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Salient. Official Newspaper of Victoria University of Wellington Students Association. Vol 40 No. 22. September 5 1977
The Middle East Question ~ Two Views ~
The Middle East Question ~ Two Views ~
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British Mandate 1922-1948
1922
668,000 Arabs owning 98% of the land. 84,0 Jews owning 2% of the land.
1946
1,237,000 Arabs owning 92% of the land. 608,000 Jews (two-thirds immigrants) owning less than 8% of the land.
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UN Partition Plan 1947
| Jewish State | 498,000 Jews |
| 497,0 Arabs |
57% of the total area of Palestine including the most fertile lands.
| Arab State::: | 10,000 Jews |
| 725,0 Arabs |
42% of the total area of Palestine, mostly hilly and unproductive.
| Jerusalem | 100,000 Jews |
| (International zone) | 105,000 Arabs |
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1948 War
- 120,000 under alien rule in Israel
- 450,000 in their own homes under Arab rule
- 380,000 refugees in Gaza and the West Bank
- 400,000 refugees in exile outside Palestine.
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1967 War
- 313,000 under alien rule in Israel
- 640,000 in their homes under Israeli occupation
- 540,000 refugees under Israeli occupation
- 1,032,000 refugees in exile.
Usually when the issue of the Middle East (Palestine-Israel) is discussed in New Zealand it is accompanied by a great deal of heat and emotion and very little rationality and light. We hope that students and others reading this broadsheet will investigate all the material thoroughly, giving credence only to rational, sensible arguments and statements, and avoiding emotional material that tends to cloud the issue at hand.
While the history of the Palestine area has been interpreted in various ways, there is no doubt that the basic problem is the claims by two distinct peoples to the same area.
On the one hand the Zionist movement (incorporating many, but not all, Jewish people; as well as others) maintains that they have the right to occupy Palestine for historical reasons based on their biblical traditions.
On the other hand the Palestinian Arab people claim they have the right, along with the Jewish and Christian people who have inhabited the area for the last few centuries, to occupy Palestine, the land where they were born.
The following motion was passed at NZUSA's August 1977 Council and is, therefore, NZUSA policy on the Middle East.
"That NZUSA recognises that the Israeli Government and Arab governments deny the rights of the Palestinian people, and believes that a free, democratic and secular Palestinian state should be created."
Obviously, when two groups lay claim to the same area, the solution can be only one of three things in the long run: either the Palestinian arabs or the Zionist Jews can control the area, or they can both live in the same area and have their government based on serving the mutual needs of the inhabitants rather than one or other ethnic grouping.
At the moment, one of the first two choices has been effected; The Zionist Jewish movement control the area known as Palestine—they call it by their biblical name for it (Israel)—and this control is at the expense of the Palestinian arabs. People should consider which of these choices would be the fairest outcome for all concerned.
In the short run, the NZUSA policy in favour of a democratic and secular (non-religious) state—the third choice - may not be realisable. Clearly, the Zionist leaders of Israel have military control over Palestine. However, more and more people; Jewish, Palestinian and others are seeing that an equitable solution for all parties must be found to the problem if the Middle East is ever to achieve a just and lasting peace.
It is NZUSA's hope that its members, both Jewish and non-Jewish will see that everyone's rights in Palestine must be respected and will therefore help all moves that promote that end.
NZUSA 1.9.77
This Broadsheet has been produced by NZUSA in the interests of promoting a rational, balanced debate on a topic that is usually controversial and is certainly of considerable interest to a large number of New Zealand students. While NZUSA has policy opposing the actions of the State of Israel in the Middle East, we have nevertheless gone out of our way to secure an article from the Israeli Ambassador to New Zealand, whose views on the subject are diametrically opposed to ours.
In obtaining the Ambassador's article, an officer of NZUSA was forced to suffer the indignity of a 5-6 minute body search by an armed embassy official. Our officer also had to remove his coat, all objects from his pockets and undo his belt, as well as submit to a metal-detector examination. All this occurred in a small locked room with closed-circuit television trained on this 'performance'. In addition the Ambassador demanded that our officer sign a declaration agreeing to alter nothing in his article including his heading. Although this was clearly in contravention of normal editorial freedom, the agreement was made, again in the interests of presenting a balanced publication.