Sunday, May 24, 2020

Reply to a Zionist about Palestinian "anti-Normalization"

I do find this issue of "anti-normalization" somewhat interesting.  I wonder how it compares, for example, with the approaches taken by indigenous groups in the USA, who certainly did lose a lot of land from the 1600's to 1900.  However, it is also my understanding that by 1905 such Americans were all officially made US citizens, and following anti-discrimination laws passed in the 1960's, they are legally entitled to buy land anywhere in the USA, just like any other US citizen, and among other activities for which discrimination is legally forbidden among US citizens "regardless of race, religion, ..."  That may not always work, but at least they can take it to court where discrimination of many kinds is supposed to be illegal.

I read a few of the stories that came up in the search you suggest, and then the recent article I've linked at bottom popped up, describing the discriminatory Israeli planning process, which expands Jewish enclaves, but not Palestinian towns, all across Israel and Palestine.  For several decades now I had heard that it was impossible or nearly so for Palestinians in the west bank to buy land or get building permits, while Israeli Jewish West Bank settlements keep expanding, tapping more water sources, and making it necessary for Palestinians to cross checkpoints on foot to go from one Palestinian area to the next, while Israeli Jews drive on freeways above it all.  Noam Chomsky has described the West Bank, a central area of the Palestinian State recognized by about half of the UN countries, but possibly being fully annexed by Israel soon, as increasingly isolated and separated Palestinian "bantustans," separated by Israeli civilian and military settlements and facilities to which Palestinians are not permitted entry.  That is indeed the way it looks on maps I have seen, and I've seen videos of checkpoints on TV.  Many people I read, mostly Jews, use the terms "bantustans" like that, as well as the terms Ethnic Cleansing and Apartheid State.  Some even use and try to justify the term Genocide, whose definition sometimes overlaps Ethnic Cleansing.

In his book, Knowing Too Much, Norman Finkelstein debunks the claim that Palestinians fled their homes in 1948 because of orders given by other Arab countries.  Historians in the early 1960's went through radio archives and could find no evidence of the alleged orders.  In the early 1980's, a expat former Israeli foreign minister wrote a book describing the extensive planning process which had gone into the Palestinian ethnic cleansing in 1948.  As of now, Finkelstein says, the only dispute among serious historians is how much was planned and how much was accidental.  Among the stories I have read, mostly written or spoken by Jewish writers such as Chomsky and Finkelstein, the most authoritative historian of Palestine is said to be Ilan Pappe, whose 2006 book is titled "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine."  He is also an Israeli expat.  Chomsky spent several years in Israel just after it was recognized, but nowadays, like many Jews who say things unacceptable to the Israeli government, has been detained or denied entry.  Another such Jew is Ariel Gold, member of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), who tried to visit Israel a few years ago, but was detained and ultimately had her visa revoked, by the very man who Israel is now sending to be UN Ambassador.

Finkelstein also writes that the arabs of Jordan were primarily nomadic in 1948, whereas the arabs of Palestine had long been settled mostly in towns and villages, where the vast majority have lost their homes and possessions since then.  To this day, there remain Palestinian arabs in refugee camps in several other countries in the middle east, and they get little or no respect from other Arab countries, as well as Israel, just like you say.  Though it may be that disrespect of Palestinians and Palestinian Refugees by other Arab countries is more a matter of government policy than the attitude of Arabs generally ("in the street").  Egypt, and most of the Arab kingdoms are client states of the USA, and seek alignment with US policies, as well as alliances with Israel, which might also be called a client state of the USA, as it accepts US military and diplomatic assistance.  Many people I read feel that Israel (through the Israel Lobby, described in a book of that title by two Jews, Mearshimer and Walt) is the ultimate motivation for US endless wars/regime change operations in the middle east.  Chomsky puts the shoe on the other foot, saying that it is US Military Planning which requires Israel to be protected to continue US hegemony in the region (he has denied the importance of the Israel Lobby).

I first became aware of Palestine in 1969, when the Jewish Communist uncle of a friend of mine started to tell me about the Nabka. Before he could answer my first question, my friend's mother shut him up.  All my other friends in that era (1963-1980) were Jewish also, and over time I some of them questions also, because I wanted to know.  It often didn't end well, and may have been one more brick in the path toward getting a Jewish girlfriend, which did several times seem possible and desirable.  If it hadn't been for Israel, I possibly would have converted to Judaism because of such desires.  I thought about it several times over the decades.  For many years, I subscribed to Rabbi Michael Lerner's Tikkun.  But now I'm quite happy being Unitarian/Freethinker, and reading articles frequently at Mondoweiss...published by yet another Jew.  I discovered Anti-Zionism in 2007 at the US Social Forum, in a seminar hosted by some group similar to JVP.

But don't worry.  Neither Trump nor Biden sees anything good about BDS.  Biden explicitly rejected it recently, though everyone I know believes Americans have free speech rights to boycott anything they choose, especially for political purposes, and some state laws against BDS have been annulled by US courts on this basis.


No comments:

Post a Comment