course materials

1. Discussion: colonialism has manifested in Palestine
Discussion: colonialism has manifested in Palestine ON Discussion: colonialism has
manifested in PalestinePlease write a reflection paper on the attached reading.The
reflection is NOT a summary of the reading. It is supposed to be a brief engagement with the
material in addition to points or questions you would like to raise for class discussion. The
reflection must not exceed 500 words.Grading rubric:– 3%: The student shows in-depth
understanding of the material and is able toarticulate the main ideas and arguments and
provide further insights. Discussion: colonialism has manifested in Palestine– 2%: The
student gets the general idea of the material and provides some insights,but does not
articulate them well. Discussion: colonialism has manifested in Palestine– 1%: The student
summarizes the reading or film and provides no further insights.General idea of the
course:The aim is a critical engagement with how colonialism has manifested in Palestine
and how it continues to do so until today. The course examines the various mechanisms and
policies, both internally and externally, that work to entrench settler colonialism and
dispossess the Palestinians. The course will explore and discuss forms of resistance in
Palestine, their potentials and limitations, and possibilities for a just solution. Discussion:
colonialism has manifested in PalestineCopyright © 2019. Stanford University Press. All
rights reserved. 44 COLONIAL ERASURES The Great Revolt directly targeted Britain’s
military regime and stretched its personnel to the breaking point at a time of impending
war. Palestinians forced Britain to reevaluate its Zionist policy, not by the use of moral and
legal persuasion but by changing the material conditions on the ground. In fact, during its
deliberations leading up to the White Paper, the Royal Commission declassified the
Hussein-MacMahon correspondence in order to revisit and unsettle a legal analysis that the
Colonial Office had used to justify the suspension of Palestinian self-determination.104 The
conditions on the ground directly impacted the interpretation of the law in this instance.
Discussion: colonialism has manifested in PalestineIn addition to taking up armed
resistance, Palestinians also created self-governing institutions on their own terms. They
effectively challenged their exclusion from the promise of self-determination and the
negation of their status as a political community by undermining the structure that upheld
the framework of exception. In so doing, Palestinians also helped to further shape self-
determination as a legal right tantamount to national independence. Though a significant
policy shift, the White Paper failed to definitively resolve the contest over national self-
determination created by Britain’s catastrophic policy.105 Palestinians refused to
compromise their demands for independence. Zionists felt betrayed by the British and

2. vowed never to come under Arab governance.106 The Jewish Agency began to mobilize its
military wing, the Haganah, to confront the British, and the Irgun, a Jewish underground
militia, began a series of bombing campaigns targeting Palestinian civilians.107 In 1940,
Winston Churchill assumed power in Britain as the Prime Minister, and resolved to
postpone the establishment of a Palestinian government until the war with Germany and
the Axis powers was over. By then, however, so much had changed that none of the White
Paper’s terms was ever fulfilled. The Palestinian victory in tearing up the partition plan was
short-lived. Discussion: colonialism has manifested in PalestineNormalizing the Exception:
Israel E stablishes Itself by Force In 1947, two years after the end of the war, Britain
referred the question of Palestine to the United Nations, the multilateral body established in
1945 that ultimately supplanted the League of Nations. By the end of the Second World War,
the British Empire was waning and Mandate Palestine was an embarrassment to an
exhausted Britain. The atrocities perpetrated by the Third Reich in Erakat, Noura. Justice for
Some : Law and the Question of Palestine, Stanford University Press, 2019. ProQuest Ebook
Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-
ebooks/detail.action?docID=5703762. Created from nyulibrary-ebooks on 2020-04-09
10:42:35. Copyright © 2019. Stanford University Press. All rights reserved. COLONIAL
ERASURES 45 Europe, beginning with the denationalization of Jews and culminating in their
mass annihilation using modern weapons technologies, were by now widely known. The
Jewish refugee crisis was massive, and yet Western governments, including the United
States and Britain, were averse to absorbing the refugees and were refusing them entry.
Discussion: colonialism has manifested in PalestineTo further advance its cause, the Jewish
Agency entwined the refugee crisis with Zionism and did not lobby Western governments to
accept the refugees. In some cases, it encouraged those governments to do just the
opposite.108 Indeed, Britain and the PMC, as well as the countries of Eastern Europe came
to see the issue of Mandate Palestine as an opportunity to resolve the refugee crisis and,
more generally, Europe’s Jewish question.109 In its referral, Britain explicitly asked the
United Nations to incorporate the condition of the Jewish refugees into its deliberations on
solutions to the problem of Mandate Palestine.110 The United Nations established the
Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) and charged it to prepare proposals for
consideration. In its September 1947 report, the committee recognized that the principle of
self-determination had not been applied to Palestine “obviously because of the intention to
make possible the creation of the Jewish National Home there.” The committee recognized
that the “sui generis Mandate for Palestine” might in fact have been a violation of that
principle, but it went on to justify the legal lapse by citing the co-constitutive relationship
between the exception and the specialized regime it engendered.Drawing on the Peel
Commission Report, it explained that Article 22 of the League of Nations Covenant did not
command the “recognition of certain communities formerly belonging to the Turkish
empire as independent nations” but only permitted such recognition should the League
choose to confer it—and, in the case of Palestine, it had chosen not to do so in order to fulfill
the terms of the Balfour Declaration.111 UNSCOP concluded its report by outlining three
possible solutions: a unitary state with strong protections for minorities, a unitary bi-
national state, or partition into two states for two peoples.The eleven-member committee

3. was divided. In particular, Iran, India, and Yugoslavia highlighted that the Mandate for
Palestine and partition violated Palestinian self-determination, and they recommended a
unitary state, but a majority of the committee concluded that two states, one for Jews and
one for Arabs, was the optimal choice.112 Erakat, Noura. Justice for Some : Law and the
Question of Palestine, Stanford University Press, 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central,
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=5703762.
Created from nyulibrary-ebooks on 2020-04-09 10:42:35. Copyright © 2019. Stanford
University Press. All rights reserved. 46 COLONIAL ERASURES UNSCOP’s partition proposal
vexed the General Assembly. One of the subcommittees charged with reviewing it preferred
a unitary federal state, and pointed out that the partition proposal raised several legal
issues.The subcommittee recommended placing the question of the legality of partition, and
the General Assembly’s authority to recommend it, before the International Court of Justice
(ICJ). It was to no avail; the broader committee defeated the request for an ICJ advisory
opinion.113 The political imperative to use the Mandate for Palestine as a means to resolve
the Jewish refugee crisis overrode the questions of law. On 29 November 1947, the General
Assembly, after intense pressure, and some cajoling, by the United States, endorsed the
UNSCOP proposal for the partition of Palestine (see the Plan of Partition map). It passed
Resolution 181 with a vote of 33 in favor, 13 against, and 10 abstentions.114 Much like the
UNSCOP proposal, Resolution 181 did not consider the will of the local population, nor the
legality of the UN’s authority to propose partition, nor the legality of partition itself. It was,
unabashedly, a political solution.115 Although Jews comprised only 30 percent of the
population and owned 6 percent of the land at this point, Resolution 181 apportioned the
Jewish community 55 percent of Palestine. It allocated 45 percent of the territory to native
Palestinians, who constituted 70 percent of the population and owned the vast majority of
the land.116 The resolution designated Jerusalem an international zone under international
trusteeship, and envisaged that neither state would be purely Jewish or Arab, stipulating
religious and minority rights in each. It mandated that individuals be given the right to
“become citizens of the State in which they are resident and enjoy full civil and political
rights” upon independence, with a choice to opt for citizenship of the “other State.”
Resolution 181 prohibited discrimination on grounds of “race, religion, language or sex”; it
entitled “all persons within the jurisdiction of the State . . . to equal protection of the laws,”
and prohibited land expropriation.117 The UN Partition Plan required a “radical territorial
redistribution in favor of Zionists” yet did not articulate the means of its
implementation.118 The status quo favored the Palestinians, who together with the Arab
states, rejected the resolution. They argued that such an arbitrary redistribution of land and
the suppression of the native majority’s right to self-governance violated the principle of
self-determination. But internal Palestinian rivalries undermined a unified strategy:
moderate leaders urged restraint while others vied for control Erakat, Noura. Justice for
Some : Law and the Question of Palestine, Stanford University Press, 2019. ProQuest Ebook
Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-
ebooks/detail.action?docID=5703762. Created from nyulibrary-ebooks on 2020-04-09
10:42:35. LEBANON SYRIA N Acre Haifa Nazareth Jordan River MEDITERRANEAN SEA Tel
Aviv Jaffa Jericho Amman Jerusalem Bethlehem Hebron Gaza Dead Sea Beersheba Copyright

4. © 2019. Stanford University Press. All rights reserved. JORDAN EGYPT 0 0 10 20 20 30 40
40 60 50 mi 80 km 1947 UN Partition Proposed Arab state Proposed Jewish state Proposed
International Zone Plan of Partition, 1947 In 1947, the United Nations proposed the
partition of Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state. Its plan did not envision that either
state would be exclusively Arab or Jewish.It allotted 55 percent of the land to Jews, who
constituted 30 percent of the population and owned 6 percent of the land, and 45 percent to
Arab Palestinians, who constituted 70 percent of the population and owned the majority of
the land. Jerusalem was to be placed under an international regime. Erakat, Noura. Justice
for Some : Law and the Question of Palestine, Stanford University Press, 2019. ProQuest
Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-
ebooks/detail.action?docID=5703762. Created from nyulibrary-ebooks on 2020-04-09
10:42:35. Copyright © 2019. Stanford University Press. All rights reserved. 48 COLONIAL
ERASURES and authority to lead a military confrontation in order to prevent partition.119
The Jewish Agency was not pleased with Resolution 181 either: it desired more territory
than was allotted, but accepted the resolution knowing that Arab rejection diminished the
chances of its realization.120 The Zionist leadership, superior in “both quality and
organization,” also prepared for a confrontation to establish a Jewish state by force.121
They understood that violence would be necessary to implement partition, especially in
light of the hesitation exhibited by the United Nations and individual member states to
impose it by force.122 Initial Zionist plans, laid out in their Plan Gimmel (Plan C), aimed to
suppress a Palestinian offensive as well as to establish contiguity between Jewish
settlements that were located in areas of the proposed Arab state.123 Though framed in
defensive terms, the plan instructed Zionist paramilitaries to inflict “forceful and severe
blows” against not only militants but also “those who provide them with assistance” and
shelter. The attacks “must affect large areas” and include both warning and strike
operations, the plan stated. Targets were to include “clubs, cafes, meetings, assemblies, and
the like.” Execution of Plan C featured explosions in Palestinian residential areas and raids
against communities in the middle of the night, to induce them to flee.124 In February 1948,
David Ben-Gurion, the head of the Jewish Agency and the first Prime Minister of the State of
Israel, traveled to the emptied and destroyed village of Lifta, a suburb of Jerusalem, and
reported to the Mapai Council, a major Israeli Labour party, that same evening: When I
come now to Jerusalem, I feel I am in a Hebrew (Ivrit) city. . . . It is true that not all of
Jerusalem is Jewish, but it has in it already a huge Jewish bloc: when you enter the city
through Lifta and Romema, through Mahaneh Yeuda, King George Street and Mea
Shearim—there are no Ar- abs. One hundred percent Jews. Ever since Jerusalem was
destroyed by the Romans—the city was not as Jewish as it is now. . . . And what happened in
Jerusalem and in Haifa—can happen in large parts of the country. If we persist it is quite
possible that in the next six or eight months there will be considerable changes in the
country, very considerable, and to our advantage. There will certainly be considerable
changes in the demographic composition of the country.125 Erakat, Noura. Justice for Some
: Law and the Question of Palestine, Stanford University Press, 2019. ProQuest Ebook
Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-
ebooks/detail.action?docID=5703762. Created from nyulibrary-ebooks on 2020-04-09

5. 10:42:35. COLONIAL ERASURES 49 Ben-Gurion’s satisfaction with the demographic shifts
reflected his conviction that “only a state with at least 80 percent Jews is a viable and stable
state.”126 Zionist leaders admitted that increased immigration alone would never
counterbalance the Palestinian majority resident in the proposed Jewish state.127 One way
to achieve a Jewish demographic majority, Ben-Gurion suggested, was to transfer, or expel,
Palestinians.128 In a letter he penned to his son in October 1937, he justified this as follows:
We must expel Arabs and take their places . . . and, if we have to use force— not to
dispossess the Arabs of the Negev and Transjordan, but to guarantee Copyright © 2019.
Stanford University Press. All rights reserved. our own right to settle in those places—then
we have force at our disposal.129 The concept of transfer had been embedded in
mainstream Zionist thought for at least a decade. It also appeared in U.S. and British
proposals for resolving the challenges posed by the Mandate for Palestine at the end of the
Second World War.130 While there is no single “smoking gun” indicating that BenGurion
gave Zionist troops an explicit order to forcibly expel Palestinians as a comprehensive
plan—with some notable exceptions131—this was the outcome of the Zionist military
campaigns in practice.132 By early 1948, the level of violence and the specter of foreclosing
Palestinian self-determination were such as to move the United States to abandon its
support for Resolution 181. Thus, when the question of partition came up for
reconsideration at the Security Council in March 1948, the United States suggested that the
General Assembly establish a trusteeship over Palestine to shepherd its transition from a
British Mandate to independence.133 The U.S. policy shift, considered a betrayal by
Zionists, proved a turning point in the war and precipitated the launch of Plan Dalet (Plan
D).134 This plan was more aggressive and ambitious than its predecessor, Plan C. Its
geographic scope exceeded the parameters of the proposed Jewish state and, if fully
implemented, would have extended Jewish-Zionist sovereignty across the whole of Mandate
Palestine.135 Like Plan C, Plan Dalet also took direct aim at Palestinians, under the pretext
of military necessity. It authorized targeting Palestinian villages that provided assistance to
Palestinian militants or could be used as bases for attacks. In the name of achieving a
“defensive system,” it authorized: Erakat, Noura. Justice for Some : Law and the Question of
Palestine, Stanford University Press, 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central,
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=5703762.
Created from nyulibrary-ebooks on 2020-04-09 10:42:35. 50 COLONIAL ERASURES
Destruction of villages (setting fire to them, by blowing up, and planting mines in the
debris), especially those population centers which are difficult to control continuously;
mounting combing and control operations accord- ing to the following guidelines:
encirclement of the village and conducting a search inside of it. In the event of resistance,
the armed forces must be Copyright © 2019. Stanford University Press. All rights reserved.
wiped out and the population expelled outside the borders of the state.136 This military
strategy, featuring both excessive use of force and the logic of collective punishment, was
not unfamiliar to Zionist forces. During the Great Revolt, Britain had recruited thousands of
troops from the Jewish community to help put down the Palestinian armed uprising.137
These men became the nucleus of Zionist paramilitary forces, and adopted British colonial
military technologies and tactics.138 In possession of significant armaments, they used

6. devastating violence against Palestinians, even in cases where they posed no military
threat.139 In one notable operation, in early April 1948, Palestinian forces cut off much
needed supplies to Zionist forces by capturing the road connecting Jerusalem to Tel Aviv. To
recapture the passage, the Zionists targeted Deir Yassin, a village located on this road.
Village leaders had entered into a nonaggression agreement with the Haganah, signaling
that they had no capacity to be a threat, and that should have protected these Palestinian
civilians. Yet, when the Irgun attacked the village, the operation not only had the support of
the Haganah’s commander in Jerusalem, but he provided them with rifles and
ammunition.140 Over the course of one night, Zionist paramilitary forces killed at least one
hundred unarmed villagers. Fahim Zaydan was twelve years old at the time of the massacre,
and recalls that night: They took us out one after the other; shot an old man and when one
of his daughters cried, she was shot too. Then they called my brother Muham- mad, and shot
him in front of us, and when my mother yelled, bending over him—carrying my little sister
Hudra in her hands, still breastfeeding her—they shot her too.141 Zaydan was also shot,
while standing in a row of children whom the soldiers had lined up against a wall. The
Zionist paramilitaries sprayed them with bullets, “just Erakat, Noura. Justice for Some : Law
and the Question of Palestine, Stanford University Press, 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central,
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=5703762.
Created from nyulibrary-ebooks on 2020-04-09 10:42:35. Copyright © 2019. Stanford
University Press. All rights reserved. COLONIAL ERASURES 51 for the fun of it,” before they
left.142 As the news of the Deir Yassin massacre spread, in part through a “whispering
campaign” initiated by Zionist leaders, many Palestinians fled from other localities in order
to escape a similar fate.143 By early May 1948, the Zionists had launched thirteen full-scale
military operations, resulting in the forced displacement of 250,000 Palestinians from their
homes.144 On 14 May, Israel declared its independence, on 15 May, Great Britain
relinquished its Mandate, and seven Arab armies declared war on the State of Israel. The
Arab armies were no match for the newly established state.145 Israel’s troops
outnumbered Arab ones, both regular and irregular, and in the wake of the first truce and
consequent break in fighting, Israel was able to increase its firepower decisively.That was
not all; the Arab armies failed to coordinate their efforts, as each country pursued its own
interests in the war. King Abdullah of Jordan, who had been given nominal command of the
Arab forces in Palestine, was more concerned about annexing the partitioned Arab state
than he was with preventing partition. Before the war, he had been in direct contact with
the Jewish Agency in an effort to reach agreement on dividing Palestine upon termination of
the Mandate. Under Abdullah’s command, Arab forces “made every effort to avert a head-on
collision and, with the exception of one of two minor incidents, made no attempt to
encroach on the territory allocated to the Jewish state by the UN cartographers.”146 More
significantly, …