I keep thinking about things that the historian Ilan Pappe said in a forum on Israel/Palestine at Oxford last summer. He said that peace could not be achieved in the Middle East until the three A’s occur: Acknowledgement, Accountability, and Acceptance.
The first A is Acknowledgement of the "Naqba," the catastrophe of 1948 for the Palestinian people. Pappe refers to this as "ethnic cleansing" of the land of Palestine. In which upwards of 700,000 Palestinians lost their homes and country. And he says that the peace process will be barren until this essential step is taken. I completely agree. We have countless memorials to the Jewish Holocaust in this country, and by and large that’s a good thing (though yes the Holocaust is used to assert the necessity of a Jewish state, through the insistence that Jews are unsafe in western liberal democracies). There ought to be wide public recognition of the price of the creation of the Jewish state.
The second A means that the right of return is more than lip service, or a symbol. It means that people who lost their country have a right to return. Pappe says that people object that England could not take in hundreds of thousands of immigrants or guest workers–well, these are not immigrants or guest workers, they lived there. (I’m not as fervent on this point because I’m not well-enough informed).
The third A is Acceptance. The peoples of the Middle East must accept that the Jews who arrived over the last century and more are also people of the Middle East, they live there too. Pappe emphasizes "the Middle East." Israelis are not Americans or Europeans. This is something that struck me when I was in Israel, the insistence that Israel was a western country, or virtually a European country, when it’s 500 miles east of Istanbul. It has no idea where it is. Acceptance means the end of the law of return and in turn of American dual loyalty. I know that Pappe is for a one-state solution; and right now I’m for the two-state peace process. I felt that his Three A’s also apply to the peace process. I’m not going to work out all the contradictions right now!
Related posts:
- Hope in Obama is ‘evaporating’ in the Middle East as the peace process goes nowhere
- Chomsky Says Middle East Should Be Nuke-Free Zone
- a few thoughts ahead of my trip to the Middle East
- Foxman says we don’t want ‘fairness’ in the Middle East
- Blue-Staters, Veterans of Therapy, Say Bush’s Middle East Shenanigans Are ‘Oedipal.’ Actually They’re Political
{ 10 comments }
"We have countless memorials to the Jewish Holocaust in this country."
And I've never understood why we don't have a museum of the horrors of slavery in our nation's capital.
Michael Blaine
http://www.rudelystamped.blogspot.com
Phil, it's "nakba" not "naqba". I hesitate to make such a pedantic point given the consistent generosity of spirit of your posts, but it kind of grates to see it constantly misspelled – as if in the very act of acknowledgement, it gets inadvertently misacknowledged. Arabic does have a Q but it's not used in that word. FWIW, I suspect the Q spelling is from transliteration in Hebrew – it certainly does get used by Israelis fairly often when writing in English.
Thanks TR — I just wanted to say the same thing. Phil, others, thanks for raising consciousness about 1948 and its aftermath — but let's agree to use the correct transliteration of the Arabic term, Nakba.
Otherwise, as ever, an excellent posting from Phil.
The really first A is friendship between the Palestinian and American and Israeli peoples.
The reason that there are ANY US contributed holocaust memorials (few and mostly funded privately) is that there is kinship between US and Israel, real people's families, MANY of them. Real cultural exchange. Real economic interdependance. (Consider that Intel's and others primary research facilities are in Israel, AND include both Israeli and Palestinian colleagues working on technical research questions.)
Palestinian Americans could start a Nakba museum easily. All they need to do is raise the funds, select a designer, research team, museum display design and implementation team.
It should be done, and could be done.
The Palestinian "right of return" will NOT happen in an unlimited manner, as the previous relative safety to Jewish former residents of Arab states (in comparable numbers) will never recur in our lifetimes. There are too many "credible" fatwas and other pronouncements from "respected" Islamic clerics legitimizing the murder and/or suppression of Jews.
A limited right of return should be offered, but for Israeli citizenship, and to those that can prove prior residence.
And, direct and indirect land title claims should be perfected, mostly by compensation, as the current nature of the communities has changed.
Children of children of children have now resided in the current communities.
If you've done an unlimited title search to your new home, you'd note that at some point in the past title was conferred by legislation or colonial grant from the prior native population by force, eventually to you.
I'm sure that you regard your title as valid, and you shouldn't be forced to leave your new home because the title needs to become really clear, and not just legally clear.
A Nakba museum is a reasonable proposal, as long as it is a private effort. From the time of its authorization by Congress, which included some public funding, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has benefitted from an inappropriate level of government involvement.
It appears that the last nine members nominated to the museum's Council by President Bush are likely all Jewish.
http://tinyurl.com/338r73
Is there any other publicly-funded entity whose board is essentially an ethnic enclave? It has the appearance of impropriety. If the museum is not in fact a governmental establishment of religion, it needs more religious diversity on its board. In its own long-term interests, the U.S. Holocaust Museum ought to be fully privatized.
We should remember that Herzl called for the "Jewish State" to be "rampart of Europe against Asia" so it is doubtful that as long as Zionism is the accepted ideology Israel will want to be part of the Middle East, it only wants a part of the Middle East.
As for the comments concerning museums, I've been to both the US Holocaust museum and to Yad Vashem. Both are sobering and experiences and thought provoking. So too will be the one concerning the history of the Jewish people in Poland which is planned for Auschwitz. FYI- the US Congress voted $5 million to help fund the museum by a margin of 407-13 (HR 3320)
Where are the Roma?
The Holocaust Museum in DC was dedicated on rare turf in
1993. The WW2 Museum dedication for our veterans was done in 2004. What does this tell us Åmericans?
Not to mention, there's no museum for the fallen GIs.
"In its own long-term interests, the U.S. Holocaust Museum ought to be fully privatized."
Geez! I thought it was!!
Must US taxpayers fund a reminder to crimes committed by other nations (in this case, Germany)?!!!!
That's outrageous. Certainly we could fund museums of crimes that we Americans have ourselves committed, such as the genocide of Native Americans and the enslavement of Africans?!!
Michael Blaine
http://www.rudelystamped.blogspot.com
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