Palestine Think Tank

Written for The Daily Californian By Matthew Taylor

Political Zionism-the quest to establish and hold a Jewish-majority state within historic Palestine-has largely been predicated on the belief that Palestinians should not have the right to live on their ancestral lands. In 1948, Israel's founders carried this philosophy to its logical conclusion and used military force to drive more than 700,000 Palestinians out of their homes in a carefully planned campaign of ethnic cleansing. In 1967, Israel conquered and occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and then proceeded to build hundreds of colonies in violation of international law while abusing the human rights of the indigenous Palestinian population.

In December 1987, Palestinians organized a grassroots uprising in an effort to liberate themselves from Israel's occupation. Palestinians refused to pay taxes, they boycotted all Israeli goods and they planted backyard gardens. And they displayed the Palestinian national flag, which was illegal under the terms of the occupation.

Then-Israeli defense minister Yitzhak Rabin ordered his soldiers to break the bones of Palestinians who participated in this uprising or who displayed their flag. Israeli soldiers injured, jailed and killed thousands of Palestinians for their crimes of struggling for human rights and self-determination.

On Nov. 13, three Palestinian students displayed their national flag from Eshelman Hall balcony. However, unlike in the occupied Palestinian territories, free speech is at least theoretically legal in the United States and on this campus. But that didn't appear to matter to the members of Tikvah and Zionist Freedom Alliance who apparently assaulted the Palestinians while yelling racist epithets. One wonders what would have happened had this assault taken place in the occupied territories, where so many bones have been broken, lives taken and land stolen.

The assault was a microcosm of Israel's oppression of the Palestinians. It was yet another example of right-wing Zionism attempting to crush any symbol of the Palestinian people's existence.

Like a Palestinian flag: Watermelon’s shell is green, the internal shell is white,  the flesh is red and seeds are black

During the 1987 uprising, Palestinians sought an alternative way to affirm their existence. The Palestinian flag is green, red, white and black, so instead of holding up flags, Palestinians held up watermelons. Perhaps to be safe on the UC Berkeley campus, Palestinian students should also hold up watermelons instead of their flag.

At a recent ASUC meeting, Senator John Moghtader refused to answer the question, "What do Tikvah members mean when they chant 'From the river to the sea, Israel will be free?'" Moghtader's response was, "It means the liberation of the Jewish people." Moghtader didn't want his fellow senators to know the truth: that this hateful slogan stands for the complete triumph of the Zionist project, resulting in a permanent Israeli Apartheid state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea in which all Palestinians are either subjugated or expelled. An independent Palestinian state would never emerge, and the Palestinian flag would effectively cease to have any meaning. Tikvah's vision is becoming more real every day, as the international community has done nothing to end Israel's Apartheid rule over the Palestinians. U.S. taxpayers fund Israel's military hardware, and this university is deeply invested in corporations that profit from Israel's Apartheid.

I hope someday the U.S. and the university end their shameful role in supporting the right-wing Israeli/Tikvah agenda of permanent Apartheid in Palestine. In the meantime, students on this campus have an opportunity to stand up for justice. Five conscientious Boalt Hall law students initiated a petition to recall Senator Moghtader as a result of his role in the Nov 13 incident as well as other behavior that "silences" others and "undermines the physical safety of students." Support the recall of Senator Moghtader.

Source 
 http://www.dailycal.org/article/103806/historical_meaning_of_the_palestinian_flag_

COMMENTARY TO A RESPONSE to the post of the Daily Californian, BY ADIB S KAWAR

Original letter
From: Virginia F. Raines [address]
It's Zuider Zee, Jack.  Just across the Atlantic Ocean from America.

I've never heard of Tikvah or student senator John Moghtader before.  Checking Google, there are only two webpages that mention "From the river to the sea, Israel will be free" — so it certainly isn't a common phrase.  Both webpages were referencing the same situation, and both were pro-Palestinian.

There is really no such thing as a "Palestinian national flag", so there is no "historical meaning" for it other than the obvious — they are Jordanians

 Palestinian flag

 Jordanian flag

Moreover, Palestine is not the "ancestral land" of Arabs, most of whom never had title to any property.

If Israel doesn't have a "right to exist", then neither does any Arabian country — all of which were established by the Western colonial powers and many of which have their own border disputes.

The boundaries of the Arabian peninsula are notable for the sensitivities and disagreements which have accompanied their relatively short history. Not only is the perennial human concern for territory involved; in this region, as the 20th century progressed, the partition of resources, initially pastures and water wells, subsequently oil and gas, was particularly crucial. The boundary makers, chiefly the diplomats of the imperial powers, were inconsistent in paying attention to the human and physical characteristics of the terrain when negotiating or imposing many limits. Consequently boundary studies in this area have been and remain a fruitful topic for geographers and anthropologists as well as a necessary pre-occupation for strategists and politicians.  The particular distinguishing characteristics of Arabia´s territorial framework is that it is far from complete. Saudi Arabia´s border in the southern peninsula has never been formally finalised, while the status of many supposedly ´final´ delimitations elsewhere is at best uncertain, if not actively disputed.

An appreciation of Arabia's territorial history is essential for an understanding of contemporary political events in the region. Boundaries were originally defined by Britain to protect her interests in the area but it is the relatively new, independent states of the Gulf and the peninsula who have to live within this imposed territorial framework. This has not always been easy and boundary disputes remain a ready source of friction between many neighbouring states. Key documents have been identified which either specifically define the various boundaries concerned or throw direct light on their origin or evolution. Thus the records presented include treaties, letters, telegrams, memoranda and notes, the latter often being diplomatic summaries and assessments.

The Arabian peninsula's most critical territorial disputes are: Iran-Iraq, Iraq-Kuwait, Bahrain-Qatar and Saudi Arabia-Yemen.

The years between 1946 and 1964 are some of the most important for the study of the State of Israel. This collection of primary source documents focuses on the great diplomatic and territorial problems of the period including: the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan; the positions of Israel and Jordan regarding the West Bank and Gaza; the relationship of the refugee problem to the border problem; territorial adjustments for the benefit of Arab frontier villages; implications of the armistice lines for border settlements; and Soviet interest and alliances and Great Power conflict.

This collection of documents covers the period from 1946 to 1964, focusing on the borders of the Palestine Mandate and, following its creation in 1948, the state of Israel. The question of the final territorial configuration of Israel and its Arab neighbours is at the forefront of today´s political negotiations, stimulating new interest in their historical origins.

The documents focus on two different types of borders; those that coincided with the British Mandate for Palestine, and the lines that resulted from the war-won divisions of land following the 1949 cease-fire and the final location of the opposing armies. The armistice lines basically followed the course of mandate boundaries with Transjordan, Syria and Lebanon with small modifications. The operative border between Israel and Jordan on the West Bank was based exclusively on an armistice line that had no geographical or historical foundations. Complications arose, in part, because of the vagueness of the original definitions of the mandatory boundaries, and from the slipshod way in which the armistice lines were depicted cartographically by the negotiators in 1949. These lines were determined by senior military staff from each side and United Nations mediators, often without regard to significant geographical considerations or the distribution and interest of local populations. In addition, thick pencils were often used to draw on small-scale maps permitting legitimate differences in interpretations created by lines on the maps that were actually several kilometres wide on the ground. As far as Israel and Jordan were concerned, the differences in alignment between the mandate boundary of 1921 and the 1949 armistice line only became apparent in the run-up towards their recent boundary settlement.

During the period covered by this collection of documents, the major events that established Israel´s modern borders were the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan, the war that followed the creation of Israel in 1948 and the subsequent United Nations Armistice Agreements negotiated between Israel and each of its Arab neighbours: Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt. During the years from 1949 until 1967, there were only minor alterations to these borders.

Altercation??

To: Virginia F. Raines

ADIB'S RESPONSE
The undersigned is a Palestinian Arab and was born in Nazareth Palestine; so I know about my homeland much better then you, and if you belong to the Jewish faith then you have no relation with the Semitic race, which we Arabs are and had been it largest component. The so called western Jews are converts to the religion, they are of some central Asian Turcoman origin who moved west and settled to the north of the Caspian sea (The sea of the Khazars) they were pagans and followed their king when he converted to Judaism, but we don’t see how when according to the Jewish faith converts are not accepted into the faith.

It is not our fault your ignorance of a Palestinian national flag (it is not national it is simply Palestine is a part of the Arab nation that was cut out by colonialist powers). It is the flag of the indigenous rightful owners of the historical land of Palestine. This flag is not like that of those thieves who came from behind the seas with the help of western colonialism as invaders to displace and replace Palestinian Arabs by invading colonizers.

The roots of Palestinian Arabs are deep in the soil of Palestine. The Jaboside Arabs established the City of Peace (Jerusalem/Al-Quds) 1500 years before the first Hebrew invasion of the land Canaan (Palestine). The so-called king David occupied it and established it as his capital for only 70 years till the Jabosides liberated it and reestablished as their historic rightful capital.

The myth of the promised land, and the so-called chosen people is an early Zionist creation. God is loving and doesn’t order any people to exterminate any of his creatures and occupy their land.

If the following is a common phrase: Checking Google, there are only two webpages that mention "From the river to the sea, Israel will be free" — so it certainly isn't a common phrase. Let's for argument sake consider it so, then why are Zionists  colonizing all Palestine and trying to complete their war crime of ethnic cleansing of Palestinian Arabs from the homeland?!!! We are not interested in words, but in facts on the ground, what is happening in Gaza, starving 1.5 million Palestinian Arabs, and day and night practicing war crimes against it people especially with targeted assassinations. Did you ever hear about the one ton bomb thrown on a residential building to assassinate a resistance leader, but ended up in murdering 14 people, ten of whom were babies?!

The Palestinian flag is originally what is known as the Arab flag the colors of which were adopted in various Arab states flags, that is why you see the striking similarity between the Palestinian and Jordanian flags as well as a number of others. The Arabs are one people who as you rightly said were divided by western colonialism to divide and rule. Are you also ignorant of the ill famed the British Sykes and the French Picot who met to divide among the two the Arab land and colonize it during WWI before even occupying it. The British insisted on have Palestine as their share to indorse it to the Ashkanazi Zionist movement. The British Lord Before who did not own Palestine promised it to the Zionists who didn’t deserve it, this was done in 1917 before the British occupied Palestine and imposed on the League of Nations to give them mandate on it, to as we said above indorse it to Zionists, who by war crimes occupied it and expelled and/or exterminated its Arab population.

The British as per their policy before being forced out of their colonies divide the land to create quos. As you said they created vague border lines to create a mess and quarrelling behind them, did you ever hear of anything called colonialism?! Western colonialism now the US AND TheZionist entity were trying to apply what they called “The New M. E. or The Greater M.E.” to create weak bits and pieces of  state-lets to quarrel between themselves and go to the two of them asking for support against each other; so as to establish their colonialism forever, but they failed even though tthey have their puppet Arab rulers trying to do anything to keep their throwns safe, and to hell with the people.

As you said the “border lines of occupied Palestine (The Zionist Entity) were marked by the force of arms and terror; so they are by no means permanent and they are apt to be erased", what is taken by force shall be erased by force - resistance.

What I was trying to prove above is exactly what you said here: The boundary makers, chiefly the diplomats of the imperial powers, were inconsistent in paying attention to the human and physical characteristics of the terrain when negotiating or imposing many limits.