Peace begins with Israel ending the Nakba Israel/Palestine Ilan Pappé on May 17, 2018
OnMonday, the Trump administration broke with more than 70 years of official USpolicy and the position of the international community by moving its embassy toIsrael from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. As if to rub salt in their wounds, it was beinaugurated the day before Palestinians commemorate the 70th anniversaryof the Nakba (the Catastrophe), when nearly a million Palestinians weredisplaced and became refugees during Israel’s establishment. In Israel, theNakba is not only ignored, it is outright denied or even justified. Yet ifthere is to be peace in this region – and I think it is possible – it beginswith acknowledging the Nakba, understanding it, and working to reverse it. Israel’sethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948, which saw the transformation of halfof Palestine’s population into stateless refugees, is not a mere historicevent: it has persisted unabated until today. Since1967, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were either expelled from or deniedre-entry when they traveled outside the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.Meanwhile, inside Israel’s recognized borders, its policy of “Judaizing” thesouth and north of the country often result in a quiet transfer of Palestinians throughexpropriation of land and demolition of villages, as is occurring in Ummal-Hiran today, where an entire Palestinian community is being destroyed so atown for Jewish Israelis can be built in its place. Today more than six million Palestiniansare homeless due to the 1948 Nakba and its subsequent chapters. Failing toacknowledge their rights will not only lead to continued instability in theregion but also prevents any lasting peace. By recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, PresidentTrump is encouraging Israel to accelerate its dispossession of Palestinians inthe city and elsewhere. Only by revisiting the events of 1948can one understand the essence of the conflict in Israel and Palestine, as wellas the reasons for the failure to solve it. Even if there are still today,despite the clear archival evidence, people who refuse to acknowledge Israel’sresponsibility for the catastrophe – the demolition of half of Palestine’stowns and villages and the exodus of 750,000 people – no one denies that therefugees were not allowed to return (in clear violation of the UN decisions andthe international law). The reasons for the expulsion and forthe refusal to allow repatriation are the same. From the very onset of the Zionist project in Palestine,the main obstacle for the establishment of the Jewish state was the nativepopulation of Palestine. This still remains the problem for Israelis who regard themselves asZionists, whether they are liberals, socialists or nationalists. Thevarious political groups in Israel differ on the tactics of how to overcome thedemographic reality of an Arab Palestinian country. They nonetheless concur onviewing the native Palestinians as a demographic existential threat simplybecause they are not Jewish. The Palestinian leadership since the1980s was willing to compromise on the territorial configuration of Israel, butcould never, and will never, lend its consent to the overall Judaization of itshomeland. Israeli laws that forbid Palestinians in Israel from commemoratingthe Nakba, Israeli demands that the Palestinians agree to recognize Israel as a“Jewish State,” – despite the fact that more than 20% of its population isPalestinian – are an insult added to an injury. Israel is an establishedfact, but so are the circumstances of its establishment on the ruins ofPalestine. ForPalestinians territorial compromise does not include a license for a globalamnesia or the acceptance of Israeli historical fabrications. The Nakba defines many of thePalestinians who have been totally excluded by the “peace process”. This isparticularly true about the younger generations. Whether in Israel, in therefugee camps or in the exile communities around the world, through cyberspaceand actual meetings, these young Palestinians are creating a new vision forPalestine. While it is still not complete or articulated as a politicalprogram, it has a striking pair of messages: a solution for Palestine has to include allPalestinians and cover all historical Palestine, and it has to rectify theworst consequence of the Nakba by implementing the Right of Return. TheGreat Return march in Gaza, which was initiated and led by young people, hasgenerated much excitement and enthusiasm. Many others are engaged in oral history projects, interviewingtheir grandparents and elders about the horrors of 1948, building models ofvillages and neighborhoods that were destroyed and imagining how thereconstructed ones would look like after they are finally allowed to returnhome. American peacemakers, whether cynical orgenuine in their efforts, have consistently failed to understand the essence ofthe conflict in Palestine. Ifthey ever want to solve it, they need to revisit the dispossession ofPalestinians that occurred in 1948 and understand its significance and the factthat 70 years later, Israel continues to systematically displace Palestiniansfrom their homes. With the collapse of the two-statesolution, addressing the Nakba and events of 1948 should become the focus of apeace agenda. This is the original sin of the conflict in Israel/Palestine andit must be dealt with in an honest and just manner if we are ever to moveforward. And we should let this young generationlead us on that path. For them, rectifying what happened in 1948 andsubsequently is an issue of human and civil rights and not of retribution, andtheir vision of the future is of a place where normal human life can beresumed, where it was denied for the last seventy years. Mother and child arrive in Jordan from the Gaza strip in 1968. (UNWRA) - While the claim is inalienable, say Palestinian leaders, implementation is subject to negotiation — and various interpretations - The refugee problem is described by Israeli professor Ilan Pappe as 'ethnic cleansing' RAMALLAH: The Palestinian refugee crisis began before May 15, 1948, when Israel declared itself a state on Palestinian land and began barring those who had left their homes from returning.In many cases the new Jewish immigrants took over the homes and lands of the refugees who had temporarily left because of the violence perpetuated by underground Jewish militias.The Zionist narrative was primarily focused on the false claims that Palestine is a “land without a people for a people without a land.” In the process of colonization and settlement by Jewish immigrants, Palestinians were dispossessed and made stateless.The Palestinian refugee problem was taken up in Resolution 194, passed by the UN General Assembly in December 1948. It was also addressed in the Arab Peace Initiative introduced in 2002. Unlike various attempts by Israel and its apologists who insist the problem is insoluble, the Arab plan approaches the refugees’ case as something that can be accomplished by consensus rather than clashes.The text on refugees in the Arab peace plan reads: “Achievement of a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem to be agreed upon in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 194.”Anis F. Kassim, a Palestinian lawyer based in Jordan and the editor of the Palestine Yearbook of International Law, told Arab News that the right of return enshrined in various UN resolutions is non-negotiable and does not have an expiry date.The UN set up the Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA, on Dec. 8, 1948, with a mandate to provide humanitarian, educational and health support to Palestinian refugees.UNRWA now has nearly five million registered refugees in the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.Attempts to cancel Palestinian demands to return to their homes have at times been reflected in attempts to disband this humanitarian UN agency.US President Donald Trump suspended financial support to UNRWA in January 2018, warning that the US may withhold future aid payments to the agency over what he called the Palestinians’ unwillingness to talk peace with Israel.In trying to deal with the thorny issue of the right of return, Palestinian negotiators over the past decades have shown flexibility. Palestinian leaders have said that while this right is inalienable, its implementation is subject to negotiation.Palestinian negotiators have said they want Israel to recognize its “legal and historic responsibility” for the refugee crisis.Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas went even further in 2012 when he said on Israeli TV that he no longer has any desire to live in the city in which he was born and raised, Safad, but would not mind visiting it. In February 2014 in Ramallah, he also told a group of 300 visiting Israelis that Palestinians are not interested in “flooding Israel with Palestinian refugees.”Arab and Muslim countries have offered Israel a comprehensive peace plan that allows Israel a say in how the right of return is resolved.This flexibility, however, is not universally accepted by Palestinians, and many have continued to oppose any compromise on the issue. Suheil Khoury, a leading left-wing activist based in Amman, told Arab News that the Palestinian right of return is non-negotiable. “This is a personal and a collective right and no one has the right to concede this right except the refugees themselves.” Khoury said that PLO factions such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine reject efforts by Fatah and other mainstream PLO factions that he feels take this sacred right lightly. “The right of return is the main plank in the political programs of many Palestinian factions and many have paid the ultimate sacrifice upholding this right.”The refugee problem is described by Israeli professor Ilan Pappe as “ethnic cleansing.” Unlike the expectations of many Israelis that new generations of Palestinians will forget about Palestine, the right of return continues to take center stage at Nakba Day activities and throughout the year. Generation after generation retain memories of Palestine.Fakher Daas is a member of the politburo of The Popular Unity Party (Hizb al Wihdeh al Shaabi) in Jordan. He is also a member of the Return Committee, which organizes rallies and protests throughout Jordan.“Right of return committees exist throughout Jordan and conduct regular events, protests and teach-ins to ensure that new generations of Arabs are aware of this right and its ramifications,” he told Arab News. Similar committees exist throughout the world.The right of return has also been one of the main features of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BdS) movement. It calls for “respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194.”The movement has published an article by Pappe and Karma Nabulsi fleshing out the issue.“There is hardly a right that is more morally urgent and more legally compelling than the Palestinian right of return,” they wrote.“Regardless of who they are, where they came from, or when they became homeless, refugees the world over have an inalienable right to return to their homes. They and their descendants retain that right until the moment of its translation into reality — when they are permitted to return, and can chose whether or not they wish to do so.”
