It isn't the denial or acceptance of Israel's existence that concerns
me. Israel does exist, even if it refuses to define its borders, or
acknowledge the historic injustices committed against the Palestinian
people. The systematic and brutal ethnic cleaning of the majority of
Palestinian Christians and Muslims from 1947 to 1948 is what produced a
Jewish majority in Palestine and subsequently the 'Jewish state' of
Israel.
Also worth remembering are the equally systematic attempts at
dehumanising Palestinians and denying them any rights. When Ehud Barak,
Prime Minister of Israel at the time, compared Palestinians in a
Jerusalem Post interview (August 2000) to “crocodiles, the more you
give them meat, they want more,” he was hardly diverting from a
consistent Zionist tradition that equated Palestinians with animals and
vermin. Another Prime Minister, Menahim Begin referred to Palestinians
in a Knesset speech as “beasts walking on two legs.” They have also
been described as “grasshoppers”, “cockroaches” and more by famed
Israeli statesmen.
Disturbingly, such references might be seen as an improvement from
former Prime Minister Golda Meir's claim that “there were no such thing
as Palestinians...they did not exist." (June 15, 1969)
To justify its own existence, Israel has long subjugated its citizens
to a kind of collective amnesia. Do Israelis realise they live on the
rubble of hundreds of Palestinian villages and towns, each destroyed
during a most tragic history of blood, pain and tears, resulting in an
ethnic cleansing of nearly 800,000 Palestinians?
As Israel celebrates its 60th birthday, nothing is allowed to blemish
the supposed heroism of its founding fathers or those who fought in its
name. Palestine, the Palestinians, and an immeasurably long
relationship between a people and their land hardly merit a pause as
Israeli officials and their Western counterparts carry on with their
festivities.
While some conveniently forgot many historic chapters pertinent to the
suffering of Palestinians, Israeli leaders — especially those who took
part in the colonization of Palestine — were fully aware of what they
did. David Ben Gurion, the first Prime Minister of Israel, warned in
1948, “We must do everything to insure they (the Palestinians) never do
return.” By ensuring that Palestinians were cut off from their land,
Ben Gurion has hoped that time will take care of the rest. “The old
will die and the young will forget,” he said.
Moshe Dayan, a former Israeli Defence Minister also had no illusions
regarding the real history beneath Israel's momentous achievements. His
speech at the Technion in Haifa (April 4, 1969) was quoted in the
Israeli daily Haaretz thus: “We came here to a country that was
populated by Arabs and we are building here a Hebrew, a Jewish state;
instead of the Arab villages, Jewish villages were established. You
even do not know the names of those villages, and I do not blame you
because these villages no longer exist. There is not a single Jewish
settlement that was not established in the place of a former Arab
village.”
Israel has, since its foundation, laboured to undermine any sense of
Palestinian identity. Without most of their historic land, the
relationship between Palestinians and Palestine could only exist in
memory. Eventually though, memory managed to morph into a collective
identity that has proved more durable than the physical existence on
the land. “It is a testimony to the tenacity of Palestinians that they
have kept alive a sense of nationhood in the face of so much adversity.
Yet the obstacles to sustaining their cohesiveness as a people are
today greater than ever,” reported the Economist (May 8, 2008).
Living in so many disconnected areas, removed from their land, detached
from one another, fought with at every corner, Palestinians have not
just been oppressed physically by Israel, but physiologically as well.
There are attempts from all angles to force them to simply concede,
forget, and move on. It is the Palestinian people's rejection of such
notions that makes Israel's victory and 'independence' superficial and
unconvincing.
Sixty years after their Catastrophe (Nakba), Palestinians still
remember their past and present injustices. Of course more than mere
remembrance is necessary; Palestinians need to find a common ground for
unity — Christians and Muslims, poor and rich, secularist and the
religious — in order to stop Israel from eagerly exploiting their own
disunity, factionalism and political tribalism.
But, despite Israel's hopes and best efforts, Palestinians have not yet
forgotten who they are. And no amount of denial can change this.
Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of
PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers
and journals worldwide. His latest book is The Second Palestinian
Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle (Pluto Press, London).
Writings 
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