[News] Right of return is the heart of Palestine's struggle
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Tue Sep 6 19:39:10 EDT 2016
https://electronicintifada.net/content/right-return-heart-palestines-struggle/17856
Right of return is the heart of Palestine's struggle
Mohamed Mohamed <https://electronicintifada.net/people/mohamed-mohamed>
6 September 2016
A friend of mine recently shared an image meant to show solidarity with
Palestine. At first glance, I thought it was nice: it depicts a heart
that is outlined with the word “Palestine,” is filled with the names of
many Palestinian cities and is decorated with the colors of the
Palestinian flag.
Naturally, I tried to find the city of Safad
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/safad>, which is near the
birthplace of my grandparents. I couldn’t find it, but I also couldn’t
find other nearby cities such as Akka
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/akka>, Haifa
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/haifa> or even Nazareth
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/nazareth>. Then it became clear:
none of the Palestinian cities seized by Zionist forces during the 1948
Nakba <https://electronicintifada.net/tags/nakba> were included in this
Palestine heart.
As a descendant of Palestinians from a village in what is now known as
Israel, the barrage of Israeli propaganda attempting to bury the history
of our existence is not surprising. One can expect no less from a state
that was created through the expulsion and subjugation of an existing
population.
Discrimination against Palestinians is not perpetrated solely by the
Israeli state; it is endemic to Israeli society itself. A recent Pew
survey
<http://www.pewforum.org/2016/03/08/israels-religiously-divided-society/>
indicates that almost half of Israeli Jews believe that Palestinian
/citizens/ of Israel should be expelled from the country and 79 percent
believe that Jews deserve preferential treatment in Israel.
Yet the heart image, which ignores a key injustice perpetrated against
Palestinians, presumably originated from a supporter of Palestine. It is
just another picture among millions being shared online, but it serves
as a reminder of how the plight of Palestinians dispossessed in 1948 has
in many ways been forgotten, even by those who are supportive of the
Palestinian cause.
A non-negotiable right
The right of return <https://electronicintifada.net/tags/right-return>,
a cornerstone of the Palestinian struggle, is the principle that
Palestinian refugees have an inalienable right to return to their
homeland. This includes those who fled or were forced to flee in 1948 as
well as in 1967, along with their descendants.
The right of return is also enshrined in international law. The UN
General Assembly in December 1948 adopted Resolution 194
<https://unispal.un.org/DPA/DPR/unispal.nsf/0/C758572B78D1CD0085256BCF0077E51A>,
which called for the return of Palestinian refugees to their homes. In
June 1967, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 237
<https://unispal.un.org/DPA/DPR/unispal.nsf/0/E02B4F9D23B2EFF3852560C3005CB95A>
calling on Israel to facilitate the return of refugees, thereby
including those forced out by Israel’s seizure of land days earlier.
Israel continues to violate its obligations under international law. It
has no intention of correcting or addressing the historic injustices
that created the Palestinian refugee problem, and the right of return
has been one of the main issues preventing a just settlement of the
conflict. In the rare instances that Israel even considers Palestinian
statehood, it regards the right of return as out of the question
<http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Netanyahu-on-Palestinian-right-of-return-There-is-no-room-for-maneuver-338329>.
Although the original refugees of the 1948 ethnic cleansing are
declining in number, their descendants number more than five million
<http://www.unrwa.org/palestine-refugees>. Even if a fraction exercised
their right to return, this could potentially upset the balance of power
within the Israeli political system in a dramatic way. Considering that
Israelis have long been warned of the “demographic threat
<https://www.thenation.com/article/what-it-feels-be-demographic-threat-israel/>”
to the “Jewish state,” and that the entire Zionist project relies on
maintaining Jewish demographic domination, it is no surprise that they
are unwilling to accept the right of return.
As a result of its entrenched political, economic and military power,
Israel has no incentive to accept responsibility for its crimes or make
any reparations. On the contrary, the Israeli propaganda machine
actively tries to normalize
<http://mondoweiss.net/2016/06/palestine-oppressed-normalization/> the
country’s dark history and its ongoing oppression of Palestinians.
In other words, the expectation is that repeated human rights
violations, including ethnic cleansing and dispossession, become
accepted as normal if given enough time. This normalization influences
the perceptions of international audiences, the Israeli public and even
Palestine supporters who have become disheartened by the poor prospects
for a fair resolution.
Game of patience
The first conference of the Zionist movement took place more than 50
years before 1948; the colonization of Palestine has long been a
maneuver of patience, backed by overwhelming violence and international
complicity.
This is still the case today, 68 years after the Nakba. Israel is likely
betting that after the first-generation refugees die off, the following
generations will gradually forget their claims to historic Palestine.
In the meantime, the trees planted by the Jewish National Fund
<https://electronicintifada.net/content/jnf-plants-trees-uproot-bedouin/9072>
will continue to grow and conceal the evidence of Palestinian villages
destroyed by Zionists.
It is imperative that supporters of Palestinian rights never forget the
refugees of 1948. Palestine solidarity movements continue to call for
the right of return, but for strategic reasons much of their activism
focuses on issues such as settlement activity in the West Bank,
including East Jerusalem, and Israeli aggression against Gaza.
The Palestinian-led boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement
calls for the boycott <https://bdsmovement.net/faqs> of “all of the
Israeli companies and institutions that are involved in its violations
of international law,” but it acknowledges
<https://bdsmovement.net/get-involved/what-to-boycott> that the most
prominent campaigns target companies that operate in illegal Israeli
settlements in the West Bank. Campaigns against settlement activity in
the so-called Occupied Palestinian Territories are simply more likely to
gain broad international support than those calling for the right of return.
This reality of what powerful nations — and even some activists — will
support is a testament to the persistence and effectiveness of Israeli
propaganda. Despite uprooting hundreds of thousands of people in 1948,
occupying their lands and subjugating those who remained, major world
powers view Israel as a legitimate state, a “bastion of democracy.”
To them, Palestinian lands captured in 1948 are not perceived as
occupied in any way. The “Occupied Palestinian Territories” refer to the
West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, and Israel’s
official position is that they are “disputed
<http://mfa.gov.il/MFA/ForeignPolicy/Peace/Guide/Pages/FAQ_Peace_process_with_Palestinians_Dec_2009.aspx#Settlements1>,”
not occupied. History is written by the victors here.
Furthermore, supporters of Israel are notorious for answering valid
criticism of state policy with accusations of anti-Semitism. They equate
the Palestinian right of return with the denial of Jewish
self-determination and this discourages others from speaking out.
Remaining steadfast
The core issue here is that the Zionist founders of Israel expelled the
native Palestinian population and seized their lands. Israel’s very
foundation rests on occupation and oppression.
In Lebanon, stateless Palestinians continue to live in overcrowded and
underserved refugee camps with few rights, while Israelis — effectively
squatters — live comfortably on the lands of these Palestinians’ parents
and grandparents, only tens of miles away. Their rightful homes and
lands are undoubtedly occupied.
No peace agreement can ever void this right of return because individual
rights cannot be abrogated by any peace deal. Israel arrogantly claims
sovereignty over the Palestinian lands that it stole in 1948, and it
would like nothing more than to receive official sanction of this claim.
Any Israeli willingness to recognize Palestinian statehood would be
contingent on that.
In the meantime, Israel will continue to methodically malnourish
<https://electronicintifada.net/content/israels-starvation-diet-gaza/11810>,
stunt and limit the caloric intake of Palestinians in Gaza and suppress
Palestinians in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem,
<http://www.btselem.org/topic/freedom_of_movement> in the hope that
protracted suffering and humiliation will lead them into submission.
The Palestinian people have remained steadfast in the face of such
Israeli tyranny. Sixty-eight years of displacement and repression have
not broken their will and resilience.
But as Israel’s propaganda continues to distract from the truth of its
foundation, and when even the supposed chief representative of
Palestinians indicates his willingness to cede
<http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/11/2012113141235546948.html>
his claims to his hometown, it becomes more important than ever for
Palestinians and their supporters to reaffirm the right of return.
Otherwise, the true extent of the occupation of all historic Palestine
will be forgotten.
/Mohamed Mohamed is the Finance, Grants and Development Associate at The
Jerusalem Fund and Palestine Center in Washington, DC./
--
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20160906/41a4b725/attachment.htm>
More information about the News
mailing list