This is the second of a three-part series on Jewish settlements in Jerusalem and Palestine. For over a century and a half, they have been built and used as a symbol of the Jewish presence in Palestine. Initially, they coexisted alongside Arab inhabitants and became part of the urban and social structure. After the foundation of Israel as a state in 1948, there was a sea-change in settlement policy. The state saw it as necessary that the Arab inhabitants of Palestine and the international community saw Israel as “a Jewish fact.” This series reviews the development of settlement policy from a situation of peaceful coexistence as a tool for occupation of Arab lands and its subsequent use as the justification for military action.

“We must invent dangers and to do this, it (the state) must adopt the method of provocation and revenge.... Above all, let us hope for a war with the Arab countries so that we may finally get rid of our troubles and acquire our space” — Moshe Dayan May 1955, quoted by Moshe Sharrett, ex-foreign minister and acting prime minister at the time of the Qibya massacre.

History isn’t necessarily what happened. It is what is written, and usually by the winners.

It is presented to the public within a framework of accepted truths and underlying dogma. In a totalitarian state, this is obvious. It becomes less obvious and more intriguing when the state professes liberal and open attitudes.

The acceptable views of history from an apparently liberal state’s perspective is maintained by a willingness of academics and press to close ranks and refuse to submit to critical analysis when their version of the truth is questioned.

The occasional critical departure from the articles of faith they support is tolerated as long as it is confined to a narrow stratum of society that they can readily define as ‘uninformed’ or ‘naive.’ Such departures may actually be useful insofar as they can be used as examples of the mainstream’s fabled tolerance and liberal attitude to dissent.

Such is the case with the United States and its relationship with Israel where ironically, institutionalized discrimination against Jews is more than it is against almost any other group.

This kind of relationship is not new. In the first quarter of the 19th century, the self-image of “victimized people” that had sustained the Jewish Diaspora for centuries took on a new and almost literally, concrete form, settlement policy. The development of settlements and their steady progress toward their current status was in four distinct stages.

Initial studies for settlement potential were conducted in 1824, when a group of Jewish archaeologists and historians carried out a study in Palestine. Little resulted in physical terms, but after the inauguration of the first Austrian Consulate in Jerusalem in 1849, the Jewish community submitted a petition to the Imperial Consulate of Emperor Franz Josef to help them and undertake the protection of their interests.

The first fruit of this application was the construction of the Mayer Rothschild Hospital, carried out by Albert Cohen, chairman of the French Committee for Solidarity with the Jews, in 1852. It was closely followed by the Leiml School in June 1856.

The function of the consulate in the projects was to channel money from the Jewish bourgeoisie to settlers in Jerusalem to help them build projects and settlements. The process of settlement, though only low key, had begun. It was the first step in the establishment of a de facto state in an area as yet undefined as a political entity.

Over the next 65 years, sixteen settlements were established beginning with Shaknot Sha’nanim — supported by the British ambassador to the Ottoman State in 1859 and ending with Jiva’at Shaoul, established in 1914.

Foreign consuls were very active in the first phase of the development of settlements, as was the Jewish community in Europe who funded the developments. Most of the activity took place in the western part of Jerusalem.

At this stage, the population of Palestine was overwhelmingly Muslim and Christian Arab. In 1915, the population totaled about 780,000 of which between 10 and 12 percent were Jews. The foundations of what was later to become the ‘weapon’ of settlement had been laid even before the Balfour Declaration of 1917.

Even before the British moved into Jerusalem, which marked the second stage of four in the settlement of Palestine, their support for the formation of a Jewish state was clear. It was framed as a “declaration of sympathy.” It soon became policy, though frequently only honored in the breaking of the respect for the rights of other religious communities.

It is a short document, and without the preamble of the letter that contained it, is one sentence.

“His Majesty’s Government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

The original text had read “Palestine should be reconstituted as the National Home of the Jewish people” — but was furiously opposed by Edwin Montague. The idea of reconstituting admits to a historical right, showing recognition that Palestine had been the Jews’ home, a view that he did not support or acknowledge.

According to the Peel Commission which was appointed in 1936 to establish the cause of the “Arab Riots,” “the field in which the Jewish home was to be established was understood, at the time of the Balfour Declaration, to be the whole of historic Palestine, including Transjordan.”

On Dec. 9t, 1917 the British Army under Gen. Allenby entered Jerusalem. Thus, the city came under British military rule which gave the settlements and the Balfour Declaration de facto international recognition through the Mandate resolution proclaimed by the League of Nations in June 1921 and implemented in September 1923.

The 12th Zionist congress of 1921 declared that the Jewish people wanted “to live with the Arabs in conditions of unity and mutual honor and together with them turn the common homeland into a flourishing land.” How hollow that sounds now; even then it was duplicitous.

Tom Segev in his book, “One Palestine Complete,” says that “The idea of transfer had accompanied the Zionist movement from the very beginnings. ‘Disappearing’ the Arabs lay at the heart of the Zionist dream.....With few exceptions, none of the Zionists disputed the desirability of forced transfer (of land) or its morality.”

The crucial matter was to get the timing right. Ben Gurion summed it up neatly when he reflected that what is inconceivable in normal times is possible in revolutionary times.

That policy continues today; when else would it be possible to level housing with people still inside it, section off huge areas of Palestinian land and deny access by the rightful owners under pain of death and shoot children on the streets except in the “revolutionary times?”

The Arabs were fearful of displacement from their lands. This was the core of the Arab resentment of Zionism. The current dogma is that Arabs hate Jews and this can be marketed as racism or religious discrimination. It may have reached that point; that is debatable. Its root cause, not accepted by the current conventions, is that the Palestinians feared being what they are now, a displaced people. They saw Zionism as the cause of that displacement, and so it has proved to be.

Invasive and aggressive settlement policy is the result of that Zionist expansion plan and the physical manifestation of the Arab fear of displacement.

Britain, with the move into Jerusalem, then provided the groundwork for the expansion of settlement, i.e. the use of Palestinian land.

The Zionist “Settlement Office,” in the light of the British agreements, expanded its activities from residential and agricultural into settlements of a more military nature, building fences and observations towers.

The Hebrew University, Hadassah Hospital and important Jewish financial, educational and administrative institutions were built in Jerusalem, establishing the credibility of the Jewish right to be there but incidentally adding credibility to the settlement program.

Between 1921 and 1946, 21 new settlements were built in the second stage of development, which involved establishing a presence in the Westerns sector of the city, outside the walls.

In May 1948 the phase ended with the establishment of the State of Israel on the lands gradually taken from the Palestinians. The city of Jerusalem was then partitioned into the Western sector under Jewish control with its rash of Jewish settlements and the Eastern, under Arab control.

(To be continued)