15.05.2025

From Balfour to genocide

Starvation, denial of aid, the current military escalation of Zionist violence into attempted genocide should be viewed in the context a century of colonial dispossession, writes Yassamine Mather

On May 13 - just two days short of Nakba Day - Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s assertion that Israel must “finish the job” in Gaza underscores a commitment to a comprehensive military campaign aimed at a highly controversial military plan to seize full control of the Gaza Strip and maintain a permanent military presence there.

This development marks a sharp escalation of Israeli operations. The plan encompasses complete territorial dominance, centralised control over any aid, and surely the forced displacement of all or at least most Palestinians from Gaza. Naturally, therefore, no timeline for withdrawal has been announced.

What is happening in Gaza today will happen on the West Bank tomorrow. Liberal critics, including major human rights organisations and senior UN officials, have condemned the plan as a grave violation of international law and a contributor to an unfolding humanitarian disaster. Emmanuel Macron, David Lammy, even members of the British Board of Jewish Deputies have shed crocodile tears. Meanwhile, Donald Trump and his administration seem quite content to let Netanyahu’s far right coalition get on with genocide.

Since the latest round of conflict began on October 7 2023, at least 52,000 Palestinians have died. Famine is spreading, clean water is scarce, and most of the population are effectively homeless. Gaza has been described by UN experts as a “zone of death”, with some two-thirds of its buildings flattened. Understandably, Palestinians see current events as a second Nakba - Arabic for ‘catastrophe’.

British mandate

The roots of the ongoing crisis can be traced to the imperial rivalries of World War I. In 1916, Britain and France secretly signed the Sykes-Picot Agreement, dividing much of the Arab provinces of the collapsing Ottoman Empire into zones of control. This agreement is now widely viewed as a defining moment in Middle Eastern colonialism, laying the groundwork for many of today’s conflicts. Palestine was designated for international administration, effectively sidelining the political aspirations of the local Arab population.

Under the terms of Sykes-Picot, France was to control coastal Syria, Lebanon and parts of southeastern Turkey, as well as exert its influence over inland Syria and northern Iraq. Britain would dominate the oil-rich south of Iraq and the Mediterranean coast from Haifa to Acre. Jerusalem and surrounding areas were to be governed as an international zone. The lines drawn ignored ethnic, sectarian and tribal realities. The agreement was kept secret until published by the new Soviet government in 1917. As intended by the Bolsheviks this not only exposed the culpability of the Menshevik-Right SR Provisional government. Russia was to get Constantinople and the Dardanelles. It roused anger in Turkey and the Arab world and fuelled the rise of anti-colonial resistance.

A year later, on November 2 1917, Britain issued the Balfour Declaration. Foreign secretary Arthur Balfour declared British support for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people”, on the supposed condition that “nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities”. British capitalism wanted a Jewish Ulster in the Middle East and for the Zionists this imperialist sponsorship was a strategic breakthrough. Without a powerful imperialist backer they knew their project was hopeless. But for Palestinians, of course, who formed the overwhelming majority of the population, it was a betrayal.

Britain had made vague promises of Arab independence in the Hussein-McMahon correspondence on Arab independence during World War I. This got Arabs on side against Ottoman Turkey during World War I, but it was pure cynicism. The Balfour Declaration, a short letter, transformed Zionism from a utopian dream into a political reality, it also guaranteed an explosive Zionist-Palestinian conflict.

Following World War I, the League of Nations awarded Britain the mandate over Palestine. So Britain now had the dual role of ‘colonial administrator’ and ‘mediator’ between two increasingly antagonistic national movements: the first, an oppressive movement, initially led by Labor Zionists such as David Ben-Gurion, the second, the Palestinians, a movement of the oppressed, which first emerged as a response to Zionist colonisation and expansionism.

During the 1920s and 30s, Jewish immigration surged, driven by European anti-Semitism, Zionist lobbying - and later by World War II, the holocaust and mass displacement. Finding countries such as America and Britain blocked to them, many Jews fleeing Europe arrived in Palestine. Zionist organisations such as the Jewish Agency consolidated land purchases and rapidly established quasi-state structures. Histadrut, the so-called Jewish trade union, acted as a colonial vanguard.

Jewish migration often displaced Arab tenant farmers and heightened Palestinian fears of becoming guest workers in their land. Resistance grew. Riots erupted in 1920, 1921 and 1929, and culminated in the Arab Revolt of 1936-39. Palestinians demanded an end to Jewish immigration, land sales and colonial rule, and called for independence. Britain responded with overwhelming force, crushing the revolt, executing leaders and weakening Palestinian political institutions. In 1939, the British government issued a white paper limiting Jewish immigration - a move that enraged Zionists, but failed to stabilise British rule over the indigenous Arabs.

Stalin suited

After World War II, understandably sympathy for European Jews grew. This suited Labor Zionists who reinvented themselves as an anti-colonial movement, rather than how it once, more honestly presented itself, ie, as a colonial movement. It also suited Stalin. Weakening the British empire was considered a strategic aim of Soviet foreign policy. He not only provided diplomatic backing, but, albeit indirectly, arms supplies. Britain struggled to maintain control amid the growing independence movement in its Indian and African colonies, in Palestine it faced attacks from Zionist militias like Irgun and Lehi.

In 1947, the United Nations voted to partition Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab zones. The plan was accepted by Zionist leaders and rejected by Arab ones, who viewed it as an outrage. War inevitably followed.

On May 14 1948, the state of Israel declared independence. The next day, Arab states invaded, leading to the first Arab-Israeli war. During the conflict, over 700,000 Palestinians were expelled or fled, and more than 400 villages were destroyed or depopulated. This mass displacement is now remembered globally as the Nakba and marks the beginning of the Palestinian diaspora.

The Nakba’s consequences endure. Millions of Palestinians and their descendants remain stateless, living in refugee camps across the region. Israel has denied them the right of return, despite UN general assembly resolution 194 affirming that right. For Palestinians, 1948 is not merely history - it is an ongoing reality of exile and loss.

Since 1948, Israel has fought repeated wars and expanded its control over more and more territory. The 1956 Suez crisis saw Israel, Britain and France invade Egypt after Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal. In 1967, Israel launched what it called a pre-emptive strike against Egypt, Jordan and Syria, capturing the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem, Sinai and the Golan Heights. These victories solidified Israel’s regional dominance, but intensified Palestinian dispossession.

The 1973 Yom Kippur war led to a temporary Arab advance, but Israel quickly reversed its losses. Peace negotiations followed, including the Camp David Accords. In 1982, Israel invaded southern Lebanon to expel the Palestine Liberation Organisation. Meanwhile, Palestinians in the occupied territories launched uprisings - the First Intifada in 1987 and the Second in 2000, protesting against military rule, settlement expansion and daily humiliation.

In 2007, Hamas won Palestinian legislative elections and eventually took control of Gaza. Since then, Gaza has faced a strict Israeli blockade, repeated military incursions, and severe isolation. Major assaults occurred in 2008‑09, 2012, 2014 and 2021. Each left hundreds or thousands dead - mostly civilians. Israel cites security concerns; Palestinians and many human rights groups call it ‘collective punishment’.

Across these decades, the power imbalance has widened. Israel, backed by US imperialism and key western allies, maintains overwhelming military superiority. International criticism has been frequent, but largely ineffective. Between 2015 and 2024, the UN general assembly passed 164 resolutions critical of Israeli actions. In 2024 alone, 17 such resolutions were adopted - none of which Israel has implemented.

Echo of history

The current plan to occupy Gaza indefinitely, with control over its territory and aid distribution, is widely seen as part of a longstanding strategy of displacement and demographic control. Israeli officials have openly discussed re-establishing settlements and removing Gaza’s population in whole or in parts.

The century-old questions remains: Whose land? Whose rights? And what kind of justice is possible, when history is written in cycles of erasure, violence and dispossession?

Instead of seeking dead-and-buried pro-imperialist resolutions, such as the two-state ‘solution’ or utopian notions that ignore the realities of the current situation, we must present a challenge to the existing structure, demanding:

• Equal rights for all: There must be full and equal rights, both individually and nationally, for everyone in Israel/Palestine. Currently, such rights do not exist.
• End the occupation: Israel must withdraw from the occupied Palestinian territories. While Israel shows no intention of doing so, the demand itself is crucial - it exposes the reality of occupation.
• The right of return for Palestinian refugees: This is a just and progressive demand that places Israel in a defensive position. Zionists oppose it because it ‘threatens’ Israel’s Jewish majority. But did they consider this when they colonised Palestine? When did they erase its original Arab character?
• Oppose the myth of Jewish ‘return’: Zionists assert a Jewish ‘right of return’, claiming they were expelled by the Romans. In reality, this never happened - it is a historical fabrication. Yet their ideology insists on a 2,000-year-old ‘right’, while denying Palestinians the same justice after just 70 years of displacement.

As I have tried to explain in this article, the history of the Palestinian conflict is directly connected to colonial and post-colonial manoeuvrings in the region. That is why the conflict cannot be solved by looking at Palestine in isolation. In addition, because of the unique nature of Zionist colonisation, the power dynamic is overwhelmingly in Israel’s favour - especially with the backing of its imperialist sponsor - while the Palestinian people remain at a severe disadvantage. This imbalance cannot be corrected within the current framework.

Genuine liberation for Palestine will only become possible through a revolutionary transformation of the broader region: an Arab revolution, led by the working class, that overthrows repressive regimes, unites the Arab east and breaks free from imperialist control. Such a revolution can create the conditions for the overthrow of the Zionist regime by the Israeli masses.

This regional dimension is not only essential for how the conflict can be resolved, but also shapes what that resolution will look like.