Dispossession of the Palestinian People Turns 75

On Nov. 26, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) approved the "Resolution 181", which established the creation of the Israeli State and the Palestinian State. It also defined that Jerusalem City was under international control.

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This resolution, however, prompted one of the most violent conflicts in the last 75 years. In practice, the UNGA decision allowed the Jewish population to receive almost half of the territory. This generated anger in the Arab world.

The Israeli State was born six months later, on May 14, 1948, when David Ben Gurion declared "independence" and sparked the first Arab-Israeli war.

This led to the exodus of some 700,000 Palestinians and ended with the 1949 armistice that drew the so-called "Green Line", a new border through which Israel appropriated more land and reached Jerusalem, a city that has been split in two.

The Green Line became a border with a strong military presence for decades. But the picture changed in 1967, when Israel unleashed the "Six Day War" and occupied the Golan, Sinai, Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem.

The eastern half of the city was annexed in 1980 by another arbitrary act that the United Nations did not recognize. Today, Israel controls the east and west of the city, while Jewish settlements proliferate in the eastern side, where some 300,000 Palestinians still live.

"As Palestinians, we have lost East Jerusalem. It is out of the question," says analyst Ziad Hamouri, who sees it as "impossible" to revive the two-state solution created 75 years ago with the reality on the ground.

"Gaza has been blocked for 15 years and in the West Bank the connection between villages and cities has been lost due to the expansion of settlements, which prevents many Palestinians from going freely to work or to school," Hamouri pointed out, stressing that the general situation in all the Palestinian territories is worse than ever.

The risk of an annexation of the entire West Bank is greater than ever due to the extreme right-wing administration that is about to be formed in Israel, although in practice the Jewish country "already controls militarily and administratively all of area C, which represents the 60 percent of that territory," Hamouri recalled.

November 26 also marks 10 years since Palestine was admitted as an observer State in the United Nations General Assembly, something that "has not meant anything on the ground, where there are more and more settlers, Israeli military posts and raids", he added.