Wiped from the pages of the Western hemisphere's collective memory, the sorrow-laden Palestinian narrative of suffering and injustice has been forgotten. The memory of more than 400 demolished villages and 750,000 Arab refugees fleeing from Israeli militias in 1948 have been erased by the Israeli government to discredit the internationally recognized right of the Palestinian people to live freely and independently in their own state.
Today, 4 million refugees crowd into impoverished camps in the occupied West Bank, Gaza Strip and neighboring Arab countries waiting to return to their homes and land confiscated by Israel after its founding on May 14, 1948. Palestinians commemorate that day every year as al-Nakba, or the Catastrophe. The emphasis of this day for Palestinians does not rest on the formation of the State of Israel, but rather on the immense suffering of those dispossessed by its creation.
Moshe Dayan, the former Chief of Staff of Israeli military forces, said on April 4, 1969, Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. There is not one single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population.
In the context of international law, Israel must permit all Palestinians it forcibly expelled to return home. U.N. Resolution 194 calls on Israel to give Palestinian refugees the choice of either returning to their original homes or monetarily compensating those that wish to stay. Israel, however, vehemently rejects allowing the indigenous population to return because government officials maintain that if they allowed Palestinians to return to their homes, they would eliminate the Jewish character of the state.
Many question this logic and ask how can Israel retain its democratic character while being an exclusionary state that does not allow its original inhabitants to return as guaranteed by international law?
With a continued demographic shift in the Holy Land and a projected Palestinian population outnumbering Israelis by 2020, Israelis are becoming worried that Palestinians will do away with their historic demand for self-determination and call for a one-person, one-vote system, and push to be treated as equal Israeli citizens. This would put Israel in a unique predicament, in that the state would have to strip its democratic institutions to keep its Jewish character because if Palestinians were allowed to participate in the democratic process, they would have the power to direct Israeli policy away from its current emphasis on its Jewish citizens.
Middle East commentator Ali Abunimah, who will speak tonight in Bentley 240 at 7 p.m. about the diminishing possibility of a two-state solution, has criticized both the Palestinian and Israeli leadership for their corrupt and illegal policies that have stalled the peace process. Abunimah has frequently highlighted the possibility that if Israel does not end its demolition of Palestinian homes and construction of its internationally condemned separation barrier on confiscated Palestinian land, peace will be a very unlikely prospect in the near future.
If peace does not come soon, the chance for a two-state solution becomes less likely. For Israel's sake, it must leave the occupied territories immediately to keep the possibility alive for the mutual existence Palestinian and Israeli states.
-Robinson is The Post's Nelsonville writer. Send him an e-mail at jordan.robinson@ohiou.edu.
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Jordan Robinson
