Announcer: The views and opinions expressed in to the point are those of the hosted, the program and its guests.

They do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of WGTE Public Media.

Doni: I've struggled with how to discuss the conflict between Palestine and Israel on this show.

The ambition of to the point is to provide unbiased information about those topics important to us in a way that encourages reflection upon how we view those issues and their place in our lives.

My goal in talking about Palestine and Israel is no different.

It is, however, something far worse than I that to ignore the inseparable emotional and historical complexities that can't help but inform such discussion.

Sometimes knowing the why of these things helps with clarity.

Dr. Mary Robinson, Chair of the Department of History, Political Science and Geography at Lourdes University, is my guest today.

Dr. Robinson will provide a historical context for this war, which might help us better understand one of the most enduring conflicts of our time.

I'm Doni Miller, and welcome To the Point.

Connect with us on social media.

As always, I love to hear from you, so please don't hesitate to email me at doni _miller@wgte.org and as you know, for this episode and any other episode that you'd like to see, just go to wgte.org/to the point: we have, Dr. Mary Robinson with us today.

Dr. Mary Robinson, first of all, thank you so much for being with us.

Dr. Robinson is the chair of History, political Science, and geography at Lord's University.

Really big job, but an expert in issues around the Middle East.

So thank you for coming today.

This is a tough discussion.

We hardly have enough time to give it the justice that it deserves, but we're going to try so how do we get here?

Mary?

Mary: Well, that's a very good question.

I think there's a lot of misinformation and a lot of misunderstanding about how we got to this place in time.

When I teach about this in my classes, I like to go back to about the 19th century and talk about what is happening in the late 19th century and how that got us to the position we're in today.

So if we look at the late 19th century, the area that we're talking about of what is now Israel, Palestine was under the control of the Ottoman Empire.

Right.

And so it was all it and what's now modern day Syria and Jordan were all part of the Ottoman province of Syria.

So the people that all lived in that province, the Arab population in that in that province of Syria, were all pretty much of of similar ethnicity and similar cultural traits.

And they lived in that in that region and had lived in that region for millennia at that point.

Now, if we look at what's going on in Europe with the Jewish population in the 19th century, there's an increase in anti-Semitism in Europe.

And this new wave of anti-Semitism, of course, will carry on into the 20th century and lead to the horrors of the Holocaust.

But as it be as it really ramps up in the 19th century, it leads to situations for Jewish people in Western Europe where they're accused of crimes.

They don't commit, where they are facing persecution.

Both those Jews who choose to practice their religion and those who don't.

And then in Eastern Europe, it's it's even worse.

The Jewish population in Eastern Europe faces actual dislocation and forced migration out of their homes, especially in Russia, where the Russians are facing problems of their own and their own price crises and domestic problems, rather than trying to fix those problems, they blame it on the Jewish population.

So the Jewish population is forced out of Eastern Europe.

A lot of the Jews from Eastern Europe, most of them end up in Western Europe and the United States, but a few of them start migrating to what is now Israel, Palestine and some wealthy Jewish financiers and families in Western Europe start buying land in is in the Syrian province, the province of Syria in the Ottoman Empire.

Start buying land for these Jewish families that are fleeing persecution, particularly in Eastern Europe and or and they buy it either from the local Arab population or from the Ottoman administration.

And so small numbers of Jewish families and Jewish people start going to this area that is now Israel Palestine.

There's a second wave of migration that happens in at the turn of the 20th century of Jewish migration to this area of the Middle East.

And that Jewish population, a lot of those people are are educated.

They had been active in politics in Western Europe and in Eastern Europe.

And they see in this territory in Palestine the opportunity to set up these sort of socialist, independent communities and those become the kibbutzim.

And so the kibbutz, like you saw on the horrors of October 7th, the those the original concept for the kibbutz kibbutzim were these Jewish immigrants coming from Western and Eastern Europe.

At the same time, Jew, there are Jews, especially in Western Europe, who have begun to advocate for a place for Jews to live.

That will be run by Jews.

For Jews, where people of Jewish ethnicity and religion can live free from persecution and free from free from discrimination.

And several places had been floated as a possibility for this various different groups of people suggested.

Some suggested the United States.

And then, interestingly enough, the first non-Jewish person to call for a national homeland for the Jews was Napoleon Bonaparte in the early 1800s, who declared France as the national homeland for the Jews, and that Jews could come and live in France free from persecution.

Now, he had conditions for that, so it didn't actually turn out the way he maybe intended, but but he is the first leader of a European power to call for a national homeland for the Jews.

That desire for a national homeland, for the Jews and a sort of Jewish nationalism that once that independent Jewish state where Jews can live free from persecution, becomes that movement becomes known as Zionism, and Zionism grows in the 19th century.

And at the end of the 19th century, at the World Zionist Organization, Theodor Herzl, one of the Zionist leaders, declares that he thinks that the most appropriate place for a national homeland for the Jews is Palestine, because that is the ancestral home of the Jews.

And you already have some Jewish people living there.

Doni: And this was around 1940.

Mary: Eight, just prior to that.

It's around 1897.

So it's much earlier.

It predates both World Wars.

Doni: All right.

Mary: And so so this his declaration that Palestine is the most appropriate place for a national homeland for the Jews doesn't immediately lead to a change in policy or or any sort of real change in the trajectory of the history, because what the Jewish Zionists need is they need some prominent international organization or or or government to recognize that claim and to advocate for that claim.

And that won't come until after World War One.

So that brings us up to World War One.

For me, the biggest deciding factor of what?

Of how we get to where we are today with the Middle East is World War One.

So in World War One.

Doni: I want to interrupt you for just a moment.

Just a moment.

And I want we're giving people a lot of information that's right down the middle, totally unbiased.

It is what it is.

But why is this historical perspective important when people are thinking about this issue?

Mary: That's, that's a very good question.

It's important to understand the history, because I think if we can start with a common understanding of the history, we start with a common denominator, right?

We start with here's here's what happened in the history.

Now, how can we move forward from there?

And where the where the problem happens is that different sides and different different groups have different perspectives on the history.

And that's, that's what history is.

Different people have different perspectives.

But I think if we can start with a common ground, we can then move forward in our discussion to, to try to find some more common ground beyond just the past.

Doni: Yeah, even in an issue is as complex as this one.

Mary: I think so.

Yeah, I think so.

And like I said, I think that there's some misunderstanding or.

Or misrepresentation of what has happened in the past.

What I hear from people a lot is that they think that this is just a religious conflict.

And while religion has played a role to some extent, it's not just a religious conflict.

And in fact, I would argue it is much more of a nationalist movement than than it is a religious conflict.

It's two groups of people that want their own independent national states rather than Muslims versus Jews, which is really not accurate.

I think there's also a misunderstanding.

I've heard from people that they say, well, people have been fighting in that region for thousands of years, for forever.

And as a historian, I can find you lots of places on the planet where people have been fighting for thousands of years.

I, I think that's too simplistic of an answer.

This one, a complex problem.

Doni: Absolutely.

This one is fundamentally different.

Mary: I feel like it is.

Doni: What is that fundamental difference?

Mary: So I think one of the fundamental differences is that you are dealing.

One of the fundamental differences is you're dealing with a population of people that did already live in this region, the Arab Palestinian population that already lived in this region.

And then you're dealing with new immigrants moving in.

And so you're dealing with that fundamental problem of who who gets priority, who gets to claim this is their land.

And if they both claim it as their land, how do we find a solution where both people can live and have their own communities and have their own state and nations while not infringing on the rights of the other?

So I think and while that conflict plays out in other parts of the world, like in the Balkans, play out in Latin America, this one, I think I think this one carries a different weight because I think religion does at times get infused into it.

And so that becomes a driving factor.

And there's also, in this region a real competition for resources.

I want you to hold that thought.

Okay.

We need to go away for just a minute.

But that's a perfect place to come back to.

We're going to go away for just a moment, but please stay with us.

Carol: Lucas County Jail today is vastly different than it was in 2014.

The individuals in the jail.

Were not being.

Correctly served.

Nor was the population of Lucas County.

When we started digging into the needs of the community and the jail population, we realized we can make the community a safer place and a more just place.

Repeat crime before trial.

Can go down.

In Lucas County's case, it did.

You can reduce your jail population, meaning that people have a better chance of succeeding in life.

VO: WGTE Public media, in collaboration with the John D and Catherine T MacArthur Safety and Justice Challenge, presents Rethinking Joe and Justice.

Community Town Hall that challenges our thinking about overincarceration and how this adversely and disproportionately affects racial and ethnic minorities.

Join the discussion at the downtown Toledo Lucas County Public Library on January ten at 5:30 p.m.

Your questions and comments will be addressed at the town hall and can be sent in advance to wgte.org/rjj Doni: Welcome back and remember that you can connect with us at any time on our social media pages.

And as importantly, you can email me your thoughts about what we're doing, what you'd like to see us do at doni _miller@wgte.org.

And if you'd like to see this show or any others that we've aired on to the point, just go to wgte.org/to the point.

We have Dr. Mary Robinson with us from Lord's University.

The intent of today's show is to is to give everyone some historical context as to when you are considering the conflict right now in between Palestine and Israel.

It's a complicated subject.

We all say that.

But that is no excuse for us not to try to understand why we are where we are at at this point.

Unbiased information.

Directly down the middle.

I so like to hear your comments, though, about this show.

So when you get a minute, please contact me.

We were saying as we as we went to break, there's an issue of resources.

Mary: Right?

Well, this particular piece of real estate is a desert, right.

And the end in a desert, community resources are at a premium.

Doni: Absolutely.

Mary: Water that are freshwater is at a premium.

Communication, transportation, means of means of transportation are at a premium.

And so I think that also complicates the problem here in the Middle East, is that we're dealing with a region that that lacks some of a lot of the resources that other regions would have and even for other desert regions of the Middle East.

If you look at a place like Iraq or Iran, they have the oil, they have oil, which is a tremendous natural resource and can both destabilize the region but also lead to a more stable government.

When you have a commodity that is in such demand, but this region doesn't really have that commodity, that it's in such demand.

That's also one of the reasons for the Jewish community and for the Israelis why they have why they claim they have such a important land claim, because these kibbutz came in and became these self-sustaining communities out in the desert in the late 19th and into the 20th century.

And they brought with them a sense they were coming from Western Europe.

They brought with them modern farming practices and agricultural techniques and agricultural equipment.

And in many cases, they literally made the desert bloom.

They were able to establish modern irrigation systems.

They did exploit some of the resources that are there.

One of the famous kibbutz is that the at the Dead Sea, where they extract minerals from the Dead Sea, in the mud around the Dead Sea to make beauty products.

And so from the Israeli perspective, they came in and they utilized this land and they exploited the land much more effectively than what the Palestinian population that had lived there had done previously.

Now, from the Palestinian side, they would argue, well, we were part of the Ottoman Empire.

The Ottomans told us what we could and could not do in terms of economic activity.

And so we didn't really have the resources to exploit this.

These this region like what happens with the Jewish population that moves in.

So resources becomes an issue as well.

Doni: So the, the major dividing issue here between Palestine and Israel is what?

Mary: It's over land and it's over, over who gets to have a national state, an independent state in this region.

Throughout the history, several groups all the way from the British government to the UN to the United States, have proposed a two state solution in the for the last almost 100 years.

But the part of the problem with the two state solution, each one that gets proposed, is that it's going to end up with state with somebody having territory that is not contiguous.

So somebody is going to have an exclave and you can have an excuse.

The United States as an exclave with Canada, as long as you have friendly relations with your neighbor, right, then things are fine.

But when you have an exclave and a not so friendly neighbor, then then what that leads to is the exclave can be cut off from communication, from resources, from transportation, from the main body of the country, and most of the two state solution proposals that have been put on the table have involves either Israel or Palestine or both.

Having to having national territory that is not contiguous.

And and one of the main reasons for that is, is again, resources.

Would it be fair to give the Israelis all all the access to the Jordan River and the Palestinians get no access to the Jordan River?

Would it be fair to give the Palestinians access to access to all of Jerusalem and the Israelis have no access to the old city of Jerusalem?

I mean, these are various issues that have been dealt with.

Doni: And the presence of the settlements don't make this easier.

Mary: No.

So let's talk about a little bit about the history of how we came to the settlements.

So in 1948, in 1947, after World War Two, there was a significant increase in the immigration of Jews to this area of Palestine.

And at the time after World War One, at the time this territory was controlled by the British, by the British government.

And the British were supposed to prepare this region for independence.

But the British kind of ruled the region much like they did a lot of their colonies, which is play local groups off each other.

So in 1947, the British government, also fresh off of World War two and with depleted resources, decides that they are done with this, with this trying to govern Palestine and trying to find an equitable solution for Jews and and Palestinians.

And so they give the issue over to the UN.

Well, the UN's fairly new this is one of the first major issues the UN has to tackle.

And so the UN establishes a commission and the commission comes back and says a two state solution internationalized Jerusalem and and everything will be fine.

Well, neither the Jewish Israeli population like that, nor did the Palestinian population like that, because again, you end up with the problem of the two state solution, right?

Who gets who gets what, prime real estate.

And so at that point and so violence between the two groups against each other and against the British government erupts and the British government then declares that they're going to just evacuate Palestine and May of 1948 and let the people there sort it out for themselves.

So the day before, the British were supposed to have to completely pull out of the Palestinian mandates.

That's what it was called.

The leaders of the Jewish community got together and they met in Tel Aviv and they declared the independent state of Israel on the day before the the mandate was to expire the next day after the declaration of the independent state of Israel.

Six of the six of Israel's Arab neighbors declared war on Israel and invade and tried to invade.

And this then leads to a this then leads to a conflict where I think for a lot of fledgling nations that are only a day old, this would have been the end.

Right.

Right.

But the Israeli community already had an army in place and they already had a state structure.

So they were able to repel the invasion of all of these other at the time, more powerful nations.

And what the and so what happens with that is that at the that the UN decides to intervene and the UN tries to set up a tries to have some kind of peacekeeping and the UN sends over a negotiator, an experienced Swedish negotiator to try to come to a to try to to try to negotiate an armistice between Israel and its neighbors.

The Swedish negotiator is assassinated.

And so it's his it's his assistant who is given the task of negotiating the armistice.

And his assistant is actually a Detroit native named Ralph Bunche, who steps in and negotiates the armistice between Israel and its Arab neighbors.

Doni: We all know that now.

Mary: Yeah, I hope so.

Yeah.

As a result, he he wins the Nobel Peace Prize.

He's the first African-American to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Yeah, but what?

That the armistice was not a lasting peace.

It was just a fire.

And what that does then is the armistice said wherever the Israeli army is located right now, that's going to be the temporary borders.

Doni: Is that how the settlements actually developed?

Mary: So the settlements do, do start to start to develop, because during the conflict, a lot of the Palestinian population that had been living in the places that are now occupied by the Israeli army had fled.

A lot of them flee to refugee camps in the neighboring countries like Lebanon and Syria.

Some of them flee the refugee camps within what is now Israel.

So that's how we get the Gaza Strip.

Doni: Okay.

So let me interrupt you, because we are we are really close to being out of time.

And I, I really want first of all, I want to encourage everybody to take a minute and learn more about the history of of this conflict.

And I'm going to make sure that we talk to Dr. Robinson again about this.

But if you are if you are Israeli, your position in this conflict, simply stated, is we belong here.

This is our land.

We have been driven from place to place to place, and this is our settlement.

Palestinians point of view is why their counter to that is.

Mary: they're counters is pretty much the same.

We were here first.

We were here first.

This was our land.

We we had this.

This was our land for four centuries.

And if the Jewish population has a right to a homeland, why don't we have a right to a homeland?

And in the 19th and 20th century, European powers and Western powers supported independence, ethnic groups fighting for their own independent countries.

And if that included the Jewish Jewish independence, why would that doesn't include Palestinian?

Doni: Complicated issues.

We'll be talking about this a lot, a lot in the coming days.

And thank you so much for joining us.

And thank you for being with us today.

And I hope to see you next time and to the point.

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They do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of WGTE Public Media.

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