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Not
an Intellectual Squabble - Israel's
crimes in Occupied Palestine |
Posted By Ramzy Baroud
In a spacious yet fortified UN
compound in Rome members of the
Palestine committee at the General
Assembly repeated old mantras; they
vowed support for the Palestinians,
issued a press release and then went
to lunch.
The committee consisted of several UN
ambassadors, all well-intended,
sympathetic and concerned; they also
knew well that their efforts were more
or less futile. One of the
ambassadors, of a country not so
friendly by American standards,
exclaimed: "No matter how hard we
try, America blocks our efforts."
Things went fine, more or less, until
an Israeli activist, with a
dishevelled beard and scattered
thoughts, shared some of his
observations: he dreamed of a Middle
East in which Arabs and Israelis are
integrated, living in seamless
harmony, sharing and benefiting from
their economic leverage; a day in
which Israel is accepted as part and
parcel of the entire region. As he
gasped for badly needed breath,
another NGO person opted to bring such
a fantasy a step closer to reality;
she suggested dialogue, between
Israeli and Palestinian
parliamentarians. I fumed.
It is increasingly apparent that the
Palestinian crisis is losing its
appeal on an international level: it
is neither urgent nor defined
according to its proper parameters,
that between a colonial master that
doesn't hesitate to commit the most
atrocious crimes to achieve his
colonial project and an oppressed and
nationally disintegrated nation that
has fought alone, using all means to
achieve its liberation.
"I too wish that the Middle East
could become an oasis of economic
harmony and political
integration," I told the
ambassadors. "In fact, I wish
that conflicts everywhere would cease
in favour of a world predicated on the
principles of equality and justice.
But until that happens, we must carry
on with our fight against injustice
everywhere, and with whatever means
that are available to us."
Before we turn the suffering of the
Palestinians into the kind of benign
topic that could easily be solved
through dialogue -- as if 60 years of
killing, colonial settlement and
ethnic cleansing was a simple
misunderstanding -- let's recall the
facts, harsh and pressing: a nation
imprisoned and persecuted in the
occupied territories, another treated
like second, if not third class,
citizens inside Israel and millions of
others dwelling in refugee camps
across the Middle East.
The Libyan leader, Muammar El-Qaddafi,
was recently reported to have reached
a decision to evict all Palestinians
from Libya, the rationale being they
belong in Palestine. Qaddafi's wisdom
already caused thousands of
Palestinians to be deported following
Arafat's Oslo agreement; they dwelled
in the desert, my uncle and his family
included, between Egypt and Libya,
before they were divided between
various countries. Qaddafi knows well
the fate awaiting those Palestinians
if his decision actualises, but once a
revolutionary always a revolutionary,
they say.
In Iraq the plight of the Palestinians
is deteriorating to the extent that it
is now like a horror story. Saddam,
though he treated Palestinians well,
blocked their attempts to own property
so that they wouldn't settle and thus
concede their right to return to their
homeland. The result was that the
moment his statue came down, Iraqi
landlords moved to evict thousands of
Palestinian families. To date over 500
Palestinians have been murdered in
Iraq, thousands more have been wounded
and many of the rest are living in
tent cities in various parts of Iraq
and near the Jordanian border. In a
recent onslaught Iraqi militias and US
soldiers attacked Al-Baladiat
neighbourhood in Baghdad, killing and
wounding many. Those lucky enough to
possess the cash exchanged the lives
of their families for $250 per person
and were then forced to flee. They had
nowhere to go but in circles.
Louise Morgantini, of the European
Parliament, informed me in Italy that
the crisis that has befallen
Palestinian refugees in Iraq is being
discussed at the UN behind closed
doors; one solution proposed thus far
is to transfer them to South America.
She angrily demanded something be done
to move them to the West Bank. There
was little I could do aside from
writing about it. Palestinian leaders
are too busy squabbling about
factionalism and splitting imaginary
political power.
These are not symbolic problems that
can be addressed via a well
articulated Arab Peace Initiative or
that can be solved through dialogue.
Israel understands well that a Jewish
state can only be established in a
domain that is free of anyone who
fails to subscribe to such values.
Joseph Weitz, who was appointed by the
Jewish Agency to head transfer
committees in 1948 captured the
underlying essence of the Israeli
project since day one: "Between
ourselves it must be clear that there
is not room for both peoples together
in this country ... We shall not
achieve our goal of being an
independent people with the Arabs in
this small country. The only solution
is a Palestine without Arabs."
From the early days of Ben Gurion's
transfer to Vladimar Jobotinsky's Iron
wall and on to today's Separation Wall
the impetus of the Israeli project has
never lost momentum. Meanwhile,
Palestinians are in a constant state
of transfer and re-transfer. It is
clear that Israel will not achieve
peace out of benevolence or through
unconditional dialogue; it can only be
pressured to do so. This needs neither
Arab initiatives nor joint
parliamentary meetings in which
misunderstandings are smoothed over.
We must either begin to think on that
front or quit wasting precious time in
extravagant conferences, symposiums
and NGO meetings.
* Ramzy Baroud is an author and a
journalist. His latest volume is: The
Second Palestinian Intifada: A
Chronicle of a People’s Struggle
(Pluto Press, London).
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