Israel IS The Occupation

Let us at last talk candidly about the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which attains its fifth decade today.  The State of Israel is 69 years old.  The occupation of the Palestinian territories is 50 years old.  A long time has passed since the occupation could reasonably be described as a temporary arrangement (to borrow from Albert Reynolds), or as necessitated by Israeli security (in a typical racist logic, Israeli security always trumps Palestinian security).  The two state solution has long been a diplomatic figleaf.  It is now a 'delusion', as the Irish-American political scientist Padraig O'Malley says.

Very substantial historical evidence shows that Israel's swift and ruthless conquest of the Territories, and of Sinai and the Golan, in June 1967, was strategically and militarily unnecessary - it was not needed to secure Israel in the short or medium term.   Israel's leaders had long shown an interest in correcting the mistakes of 1948, and completing the conquest of all of historical Palestine, but David Ben-Gurion warned of the demographic problems such conquest would bring.  He was, of course, correct - see Ilan Pappe's new book Ten Myths About Israel.  But with Ben-Gurion retired, one major retarding influence on war was removed.  Israel has in the last few days released documentation of cabinet discussion in the immediate wake of the war, showing a variety of opinion in the government (which included Menachem Begin, Moshe Dayan, Abba Eban) about 'what to do with' the 'Arabs' of the West Bank, about the desirability of 'transferring' 'Arabs' out of East Jerusalem and replacing them with Jews, about the need for a security corridor along the Jordan valley, among other ideas.

The point, then, is there is no radical break or difference between Israel before 1967, and Israel after 1967.  The Six-Day War was every bit as much about conquering Palestinian territory, for purposes of Israeli colonisation, as it was about neutralising Gamal Abdel Nasser or defeating Arab nationalism.  Just like 1948, the Six-Day War was accompanied by mass ethnic cleansing, since Zionism has always been thirsty to accumulate land but not Arabs - a further 300,000 Palestinians were displaced, to add to the 700,000 expelled in the earlier war.

1967 was not the first evidence of Israel's character as a highly aggressive, expansionist settler-colonial regime, but it was conclusive.  The Six Day War was a war of choice, Israel started it, had already planned for it, and has never seriously looked back. 

Corrective reading:

In his superb Image and Reality in the Israel-Palestine Conflict, Norman Finkelstein offered a meticulous demolition of the classic liberal myths of 1967.  Here he is interviewed by the editors of Mondoweiss:

Norman Finkelstein on the Six-Day-War and its myths

And also from Mondoweiss, an essay by one of Israel's most radical and distinguished sociologists, Gershon Schafir:

Why has the Occupation lasted this long?

Conor