60 years ago, the state of Israel was founded on the land that was formerly known as Palestine. It is regarded as a miracle country, a state able to grow in strength and power as a home for the Jewish people in the midst of millions of hostile Arabs. Or so the narrative goes.
The problem with that narrative is that it completely fails to acknowledge the rights of the Palestinian people, at whose cost Israel was established. Palestine was never a barren, empty land. It had a vibrant, thriving culture and a settled population that had lived there for hundreds of years. Between the years of 1947 and 1949, most of that population -hundreds of thousands of men, women and children- were expelled from their homes by Zionist militias intent on cleansing the land of the native Arabs so that a purely Jewish state could be created in their wake. As Israeli historian Benny Morris puts it, "a Jewish state would not have come into being without the uprooting of 700,000 Palestinians.”
Israel’s supporters claim that the refugees were forced out in the fighting that broke out when Arab armies attacked the new Israeli state. This version of events completely ignores the fact that Palestinian towns and villages were emptied of their populations by Zionist gangs before and after the war. Furthermore, the issue is not the circumstance of the flight of these refugees-rather, it is the fact that they were never allowed to return.
My grandparents were forced out of their homes in the village of Fallujah near Gaza in March 1949, months after an armistice was reached in that area. They left believing they’d be back in three days. Instead, they still live in the Khan Younis refugee camp where I was born, 60 years on.
Despite what many would like to believe, these refugees, now numbering several million, won’t disappear. Not only are their calls for the right to return to their homes natural and just, but they are enshrined in international law and UN Security Council resolutions. If Israeli society believes that they can ever live in total peace and security while continuing to deprive the Palestinians of their most basic right, the right to return to their own homes, it is deluding itself. The entire conflict stems from this point. To solve any problem, we must go back to the cause instead of attempting to gloss over it with vague promises of statehood or sovereignty, of defiant (and hypocritical) statements against ‘terror’
and incitement.
I am not advocating the destruction of Israel or the expulsion of the Jewish people. Palestinians have accepted that Israelis have made their homes in this country. What I am advocating is an end to the continued attempts to destroy the Palestinian people. In an age where many try to characterize the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as one waged between moderates and extremists, the Palestinian people are demanding nothing more than the implementation of international law and of their human rights. For 60 years now, Israel has rejected the demands of the international community, portraying the people it displaced and dispossessed as the obstacles to justice.
60 years on and the Palestinian people have not disappeared. It is time to recognize the grave injustice committed against them, and end the decades of longing and suffering. It is time for the Israeli people to realize that the Palestinians have the right to share this land as equals.
It is time to return.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
60 years ago
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25 comments:
HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!
Palestinians should celebrate the birthday of their country...called JORDAN.
In that case, the Israelis should celebrate the independence of the countries they came from in Europe.
The thing is about history is that people never learn from it. Thus, history tends to keeps repeating itself.
As a Palestinian, I advocate the destruction of this fairytale nightmare filled with a bunch of BACK ASS immigrants called Israel. But I don't need to advocate it because Israel will eventually bring about its own destruction, everything in time. What goes up, must come down at some point, and what goes around eventually comes back around.
They can keep reassuring themselves that they'll still be around by celebrating all they want. I dont mind. If thats what makes them feel better at night, go ahead fools, drop it like its hawt.
A state formerly known as Palestine? What hashish are you smoking? It's amazing how some people have been able to turn a failed war to destroy a country into a fictional narrative about victimization. Kudos!
Dopeysexyfuck: People like you have been saying similar things for years. Look at what Israel has accomplished in the past 60 years, and it's a pretty good bet that it'll be around in another 60 years. You almost sound like Nasser (look him up since you don't seem like you'd know much about him) and we all know what happened with him.
If the Palestinians start supporting secular liberalism quicker than the Israelis do (They'd better get a move on -- the Israelis are starting to get into higher-order feminist issues, such as grappling with sexual harassment in the workplace and the army, that are usually only possible after de jure liberalism is achieved and has had a bit of time to gel). That would make me stand up and take notice.
As I've said before -- when religious assholes in Jerusalem protest against the city's annual gay pride parade, the Palestinians should undertake a major token gesture in *support* of the gay pride parade. Offer to throw the parade without persecution in the Palestinian territories, or have a massive solidarity rally, or otherwise say indicate that they can do secular liberalism better than the Israelis can.
That would make me, and many others, stand up and take notice.
It's amazing how people forget that the plight of the Palestinians was due to their failed attempt at destroying Israel. This Nakba bullshit is because they couldn't kill enough Israel's to win a war THAT THEY STARTED. I mean, seriously, are people that forgetful?
To the Anonymous on top:
It's really not about what the Israelies have accomplished as a notorious charity case over the last 60 years but more about the realities on the ground and the hope that the human mind and common sense will someday prevail.
The Palestinians are very close to achieving a one state solution, now more than ever, and the Israelies know this very well. I think more people should emphasize and promote a binational state instead of wasting our time maintaining this masquerade of a two-state solution which is nothing more than a decoy to keep the Israelies wiping us out.
People need to remember that no one ever proposed a two state solution for South Africa. So the idea is basically absurd and negates international law.
Anyways, whether the Palestinians end up with their own state or a binational state is a win-win situation. You cant seperate that land because it's inseperable and everyone knows it.
I'm pretty optomistic and want everyone to be the same. In the meantime, we can provoke our nearest Israeli Embassys or consulates by sending letters requesting that we be allowed to return home.
It never fails to amaze me, how history, facts, international law and the lessons of the past can be completely ignored by the pro-Israel bullies around the world.
Even more ironic, how the proponents of Israel can make excuses for their treatment of Palestinians which frighteningly mirror the Nazi's treatment of the Jews prior to and during WW2.
Good job on a very genuine and balanced post Mohammad.
anon 9:29, I think its very telling that the point you made is actually clearly contradicted in what I wrote:
"Between the years of 1947 and 1949, most of that population -hundreds of thousands of men, women and children- were expelled from their homes by Zionist militias.."
Israel was not a state in 1947. In fact, at least a third of Palestinian refugees were forced out BEFORE Israel was established.
Mohammad,
In 30 years 99% of the refugees who actually fled current day Israel wil be dead.
Their progeny do not have the right of return according to international law. What are you going to do then?
"Their progeny do not have the right of return according to international law...."
But then if you're at least Jewish on your mom's side, then you're eligible for Israeli citizenship, progeny or no progeny.
Long live the only democracy in the Middle East!
""
But then if you're at least Jewish on your mom's side, then you're eligible for Israeli citizenship, progeny or no progeny.
Long live the only democracy in the Middle East!""
Can we agree that in the long run, the Law of Return is unethical (at least insofar as it's about Jews specifically rather than oppressed peoples from anywhere), but that in the short run it makes practical sense to keep it?
Israeli Arab culture needs to be more fully integrated into mainstream Israeli and Western culture (rates of honor killings, for instance, are far too high), and a stable mechanism for full assimilation needs to be established, before we can have demographics shift within Israel without it endangering the country's liberal democratic systems. Also, allowing the Israeli Religious Right to handle policies regarding marriage and the law of return is far from ideal, but politically speaking the Religious Right is in a position to attract big concessions, and if those are the main policies they're fucking with, it could be a hell of a lot worse.
Joe, go away. No one will ever agree with you about anything.
In 30 years 99% of the refugees who actually fled current day Israel wil be dead.
And 60 years after that there's a pretty good chance Jews will be a minority within Israel. CONUNDRUMS GALORE.
Hey Mohammed if you think the Israeli population are ever going stand by and watch Hundredes of thousands of their fellow citzens being expelled from Lod Ramle Kiryat Gat Haifa and Jaffa your not living in the real world.The Israelis will go for nucelar war before they see any refugee return
We all agree that in 30 years the right of return will be a non-issue. Let's wait till then and solve the problem. Without this issue, things will be much simpler.
anon 9:56 - where did I make any claim towards expelling Israelis?
Why is it in your mindset that the return of the refugees expelled by Israel can only be equal to the end of Israeli society?
So, let's get the Zionist argument straight:
Palestinians' right of return is backward and unrealistic because 60 years have passed since their original disposession.
Israel is a moral ncecessity because it ended a people's stateless wandering for 2,000 years.
That clear, everyone?
Mohammed,
Is it really not clear to you that if several million refugees return it will be the end of Israel and of Jewish society? You will have two societies that hate each other, one rich one poor, trying to share the same land. It will lead to a failed state just like Iraq or Lebanon or Syria without a dictator. Sunni and Shia Arabs how a problem living together, and you think the one state solution will work?
""Joe, go away. No one will ever agree with you about anything.""
Well, no. If you're going to continue to disagree with me, the onus is on you to put forward at least some sort of case, right?
""So, let's get the Zionist argument straight:
Palestinians' right of return is backward and unrealistic because 60 years have passed since their original disposession.
Israel is a moral ncecessity because it ended a people's stateless wandering for 2,000 years.
That clear, everyone?""
Uh, no. My argument has nothing to do with 'ending stateless wandering' -- I think the idea that any group of people is 'entitled' to a state is backward and unprincipled -- but rather with the spread of secular materialism and liberal democracy in the Middle East.
""Mohammed,
Is it really not clear to you that if several million refugees return it will be the end of Israel and of Jewish society?""
We agree that the practical effects of this would be counter-productive, but I dislike your conflation of the terms 'Israel' and 'Jewish society'. Jewish society continues along just fine even without a Jewish state -- the Jews in America are doing quite a lot to advance 'Jewish society' globally, thankyouverymuch.
And while we might agree that there are practical benefits to Israel continuing as a 'Jewish nation' in the short-to-mid term, I haven't heard any coherent argument for why that should be a long-term goal, much the same as I haven't heard any argument for why any nation, in the long-term, should be allowed to remain a 'Muslim nation' or a 'Christian nation'.
I'd like to think that most intelligent people, at this point, realize that religion is a regressive construct that belongs to the unfortunate past of our species, and that we should continue to marginalize it, water it down, and subvert it as much as possible going forward.
Joe, you're waffling.... and what's worse, you're displaying a fundamental ignorance of the situation in the Occupied Territories.
Debates over systems of government are a luxury only those with a state can afford... the issue of Palestinian politics isn't secular democracy vs militant theocracy, it's when they can enjoy the fruits of statehood deliberately denied thm by 40 years of military occupation.
Palestinians want to be able to live free of curfew, to enjoy freedom of movement, to cross borders, to own a passport, to have the benefits of education and commerce unimpeded by arbitrary "security" measures from a military occupier, they want their homes and farms to be passed on to their children and not sezied for walls and settlements that further strangle them... they want statehood, bud, not wooly under-grad theorising.
Secular materialism? Just remember the material gains of religious zealotry that Israel visits on the Palestinians every day of the week.
Allow self-dtermination to the inhabitants of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, then we can start playing Junior Parliament.
""
Debates over systems of government are a luxury only those with a state can afford... ""
Well, no, it isn't. Because if they don't hash that out now, then they won't attract the support necessary to achieve statehood from people like me.
This isn't Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. If their state isn't going to allow me -- an atheist Jew -- to waltz on in, have ridiculous sex without fear of violence, and pass out free copies of Christopher Hitchens' latest in public, what good does helping them contribute to human progress, particularly if the people they're struggling against are farther along toward the goals outlined above?
""Palestinians want to be able to live free of curfew, to enjoy freedom of movement, to cross borders, to own a passport, to have the benefits of education and commerce unimpeded by arbitrary "security" measures from a military occupier, they want their homes and farms to be passed on to their children and not sezied for walls and settlements that further strangle them... they want statehood, bud, not wooly under-grad theorising.""
Those are all well and good. But if they want us to care that they want those things, they'd better get with the fucking program.
What "fucking programme", Joe...???
The programme that has stolen their land, water, statehood and basic human rights for 40-plus fucking years?????
Because that's the only "fucking programme" on the table.....
Do you honestly believe that Israel would withdraw to 1967 borders, dismantle settlements, offer equal water rights, allow control over all borders and airspace, if only the Palestinians would only read a little more Sam fucking Harris...???
Sorry, but Israel had a chance to deal with Palestinian secular nationalism for 30 years... it wasn't interested.
Religious fundamentalism in Palestine is a symtpom of Israel's policies, not the cause of it.
Open your fucking eyes.
Lowfields,
Well said!
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