On May 15, 1948, Palestine suffered a near-total existential
disintegration, which tore apart its political, social, economic
and demographic fabric as its people became dispersed to the four
corners of the world. A minority remained on their lands, but the
majority fled or were forced to flee, and are still roaming in
exile in countries far and near, which has created the refugee
problem - one of the most intractable problems in contemporary
history. Sixty years on, generations of Palestinians are enduring
the consequences of the 1948 war, which, far from getting resolved,
are intensifying and threatening the region with the prospect of
renewed conflict.
In the face of a problem of this magnitude, the Palestinians
recognized the imperative of a peace settlement. This option,
however, calls for a reciprocal commitment. The Israeli side still
needs to be convinced that its impressive arsenal and superior
military force will only lead to an aggravation of the situation,
and that erasing the 1948 catastrophe and its aftermath calls for a
just and satisfactory solution to the refugee problem - a solution
predicated on the recognition of the principle of the right of
return for the refugees and their compensation for 60 years of
dispossession and hardship following their forcible removal from
the homes and properties they had inherited from their
forefathers.
In spite of the attempts to relegate the Palestinian question to
oblivion, the memory of the Palestinians remains alive. Sixty years
after the Nakba, Palestinians of all ages and all walks of life are
still holding tenaciously to their national culture and their
collective memory, rejecting any illusory alternatives to a
homeland. They are holding on to their legitimate rights and their
retrieval on the basis of international legitimacy, especially
United Nations Resolutions 242, 338, 181 and 194, among
others.
Debunking a Received Narrative
The occupation of Palestine by the force of arms was accompanied by
an ideological propaganda campaign that set out to propagate a
number of falsehoods: a) that the Palestinians fled their homes of
their own accord; and b) that they fled in response to calls by
some Arab countries whose armies took part in the 1948 war -
allegedly in order to spare the Palestinian population centers from
getting caught in the crossfire.
This narrative devoid of any truth has finally been debunked as
certain historical facts came to light. The most important
refutation came from the New Historians, which has helped counter
the received narrative from within Israeli society itself. These
historians have based their views on newly available archival
material, official records and declassified documents. These
documents formed the blueprints for the policy of ethnic cleansing
of Palestinians in Palestine and the destruction and expulsion
operations that were at the heart of the Zionist colonialist
project to take over Palestine. This picked up speed especially
after the Partition Plan was passed by the UN on November 29, 1947,
and continued throughout the first half of the year 1948. The
rationale was that the realization of the Zionist dream - the
creation of a Jewish state on Palestinian soil - could only be
achieved through the forcible removal of the Palestinian population
through any means.
The flight of the Palestinians in 1948, therefore, did not come at
the behest of Arab countries, but as a result of a well-studied
systematic plan that dates back to the early 1930s, or even before,
and that later evolved into what came to be known as Plan D
(Tochnit Dalet). The strategy behind this plan, according to some
Israelis, was to sow terror among the civilian population in urban
and rural centers to drive them to flee, in order to empty the land
of Palestine of its original inhabitants in preparation for the
establishment of the Jewish state.
A Question of Terminology
A confirmation of this view came in a ground-breaking research1 by
the Israeli New Historian Ilan Pappe. After an in-depth study of
the documents pertaining to the Jewish National Fund (JNF), to
Jewish paramilitary outfits - primarily the Haganah - and the
archives and memoirs of the Zionist command and the political
leadership during the last decades preceding the historic events of
May 1948, Pappe offers evidence that ethnic cleansing was practiced
against the Palestinian population which, judged by today's
international conventions, would constitute a crime against
humanity.
Pappe, as a result, rejects the concept and terminology of Nakba to
describe what happened to the Palestinians in 1948. He contends
that the term nakba refers to the act itself, not to the
actor/perpetrator. Thus, it removes all responsibility from the
side that has committed the act. In other words, nakba can very
well apply to natural catastrophes like earthquakes, volcanic
eruptions, etc., for which only nature can be considered the cause
or, perhaps, a force beyond nature. In the case of ethnic
cleansing, the responsibility reverts solely to the perpetrator,
who is first and foremost the actual decision-taker, acting with
premeditation.
It is because the term is used inaccurately that it has found
acceptance in official Israeli quarters. It constitutes an implicit
exculpation of the perpetrators; they are relieved of the historic
responsibility of the military operations carried out and the
strategies adopted that led to the expulsion of the
Palestinians.
The Road to Peace
Today, on this bit of historic Palestine which is allotted to the
Palestinians, we are engaged in a multifaceted struggle. We are
working for the consolidation of the steadfastness of our people on
their land, and for the solidification our national achievements,
exemplified in the establishment of a national authority on the
land of Palestine, which we strive to turn into an independent
state with East Jerusalem as its capital. Simultaneously, we will
continue our political struggle in the defense of our legitimate
rights: the preservation of the Arabness of East Jerusalem, the
cessation of settlement activities and the construction of the
separation wall, the securing of the right of return for the
refugees, and the ending of the occupation.
Peace cannot remain unattainable forever, and the negotiation
process cannot remain at an impasse forever. Patience with Israel's
evasion and procrastination has its limits, but in countering such
negativism we must scrupulously cleave to the principles of peace
and mutual acceptance. The terrifying alternative can only be a
total collapse of the peace process and the dream of coexistence.
Concurrence on the historical narrative of what took place in 1948,
and an admission of responsibility on the part of the perpetrators,
are the starting point on the road to a just and lasting peace on a
land where all sides have a place.
1 See Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (Oxford:
Oneworld Publications), 2007.
