The Iron Wall - Israel and the Arab World (Avi Shlaim)

Note: This reflection is part of a wider reading around Palestine, which in turn was prompted by “ongoing events,” and was first published on Substack in February 2024.

Disclaimer: for anyone interested, I have no direct link to either Palestine or Israel, to Zionism or Judaism or Islam. My main connection to what we might term “the protagonists” of this conflict is simply that we are all human-beings. Writing, reflecting, or even discussing this particular conflict is made even more challenging with the choice of words – not only are we using terms such as Zionism, Judaism, or Islam, but we speak of Palestinians and Israelis, Europeans and Arabs, about a conflict and a war and a genocide and an ethnic cleansing, we speak of the Shoa and the Nakba, we use terms such as apartheid and war crimes, settler-colonialism, terrorism and freedom fighters and self-defence, The West, the Global South, oppressor and oppressed, inheritance and ownership and theft, trauma, ancestral rights, God-ordained, and so on so forth until the words are used so often that time is spent defining them or they begin to lose meaning or impact.

The copy I have of Avi Shlaim’s The Iron Wall: Israel and The Arab World was first published in 2002 (though there is an updated version), and since that time the context of the conflict has shifted gears a number of times, not least since the close of 2023. His text ends with the rise of Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak in the 1990s, closing with Barak’s victory over Netanyahu in 1999, which serves as a good basis for learning about the current context also.

The focus of the text is the approach taken by Israel’s founders and leadership since its inception and creation, which has been largely influenced by Ze’ev Jabotinsky’s (1880-1940) “Iron Wall”, which is the Zionist and Israeli strategy/approach for dealing with the Arab world and peoples within which the state of Israel was founded, both in terms of the population of people already living in the land (the Palestinians), and the neighbouring nations created following the dissolution and defeat of the Ottoman Empire.

It should be noted that Avi Shlaim is classed as an Israeli “New Historian”, part of a group of Israeli historians/scholars who challenged the traditional versions and narratives established regarding Israel and its creation in 1948. Shalim’s text is based on extensive archived documents as well as interviews with policymakers and participants in the events described.

The starting point, as can often be (though it need not be) is Zionism, and the first key learning has to be that Israel does not equate to or represent Judaism. Israel equates to and represents Zionism, which some argue is an ethno-nationalist-fascist ideology. Importantly, this means that criticising or analysing the actions of Israel is not anti-Semitic or an attack on people of the Jewish faith (even though the citizens of Israel may regard themselves as being of the Jewish faith).

Shlaim has it that Zionism “emerged in Europe during the last two decades of the 19^th Century” and was focused on the “national revival of the Jewish people in its ancestral home after nearly two thousand years of exile”. This is on the first page of the prologue, and we can regard the language used, particularly the word “ancestral”, as an amber flag. If the notion of ancestral home is the premise on which this ideology is founded, then it opens up dangerous territory for Humanity as a whole, especially if we consider that the basis for the ancestry is a text which some may regard as more myth than accurate events/history.

What can’t be ignored, however, is the treatment of Jewish people at that time (and at other times), particularly (or for the most part?) in Europe. There were “two basic facts": that the Jews were dispersed in various countries around the world, and that in each country they constituted a minority. In addition, they faced cycles of persecution, ill-treatment, and scorn. The solution proposed by Theodore Herzl (1860-1904), the “visionary” founder of Zionism, was a return to Zion (in Palestine), to achieve majority status in the land, and to achieve statehood. If we consider the context of Europe at the time, with the “upsurge of nationalism”, and if we put our mind into this frame, it isn’t as obscene to consider that a group of people who were facing such persecution would want a place to call their own, to come together for self-determination, to found “a new society based on the universal values of freedom, democracy, and social justice”, (though the right to self-determination, as we shall see, was denied to the Palestinians).

Shlaim notes that it wasn’t enough to gain justice in the lands in which the scattered Jewish peoples were living, though. Herzl “concluded that the assimilation and emancipation could not work because the Jews were a nation. Their problem was not economic or social or religious but national. It followed rationally from these premises that the only solution was for the Jews to leave the diaspora and acquire a territory over which they would exercise sovereignty and establish a state of their own.”

Once more we can take issue with the language that Shlaim deploys in that we cannot be sure that it does follow rationally, and we cannot say it was the only solution. Nevertheless, there was a bit of a problem: “the bride is beautiful, but she is married to another man” - that is, the land was already inhabited. Again, if this is the key idea at play in the early Zionist thinking, even if we take into account the different attitudes and manners of speaking, it does feel a little obscene. Perhaps an apologist for Zionism would argue that the bride was unhappily married, or that she was in an abusive relationship (I don’t mean to say these things were true, merely that an apologist may state this in defence of the new man seducing, stealing away, or claiming the woman – it’s unclear whether the supposed bride has any say in this): but this would be a fragile approach to take.

Shlaim notes that Herzl “viewed the natives as primitive and backward, and his attitude towards them was rather patronising”. This is the second key learning we can identify when learing about this conflict: the attitude of key Zionists and leaders of Israel towards Palestinians (and, by way of extension, Arabs), appears to be consistently derogatory and dangerous. This is clearly evidenced in the present day as well. This does nothing to weaken the assertion that Zionism is simply a settler-colonial project, a continuation of the approaches and atrocities committed by European empires from Britain to Belgium.

Furthermore, we see that Herzl and others have a clearly colonial, racist mindset: “as the bearers of all the benefits of Western civilization, the Jews, he thought, might be welcomed by the residents of the backward East.” I appreciate that the language here is Shlaim’s, but we need only look at the language being used by Israeli leadership today (and this includes their society and supporters/apologists), words such as “vermin”, phrases such as “children of darkness”, and references to “Amalek” to see the obvious attempt to create an Other and to dehumanise the Palestinians in order to justify acts/atrocities, to shape discourses, and to dull minds.

Up to this point we have established the reasons given for why the nation state of Israel was proposed; we now move into the how, or the mechanisms and approaches taken to realise the vision.

Herzl’s basic aim for this was to obtain support from the great powers of the day. This is the third key learning: Israel was created (and the Palestinians were displaced and cleansed) with the support and coercion of other nations, most notably Great Britain and the United States of America. Herzl wanted to bypass the Palestinians and to simultaneously seek non-recognition of Palestine as a national entity. We might consider this to be incredibly devious, but the movements of politics move in ways which may appear (indeed, which are) horrific. Again, it could simply be stripped back to a consideration of self-preservation of a particular group. Herzl had it that the “Zionist movement would achieve its goal not through an understanding with the local Palestinians but through an alliance with the dominant great power of the day”. The interesting point here is that the visionary of Zionism felt that a dialogue with the people living in the land was pointless. This to me feels like an indication that he recognised their intention was a kind of criminal undertaking, and that they basically needed the power structure to work for them rather than for the Palestinians.

The Zionist movement had two main branches: Political Zionism (with priority placed on diplomatic activity to gain support), and Practical Zionism (stressing immigration to Palestine, land acquisition, and settlement) - we can argue that these approaches remain in place today. The two approaches were brought together in “Synthetic Zionism” by Chaim Weizmann (1874-1952), who was born in the Russian Empire (in modern-day Belarus), became a British citizen in 1910, was extremely well-connected to the British establishment of the day (including with Arthur Balfour), was president of the British Zionist Ferderation, and eventually the first president of Israel. This is perhaps the most succinct way of summarising his life.

With this basis established, Shlaim begins to provide the wider geopolitical context of the day by way of introducing the Arab world, particularly Iraq and the Transjordan, which were the two main pillars of Britain’s empire in the Middle East following World War 1 and the Sykes-Picot Agreement. From 1918-1920, the Zionists put forward their own “maximalist” interpretation of the infamous Balfour Declaration, with a national home to stretch across “both banks” of the River Jordan, and to “make Palestine as Jewish as England is English”.

Shlaim also makes reference to the Palestinian national movement arising at this time, but it is described as “aggressive” with “outbursts of violence”. This way of describing the Palestinian approach (from then until now) seems to me not only dismissive, but also to be missing the fact that when someone (or some group) feel voiceless and unheard, then communication may be made through actions. As any teacher will be able to tell you: “all behaviour is a form of communication”.

Interestingly, and I may have missed some detail here so my apologies if this is the case, but Shlaim appears to omit key detail about the attempts made by Palestinian leadership during this time to engage and advocate diplomatically, and how these attempts were blocked, ignored, and bypassed. I don’t necessarily mean this as a criticism, however, as the focus is very much on the shaping of the Israeli mindset in the context of the Iron Wall.

This leads us to Ze’ev Jabotinsky (1880-1940), who is named as the “spiritual father of the Israeli right,” which makes him a point of reference for current events also. Jabotinsky coins the term “the iron wall” of military force. He declares that “we Jews have nothing in common with what is denoted ‘the East’ and we thank God for that”. Here we have Orientalism in second gear, as he continues Herzl’s line of thinking that the Jewish people “belong” to the West “culturally, morally, and spiritually”, and that they are “an offshoot or implant of Western civilization in the East.” Again, if these are the premises and foundations of thinking that are the basis of Zionism and the nation state of Israel, an apologist (or, at best, an objective observer/thinker) would find it difficult to establish that the creating of the state is a natural or moral undertaking – but perhaps this is the point: the creation of any nation state, the claiming of any piece of land, is an unnatural thing, something which doesn’t really mean anything besides the will to claim and the ability to give voice to the claim (and to defend that claim, whether through discourse or destruction).

Jabotinsky asks whether supposedly peaceful aims can be achieved by peaceful means? The answer “he insisted, depended on the attitude of the Arabs towards Zionism”. In other words, peace depended upon whether the inhabitants of the land would peacefully move on and let their land be bought/taken/apprehended/stolen/appropriated; whether the inhabitants of the land would peacefully respond to intimidation/threats/violence/manipulation etc etc.

If the connection to European colonialism were not already established enough, Jabotinksy (it is worth repeating: “the spiritual father of the Israeli right”), states that Zionism, as a geostrategic conception is “to be permanently allied with European colonialism […] against all the Arabs in the eastern Mediterranean,” and that:

“every indigenous people will resist alien settlers as long as they see any hope of ridding themselves of the danger of foreign settlement.”

Again, it is worth emphasising that the very founders and leading thinkers of Zionism and the nation state of Israel regarded themselves as foreign to the land of Palestine, and they recognised that the Palestinians were the indigenous people of the land.

He directed his followers to “continue them" (that is, creating settlements) "without paying attention to the mood of the natives”. He directed the Zionist settlers to continue to use force until the moderate Arabs began to compromise and bargain from a position of weakness. Indeed, we can say that this line of attack played out pretty much as planned for the visionary founders of Zionism, though they would not perhaps have expected the Palestinian people to show such remarkable resilience (or for the narrative of the times to shift so that ordinary citizens around the world could recognise the injustice, and furthermore for the mechanisms which control and shape narratives to become challenged).

There is a huge amount that can be taken from Jabotinsky that feels very pertinent to the “current events” as well as the rationale given for Zionism in terms of the actions and approach taken by the nation state of Israel towards Palestinians. He anticipated criticism of his position and approach by stating that Zionism was either a positive phenomenon or a negative one: “if the cause if just, justice must triumph, without regard to the assent or dissent of anyone else.” It could be argued that this is one of the key considerations of this whole conflict: was the creation of the nation state of Israel just? How much consideration needs to be given to the “dissent”, let alone opinion or feeling, of any other parties/peoples affected by such as major act of creating a nation state on a land inhabited? How much is the oppression and ill-treatment of the Jewish people in Europe a factor in the basis for a moral argument in favour of the creation of Israel? Is there a reason why the leadership of the USA and Great Britain, let alone France, Germany, Australia and so on seem so wedded to the support of Israel? Is it enough to say that it follows in terms of the link to colonialism? Or is it that the idea of the nation state of Israel, its very existence, is somehow imperative to the survival (or psyche) of those nations? We can certainly consider the clear colonial connections between the USA and Australia and Israel, with their “approach” to the native populations and their views on what they regarded, or claimed to be, inefficiently used lands (or lands regarded as terra nullius).

Regardless, one thing we know for sure is that the early leaders and prime movers of Zionism and the nation state of Israel had a disregard for the Palestinians (and, by extension, the Arabs). Jabotinsky himself wrote against the democratic right of the “Arab majority” to national self-determination as he felt that the Jews had a “moral right to return to Palestine”. Nothing is said of the “moral right” of Palestinians for anything, which seems to me to be another amber flag that there is a kind of hierarchy at play here, where one peoples’ views and needs are regarded as superior – again, this does nothing to weaken the assertion that Zionism is a racist ideology, and that the creation of the nation state of Israel a racist undertaking.

It is important to note, however, as Shlaim does, that the Zionist movement was not a “monolithic movement but a collection of rival political parties”, the implication being that the views of Jabotinsky and, perhaps, Herzl, were tempered or offset by more liberal approaches. This is certainly worth exploring, though the majority of information I’ve encountered so far seems to be very clearly in the Jabotinsky and Herzl stream of thought. For his part, Jabotinsky “never wavered in his conviction” in military power being the key for Israel.

From Herzl to Jabotinsky, Shlaim then moves to the next Goliath of Zionism and Israeli history: David Ben-Gurion (1886-1973), born David Grün, who, early in his career, came to the conclusion that “the conflict between Zionism and the Arabs was inescapable” and “presented a formidable challenge.” This seems to me to be quite a basic revelation. I expect that, if I want X, and person Y is unwilling to sell or give me X, if I choose to take X by force or in some underhanded way, there may be some trouble ahead.

Ben-Gurion, like Herzl, first tried gaining the support of the great powers of the day: allegiance to the Ottomans, the British, the Americans. But following the so-called Arab Revolt (1936), he stated that “we and they want the same thing: we both want Palestine. And that is the fundamental conflict.” Again, this seems like quite a basic fact to state, but perhaps it was more profound or insightful at the time. Importantly, Shlaim notes that Ben-Gurion recognises that Israel are the aggressors and that the Arabs were defending themselves – this is an interesting corrolary to the arguments made regarding self-defence in our current day: even the right to self-defence has been appropriated by the state of Israel.

Following the Arab Revolt, Lord Peel (1867-1937) recommended the partition of the country. It is often stated that the Arabs (and the Palestinian leadership) “missed opportunities” for some kind of settlement or peace, or that they have continuously rejected or been opposed to a solution, but this feels unfair considering what we’ve heard from the key leaders of Zionism about their intentions, their approach, and the ways in which they viewed the Palestinians. In the very least it calls into question the sincerity of any dialogue between Zionist leaders and the Palestinians and wider Arab community. This idea of missed opportunities is further explored in Neil Caplan’s The Israel-Palestine Conflict, and Rashid Khalidi’s The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine.

Shlaim states that “the moral case for a home for the Jewish people in Palestine was widely accepted from the beginning; after the Holocaust it became unassailable.” It is contentious to assert that the moral case was widely accepted, but we can certainly say that the Holocaust is a key trauma in this conflict, and that this trauma weighs heavily on the people/victims affected by it as well as weighing heavily on the debate around the creation of Israel. It cannot be overlooked, just as the experiences of the Palestinians cannot be overlooked. Caplan, in particular, has an interesting perspective on this – namely that both parties have a difficulty in understanding the traumas inflicted on the other party, and that this constitutes a key barrier ('intractable') in progression of dialogue.

Following the War of Independence and The Nakba (the catastrophe), “Palestinian society disintegrated under impact of the Jewish” (interesting that Shlaim opts for the word “Jewish” rather than “Israeli” or “Zionist”) “military offensive”, and that the “exodus” (again, interesting choice of word) “of the Palestinians was set in motion.” The bulk of the Palestinian refugees ended up in the West Bank and Gaza, as well as neighbouring Arab countries. Shlaim notes that the Israeli Declaration of Independence was based on the principles of liberty, justice and peace, as well as full social and political equality without distinction, with equal rights for Arab inhabitants.

As noted at the outset, Shlaim is regarded as an Israeli New Historian in the sense that he challenged the broadly accepted narratives about Israel. This is evident in how the Zionist version of the 1948 war was of a Jewish David against an Arab Goliath of seven invading armies, when in reality this was propaganda, a “prime example of the use of a nationalist version of history in the process of nation building.” He notes that the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) “significantly outnumbered all the Arab forces”, and that each of the Arab states were also moved by “dynastic or national interests” - in other words that they had divisions which were skilfully exploited by the Zionists/Israelis. Shlaim also explores how the special relationship between Israel and King Abdullah (of Transjordan) was a major factor in determining the course and outcome of the war in the sense of “breaking the chain” of hostile Arab states.

The war itself had a “significant psychological effect” on Israel: it showed the “advantages of direct action over negotiation and diplomacy” (wrote former president of the World Zionist Organisation, Nahum Goldman, 1895-1982). This in turn became Israel’s policy with the Arab world (a kind of vindication of Jabotinsky’s proposal), though Shlaim notes that this approach includes ignoring United Nations’ calls for a ceasefire, with Israel in the end only conceding to pressure from America, a trend which carried through the decades that followed. The Rhodes Armistice Agreements (1949) left the Palestinians out of the conversation entirely. They had been, as Herzl had hoped, bypassed and ignored. In 1949, the name ‘Palestine’ was erased from official maps.

Two key issues followed: what to do with the refugees, and what to do about the borders? “The position was that Israel alone had created the refugee problem”, but Israel claimed that the Arabs had created the problem by starting the war. This seems an incredible position to take, but if we consider the extraordinary attitude/mindset taken to this point already (not to mention some of the rhetoric being circulated today), it is perhaps unsurprising that this would be the position taken. Time and again the information reported and recorded about the inception of Zionism through to the creation of the Israeli state and on through today displays a cruel disregard for the Palestinian people.

At the time, Shlaim noted that Israel rejected UN resolutions (such as giving refugees a choice between returning “home” and receiving a compensation). Furthermore, time, writes Shlaim, “worked to Israel’s advantage”. It was a case of waiting it out, no matter what agencies, such as the UN, said. Perhaps with all the other horrors and traumas of this age, and with the shift into the Cold War era (and the geopolitical advantages to Britain and the USA of having the Israeli state in the middle-east), the nations of the world simply accepted the Israeli narrative.

Nevertheless, and perhaps most importantly to this whole diabolical history, the Palestinians did not accept the narrative. They continued to struggle and to respond and to defend. The Arabs, writes Shlaim, claimed that the Palestinians were entitled to struggle against the occupation, and that they (the Arab states) were under no obligation to curb this struggle. Some 700,000 Palestinians were made refugees, with 92,000 remaining in “Israel”. Jerusalem, a holy city for the three Abrahamic faiths, was a city divided, or “nationalised” under UN rule. But not for long – this arrangement was fragile. In 1950, Jordan formally annexed the West Bank, and Shlaim notes how Israel began to battle with “infiltrators”, who were mostly motivated by social or economic reasons (with the trauma still present) rather than political motives. The Israeli approach was to shoot first and ask questions later. Indeed, Shlaim notes that soldiers in the IDF, coping with the day-to-day security of borders, showed disregard for human lives and “carried out some barbaric acts that can only be described as war crimes.”

For its part, and as a corollary for today, Israel argued that the Palestinians “infiltrators” were aided and abetted by Arab governments, that they were engaging in a form of “guerilla warfare”, that Israel was the “innocent victim of Arab provocation and aggression”, and that its military reprisals were “a legitimate form of self-defence”. If your starting point is that the land belongs to you because you say it is, that the people there are vermin, that their views and voices don’t matter, then how much further are you really going by claiming self-defence against displaced peoples who attack back? The political climate in Israel in the 1950s, writes Shlaim, was therefore “generally conducive to the use of force in dealing with the Arabs”.

In 1953 this approach was brought to the world’s attention once more, leading to international condemnation, when the IDF committed an attack on a Jordanian village (14^th - 15^th October). Shlaim examines both how the ruling powers initially tried to cover-up this event, and how Moshe Dayan (1915-1981), argued that “terrorist incursions” were to blame. (He also perceived the conflict as “a struggle for survival between two communities whose interests were irreconcilable”, which seems rather final.)

Aryeh Eilan, an official in the Foreign Ministry, is quoted as saying “if there are no proofs, we have to fabricate them.” If all this seems reprehensible, it also sounds somewhat familiar, though in the interests of objectivity we should state that Israel cannot be identified as unique in this: perhaps it is the case that human-beings on the whole, and certainly the ruling powers, are capable of anything, and that politics has espionage and shadow play as its core.

In addition to what we might view as a reprehensible approach, Shlaim confirms that the mindset of Zionist leaders (and, by this time, Israeli leadership), was at best dismissive of the Palestinians, and at worst dangerous: “Ben-Gurion’s basic image of Arabs was that of a primitive, fierce, and fanatical enemy that understood only the language of force.”

Our brains haven’t changed much over the past 10,000 years, and despite what we may view as the accumulation of knowledge, we can say that our intuition for morality has largely been consistent, but there does appear to be a very troubling period coinciding with race science from the Enlightenment through the age of colonialism and into the past century. It seems at best contentious, but at worst unhinged, to state that a particular group of people (however we choose to define it) are primitive and fierce, or that they only understand the language of force. If we were to say, for example, that all supporters of Chelsea Football Club were racists, it would be an offensive position to take, despite there being quite a lot of them. Today, we hear these broad statements being made about X people being Y (and these can appear more positive, such as “the Chinese are great at maths”), but aside from being cretinous, it makes the basic error of ignoring other factors in the context.

Ben-Gurion faced a difficult issue, however, in that the primitive Arabs had increased bargaining power due to the demand for oil, which had become vital to the world economy, not to mention the plays being made by the USA and the Soviet Union in the Middle East.

Whilst Shlaim focuses on Israeli leadership, there is long detour to give attention to Gamel Abdel Nasser (1918-1970), the second President of Egypt. Nasser viewed the 1954 Gaza Raid as a key turning point, and it “destroyed his faith in the possibility of a peaceful resolution.” This is, of course, a resolution in terms of Israeli/Egyptian relations rather than for Palestinians, but the connection is clear.

At this time, Israel established closer ties with France, including an arms deal, which Shlaim argues was, for France, in part motivated by the context of their fight against Algerian resistance and the sense of them both having a common foe in Egypt. It is interesting to note that the key supporters of Israel since its inception and creation have been colonial powers such as the USA, Britain, and France, or western-aligned powers such as Germany and Japan, or problematic states such as apartheid South Africa. Aside from the Sykes-Picot agreement and the Suez Canal crisis, the key detail for French-Israeli relations is undoubtedly the delivery of a nuclear reactor in 1957 which led to Israel becoming a nuclear power within a highly unstable region, by its own admission surrounded by enemies. Was this an important deterrent for Israel to secure? Certainly it carries a certain prestige in the sense of lethal weaponry, and maintaining this prestige within the region seems like a key objective for the state.

The secret accord of Britain, France, and Israel engaged Egypt in what is referred to as the Suez Crisis (or Tripartite Aggression), and which is also considered to be a catastrophe for the British and French, evidencing their downgrade in status on the world stage. Nasser emerged as a leader of the Arab world on a wave of Pan-Arabism, and he took the lead in establishing the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) in 1964. In order to circumvent the Pan-Arabism, Israel attempted an "Alliance of the Periphery" with states such as Iran, Turkey, and Ethiopia, beyond the “rings” of the immediate Arab neighbours. There is the further context of the Cold War here (with Iran and Turkey being on the front line, so to speak, of the Soviet Union).

Shlaim also brings attention to the Eisenhower Doctrine (1957), which promised military aid and co-operation to Middle Eastern countries against any overt aggression to countries “controlled by international Communism”. The special relationship between the USA and Israel is a key focus within today’s discourses and narratives, though it must be said that the sense we get from Shlaim’s text is that there has been an ebb and flow of US support for Israel (though there is a clear signposting that this changes with President Bill Clinton, who some argue was a close associate of Jeffrey Epstein, a disgraced financier-pedophile and alleged Mossad agent).

Levi Eshkol (1895-1969) succeeded Ben-Gurion in 1963 and, like Moshe Sharett (1894-1965) the second Prime Minister of Israel, he is regarded by Shlaim as displaying a more humane attitude towards the Palestinians. Eshkol sees the Arabs “not just as an enemy but as a people; he did not think that Israel was 'doomed' to live forever by the sword.” During the 1960s, Shlaim outlines that the main problems for Israel were the Syrian border, with its de-militarised zone (DMZ), issues with water supply, and Palestinian guerillas. The water issue is an interesting aside, and the geographical considerations can often be reduced to the background when considering the human costs to conflicts and war (consider, for example, the offshore gas reserves off the coast of Gaza, or the proposed pipeline of oil to run from Saudi Arabia through Palestine and into the Mediterranean) – the water issue was around the river Jordan and how it was vital to the agriculture of Israel, Jordan, Syria, as well as Lebanon.

In 1964 an Arab League summit declared that their ultimate aim was the destruction of Israel, thus confirming Israeli concerns about the threat surrounding them. Soon afterwards the significant conflict known as the Six Day War takes place. Shlaim outlines that Israel made continued provocations against Syria (such as moving tractors into the DMZ until they were fired upon and then responding – or the equivalent of poking someone with a stick until they respond and then “defending” against the attack). Egypt and Syria had formed a defence pact, which in turn led to their involvement, with Nasser knowing that “Israel’s entire defence policy was based on imposing its will on its enemies, not on submitting to unilateral dictates by them” in reference to Egypt closing the Straits of Tiran. The US president at this time was Lyndon Johnson, and he asserted that this was a key cause of the Six Day War.

As a result of this war, Israel captured the entire Sinai peninsula from Egypt, the West Bank from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria. The victory also, Shlaim notes, reopened the question about the true territorial aims of Zionism (in terms of Greater Israel, more on which to follow).

A UN Security Council Resolution (242) followed the war, and this supported the Arab states on the issue of territory and the Israeli state on the issue of peace: read another way, Israel was to get peace in exchange for returning territories. Interestingly, this resolution makes only indirect reference to the Palestinians by calling for a solution to the “refugee problem.” There are large gaps in history where the Palestinian voice is unheard or ignored, at least in global and regional forums.

Immediately following this time, Shlaim notes the Israeli strategy (and diplomacy) of attrition: “Israel’s confidence in its ability to preserve the status quo came from two main sources: a favourable military balance and strong support from the United States.”

But there is a degree of coldness hinted at from the US side, as per the Nixon Doctrine which recommended that the United States should avoid direct military engagement in the so-called third world, relying instead on proxies.

In 1973 there was the Yom Kippur War, in which the Egyptian and Syrian forces combined to launch a surprise attack against Israel. Their aim was to break the deadlock and force the superpowers to intervene and put pressure on Israel to relinquish the captured territories. Then, in 1974, the Palestinian National Council shifted the emphasis from armed struggle to a political solution, and an Arab League Summit endorsed the claim of the PLO to be the “sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people”. Not long after this, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution affirming the right of the Palestinian people to national self-determination. Some 28 years had passed from 1948 to this point, and the only time we appear to hear about the Palestinians is in the context of their displacement (as refugees), and their disaffection (in terms of guerilla warfare or infiltration).

In 1977 President Carter became the first American president to “champion” the Palestinian right to national self-determination, but this coincided with a rise in the Israeli right, particularly the Likud party whose ideology, Shlaim writes, “could be summed up in two words: Greater Israel”. This is a maximalist interpretation of the borders of Israel, and includes the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) as an integral part of Isreal. Jabotinsky, Shlaim writes, was a key source of inspiration for this idea, and the Likud leader at this time, Menachem Begin (1913-1992), is described as seeing the world as “profoundly anti-Semitic” displaying hostility towards the Arabs.

Egypt had turned to more direct attempts at reconciliation, and in 1978 they were part of the Camp David Accords which proposed a “framework for peace in the Middle East”, and which called for “the resolution of the Palestinian problem in all aspects.” For Begin, the Camp David accords “neutralised” Egypt as an active confrontation state. Egypt regained the Sinai, but this was at the cost of being expelled from the Arab League.

Israel launched an attack on an Iraqi nuclear facility in 1981, whilst at the same time “it became official policy to establish a permanent and coercive jurisdiction over the 1.3 million Arabs of the West Bank and Gaza.” In addition, Israel annexed the Golan Heights, which constituted a violation of the principles of international law, of certain UN Resolutions, and the Camp David Accords. We see time and again that agreements are made which Israel decides to either ignore or renege upon, leading to more difficulty/confrontation.

In 1982, hard-liners within the Israeli leadership reacted to a PLO attack on an Israeli ambassador and a war on Lebanon was launched, which included a prolonged siege on the Lebanese capital, Beirut. Althoug only touched upon here, there is more detail on the chilling horror of this conflict in Khalidi's The 100 Years's War on Palestine.

The PLO was banished from their stronghold in Lebanon to the “periphery of the Arab world.” Following this war, President Ronald Reagan announced a new peace plan, and the USA explicitly rejected Israel’s claim over the West Bank and Gaza (there’s the ebb and flow, at least in outward appearance). The attack on Lebanon had a negative effect on Arab perceptions of Israel, contrasted to the positives in terms of their withdrawal from Sinai. In this stage of conflict, Shlaim notes how the violence of Israel’s opponents is described as “terror”, whilst its own violence is regarded as “legitimate self-defence” - once again we have a striking corollary to current events, and a lesson in the power that language holds for the audience.

Shlaim notes that during this time “a feeling of hopelessness took hold as the Palestinians watched more and more of their land being swallowed up by Israeli settlements.” And it is no wonder. Anyone who has been wronged or oppressed or abused will know the feeling of helplessness, particularly if the power structure appears to be set against you.

With this building up, in 1987 the occupied territories were engulfed in a wave of spontaneous, popular street demonstrations, with “the standard of revolt against Israeli rule” being raised. This is what is known as the First Intifada.

The Intifada had its roots, Shlaim claims, in poverty, in the “miserable living conditions of the refugee camps, in hatred of the occupation and […] humiliation.” This may be regarded as the Palestinian War for Independence, and the Israeli/IDF response is described as draconian, with deportations, assassinations, detentions, arrests, and punitive economic policies. All this, remember, in a land that Israel was occupying.

Shlaim argues that Israel was beginning to learn that “power has limits” that “iron can smash iron [but] it cannot smash an unarmed fist.” The plight of the Palestinian people was brought into more widespread attention as media coverage worldwide intensified, showing armed forces against civilians. Indeed, with current events, it is interesting to note the abundance of footage of atrocities, as well as an apparent targeting of journalists and non-combatants such as healthcare workers. It does make you wonder what has gone unseen in all the preceding decades?

The other key outcome to the First Intifada is that this gave birth to Hamas (meaning: zeal). At the time, the PLO (led by Yasser Arafat) decided to moderate their approach, to recognise Israel’s legitimacy, and to adopt a principle of a two-state solution. They made a Declaration of Independence (of the West Bank and Gaza).

1991 saw the Madrid Peace Conference in which the Palestinians were represented for the first time in formal discussions. The Arabs, writes Shlaim, wanted land for peace, whereas the Israelis wanted peace for peace. Once again, the sense is that nothing much had changed for the Palestinians since the early seige tactics of Zionism: they were at last included in discussions, but could once more question the sincerity of the Israeli side and the spectacle itself.

Shlaim notes that the idea of self-government and self-governance was interpreted very differently: “The Palestinians started with the assumption that they were a people with national rights; Israel started with the assumption that Palestinians had no national rights”. Based on this information, it would at least seem that the Israeli side had progressed: it now regarded the Palestinians as people.

The Palestinian negotiators, however, regarded the Israeli plan as “one designed to perpetuate Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, to consolidate Israel’s control over the land and water […] to foster apartheid, or racial separation.” The Palestinian people, whether diplomat or baker, can be forgiven for being a little distrustful of the system of world governance, not to mention discussions with Israel and the superpower seemingly aligned to Israel. We could argue with the hindsight of the past 33+ years that their suspicions were not unfounded.

Admittedly, up to this point we have had a fairly mixed report from Shlaim on the United States of America’s attitude and relationship with Israel. There is a sense of a partnership, but not to the extent that we sometimes hear about today, with some going as far to assert that Israel has a significant influence and control over politics in the USA through organisations such as AIPAC. We could, in part, attribute this belief to the disturbing undercurrent of anti-semitism in the USA. Shlaim notes, however, that “as soon as Bill Clinton entered the White House, the pro-Israel bias in American policy became more pronounced.”

The Oslo Accords took place in 1993. In short, the Declaration of Principles promised to set in motion a process for ending Israeli rule over the 2 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza – this was about mutual recognition, however grudging, with both sides accepting a territorial compromise. The PLO recognition of Israel in turn paved the way for greater recognition amongst the Arab states of Israel, but the deal was criticised by many. It appeared that Israel would benefit in part from this proposed process, but for the Palestinians the “Oslo process actually worsened the situation in the occupied territories and confounded Palestinian aspirations for a state of their own”. Israeli militant settlers continued in their ways – that is, they continued to colonise, to antagonise, and to escape any punishment for their crimes.

In 1993 we also had Operation Grapes of Wrath, an attack on southern Lebanon (which included the bombing of a UN base) in order to pressure Hizbullah and Syria. This is described as a “political, military, and moral failure […] there are limits to what can be achieved by military force and a heavy price to pay for depending on it too heavily.” In fact, we can plot a trend in terms of Israeli military actions and the way they are perceived by the global audience: from the original “War of Independence” and the Six Day War, which are seen as successes for Israel, as a display of its potency and vigour, through to the military failures and plain barbarity which has shifted perceptions in more recent times so that their actions are seen as cruel and unhinged.

Shortly after this (1995), Yitzhak Rabin (1922-1995), serving as the prime minister of Israel, was assassinated by a “right-wing Jewish fanatic”. It is then that Shlaim accounts, in brief, the rise of Netanyahu (at least the first incarnation of Netanyahu), with a somewhat hasty end to the text where there is a kind of relief with Ehud Barak’s election victory in 1999. This closing is completely jarring – not in the sense of an expectation of resolution, but because of what we know will follow: from the 9/11 attacks through to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the rise of so-called domestic terrorism on western soil, the Arab Spring (and all the shadow play), wars and conflicts in Syria and Ukraine, and alongside all this, in the background, the Palestinians continuing to live and to die, to strive, to be murdered, for Israel to continue to “mow the grass”.

The end to the text is also a little chilling to read in light of the current events. Netanyahu, Shlaim outlines, is from a prominent and fiercely nationalistic Revisionist Zionist family – this branch of Zionism rewrites history to assert that it was not the Jews who usurped the lands from the Arabs (or the Palestinians), but the Arabs (Palestinians) who usurped it from the Jews. Netanyahu’s image of the Arabs is “consistently and comprehensively negative,” which follows, it could be argued, the example set by the early Zionist leaders.

Netanyahu reaffirms the principle of the Iron Wall; he undermines the Oslo Process; he encourages the destruction of Palestinians homes (“the quality of life for Palestinians deteriorated progressively”); “the occupied territories were like a tinderbox”, and he approves policies which can only be seen as “calculated provocations” such as the blasting open of a tunnel close to al-Aqsa Mosque, which Shlaim describes as blasting away “the last faint hopes of a peaceful dialogue with the Palestinians.” In addition to this is the ongoing, 100 year colonial practice of building settlements and housing on land which is already inhabited or had recently been inhabited. A construction of housing in Jerusalem “completed a chain of Jewish settlements and cut off contact between the Arab side of the city and its hinterland in the West Bank. It was a blatant example of the Zionist tactic of crating facts on the ground to pre-empt negotiations.”

Netanyahu was not without opponents within the state of Israel, and it should be noted that the actions of a state (throughout its inception and history) do not reflect the character of all its citizens. Ehud Barak, noted that “we do not need here either a kind of apartheid, or a Bosnia, and under Netanyahu we might reach both.”

At the time of reading/writing/reflecting, (February 2024), not only can we say that the assertion of a state of apartheid was an apt one, but the even more unsettling allusion to the genocide in Bosnia was also accurate.

Shlaim ends by stating that “the history if Israel is a vindication of Jabotinsky’s strategy of the iron wall”. He makes an important distinction, however, between Jabotinsky who, Shlaim argues, wanted to live and let live (with the Palestinians), and Netanyahu, who wanted to “dominate". He closes by stating that "under his leadership the confiscation of Arab lands continued apace, and the right-wing settlers were given free reign to harm, harass, and heap humiliations upon the long-suffering population of the occupied territories.”

Key Learning:

• Founding Zionists and leadership figures of the nation-state of Israel, throughout the history of the state since its invention in 1948 were, and have been, almost entirely dismissive of Palestinians and their voice. Regardless of what we may think about the actions taken by some Palestinians, the voicelessness must be considered an important factor. Any teacher (perhaps any parent, any person) will be able to tell you that a child who is feeling voiceless, or who has difficulty in expressing their feelings, or who is simply shut-down and silenced, or disrespected, will, sometimes (but more often than not), respond through actions. All behaviour is a form of communication.
• Palestinians voices are continuously unheard and bypassed. Their (unapproved) actions are amplified whilst their (legitimate) voices are muted.
• This whole conflict feels less a case of the Palestinians missing opportunities and more a sense of insincerity on the part of some of the key protagonists (in terms of Israel, the great powers, and Arab states following 1948).
• Despite a number of key resolutions and frameworks and processes for peace, the situation on the ground for the Palestinians became worse and worse over time. At the time of writing, much of the key infrastructure (including medical facilities, and refugee camps, for example) of Gaza have been destroyed, and this includes important cultural organisations such as universities. There is a mass displacement and a significant mental and physical trauma for the citizens. This includes more than 12,300 children who have been killed. This number is quite simply a stain (a burn, an everlasting mark) upon the human-race.
• There is a strange inversion that we can plot in terms of certain aspects of narrative (such as self-defence) being taken from the Palestinians by Israel. It would be interesting to map out other examples of this. Is there a name for this practice?
• This book goes up to 1999, meaning there is important context to consider following this date through to today.