lands as Israel denies them the right of return. The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics says there are more than 5.9 million Palestinian refugees worldwide today.

So, saying it's complicated is an understatement. The "Chosen Ones" is a matter of who you ask and which history books you refer to. One thing is clear, there can be no peace in the Middle East until Israel, as the occupying force, affords the Palestinians their rights. We can not discuss One or Two State solutions until we tackle the elephant in the room.

In the meantime, it is Sheikh Jarrah today, and tomorrow it will be Silwan.