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As the heavy shadow of the 1948 Nakba
hovers and recedes over the narrow alleyways of refugee camps
and Diaspora communities this week, Palestinians remain at Israel's
whim to starve, die, or become displaced and divided.
Subdued commemorations are
happening all over the rocky hillsides of occupied Palestine;
there are the throngs of children waving the colorful and banned
Palestinian flag which whips in the hot springtime wind, the
busloads of people trying to travel to city centers to hear stories
of the Nakba, only to be stopped at checkpoints and ordered back
to their dusty refugee camps and shrinking villages. 58 years
after the Zionist militias lay siege to over 450 Palestinian
towns and villages, Palestinian refugees are still waiting, holding
the iron keys that unlock the doors to homes that no longer exist.
Palestinian historian and researcher
Dr. Ghada Karmi remarked, "Israel is 58 years old today.
Israelis have already celebrated with barbecues and parties.
And so they should, for they've pulled off an amazing stunt:
the creation of a state for one people on the land of another
- and at their massive expense - without incurring effective
sanction." Indeed, as the illegal apartheid wall snakes
through the West Bank, as the settlement colonies expand and
cascade down the valleys, as Gaza continues to absorb the psychic
weight of 1.4 million Palestinians, hungry and dying and becoming
angrier each day, it is as if Israel's smirk grows wider and
more toothy--for 58 years and counting, they have gotten away
with it and assembled a fun-house mirror alternate reality to
show to the world. Ignore the torture in the prisons. Disregard
the human rights abuses. Pay no attention to the illegal settlement
expansion. Don't ask about the secret nuclear weapons program.
Nevermind the apartheid social policies. Overlook the land theft.
Forget about the home demolitions. After all, this is just for
security reasons. And you--the Jewish American, the Jewish Russian,
the Jewish Canadian, here's your state. It's malleable, it's
soft, it's yours. It's all for you. Look what we've built in
your honor.
As a Jewish American, I do
not want this tied to my history. This ballast, this anchor now
inextricably linked to my ancestor's struggles, my dead relatives'
stories. How dare we as American Jews allow this to happen. How
dare we. How dare we support the ethnic cleansing in Palestine.
How dare we argue over oppression hierarchy. How dare we march
against the war in Iraq and keep our mouths shut on Israeli policies
in the West Bank and Gaza. How dare we let lobby groups such
as AIPAC drench our collective histories in soups of militarism,
imperial domination, and snarly relationships with US weapons
manufacturers and fascist politicians.
And here, as I sit in a quiet
Berkeley café, I know I don't have to travel 10,000 miles
to see the effects of a Nakba. It is all around us, this wrinkled,
drunken beast of ethnic cleansing, its atomic particles buzzing
in our ears and whispering the names of Ohlone, Miwok, Pomo,
Kashaya, Yuki, Wintun. The Nakba in 1492 that spread like cancer
from the far corners of the northern "American" continent
is ongoing and entrenched. "Where did the Indians go?"
my daughter asked me recently. When I explained that they were
killed or moved to other areas of the country so that this building,
or that street, or those houses could be built for the gun-carrying
white settlers (I put it in more delicate terms), she turned
and without skipping a beat, said "oh, just like in Palestine."
And so we go about our lives
here in the occupied United States, five hundred years and millions
of ghosts later, as half a world away, Palestinian children sit
in the sweltering heat at the checkpoints, their flags whipping
in the sandy wind and their grandparents' iron keys ringing softly
as though, they too, wait to once again fulfill their right of
intention and identity.
Nora Barrows-Friedman is the Senior Producer and co-host
of Flashpoints on Pacifica Radio. She can be reached at norabf@gmail.com.
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