The Other Side of Israel’s Birth
by Alice Rothchild
Published on Wednesday, May 14, 2008 by The Baltimore Sun
This spring we are obsessed with anniversaries: the fifth year since the invasion of Iraq, the 40th since the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination and, of course, the 60th anniversary of Israeli independence. Each such marker shapes our understanding of history, framing how a story is to be told and how it is to be remembered. I am struck by one conspicuous anniversary that is not making many headlines.
On tour recently in the U.S., Eitan Bronstein, director of the Israeli organization Zochrot, explained that “zochrot” is the Hebrew word for “remembering,” intentionally used in its feminine form to imply that this organization is not about the standard history of schoolbooks but about a memory grounded in compassion. Zochrot focuses on educating Israelis about the other side of the 1948 War of Liberation, the dispossession and expulsion of more than 700,000 Palestinians living in what was to become Israel. Through careful documentation of the locations of more than 450 destroyed Palestinian villages, by interviewing and photographing Palestinians living in Israel and surrounding refugee camps, Zochrot creates a living human memory that encompasses the other side of history.
Mr. Bronstein has been touring with Mohammad Jaradat, a Palestinian activist, negotiator at the Madrid peace talks and co-founder of Badil, Arabic for “alternative,” a foundation that researches and advocates for Palestinian residency and refugee rights. He is part of a vigorous Palestinian movement for civil society that is largely unknown in the U.S.
Listening to these two men, I was struck by how memory shapes our understanding of history and how dangerous it is to blind ourselves to the realities of the past. For decades, Jews have shaped the memory of the Holocaust, honoring its victims and justifying the behavior of its survivors, creating a story in which we Jews are all at some level survivors, claiming Israel’s victories as our own. The narrative of indigenous Arab resistance to a Jewish state and acknowledgment of the human suffering that was a consequence of Israeli military victory and political policy thus become a personal as well as a political threat.
Mr. Bronstein contends that Israel’s failure to recognize its responsibility for Palestinian dispossession is a critical though invisible part of Israeli history, that embracing this history is the first step toward acknowledging Palestinians as fellow human beings, and that this process can lead beyond peace to permanent reconciliation between the two peoples. While the Palestinians clearly “lost the war” in 1948, the decision to prevent them from returning to their ancestral homes was a political decision that has led to a constant state of friction and war between Israel and its neighbors.
At a time when Jews and Palestinians express little hope for a peaceful future, Mr. Bronstein offers us a path where Israelis acknowledge the price of their victory and take responsibility for their share of the Palestinian catastrophe. At the same time, Mr. Jaradat is working for the kinds of civil rights that are enshrined in international and human rights law, reminding us that Palestinians deserve nothing less than we would expect for ourselves. Both men share the conviction that acknowledging the Palestinian refugees’ internationally recognized right to return and developing creative solutions — from resettlement to financial compensation — is the foundation of a lasting resolution of the conflict.
As Israel celebrates its 60th anniversary today, I wonder what would happen if this tragedy, Al Nakba, were to be publicly recognized alongside the Israeli victory. Perhaps taking the risk of acknowledging the pain of the “other” and seeing “the enemy” as a real person is how peace is ultimately made.
The dispossession of two-thirds of the Palestinian population in 1948, and the consequences borne by generations of families living in Israel, the occupied territories, refugee camps and the diaspora, can no longer be hidden. It is time to acknowledge that other anniversary and to move forward with eyes and hearts open to the suffering of all the children of Abraham.
Alice Rothchild, a physician, is the author of “Broken Promises, Broken Dreams: Stories of Jewish and Palestinian Trauma and Resilience” and co-chairwoman of Jewish Voice for Peace, Boston.
4 comments:
This is great.
By the way, have you read The Lemon Tree? I highly recommend it, if you haven't. Here it is at Amazon, if you're interested.
I haven't read it but it looks interesting. Once I make a significant dent in my "to read" pile (which continues to grow) I'll look at it. Thanks for the recommendation!
Who has heard that in the 1930's Bagdad every 3rd citizen was a native Jew? The Sefardi (Safrati) Jews have a 400 year old history and the Mizrahi Jews over 2,500 year old history in the Middle East - outside the location of the state of Israel (Palestine).
Here's the statistics regarding not ONLY the expelsion of Jews from various Moslim countries in the last 60 years that Israel has been an independent state, but also numbers expelled from the Europe in a longer time interval. The Jews are no settlers of colonialism:
http://www.helsinki.fi/~pjojala/Expelled-Jews-statistics.htm
60 years of survival. This is statistics, not Zionism. When the military means have lacked the power, it is now a time of a media war to spit on the Jews and curse the Jewish Scriptures. Both the Old and New Testament were written by Jews. Although Jasser Arafat in his books claimed that there never was any Jewish Temple in Jerusalem and that Jesus was not a Jew, he could not deceive the honest spectator
As a matter of fact, the population of Arabs (my beloved friends and brothers, just like the Jews, our common fathers) under the Israeli government was increased ten-fold (10X) in only 57 years. This is close to the world record for any tribe, nation, tongue or culture on the whole planet at the same time interval. The Sefardi Jews were expelled from Spain in the very date when Christoffer Colombo lifted up his anchors and sailed away from Spain. The Jews had to leave and their possessions were stolen. In the case of the Mizrahi, the Jews have lived for millennia all around the Middle East since the first exile of Israel 500 B.C., in what are now Muslim-dominated countries. While much has been made of the 700,000 Palestinians having been made homeless with the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, it's peculiar that there is no official recognition of their Jewish counterparts. A greater number of Jews - some 856,000 - were forcefully expelled from Arab countries after the creation of the State of Israel, their homes forfeited, their belongings seized. They became refugees, migrating to Israel, mainly. But they did not spoke any Hebrew but Arabic and Farsi (Persian).
The Second Intifada is called the Oslo War. Israel has been forced to damage the very infrastructure she has constructed and administrated while hunting the weapons from the milittant "freedom fighters". Between 1967-1993 roads, system of siewers (gutters, ditches), electricity supply, water supply, schools, health care system, and social welfare system to the West Bank and Gaza. Even for the Arab citizens of Israel, ideal was that everyody gets the same salary for the same job, with the same social benefits. This is stated in the law, officially. In contrast, even the official law in Jordan which has the peace treaty with Israel, it is forbidden for a Jew to live in the country. The health care services have been free for the Arab population, only a portion of the price of the drugs must have been paid by the patients. Under the administrations of Great Britain (1920-1947) or Jordan (1948-1967), no universities were established for the Arabs in the country. According to The Association of Arab Universitiesin mukaan (http://www.aaru.edu.jo/), in contrast, under the Israeli administration altogether six universities appeared during the time (of course by the force of the local Arab people, though). Also, since 1969 an independent newspaper has appeared in Jerusalem, which has never been put under a censorship.
The Palestinian life expectancy increased from 48 to 72 years in 1967-1995. The death rate decreased by over 2/3 in 1970-1090 and the Israeli medical campaigns decreased the child deat rate from a level of 60 per 1000 in 1968 to 15 per 1000 in 2000. (An analogous figure was 64 in Iraq, 40 in Egypt, 23 in Jordan, and 22 in Syria in 2000). During 1967-1988 the amount of comprehensive schoold and second level polytechnic institutes for the Arabs was increased by 35%. During 1970-1986 the proportion of Palestinian women at the West Bank and Gaza not having gone to school decreased from 67 % to 32 %. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita in West Bank and Gaza increased in 1968-1991 BKT from 165 US dollars to 1715 dollars (compare with 1630$ in Turkey, 1440$ in Tunis, 1050$ in Jordan, 800$ in Syria, 600$ in Egypt. and 400$ in Yemen).
One-fourth of the judgements of the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations strike Israel. Out of the incidences dealt in the Security Counsil one-third is having to do with Israel. I think this resembles the hysteria seen in the Black Plague in Europe, when the European Jews were accused of the pandemia and burnt alive. (As an example, one the biggest Jewish populations in the continent was in Basel, Switzerland, and all the 4000 souls were burned in one Rhein island.)
PLO was founded in 1964 - three years before the 6-day failed attack and occupation. The PLO articles openly state that it was not a project of the Palestinians but a project TO the Palestinians. They were commanded to literally sacrifice for them in the name of a greater war:
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/mideast/plocov.htm
Pauli.Ojala@gmail.com
Helsinki, Finland
jaakonpoika, thanks for the post. I appreciate the information. Much of it I know. I'm aware of many horrible things that have happened to the Jews. Having been displaced many times, slaughtered many times is a horror no people deserve. But my concern is not with Jews. I am referring to the Isreali government, the STATE of Israel and their actions. You would think they would have leanred from their experiences. But then, they get the upper hand, with plenty of backing from the US, and perpetrated horrors. Displaced how many? Kill how many? Demolish how many homes? What you say here reminds me of what the US government said about the indians. We're dong all this "beneficial" stuff for "them", giving them reservations, forceable education in white boarding schools, relocation and genocide. The Israeli government leraned from this. They have much to answer for. Instead, they are the attack dog of the United States, being cruelly used once again. And ultimately, the US will turn on Israel when they have no use for them, as they do on their other "friends".
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