For an Indivisible and Free Palestine
Elias Davidsson, Sept. 1988
Although I don't live in Palestine since my young age, I cannot hide
my passion for this tormented and bleeding country. Born in 1941 in
Palestine to Jewish immigrants, who were exiled from Nazi Germany, I
owe my existence to Palestine, a land which provided a refuge for my
parents, a land where I, a four year old boy, was almost killed by
an angry Arab crowd who attacked the bus we were travelling in, and
was saved by a gentle old Arab fellah (farmer). I think of Palestine
and my heart is bleeding over its wounds.
I spent my first years in Baq'a, a suburb of Jerusalem, where Jews
and Arabs lived side by side in peace. My family had good relations
with Arab Palestinian families in the neighborhood. My mother, I am
proud to say, learned the language of the country, Arabic. As for
me, I will never erase from my memory and from my flesh the images,
sounds, smells and sensations which impregnated me at this tender
age. I carry these so to speak in my veins and find in these a
source of inspiration and of vital energy.
The destiny of my life brought me far away from Palestine. But in
spite of the distance, my interest for my native country and the
concerns for its well-being, have not dissipated.
Like most "Israeli" children, I was submitted in my youth to a
systematic Zionist indoctrination. I spent my teens in France, where
I joined a Zionist (socialist) youth movement, Hashomer Hatza'ir. I
liked the activities in this movement, its dynamism, the emphasis on
human socialism, on justice and on civil courage. But we also were
introduced to the principles of Zionism. The tutors, special envoys
from Israel whose duty was to make of us good Zionists , emphasized
that we were special people, that we were Jews, and that we had no
place elsewhere under the sun, except in Palestine (called Israel by
these envoys). One of the main reasons advanced was that all
Gentiles, from China to Peru, from Finland to the Cameroon, were
Jew-haters, knowingly or unknowingly. Accordingly it was naive to
wage a struggle against racism and anti-Jewish discrimination.
Anti-Jewish feelings were ascribed as basic and irrational
constituents of Gentile personality, transmitted quasi by
inheritance from father to son. Having elevated this obscene myth to
the status of a natural law, we were told that only a Jewish
national state could safeguard the personal security of "Jews".
I, for my part, objected to this argumentation. I could not accept
such prejudices against mankind. My personal philosophy was that
every person was to be trusted unless he proved the contrary. My
personal experience, especially relations with Gentiles,
contradicted entirely these prejudices.
At that time I did not know yet about the practical implications of
Zionism, as they were felt by the Palestinian people. I had not the
slightest idea about the racial discrimination practised by
so-called socialist kibbutzim, about the organic and natural
collusion between Zionism and Imperialism, about the massacres
perpetrated against the Palestinian population to provoke its flight
in 1948, about the racialist legislation of the Zionist state.
It only at a much later date, and only very gradually, that I
realised how little I knew about my country and about the fate of
the people who had lived there, the Arab Palestinian people. The
first publications that opened my eyes to the criminal side of
Zionism were written in Hebrew by courageous Israeli citizens. At
that time, I did not venture in reading publications written by Arab
Palestinians, because Zionist prejudice had still an impact on me.
I needed many and long years to get rid of the poisonous prejudices
that the Zionist ideology inoculated into me. After I read the
writings by Dr. Uri Davis and by martyrs Said Hammami and Naim
Khader, I finally decided to take a decisive step in supporting the
Palestinian cause. It was because I recognized in their writings my
basic philosophical attitudes as a humanist and a democrat, as a
supporter of human rights and as an staunch opponent of racism and
prejudice. Through their writings I began to understand the aims of
the Palestinian revolution, the realism, political maturity and
generosity of its leaders, which offer to the Jewish immigrants
inhabiting the State of Israel reconciliation instead of revenge and
propose to them a common destiny in Palestine, within a framework
worked out amiably.
They are too numerous, the religious fanatics in the Middle-East,
who wish to impose with violence ultra-reactionary regimes on the
Middle-Eastern populations. The State of Israel, The Islamic
Republic of Iran and Saudi Arabia are the most prominent examples of
such regimes. These states place rabbinical or Shari'a law above the
law of modern civilization. Such regimes cannot be truthfully
described as democracies. The inhabitants of the State of Israel had
never hitherto been obliged to chose between democracy or theocracy.
By their struggle for national and democratic rights, the
Palestinian people under occupation are now helping the inhabitants
of the State of Israel who consider themselves democrats, to face
reality and recognize the anachronism of their racialist regime.
The leadership of the Palestinian Revolution is now directing its
efforts to the establishment of a Palestinian State alongside
Israel. This solution would imply de facto recognition of the Jewish
state. But a Jewish state in the Middle-East, surrounded by Arab
cultures, can only maintain its integrity as a Jewish state
if it surrounds itself by high physical and psychological barriers.
A Jewish state could not maintain its cultural or racial "purity" if
permanent peace prevails, peace of open frontiers, cultural
cross-fertilization and intermarriage. Already the majority of the
Israeli public is Arabic in culture. Under conditions of democracy
and secularism and with the development of a modern secular society,
assimilation is very likely to occur. But exactly this perspective
is considered with horror by Zionist and Jewish religious leaders,
who view intermarriage as a calamity to the Jewish people,
comparable only in gravity to the Holocaust. And because they view
assimilation of Jews as an existential threat to the 'Jewish
people', it is logical that they attempt to counter this 'threat' by
all the means available, including mental and physical terrorism.
The traditional disdain of Zionist leaders towards Middle-Eastern
cultures has its roots in the colonial-racist attitudes of Europeans
towards 'non-Whites'. Israel's participation in European symposia
and festivals, systematic provocation of neighboring countries,
extreme repression of Palestinian nationalism and the seemingly
pathological fright of the Zionist regime to engage in a dialogue
with the PLO, are not signs of an irrational behaviour. They are a
clear signal to neighboring countries and to the Arab nation, that
Israel is not wishing to integrate as a full part member in the
Middle-East. Already Vladimir Jabotinsky, the ideological mentor of
Israeli terrorists Shamir and Begin, perceived in the 1920s the need
for the Zionist settlers to build an "Iron Wall" between themselves
and the native Palestinian population.
All those, including supporters of Palestinian rights, who insist on
the need of guaranteeing the security of the State of Israel must
ask themselves, in the light of the above remarks, whether the State
of Israel, based on Zionist law and practice , could at all turn
into a peaceful and law-abiding state, whether such a state could at
all integrate into the Middle-East.
For my part, I consider the struggle for the emancipation of the
Hebrew-speaking community of Palestine (Israelis) as the key to a
progressive solution in the Palestine issue. And it is the
Palestinian National Movement, represented by the PLO, which holds
this key. The PLO has already initiated certain timid measures by
including in its ranks Hebrew-speaking (Israeli) militants. Such
measures are important but too isolated as to be perceived as
policy. It must be borne in mind that the Palestinian National
Council sees itself as representing mainly (only ?) those
Palestinians who identify themselves as Arabs. The overwhelming
majority of Israeli Jews, or as I prefer to call them
Hebrew-speaking Palestinians, don't see themselves as potential
partners in the Palestinian national movement, partly because they
have never been included in it nor invited to participate in it as
equal members. Here I am speaking mainly of those progressive
Israelis who might wish to join ranks, if they were offered a
honorable option to do so.
The Palestinian Revolution holds today, in the face of the political
erosion of Zionism, the key to a political solution of the Palestine
question. It is imperative that the movement use its credibility and
authority to build a future of peace and well-being for all those
who love their native country, Palestine. By inviting the totality
of the Palestinian population, regardless of religion, residence or
ethnical affiliation, to participate in the democratic Palestinian
revolution and in the formulation of its aims and its means of
struggle, the Palestinian national movement would enable a common
struggle for the dismantlement of the Zionist state and its
replacement by a democratic and unified Palestinian state for all
its inhabitants. Today this vision seems remoter than ever. But
perceptions change fast and the creation of a common
Israel-Palestinian framework to combat the Zionist structure might
be received as a relief by many Israelis.
This article was published in Arabic by
Filastin al-Thawra, official organ of the PLO
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