Not Just a Soccer Game: Colonialism and Conflict among Palestinians in Israel

3 Anatomy of Communities: Tradition and History

75 3 Anatomy of Communities Tradition and History Historical Background This chapter explores the history of the two communities involved in the soccer-game conflict in Kafr Yassif, the Christians and Druze, and it provides a larger picture of the place where the community lives and where the conflict took place. Furthermore, the chapter will also discuss the historical context of the Palestinian Arab community in Israel. Additionally , I will also provide a general overview of the Druze religion and Druze in Israel, the Arab Christian community, information about the two villages, and the history of communal relations. This discussion will enable an examination of the claims made by community members and leaders that the incident in 1981 was an exception and the two communities and villages historically enjoyed a good relationship. It will also serve as a basis for discussing and critically examining historical antipathy, one of the dominant theoretical frameworks often used to explain sectarian conflicts and violence. Palestinian Arabs in Israel The Palestinian Arabs in Palestine (what became known as the State of Israel after 1948) have lived in this area for centuries. Even though the modern definition of the Palestinian identity did not take hold until the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries, Muslims, Druze, and Christians who have inhabited the area have at times defined themselves according to religious or other political, familial, or regional affiliations (Rashid Khalidi 1997). In the early sixteenth century, the region of Palestine fell 76 • Not Just a Soccer Game under the rule of the Ottoman Empire, and many people came to define themselves as Ottomans as well. Administratively, the region has been divided into different districts at various moments in history. After World War I and the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, Britain and France, who were victorious in the war, divided the Middle East between themselves in accordance with their prewar agreements. France ruled over Syria, which was later divided to become two states, Syria and Lebanon , and Palestine fell under the British Mandate. The British government helped to establish a Jewish state in Palestine in line with their prewar promise to the Zionist movement, in what became known as the Balfour Declaration. This arrangement was a clear contradiction of the promise the British had given to the Arabs, or the Hussein-McMahon understanding, which promised the Arabs in the region independence after World War I in return for their support in the war. It was also a clear contradiction of the right of self-determination, a right that the Palestinian Arabs insisted on. After it became clear that the native Palestinian Arabs were opposed to that plan, and as violence erupted between Jews and Arabs, Britain passed the Palestine question to the United Nations in 1947 to decide the future of the land. This move is an example of the classic colonial strategy of divide and rule followed by divide and quit when it becomes impossible for imperial powers to retain control. In 1947, the United Nations issued a partition resolution for Palestine, according to which two states in Palestine were to be established, one Jewish and one Arab. The Jewish state was to be 54 percent and the Arab state 46 percent of the territory of Mandate Palestine, even though by that date, despite massive Jewish settlement from Europe since the late nineteenth century, Jews constituted only about 30 percent, whereas the Palestinian Arabs were about 70 percent of the population and owned more than 90 percent of the land (W. Khalidi 1984). Here again, colonial plunder was justified through law and legal resolutions imposed on the natives of Palestine , something that Laura Nader argues has been often ignored in history and in policy studies (2007, 35). The Arabs rejected the resolution, seeing it as another attempt to establish a new form of European colonialism and an encroachment on the region and violation of their right for self-determination and self-rule. When Britain withdrew from Palestine, Anatomy of Communities • 77 the Zionist Organization declared the establishment of the State of Israel, and war broke out between the Jews and Arabs. The Druze community in Israel, in what was seen as a continuation of prewar cooperation by some of their leaders with the Zionist movement , sided with the newly declared State of Israel in the war, despite the opposition to that cooperation by some leaders in the community in Israel as well as in...