Palestinians deserve to be recognised
- From: The Australian
- May 07, 2010
EVERY May 15 since 1948, Palestinians across the globe have marked another anniversary of the Nakba ("catastrophe" in English), the term designating the destruction of Palestinian society attendant with the establishment of Israel. Beginning in late 1947, about 780,000 Palestinian Arabs were forced from their homes and homeland or fled in fear because of a deliberate campaign by Jewish troops of ethnic cleansing. The majority Arab population of Palestine was, by its physical presence and predominant ownership of land, a major obstacle to the foundation of a state with a Jewish majority.
The expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, therefore, was no accident of war. Indeed, close to half of the Palestinians forced or terrorised into exile had fled before Israel declared its independence, and thus before any Arab state intervened in the conflict. A notorious massacre by Jewish troops of Palestinian citizens occurred in Deir Yassin on April 9, 1948, five weeks before Israel was founded.
Expulsions of Palestinians continued even after the 1949 armistice agreements Israel signed with the Arab states. For example, thousands of residents of Majdal, in the south, were forced across the border into the Gaza Strip in the 1950s. The homes, businesses and moveable property of Palestinian refugees were appropriated for Jewish use.
By now, these facts have been meticulously documented by Palestinian, Israeli and unaffiliated scholars. Many of the myths generated by Israel to obscure its culpability for the Palestinian refugee problem have been dispelled.
Yet the Nakba remains shrouded in misunderstanding.
In fact, the Nakba has never ended. What happened more than 60 years ago was only the first and most convulsive phase of a long historical process -- the forced displacement and exclusion of Palestinians in favour of Jewish settlers. The Nakba continues today, only in new and more subtle forms. It is an ongoing, lived experience for many Palestinians, whether they reside in exile, or as citizens of Israel, or as subjects of Israeli military occupation.
How does the Nakba continue for Palestinians in exile? To its credit, the international community quickly recognised that Palestinian refugees, like other victims of ethnic cleansing and wars, enjoyed the rights to return to their homes and communities or to receive compensation and support for resettlement if they so chose. These rights were enshrined in United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194 (1948), supported at the time by Australia. Even if there were questions about the provenance of the Palestinian refugee problem, there is no doubt Israel holds the key to resolving it -- and has steadfastly refused to readmit Palestinian refugees for the past 60 years. Their right of return, therefore, continues to be violated on a daily basis.
How has the Nakba continued for Palestinian citizens of Israel? These are the Palestinians who escaped expulsion in 1948, and their offspring, who number approximately 1.2 million persons and constitute about 20 per cent of Israel's current population. Many fled their homes and villages in 1948, but remained within territory ultimately controlled by Israel. These internally displaced Palestinians have also not been permitted to return to their homes, nor have they received meaningful compensation.
Indeed, Palestinian citizens have faced relentless pressure to surrender their remaining land holdings. Israel expropriated Palestinian private properties to "Judaise" the Galilee region in the 1970s, thus isolating and disempowering Palestinian communities. Palestinian protests against the land seizures were suppressed with lethal force that Israel has never employed against Israeli Jews. Today, 80,000 Palestinian Bedouins live in the Naqab (Negev) in roughly 45 villages, some of which pre-date Israel's founding, that are unrecognised by the government, and thus receive no services, and do not even appear on official maps. Instead, a government-sponsored "wine route" is being installed on Palestinian ancestral lands.
The continuation of the Nakba today is most evident in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Hardly a month passes without an announcement of new construction for Jewish use on lands seized via legal shenanigans from Palestinians. Palestinians, meanwhile, are routinely denied building permits, and the unauthorized homes they build are summarily demolished. Israel recently issued military orders that broaden the definition of illegal "infiltration" that would enable it to expel virtually any Palestinian from the West Bank. The violent ethnic cleansing of the past, in other words, is replaced by bureaucratic and administrative ethnic cleansing of the present.
What would it take to bring the 60-plus year Palestinian Nakba to an end? On the one hand, the answer is simple: Israel must begin to treat Palestinians not as obstacles, nor as a "demographic threat", nor as mere afterthoughts to Jewish privilege but as human beings with rights equal to those of Israeli Jews. Their ethnic and religious roots render them no lesser beings than Jews, and their rights to live in peace, security, and dignity in their homeland are just as important as those of their Jewish neighbours. Ending the Nakba requires turning the page on the principle of ethnic privilege and on the domination of one group by another. Implementing equality between the two peoples is the challenge of our age, and one we neglect only at our peril.
George Bisharat is a professor at Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco and writes frequently on law and politics in the Middle East
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