In denial

by Rima Merriman

In a recent letter to a local Arabic daily, the Israeli embassy attempted to address the Jordanian public in the frame of reference Israel has used to push its cause successfully in the West. Had the message used the same terms of reference that Arabs use in thinking about the Palestinians and what Israel is doing to them, it might have had a chance of at least being heard.

The narrative that Israel uses when it addresses Western media is as follows: Israel "gained independence" in 1948 and is a democratic, Jewish state. Since then, it has been under constant and unprovoked attacks by neighbouring Arab states. Israel has agreed to a "roadmap" with the Palestinian National Authority, but Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian president, is not up to the task. Israel must therefore take things into its own hands for its own security, hence the occupation. In this narrative, those in power become the victims.

The narrative Palestinian and other Arab newspapers use regarding Israel is as follows: Israel was established in 1948 as a result of a Zionist colonialist enterprise that expelled 900,000 Palestinians to neighbouring Arab states and depopulated 531 Palestinian villages. In 1937, David Ben Gurion simply and frankly described this enterprise thus: "We must expel Arabs and take their places."

Since then, Israel, using its superior force, has continued with its premeditated colonialist policy at the expense of Palestinians - the 20 per cent second-class citizens in the Jewish state of Israel, the Palestinians under occupation in the West Bank and Gaza and the Palestinian refugees in neighbouring Arab states.

In light of the Arab narrative, there is nothing odd whatsoever in the Arabic newspaper's reference to Bir Al Sabe' as a "Palestinian town occupied since 1948". It isn't so much that the paper has yet to "digest the fact that Israel exists and that Israel has a right to exist", as the Israeli embassy puts it. It is simply defining Israel's existence in the context of the historical rights of Palestinians, rights that Israel has trampled, a history it has largely rewritten.

Similarly, given what Israel has been doing to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza since 2000 - the annexation (effectively) of East Jerusalem, the collective punishments, the targeted murders, the imprisonment of thousands of youths, the tortures, the killing of Palestinian civilians both by Israeli soldiers and so-called settlers, the house demolitions, the razing of land, the destruction of the economy and infrastructure of the West Bank and Gaza, the confiscation of lands, the building of Jewish "settlements", which now circle virtually every Palestinian village and town, the subdivision of the territory, the checkpoints and daily humiliations, the sieges, and the "separation wall" - given all this, the newspaper's writer finds Israeli civilians culpable and their deaths a momentary and slight counterweight on the heavily weighted scales of death and destruction.

The embassy grudges even this small natural satisfaction. It wants to make the Arab narrative out as uncivilised and savage. It professes "shock" and "sadness". It wants to dictate particular descriptive terms and to impose the Israeli narrative over the Palestinian one. The Arabic media must call the suicide bombers, who are martyrs to their families and to Palestinians, "criminals", "destroyers" and "destabilisers". By the same token, it must call Israeli forces "defence" forces.

But what is most disingenuous on the embassy's part is the reference to peace and to Israel's intention to "settle the conflict once and for all". How does Israel intend to do so? By continuing to "disengage" and by "finding a Palestinian partner with whom Israel could sit down and negotiate, someone who would abrogate violence".

Israel has now imprisoned a great number of the Palestinian population, terrorised the rest and murdered the leaders of their organised groups, sowing suspicions and conflicts among the various parties in the process, but it has failed to break their will. It has turned the West Bank and Gaza into many concentration camps. Once it finishes its work, Israel plans to look for a Palestinian who will accept the prison keys and who will go against the will of his people. Where will it find such a person?

This article was published in the Thursday, September 9, 2004 edition of the Jordan Times. It is used here with permission.