"Land Matters"
by Russell Cash
Originally Submitted On 04/23/2013 - EKU
Part 1 - Introduction
Central to the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict is the dispute over who legitimately owns the land, commonly referred to as Palestine, which makes up the modern borders of Israel and surrounding territories. No other conflict leading to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of refugees has gained as much international attention. While the common Palestinian argument is that they were illegally dispossessed and driven from their land, the popular Israeli reply is that the land was purchased legally, mainly from Arab absentee landlords. This paper will begin by discussing the commonalities between the Palestinian Jews and Palestinian Arabs under the Ottoman Empire, their similar nationalist aspirations, their conflicting political actions, and finally their divergent national identities that emerged against the backdrop of bitter violence and war. Attention will be given to the Ottoman Land Code of 1858, its flaws that potentially led to the illegal dispossession of Palestinian land, and its application after the Ottoman Empire. Finally, the paper will conclude drawing on all the subject material showing the dispossession of Palestinian land was not due to one central policy or key actor but by many political events that culminated in the midst of socio-economic changes. After all, the people we think of today as making up modern Israel and modern Palestine are, in part, a cultivation of the conflict itself.
An integral component to nation building, especially those in development, is that of a common national heritage and preservation of one’s culture. The Jewish and Palestinian people equally and undeniably trace their historical roots back to the ancient land of Palestine. Likewise, religion is a fundamental source in deriving Jewish and Palestinian identity. Historically, Jews and Palestinians share in these similar characteristics, in that national identity is deeply rooted in their religion and the land.
It was common for the people of ancient civilizations and tribes to derive their nationality from what was believed to be divine revelation often augmented with spiritual references to the land. Israel was the name bestowed upon Jacob as he wrestled with an angel and Palestine was known as a land of milk and honey. Prophets such as Moses and Mohammed were comparative to national leaders and the revelations they received helped establish something of the rule of law. In fact, Moses tells the early Israelites several times in the Torah that any man who does not keep the law shall be cut off from his people and essentially a stranger in the land. Much of this is still relevant to modern politics, as the rule of law is what legitimizes a people and their government. We might say the curse spoken of by Moses depicts the exiled Jews of the past and illustrates the current Palestinian situation, a nation without a state.
Whether we derive modern politics from such stories or hold them as purely superstitious, it is people like the Jews and Palestinians who trace their identities back to these ancient tales. So it should come as no surprise that the land and their religion is going to be intermingled with their political action, because to them it all originates from the same source.
While Jews and Palestinians both have a rich history, preservation of it, or lack thereof, complicates understanding the conflict and one might say has only added to it. While the Jews are notable for recording and preserving their own personal and national history, the same cannot be said for Palestinians. Many historians agree that when it comes to important documents and records concerning Palestinian policies prior to the conflict and leading up to the refugee problem, they simply cannot be found. Either they don’t exist or they are hidden away in some Arab archive not available to the public. (Morris, 1989) For example, until recently, the Turkish government had sealed off Ottoman Land Code records to the public, which could have been beneficial to the Palestinians if the records can prove their land was sold illegally. Adding to this, defeat in the Arabic world is comparative to embarrassment and is often silenced, denied, or never spoken of again. Such a character flaw has proven to be politically fatal to the Palestinians as they have yet to admit their mistakes, learn from them, and break the cycle of making poor political decisions or no decision at all.
When studying the Jewish and Palestinian people comparatively, we find that both have more in common than most cultures. Yet, as we progress further away from the ancient romantic ideal of a body of people living in communion with their land and God, and ideologies lead to political movements which lead to compromise, no body of people contrasts one another so sharply. To put it simply, the Jews won the race to self-autonomy due to better political organization and mobilization. That is not to say the Palestinians have lost the race entirely; they have just opted not to finish using the methods successful to the Jews..
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