The Return of Palestinians
Why I Support the Return of the Palestinians
Palestine is not a dead object, it is a living country.
Palestinians are her soul. Palestine is what Palestinians are
re-creating in real time, in the same way that France is what
the French create and re-create every day. It is a vast
confusion of mind, to presume one can love France and abhor
French, as what kind of France would exist without the French
soul. Only silly tourists from rich countries, pestered by
beggars, prefer to stay in reclusive posh hotels where they can
enjoy the country without encountering the natives. It is like
loving a beautiful lady but hating her character and her very
essence. To love a country and wish away her inhabitants is the
kind of romance that can only appeal to those who have a passion
for necrophilia.
The late Russian thinker Lev Gumilev described a country as a
symbiosis of people and landscape. Palestine and Palestinians
are inseparable, the peasants and their olives and springs of
water and the mountains and the domes of the ancestral
sepulchres on the hill-tops need each other and have grown to
complement each other.
The Palestinians are not an obscure mean folk. They created the
Star of Ghassul, wrote the Bible, built the temples of Jerusalem
and Garizim, the palaces of Jericho and Samaria, the churches of
the Holy Sepulchre and Nativity, the mosques of Haram a-Sharif,
the harbours of Caesarea and Akka, the castles of Monfort and
Belvoir. They walked with Jesus, defeated Napoleon and bravely
fought at Karameh. In their veins, the blood of Aegean warriors,
Bene Israel, David's heroes, the first Apostles of Christ and
Companions of the Prophet, of Arab riders, Norman Crusaders and
Turkmen chieftains blended in the unique composition. Its spark
did not run out: the poetry of Mahmud Darwish, the wisdom of
Edward Said, the perfect olive oil, the fervour of prayers and
the valiant courage of intifada prove it.
Without the Palestinians, Palestine dies. Her rivers run
poisoned water, the sources dry out, the hills and valleys are
disfigured, her fields are worked by imported Chinese, while her
sons are imprisoned in ghetto. The idea of a separate Jewish
state collapsed. During last ten years, the mad policies of
Israeli government imported over a million of Romanians,
Russians, Ukrainians, Thai and African laborers. Some of them
claim Jewish descent: Peruvian tribes, Indians from Assam and
the endless refugees from the Soviet Union moved in. Now the
Jewish Agency plans to import a Lembda tribe from the South
Africa, in order to ensure the Jewish character of the state.
Paradoxically, those who still bear some part of the Jewish
traditions are isolated in the Jewish state, as late Dr
Yeshayahu Leibovich or imprisoned as the Moroccan Jewish Rabbi
Arie Der'i.
The fantasy of the Jewish ingathering has collided with the
reality. We must end the delusion. Let the sons and daughters of
Palestine come back and rebuild Suba and Kakun, Jaffa and Akka.
Instead of consecrating the Green Line, let us erase it and live
together, the children of Palestine, of first settlers, of
Moroccans and Russians.
We should live in one state, not only because of the blatant
failure of Oslo. The very idea of partition is wrong. We can
follow the example of New Zealand, where the European incomers
live together with the native Maori, the example of Mandela's
South Africa, the example of Caribbean, where children of
Spanish settlers, African slaves and native Amerindians blended
into the beautiful new race. Let us tear up our Declarations of
false Independence and write a new one, of mutual dependence and
love.
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