The Israeli establishment reacted very nervously to the fact that
the Palestinians - and especially the Palestinian citizens of
Israel - commemorated the 60th anniversary of the Nakba at the same
time that Israel celebrated the 60th anniversary of its creation.
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni announced that "[t]he Palestinians
will be able to celebrate their independence only when they erase
the Nakba from their political dictionary."
When we speak about 60 years of the establishment of Israel and 60
years of its outcome - the Nakba of the Palestinian people - the
relationship between "independence" and "nakba" (catastrophe) looks
like a relationship between Siamese twins. They are like Siamese
twins that move together, live together and grow up together.
During these 60 years, Israel has been consistently trying to get
rid of the other face of the twin, trying to hide it, but it was
and still is impossible.
Israel has no way to eliminate its responsibility for the Nakba -
the Siamese twin of its establishment - without bringing the
consequences of the Nakba to an end. The two peoples are still
living in a conflict, in a bloody crisis, because of the continued
attempts via occupation, wars, aggression and walls to glorify
Israeli "independence" and legitimacy, and to eliminate the
Palestinians' legitimate national rights, their freedom and
independence. After 60 years, it is clear that Israeli legitimacy
cannot be complete unless the Palestinian rights and legitimacy are
realized alongside those of Israel. There is no way to escape this
relationship between the two. Israel will never be really
independent and free unless the Palestinian people are really
independent and free, too.
This is why today, on the 60th anniversary of the establishment of
Israel, the implementation of the Palestinian national rights in
their independent sovereign state - within the June 4, 1967
borders, with two capitals in Jerusalem, and a just solution for
the refugees according to the relevant UN resolutions - is not only
in the interest of the Palestinians, but also in the very real
interest of the people in Israel. True, the borders of June 1967
are not the core of the conflict, but it is the opportunity for the
solution.
An Asymmetrical Relationship
The problem does not lie only in the official Israeli attitude, but
also in the international community, which evades its
responsibility to compel Israel to implement the United Nations
resolutions pertaining to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The
United States, the only superpower in the 21st century and the
sponsor of the Annapolis "peace meeting," proves once more, under
President George W. Bush's administration, that it is not a part of
the solution, but a major part of the problem, an obstacle to
reaching a just peace. Bush and his Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice tried to escape this fact by declaring in their recent visits
in Jerusalem and Ramallah that the "U.S. does not intervene in the
negotiation process … [that] the U.S. role is just to help
the sides to sit together and negotiate."
Given the Israeli-Palestinian imbalance and the fact that the
Palestinians still suffer under the Israeli occupation or siege,
behind the separation wall, facing settlement expansions, land
confiscation, assassinations and house demolitions, the only way to
achieving real political progress and to ending the bloody conflict
is by enforcing the implementation by Israel of the UN resolutions.
Instead, we witness non-intervention by the U.S. - which is able
but unwilling - and the rest of the international community - which
is willing but unable. We witness unlimited U.S. support for
Israeli policies - even going so far as to help the Israeli leaders
to evade their commitments to the White House itself, and to the
so-called peace process, to the Road Map and to Annapolis.
The American administration "demands" from the Palestinians but
"urges" the Israelis. In her last visit to Ramallah, Rice said,
"Now it is the responsibility of the Palestinian leadership to
improve the conditions of the Palestinians" - as if these
conditions have nothing to do with the 41 years of continued
occupation.
Redefining the Concepts
We are living at a point when, 60 years on, there is an American
and Israeli attempt to redefine the concepts. They are trying to
reframe the Palestinian question into an Israeli question. The
national rights of the Palestinian people are not on the agenda,
but rather the concerns for Israeli security needs and its
ideological, racist demographic "fears." There is no doubt that the
Israeli leadership, backed by the Bush administration, relates to
the two-state solution - based on the "separation wall" partition -
in the context of preserving the Jewishness of the state rather
than the fulfillment of the Palestinians' legitimate national
rights and UN resolutions. The security needs of Israelis must
indeed be met; however, it is not just one, but two sides that need
security.
The American and Israeli discourse refers to a dichotomy: "the
security needs" of Israel and "the improvement of the conditions of
life" for the Palestinians. The main component of the "improvement
of the conditions of life for the Palestinians" should be the
preservation of their lives, their security and freedoms, including
freedom of movement and their basic rights to work and education.
Who is seeking the Palestinian right to live a secure life in Gaza,
in Beit Hanoun, in Nablus - a secure life for Palestinian families,
for Palestinian children? The security of Israel should be derived
from the fulfillment of a just peace and the recognition of the
Palestinian national rights.
Between the Crisis and Corruption
Today, Israel is living a very deep crisis - political and ethical
- that threatens and undermines democracy. People wonder about
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's future, the investigations of the
prime minister and the heavy charge sheet against a former finance
minister; they wonder whether these investigations can affect the
political process. It would seem that Olmert's political career is
over, although his crisis is not just a personal one. It is a
crisis deeply rooted in the Israeli reality of 41 years of
occupation, settlements and exploitation of the Palestinian
occupied territories. In their prolonged reliance on policies of
trickery - instead of wisdom - aimed at preserving the occupation
at any cost, the Israeli ruling elites have created a whole culture
of deceit vis-à-vis the world and Israeli citizens alike. With
the construction of settlements and bypass roads on confiscated
lands, the Israeli establishment has built an infrastructure for
bypassing international as well as Israeli law, and for bypassing
democracy, ethics, human values and human rights. The first
legalized assassination in the occupied territories added another
brick to the building of the culture of corruption, deceit and the
breach of international norms regarding human life.
The goal of the settlement project, from the very beginning, was to
create obstacles to ending the occupation and the conflict and the
possibility of achieving peace. This project soon became an
unprecedented apparatus for political corruption and suspect
relations between capital and government in Israel, and for a
re-division of the national income. It is not the investigations of
Olmert that are affecting the political process, but rather the
absence of a real political process and real political alternatives
in the Israeli ruling establishment that are producing the
political, ethical and social crisis, as well as the infrastructure
for corruption.
The Bush administration has tried to promote its grand strategies
in the region by passing over the Palestinian question. Now after
having sunk into the Iraq quagmire, the U.S., together with the
Israeli government, is trying to salvage its strategies with the
aid of the Palestinian question - using it without solving
it.
There is no way to overcome these crises without the search for a
just peace and a resolution to the conflict, with the ending of the
occupation and the dismantling of the settlements. According to
polls, a majority of the Israeli public - over 56% - accept the
dismantling of the settlements in the West Bank. The problem is not
public opinion; it is the Israeli political establishment.
The Palestinian National Minority in Israel
We the Arabs in Israel are a national minority, a part of the
Palestinian people - the part that managed to stick to our homeland
in spite of the Nakba. We are fully Palestinian, but we also insist
on being full citizens of Israel. We are not citizens because we
suddenly appeared at Israel's gates, but rather because Israel
suddenly appeared in our homeland. We are a minority in our
homeland. We have no other homeland.
Complex situations involve complex answers and definitions. We are
part of the Palestinian people and part of the struggle for its
rights; at the same time, we are part of Israeli society and an
important part of the struggle for democratic change within it. The
Arab citizens cannot bring about this change on their own, but no
other force in Israel can achieve change without the Arab minority.
Our political role, side by side with the Jewish democratic forces
and the forces most committed to peace in Israel, is to change the
situation, the mentality and the regime in Israel to genuinely
democratic, peaceful and progressive ones. In this way, we can
serve the just cause of our Palestinian people too.
There was a time when the Israeli establishment was afraid of the
Palestinian component in our identity. They tried to forbid anyone
from daring to think about it, and they tried to get rid of their
Siamese twin by attempting to transform our national identity, to
create a new national identity which they called the "Israeli
Arab."
This policy was defeated. Since the end of the 1970s, the real
concern of the Israeli establishment has not been the Palestinian
component of our identity, but the civic component as citizens of
Israel. When - together with the democratic Jewish forces seeking
change in Israel - we insist on pulling our weight as citizens and
attempt to suggest alternatives to the Zionist national consensus,
the reaction is a mixture of racist demographic fears and plans for
Arab transfer, which has become part of the legitimate discourse in
Israeli politics. The civic component of the identity of the Arab
citizens of Israel is expressed in their desire to attain equality
as citizens and as a national minority in the state of Israel, and
in their attempt to exercise their political rights and
influence.
We Are the Palestinians of 1976, Not 1948
We are not the Palestinians of 1948. We worked hard to remain
steadfast in our homeland, to defend our lands and our rights, and
to replace the Nakba psychology - the mentality of 1948 - with the
mentality of struggle and of fighting for our rights. The struggle
of the Palestinian Arab minority in Israel became the antithesis to
the Nakba and the mentality of 1948. If one insists on associating
us with a date, we choose to be the Palestinians of March 30, 1976,
the first Land Day rooted and initiated in the Galilee, the
Triangle and the Negev.
For 60 years, we the Arab citizens in Israel were required to
express our loyalty to the state of Israel. For the most part we
did not come out against the existence of the state of Israel, but
we have struggled for the right of a sovereign Palestinian state to
exist, and steering the discussion towards the question of Israel's
existence is a dangerous attempt at eliminating the right of a
Palestinian state to exist.
Also, for 60 years, we have been demanding that the state of Israel
express its commitment to our right to equality and legitimate,
indisputable citizenship. The Israeli establishment still relates
to the Arab national minority as strangers in their homeland, as
temporary residents. The problem does not come only from the
extreme right that promotes plans for the transfer of Arab citizens
and for population exchange. The Yisrael Beiteinu party's extremist
leader, Avigdor Lieberman, who served as deputy prime minister for
"strategic threats," is not and should not be portrayed as the
problem of the Palestinian citizens of Israel only. He is a problem
for human and democratic values anywhere. However, he is not the
source of the problem, but rather the outcome of it. The problem is
deeply rooted in the mainstream discourse at the center of Israeli
politics. The politics of the racist "demographic danger" and the
"preserving the Jewishness of the state" were initiated by the
Labor Party rather than the extreme right, although on the eve of
Independence Day, 2008, former Minister of Education Limor Livnat
of the Likud party said in a TV debate on the strategic threats
facing Israel on its 60th anniversary: "There is no real strategic
threat from Iran, Hizbullah, or Hamas …. The only real
strategic threat comes from the demographic danger that the Arab
citizens of the state present."
Today it has become clearer than ever that ignoring the fact that
Israel is not a wholly Jewish state but a state with a Jewish
majority and a large Arab minority casts doubt on the accuracy of
the definition of Israel as a "democratic state." As a result, the
struggle for genuine equality and for democracy are intertwined,
since equality for the Arab population is only possible in a more
democratic Israel, and since Israel cannot be a real democracy as
long as its discriminatory policy against a national minority
prevails.