Ramzy Baroud's Blog

Don't ask for what you never had,' is the underlying message made by supporters
of Israel when they claim Palestine was never a state to begin with.

The contention is, of course, easily refutable. Following the disintegration of
the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th Century, colonial powers plotted to divide
the spoils. When Britain and France signed the secretive Sykes-Picot agreement
in 1916, which divided the spheres of influence in west Asia, there were hardly
any 'nation-states' in the region which would fit contemporary definitions of
the term.

All borders were colonial concoctions that served the interests of the powerful
countries seeking strategic control, political influence and raw material. Most
of Africa and much of Asia were victims of the colonial scrambles, which
disfigured their geo-political and subsequently socio-economic compositions.

But Palestinians, like many other people, did see themselves as a unique group
linked historically to a specific geographic entity. All That Remains by
Professor Walid Khalidi is one leading volume which documents a thriving
pre-Israel history of Palestine and the Palestinian people. Such history is
often overlooked, if not entirely dismissed. Some choose to believe that no
other civilization ever existed in Palestine, neither prior to nor between the
assumed destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans in 70 CE until the
founding of Israel in 1948. But what about irrefutable facts? For example, the
Israeli Jerusalem Post was called the Palestine Post when it was founded in
1932. Why Palestine and not Israel? Whose existence, as a definable political
entity, preceded the other? The answer is obvious.

It isn't the denial or acceptance of Israel's existence that concerns me.
Israel does exist, even if it refuses to define its borders, or acknowledge the
historic injustices committed against the Palestinian people. The systematic and
brutal ethnic cleaning of the majority of Palestinian Christians and Muslims
from 1947 to 1948 is what produced a Jewish majority in Palestine and
subsequently the 'Jewish state' of Israel.

Also worth remembering are the equally systematic attempts at dehumanising
Palestinians and denying them any rights. When Ehud Barak, Prime Minister of
Israel at the time, compared Palestinians in a Jerusalem Post interview (August
2000) to “crocodiles, the more you give them meat, they want more,” he was
hardly diverting from a consistent Zionist tradition that equated Palestinians
with animals and vermin. Another Prime Minister, Menahim Begin referred to
Palestinians in a Knesset speech as “beasts walking on two legs.” They have
also been described as “grasshoppers”, “cockroaches” and more by famed
Israeli statesmen.

Disturbingly, such references might be seen as an improvement from former Prime
Minister Golda Meir's claim that “there were no such thing as
Palestinians...they did not exist." (June 15, 1969)

To justify its own existence, Israel has long subjugated its citizens to a kind
of collective amnesia. Do Israelis realise they live on the rubble of hundreds
of Palestinian villages and towns, each destroyed during a most tragic history
of blood, pain and tears, resulting in an ethnic cleansing of nearly 800,000
Palestinians?

As Israel celebrates its 60th birthday, nothing is allowed to blemish the
supposed heroism of its founding fathers or those who fought in its name.
Palestine, the Palestinians, and an immeasurably long relationship between a
people and their land hardly merit a pause as Israeli officials and their
Western counterparts carry on with their festivities.

While some conveniently forgot many historic chapters pertinent to the
suffering of Palestinians, Israeli leaders — especially those who took part in
the colonization of Palestine — were fully aware of what they did. David Ben
Gurion, the first Prime Minister of Israel, warned in 1948, “We must do
everything to insure they (the Palestinians) never do return.” By ensuring
that Palestinians were cut off from their land, Ben Gurion has hoped that time
will take care of the rest. “The old will die and the young will forget,” he
said.

Moshe Dayan, a former Israeli Defence Minister also had no illusions regarding
the real history beneath Israel's momentous achievements. His speech at the
Technion in Haifa (April 4, 1969) was quoted in the Israeli daily Haaretz thus:
“We came here to a country that was populated by Arabs and we are building
here a Hebrew, a Jewish state; instead of the Arab villages, Jewish villages
were established. You even do not know the names of those villages, and I do not
blame you because these villages no longer exist. There is not a single Jewish
settlement that was not established in the place of a former Arab village.”

Israel has, since its foundation, laboured to undermine any sense of
Palestinian identity. Without most of their historic land, the relationship
between Palestinians and Palestine could only exist in memory. Eventually
though, memory managed to morph into a collective identity that has proved more
durable than the physical existence on the land. “It is a testimony to the
tenacity of Palestinians that they have kept alive a sense of nationhood in the
face of so much adversity. Yet the obstacles to sustaining their cohesiveness as
a people are today greater than ever,” reported the Economist (May 8, 2008).

Living in so many disconnected areas, removed from their land, detached from
one another, fought with at every corner, Palestinians have not just been
oppressed physically by Israel, but physiologically as well. There are attempts
from all angles to force them to simply concede, forget, and move on. It is the
Palestinian people's rejection of such notions that makes Israel's victory and
'independence' superficial and unconvincing.

Sixty years after their Catastrophe (Nakba), Palestinians still remember their
past and present injustices. Of course more than mere remembrance is necessary;
Palestinians need to find a common ground for unity — Christians and Muslims,
poor and rich, secularist and the religious — in order to stop Israel from
eagerly exploiting their own disunity, factionalism and political tribalism.

But, despite Israel's hopes and best efforts, Palestinians have not yet
forgotten who they are. And no amount of denial can change this.