Israel’s 60th Birthday

What’s the BBC’s ‘Birthday’ present to Israel? A stream of propaganda following a story thats Israeli driven. Not content with 3 other, Israeli directed, Storyville documentaries (watch here), a birthday radio show (featuring 4 Israelis with one token Israeli Arab and zero Palestinians) and birthday articles (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, etc) the BBC has gone a step further and commissioned this 60 minute film. By Jeremy Bowan, it details the founding of the State of Israel. To be fair to the BBC, the events surrounding the founding of the State of Israel are immensely interesting and have had important repercussions in the world at large. However it’s instructive that this documentary is called ‘The Birth of Israel’ and not for example ‘The Nakba’ - we get an idea of the focus from the start. In fact we might ask where all the Nakba articles (1?), audio and films are? Is it sufficient that it just happens to get a small mention in amongst all this ‘birthday’ nonsense?

Although this film is good in many places, covering the massacre of Deir Yassin for example, overall it fails to place the responsibility of the conflict firmly in the hands of the Israelis and Europeans. It fails to present the Palestinians as the victims of Zionist colonialism which was approved of by the Europeans because of guilt from the Holocaust and because 60 years ago the idea of colonialism, ‘civilised’ Europeans settling land that native ‘barbarians’ are wasting, was still acceptable. Time and again Israelis under interview blame the conflict on the Palestinians for not accepting the 1947 UN partition plan, where the UN carved up the land of Palestine and gave much of it to the colonialists. In the 21st century we should by now understand that the UN had no right to give away another mans home, the Zionists were incorrect in thinking they could colonise another peoples country and that resistance to this dispossession was legitimate. What nation would accept its land being given away to immigrants by the UN? Especially with such a bad deal: Israelis owning 10% of the land but getting 50% while only accounting for only 33% of the total population.

Counting the number of Israelis interviewed we find there were 11 with 10 Palestinians representatives. The number of times they appeared differs more: Israelis appearing 30 times and Palestinians 22. In a 60 minute film this approximately translates to about 8 minutes (15%) more air time. Personally I don’t believe balance is about giving both sides equal time - I follow Robert Fisks example of giving more time to the victims no matter who they are. In the ‘birth’ of Israel the victims were the Palestinian natives: 700,000 of whom were ethnically cleansed and many men, women and children were brutally massacred. This crime has continued as although under international law refugees have a Right of Return this has been denied. And Palestinians that remain in Israel and the Occupied Territories live in Apartheid conditions. Therefore its significant that they are not given priority.

The other big issue I have with the film is its failure to convey the true nature of a Two State solution. Israeli colonialism has continued with the illegal gaining of territory through military force in 1967. It is by now clear the continued Israeli rejection of peace for expansion and settlement of the Occupied Territories has led to a situation where a Two State solution is now unworkable. Only a One State solution where Israelis and Palestinians have equal rights and share the land will provide any meaningful resolution to the regions problems. The idea of a predominatly Jewish State is non-inclusive and racist, it can only be maintained through further ethnic cleansing and apartheid.

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“We committed Nazi acts.” Aharon Zisling, Israel’s first Agriculture Minister

“There is no doubt that many sexual atrocities were committed by the attacking Jews. Many young (Arab) girls were raped and later slaughtered. Old women were also molested.” General Richard Catling, British Army Assistant Inspector after interrogating several female survivors (The Palestinian Catastrophe, Michael Palumbo, 1987)

The following article is by Khalid Amayreh from The Voice of Palestine. (thanks Ann)

As the evil state of Israel is celebrating sixty years of ethnic cleansing and atrocities against the native Palestinians, many people around the world, especially young generations, will not be fully aware of the manner in which Israel came into existence. Similarly, the younger Zionist generations who don’t stop calling their Palestinian victims “terrorists” should have a clearer idea about Israel’s manifestly criminal past which Zionist school textbooks shamelessly glamorize and glorify

Prior to “Jewish” statehood, three main Jewish terror organizations operated in Palestine, primarily against Palestinian civilians and British mandate targets. The three were: The Haganah, the Zvei Leumi or Irgun and the Stern Gang. The Haganah (Defence) had a field army of up to 160,000 well-trained and well-armed men and a unit called the Palmach, with more than 6,000 terrorists. The Irgun included as many as 5,000 terrorists, while the Stern Gang included 200-300 dangerous terrorists.

The following are merely some examples of Zionist terrorism prior to the creation of the Zionist state in 1948: The list doesn’t include the bigger massacres such as Dir Yasin, Dawaymeh, Tantura and others.

1937-1939

During this period, Zionist terrorists carried out a series of terror attacks against Palestinian buses resulting in the death of 24 persons and the wounding of 25 others.

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Edith Garwood - “Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations fail because the root problem has not been addressed”

Sixty years ago, more than 700,000 Palestinians were forced from their homes, not knowing where they were going, not knowing when they would return. This displacement of over half of the indigenous inhabitants of Palestine created the largest and oldest refugee population today and is the root of the Israel-Palestinian conflict. This tragedy is called Al Nakba in Arabic.

We are often told the Palestinians fled of their own accord, but British and Israeli archives opened in the late 1970s tell a different story. The indigenous Arabs — Muslim, Christian, secular — were systematically driven out of areas desired for a new Jewish state.

Jews fleeing anti-Semitism in Europe started migrating to Palestine in the mid-19th century. The United Nations, attempting to quell conflicts between indigenous inhabitants and the new immigrants, proposed dividing the area.

Jewish immigrants accepted it, but the Arab side rejected it as unjust as it gave 55 percent of the land to the new immigrants while they were only one-third of the population and owned only 7 percent of the land at the time.

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From the Electronic Intifada (thanks Mary!)

The 12 March cartoon by South African cartoonist Zaprio that was later attacked by David Saks of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies and which sparked debate in the country.

As a 10-year-old growing up in Johannesburg, I celebrated Israel’s birth, 60 years ago. I unquestionably accepted the dramatic accounts of so-called self-defensive actions against Arab violence, to secure the Jewish state. The type of indoctrination South African cartoonist Zapiro so bitingly exposes in his work, raising the hackles of scribes such as David Saks of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies. When I became involved in our liberation struggle, I became aware of the similarities with the Palestinian cause in the dispossession of land and birthright by expansionist settler occupation. I came to see that the racial and colonial character of the two conflicts provided greater comparisons than with any other struggle. When Nelson Mandela stated that we know as South Africans “that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians,” [1] he was not simply talking to our Muslim community, who can be expected to directly empathize, but to all South Africans precisely because of our experience of racial and colonial subjugation, and because we well understand the value of international solidarity.

When I came to learn of the fate that befell the Palestinians, I was shaken to the core and most particularly when I read eye-witness accounts of a massacre of Palestinian villagers that occurred a month before Israel’s unilateral declaration of independence. This was at Deir Yassin, a quiet village just outside Jerusalem, which had the misfortune to lie by the road from Tel Aviv. On 9 April 1948, 254 men, women and children were butchered there by Zionist forces to secure the road. Because this was one of the few such episodes that received media attention in the West, the Zionist leadership did not deny it, but sought to label it an aberration by extremists. In fact, however, the atrocity was part of a broader plan designed by the Zionist High Command, led by Ben Gurion himself, which was aimed at the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the British mandate territory and the seizure of as much land as possible for the intended Jewish state.
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In 1974, John Pilger made the film ‘Palestine Is Still The Issue’. It was about a nation of people - the Palestinians - forced off their land and later subjected to a military occupation by Israel. An occupation condemned by the United Nations and almost every country in the world, including Britain.

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I discovered this group through a rather biased article in the Philadelphia Daily News. The paper described in detail the suffering of Israeli civilians during the July War in 2006. Why only the Israel suffering? It was horrific - but a response to the Israeli bombing of civilian areas in Lebanon. With all of Lebanon destroyed the significant part of the story is missing e.g. Hezbollah fired about 4,000 rockets at Israel while 2 - 3 million cluster bombs alone were fired on Lebanon and apparently 7,000 rockets (that “hit a target” - probably 300 Hezbollah rockets hit a target at most). For more statistics see here.

I’m really impressed by this Nakba groups activities and will follow their blog to report more.

Philly Remembers Al-Nakba

This spring marks the 60th anniversary of Al-Nakba, Arabic for “the catastrophe,” the little known side of Israel’s creation that drove over 700,000 Palestinians into exile, massacred civilians, and razed hundreds of Palestinian villages. In Philadelphia, a coalition of Palestinian support groups and peace organizations is responding to the call made at last year’s US Social Forum for 60 days of action to coincide with and counter “Israel 60″ celebrations.Philly’s Palestine solidarity movement insists Al-Nakba not be forgotten with a series of events nearly every day from March 17th to May 18th. Our intention is to raise awareness of the past 60 years from the Palestinians’ perspective, and to mobilize people against the occupation. Billions of our tax dollars each year go to the Israeli military, funding the destruction of lives, homes, agriculture, and infrastructure. At the same time, people in the U.S. — including Philadelphians — face crises around health-care, housing and education. The Al-Nakba Coalition believes that federal taxes need to come home to support our communities instead of a militarized foreign policy in Palestine, Iraq and around the world.

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