An Army Like No Other: How the Israeli Defence Forces Made a Nation by Haim Bresheeth Žabner provides a thought-provoking and comprehensive exploration of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and its profound impact on Israeli society and the nation’s history. As the child of Holocaust survivors who settled in Palestine in 1948, Žabner offers a unique perspective.

Initially embracing the Zionist agenda, Žabner became disillusioned during his conscription into the IDF in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Serving in the Golan Heights, he witnessed disturbing war crimes committed by the IDF.

The book delves into Israel’s formation, the establishment of the IDF, and the role of Zionist settler-colonialism and violence in asserting and expanding Israeli power. Žabner’s historical analysis highlights the foundation of Zionism on anti-Semitism and explores how Israeli society accepts the Zionist narrative through crucial roles played by schools, communities, and the IDF.

The book traces the origins of the IDF, connecting it with Zionist paramilitaries like the Palmach and Haganah, and emphasizes how impunity for actions like the Nakba became ingrained in Israeli settler-colonial society. Žabner underscores the integral role of military violence in any settler-colonial project, arguing that it is the linchpin without which such endeavors would be impossible.

However, it’s important to note that the book is not a military history but rather a social history of Israel through the IDF. The author identifies the IDF as the most constant institution in Israel’s 75-year history, receiving 96 percent of Jewish support.

Expanding on this premise, Žabner argues that the IDF is not only a formidable fighting force but also the core ideological, political, and financial institution of Israeli society. The IDF’s influence permeates every facet of Israeli life, emerging as one of the nation’s most profitable and influential industries. It is the institutionalized legacy envisioned by Ben-Gurion to create the Israeli nation and society, as he believed ‘the whole nation is the army.’

The book also emphasizes the racialized experiences of Palestinian citizens of Israel, who have historically faced inequalities and disenfranchisement, including living under a military government for the first two decades of Israel’s existence.

Challenging Israeli claims of being “Jewish and democratic,” Žabner argues that Israel has become a fully-fledged apartheid state, both in practice and de jure, drawing parallels with South Africa. The book examines how racist legislation has institutionalized legal apartheid, reinforcing the antidemocratic nature of the settler-colonial regime.

Adding a left-wing perspective, Žabner critiques liberal Zionists who argue for a “humane” or “liberal” Zionism, contending that such positions deny the inherent inequalities within the Zionist project. He challenges the narrative of equality propagated by liberal Zionism, asserting that it serves as a cover for actions violating human rights and international law.

In conclusion, An Army Like No Other provides an eye-opening examination of the IDF and its role in shaping Israel. Žabner’s work challenges conventional assumptions about true peace in the region, calling for a reevaluation of these notions from an informed historical perspective.

Haim Bresheeth Žabner, An Army Like No Other: How the Israeli Defence Forces Made a Nation (Verso, 2020) ISBN: 9781788737845, 448 pages

C

olonizing Palestine: The Zionist Left and the Making of the Palestinian Nakba by Areej Sabbagh-Khoury, a senior lecturer at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, is in many ways a groundbreaking study of the formation of Israel through the lens of settler colonial studies. By examining a component of the Zionist movement that ostensibly sought to break with the movement’s overtly colonialist leadership, Sabbagh-Khoury uncovers the unavoidably racist core of Zionism as an ideology and practice.

The author specifically examines the Marxist socialist formation known as Hashomer Hatzair (Hebrew for “Young Guard”), which refused to endorse the notorious 1942 Biltmore Program, in which the Zionist movement publicly proclaimed that its goal was the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. As an early Socialist-Zionist settler group in Palestine, Hashomer Hatzair had also distanced itself from the Zionist labor federation known as the Histadrut because its policies excluded Arab workers.

The Illusion of Marxist Zionism

Settler colonial studies typically earmark two distinguishing features of settler colonialism: the “conquest of labor” and the “conquest of land.” But whereas Hashomer Hatzair repudiated the idea of creating a dominant Jewish labor force in Palestine, it actively pursued Jewish settlement of the land in the form of the kibbutz (Hebrew for “communal farm”). In its early years this left-wing component of the Zionist movement appeared to be open to the idea of sharing the land with the indigenous Palestinians known as fellahin, but as Sabbagh-Khoury shows, all that changed seemingly overnight with the 1948 Nakba (Arabic for “The Catastrophe”). The author’s unique contribution is exploring how and why that changed.

Other studies have probed the core beliefs of Socialist or Labor Zionism, as proclaimed by founding figures such David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister. Most notably, the Israeli historian and political scientist Zeev Sternhell in The Founding Myths of Israel (1999) exposed the fact that these Zionists were more nationalist than socialist. Sternhell depicted Socialist Zionism as a form of National Socialism, much like the extreme right-wing ethnonationalists of the European fascist movements; National Socialism is a better descriptor of their ideology than Marxism.

In choosing to focus on Hashomer Hatzair, however, the author of Colonizing Palestine (2023) explicitly probes the self-proclaimed Marxist variation of Socialist Zionism. This relatively small wing of the Zionist movement never embraced Marxism-Leninism and, therefore, never became identified with Communism; nevertheless, it strove to hew to the ideas of Karl Marx as it understood them. And it is this contradiction that intrigued the author who wondered how its ideology and practice came to diverge.

As a historian, Sabbagh-Khoury studied the archives of three kibbutzes belonging to the Hashomer Hatzair movement in Palestine’s Jezreel Valley: Mishmar HaEmek, HaZore’a, and Ein HaShofet. However, she cautions that her analysis was not centered on examining their “experiences and ideologies,” but rather “their interactions with the indigenous Palestinians,” mainly farmers in nearby villages. Building on archive records that were contemporaneous or nearly so with the events described, she then probes more deeply into the “selective memory” or the “double reconstruction” revealed by later memoirs and accounts written by the kibbutz settlers decades after the 1948 Nakba.

A few settlers expressed remorse: “I had very mixed feelings all day long,” one wrote. “I was glad that we were being rid of the village, but, on the other hand I am wholeheartedly against murder and warfare.” Sabbagh-Khoury notes a rare sentiment expressed about Palestinians belonging to the land: “I am not at peace with the idea of war against Arab villagers who have been on this land longer than us and are fighting for their home with the same feeling we are.”

Many of the accounts of the Nakba that appear in the original, contemporary archives simply disappear in subsequent memoirs and other recollections written decades later. Except for one account by, Arnon Tamir, who wrote in a journal published in 1972 about his continuing difficulty in coming to grips with the expulsion of more than 750,000 Palestinians from their homes and land.

Noting in particular the fate of two nearby towns in 1948, Tamir lamented, “I am not at peace with myself neither about Qira nor about Abu Zureiq.” He remained particularly troubled about the looting of the villages that followed their destruction and the way the kibbutz settlers left their former neighbors “lying under the rubble of their homes, unburied.” Yet even he added, “I cannot say today whether this was wrong or not. It did relieve things for us considerably for a while and enabled us to establish the state, but whether it brought us closer to a solution, that I doubt.”

For others, however, in subsequent accounts, the atrocities committed during the events of 1948 simply disappear in what Sabbagh-Khoury labels “selective memory.” If the events no longer fit in the dominant narrative of justifying the expulsion, the memory ceases to exist in subsequent memoirs.

The author attributes the phenomenon to the process described by the French-Tunisian chronicler of settler colonialism, Albert Memmi, who writes in The Colonizer and the Colonized (1957) about the process of “double reconstruction” in which the colonizers imagine themselves becoming the native and erasing entirely the existence of the indigenous.

Class reductionist paradox of the Zionist Left

How was Marxism or simply a belief in the “brotherhood of peoples” so easily discarded in this process? Sabbagh-Khoury offers several explanations. One is simply the fact that the very material existence of kibbutzim depended on the successful colonization of the land. Marxist principles stood in direct contradiction with the practical activity of surviving as settler farmers, particularly because the communal effort in the kibbutz involved Jews alone, not the “brotherhood of peoples.” Workers may have had nothing to lose but their chains, but settler and Jewish-only farmers actually had much to lose if their enterprise failed.

Another reason was a kind of class reductionist position adopted by the Hashomer settlers, a position that some would describe as a betrayal of Marxism. Hashomer Hatzair never acknowledged that the Palestinians had national aspirations as a people. They depicted the situation as one in which the fellahin were exploited by the effendis, the rich absentee landlords who actually owned the land on which Palestinian farmers mostly worked as tenants. In their eyes, the fellahin had no attachment to the land. The settlers’ usurpation was therefore justified.

Furthermore, Hashomer Hatzair settlers depicted socialism as progress, an unleashing of productive forces otherwise constrained and held back by capitalist greed. In this vein they depicted the Palestinian farmers as backward and undeveloped. According to their view, the rightful progression of history depended on the advanced European settlers who were improving the land, never mind that the Palestinian farmers were actually quite successful in their work.

“Backwardness,” as the author notes, allegedly “justified the erasure of the Palestinians from their land.” This is a common refrain still heard today among Zionists who claim their settler enterprise made the “desert bloom,” whereas in fact the land was historically well cultivated and more ecologically balanced than the non-native pine forests planted over destroyed Palestinian villages.

Because many Palestinians were tenants on the land, the Hashomer settlers also depicted them as rootless and easily transferable. This alleged rootlessness, in contrast to the newly arrived European settlers who were in fact the ones uprooting 800 years of indigenous habitation, supposedly justified the Nakba expulsion. Sabbagh-Khoury quotes the settler Eliezer Be’eri: he “drew on a common representation of indigenous people to justify expulsion: they were rootless, he argued. There was no chance for them to resume their life here. He invoked the inherent logic of settler colonialism: ‘it’s either them or us.’”

Those chilling words today play out in the ongoing Nakba and genocide visible for the whole world to see in Gaza.

Embarking on a reflective journey through the memories and heirlooms passed down through generations within one’s family can lead to a profound exploration of the historical narrative embedded in one’s heritage.

The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonial Conquest and Resistance, 1917-2017 by Rashid Khalidi, a distinguished US historian of the Middle East, stands as a monumental account, representing the first comprehensive history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from an explicitly Palestinian perspective. Khalidi’s familial connection to the history of the region adds a personal and unique dimension to his groundbreaking narrative.

In crafting this extraordinary work, Khalidi draws on a wealth of archival materials and firsthand accounts from his eminent family members, including mayors, judges, scholars, diplomats, and journalists. This meticulous approach not only adds originality and depth to the book but also imparts an authoritative touch to the narrative.

The journey through time commences in 1899 with a poignant letter from Yusuf Diya al-Khalidi, the mayor of Jerusalem and the great-great-uncle of the author. In this letter, al-Khalidi warns Zionist founder Theodore Herzl about the perilous consequences of the Zionist movement’s ambition to establish a Jewish national home in Palestine.

This moment, according to Khalidi, serves as the prologue to the prevailing Zionist narrative, marked by the dismissal of indigenous populations and their interests as inconsequential. Khalidi provides a meaningful reflection on this letter, offering his unique and authentic perspective.

Weaving together personal history with pivotal events that have shaped the conflict, Khalidi challenges conventional interpretations that frame the Israeli-Palestinian conflict merely as a tragic clash of competing nationalisms. Instead, he unfolds a narrative of colonial warfare waged against the Palestinians, underscoring its underappreciated centrality to the issue.

This colonial campaign, initiated by the Zionist movement and later endorsed by the state of Israel with the support of influential global powers, including Britain and the United States, becomes a focal point of Khalidi’s analysis.

Theodor Herzl, the co-founder of the Zionist movement, which also established the Jewish National Fund (JNF) in 1901, had a clear goal in mind – to see Palestine without Palestinians. The ultimate goal of establishing JNF was to acquire lands in Ottoman Palestine to establish Jewish settlements.

Land acquisition in Palestine by all possible means and in different forms has continued in the years since then. From massacres to afforestation, and to establishing beach resorts on the ruins of Palestinian villages, the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians has never stopped.

JNF dedicates February 5 of each year as a day to donate for the planting of trees in Israel – an operation that it promotes in many countries across the world, including the United States. According to JNF USA, “JNF is ‘greening’ the desert with millions of trees, building thousands of parks across Israel.”

In this process, the group says it has “planted more than 250 million trees, built over 250 reservoirs and dams, developed over 250,000 acres of land, created more than 2,000 parks and provided the infrastructure for over 1,000 communities.” JNF owns 13% of land in Israel and it effectively controls the other 80%.

Since day one, Israel, and JNF by extension, have hid behind clichés of making the “desert bloom.” It is the Zionist movement after all that called Palestine “a land without a people to a people without a land” when Palestine was a thriving nation that had cinemas, theaters, newspapers in different languages, industries, railways, airways, thriving businesses, and cultural communities in major cities such as Jerusalem, Jaffa, Haifa. and Akka.

To materialize ethnic cleansing, the Zionist movement changes this time the landscape of Palestine by planting trees under the claim of afforestation.

Palestinians, who have centuries-old ties to the land, have lived on their land for generations, and land deeds (which they still keep) mattered very little to them as their connection to their land was stronger than papers and documents, which are colonial in essence.

The Zionist movement was built on the denial of the existence of the Palestinian people, and for ethnic cleansing to be successful – it is still a failure and incomplete – they needed to erase Palestinian villages, change the names of Palestinian cities and towns, and change the landscape of these communities sometimes by bulldozers and other times by planting trees under the claim of afforestation.

Meanwhile, Israeli settlers continue their unbated campaign of uprooting Palestinian olive trees because these tree reminds them of the Palestinian existence. Some olive trees in Palestine go thousands of years back to the Roman period. As JNF brags about planting 250 million trees in Palestine, Palestinian farmers resist the Israeli occupation by planting more olive trees, demand access to their land and harvest, and by teaching their children that a country “that is built on enmity towards olive trees can’t survive in the Levant,” as Palestinian poet Tamim al-Barghouti put it. Meanwhile, Israeli settlers continue uprooting olive trees and Israeli authorities continue taking over Palestinian land.

Not just in the Southern Hebron Hill, where iconic Palestinian elder and leader of popular resistance Haj Suleiman al-Hazalin, 75, was murdered on January 17, 2022, after an Israeli police officer intentionally hit him with his car on January 6, 2021 – the police officer is still at large. Al-Hazalin was a Palestinian refugee from the Negev where his family ended up as refugees in 1948.  In an interview with Aljazeera, he had said, “They [the Israeli forces] tried to get me out of the area several times, but I am a man who does not give up.”

Afforestation to Colonize

A few miles to the south, where al-Hazalin originally comes from, JNF continues its “afforestation” of Palestinian lands. Dozens of Palestinian villages and communities are still to be “recognized” by the Israeli government, which means that these communities do not have access to basic services, electricity, or water, unlike adjacent Israeli settlements built on lands that have belonged to the Palestinians for hundreds of years.

A few years ago, JNF failed to implement the Prawer Plan in the Negev, which aims to push Palestinians out and to give them houses within “recognized” communities. The end goal of the plan was to take over Palestinian land. However, JNF has not given up and is back now with a new “afforestation” plan which sparked huge protests in the Negev and dozens of arrests. A video from the protests of Palestinian activist Aden Al-Hajouj went viral, in which she stated, “This is Palestine and will remain Palestine. This is the Bedouin land; we will not leave.”

Afew miles further, by the end of 2021, the Gaza Strip had become the most densely populated place on Earth with 2,313,000 Palestinians living on 365 square kilometers with a monthly birth rate of 6,000. The Gaza Strip looks much like a concrete jungle with almost no forest areas. The JNF, of course, has no interest in planting trees there.

The Israeli government views Gaza as a threat and thus recently built a wall around it to prevent Gazan refugees from returning to their towns and villages, some of which are visible to the naked eye across the border. The Gaza Strip is not of interest to JNF or the Israeli government, and keeping it less green serves the goal of making it the world’s biggest open-air prison.

The recent revelation by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz of the existence of a Palestinian mass grave of victims of the Nakba from the village of Tantura under an Israeli beach resort speaks volumes of how the world treats the Palestinian narrative. Palestinian survivors of the Tantura massacre have long spoken of the massacre during which some 200 Palestinians were murdered in cold blood between May and June 1948.

This is not surprising given how the early founders of the Zionist movement viewed Palestinians and Palestine. Bhagat Abu Gharbia, a Palestinian fighter of the 1948 war, quotes Herzl, in his book The Jewish State, as saying, “When we establish our state, we will not use the same method used by Europeans when establishing their own states, none of us will carry spears and swords and hunt bears, killing them here and there. We will not deal with these animals individually; we need to establish a capable authority to gather these beasts in one place and destroy them with one blow.”

But it took Haaretz, an Israeli publication, to get a former Israeli solider to “confess” in order for the Tantura massacre to be recognized. Thousands of Palestinian testimonies of Nakba survivors don’t count, some of whom are still alive and were interviewed by Politics Today. The world only accepts the narrative of the colonizer and the credibility of their archives, much of which are still buried – same as the bodies of tens of thousands of Palestinians who were buried in mass graves in 1948.

After all these years of afforestation, and as protests continue in the Negev against JNF, the only truth is that Israel, with the way it stands today, is a failure and JNF by extension is a witness to this failure. It is an incomplete project which targets Palestinians regardless of where they are. The Israeli targeting of Palestinians will only make them unite and come together, acting as a one nation, and when they do so, no military force, regardless of how mighty it is, can stop them from attaining their rights. The truth is that the entire state of Israel was built on a mass grave – be it covered by a beach resort or a forest planted by JNF.

Ruhama Marton, M.D., born in Jerusalem before Israel’s creation, founded Physicians for Human Rights-Israel 33 years ago As someone who has worked tirelessly her entire life for human rights and equality in historic Palestine, I wanted to hear her views about the radicalization of Jewish Israeli youth, especially in light of the most recent Israeli aggression in Gaza and the West Bank and the mobs attacking Palestinians in mixed Israeli cities.

Over the last 10 years or more, coinciding with Netanyahu’s leadership, “nationalism” has become synonymous with “patriotism.” Ruhama explains that being a Jewish, specifically Zionist patriot is at the heart of this radicalization. If you are not a Zionist, you are not a patriot; you are a traitor or antisemitic yourself and therefore not “one of us.” As in all extremist movements, when the language of “us and them” becomes the standard to speak about right and wrong, there is already a disregard for humanity and dehumanization of the ‘other.’

In recent decades, the Zionist Israeli collective has been deeply influenced by the growing power of religious Israeli Jews. Ruhama explains that being “Religious” is not about theology, but centered on slogans such as “Elohim Hiftiach lanu et Haaretz”, G-d promised us this land. This, as a concept, is enough for these radicalized Jews. The focus on G-d’s promise is a call to action, producing psychopathic behaviors in these followers, without moral limits. These religious Zionists settlers are entitled to do whatever they like. In fulfilling G-d’s promise, they may kill and burn people alive, and vandalize homes, businesses, and houses of worship. Everything is legitimized by this slogan.

Ruhama remembers the small Zionist left that understood right and wrong and behaved morally. But being both “created such a headache.” How can you be both Zionist and a leftist? Jewish state or democracy? Jewish rights or equal rights? Though some still call themselves Zionist leftists, they sadly have no idea that they are irrelevant and their sense of right and wrong and their Zionism is dead.

With G-d on their side, right-wing fascist religious Jews don’t have these problems because there is nothing to determine if something is right or wrong. These ideas don’t exist within this framework. And because the vast majority of Israeli society are Zionists, there is no one to stop the madness. From young teenagers to the elderly, they are emboldened to do what they want.

Netanyahu’s outgoing right-wing government fueled these sentiments because the settlers’ actions work for the government politically. They need the religious settlers to build power, working in tandem, in their own ways, to fulfill the ‘promise’ of Greater Israel by making life unbearable for Palestinians through intimidation and violence. For the Israeli government, this is a practical way to clear out the Palestinians and finally achieve the goal of the land without Palestinians.

Sadly, the majority of Israeli society seems content with nationalist Zionist patriotism. Younger people, who lack any contact with Palestinians, have been taught that Palestinians are the enemy, and Israel the victim. The right-wing government blames and dehumanizes Palestinians while claiming to protect Israeli Jews from internal and external enemies.

Israelis see the success of the religious extremists and don’t question the larger moral and ethical issues related to the occupation. There is no space for that consciousness to exist. Regardless, the society is still responsible for its behavior.

Ruhama mentioned the small minority of Israeli Jews who are moved by the immoral actions of the apartheid regime, who say “no, we do not agree.” However, this group lacks influence. Before our conversation, I received an important and unprecedented statement circulated by Israeli Jews calling for the decolonization of historic Palestine. It says, as Ruhama did, that nothing will penetrate Israeli hearts and minds.

The efforts of so many to do so from the inside has been a waste of time. The only course to address the future of Israel and Palestine is unapologetic international pressure, for example by following Palestinian civil society’s call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions. But international pressure has not reached the tipping point required to make this apartheid regime fall like in South Africa. Australian Jews, U.S. Jews, and others are adding their names for decolonization alongside what Palestinians have demanded for decades and what some Israeli Jews are sending out as a message for help from outside.

What could the future look like? Ruhama said that if the International Criminal Court in the Hague would take Israel to task, this could be a game-changer. Both hopeful and hesitant with leadership changes in the ICC, she is going to see what will happen. She believes that international pressure on South Africa helped turn the tide, and that this is the only reality that can change Israel’s course.

It is not easy to imagine the transformative and healing process to change the Israel of today into a decolonized space, or how to address the harms that Israel has done. Ruhama agreed that South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission might not be an exact fit. She is clear that the process will be long. She believes what would work is to give Palestinians all the political, social, cultural, and economic rights that Jews enjoy, including the right of return and reparations.

And although money cannot undo injustice, it is a part of addressing wrongs. She recalls from her own past how Jews and Palestinians once lived together. She is not concerned about everyone loving one another, because there are plenty of people not to love – “where there is no big love, there is no big hatred.” Her main concern is that there be mutual respect and a sense of common humanity, to create a community that can thrive.  And this is down the road, after the harms have been addressed, and everyone has access to the same rights.

Astudy conducted by Dr. Noa Lavi in 2016, found Israeli youth to be “the most right-wing compared to countries in Western Europe.” A 2018 Israeli Democracy Institute survey showed that “approximately 64 percent of Israeli Jews aged 18-34 identify as right-wing, compared to 47 percent of those 35 and older.” Israeli Jewish radicalization did not start in the 21st century. Its antecedents are critical to understanding this moment. For more information, see here (link to other article above).

The underlying beliefs of the Israeli right-wing are: Territorial expansion into all of Eretz Yisrael (historic Palestine), prioritizing Jewish identity over democracy, focus on security and Israel’s existential threat, distrust of Palestinians and foreigners, and centrality of Nationalism/Patriotism.

Israeli Jews have been misled by being told repeatedly there was a ‘failed peace process’ without a Palestinian partner. Neither government officials nor educational institutions say that two decades of the Oslo process was never about peace, instead, entrenching Israeli control over more of historic Palestine. Israeli youth grew up during the Second Palestinian Intifada. Suicide bombings and missiles from Gaza were the vehicles that allowed Israel to justify itself as the victim.

Israelis were trained to believe Palestinians were terrorists and wanted to wipe Israel off the map, while Israel besieged and assaulted Gaza and occupation continued. Young Jewish Israelis have no contact with Palestinians unless in a military uniform as occupier or as illegal settlers: they live in different communities while the apartheid wall separates Israeli Jews (and other Palestinians) from Palestinians.

The Netanyahu Era 

Since 2009, Israeli Jewish youth only know Netanyahu as Prime Minister, and right-wing fascist leaders including Avigdor Lieberman, Naftali Bennet, and Ayelet Shaked. They have seen Netanyahu: expand settlements; illegally annex Palestinian lands; pass the nation-state law; neglect Palestinian communities; ignore organized crime; tell Palestinians in Israel to go live in the West Bank and Gaza; say that a coalition with Arab political parties “would be an existential threat to Israel”; incite violence toward Palestinians; condone police collaboration with Israeli Jewish settlers and other extremist groups attacking Palestinians in Israel; and again pursue a policy of intensified military aggression on Gaza with disregard for killing civilians.

Netanyahu’s right-wing government also advocates for: territorial expansion; Palestinian transfer; mowing down Gaza; stripping Palestinians of citizenship; passing half of the 65 discriminatory laws in Israel. These actions give settlers and nationalists justification for violence against Palestinians. Amos, a 17-year old Israeli, was quoted in 2019 saying: “killing Arabs is a religious duty.”

Under Netanyahu, Social justice demonstrations in 2011 demanded solutions to lack of housing, the rise in cost-of-living, corruption, and government accountability for social welfare. As African asylum seekers sought refuge, the government demonized and blamed them for societal ills, detaining and forcibly deporting them because of xenophobia and anti-black racism. Add to this, recent police provocations blocking the Damascus Gate during Ramadan, escorting Israeli settlers to the Temple Mount, and decades of forced displacement of Palestinian families from Sheikh Jarrah and all over Palestine.

The Palestinian civil society’s call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions on Israel became a focus for the Netanyahu government after globally gaining traction. The government started funding public relations strategies, pouring resources into misinformation campaigns calling BDS antisemitic, banning its Jewish and non-Jewish supporters from Israel, and supporting the International Holocaust Remembrance definition of antisemitism to include critiques of Israel.

Settlements in Mixed Cities

In 2005, Gush Katif settlers in Gaza were removed. And the betrayed settlers founded new settlement projects in mixed cities all over Israel. In the last decade, the Israeli settler movement focused on creating a presence in mixed cities such as  Jaffa, Lyd, Ramle, and Acre, to keep land in Jewish hands and a Jewish majority,  cities ethnically cleansed of many Palestinian inhabitants in 1948. Settlers build West Bank-like settlement enclaves, where Palestinians are kept under surveillance and settlers are protected by police, showing no interest in coexistence.

Mobs/Lynchings/Incitement

Recent incidents show clearly this extremist violence. In Jerusalem, Lehava, a violent Israeli Jewish anti-miscegenation, anti-Arab organization, organized a demonstration at Damascus Gate during Ramadan chanting “Your village should be burnt down” and “Death to the Arabs.” Over 100 Palestinian were injured and others detained. Police used “stun grenades, tear gas and water cannons” against Palestinians. Besides police protection, a 2011 investigation exposed that the Israeli government had funded over half of Lehava’s budget. Lehava, Ateret Cohanim, Yad L’achim, and other extremist groups are sheltered from accountability for the violent crimes they commit and are funded from abroad.

In Bat Yam, fascism spread to the Mizrahi-majority city. Three Israeli Jews pulled Palestinian Said Musa of Ramle from his car and brutally beat him while being filmed by Israeli TV. Fascist groups also roamed Tiberius and Acre attacking Palestinians and their businesses.

Palestinian journalist Rami Younis of Lydd points to incitement by Israeli media to “shoot and kill Palestinians,” while also describing the Jewish mob attacks in Ramle and Lydd, with special unit police collaboration. Though there were curfews for residents in the mixed cities, the settlers were “escorted by Israeli police and allowed to roam free.” The groups marked Palestinian homes to attack later. The legal system also colludes with police and settler violence. Younis explains that only 2 of 162 indictments were brought against Jewish supremacists, while all others were against Palestinian protesters.

Tamr Nafar of Lydd, Palestinian rapper and activist, co-founder of DAM, speaks about Jewish settler violence against Palestinians in Lydd being “armed and protected by police”, while setting the context of structural inequality in mixed cities.

At the same time, West Bank Palestinians are detained and shot, and families are evicted from their homes. The aerial bombardment of Gaza over 11 days is evidence of the Israeli demonization of Palestinians there. Israel targeted civilians and media and health centers. Whole buildings collapsed in a matter of seconds, decimating entire families, and leaving tens of thousands of Palestinians without homes.

There are endless stories showing the web of connections between the Israeli government, police and military, settlers, and other extremist groups. To address the radicalization of youth, one must recognize that the majority of Israeli Jews accept this status quo. However, there are a minority of Israeli Jews calling for an end to apartheid and for decolonization.

On May 25, famous American actor, Mark Ruffalo, tweeted an apology for suggesting that Israel is committing ‘genocide’ in Gaza.

“I have reflected and wanted to apologize for posts during the recent Israel/Hamas fighting that suggested Israel is committing ‘genocide’,” Ruffalo wrote, adding, “It’s not accurate, it’s inflammatory, disrespectful and is being used to justify anti-Semitism, here and abroad. Now is the time to avoid hyperbole.”

But were Ruffalo’s earlier assessments, indeed, “not accurate, inflammatory and disrespectful”? And does equating Israel’s war on besieged, impoverished Gaza with genocide fit into the classification of ‘hyperbole’?

To avoid pointless social media spats, one only needs to reference the ‘United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide’. According to Article 2 of the 1948 Convention, the legal definition of genocide is:

“Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, such as (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part …”

In its depiction of Israel’s latest war on Gaza, the Geneva-based human rights group, Euro-Med Monitor, reported: “The Israeli forces directly targeted 31 extended families. In 21 cases, the homes of these families were bombed while their residents were inside. These raids resulted in the killing of 98 civilians, including 44 children and 28 women.

Among the victims were a man and his wife and children, mothers and their children, or child siblings. There were seven mothers who were killed along with four or three of their children. The bombing of these homes and buildings came without any warning despite the Israeli forces’ knowledge that civilians were inside.”

As of May 28, 254 Palestinians in Gaza were killed and 1,948 were wounded in the latest 11-day Israeli onslaught, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Though tragic, this number is relatively small compared with the casualties of previous wars. For example, in the 51-day Israeli war on Gaza in the summer of 2014, over 2,200 Palestinians were killed and over 17,000 were wounded.

Similarly, entire families, like the 21-member Abu Jame family in Khan Younis, also perished. Is this not genocide? The same logic can be applied to the killing of over 300 unarmed protesters at the fence separating besieged Gaza from Israel between March 2018 and December 2019. Moreover, the besiegement and utter isolation of over 2 million Palestinians in Gaza since 2006-07, which has resulted in numerous tragedies, is an act of collective punishment that also deserves the designation of genocide.

One does not need to be a legal expert to identify the many elements of genocide in Israel’s violent behavior, let alone language, against Palestinians. There is a clear, undeniable relationship between Israel’s violent political discourse and equally violent action on the ground. Potentially Israel’s next prime minister, Naftali Bennett, who has served the role of Defense Minister, had, in July 2013, stated: “I’ve killed lots of Arabs in my life – and there’s no problem with that.”

With this context in mind, and regardless of why Ruffalo found it necessary to back-track on his moral position, Israel is an unrepentent human rights violator that continues to carry out an active policy of genocide and ethnic cleansing against the native, indigenous inhabitants of Palestine.

Language matters, and in this particular ‘conflict’, it matters most, because Israel has, for long, managed to escape any accountability for its actions, due to its success in misrepresenting facts, and the overall truth about itself. Thanks to its many allies and supporters in mainstream media and academia, Tel Aviv has rebranded itself from being a military occupier and an apartheid regime to an ‘oasis of democracy’, in fact, ‘the only democracy in the Middle East’.

This article will not attempt to challenge the entirety of the misconstrued mainstream media’s depiction of Israel. Volumes are required for that, and Israeli Professor Ilan Pappé’s ‘Ten Myths about Israel’ is an important starting point. However, this article will attempt to present some basic definitions that must enter the Palestine-Israel lexicon, as a prerequisite to developing a fairer understanding of what is happening on the ground.

A Military Occupation – Not a ‘Conflict’

Quite often, mainstream Western media refers to the situation in Palestine and Israel as a  ‘conflict’, and to the various specific elements of this so-called conflict as a ‘dispute’. For example, the ‘Palestinian-Israeli conflict’ and the ‘disputed city of East Jerusalem’.

What should be an obvious truth is that besieged, occupied people do not engage in a ‘conflict’ with their occupiers. Moreover, a ‘dispute’ happens when two parties have equally compelling claims to any issue. When Palestinian families of East Jerusalem are being forced out of their homes which are, in turn, handed over to Jewish extremists, there is no ‘dispute’ involved. The extremists are thieves and the Palestinians are victims. This is not a matter of opinion. The international community itself says so.

‘Conflict’ is a generic term. Aside from absolving the aggressor – in this case, Israel – it leaves all matters open for interpretation. Since American audiences are indoctrinated to love Israel and hate Arabs and Muslims, siding with Israel in its ‘conflict’ with the latter becomes the only rational option.

Israel has sustained a military occupation of 22% of the total size of historic Palestine since June 1967. The remainder of the Palestinian homeland was already usurped, using extreme violence, state-sanctioned apartheid, and, as Pappé puts it, ‘incremental genocide’ decades earlier.

From the perspective of international law,  the term ‘military occupation’, ‘occupied East Jerusalem’, ‘illegal Jewish settlements’ and so forth, have never been ‘disputed’. They are simply facts, even if Washington has decided to ignore international law, and even if mainstream US media has chosen to manipulate the terminology as to present Israel as a victim, not the aggressor.

‘Process’ without ‘Peace’

The term ‘peace process’ was coined by American diplomats decades ago. It was put to use throughout the mid and late 1970s when, then-US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, labored to broker a deal between Egypt and Israel in the hope of fragmenting the Arab political front and, eventually, sidelining Cairo entirely from the ‘Arab-Israeli conflict’.

Kissinger’s logic proved vital for Israel as the ‘process’ did not aim at achieving justice according to fixed criteria that has been delineated by the United Nations for years. There was no frame of reference any more. If any existed, it was Washington’s political priorities which, historically, almost entirely overlapped with Israel’s priorities. Despite the obvious American bias, the US bestowed upon itself the undeserving title of ‘the honest peace broker’.

This approach was used successfully in the write-up to the Camp David Accords in 1978. One of the Accords’ greatest achievements is that the so-called ‘Arab-Israeli conflict’ was replaced with the so-called ‘Palestinian-Israeli conflict’.

Now, tried and true, the ‘peace process’ was used again in 1993, resulting in the Oslo Accords. For nearly three decades, the US continued to tout its self-proclaimed credentials as a peacemaker, despite the fact that it pumped – and continues to do so – $3-4 billion of annual, mostly military, aid to Israel.

A term such as ‘resistance’ – muqawama – was slowly but carefully extricated from the Palestinian national discourse. The term ‘liberation’ too was perceived to be confrontational and hostile. Instead, such concepts as ‘state-building’ – championed by former Palestinian Prime Minister, Salam Fayyad, and others – began taking hold.

The fact that Palestine was still an occupied country and that ‘state-building’ can only be achieved once ‘liberation’ was first secured, did not seem to matter to the ‘donor countries’. The priorities of these countries – mainly US allies who adhered to the American political agenda in the Middle East – was to maintain the illusion of the ‘peace process’ and to ensure  ‘security coordination’ between PA police and the Israeli army carried on, unabated.

The so-called ‘security coordination’, of course, refers to the US-funded joint Israeli-PA efforts at cracking down on Palestinian resistance, apprehending Palestinian political dissidents and ensuring the safety of the illegal Jewish settlements, or colonies, in the occupied West Bank.

War and, Yes, Genocide in Gaza – Not ‘Israel-Hamas Conflict’

The word ‘democracy’ was constantly featured in the new Oslo language. Of course, it was not intended to serve its actual meaning. Instead, it was the icing on the cake of making the illusion of the ‘peace process’ perfect. This was obvious, at least to most Palestinians. It also became obvious to the whole world in January 2006, when the Palestinian faction Fatah, which has monopolized the PA since its inception in 1994, lost the popular vote to the Islamic faction, Hamas.

Hamas, and other Palestinian factions have rejected – and continue to reject – the Oslo Accords. Their participation in the legislative elections in 2006 took many by surprise, as the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) was itself a product of Oslo. Their victory in the elections, which was classified as democratic and transparent by international monitoring groups, threw a wrench in the US-Israeli-PA political calculations.

Lo and behold, the group that has long been perceived by Israel and its allies as ‘extremist’ and ‘terrorist’, became the potential leaders of Palestine! The Oslo spin doctors had to go into overdrive in order for them to thwart Palestinian democracy and ensure a successful return to the status quo, even if this meant that Palestine is represented by unelected, undemocratic leaders. Sadly, this has been the case for nearly 15 years.

Meanwhile, Hamas’ stronghold, the Gaza Strip, had to be taught a lesson, thus the siege imposed on the impoverished region for nearly 15 years. The siege on Gaza has little to do with Hamas’ rockets or Israel’s ‘security’ needs, the right to ‘defend itself’, and its supposedly ‘justifiable’ desire to destroy Gaza’s ‘terrorist infrastructure’. While, indeed, Hamas’ popularity in Gaza is unmatched anywhere else in Palestine, Fatah, too, has a powerful constituency there. Moreover, the Palestinian resistance in the Strip is not championed by Hamas alone, but also by other ideological and political groups, for example, the Islamic Jihad, the socialist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and other socialist and secular groups.

A term such as ‘resistance’ – muqawama – was slowly but carefully extricated from the Palestinian national discourse. The term ‘liberation’ too was perceived to be confrontational and hostile. Instead, such concepts as ‘state-building’ – championed by former Palestinian Prime Minister, Salam Fayyad, and others – began taking hold.

The fact that Palestine was still an occupied country and that ‘state-building’ can only be achieved once ‘liberation’ was first secured, did not seem to matter to the ‘donor countries’. The priorities of these countries – mainly US allies who adhered to the American political agenda in the Middle East – was to maintain the illusion of the ‘peace process’ and to ensure  ‘security coordination’ between PA police and the Israeli army carried on, unabated.

The so-called ‘security coordination’, of course, refers to the US-funded joint Israeli-PA efforts at cracking down on Palestinian resistance, apprehending Palestinian political dissidents and ensuring the safety of the illegal Jewish settlements, or colonies, in the occupied West Bank.

Misrepresenting the ‘conflict’ as a ‘war’ between Israel and Hamas is crucial to Israeli propaganda, which has succeeded in equating Hamas with militant groups throughout the Middle East and even Afghanistan. But Hamas is not ISIS, Al-Qaeda or Taliban. In fact, none of these groups are similar, anyway.

Hamas is a Palestinian Islamic nationalist movement that operates within a largely Palestinian political context. An excellent book on Hamas is the recently published volume by Daud Abdullah, Engaging the World. Abdullah’s book rightly presents Hamas as a rational political actor, rooted in its ideological convictions, yet flexible and pragmatic in its ability to adapt to national, regional and international geopolitical changes.

But what does Israel have to gain from mischaracterizing the Palestinian resistance in Gaza? Aside from satisfying its propaganda campaign of erroneously linking Hamas to other anti-American groups, it also dehumanizes the Palestinian people entirely and presents Israel as a partner in the American global so-called ‘war on terror’. Israeli neofascist and ultranationalist politicians then become the saviors of humanity, their violent racist language is forgiven and their active ‘genocide’ is seen as an act of ‘self-defense’ or, at best, a mere state of ‘conflict’.

The Oppressor as the Victim

According to the strange logic of mainstream media, Palestinians are rarely ‘killed’ by Israeli soldiers, but rather ‘die’ in ‘clashes’ resulting from various ‘disputes. Israel does not ‘colonize’ Palestinian land; it merely ‘annexes’, ‘appropriates’, and ‘captures’, and so on. What has been taking place in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in occupied East Jerusalem, for example, is not outright property theft, leading to ethnic cleansing, but rather a ‘property dispute’.

The list goes on and on.

In truth, language has always been a part of Zionist colonialism, long before the state of Israel was itself constructed from the ruins of Palestinian homes and villages in 1948. Palestine, according to the Zionists, was ‘a land with no people’ for ‘a people with no land’. These colonists were never ‘illegal settlers’ but ‘Jewish returnees’ to their ‘ancestral homeland’, who, through hard work and perseverance, managed to ‘make the desert bloom’, and, in order to defend themselves against the ‘hordes of Arabs’, they needed to build an ‘invincible army’.

It will not be easy to deconstruct the seemingly endless edifice of lies, half-truths and intentional misrepresentations of Zionist Israeli colonialism in Palestine. Yet, there can be no alternative to this feat because, without proper, accurate and courageous understanding and depiction of Israeli settler colonialism and Palestinian resistance to it, Israel will continue to oppress Palestinians while presenting itself as the victim.

Ever since visiting Belfast a year ago I have been struck by how the Irish revolutionaries, despite these vast differences in circumstances and goals, regard their struggle as being reproduced in its essential character by the Palestinian struggle, and have a robust solidarity movement that regards Palestinian freedom as one of the incomplete aspects of their own struggle. The wall murals in the Catholic neighborhoods of Belfast exhibited these affinities, recognizing that oppression is not confined within the sovereign space of nations, but is a transnational reality. Solidarity and opposition express an unarticulated global humanism. While the Palestinian challenge may be more epic in quality, the Irish struggle was also waged as a matter of life and death, and even more fundamentally, as an insistence that humiliation and indignity were unendurable conditions that produced and justified martyrdom.

Among the great differences in these two national narratives that form the background of these separate renderings of the hunger strikes concerns the impacts of the international context, and especially the role of the United States. With regard to Ireland, American public and even elite opinion was strongly supportive of Catholic resistance in Northern Ireland, and the U.S. mediational role was exercised with in an impressive spirit of neutrality. With respect to Israel, the U.S. pretends to play a similar role as intermediary or ‘honest broker,’ yet with zero credibility. It should surprise no objective observer that these diplomatic maneuvers produced only frustration and disappointment for the Palestinians, in part, due to Washington’s unabashed and unconditional material and diplomatic partisanship, including siding with Israel even when it flagrantly violates international law or repudiates the UN consensus on the contours of a just peace.

We notice in the experiences of Irish and Palestinian hunger strikers, that the Irish contributions situate their recourse to hunger strikes protesting prison conditions more explicitly in the wider struggle of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), while Palestinians stories tell more graphically of the agonies of prolonged imprisonment in Israeli prisons. Our attention is drawn to the denial of minimal international standards of treatment, including failures of medical treatment, bad food quality, denial of family visits, inadequate exercise, and sadistic prison responses ranging from force-feeding to putting tantalizing foods in prison cells. Yet both Irish and Palestinian testimonies emanate from the same source, how to respond to the desperation felt by intolerable abuse in conditions of imprisonment, and yet carry on the wider struggle for freedom and rights that landed them in prison.

Reading their harrowing statements of broken families and broken hearts, we should not be deceived into thinking that we are reading only about events in the past. There are currently about 4,500 Palestinian prisoners, including 350 imprisoned under ‘administrative detention’ provisions copied from the British Mandate colonialist administration of Palestine, under which Palestinian activists and suspects can be jailed indefinitely without any specific charges or even a show of some evidence of wrongdoing. Many of the individual hunger strikes take this dire step of a prolonged hunger strike to protest against the acute and arbitrary injustices associated with administrative detention, which appears to be a technique used by Israel to demoralize the Palestine people to an extent that makes their resistance seem futile.

As I write, Maher Al-Akhras was close to death in an Israeli prison, having mounted a hunger strike for an incredible period of more than 103 days to protest administrative detention, and yet hardly anyone outside of Palestine and the Israeli Prison Service knows about it. Al-Akhras words while teetering on the brink of death encapsulate the common core of these unforgettable shared stories: my hunger strike “is in defense of Palestinian prisoners and of my people who are suffering from the occupation and my victory in the strike is a victory for the prisoners and my Palestinian people.” In other words, although such an extreme act of self-sacrifice, while being intensely individual, is above all an expression of solidarity with others locked within the prison walls but at the same time often the only form of resistance available to an imprisoned political militant. Such a commitment has its concrete demands relating to prison conditions, but it should also be understood as a metaphor encouraging a greater commitment by all of us, wherever situated, to the struggle that needs to be sustained until victory by those on the outside who are daily subjugated to the policies and practices of the oppressor state.

Desperate circumstances give rise to desperate behavior. If by states, extreme violent behavior tends to be rationalized as ‘self-defense,’ ‘military necessity,’ or ‘counterterrorism,’ and claims of legal authorization are treated as appropriate. If even nonviolent acts of resistance by individuals associated with dissident movements, then the established order and its supportive media will routinely describe such acts as ‘terrorism,’ ‘criminality,’ and ‘fanaticism,’ and the behavior is criminalized, or at best exposed to scorn by the established order of sovereign states. Statist forms of combat almost always rely on violence to crush an enemy, while the desperation of resistance sometimes takes the form of inflicting hurt upon the self so as to shame an oppressor to relent or eventually even surrender, not due to empathy or a change of heart, but because fearful of alienating public opinion, intensifying resistance, losing international legitimacy, facing sanctions. It is against such an overall background that we should understand the role of the hunger strike in the wider context of resistance against all forms of oppressive, exploitative, and cruel governance. The long struggles in Northern Ireland and Palestine are among the most poignant instances of such political encounters that gripped the moral imagination of many persons of conscience in the years since the middle of the prior century.

Those jailed activists who have recourse to a hunger strike, either singly or in collaboration, are keenly aware that they are choosing an option of last resort, which exhibits a willingness to sacrifice their body and even life itself for goals deemed more important. These goals usually involve either safeguarding dignity or honor of subjugated people or mobilizing support for a collective struggle on behalf of freedom, rights, and equality. A hunger strike is an ultimate form of non-violence, comparable only to politically motivated acts of self-immolation, physically harmful only to the self, yet possessing in certain circumstances unlimited symbolic potential to change behavior and give rise to massive displays of discontent by a population believed to be successfully suppressed. Such desperate tactics have been integral to the struggles for basic rights and resistance to oppressive conditions in both Palestine and Northern Ireland.

Both the oppressed and the oppressors learn from past successes and failures of symbolic politics. The oppressed view it as an ultimate and ennobling approach to resistance and liberation. Oppressors learn that wars are often not decided by who wins on the battlefield but by the side that gains a decisive advantage symbolically in what I have previously called ‘legitimacy wars.’ With this knowledge of their vulnerability, oppressors fight back, defame and use violence to destroy by any means the will of the oppressed to resist, especially if the stakes involve giving up the high moral and legal ground. The Israeli leadership learned, especially, from the collapse of South African apartheid not to take symbolic politics lightly. Israel has been particularly unscrupulous in its responses to symbolic challenges to its abusive apartheid regime of control. Israel, with U.S. support, has mounted a worldwide defamatory pushback against criticism at the UN or from human rights defenders around the world, shamelessly playing ‘the anti-Semitic card’ in its effort to destroy nonviolent solidarity efforts such as the pro-Palestinian BDS Campaign modeled on an initiative that had mobilized worldwide opposition to South African apartheid. Notably, in the South African case, the BDS tactic was questioned for effectiveness and appropriateness, but its organizers and most militant supporters were never defamed, much less criminalized. This recognition of the potency of symbolic politics by Israel has obstructed the Palestinian liberation struggles despite what would seem to be the advantageous realities of the post-colonial setting.

Israel’s version of an apartheid regime evolved as a necessary side effect of establishing an exclusivist Jewish state in a non-Jewish state. This Zionist project required that the Palestinian people become victims of colonialist displacement in their own homeland. Israel learned from the South African experience techniques of racist hierarchy and repression, but they were also aware of the vulnerabilities of oppressors to sustained forms of non-violence that validated the persevering resistance of those oppressed. Israel is determined not to repeat the collapse of South African apartheid, and to do so requires not only repression of resistors but the demoralization of supporters.

A similar reality existed in Northern Ireland where the memories of colonies lost to weaker adversaries slowly taught the UK lessons of accommodation and compromise, which led the leaders in London to shift their focus from counterterrorism to diplomacy, with the dramatic climax of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. Israel is not the UK, and the Irish are not the Palestinians. Israel shows no willingness to grant the Palestinian people their most basic rights, yet even Israel does not want to be humiliated in ways that can arouse international public opinion to move beyond the rhetoric of censure in the direction of sanctions. The Israeli Prison Service doesn’t want Palestinian hunger strikers to die while in captivity, not because of empathy, but to avoid bad publicity. To prevent such outcomes, Israeli prison authorities will make concessions, including even release, when a hunger striker is feared at the brink of death, and earlier attempts at force feeding have failed. Palestinian prospects are more dependent than ever on waging and winning victories in the domain of symbolic politics, and Israel, with the help of the United States, will go to any length to hide defeat in this longest of legitimacy wars.

After the state of Israel was established, millions of Palestinians were either displaced or forced to move from their lands – some into refugee camps and others to Arab or Western countries. This uprooting was highly traumatic and has had profound effects on the Palestinian identity. Yeter Ada Şeko speaks about the effects of this trauma to Palestinian political activist and the Director of the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA), Sami Al-Arian, in relation to the Palestinian identity as well as the long struggle of Palestinians for their freedom.

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Ada: After the state of Israel was established, millions of Palestinians were forced to move to different regions such as Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan. Some of them also left Arab lands and started a new life in Western regions such as the US and Europe. What is the effect of this immigration process on the Palestinian identity?

Sami Al Arian: There are many effects and great impact which depends on generation to generation, and geography to geography. When the first generation was exiled, many of them lived in refugee camps, whether in Gaza, in the West Bank, Lebanon, and later on in Syria. Some of them went to Egypt even though there were no refugee camps in Egypt, and many of them had over the years immigrated to different places, looking for better living conditions such as the Gulf areas. A few also went to the West, especially after the 1967 war, and lived in different regions in the West including the US and Europe. So when we talk about Palestinian identity, many factors shape that identity.

The first is that this was a collective trauma that the Palestinians faced. When they were uprooted suddenly from their homeland, that they had lived in for centuries, it was very traumatic for many people, especially since it did not happen over time but all of a sudden.

80 percent of the Palestinians who lived in the 1948 areas, approximately 800,000, were uprooted and placed in places that were alien to them, some of them living in very poor conditions. People were living in good conditions in their country and suddenly they faced poverty – that affected the psyche of the Palestinians. That psyche has never really left the Palestinians from generation to generation, and the experience was fed into every generation. My father’s generation, my generation, and my children’s generation – we always talked about that trauma. We always talked about the impact of being uprooted so there was always this strong connection between the Palestinians of each generation with Palestine. It wasn’t something that was forgotten or something that was put away.

The pain, the suffering, and the whole experience of being uprooted lived with them as well as their history of living in Palestine. So that is the first thing.

And it may have differed. Some communities have more affinity than others depending on where they are based, but overall Palestinians do connect and have this connection with the land of Palestine.

Secondly, because the majority of Palestinians, especially those living in refugee camps, were never given citizenship – they were never assimilated in a way that immigrants or refugees could have been.

Being Palestinian has always been part and parcel of suffering because being a non-citizen in these countries meant that you were denied many rights and privileges otherwise given to citizens of a country: the right to work, the right to healthcare, education and so forth, and that also cemented the fact what it means to be Palestinian.

Also, you can see the same in the Gulf areas because they do not give citizenship. The Palestinians lived as communities within a community in these countries, like Kuwait before 1990. Before they left Jordan there were very large Palestinian communities and that cemented their identity of what it means to be Palestinians.

In the West, for example in the United States of America where I lived for four decades, you could see whole villages, especially from the West Bank, relocated to the US, and there they would begin life again and eventually gain citizenship. They would form associations that identify with the land of Palestine. So you have different villages and each village would have their association so that they can maintain the feeling and connection to their land, as well as to their fellow Palestinians of what it means to be a Palestinian.

Also, those who have been a part of the struggle, and that’s tens of thousands of people that are part of the struggle for Palestine, you will see that the struggle also cemented that Palestinian identity, because for many societies if you are struggling for Palestine that is not something that would come easy, as you will become a target. If you are in the US or if you are sometimes in Europe and even some Arab countries – if people work for Palestine they become targets of the security agencies in which they would suffer for being a part of the Palestinian struggle and that would also further cement their Palestinian identity.

Palestine, over the years, has become a symbol. A symbol against racism, a symbol against oppression, a symbol against tyranny, and a symbol against the occupation, therefore many people identify with that issue from that standpoint. This makes Palestinians even more committed to the struggle, cementing their identity further.

So, what I would say is that being part of a Palestinian exiled community, or being part of people under occupation is a struggle, whether in the areas of 1948 or the West Bank or Gaza, and that struggle continues, the suffering continues, and the pain continues, enduring from generation to generation. The collective memory is transferred from generation to generation, therefore there is more commitment and more association with what it means to be a Palestinian – that identity is further cemented.

Ada: Do you think that Palestinians who live in other lands, where they can get citizenship, may lose their Palestinian identity as a result? Do you think this suffering, i.e. not being able to get citizenship, keeps the Palestinian identity alive?

Sami Al Arian: I think it’s true. Historically it’s true that in many of these communities, particularly in the Arab countries (except Jordan), they never received citizenship, and that cemented what being a Palestinian is. However, many Palestinians would argue that it’s not an excuse for them to be denied basic rights as human beings because not being a citizen in a nation-state system puts huge hardship and burden on these communities and makes them non-entities, non-citizens, and non-human beings.

They are denied necessities, basic rights in life: the right to a decent education, the right to a job, the right to retirement, the right to live in dignity, the right to healthcare, and so forth. So not being a citizen did cement the meaning of what it means to be Palestinian and this was the only identity that people could identify with – being a Palestinian. So with that suffering – yes identity was certainly strengthened.

Ada: For Palestinians who have Israeli citizenship, being an Israeli citizen is another aspect of their identity. What do you think about the identity issue of Israeli-Palestinians and their relationship with the state of Israel?

Sami Al Arian: Palestinians who stayed in Palestine, after the catastrophe of 1948 and after the occupation of 78% of Palestine by the Zionist regime, never felt they were citizens.

For 18 years between 1948 and 1966, these communities lived under military curfew, under martial law, so they never felt part of society. Though 80% of the Palestinians were exiled the remainder lived under military rule, even though they lived side by side with Israelis. Living under military rule for 18 years brutalized an entire generation. Even after that was lifted and they were given citizenship by Israel, they never became part and parcel of society, and you can see the racist policies and mentality of the Zionist leaders in clear and plain ways. They don’t even try to hide it: a Jewish only state, Jewish only laws, some Jewish only roads in the West Bank, and settlements and so on so forth.

When they were uprooted suddenly from their homeland, that they had lived in for centuries, it was very traumatic for many people, especially since it did not happen over time but all of a sudden.

There is a lot of discrimination against the Arabs inside the 1948 areas, which is manifested in education, in job discrimination, in healthcare, and even in their right to go and pray in the al-Aqsa mosque. If they take a different political position, they will be prevented from praying at al-Aqsa. Most Palestinians outside Jerusalem have also been denied this right for decades.

So, even though the Israeli state tries to portray itself as being a state that respects different religions and ethnicities, the fact of the matter is that it is not the case. Numerous studies will prove that what we have in Palestine today, in terms of the Israeli state, is a state that discriminates against its citizens based on their ethnicity, faith, and religion, and therefore we cannot say that Palestinians inside that state enjoy the privileges and rights of being equal citizens to the Jewish citizens.

Ada: As was mentioned before some Palestinians have Israeli citizenship and some do not. From what you say, it is clear that this citizenship isn’t of equal value. So why does Israel give citizenship to Palestinians?

Sami Al Arian: That was a historical decision that the first Prime Minister of Israel, David Ben-Gurion, made. Many Israeli politicians regret that decision and the reason that Ben-Gurion made that decision, which is basically to grant the remaining Palestinians a form of citizenship, (which now many right-wing groups and settler movements and others, such as even Lieberman, are trying to undo so that they can maintain the ‘purity’ of a Jewish only state) had more to do with the image that Israel wanted to portray to the outside world than to the actual ideology of Zionism.

One of the strategic imperatives of Zionism is to occupy as much of Palestine as possible with as few of Arab Palestinian Christians and Muslims as possible. So they have a problem now that the Arab population inside the state have ‘citizenship’ whether Muslim or Christian. These populations are approximately 20% of the state, and they grow even faster than their Jewish fellows inside the state and that is a concern to them. That’s why in the so-called deal of the century, there is a clause there that says that part of that final status is to transfer what is called the triangle (these are three villages at the top of the border between the West Bank and Israel) numbering over 300,000 Palestinians.

This population will be transferred and they will lose their citizenship and be transferred to the Palestinian communities in case there is some kind of a deal. So there are concerns about that. As I said, for many it was a controversial decision but Ben-Gurion made that decision to improve Israel’s image in the eyes of the international community, after exiling 800,000 people and refusing to allow them to go back to their original homes.

Ada: It appears that Israel is using some narratives to justify their position over the land, right? How does these narratives effect Palestinian relationship with their history and their identity?

Sami Al Arian: Israel has a different narrative. They try to falsify what happened in 1948. They try to falsify the history of the land; they try to falsify the history of an indigenous people – Palestinians of the land. They even try to falsify what’s happening now on the ground. Palestinians unify and they have their narrative and they would like to talk advocate it in a way that will show the true nature of the conflict as well as the identity of what it means to be Palestinian today. So in this sense, you can also see the Palestinians common identity, regardless of where they are. I mean Palestinians today are in dozens of countries and yet they can identify with each other.

Each Palestinian can identify with the land, with the village, with the town they came from, or their ancestors came from. They can recite each chapter and verse of their history. So that collective memory and common destiny are what shapes what it means today to be a Palestinian even for those who live inside the state under racist policies. They identify with their brethren in the West Bank and Gaza and beyond. They still see themselves as part of the Palestinian people and share this common identity.