Seth Wessler
No Time to Celebrate
Yesterday was Israeli Independence Day; the 60th year of Israel’s existence. For some Israelis and Zionists, the day celebrates the birth of statehood for a people long without a land. But for me, as for many other’s, Israeli Independence Day is not a day of celebration but one on which to remember and reflect on violence, racism and the need for solidarity.
Observed in May 15th, the Nakba (Arabic for Catastrophe), is the day of commemoration of the 60 year long dispossession and systematic displacement of Palestinians that continues in the form of brutal military violence and the relegation of Palestinians to live in unlivable zones like the open air prison that Gaza has become. Israeli Independence day marks the anniversary of the beginning of this catastrophe.
This day reminds us of what happens when the identities of those with power and privilege become the basis of political organization. The result can be nothing but to create a racist polity. In the United States, when race is the organizing, animating substance of nation building, we see devastating effects. Whether in the context of immigration policy that excludes and criminalizes immigrants of color or inequitable and unforgiving criminal justice policies that construct black people as threats and incarcerate them, nations cannot be built on racist conceptions of belonging. When they are, we see the destruction of families, livelihood and senses of self.
In the Israeli context, Palestinians living inside of the 1967 Israeli borders, those who were not displaced after the Nakba in 1948, face debilitating racial disparities and exclusion. Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza are dehumanized to the point where Gaza is sealed off and made into a prison and in the West Bank, people’s homes and farms destroyed.
What is needed now is a heightened sense of solidarity. Around the world people are raising their voices in commemoration of the Nakba and in support of a just solution in Palestine and Israel. For me, this can only come when countries are not predicated on a racially exclusive notion of who belongs but open their doors and tear down their walls. This will be as true in Palestine and Israel as it will be here in the United States
Posted at 4:22 PM, May 08, 2008 in Global Issues | Permalink | View Comments
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Who has heard that in the 1930's Bagdad every 3rd citizen was a native Jew? The Sefardi (Safrati) Jews have a 400 year old history and the Mizrahi Jews over 2,500 year old history in the Middle East - outside the location of the state of Israel (Palestine).
Here's the statistics regarding not ONLY the expulsion of Jews from various Muslim countries in the last 60 years that Israel has been an independent state, but also numbers expelled from the Europe in a longer time interval. The Jews are no settlers of colonialism:
http://www.helsinki.fi/~pjojala/Expelled-Jews-statistics.htm
60 years of survival. This is statistics, not Zionism. When the military means have lacked the power, it is now a time of a media war to spit on the Jews and curse the Jewish Scriptures. Both the Old and New Testament were written by Jews. Although Jasser Arafat in his books claimed that there never was any Jewish Temple in Jerusalem and that Jesus was not a Jew, he could not deceive the honest spectator
As a matter of fact, the population of Arabs (my beloved friends and brothers, just like the Jews, our common fathers) under the Israeli government was increased ten-fold (10X) in only 57 years. The Palestinian life expectancy increased from 48 to 72 years in 1967-1995. The death rate decreased by over 2/3 in 1970-1090 and the Israeli medical campaigns decreased the child deat rate from a level of 60 per 1000 in 1968 to 15 per 1000 in 2000. (An analogous figure was 64 in Iraq, 40 in Egypt, 23 in Jordan, and 22 in Syria in 2000). During 1967-1988 the amount of comprehensive schoold and second level polytechnic institutes for the Arabs was increased by 35%. During 1970-1986 the proportion of Palestinian women at the West Bank and Gaza not having gone to school decreased from 67 % to 32 %. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita in West Bank and Gaza increased in 1968-1991 BKT from 165 US dollars to 1715 dollars (compare with 1630$ in Turkey, 1440$ in Tunis, 1050$ in Jordan, 800$ in Syria, 600$ in Egypt. and 400$ in Yemen).
One-fourth of the judgments of the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations strike Israel. Out of the incidences dealt in the Security Council one-third is having to do with Israel. I think this resembles the hysteria seen in the Black Plague in Europe, when the European Jews were accused of the pandemia and burned alive. The phobic mob was really scared and saw the peculiar Jews as a threat.
Pauli.Ojala@gmail.com
Helsinki, Finland
PS. Statistics of the beneficial impact of Jewish population to the host country in terms of inventions, science and technology:
http://www.helsinki.fi/~pjojala/Indicator.html
Posted by: Pauli Ojala | May 17, 2008 1:58 PM