A future free of ethnocentrism
"The first challenge, then,
is to extract acknowledgement from Israel for what it did to
us...But then, I believe, we must also hold out the possibility
of some form of coexistence in which a new and better life,
free of ethnocentrism and religious intolerance, could be available...If
we present our claims about the past as ushering in a form
of mutuality and coexistence in the future, a long-term positive
echo on the Israeli and Western side will reverberate. "Edward
Said in "The Progressive", March 1998
The answer? A sovereign Palestinian
state.
"The final destination of
a Palestinian-Israeli peace settlement has begun to emerge
from the political haze. Such a settlement must...give the
Palestinian people a sovereign, uncontested, independent state
of their own. This is a matter of justice and practicality.
If a truly lasting and stable peace is the goal, there is no
other option...The mere trappings of statehood will not suffice.
The state has to be real and workable. The following are its
essential conditions.
Territorial integrity and contiguity...Any
further dissection of Palestinian territory would make it politically
and economically impossible to maintain a state...There can
be no civilian pockets under Israeli rule on Palestinian land...
A sovereign capital in Jerusalem.
East Jerusalem is Palestine's historical, spiritual and commercial
heart. To exclude it from a Palestinian state is unthinkable...
"Justice and fairness
for refugees...As a matter of principle, the Palestinians
right to return or be compensated for their lost homes and
land is nonnegotiable...Israel must acknowledge the suffering
and hardship Palestinian refugees have faced as a result
of their eviction from their homeland, and must assist in
their rehabilitation and reabsorption." A.S. Khalidi,
Op-Ed piece in the New York Times, February 11, 1997.
Palestinian refugees claim
to repatriation is realistic, as well as just
Palestinian engineer and parliamentarian
Salman Abu Sitta...(showed) that 'the return of the refugees
is possible with no appreciable dislocation of Jewish residents.'
This is because '78 percent of the Jewish population of Israel
lives on only 15 percent of the land'...
"Ironically, the land in
the upper Galilee from which a very large percentage of the
refugees were driven is so lightly populated because most of
the immigrants [that] settled there refused to remain so far
from the centers of Israeli urban life in Tel Aviv, Haifa and
Jerusalem...Of those actually cultivating those former Palestinian
fields, many are non-Jewish Thais, Rumanians and others slated
to return to their countries at the end of their contracts." Richard
Curtiss from June 2000 issue of "Washington Report On
Middle East Affairs."
Israeli professor calls for
a new Zionism
"It was our nationalism...which
drew the country into an occupation and settlement of the West
Bank...None of the leaders of the Labor movement believed that
the Palestinians deserved the same right [as Jews] because
none of them believed in universal rights. Pretending, like
[Arthur] Hertzberg and others do, that the Occupation and the
colonial situation created in the last thirty years was merely
the product of the Arab refusal to recognize Israel, is no
more than looking for an alibi and falsifying history...
"The time has come to say
that if the settlements in Judea and Samaria or in the very
heart of Hebron are the natural, logical and legitimate continuation
of the original intention of Zionism, then we need another
Zionism. If a 'Jewish State' that does not recognize the absolute
equality of all human beings is considered to be closer to
the spirit of the founding fathers than a new liberal Zionism,
then it is time to say good-bye to the ghosts of the founders,
and to start forging for ourselves an identity detached from
the mystical ramifications of our religion and the irrational
side of our history." Israeli professor of political
science, Ze'ev Sternhell, in "Tikkun", May/June 1998.
Sources for further research
on Palestine and Israel
These short quotes do not, of
course, prove the assertions made here. The historical evidence,
however, is overwhelming and is available in fully documented
form in the books cited. Particularly useful sources are:
For articles from the alternative
and Israeli press, please see ZNet at www.lbbs.org and www.commondreams.org/viewsarchive.htm.
A wealth of information on Palestine/Israel
is to be found at www.geocities.com:0080/CapitolHill/Senate/7891.
Another very useful resource is
the Jewish Voice for Peace. To join their mailing list, e-mail
shlensky@socrates.Berkeley.edu.
Also, the American
Educational Trust, publisher of Washington
Report on Middle East Affairs (a great magazine) has
a large selection of books available. Write for their
free catalog to:
AET, PO Box 53062
Washington, DC 20009.
Our booklet can also be found on the web at www.cactus48.com
