أفكار حُـرّة : رئيس التحرير محمد حسين النجفي

Introduction:
The term state means, among other things, the existence of an ancient people living permanently on a certain land, possessing a common history, customs and traditions, that organize themselves in a social contract that guarantees the existence of a legal authority that regulates and manage their life affairs. This is my understanding of the meaning of the state in its comprehensive form. As for the concept of a nation, it is all of the above plus the spiritual and fateful affiliation to that geographical land they called the so-and-so state by its own citizens. Our hypothesis in this article is that new group of settlers to any geographical land cannot establish a nation-state by their own disregarding the native people, and if they do establish it peacefully or by force, it may not last.

Historical Review:
There are many types of states under various names, which lack some of the foundations that we set out in the introduction to this topic. For example, about twenty years ago we witnessed the formation of what is called “ISIS”, which is an abbreviation for “Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (the Levant)”, by controlling vacant desert areas between Iraq, Syria and Jordan, and then expanding by invading and occupying cities such as Mosul, Tikrit, Ramadi, Deir ez-Zor and Albu-Kamal, to be inhabited by ISIS fighters coming from Central Asia and neighboring Arab countries in the form of forced settlements. Their eminent demise was fated when they considered everyone who does not subscribe to their version of extremist Salafist Islam as a non-Muslim.

The other model is the Nation of Islam, which was founded by Elijah Muhammad and later led by Louis Farrakhan. This model creates an organization based on pledging the Allegan to a their version of understanding Islam by the African American living in America, separating them from the rest of society, making it a state within the United States of America. Obviously to call it a Nation, is a misnomer, because it is more likely an organization, or party or a religious sect.

There is the economic model that was developed in the nineteenth century, which imposed the necessity of controlling the political power to protect economic interests of the non-native settlers, which is the model of Anglo-Saxon settlers in Africa, in search of precious metals such as gold, diamonds, copper, uranium, etc., and they hastened to form preserves or settlements and armed themselves to protect their residential compounds, interests, mines, farms and way of life from danger. When the native people of these nations began to think about forming a modern state and gaining independence from the European colonialism, the white population feared the danger threatening their interests, so they converted their commercial administration to be governments and their armed militias to become armies and security services, and formed racist governments that controlled the indigenous population and its natural resources, such as South Africa and Southern Rhodesia, where the white minority declared independence unilaterally, and established states based on racial separation and control over the majority, who are the indigenous population.

The Algerian model is characterized by annexing the geographical area of ​​the colonized state to include the land and people who live in it. For example, France considered Algeria part of it, since occupied it in 1830, before that it was part of the Ottoman Empire. Given Algeria’s agricultural and mineral wealth, some French invested in Algeria and settled there, and worked to change Algerian culture by converting the educational programs to the French language. In the beginning “General de Gaulle” defended the conversion to French culture process of Algeria until the year 1959, when he adopted and offered the principle of self-determination to the Algerians. Algerian people did not accept the occupation and there were many uprisings and revolutions, including the movement of “Abdelkader Al-Jazairi” in 1943, then the Algerian Liberation Revolution led by the “Algerian Liberation Front” in 1954. When France began negotiating with the Algerians on the terms of independence, the French settler’s revolted and formed the “Secret Republican Army” in 1961, a terrorist organization that tried to secede from France and form a racist state in Algeria run by the French settlers, not the indigenous people. In the end Algeria gained independence under the Evian Agreement on March 18, 1962, and Independence Day was July 5, 1962.

The “Andalusian” experience tells us about a similar case, where the Arabs and Berber Muslims led by Tariq bin Ziyad and Musa bin Nusayr conquered the Iberian Peninsula, which is southern Spain, and succeeded in establishing an Arab Islamic state, Andalusia, which expanded in later years to reach Switzerland, and lasted for about 800 years from 711 to 1492 AD. But despite all the cultural and urban achievements and the construction of many magnificent mosques and palaces, it ended without Spain turning to speak Arabic or embrace the Islamic religion or become part of the Arab or Islamic world.

With all these failed settlers’ experimentations, there are some that have been successful to some extent up to this day. Among these successful experiments are Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States of America, where European adventurers and explorers conquered overseas remote and unknown lands, seeking wealth and control over unlimited economic resources. The goal of these discoveries and adventures was not to establish independent states, because all these campaigns were part of military, economic, and missionary Voyage campaigns to serve the British and Spanish crowns and other European countries.

The Arguments:
The question that imposes itself here, is why did the settlers fail in Algeria, South Africa, Rhodesia, and Andalusia, and succeeded in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the United States of America? The answer to this question is very important to us in order to conclude, if the organized Jewish immigration from Europe and the world in general to Palestine and forcing the establishment of the entity of the new state of Israel is closer to be successful or to be a failed experiment?

First, none of the successful experiments exceeded three hundred years as a country, and the oldest of them is the United States, and success here is a relative matter compared to failed experiences, and this success was not easy because it was built at the expense of the indigenous people of these explored lands before they had names of countries. For example, white Europeans exterminated ninety percent of the indigenous tribes in the American continent, who were called “Red Indians” because they were dark-skinned and resembled the inhabitants of the Indian subcontinent more than they resembled white Europeans.

I believe that one of the most important reasons for success is that the original inhabitants of these lands explored for settlements had not yet reached the stage of forming cities, but rather lived in the form of tribes spread out near water sources, living in tents on flat lands that did not provide any protection against invaders, and that the population density for the size of the vast lands was very small. Where settlements failed, there were relatively advanced dense human gatherings inhabiting defensible cities.

The other factor in my opinion is that those settlements failed to control people who have a history, civilization, language and religious beliefs that link the population and make them a unified force that opposes the invaders. For example, Algeria has many cities such as the city of Algiers, Oran, Annaba, Constantine and many others, and the inhabitants of these cities share a history, religious belief and national feelings that are difficult to melt in the crucible of a minority of another race and religion regardless of how much their military might dominated over them.

The same logic applies to the failure of the “Amaweyat state in Andalusia” experiment, even though Arab Islamic settlements lasted eight hundred years. Why? Because the inhabitants of Spain are a relatively homogeneous people who have a common language and embrace the Catholic and Jewish religions. It was difficult to convert them to Islam or change their culture and language to Arabic, and thus the Arab Muslims remained a ruling upper class and could not plant roots on the Spanish native land.

The other factor is the extent of the cruelty of the invading explorers in dealing with the indigenous population. For example, as we mentioned, the white explorers exterminated ninety percent of the Red Indians throughout the American continent, and thus there was no longer a people to resist, while this does not apply to the treatment of the Arab conquerors with the inhabitants of Andalusia, Spain. Thus, the society, its leaders, religious references, churches and Jewish temples remained without exaggerated marginalization, so they were able to gather their strength to end the Arab Islamic presence in Spain.

The Conclusions:
In conclusion, we come to the goal of this research, which is whether the Israeli entity on the land of Palestine is closer to be a successful or a failed settlement experiment? Although the answer to this question is not that easy and cannot be definitive, I tend to think that of the trajectory of its history is leading towards a  failed experience, either completely or at least partially, destined to experience more uprisings and further alienating it from its neighboring nations.

The sources of strength for the Palestinian people are their ancient history in their land for thousands of years, and they have a unified Arabic language and their religion is Islam, Christianity and even Judaism for its original inhabitants. The Palestinians have ancient cities such as Jerusalem, Haifa, Jaffa, Gaza, Nablus, Bethlehem, Nazareth, Tiberias, Beisan, Safed, Acre, Hebron and others. These are ancient historical cities that carry a rich and flourishing architectural heritage with mosques, churches, monasteries and temples for the three religions. Another source of strength for the Palestinian people is the population density and its rapid growth despite the difficult living conditions. Adding to their strength is the regional depth of the Palestinians as part of the Arab and Islamic people, and what this represents in terms of military, material, political and cultural support. However, in my opinion the main factor is the spiritual bond of the Palestinians with their land, is not because it is a state but because it is their homeland.

The strength of the Palestinians is countered by their inability to unite themselves politically in one front, as happened in Algeria and South Africa, for example, and their reliance to a large extent on the Arab countries to liberate them, perhaps more than necessary, and the continued immigration, especially of young people, as a result of the difficult circumstances, and the West’s strong and strict stand with the Israeli entity and its international justification on the basis of the right to defend itself and to combat anti-Semitism.

A primary source of weakness of the Israeli entity is its insistence that is a home for the Jews and to the exclusion of all other religionists living on that land. Another source of weakness is the non-homogeneity of the Jewish religionists, creating an upper class of European Jews and a lower class of all the rest. Their religious doctrine is diverse and includes sects that are at odds with each other, even if they are outwardly united against the Palestinians.

However, the most important source of weakness of the Israeli entity is its heavy dependence on the financial, military and political assistance of the United States, England and European countries. If this support stops or weakens for any reason in the future, the pillars of this entity will collapse. More importantly, the entity is unable to satisfy and win the affection of the Palestinian people, who own the land and the legitimacy to live in the country of their fathers and grandfathers. Consequently, it remains a people that lives with them and does not co-exist with them by consent. Under such conditions, there will be no peaceful co-existence between the native Palestinian population and the immigrant explorers and adventurers who impose their presence on the seized land by excessive force.

The recommended solution:
Therefore, the survival of the Israelis and the Palestinians to live on the land of Palestine together peacefully, will depend on their courage and ability to develop their co-existence in one of these two models:

• The first is to transform the state into a unified nation, non-racist, secular, civil state that includes all religions of the indigenous population and immigrants and that all citizens are equal in their rights and duties, as happened in South Africa and Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe).
• Or to accept the two-states solution as proposed by many countries, despite the justified doubts about their credibility. Czechoslovakia as a country and a nation decided to be split in two nation-states in year 1992 peacefully, to create more harmonic two neighboring states the Czech Republic and the Slovakia Republic, and they live in peace since then. Another example is the dividing of Cyprus Island. The disagreement between the two prominent ethnic communities, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots in the 1950s and 1960s, led to violent conflict between them. Turkey as a country invaded the Island and secure the Northern part for the Island for the Turkish ethnic to live in it, and for the Southern part to remain for the Greek Ethnic. Although this one was done by force to create Greek Cyprus and Turkish Cyprus, but there has been peace between the two sides for more than fifty years.

March 2025
Mohammad Hussain Alnajafi
Editor-in-Chief of the Free Ideas website
www.mhalnajafi.org
www.afkarhurah.com