by Robert Jensen
I was wearing a pro-Palestinian t-shirt; he was wearing a yarmulke. As we
sat at the airport waiting for the same flight, he glanced at my shirt and
asked me to turn so he could read the message: "Palestine -- 50 years of
dispossession, 1948-1998" a shirt produced during Israel's 50th anniversary.
He scowled, and we began talking.
I tried to make sure that two fundamental facts were not lost in the discussion:
The ethnic cleansing of about 700,000 Palestinians in 1948, driven from their
homes by the Israelis during of the birth of that nation in 1948; and Israel's
illegal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, captured during the 1967 war.
He said Arabs want to destroy Israel, and therefore Israel's attacks on Palestinians
are justified. We challenged each other's facts and interpretations. He invoked
God; I cited international law. It was tense, but civil.
Then he suggested that one solution would be for all the Palestinians to
leave and settle in other Arab lands -- the "let them go live with their
own kind" answer. Often called "transfer" or the "Sharon plan," it was once
considered absurd by all but the most reactionary forces in Israel; now it's
increasingly being taken seriously in Israel and the United States.
On the surface, it seems simple to many: The Gaza Strip and West Bank are
relatively small parcels of land -- why fight over them? Why can't Palestinians
just resettle in other Arab nations? If their Arab brothers and sisters truly
cared, wouldn't they take them in?
I offered the man in the airport an analogy. I'm originally from North Dakota,
I explained. Let's say that the Canadians swept down into North Dakota after
a border dispute and captured territory during a war. After occupying the
land for decades and settling Canadians in the most desirable spots and taking
most of the water, let's imagine the Canadians were to suggest that a solution
would be for North Dakotans -- those still living in North Dakota under Canadian
military occupation and those in exile or refugees -- to relocate to South
Dakota.
After all, North Dakota and South Dakota are sparsely populated; there's
plenty of room for all of "them" in one state. The two places share a common
language and a dominant religious tradition. The people are ethnically similar,
coming predominantly from Scandinavian and northern European stock (putting
aside the issue of indigenous people dispossessed and almost exterminated
by the Europeans), and there are no significant cultural differences. They
are pretty much the same people.
So, let the North Dakotans go live with their own kind in South Dakota.
But, of course, that would not solve the problem, because it is not simply
about finding space for people to live. It's about the forced removal of
people from their homes, from land they own and feel connected to, and the
loss of livelihoods. It's about the humiliation of living under military
occupation and having no rights in the face of arrogant soldiers and "settlers,"
a polite term for people brought in illegally to live on someone else's land.
It's about resisting arbitrary authority and force. It's about dignity.
I no longer live in North Dakota, but I can say with confidence that the
people there would not pack their bags and accept such a "solution." They
would resist, as people anywhere would. Some would choose non-violent strategies,
but I suspect a fair number would take up arms. If you repressed the people
long enough, brutally enough, it is not hard to imagine that the people of
North Dakota -- my people -- might even begin attacking and killing Canadian
civilians as a strategy for raising the costs of occupation.
North Dakotans, in other words, might well become terrorists. I would not
support that, but I would understand why it happened.
The man in the airport glared at me and said, "You're a racist."
I don't know what took him from my analogy to that accusation, but it's easy
to speculate he was projecting his own racism; his contempt for Palestinians,
and Arabs more generally, was palpable. This is hardly surprising; just as
some Palestinians and their supporters are anti-Jewish, some Israelis and
their supporters are anti-Arab racists. To acknowledge that doesn't mean
all Israelis are inherently racist or all Arabs are inherently anti-Jewish.
But whatever his individual views, talk of "transfer" -- the suggestion that
Palestinians should abandon their homes and histories -- is racist. The proposal
assumes either that Arabs can pack up and leave without feeling any loss,
or that they feel these things but it doesn't matter. Either way, it is to
treat Arabs as less than fully human.
Using a hypothetical in which one white group displaces another not only
makes the injustice painfully obvious but also shows how some people avoid
acknowledging that injustice by implicitly assuming a lesser status for Palestinians
and Arabs. International law and basic fairness are easily derailed by racism.
Our discussion ended with the man's declaration that I was racist, and we
boarded the plane. I got on first, and a minute later he passed by me on
the way to his seat, looked down, shot me a mocking grin, and walked by.
I sank into my seat feeling defeated -- not because I thought his arguments
were better than mine, but because the argument I had made about the humanity
of the Palestinians didn't seem to matter to him. My sense of defeat was
not about an argument lost, but about the consequences.
Those consequences are clear: So long as Americans ignore these basic issues
about justice, U.S. financial, military, and diplomatic support for Israel
will continue. And as long as the United States supports Israeli expansion
and aggression, there is no hope for an end to the violence.
As I sat there, I could not escape the knowledge that the burdens of our
failures in the United States are borne not by us but by the Palestinians.
--------
Robert Jensen is a professor of journalism at the University of Texas
at Austin, a member of the Nowar
Collective
, and author of the book
Writing Dissent: Taking Radical Ideas from the Margins to the Mainstream
. His pamphlet,
“Citizens of the Empire,”
is available at http://www.nowarcollective.com/citizensoftheempire.pdf.
He can be reached at rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu.