Being Palestinian: I Complain, Therefore I Am

[cali]

Laila El-Haddad writing from Gaza City, Occupied Palestine, Live from Palestine, 28 April 20

I'm fairly certain I exist.

Descartes tells me so, and before him, Ibn Sina. And when my son drags me out of bed to play with him in the pre-dawn hours, I really know I do.

So you can imagine how distraught I was when my existence was cast into serious doubt by a major airline.

After booking a flight online with British Airways out of Cairo (the nearest accessible airport for Palestinians here, eight hours and a border crossing away from Gaza), I attempted to enter my "passenger details", including country of citizenship and residence.

<snip>

http://www.indybay.org/news/2006/04/1818532.php

I thought this was a beautifully written little piece that neatly encapsulates the frustration and ironies of being a person without a country,

It leads me to ask what may be a naive question: How come the world can't recognize Palestine as a sovereign nation, consisting of x,y and z, with borders to be determined at a later date?

[xchrom]

1. ironic indeed that palestinians

have to reaffirm to themselves that they are.

great article.

[Fredda Weinberg]

2. Because it never was

It could be, but the world will not recognize a state born with the determination to exterminate a neighbor. All Hamas has to do is accept the commitments previous governments have made and we'd see progress.

Modern Palestine would be born from the remains of the TransJordan mandate on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which was once managed by Egypt. It's not like you had a Palestinian people who recognized themselves as sovereign nation - rather, it's been an Arab nation splintering and re-assembling in the wake of the fall of the Ottoman empire.

On the other side, you have the Jewish people, who despite our differences recognize our nationality and need for solidarity. Israel could surrender the Sinai for peace with Egypt - and would concede territory again. But there hasn't been a negotiating partner on the Palestinian side, so the current sentiment is for unilateral action, hence the rise of the Kadima party.

I allowed myself some hope after Hamas won the elections from Fatah - but apparently, the Palestinians will once again allow an opportunity slip away.

[kenny blankenship]

3. Interesting choice of words: that's exactly what Israel has done

EXACTLY--a state born with the determination to exterminate a neighbor.

[Fredda Weinberg]

4. Nonsense

Israel has a peace treaty with Egypt and an understanding with Jordan. She's complied with all UN mandated withdrawals in the Golan Heights. She's never fought an unprovoked war.

When the United States allows native Americans to keep standing armies and make their own foreign policies, I'll take that kind of crap from someone who probably couldn't find Israel on a map.

[kenny blankenship]

5. Sorry but the past is clear and the present is clear.

Israel means the end of the Palestinian people they invaded. So much so that we see stories like the subject of this thread.

"I don't understand your optimism. Why should the Arabs make peace? If I were an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country. Sure, God promised it to us, but what does that matter to them? Our God is not theirs. We come from Israel, it's true, but two thousand years ago, and what is that to them? There has been anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that?"

--David Ben Gurion, The Jewish Paradox: A Personal Memoir by Nahum Goldmann

[Fredda Weinberg]

6. I love quotations out of context

It means you don't have a valid argument to make.

But I see your hostility - it's not amenable to reason or reality. Like Ben Gurion, I'm capable of seeing both sides of a conflict ... someday, I hope you evolve to that level of intellect.

[kenny blankenship]

8. "We stole their land" --David Ben-Gurion, "because it never was" --you

that's as basic a context as could be stated, and those are the words of the founder of Israel not mine. And that "because it never was" are your words and also put by you in as categorical in context as they could possibly be. "Never" is a context without limit.

I love how NOW you pretend to be seeing both sides of a conflict! Just a second ago you were repeating categorical denunciations of the Palestinian people and sounding your approval of their effacement from the world.

How noble of you. How broadminded. You can indeed see both sides--or at least present matters and yourself in two different, totally contradictory ways almost simultaneously.

[Fredda Weinberg]

9. Ben Gurion puts you to shame

He was seeing himself as his enemies saw him - you took his words out of context and try to condemn him with own humanity. How beastly of you - and sad.

Jews founded a modern nation because we saw that we needed it for our own protection - the Palestinians have the same opportunity, but must conform to the world's standard of diplomatic conduct. The difference is, even without a country, we've remained a cohesive nation and have been capable of reigning in our own extreme elements. That's how the Irgun became subservient to the Israeli army.

Of course the Israeli/Palestinian issue has two contradictory sides - neither I nor Ben Gurion expect the Arabs to recognize our equality ... Jews have always co-existed with Muslims with a subservient status. I'm surprised that Americans haven't yet figured out that the same bigotry exists towards Christians.

[kenny blankenship]

11. How beastly & sad he & others stole a country, "exterminating a neighbor"

And to be fair, Europeans invading and colonizing Palestine, killing the indigenous people and putting them into pens to live (or rather to die), is just as beastly and sad no matter what religion they call themselves.

When Israel retreats to borders that could recognized as legal by the U.N. then I'll listen to nonsense about how Israel abides by U.N. declarations and the Palestinians don't, and how Israel conforms to the "world's standard of diplomatic conduct" and the Palestinians don't.

"Because it never was"is the excuse made by every imperialist colonizing invader from age to age..."We landed on the shore and found no country--there never was a country here, only people living in huts". It's an excuse frequently made by master-race theorists, and slave traders, and it has gotten no better with age.

[Fredda Weinberg]

12. You can't steal what the UN recognized

You don't have to listen - Israel exists because of irrational hostility like yours. Had the Europeans been civilized, there would have been no modern state of Israel and Jews would have continued to live under Arab governance.

The modern state of Israel will not retreat, but has demonstrated that she will negotiate land for peace. As for your inability to see both sides of a contradiction, there's nothing left for me to attempt. You may enjoy the last word - I'm done.

[cali]

7. Not only is the past not clear, it's fair to say

that in regards to this conflict, it's never clear. Simplistic pronouncements don't make it any clearer. Go back, for instance to 1948, when the Israelis accepted the UN mandate to create two countries, and the other parties did not. There really are valid arguments that both sides can make. A refusal to acknowledge that doesn't make it any less true.

[azurnoir]

13. This will

will get me flamed called an anti-semite (your more wrong then I care to tell you) however isn't it a little more correct to say that Palestinians are the people who stayed in Palestine after the Roman Diaspora? They were in fact Jews at that time. Then christians, then Islamic as conquerers changed? That in the late 19th century Jewish settlers started returning and "reclaiming" land , yes most of it was swamp land and gee they weren't doing anything with it. That until the partition of Palestine in 1948(it was only trans-jordan after ww1 when the brits won it from the ottoman-turks) and Tran-Jordan was a colonial name used by the brits. But to say this is our land you, can go now is rather racist(?) and to a great degree not dis-similar from what europeans did to american indians? But these "natives" had the gall to fight back. In short the Israeli position on Palestinian is little different from the reverse. The major difference being that Israel has the backing of our government ie Bush-Cheney and co. (as have all US government prior to this one) and that support was born of guilt for doing nothing to stop or tacitly supporting the Holocaust. It is not as simple as we're(Israelis or Jews) the good guys and they're the bad. To say these people never had a country is ridiculous and bigoted. But as public opinion is on our side we'll run with it . Finally my father is a Jew, I was raised in that faith, I'm sorry but me your comments show that our people are dangerously close to becoming the very thing we sought to escape.



edited for spelling

[cali]

14. nah, nothing anti-semitic about what you wrote

but it is simplistic and you didn't use paragraph breaks.

[azurnoir]

15. Shaky capitalization and punctuation

too. To go into full detail would be way too long a post. I was addressing the "they never had a country" part. It could be said that the Palestinians ar the most illused people in the world. Thy did not decide to fight the newly born Israel in a vacuum, they were incited by mullahs mostly from other arab countries possibly of same ilk as the ones that incited the "cartoon riots" and then abandoned when they lost. Since then they have been treated as a political football by other arabs and those that leave for other arab countries often wind up in the lowest rungs of society no matter what they were prior.







hit post instead of spell check

[Igel]

18. Part true, part false.

Some Jews stayed behind; there were, of course immigrants, there is nothing like poor farmers escaping difficulties to show that productive land abhors a population vacuum. Arabs, for example; Bedouins, as another example. Some Jews stayed faithful; there has always been a Jewish presence in that part of the Mediterranean litoral. The Ottomans liked moving people around, it kept their propensity to unite and challenge them to a minimum--long-standing Horde behavior, picked up by Ivan IV, and emulated by the Turks.

"Reclaiming" frequently meant "thinking they were buying what the seller didn't own", although sometimes he did own it, but still wasn't allowed to sell it. Ottoman laws involving non-Muslims were, well, Byzantine and not very 'just'. And if they got too much land the local peace-loving fedayeen would engage in butt-kicking. Sometimes their butts were kicked in return. Kicking dhimmi butt is the way things should be; getting your butt kicked is grounds for generations of humiliation and insult. It escalated. If you have nothing that provides honor, it's easier to blame others for humiliation than suck it up.

To say the Palestinians never had a country is not ridiculous, provided a modicum of good will is used in understanding how quantification is going. The Poles sometimes had a country. The Sorbs in Germany have also never had a country, as we understand 'country' today; neither have the Moravians in the Czech Republic (discounting Samo). This is not to say they were not and aren't citizens of a country; it's to say they've never had the Democratic Sorbian Socialist Republic or the Republic of Moravia. In other words, "The Palestinians don't have a country" is at least three-ways ambiguous and shouldn't be read to assert that "Palestinians belong to no country" but "No country belongs to the Palestinians".

[enigma000]

10. an answer to your question

It leads me to ask what may be a naive question: How come the world can't recognize Palestine as a sovereign nation, consisting of x,y and z, with borders to be determined at a later date?

Has a Palestinian leader ever declared a sovereign Palestine? Did Arafat, with all his visits to foreign capitals, ever declare Palestinian statehood? Would not more countries recognize a Palestinian state in 48 hours than have recognized Israel in 58 years?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but do Palestinians even want a country? If you want a country, tell the world you are one. Then act that way.

[dajudem]

17. I would like to see the world give a state

to the Kurdish people of the middle east. The Kurds are occupied by Turkey, Iran and were by Iraq as well. They are a people who have shown they appreciate that America protected them from Saddam by creating a no-fly zone and actually putting soldiers in harm's way to liberate them. The Kurds are as old as any culture in the area and furthermore they are mostly Muslim. Yet I never hear a peep out of anyone to give these guys a state. Could it be that they should start strapping on bombs and taking on the neighbors' women and kids' like the Palestinians do? What gives?

[dajudem]

16. Life isn't fair...

Have you ever taken a look at the map of the Arabs?

Here's one:

www.mughamrat.com/ images/map_arab_world.jpg

Talk about non-existence. Can you find Israel on this map?