Contested Land, Contested Memory
Page 31
42. Zochrot leaflet, “Remembering the Nakba in Hebrew” (2005).
43. Aviv Lavie, “Right of Remembrance,” Haaretz, August 12, 2004, www.haaretz.com/right-of-remembrance-1.131326 (accessed August 29, 2011).
44. Talia Fried, in conversation with the author, Tel Aviv, August 2, 2007.
45. Eitan Bronstein, “The Nakba: An Event that Did Not Occur (Although It Had To Occur)” (2004), on Palestine Remembered website, www.palestineremembered.com/Articles/General/Story1649.html (accessed August 29, 2011).
46. Neta Alexander, “Today in Theaters: ‘The Palestinian Nakba’,” in Haaretz, May 15, 2006, www.zochrot.org/en/content/today-theaters-palestinian-nakba (accessed August 29, 2011).
47. In the “Comments” section under Itamar Inbari, “The Palestinian ‘Nakba’ is Coming to the Streets of Israel,” Ma’ariv NRG (May 14, 2007), posted in English at www.nakbainhebrew.org/en/content/palestinian-nakba-coming-streets-israel (accessed May 6, 2013).
48. Shai Greenberg and Neta Ahituv, “Anti-Semites: How Human Rights Activists Become Public Enemies,” Ha’ir [Haaretz Tel-Aviv weekly], December 11, 2009, translated for coteret.com by Didi Remez, http://coteret.com/2009/12/10/israeli-cover-story-antisemites-how-human-rights-activists-become-public-enemies-with-call-for-support/ (accessed August 30, 2011).
49. Zochrot leaflet, “Remembering the Nakba in Hebrew.”
50. Eitan Bronstein, telephone conversation with the author, October 27, 2010.
51. Natan Shalva, “To My Palestinian Neighbours,” www.zochrot.org, May 20, 2010 (accessed June 7, 2011). As Eitan pointed out to me, increasing numbers of young Israelis, including his oldest son, no longer perform their military service. See Moran Zelikovich, “IDF: 50% of Israeli Teens Do Not Enlist,” Ynetnews, July 1, 2008, www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3562596,00.html (accessed August 30, 2011).
52. Zochrot leaflet, “Remembering the Nakba in Hebrew.”
53. Zochrot, “Statement on the Nakba and the Right of Return: International Nakba Day, 15 May 2007,” www.zochrot.org/en/content/statement-nakba-and-right-return (accessed October 17, 2011).
54. Eitan Bronstein, “Position Paper on Posting Signs at the Sites of Demolished Palestinian Villages,” January 2002, www.zochrot.org/en/content/position-paper-posting-signs-sites-demolished-palestinian-villages (accessed August 30, 2011).
55. Norma Musih and Eitan Bronstein, “Thinking Practically About the Return of the Palestinian Refugees,” June 22, 2008, in Sedek: A Journal of the Ongoing Nakba, special translated issue. Online at http://arenaofspeculation.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Sedek-eng-final.pdf.
56. All quotes in this paragraph are from Salim Tamari and Rema Hammami, “Virtual Returns to Jaffa,” Journal of Palestine Studies 27, no. 4 (Summer 1998): 68–69.
57. Mara Ben Dov, Ein Hod, in conversation with the author, August 6, 2007.
58. Ari Shavit, “Survival of the Fittest,” Haaretz, January 9, 2004.
59. “Poll: Most Israeli Jews Believe Arab Citizens Should Have No Say in Foreign Policy,” Haaretz, November 30, 2010, www.haaretz.com/news/national/poll-most-israeli-jews-believe-arab-citizens-should-have-no-say-in-foreign-policy-1.327972 (accessed October 24, 2012).
60. Gideon Levy, “Survey: Most Israeli Jews Wouldn’t Give Palestinians Vote If West Bank Was Annexed,” Haaretz, October 23, 2012, www.haaretz.com/news/national/survey-most-israeli-jews-wouldn-t-give-palestinians-vote-if-west-bank-was-annexed.premium-1.471644?block=true (accessed May 6, 2013).
61. For the poll, see Ynet website, www.ynet.co.il/english/articles/0,7340,L- 3381978,00.html (accessed November 7, 2011). And see Sheera Frenkel, “Vigilantes Patrol For Jewish Women Dating Arab Men,” NPR, October 12, 2009: www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113724468 (accessed October 24, 2012).
62. According to the Jerusalem Post: “The poll asked participants whether as part of an agreement to establish a Palestinian state there would be justification to demand that Arabs with Israeli citizenship relocate to Palestinian territory. Only 24% were totally against the idea. Of the remaining 76%, 29% said all Israeli Arabs should relocate. An additional 19% said only Arabs living in close proximity to the Palestinian state should relocate, and 28% said transfer should be decided based on loyalty or disloyalty to the State of Israel”: Jerusalem Post, March 31, 2008, www.jpost.com/Home/Article.aspx?id=96676 (accessed October 24, 2012).
63. Shlomo Avineri, “From Consensus to Confrontation,” in The Impact of the Six-Day War, ed. Stephen J. Roth (Basingstoke: MacMillan, 1988), 199.
64. Ehud Sprinzak, “The Emergence of the Israeli Radical Right,” Comparative Politics 21, no. 2 (1989): 174.
65. Ken Brown, ‘“Transfer’ and the Discourse of Racism,” Middle East Report 157 (1989): 47.
66. Robert Blecher, “Living on the Edge: The Threat of ‘Transfer’ in Israel and Palestine,” Middle East Report 225 (2002): 23.
67. Ghazi-Bouillon, Understanding the Middle East Peace Process, 96.
68. Ephraim Kleiman, “Khirbet Khiz’ah and Other Unpleasant Memories,” Jerusalem Quarterly 40 (1986). All quotes in this paragraph are from p. 107.
69. Ibid., 112.
70. Ibid., 118.
71. Amaya Galili, in conversation with the author, Tel Aviv, October 2, 2008.
CHAPTER NINE: Histories Flowing Together
1. Dahoud Badr, in conversation with the author, al-Ghabsiya and al-Shaykh Danun, October 12, 2008.
2. Zochrot leaflet, “Remembering the Nakba in Hebrew,” (2005).
3. Benny Morris, in conversation with the author, Jerusalem: October 7, 2008.
4. Yossi Beilin, “Solving the Refugee Problem,” December 13, 2001, in The Best of Bitterlemons: Five Years of Writings from Israel and Palestine, ed. Yossi Alpher, Ghassan Khatib, and Charmaine Seitz (Jerusalem: bitterlemons.org, 2007). Available at www.bitterlemons.org.
5. “Achieving our Fundamental Aspirations: A Conversation with Yasser Abed Rabbo,” October 27, 2003, in The Best of Bitterlemons: Five Years of Writings from Israel and Palestine, ed. Yossi Alpher, Ghassan Khatib, and Charmaine Seitz, (Jerusalem: bitterlemons.org, 2007). Available at www.bitterlemons.org.
6. Yossi Beilin, “Solving the Refugee Problem.”
7. Akiva Eldar, “The Refugee Problem at Taba: Interview with Yossi Beilin and Nabil Sha’ath, the Main Palestinian and Israeli Negotiators at the Taba Conference of January 2001,” Palestine-Israel Journal 9, no. 2 “Right of Return” (2002): www.pij.org/details.php?id=160.
8. Ibid.
9. Uzi Benziman, “Fear and Loathing,” Haaretz, October 12, 2001, www.haaretz.com/fear-and-loathing-1.71763.
10. Ian S. Lustick, “Negotiating Truth: The Holocaust, Lehavdil, and al-Nakba” in Exile and Return: Predicaments of Palestinians and Jews, ed. Ann M. Lesch and Ian S. Lustick (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005), 111. Courtesy of University of Pennsylvania Press.
11. Ibid., 111.
12. Ibid., 127.
13. Nira Yuval Davis, in conversation with the author, London, U.K.: October 13, 2010.
14. See “Pulled apart: A City of Arabs and Jews Is Being Pulled Apart by the Government’s Attitude,” The Economist, October 14, 2010, www.economist.com/node/17254422 (accessed September 2, 2011).
15. On Kfar Shalem’s struggle, see Meron Rapoport, “Suddenly They Are Called ‘Squatters’,” Haaretz, July 15, 2007, www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/881760.html, and Meron Rapoport, “Police Finish Evacuation of Kfar Shalem Residents in South T.A.,” Haaretz, December 25, 2007, www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/938179.html (accessed September 2, 2011). For “More homes were demolished in 2009,” see Yudit Ilany, “Housing Demo in Kfar Shalem (Salameh),” Occupied blog, August 30, 2009, http://yuditilany.blogspot.ca/2009/08/housing-demo-in-kfar-shalem-salameh.html (accessed September 5, 2011).
16. See Rachel Shabi, We Look Like the Enemy: The Hidden Story of Israel’s Jews from Arab Lands (New York: Walker and Co, 2000), 200.
17. Palestinian Israelis had not been given access to Jewish
Israeli labour market under military administration — these restrictions, relaxed in the 1950s, were gone in 1966. For more on the political dynamics of Mizrahi voting patterns, see Gershon Shafir and Yoav Peled, Being Israeli: The Dynamics of Multiple Citizenship (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 89–94.
18. Tracy Levy, “After 20 Years, Why Has Russian Immigration to Israel Stagnated?” Haaretz, September 10, 2009, www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/2.209/after-20-years-why-has-russian-immigration-to-israel-stagnated-1.8125 (accessed April 10, 2013). This wave of immigration after the collapse of the Soviet Union has significantly affected Israel’s demography: the new arrivals now make up about one-seventh of the population. Around three-quarters are Jewish: of these, 80 percent are Ashkenazi. Yehuda Dominitz, former director general of the Jewish Agency’s department of immigration and absorption, stated that “the start of the Soviet Jewish exodus to Israel was considered an historic opportunity to increase the Jewish population of Israel, build the nation and strengthen Israel’s social fabric and cultural foundations,” in Shafir and Peled, Being Israeli, 310. Generally, Russian immigrants tend to be politically conservative, and they are hawkish around the Arab/Israeli conflict and the return of the Occupied Territories. See further ibid., 318, 319.
19. Gideon Levy, “Survey: Most Israeli Jews Wouldn’t Give Palestinians Vote If West Bank Was Annexed,” Haaretz, October 23, 2012, www.haaretz.com/news/national/survey-most-israeli-jews-wouldn-t-give-palestinians-vote-if-west-bank-was-annexed.premium-1.471644?block=true (accessed May 6, 2013).
20. Carlo Strenger, “The Peace Process as Therapy for Israel, Palestinians,” Haaretz, March 3, 2010, www.haaretz.com/blogs/strenger-than-fiction/the-peace-process-as-therapy-for-israel-palestinians-1.264068 (accessed September 5, 2011).
21. See Issam Nassar, “The Trauma of al-Nakba: Collective Memory and the Rise of Palestinian National Identity,” in Trauma and Memory: Reading, Healing and Making Law, ed. Austin Sarat, Nadav Davidovitch, and Michal Alberstein (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007).
22. Rory McCarthy, “UN Presses for Prosecutions in Damning Report of Hamas and Israel Conduct,” The Guardian, September 15, 2009, www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/15/israel-blamed-for-gaza-war-crimes (accessed September 5, 2011).
23. James Hider, “Israel Threatens to Unleash ‘Holocaust’ in Gaza,” The Times, March 1, 2008, www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article 3459144.ece (accessed September 5, 2011).
24. Etgar Lefkovits, “Overwhelming Israeli Support of Gaza Op,” Jerusalem Post, January 14, 2009: www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=129307 (accessed September 5, 2011).
25. Avigail Abarbanel, “Survival Instinct or Jewish Paranoia?” The Electronic Intifada, January 18, 2009. Transcript by Eyal Niv and translation by Tal Haran of January 11, 2009 radio broadcast, http://electronicintifada.net/content/survival-instinct-or-jewish-paranoia/7991 (accessed August 30, 2011).
26. Avraham Burg, The Holocaust Is Over; We Must Rise from its Ashes, 2008, PALGRAVE MACMILLAN®, 209. Reproduced with permission of Palgrave Macmillan.
27. Ibid. This and the following quote are from page 17.
28. Ibid., 23.
29. Ibid. This and the following quote are from page 154.
30. Yshay Shechter, in conversation with the author, Bat Yam: October 8, 2008.
31. Marzuq Halabi, in conversation with the author, Haifa: October 3, 2008.
32. See Eviatar Zerubavel, Time Maps: Collective Memory and the Social Shape of the Past (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), 105.
33. Anita Shapira, “Hirbet Hizah: Between Remembrance and Forgetting,” Jewish Social Studies 7, no. 1 (Fall 2000): 2. Courtesy of University of Indiana Press.
34. Zerubavel, Time Maps, 100.
35. Ari Shavit, “Cry, the Beloved Two-State Solution,” Haaretz, August 8, 2003, http://www.haaretz.com/cry-the-beloved-two-state-solution-1.96411 (accessed April 10, 2013).
36. Edward Said, “Afterword: The Consequences of 1948,” in The War for Palestine, 2nd edition, ed. Eugene L. Rogan and Avi Shlaim, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 260.
37. Amos Schocken, “Toward the Next 60 Years,” Haaretz, August 27, 2007, www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/850285.html.
38. Conversation with Barbara Schmutzler, Jerusalem, September 20, 2008.
39. Zochrot leaflet, “Remembering the Nakba in Hebrew.”
40. Shavit, “Cry, the Beloved Two-State Solution.”
41. Muhammad Abu al-Hayyja, in conversation with the author, Ayn Hawd, October 15, 2008.
Glossary
Ashkenazi (Hebrew) Ashkenazi Jews are descended from Jewish communities in Central and Eastern Europe.
binational state One state for two distinct peoples.
bustan (Hebrew) Orchard, or grove of trees; pl. bustanim.
dunam (Arabic, Hebrew) Unit of land measurement in the Levant. A dunam equals one thousand square metres or approximately one-quarter of an acre.
Eretz Israel (Hebrew) “The Land of Israel.” The term has a strong Zionist resonance; it may refer either to land under Israel’s current control, including the West Bank, or to “Greater Israel,” the much larger territories of the Biblical past.
Etzel Right-wing Zionist paramilitary group in Mandate Palestine, responsible for blowing up the King David Hotel in 1946 and (with Lehi) the Deir Yassin massacre in 1948.
fellahin (Arabic) Peasant farmers.
grush (Turkish, Arabic, Hebrew) Smallest coin in use in Ottoman Palestine and British Mandate Palestine, and during the first years of the Israeli state.
Haganah Militia of the Yishuv in Mandate Palestine.
hamula (Arabic) Extended family, or clan.
Hezbollah Anti-Zionist organization in Lebanon with both paramilitary and political wings.
IDF Israel Defence Forces.
ILA Israel Land Administration, the government agency managing the 93 percent of Israel’s land that is owned by the state.
Intifada (Arabic) Literally, “uprising” or “shaking off.” Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza have twice risen up against the occupying Israeli forces: the First Intifada (1987–93) was primarily nonviolent, with mass boycotts and general strikes, while the Second Intifada (2000–05) also involved armed attacks and suicide bombings in Israel.
Jewish Israeli A Jewish citizen of Israel.
JNF Jewish National Fund, the agency responsible for Jewish settlement and land development in Mandate Palestine; their work today includes development, afforestation, and water conservation. Known in Hebrew as Keren Kayemet Le-Yisrael (KKL).
Judenrat (German) Jewish councils formed under Nazi coercion to manage Jewish populations in occupied Europe.
kaffiyeh (Arabic) Traditional headscarf worn by men in Arab countries, especially in more arid regions.
kibbutz (Hebrew) Communal or collective farming settlement. A Kibbutz member is a kibbutznik.
KKL See JNF.
Knesset (Hebrew) Israel’s legislature.
Levant The region of lands bordering the eastern Mediterranean.
Mizrahi (Hebrew) Mizrahi Jews are descended from Jewish communities in predominantly Muslim countries.
MK Member of the Knesset.
Moshav (Hebrew) Co-operative farming settlement of individual smallholdings.
Moshava (Hebrew) Rural settlement of privately owned lands.
Mossad Israel’s Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations.
Palestinian Israeli An Israeli citizen of Palestinian-Arab descent.
Palmach The elite brigades of the Haganah.
pogrom (Russian) Lethal mob violence, generally against Jews, to which the authorities turned a blind eye. (The term was originally used to describe attacks on Jews that took place in the Russian Empire in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.)
sabra1 (Hebrew, derived from Arabic) “Prickly pear” cactus native to the region.
Sabra2 A Jew born in Israel (or Mandate Palestine). “Sabra” spec
ifically refers to those of the second generation, born in Mandate Palestine and socialized into the Zionist labour culture, who helped shape the new state. Named after the sabra cactus.
Sephardi (Hebrew) Sephardi Jews are descended from Jews who lived in Spain and Portugal before the 1492 and 1497 expulsions; the term now commonly refers to Jews following the Sephardic rite of liturgy (as distinct from the Ashkenazi rite). This includes many Mizrahi Jews.
Siyag (Hebrew; “siyaj” in Arabic) Literally, “enclosure.” Area of the northeastern Negev where Bedouin have been resettled.
shtetl (Yiddish) Town; usually refers to Orthodox Jewish communities in the Pale of Settlement in eastern Imperial Russia, outside which Jews were forbidden to live.
wadi (Arabic) Natural watercourse that is dry except during the rainy season.
yeshiva (Hebrew) Institution for the study of Hebrew scripture.
Yishuv (Hebrew) The Jewish community in Mandate Palestine.
About the Author
Trained in her native England as a lawyer and anthropologist, Jo Roberts is now a freelance writer. For five years she was managing editor of the New York Catholic Worker newspaper, to which she frequently contributed. Her reportage from Israel and from the West Bank has appeared in Embassy, Canada’s foreign policy weekly. She lives in Toronto, Canada.
For further information about this book, and for book club materials, please go to Contested Land, Contested Memory at http://joroberts.org.
Photo by An₫elka Rudić
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