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BADIL's 40/60 Call to Action
A Call for New Vision and Strategies
By BADIL
staff
In the period of 2007 – 2008, Palestinians
commemorate 60 years of the Nakba (Catastrophe) of 1948, when 78 per cent of
Palestine was ethnically cleansed of its indigenous Arab population in order
to make room for the “Jewish state”, and 40 years of Israel’s occupation and
colonization of the remaining 22 per cent of Palestine (West Bank and Gaza
Strip). A series of additional landmark anniversaries also fall into this
period: 90 years since the Balfour Declaration of British support for a
“Jewish home” in Palestine; 25 years since the massacre of Sabra and Shatila
committed by Israel’s Lebanese allies, which symbolizes the impunity for
crimes against the vulnerable, stateless Palestinian refugees; 20 years
since the first Palestinian intifada, the revival of popular resistance in
the 1967 occupied Palestinian territory (OPT); and, 5 years of construction
of Israel’s Apartheid Wall, which is putting an end to the project of
Palestinian statehood in the OPT.
Although
Palestinian memory was silenced and has remained largely excluded from
official historiography dominated by the powerful Zionist narrative of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the experience of the Nakba, in particular,
has remained alive in popular memory and culture. Collective memory thus
preserved and passed on from generation to generation - through oral
history, songs and poems - affirms identity, manages trauma, and raises
political and moral claims. Thus, the Nakba and annual Nakba commemorations
represent a dissident history and an “unsettling counter-memory: a constant
reminder of failings and injustice. It is a challenge to the morality of the
Zionist project; a reminder of the failures of Arab leadership and peoples;
and a persistent question to the world about its vision of a moral and just
human order.” (See, The Power of Memory, Lila Abu Lughod in this issue.)
Palestinian refugee rights
matter because they are claimed
Israel’s
founding fathers had predicted that Palestinian refugees would “die or turn
into human dust” (Ben Gurion); the architects of the Oslo peace process in
the 1990s, including some Palestinian negotiators, had hoped
that the issue of Palestinian refugees could be diluted before the final
round of the Oslo peace negotiations. Palestinian refugees, however, have
refused to live up to these expectations. They are engaged in documentation
of the history of their displaced families and communities,(1) and in
building their associations and networks as a tool for participation in
Palestinian political decision making.(2) They continue to rally, campaign
and lobby for acknowledgment of the injustice symbolized by the Palestinian
Nakba (Catastrophe) of 1948 and the right to return to their homes and
properties.
Popular
commemorations of the 59 th
anniversary of the Palestinian
Nakba in 2007 were coordinated by a National Committee composed of refugee
and non-refugee networks of Palestinian civil society in the OPT, Israel and
the exile, in addition to the major Palestinian political forces and
remnants of the PLO Department for Refugee Affairs. Positions and demands
raised by the National Committee reflect Palestinian language and consensus
about the priorities in the post-Oslo era:
[...] As we commemorate the ethnic cleansing of our people from its
land, we are aware of the scope of the dangers which confront our
most important cause, the cause of the Palestinian refugees in the
homeland and in the exile.
 We
therefore affirm:
i) Our
absolute rejection of, and our determination to combat, all
“initiatives”, whether Palestinian, Arab or international, which do not
clearly guarantee the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their
homes and their right to restitution of their property in accordance
with UN Resolution 194;
ii) The
need to break the humiliating sanctions imposed on the Palestinian
people, first of all by re-instating the commitment of Arab states to
their obligations towards the Palestinian people and to abstain from
engagement in initiatives and deals promoted by the United States;
iii)
Our demand to UNRWA to reaffirm the commitment to its obligation to
provide services which guarantee an adequate standard of living for
Palestinian refugees;
iv) The
need to reactivate the PLO Department for Refugee Affairs, and to
develop its capacity to play an effective role in the protection of our
people in the homeland and the exile; [...](3)
While
official Israel continues to displace Palestinians and deny the Palestinian
Nakba and refugees’ right of return – in 2007 Israel’s Jerusalem
municipality launched official celebrations of the 40th
anniversary of the “liberation and
unificationofJerusalem”on15May,Nakba Day - a courageous minority of Jews in
Israel has taken a different route. For several years now, Israel’s
traditional Zionist “peace camp” is being challenged by a dissident voice
that reminds Israelis that, in many respects, the Nakba is also the story of
Jews who live in Israel, and that acknowledgment of the Palestinian right of
return will not only be a first step towards correcting the historical
injustice committed against the Palestinian people, but can also usher in a
new beginning for Jews in the country.(4)
60 Years of Nakba require
new vision and strategies
 Those
who hold power don’t have to bother with contradictions or try to square
circles. Official Israel claims it can be both Jewish and democratic,
irrespective of the fact that its legal and political system discriminates
against some one million Palestinian citizens and millions of refugees and
IDP. The diplomatic community, the Quartet and other “peace-brokers”, hold
that that there is “no serious question about the broad outline of the final
settlement”,(5) although the facts on the ground defy
their blueprint of a two-state solution.
60 years
into the Palestinian Nakba, however, time has come for a reality check.
Israeli governments have operated a regime of military occupation in the OPT
for 40 years now, i.e. double the time of Israel’s existence without such
occupation (1948 – 1967). Military personnel, norms and interests dominate
Israel’s political system, while institutions, norms and routines of its
colonial enterprise have long been integrated into Israel’s regime and form
an inherent component thereof. It is, therefore, time to ask: “Is peace
without the Palestinian refugees a realistic option?” Can Israel’s
occupation be ended, if the Nakba and Palestinian refugees’ right to return
remain denied? Or, in other words: Aren’t military occupation and the
unresolved “refugee question” two sides of the same racist political and
legal regime which has obstructed just peace for generations? And, finally,
“what is the vision for the struggle ahead?”
Although
Palestinian refugees will not see justice on the 60th
anniversary of the Nakba in 2008, this anniversary can become a meaningful
event, if used to galvanize vision and energies for the struggle ahead. The
40/60 Call is a call for a new, “post-Oslo” public discourse about the
unresolved “question of Palestine”, which includes and addresses the rights
of the entire Palestinian people – those in Israel, in the OPT, and refugees
in exile – as well as the rights of Jewish Israelis under international law.
Respect and implementation of the right of return of Palestinian refugees is
the key to just peace in the Middle East. It requires the ending of Israel’s
colonial apartheid regime.
Endnotes
1.See, for example:
www.palestineremembered.com
2.See, for example, the CIVITAS
project conduced at Oxford University with the support of the European
Commission: www.civitas-online.org
3. Statement on the Occasion of
the 59 th
Anniversary of the Nakba: National Committee for the Commemoration of the
Nakba, 15 May 2007 (global Palestine Right-of-Return Coalition, Council of
National and Islamic Forces, Palestinian NGO Network/PNGO, Union of Arab
Community-based Organizations/Ittijah, Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign,
National Coalition for the Defense of Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem, PLO
Department for Refugee Affairs/DORA).
4. See for example:
www.NakbaInHebrew.org
5.’Secretary-General Tells
Security Council Middle East in Profound Crisis, Calls for “New and Urgent
Push for Peace”’, UN Doc. SG/SM/10796, SC/8897, Dec. 12, 2006.
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