More than eleven months after the October 7 attacks that triggered the war between Israel and Hamas, Gaza continues to be ablaze, with an increased risk of a regionalization of the conflict. This recent escalation is the umpteenth episode in a long series of tragic events that Rachad Antonius deciphers in his new essay, The conquest of Palestine.
To understand what is going on today in this bustling corner of the planet where two peoples claim the same territory, we often have to go back a little further into the past. “It is the set of events that have occurred since the beginning of the 20th centurye century which allows us to give meaning to the current behavior of political actors,” indicates the author of Egyptian origin.
The committed work offers an explicitly Palestinian perspective, immediately dismissing some aspects of the conflict, such as the question of Jewish and Palestinian nationalism or the attitudes of the Arab countries. This is a shame, because these are crucial points of understanding, but the fact remains that the essay traces almost point by point more than a century of historical circumstances. The author focuses on the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, the source, according to him, of the first misfortunes experienced by the Arabs of Palestine.
Thus, the former professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM) and specialist in the Middle East structures his work around several moments that he considers essential to understanding the issues: the British mandate (1917-1922), the creation of Israel (1947-1949) and the Oslo Accords (1993-1995), this peace process that never fully materialized, but which the specialist considered unfair for the Palestinians in any case.
Exodus and dispossession
The co-author with Ali Belaidi of the work Islam and Islamism in the West (PUM, 2023) explains how the Zionist movement and then Israel organized themselves very early on to drive out the Arab inhabitants, denouncing in passing the support of the great Western powers of the time, such as Great Britain or the United States. Drawing on legal documents, humanitarian reports and even the work of Israeli historians, Rachad Antonius examines chapter by chapter the decisions and actions that led to the exodus of a population and the dispossession of its territory.
The expulsion of the Palestinians is a real disaster (nakba in Arabic), he recalls, arguing that Zionism is a purely colonial phenomenon. According to him, the Hebrew state – which has never stopped colonizing the occupied territories – has always strived to prevent by all possible means the accession to any form of self-determination for the Palestinian population. It should be noted that the former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin paid with his life for his desire to put an end to the state of war between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
Antonius’ essay also provides the author with an opportunity to analyze Canada’s position. In a brief passage, he points out Ottawa’s contradictions and double standards on the matter. He also revisits a number of sensitive debates on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, including anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism.