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A Jew Seeking Justice
by Jennifer Balkan
As a Jewish American, I feel it is finally my responsibility to opine on
behalf of my Palestinian sisters and brothers: Imagine if a group of
strangers marched into your home and told you that you couldn't live
there anymore. This is the home that your parents inhabited; your
grandparents bequeathed to them. These strangers told you that
thousands of years ago, their ancestors had populated this area, albeit
for a short while. Now they have come to take what's rightfully yours
and call it their own. When you don't voluntarily leave, they threaten
you with violence. Fearing imminent danger, you take your children and
flee. These people pay you a pittance of the value of your land without
your consent and label you an 'absentee landlord'. When you return to
reclaim your home, your land, the strangers argue that because you
separated yourself from your belongings, they are no longer yours.
Because they have attained the title to your home and land, you no
longer have the right of possession.
This is the story of Israel - a stolen land taken from the Palestinians. The
Zionist movement was founded on the principle that the Jews deserved
a land; a land that they could call their State; their home but they would
only be able to identify themselves as a wholly Jewish state at the
expense of uprooting an existent civilization, the indigenous Arab
population.
The Jewish claim to Palestine is based on the existence of a kingdom
that reigned for only 414 years (Beatty, I: Arab and Jew in the Land of
Canaan.) The Jewish kingdoms were only one of many periods of ancient
Palestine. There exists the dangerous misconception that opposition to
Jewish occupation stems from anti-Semitism. Tensions between Arabs
and Jews began after Zionist settlers arrived in the 1880s and had
bought land from absentee Arab owners. This led to the dispossession
of land that had been cultivated by peasants. In effect, the Zionists
were colonizing Arab land.
The Zionists probably could not have been so successful in their
acquisitions if it weren't for strong support from the British and later the
Americans. The Balfour Declaration was instituted in November 1917 by
the British Government to secure a Jewish Homeland in Palestine. It is
easy to be skeptical of such a declaration as it was fashioned by a
European power; about a non-European territory; and completely
discounted the presence and desires of the indigenous majority
residents of the territory.
When Israel was declared a state in 1948, it owned a bit more than six
percent of the land of Palestine. The UN charter envisages a peoples'
right to self-determination based upon the democratic requirement of
consent for the majority of the people - the Palestine Arabs had
composed a 2/3 majority at that point it time. Thus, the UN Partition of
Palestine in 1947 violated its own law.
Since the inception of a codependency between Israel and the U.S., the
U.S. media has done everything in its power to taint the struggle of the
Palestinians. President Truman stated in 1947 "I am sorry gentlemen,
but I have to answer to hundreds of thousands who are anxious for the
success of Zionism. I do not have hundreds of thousands of Arabs
among my constituents" (Pres. Harry Truman, quoted in Anti Zionism, ed.
By Teikener, Abed-Rabbo & Mezvinsky).
Arabs have only responded to an unlawful, undeserved expropriation of
their land. They became refugees in their own villages. Over 750,000
Palestinians became refugees on their own land during the winter of
1947. But Israel was not satisfied with its allocation. In violation of
international law, Israel seized over 52 percent of the land in the West
Bank and 30 percent of the Gaza Strip for military use or for settlement
by Jewish civilians.
Israel has an historical record of invading surrounding countries, and
currently occupies Lebanese, Syrian, and Palestinian territory against
international law. It has been Zionist policy to kill anywhere from 50 to
100 Arabs for every Jewish fatality. But the U.S. media have never
criticized Israel of inciting the ensuing Islamic terror. Instead, Israeli
soldiers who participate in cruel acts of torture are labeled "security
forces" whereas Palestinians are all perceived as terrorists.
Currently, violence in the Middle East is as high as it has ever been.
Israeli deaths are reported to us whereas Palestinian losses are
dehumanized and go faceless in our news.
Our unconditional support of Israel and its practices portray us as
unsympathetic to a robbed people.
Fundamentalist Halacha, or Jewish law, is what is propagating violence -
it condones murder in the pursuit of Zionist expansion. Much like other
sects of religious fundamentalism, it is dangerous and should be feared
and mistrusted.
We can no longer sit idly and watch an indigenous population become
dispossessed. It has taken a couple hundred years for Americans to look
at our ancestors with disdain - those who decimated the original
inhabitants of our land - the once thriving American Indians. We still feel
guilt for what our forefathers stole. Will disclosure of facts and revision
of our textbooks in the secular classroom and in the synagogue
someday reveal the truth about Israel? And will it be too late then?
Jennifer Balkan lives in Austin.
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