Nakba at 61

Khaled Amayreh

While its founders believed that the violence and racism at the heart of Israel's birth would be forgotten, it isn't and never will be, writes Khaled Amayreh in occupied Jerusalem May 22, 2009 As they do every year, Palestinians on both sides of the Green Line that separates the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Israel have been commemorating the passage of 61 years since mainly East-European Zionist Jews created the Jewish state on 78 per cent of the Palestinian national homeland. This year, the commemoration affirmed a renewed determination to uphold the right of return for as many as five million Palestinian refugees whose forefathers were expelled from -- and often massacred into fleeing -- their ancestral motherland. Al-Ahram Weekly spoke to some elderly Palestinians who survived the Nakba, or "catastrophe", which a growing number of Palestinians are now referring to as "the Palestinian holocaust". Mohamed Abu Sharar, who fought alongside the Egyptian army outside the village of Falluja under the command of Gamal Abdel-Nasser, vividly remembers the massacre of his fellow villagers at Al-Dawayema, a few kilometres southwest of Falluja. "The Jews killed anyone they saw, they broke the heads of children, cut open the bellies of women with bayonets. They even raped some women before murdering them," said the now 100 years old Abu Sharar. He tearfully recounted how Israeli soldiers mercilessly massacred dozens of fleeing families that had found shelter at a cave outside Al-Dawayema. "The Jews ordered them to come out of the cave and get into a row and start walking. And when they started walking, they sprayed them with machinegun fire from two sides, annihilating them all. A woman who pretended to be dead survived." The same fate met some 75 elderly Sufis who had come to the local mosque, known as Masjid Al-Darawish. A contingent of Israeli soldiers arrived at the mosque shortly before Friday's congregational prayer, and riddled all 75 with bullets. "Not a single one escaped death." The Weekly asked the century-old Palestinian what was his wish after all these years. "My wish has remained unchanged, it is to return to my village, to die and be buried there." Asked if he would accept compensation for his lost property at the village of Al-Dawayema, Abu Sharar said: "It is not a matter of property and compensation. This is my country, my history, my home, my childhood memories. My father is buried there, so is his father and grandfather. Would you trade the grave of your father for all the money in the world?" The last phrase is what irks the Israelis more than anything else. To be sure, in 1948, both Arabs and Jews miscalculated. The Arabs never thought in their worst nightmares that things would turn out as they have; that Israel would take over the rest of Palestine and the refugees' exile would continue so long. Similarly, the Zionist leadership, mesmerised by arrogance and self-absorption, never thought that the refugees' plight would continue to be relevant 61 years later. Some Israeli leaders thought the "old would die, and the young would forget". Today, with hopes for a just peace in Palestine dissipating, Palestinians are more determined than ever to cling to the right of return as the "soul and heart" of their enduring cause. Moreover, many Palestinians consider the right of return as a moral asset of immense and sacred importance. A few years ago, particularly during the height of the false euphoria accompanying the Oslo "peace process", some Palestine Liberation Organisation figures showed a certain willingness to compromise the right of return. Indeed, some Palestinian Authority (PA) officials went as far as reaching and signing "understandings" with Israeli figures that implicitly recognised that the refugees wouldn't be able to return to their homes in what is now Israel in the context of any final status settlement between Israel and the PA. Now, thanks to the failure of the peace process and also to Hamas's strong standing in the Palestinian national arena, no Palestinian leader or official dares utter a word that might suggest a willingness to compromise on the right of return, as this would be political suicide, both for individuals and political factions. With the right of return becoming a conspicuous feature of Palestinian national discourse, some Israeli leaders are trying nervously to cut that right by force. Last week, the extremist party of Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Yisrael Beiteinu, proposed a ban on the commemoration of the Nakba by the 1.5 million Palestinians who are Israeli citizens. The proposal drew angry reaction from Palestinian leaders inside Israel, with Arab Knesset member Ahmed Teibi calling it "a pathetic attempt to deny history." "Instead of coming to terms with historical facts, the fascists in Israel are trying obliterate these facts through legislation. What kind of mentality do these people have? What kind of education did they receive?" he said. Another Palestinian intellectual, Jafar Farah, director of the Haifa-based advocacy NGO, Mosawa (meaning "equality" in Arabic), said he wouldn't be surprised if the proposed law passed given the racist climate in Israel today. "The ongoing efforts of extremists in the government to complicate the Middle East conflict with confrontations with our community are alarming. Thoughts and feelings will soon be forbidden in Israel. It reminds me of McCarthyism in the United States. It is about time to show the leaders of the extreme right wing how humanity treats civilians." In recent years, Israeli governments sought to counter Palestinian insistence on the right of return with demands that Palestinians should recognise Israel as a "Jewish state" and more recently as "the State of Jews." Many Palestinian intellectuals view the worrying demands as a mere euphemism for undeclared Israeli designs to ethnically cleanse Israel's large Palestinian minority. Israeli officials deny that such designs exist, repeating the mantra that Israel is both a Jewish and democratic state. However, when pressed on the matter, nearly all Israeli leaders, leftist and rightist alike, readily admit that should there be a serious collision between the "Jewish" and "democratic" components of Israel, the "Jewish" component would always come first.