al-Nakba: the Palestinian CatastropheIronic, how quickly innocent victims can become ruthless victimizers The central piece denied and evaded by Israel is the Nakba (catastrophe in Arabic) of 1948, when Palestinians were ruthlessly attacked, massacred and driven from their homes into refugee camps by Zionist terror groups, and never allowed to return in violation of international law. This is the deeply flawed foundation upon which Israel was established and upon which its entire subsequent society remains structurally unsteady, morally corrupt, legally culpable, and psychologically damaged. Israel has inevitably suffered from a spoiled identity (a concept of sociologist Erving Goffman) against which it defends by outright lies, hysterical accusations of anti-Semitism and other transparent defense mechanisms, and the consequences to its Palestinian victims remain tragic and ruinous. ===================== The Al-Nakba Awareness Project Advocating Freedom, Justice and Equality in the Holy Land We believe Middle East peace will come only through recognizing and correcting over six decades of dispossession imposed by force upon the indigenous Muslim, Christian, and other Arabic peoples of Palestine. Peace cannot bypass justice. We advocate a solution based upon principles of democratic equality, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and international law which include the unequivocal right of return for over 4 million UN-registered Palestinian refugees. As the origin of the conflict, we believe that awareness of the Nakba, the Palestinian catastrophe, is critical for understanding the problem. Israel’s original goal and its ongoing strategy of “nishul” – displacement or dispossession in Hebrew – remains unchanged since 1948 and has blocked resolution for many decades. We learned from our own Jim Crow history, affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court, that separate is never equal. We therefore do not support a two-state solution, which would institutionalize segregation of two peoples and allow the apartheid system within Israel to remain unchallenged. A “Jewish and democratic” state is an Orwellian oxymoron. It cannot be both. Israel is a democracy only for its Jewish citizens. Non-Jews in Israel are denied equal rights in virtually every area of life. Instead, we support an integrated, egalitarian state with freedom and equal rights for all its citizens. The Arab population of historic Palestine, including the 20% non-Jewish citizens inside Israel, must be provided constitutional protections against the racist laws that currently exist. Colonial Zionism is an archaic, ethnic nationalist,19th century ideology that continues to underpin a Jewish supremacist system not unlike South African apartheid and white supremacist, segregationist Jim Crow in our pre-1950s South. We challenge this and its support by our country as incompatible with American principles of government and international standards of human rights. American knee-jerk support of Israel and its continuous human rights violations has been maintained by a relentless campaign of deception, disinformation and financial political control by the most powerful lobby in Washington affecting our foreign policy - AIPAC and over 50 other major American Jewish organizations. These organizations purport to represent the American Jewish community, but in fact American Jewish views of Israel are far less uniform and far less than positive among a substantial fraction of younger Jews. We support these awakening but underrepresented Jewish voices. Israeli occupation of both Palestine and Washington, D.C. must end. Obstruction has also come from the left, the so-called “Alternatives to AIPAC,” which promote dialogue, negotiation and compromise rather than enforcement of international law. The victim of a robbery cannot be required to negotiate or compromise with the thief over how much to return. Before dialogue or negotiation can yield resolution, external, non-violent intervention forces must be applied to equalize power, which is now grossly imbalanced. Citizens disturbed by our pathological symbiosis with Israel should apply force through the BDS movement that includes product boycotts and divestment from Israeli companies and U.S. companies supporting the occupation, support the academic and cultural boycott of Israel to communicate repudiation of their policies and conduct to the general Israeli public, and demand an end to U.N. Security Council vetoes by the U.S. (43 as of 2011) that have long protected Israel from international justice. This will simultaneously save Israel from its current path of self-destruction, which many insightful Israelis recognize. To survive, gain admission to the community of nations, and emerge from its self-imposed ghetto behind fortress walls, Israel must repudiate Zionism and transform itself into a normal, multi-ethnic, non-discriminatory constitutional democracy in the modern Western tradition. CHOOSING SIDES Israel maintains the worlds last colonial occupation, which it attempts to falsely frame as a conflict to obscure the distinction between occupier and occupied, oppressor and oppressed. In response to opponents, Israel and its apologists state there are two sides to every conflict. True, and when one side has all the power and commits almost all the violence, we call it oppression. We did not call Mississippi Jim Crow or South African Apartheid simply a conflict. To solve the problem, people of conscience must side with the oppressed and correct the power imbalance. Otherwise, nothing will change. We therefore support the Palestinian resistance. Every colonial occupation produces resistance. No resistance to occupation in history has ever been totally non-violent, and Israel uses every violent as well as most non-violent expressions of Palestinian resistance to brutally suppress those under occupation and further tighten the noose. Palestinian resistance has therefore been largely non-violent throughout most of its history and has wisely turned almost entirely to these methods since 2005. The symbol of their resistance has become the cartoon figure Handala. This small cartoon figure, Handala, shown above left leading his elders from their beloved land leaving a trail of hearts, represents a 10-year-old Palestinian child observing and suffering the dispossession and occupation of his people. As shown on the right, he is usually represented with his back turned bearing silent witness and his hands behind him to refuse a handshake, thereby denying any pretense of normalcy in the relationship between occupier and occupied. Created by Palestinian artist Naji al-Ali, assassinated in London presumably by the Mossad at the beginning of the first intifada in 1987, Handala represents the steadfast Palestinian resistance. Handala remains defiant of those who have invaded and subjugated his people and despises the self-serving and corrupt Arab world which abandoned them and collaborates with their occupiers. This simple figure, recognized throughout Palestine and the Palestinian diaspora, answers the oft-repeated Israeli demand to acknowledge Israels right to exist as a Jewish state - a preposterous demand since by so doing Palestinians would validate the theft of their own land and relinquish their rights under international law. This is also a racist demand since Palestinian Arabs are some 20% of the Israeli population. Would American Blacks with 13% of our population accept self-designation of the US as a white country? Just as John Kennedy standing at the Berlin Wall said, Ich bin ein Berliner, we believe we must stand in solidarity with this other oppressed and occupied people and assert, We are all Palestinians. As declared by students at the Mississippi Freedom School in 1964, No man is free until all men are free. al-nakba-history/home/missionstatement.html
Posted on: Mon, 29 Dec 2014 06:41:55 +0000
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