David Ben-Gurion Archives - CrossFireArarbia

Haaretz: US Finally Independent From Israel

CrossFireArabia
May 12, 2025

An article in Haaretz reports that Israel has suffered several blows in recent days in its historical relations with the United States. And that US President Donald Trump no longer requires Saudi Arabia to normalize relations with Tel Aviv for Washington’s nuclear cooperation with Riyadh.

Adding insult to injury to the Israel occupying state, Trump has reached an agreement with the Houthis Ansar Allah group to end US military strikes on Yemen. This is plus the fact the US has began negotiations with Iran without the blessing of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Further to that a US official in the Trump administration also held direct contact with the Hamas.

However, Odeh Basharat in his Haaretz article argues that the most painful blow Israel has ever suffered was Trump’s dismissal of his National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz, due to a discussion he had with Netanyahu, behind Trump’s back, about launching a military attack on Iran.

Basharat said the United States has finally begun to wake up and free itself from the shackles of Israel, and act as an independent state, not a “banana republic.” Basharat, a journalist from the Arab world, expressed his astonishment at these developments and wondered whether what was happening before his eyes was real or merely an illusion.

The writer believes that a seismic clash is taking place between the two countries and the two men, and that all the reasons are now converging. “America is gaining its independence 250 years after the beginning of its First Revolutionary War,” referring to the war that took place between 1765 and 1783, when 13 British colonies in North America rejected British colonial rule and gained their independence.

Basharat describes this emancipation as the Great American Rebellion, and attributes its causes to the fact that the world—and the United States as part of it—felt deeply concerned by what the writer, with biting sarcasm, called “Israel’s diplomatic acrobatics,” its “enlightened occupation” of the Palestinian territories, and its “closure (of the Gaza Strip) that allows only air in.”

According to the article, as soon as Israel reaches an agreement on a particular issue, it adds new conditions the next day. Although the Arab states that signed peace agreements with Israel were not required to recognize it as a Jewish and democratic state, only the Palestinians are required to do so, which, as Basharat argues, permanently relegates Israeli Arabs to second-class citizens.

According to the article, it has become clear that Netanyahu is deceiving everyone: Arabs, Jews, and Americans, not just Hamas and the Lebanese Hezbollah movement, as he previously boasted to Israeli police investigators that he misled and deceived them, then bombed them.

Since the time of David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, the state’s policy has been based on force. In contrast, Trump seems to believe in a policy of carrots and sticks—meaning diplomacy and force combined—according to the article.

The author claims that the US president thinks differently, as demonstrated by his actions toward the Houthis, Iran, and the tariffs. Once he realized he had failed, he took a step back.

As for Israel, its problem does not lie solely with Netanyahu, as Basharat argues, but rather with the fact that it has not offered an alternative to force. Only three of its former prime ministers, according to the article, have taken a different path: Moshe Sharett, whom Ben-Gurion was keen to overthrow; Yitzhak Rabin, who paid for it with his life; and Ehud Olmert, who was ousted before even presenting his plan.

Furthermore, Israel has long treated the White House as a branch of its prime minister’s office, intervening in the wording of every sentence in documents issued by Washington regarding Israel, according to the Haaretz article as reported in Al Jazeera.

Opinion

‘Zionism a Mistake’ – Israeli Historian Tom Segev

CrossFireArabia
April 27, 2025

Tom Segev, one of Israel’s most renowned historians, has broken a decades-long silence. On his 80th birthday, he declared that Zionism—Israel’s founding ideology—was a mistake.

In a deeply personal interview with Haaretz, Segev said, “Zionism is not such a great success story. It also doesn’t provide security to Jews. It’s safer for Jews to live outside Israel.” He added that Zionism created myths instead of solutions.

Born in Jerusalem in 1945 to Jewish German parents who fled the Nazis, Segev has spent more than 50 years researching Israel’s history. His books include 1967, The Seventh Million, and Soldiers of Evil, all known for challenging Israeli narratives.

In the interview, Segev shared a painful truth about his father’s death. He grew up believing his father was killed by an Arab sniper during the 1948 war. “I was able to say that he was killed during the War of Independence and that I was a war orphan.”

But later, Segev’s sister revealed a different story. Their father had actually died in a freak accident—falling from a drainpipe while trying to deliver coffee to guards. He stated that he was brought up on a lie.

This moment of reckoning made him question everything—including the stories Israel tells about itself.

Segev now says the Zionist project was never meant for people like his parents. “My parents started to plan their return to Germany”, he revealed. “They were never Zionists and they wanted to go home. A month after the last letter my father wrote to a friend about how much he wanted to go back – he was killed.”

Despite growing up in Israel, Segev never fully embraced Zionist ideals. He stressed that much of what Israelis were told was myth.

In his academic work, Segev often turns to documents rather than oral testimonies. He famously challenged former Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion in a 1968 interview, questioning the idea that Ben-Gurion became Zionist at age three.

Segev believes the Holocaust has been politically weaponized. In The Seventh Million, he argued that instead of teaching democracy and human rights, Israel used the Holocaust to fuel fear and justify wars.

He also criticized internal discrimination within Israeli society. In his book 1949: The First Israelis, Segev exposed how Jewish colonial settlers from Arab countries were pushed into camps, while Europeans were given hotels.

Segev insists he isn’t ideological. “People have also said I am anti-Zionist, but I am not an ideologue and not a philosopher, and I don’t think in terms of ideologies,” he says. “It was said that I want to shatter myths. But that’s not true, either. I was not part of the ‘New Historians’ but rather of the ‘First Historians.’ With respect to the state’s establishment there was no history here – just mythology and a great deal of indoctrination. In the 1980s we opened documents in the archives and said, ‘Wow, this isn’t what we were taught in school.’”

“We need to remember that the majority of the Holocaust survivors did not come to live in Israel and that the majority of Jews in the world are not coming to Israel”, he stressed. “They can, but they don’t want to live in this country. So Zionism is not such a great success story. It also doesn’t provide security to Jews. It’s safer for Jews to live outside Israel,” as reported in the Quds News Network.

Opinion

‘All Attempts at Displacing Gazans Failed’ – A Historical Outline

CrossFireArabia
March 27, 2025

By Ismael Al Sharif

One of the most widely circulated press items in the Gaza War was a photo in Al-Dustour daily in its 11 March, 1971 edition under an “Evacuation of the Gaza Strip Begins,” headline. This image traveled around the world, confirming the importance of print journalism and its continued role as a primary source of information for documenting events, and its enduring presence despite digital developments.

Al-Dustour witnessed pivotal moments in the repeated attempts to empty Gaza of its population. The idea of displacing the residents of the Strip began in the early 1950s, when a number of military personnel, bureaucrats, and senior UNRWA officials met and took out old maps to discuss possible displacement destinations. After lengthy discussions, it was decided to push Gaza’s residents toward the vast, sparsely populated Sinai Desert.

The plan targeted the displacement of approximately 60,000 people, equivalent to a quarter of Gaza’s population at the time. Despite the start of preparations, the idea was met with categorical rejection by the residents of the Gaza Strip, who clung to their land and refused to leave.

In 1956, the Zionists occupied the Gaza Strip during the Tripartite Aggression against Egypt. David Ben-Gurion, along with senior military commanders, attempted to forcibly displace the population of the Strip to the West Bank and Sinai. However, pressure from the United States prevented the plan from being implemented and the attempt was foiled. A year later, the occupation was forced to withdraw from Gaza.

In 1967, Moshe Dayan devised a plan aimed at forcing as many residents of the Gaza Strip as possible to emigrate to the West Bank and Egypt. Some residents were eventually deported to the West Bank, but the plan did not achieve the desired results, as relatively few residents left Gaza.

In 1971, while the late Yitzhak Shamir was serving as military governor of the Gaza Strip, he decided to forcibly displace the population. He bulldozed thousands of homes and forced a number of residents onto buses and transported them to the city of Al-Arish. But the plan failed, as the population quickly returned to Gaza, supported by pressure from Arab countries and major powers, which prevented the plan from being fully implemented.

غزة تستغيث… والأمة مسؤولة
تحت القصف والحصار، يقف أهل غزة شامخين، ثابتين رغم الدمار. في كل بيت شهيد، وفي كل شارع جرح ينزف، لكن الإرادة لا تنكسر!
نصرة فلسطين واجب كل حرّ، بالكلمة، بالموقف، بالدعم الفعلي. فماذا قدمنا اليوم؟#غزة_تقاوم #فلسطين_قضية_أمة #FreePalestine #لن_نخذلهم pic.twitter.com/8cL3XIiBKT
— Gaza Family under Siege 🇵🇸 (@diaa_jendia) March 23, 2025

With all attempts at direct displacement having failed, the Zionists found themselves in a predicament; neither killing nor enticement persuaded the people of Gaza to leave their homeland. The occupation then changed its strategy, devising a plan to systematically and slowly destroy Gaza through siege, starvation, and repeated military escalation. Once again, however, the Gazans foiled the plan and held their ground, refusing to leave.

In 1992, the “Greater Gaza” project was proposed during the term of Yitzhak Rabin. Secret plans were drawn up to impoverish the Strip, making life there nearly impossible, and drive its residents to emigrate to Sinai. However, this plan, too, failed.

In 2004, then-Shin Bet chief Avi Dichter devised a plan bearing his name, believing he had found the ideal solution to displace the population of Gaza by encouraging what he called “voluntary migration,” particularly to European and Gulf countries. However, this plan also failed, and the people of Gaza remained steadfast in their land, refusing to leave.

In 2014, the Israeli occupation relaunched its first plan, seeking to remove the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip and push the population of the Strip toward Egyptian territory. However, Egypt confronted and thwarted this plan, preventing it from achieving its goals.

Then came the Trump administration’s so-called “Deal of the Century,” which included unofficial clauses regarding the transfer of Palestinians from Gaza to Sinai. The US administration exerted pressure on Cairo to implement this plan, but Egypt categorically rejected it, also leading to its failure.

Then came the Al-Aqsa Intifada, which Israel exploited to carry out the largest genocide ever carried out, with the aim of displacing the people of Gaza. It practiced murder and siege, cutting off their basic necessities of life, hoping to force them to leave. However, despite the brutality of the aggression, Gaza stood firm, thwarted the plan, and emerged victorious with its unbreakable will.

Trump returned once again to revive his plan, this time attempting to displace the people of Gaza through what he called “soft displacement.” However, he clashed with a tough king who firmly confronted this plan and rejected it without hesitation.

The Zionist entity, with American support, failed to adhere to the temporary truce with Hamas, and the war of extermination resumed, amid a stifling siege, famine, and a scarcity of water and medical services.

Over the decades, the Zionist entity attempted to exterminate and displace the people of Gaza, sometimes by force and sometimes by enticement. But Gaza stood firm, and the banner of steadfastness was passed down from generation to generation. Just as this banner was passed down from generation to generation, so too was the banner of defending the holy sites, passed from one Hashemite king to the next.

The commandments of our forefathers became ingrained in our conscience: to always stand with Palestine. Over these long years, Al-Dustour newspaper has stood with the Palestinian cause, exposing the enemy’s schemes and mobilizing support and backing for justice. Al-Dustour has been a witness to history, conveying Gaza’s voice and echoing its steadfastness. At every critical moment, it was present, documenting, exposing, and defending the truth without hesitation.

A day will come, decades from now, when future generations will pass on images from Al-Dustour’s editions that documented this phase of the conflict with the enemy, testifying to Gaza’s steadfastness and the resilience of its people in the face of attempts at genocide and displacement. Just as Al-Dustour has always been present in the battles of steadfastness, Gaza will remain engraved in its conscience: An immortal story and an indelible symbol.

Ismael Al Sharif is a columnist in Ad Dustour newspaper in Jordan.