[wvns] Palestinians are not immigrants
Palestinian citizens are not immigrants to Israel; they had lived in
their homeland long before Israel became a reality.
Natives, not immigrants
Nimer Sultany
May 20, 2007
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/nimer_sultany/2007/05/natives_not_immigrants.html
As the native sons and daughters of Palestine, the Palestinian
citizens in Israel are always amused by the arguments: "If you do not
like your inferior status - you can leave; if you define yourself as a
Palestinian and sympathise with the Palestinian struggle for freedom
and self-determination - you can join your brothers and sisters in
Palestine."
Of course those making these arguments do not note the irony
underpinning their thinking:
First, immigrants - including recent immigrants like cabinet minister
Avigdor Lieberman - or descendents of immigrants are asking the
indigenous population to leave their own homeland.
Second, through designing state policies, institutionalised
discrimination, and a popular culture of hate, they are making the
lives of the natives unbearable in the hope they will be "encouraged"
to leave.
Third, these arguments are presupposing the false assumption that the
Palestinian minority is a minority of immigrants like the Turks in
Germany or the Pakistanis in the United Kingdom. As a minority of
immigrants they are supposed, so goes the argument, to adjust to their
new country of choice and bear the consequences of alienation with the
new reality and symbols of the state. They cannot seriously have
complaints about their status because they themselves had chosen to
migrate to this state. If they do not like it they might migrate again.
Those same persons using this kind of argument will be appalled when
anybody answers their complaints concerning "Arab hostility" to Israel
and "terrorist attacks" by saying: "You had chosen to immigrate to
Palestine and establish a state in the Middle East in an Arab region
on the expense of the indigenous people. If you do not like this
reality you can leave."
The fact of the matter is the Palestinian citizens did not immigrate
to Israel; rather they had lived in their homeland long before Israel
became a reality.
Fourth, another irony is the fact that Israeli policies themselves are
preventing the emergence of a Palestinian state. By refusing to
withdraw from the occupied land, destroying the Palestinian authority
in the recent intifada, building more and more colonies and expanding
Greater Jerusalem, building a separation wall inside the West Bank,
refusing to engage in any meaningful negotiations in more than six
years, rejecting and boycotting the democratically elected Palestinian
officials (whether Arafat or Hamas government), destroying the
Palestinian economy (as a report by the World Bank has just
indicated), and cutting the territories into isolated Bantustans -
Israel is making a Palestinian state look like a remote dream.
Further, it is making the Palestinian ordinary life unbearable
"encouraging" more people to immigrate. The Palestinian citizens of
Israel are being asked to join this man-made reality. Just to be asked
again to leave.
Of course, the knee-jerk reaction to this last argument by Israeli
apologists is: "Israel will withdraw when Palestinian violence ends."
This argument does not take into account that the original sin is the
occupation itself and that resistance is a natural historical outcome.
It does not also answer the question of building colonies and sending
more Jewish settlers. It does not as well answer the question why
Israel did not withdraw from the Golan Heights.
For four decades, the Syrian-Israeli ceasefire line has been among the
most quiet in the world and yet there is no intention to withdraw on
Israel's part; on the contrary - its colonies are flourishing. In the
last year we saw how Israel turns its back to a Syrian invitation for
negotiations. Finally, this argument also attempts vainly to present
Israel as a victim, as reacting to events, with no political agency.
The argument "you can leave", however, is not only amusing and ironic.
It is also alarming. First, it serves to justify the institutionalised
discrimination against the native population. "You think it is bad? We
can make it worse," or "You can have it worse elsewhere, so sit
quietly." In this Zionist perspective the Palestinian is an unwelcomed
and unwanted guest. As a guest the Palestinian should behave,
otherwise the citizenship status will be stripped. As a guest in his
homeland, the Palestinian is expected to be thankful for the leftovers
of rights that the new masters of the land might grant him.
Second it is not just an argument; it is also the basis for serious
policy proposals by cabinet ministers, public opinion makers and
members of the Israeli parliament. There is a long list of influential
politicians, academics and journalists who have proposed variations of
"exchange of lands" or "exchange of populations" or even expulsion
with the purpose of getting rid of the native citizens and enhancing
the Jewish ethnic and ideological character of the state. Two-thirds
of the Jewish majority in recent years expressed its demand from the
government to "encourage" the Palestinian citizens to emigrate. And
one-third of the Jewish Israelis support the expulsion of Palestinian
citizens.
These proposals are part of the conception that the Palestinian
citizens are a "demographic threat". A Jewish state entails the
maintenance of a solid Jewish majority. Therefore, it cannot coexist
with a large Palestinian minority. It has been and will always be - so
long as it is defined as such - concerned by how many Arabs and Jews
were born in a certain year. Every newly-born Palestinian child inside
Israel is a direct threat to the demographic equation. That's why
serious and prestigious institutions and conferences (such as the
Herzliya Conference, the Demographic Centre, the Public Council for
Demography) convene to discuss how this demographic threat should be
"contained".
That's why Benny Morris lamented (including in the Guardian) the fact
that Ben-Gurion did not complete his project of expulsion of the
natives in 1948.
The existence of Palestinian citizens in a Jewish and Zionist state
reveals the inherent contradiction of the Zionist project: you cannot
have a Jewish supremacy and claim that you are democratic because you
do not propose equal and universal citizenship.
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