What is happening in Gaza today is not a humanitarian
crisis; rather, it is another Nakba, another war. Israel
will continue to escalate its atrocities and intensify its
siege in the hope that Gazans will flee to Egypt
—this time, once and for all. Israeli Interior Minister
Meir Sheetrit has suggested annihilating a Gaza
neighborhood in response to Qassam fire on Sderot.
And he is considered a moderate compared to other
Israeli ministers!
This year Palestinians will mark 60 years since the
beginning of the Nakba, the events of 1948 that
resulted in the occupation of the Palestinian land and
the expulsion of its people. But the Nakba is not
simply an historical event of the past. It is a deliberate
program, a process, of occupation, transfer and
genocide of the Palestinian’s national identity to
create an empty land to be populated by
Jewish immigrants.
In 1948, it was possible to attack unarmed Palestinian
villagers in the night, to terrify, kill and rape. Today,
in a century that pretends to be more civilized and in
a more globalized world, the tactic of choice is to make
the lives of Palestinians worse than death, by denying
them water, electricity, food and medicine, so that they
will be forced to “voluntarily” leave their homeland.
The complicity of the countries of the region and the
world in the siege of Gaza is evident. Indeed, even
those who break the silence to speak about a
“humanitarian crises” in Gaza are complicit, however
unwittingly: for the people of Gaza are not suffering
from the aftereffects of a tsunami, earthquake or
other natural disaster. Their “humanitarian crisis”
is the result of Israel’s political will and the
acquiescence of the international community.
We are promised peace by the end of 2008, but all
we see and experience are oppression and war.
The so-called “peace process” is merely a vehicle
for political expediency that favors the perpetrators
of our national dispersion. At conference after
conference, summit after summit, the Palestinian
Nakba is consigned to oblivion; it is not alluded to in
peace talks, and no lessons are deduced from it.
Every diplomat or politician who comes to the region
visits the Yad Vashim Holocaust museum, but no one
bothers to look toward neighboring Deir Yassin, the
site of one of the Nakba’s most ominous massacres.
As those who insist “Never again!” understand,
denial is a symbolic process of negating the dignity
of the survivors of an atrocity as well as the
responsibility of its perpetrators. Such denial not
only affects the past and the present, but has
implications for the future, as it not only jeopardizes
the chance for a genuine reconciliation but possibly
increases the risk of a repeat occurrence.
The Jewish state as well as individual Israelis share
responsibility not only for the Nakba itself but for
the determination to deny it. The claim by some
Israelis that only politicians are to blame for the
Nakba is unfounded, as many cultural, religious and
professional figures and institutions have colluded
with the fundamentally evil Israeli occupation.
In many instances, academics and professionals have
lent their skills, talents and prestige to oppressive
ideologies and practices that are central features of
the occupation. Who, for example, advises torturers
on the right dosage, timing and means of torture of
Palestinian detainees? Psychiatrists and psychologists
like my teachers, my colleagues and myself. Those
professionals have repudiated their ethical codes and
oaths to serve as tools of the occupation. Academics
and historians have made a career out of denial of
the Nakba, attempting to reshape history in order to
absolve the perpetrators and demonize the victims.
Because those in denial pretend to be asleep, they
are very difficult to awaken. One strategy they
employ is the angry denial of facts, of the veracity
of the horrific stories of deliberate state terrorism.
Another is acknowledgment of the objective facts,
but without repentance. The Israeli historian Benny
Morris, for example, has documented the cruel deeds
committed by the Zionist enterprise: the uprooting of
700,000 Palestinians, the massacres, the raping of
Palestinian women to “cleanse the hinterland and
cleanse the border areas and cleanse the main roads.”
Yet he neither condemns nor denounces these atrocities.
Instead, he has said, “I don’t think that the expulsions
of 1948 were war crimes. You can’t make an omelette
without breaking eggs. You have to dirty your hands.
“Ben-Gurion was right,” Morris concludes.
“If he had not done what he did, a state would not
have come into being.”
Since so much of our war is psychological, it’s no wonder
that the psychological element is also key to peace. A
universal acknowledgement of the Nakba, like that of
the Holocaust, apartheid, slavery and other human-made
horrors, is a crucial component of achieving peace in the
region. Such acknowledgment must include the honest
admission that such a past did indeed exist, the attempt
to remedy to the fullest possible extent the wrongs that
have been committed, and a sincere effort to move
toward reconstructing the future after processing history
and learning to live with the past. While this
acknowledgment can never undo what has been done,
it allows for extending reverence and grace toward the
victims, establishing a momentum toward healing
wounded histories and memories, and, ultimately, creating
a new reality. In other words, it promotes a restorative,
rather than a retributive, justice.
An open acknowledgement of the evil and immoral acts
committed against the Palestinian people is a
prerequisite for the psychological rehabilitation of
Palestinians and Israelis alike. Nakba survivors must
be heard, their stories recognized and their rights
restored. Because justice is a requirement for, rather
than an alternative to, reconciliation, Israeli perpetrators
must admit their wrongs and request amnesty. Why not
a Nuremburg Tribunal or a Truth and Reconciliation
Commission for all of us? The latter certainly was key to
South Africa’s successful transformation from an apartheid
to a democratic state that today is a welcome and
respected member of the international community.
The current threats to the people and existence of
Gaza create not the slightest ripple in the world.
Despite the fact that we live in an information-saturated
era, people and nations display a breathtaking ability to
deny reality. They assume the role of passive bystander,
waiting for someone else to act and assume responsibility.
As a result, entire communities can become incapacitated
and paralyzed.
Information alone is not sufficient to counter denial.
In fact, it seems that increased information, an
abundance of images and numbers and historical
evidence only intensify people’s denial and refusal to
accept the implications of the facts before them. We
know that when the conscious mind decides that
something is just too overwhelming to contemplate,
the individual suppresses the memory of that event—
but how can we suppress memories of killings that are
being repeated before our eyes today?
Palestinians do not care what Israelis tell their
grandchildren who demand to know where they were
during the Nakba. Those who are ashamed of their
actions or inaction but are in denial will simply reply,
“I didn’t know,” “I didn’t do it,” or “I couldn’t do
anything to stop it.”
What matters to Palestinians is that 60 years are too much,
and that denial of the Nakba must come to an end.
cycle of denial, and join the handful of people who have
already decided to stop being passive bystanders. This
will require the collective determination of solidarity
movements around the world to launch a truth movement
and mobilize for an end-the-Nakba campaign. As we
embark on the process to achieve closure of a cruel and
oppressive past, we can simultaneously work toward a
future of reconstruction and reconciliation
0 Have Your Say!:
Post a Comment