The Partition of Palestine and Solidarity With It

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

The League of Nations decided to partition Syria, and this was carried out on the basis that Palestine would become a national home for the Jews. Then the General Assembly of the United Nations decided to partition Palestine, but this was never implemented; the world conspired anew, in cooperation with the Arab regimes, and Israel defeated the Arab armies in 1948, gaining roughly 77% of the area of Palestine — an increase of 23% over what had been allotted to it in the partition resolution.

Israel defeated the Arabs in 1967, and took the whole of Palestine, so that nothing remained of the partition, and the whole of Mandatory Palestine became usurped land. Then came the resolution of the UN General Assembly, following the 1973 war, declaring Partition Day a day of solidarity with the Palestinian people. It is worth noting that the partition resolution was passed with the approval of the powerful, such as the United States, while the solidarity resolution was passed by the powerless, and by some of the powerful. Some of the powerful were unable to carry out real, practical solidarity with the Palestinian people, and the day remained one for issuing wavering statements of no value.

As for us Palestinians, we have held many solidarity festivals with ourselves, and delivered resounding speeches, but we have also done the following:

(The original document is damaged at the start of this sentence.) …[recognized Isra]el, and thereby consented to the outcomes of the 1948 war, not merely to the partition.

We coordinated security with Israel, and thereby decided to tear ourselves apart in submission to the requirements of what is called peace.

We placed the people’s daily bread, or part of it, in the hands of the enemies of the Palestinian people, chief among them Israel.

We divided what had already been partitioned, so that what remained now became two halves.

We turned “Palestine” into “the Palestinian territories,” meaning by that only the West Bank and Gaza.

The West Bank and Gaza became “the homeland,” and we speak of them as “the two halves of the homeland.”

We try, with all our might, to forget what was usurped in 1948.

The only thing we managed to do was liberate Gaza, even though it remains under siege, and we now hold sovereignty over 0.013 of the area of Mandatory Palestine. And even so, some among the people do not recognize this sovereignty, and some of us demand that it be returned to the square of occupation, so that it remains within reach of international legal analysis with respect to holding the occupation legally responsible under what is called international legitimacy. This is an astonishing thing!

Do we want Palestine? The matter is simple: only iron blunts iron; no people who beg for their daily bread has ever prospered, and no one incapable of making sacrifices has ever attained freedom.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “تقسيم فلسطين والتضامن معها” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.