{"id":114333,"date":"2021-05-17T16:24:02","date_gmt":"2021-05-17T23:24:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=114333"},"modified":"2021-05-17T16:24:02","modified_gmt":"2021-05-17T23:24:02","slug":"palestinian-dispossession-continues-unabated-the-mean-has-inherited-the-earth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/05\/17\/palestinian-dispossession-continues-unabated-the-mean-has-inherited-the-earth\/","title":{"rendered":"Palestinian dispossession continues unabated; The mean has inherited the Earth?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Raj Gonsalkorale<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Palestinians will yet again commemorate the\nNakba (\u2018catastrophe\u2019), a term that refers to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine\nin 1948 and the Palestinians\u2019 loss of their homeland. The mass expulsion of\nPalestinians was overwhelming in its scope. Arab Palestine was erased and\nreplaced with Jewish Israel. It is estimated that between 750,000 and 900,000\nPalestinians were expelled from their homes and became refugees in the\naftermath of the 1948 Arab\u2013Israeli War. About 500 villages were destroyed and\nPalestinian cities were purged of their Arab residents. Only 160,000\nPalestinians remained in what became Israel<\/em> – Dr\nLana Tatour, Adjunct Lecturer at the School of Social Sciences, University of\nNew South Wales<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The West as well as Russia and China have looked\non with feigned disdain while Israel has continued the dispossession of\nPalestinians from their own homeland since the creation of the state of Israel\nin 1948. While the UN has over the years passed several resolutions clearly\nidentifying Israel as the aggressor, and its actions as illegitimate, it has\nonly demonstrated the impotence of the UN, and the triumph of meanness over\nwhat is just.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, Israel, and the world in deep slumber,\nlooks at rockets fired from Gaza as the cause of a conflict while conveniently\noverlooking the fact that it is an ongoing reaction to the real cause that\nbegan in 1948. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a wide ranging article written in 2018, Dr\nLana Tatour (PhD, Politics and International Study), a Palestinian scholar, and\nan Adjunct Lecturer at the School of Social Sciences, University of New South\nWales and specialising in postcolonial\/settler colonial studies, indigeneity,\nand civil society and resistance, <\/strong>Dr Tatour tracesthe ongoinghumiliation of Palestinians since the mass dispossession that began in\n1948.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr Tatour\u2019s article, a history of Palestinian\nDispossession (https:\/\/overland.org.au\/previous-issues\/nakba70\/essay-lana-tatour\/<\/a>) is quoted in full here to give readers a glimpse at this\nhistoric debacle heaped upon the Palestinian people by Israel and the world\u2019s\neconomic and military powers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The article begins with the following insult to the\ninjury heaped on the Palestinian people. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The year 2018 has so far been a good one for\nthe State of Israel, which has just celebrated its 70th anniversary. Yesterday,\nthe US embassy was transferred from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem following\nTrump\u2019s <\/em>unprecedented\nrecognition of Jerusalem<\/em><\/a> as \u2018the\neternal capital of the Jewish People\u2019.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, Palestinians will yet again commemorate\nthe Nakba (\u2018catastrophe\u2019), a term that refers to the ethnic cleansing of\nPalestine in 1948 and the Palestinians\u2019 loss of their homeland. The mass\nexpulsion of Palestinians was overwhelming in its scope. Arab Palestine was\nerased and replaced with Jewish Israel. It is estimated that between 750,000\nand 900,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes and became refugees in\nthe aftermath of the 1948 Arab\u2013Israeli War. About 500 villages were destroyed\nand Palestinian cities were purged of their Arab residents. Only 160,000\nPalestinians remained in what became Israel.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Nakba Day is as much about the present as it\nis about the past. The Nakba is an ongoing national and personal tragedy.\nGenerations of Palestinians have been born into destitution, statelessness and\noccupation, and Palestinian claims to self-determination and sovereignty\ncontinue to be curtailed by Israel and the international community.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is increasingly apparent that Israel\u2019s\noccupation of the Palestinian territories is <\/em>not a temporary situation\nbut rather a permanent one<\/em><\/a>. Israel has\nyet to give up its aspirations for a Greater Israel and the takeover of\nPalestinian land, with Jewish settlements continuing to proliferate and expand.\nThe illusion of temporality enables Israel to seize Palestinian land while\nengaging in a futile peace process as a strategy to stall for time and make\nfacts on the ground.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the occupation of the West Bank in June\n1967, Israel has established more than 160 settlements there in violation of\ninternational law. Today, between 600,000 and 750,000 Jews \u2013 10 per cent of\nIsrael\u2019s Jewish population \u2013 live in settlements in the West Bank and East\nJerusalem. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Occupied East Jerusalem is gradually being <\/em>ethnically\ncleansed of its Palestinian inhabitants<\/em><\/a>. Since\n1967, Israel has revoked the residency status of at least 14,959 Palestinian Jerusalemites.\nThese people are now criminalised and banned permanently from living in their\nnative city. In addition, for more than a decade, Israel has prohibited the\nmovement of Palestinians between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, cementing\nthe geographical divide between the two.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The United Nations has <\/em>described\nIsrael\u2019s policies in the West Bank as \u2018creeping annexation<\/em><\/a>\u2019, and Israeli\nministers have begun <\/em>publicly\ncalling for the annexation of parts of the West Bank<\/em><\/a>. Under the\nOslo Accords, the West Bank was divided into three areas: Area A (under\nPalestinian control), Area B (under Israeli and Palestinian control) and Area C\n(under full Israeli civil and military control). According to the agreement,\nArea C \u2013 which constitutes 60 per cent of the West Bank \u2013 was supposed to be\ntransferred to the Palestinians at a later stage, but this never happened.\nInstead, in recent years Israel has escalated its land grab and population\ntransfer policies in Area C and Jewish settlements have undergone significant\nexpansion.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the Israeli human rights\norganisation B\u2019Tselem, Israel now has <\/em>effective\nownership of the majority of land in Area C<\/em><\/a>. Further,\nwhile Israel has been building an average of 1500 homes for Jewish settlers\nevery year, only 33 building permits for Palestinians were approved by Israel\nin Area C between 2010 and 2014. None were approved in 2015. Dozens of\nPalestinian communities in the Jordan Valley and <\/em>the South\nHebron Hills are today facing forced transfer<\/em><\/a>. They are\nsubjected to daily violence by the Israeli army and Jewish settlers. Israel\u2019s\npolicy is to make Palestinian life unbearable. Palestinian villages are denied\naccess to basic services such as water and electricity, and Israel forbids\nbuilding schools and health clinics. Water tanks and hundreds of EU-funded\nstructures (including modular homes and schools) have been demolished in recent\nyears, in what the EU has described as a violation of international law.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Colonial policies of dispossession and ethnic\ncleansing also extend to the Palestinian citizens of Israel. As a result of\nmassive expropriation of land and state policies of Judaisation, Palestinian\nland ownership in Israel is estimated to be only 3.5 per cent. A major internal\ncolonial frontier is now the Naqab (or Negev, the southern region of\nIsrael\/Palestine), where the Palestinian Bedouin indigenous population faces\nstate plans that threaten the destruction of about 40 villages and the <\/em>forced transfer\nof tens of thousands of Bedouin<\/em><\/a> citizens\nof Israel to state-planned townships \u2013 the Israeli equivalent of reservations.\nLast month, the Bedouin village of Al-Araqib, which has become a symbol of\nBedouin resistance, was demolished for the 127th time. The Bedouin village of\nUmm al-Hiran will be demolished next month and the new Jewish settlement of\nHiran will be built on its rubble. Adalah, the legal centre for Arab minority\nrights in Israel, has described Israel\u2019s plan for Umm al-Hiran as being\n\u2018reminiscent of the darkest of regimes such as apartheid-era South Africa\u2019.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Israeli regime is one based on racial\ndistinction and racial hierarchy in the treatment of Palestinians and Jews. As\nAhmad Tibi, a Palestinian member of the Knesset (the Israeli Parliament), once\ncommented, \u2018Israel is democratic for Jews, but Jewish for Arabs\u2019. The legal\nsystem and the administrative and bureaucratic apparatus work to facilitate\nJewish privilege in all areas of life. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The human rights organisation Adalah has <\/em>documented more\nthan 60 laws<\/em><\/a> that discriminate against the Palestinian\ncitizens of Israel and limit their political, civil, socio-economic, cultural,\nland and due process rights.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only a few days ago, the Knesset, Israel\u2019s\nparliament, passed on first reading the new and <\/em>controversial\nNationality Law<\/em><\/a>, which formally enshrines\nIsrael as the nation-state of the Jewish people. The law legalises the\nestablishment of Jewish-only settlements and rescinds the formal status of the\nArabic language as an official language of the state. In reality, this law is\nnot news. It merely consecrates the existing reality of the Palestinian\ncitizens of Israel. More fundamentally, the law encapsulates the Zionist\nviewpoint that Jews \u2013 wherever they are in the world \u2013 are the only rightful\nowners of the land and the only population in the state that is entitled to\nself-determination, while Palestinians are portrayed as aliens in their own\nhomeland.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The two-state solution is dead (arguably, it was\nnever really an option). It is time to recognise that we already are in a\none-state condition. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Israel exercises sovereignty over the whole of\nhistorical Palestine and it governs the entire population in this territory,\nPalestinian and Jew alike. And yet Israel operates multiple regimes of\ncitizenship, rights and control. While the Jewish population enjoys political and\ncivil rights, the vast majority of Palestinians are denied those same rights.\nEven Jews in the diaspora enjoy more rights to the land than do the\nPalestinians who actually live in their homeland or were expelled from it 70\nyears ago.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For decades, Israel has enjoyed impunity for its\nviolations of international law and human rights. It should be apparent that a\nstate that removes Palestinians from their homes in order to build settlements\nfor Jews is a settler-colonial state. A state that denies political and civil\nrights to Arabs because they are Arabs is a racial state. A state that shoots\nunarmed civilian protesters who are under illegal and inhumane siege is a\ncriminal state\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The following concluding remarks in Dr Tatour\u2019s\narticle presents the essence of the cause that has been boiling since 1948, and\nwhich periodically releases reactions in the form of rockets from Gaza. Quote For\nmany in the West, the dispossession and continued exile of Palestinians is\nstill seen as a legitimate price to pay for sustaining the Jewish state. A\ncentury has passed since the Balfour Declaration, which recognised Jewish\nnationalism while referring to Arabs as nationless \u2018non-Jewish communities\u2019 in\nPalestine. Palestinians are still struggling to be acknowledged as natural\nsubjects of rights to freedom and self-determination. If anything, the recent\nprotests (the Marches of Return) in the besieged Gaza Strip \u2013 where 70 per cent\nof inhabitants are refugees \u2013 demonstrate that the quest for dignity and for\nthe right of return is at the heart of the Palestinian struggle\u201d <\/em>unquote<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr Tatour presents the solution that will end\nthis dispossession and humiliation of Palestinians and an end to the rocket\nbarrage that is fired from Gaza – The time has come to pursue a\ndemocratic, de-colonised and de-racialised state in historical Palestine \u2013 a\nstate that will guarantee full equality to the whole of its population (Jews,\nPalestinians, immigrants, <\/em><\/strong>refugees and asylum seekers<\/em><\/strong><\/a>). It is time\nfor Palestinians to demand \u2018one person, one vote\u2019. And it is time for the\ninternational community to support this just demand.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The test of decency, justice and fair play over\nmeanness will pass muster only if Western nations, China and Russia, Japan and\nIndia, collectively tells Israel that enough is enough and supports a solution\non the lines proposed by Dr Tatour. If not, it would be conclusively clear that\nthe mean has inherited the Earth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Raj Gonsalkorale Palestinians will yet again commemorate the Nakba (\u2018catastrophe\u2019), a term that refers to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948 and the Palestinians\u2019 loss of their homeland. The mass expulsion of Palestinians was overwhelming in its scope. Arab Palestine was erased and replaced with Jewish Israel. It is estimated that between 750,000 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-114333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-raj-gonsalkorale"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114333\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}