Saturday, February 07, 2009
Deconstructing Israel's 'Right to Exist'
If acknowledging Israel’s ‘right to exist’ means accepting that anyone who is Jewish can automatically become a citizen of Israel and then live on the very land, and in some cases, in the very home, of a Palestinian family who has lived there for generations; if it means relinquishing the right to say “this was my land and my home before you took it away from me”; if it means forsaking the right to return to Palestine with deed and keys in hand, demanding to know what entitles the newly arrived family from England, Russia, Morocco or Ethiopia to live on the property of those who were forcibly expelled; if it means denying the very existence of Palestine and Palestinians—as Golda Meir tried to do—by erasing their history, culture, and collective memory … Then no. Israel has no ‘right to exist’.
 By RANNIE AMIRI "There was no such thing as Palestinians ... They did not exist. " - Former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir (The Sunda y Times, 15 June 1969)
Gaza is abuzz with activity.
Humanitarian groups and relief agencies are trying to squeeze through Israeli and Egyptian bottleneck to deliver their much-needed supplies; fighter jets bomb tunnels and kill ‘militants’ as Ehud Olmert maintains he is abiding by the ceasefire; international human rights lawyers are busy recording eyewitness testimony and gathering evidence for future war crimes tribunals; Palestinian civilians are returning to their destroyed homes to sift through the rubble and mourn their dead; and intense negotiations underway in Cairo hope to broker an extended truce between Israel and Hamas.
But even if all of Gaza’s outstanding issues were miraculously resolved to Tel Aviv’s satisfaction, Israel will still find pretext to continue agitating against Hamas and the people of Gaza.
Why?
Because they have yet to recognize Israel’s ‘right to exist’.
Acceptance of this abstract, esoteric construct has been a longstanding and immutable demand of both the United States and Israel before substantive talks with Hamas, or any other self-described resistance group, can take place.
I submit however, that nearly all Palestinians have de facto accepted Israel’s ‘existence’.
Indeed, they will contend:
• Have we not recognized Israel’s ‘existence’ when we know it was they who prevented food, medicine, fuel, electricity and clean water from reaching Gaza for 18 months, causing a humanitarian crisis? Then afterward, bombed and invaded a defenseless population, killing over 1,300 and wounding thousands more - the vast majority of whom were civilians?
• Have we not recognized Israel’s ‘existence’ when we know it was they who fired white phosphorus at our people, causing burns so severe they penetrate through skin and muscle to the bone?
• Have the Samounis of the Zeitoun district of Gaza City not recognized Israel’s ‘existence’ when 110 members of their extended family were herded by Israeli soldiers into a warehouse without any food, water or heat for 24 hours, then the building they were placed in shelled the next day, massacring 30? When ambulances were prevented for four days from reaching those inside because the soldiers, a mere 100 yards away, had erected earthen barriers to deliberately obstruct them? What about the four infant children found huddled and starving next to the bodies of their dead mothers, or the injured, who had to be removed by donkey carts because ambulances were still not allowed to approach? Did they not all bear witness to Israel’s ‘existence’?
• Has Khaled Abed Raboo not acknowledged Israel’s ‘existence’ when he stood outside what remained of his home in Jabaliya and a tank with Israeli soldiers ordered him, his mother, his wife and their three child |