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Contents:
NAKBA: The Palestinian Arabs
Miss Their Opportunity .... As Israel celebrated its fiftieth anniversary with appropriate pomp and circumstance, the new Palestine Authority, the entity that rules all of the Palestinian Arab population in Gaza and 95% of their population on the west bank, had planned memorial day of reckoning of their own for May 14th, 1998, the date that marks the Gregorian calendar day marking the pioneering of the state of Israel. That day is referred to in Arabic lore as "Nakba", the day of "disaster". To commemorate the Nakba, the official television station of the Palestine Authority, the PBC, the Palestine Broadcasting Corporation, ran two days of military marching music that accompanied file footage of Palestinian Arabs firing weapons and hurling stones at Israeli troops and civilians. In addition, the PBC ran a special children's program, screening it every hour on the hour, during which Arab children are portrayed running from their burning homes, with the children picking up the charred wreckage and declaring that they will fight to liberate and reclaim their homes in Tel Aviv, Haifa and Acre. Palestine Authority chairman Arafat also repeated a canned speech on PBC-TV, in which he echoed the call for "resistance" and demanded "Al Awdah", the "right of return". Not all Israelis saw Palestinian Arab commemoration of the Nakba in itself as an entirely negative phenomenon. In the words of Prof. Gad Gilbar, rector of Haifa University, such a day should indeed be observed with reverence by the Palestinian Arab people, as a time of reckoning, introspection and second thoughts. After all, Gelber noted, the Palestinian Arabs had rejected the chance for a state of their own that had been legislated by according to the November 29, 1947 UN resolution #181 that had mandated two states to be carved out of the former British mandate - one Jewish and one Arab. The failed attack of seven Arab armies and the Palestinian Arab militias to prevent the establishment of the Jewish state thwarted Palestinian Arab hopes, and, for fifty years, the United Nations has sparked the hope of return for three million Palestinian Arabs who are descended from the half a million Arabs who became refugees as a result of that war. The UN did that by maintaining them as refugees, under the promise and premise of repatriation to homes and villages that no longer exist. Back in 1958, Abba Eban, Israel's eloquent ambassador to the UN, warned that Arab nationalists were "prolonging" the suffering of refugees so as to use it as a humanitarian weapon against Israel Eban, now head of the International Center for Peace in the Middle East and just as eloquent, continues to express his fear -forty years later- that the Palestinian Arab leadership will continue to manipulate the refugee/right of return issue, just as they are on the threshold of an opportunity for their own national state. In the oft-repeated words of Abba Eban, "The Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Gelbar's call to the new Palestine Authority, will be more realistic this time, and to use the NAKBA as a genuine opportunity to adopt an idea and ideology of coexistence for a Jewish and Arab national entity that could make peace with each other. Yet Palestinian Authority attention on the day of the Nakba did not focus on the UN "partition resolution" #181 or the UN "territories for peace" resolution #242. Instead, what the PA repeatedly proclaimed and quoted was UN resolution #194, a decision enacted on December 10, 1948 that mandates the "right of return" for Palestinian Arabs who left their homes and villages to return to the villages where they came from, even if they do not exist. The PA is well aware that the US, Canada, the EU nations, Japan and Scandinavian countries introduce #194 every year, and that renewed mandate serves as the basis to provide funds for UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which operates more than thirty refugee camps, in Gaza, the west bank, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, confining three million Palestinian Arabs to what the UN defines as "temporary shelters" for all of these years. Encouraged by the UN, Palestinian Arab refugee camp residents will not settle for life on the west bank and Gaza. The first decision of the Palestine Authority, indeed, was to disallow housing improvement in these UNRWA camps, since these homes are temporary dwellings. On Thursday, May 13, the morning that the rioting started, Omar Bessisso, the head of Relations and External Media Department in the PA's Ministry of Information, granted an interview to Raanana journalist Aaron Lerner, in which he stated that "the central message of today is that ' ... our Palestinian refugees must return to their homeland." Bessisso stressed that every refugee must be given the right to choose between compensation and returning to within Israel. It was therefore no surprise when Palestinian Arabs , carrying United Nations flags in every city and refugee camp under the control of the Palestine Authority began their processions on Thursday, which very quickly erupted into violence. Since Israeli troops no longer patrol Arab cities in the west bank and Gaza, casualties were not as great on both sides as they could have been. Missing from the lips of Palestinian Authority spokesmen in Arabic for the past four years has been any call for Palestinian Arab independence that would be confined to the west bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. Arafat could could have had his moment of international media attention without Palestinian Arab dead and wounded. After all, the PA orschesrated a well-planned moment of silence with sirens, along with large mock-up keys to the lost homes and pictures of the no-longer existant five hundred and eighteen Arab villages that would assure good media coverage. The PA also organized parades from the refugee camps, where family clans marched with signs around their necks that depicted where each and every Arab refugee family had left in 1948. Tragically, Arafat's violent focus on the 1948 refugees and his continuous cries to liberate Jerusalem have moved the Palestinian Arab people away from a compromise with the workable deal that the vast majority of Israel would be prepared to live with. Abba Eban's premonition that the Palestian Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity could not have been more true on the day of the Nakba. PALESTINE: 50 Years of Occupation - Call For Action In The Name of Allah, The Most Merciful The Mercy-Giving
"Glory to (Allah) who did take his servant for a journey by night from the Sacred Mosque to the farthest Mosque (al-Aqsa mosque) whose precincts We did Bless - in order that We might show him some of Our signs: for He is the One Who hearth And seeth all things." (Qur'an, Surah 17, Verse 1) The year 1998, marks the 50th anniversary of the occupation of Palestine; the displacement of its indigenous population; and the destruction of it's cities and villages. In 1917, the British government issued the infamous Balfour declaration which viewed "with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish People ... " At the time of the Balfour declaration, the Arabs of Palestine owned 97.5% of the land, while Jews owned only 2.5% of the land. In the 1948 war, "the zionists" occupied 80.48% of the total land of Palestine, expelled 800,000 civilians from their homes and lands, committed 120 massacres, and destroyed more than 475 villages. According to a 1997 United Nations study, there are approximately 3,093,174 Palestinian refugees registered. In 1998, we, the Muslims, the Arabs and the Palestinians, did not forget Palestine. We did not forget Yaffa, Haifa, and Bisan. We did not sell our lands, nor did leave them voluntarily, and nor did we permit anyone to take our homes and fields. Fifty years later, we, the children of refugees, are intent on coming back to our homes, villages and fields. If it was not possible in the past fifty years, then insha'Allah, it will be in the next fifty years. During the month of May, the Islamic Association For Palestine is launching a long series of events to commemorate the 50 years of occupation of Palestine and the Palestinian dispossession and resistance.
List of events planned in all cities:
New Jersey, NJ:
Los Angeles, CA:
New York, NY:
Detroit, MI:
Chicago, IL:
Dallas, TX:
San Francisco, CA:
Toledo, OH:
Columbus, OH:
Washington, D.C.: For more details about the above activities as well as other activities in different cities, please conatct IAP. If you like, and we do encourage you, to do a similar activity in your area, campus, mosque, church etc., and you need help, please feel free to contact IAP. A request form for materials and other resources that can be used in different activities and programs will follow, In Sha'a Allah.
PA Ministry of
Information on Right of Return IMRA interviewed Omar Bessisso, Head of Relations and External Media Department in the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Information, in English, on May 14, 1998: IMRA: What do you see as the central message of the events taking place today (the "march of the million")? Bessisso: The central message is that we are here. This is our homeland. Our Palestinian refugees must return back to their homeland. That is the central message. IMRA: When you say that the refugees must return to their homeland .... Bessisso: According to UN Resolution 194 which means that the refugees have the right to come back or have compensation. IMRA: Is it their decision? Do they have to be offered the choice between the two? Bessisso: Yes, yes. According to United Nations Resolution 194 which dates from 1949 in the United Nations. IMRA: Do you have any sense as to what the proportion of refugees would return if offered the choice between compensation and return? Bessisso: It is up to everybody but I think that most of them now are realistic and they are ready to have a realistic solution. Which means a solution which can live. But it is up to every refugee to decide what he wants. Either to return back to his home or to have compensation. I can not decide on behalf of them. IMRA: The Israelis who I speak with tell me that the underlying assumption that they made in the Oslo Process was that they would not have the refugees coming back into Israel because they want separation and if the Palestinian refugees come back then Israel turns into a having a very substantial Arab population rather than an Arab minority. Bessisso: For us, according to the Oslo Agreement, the refugee question is postponed to the permanent solution. IMRA: They talk of Beilin-Mazen and they think that this means what while there may not be a formal understanding that there is some kind of understanding that in the end the refugees of '48 won't come back into Israel. Bessisso: You see, once a Jewish person who has nothing to do with Palestinian land has the right to return - to come to Israel - as an Israeli citizen, then the Palestinians, who is the real owner of the land, must have the same right . This is in principle. But, once we have negotiations of a settlement we have to be realistic and negotiate over every option. The Beilin-Mazen plan is one of the options. IMRA: You said before that you cannot impose on a refugee that he can't come back and instead takes compensation. Bessisso Yes, yes. But actually you know we have about three hundred thousand refugees in Lebanon and the same number in Syria and about more than a half million in Jordan. These Palestinians must have the right to return back to the Palestinian state which we declared in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, or to their homeland which is known as Israel now. But, the Israelis up to now are now saying that the refugees don't have the right to return to the West Bank and this is one of the main problems. IMRA: I guess that what I am puzzled by is that on the one hand the Palestinian Authority will negotiate with Israel on some kind of arrangement but on the other hand you are telling me that whatever is negotiated the Palestinian refugees would have the options of picking between some kind of negotiated compensation and returning. So what's the deal? Whatever you would negotiate you would still leave open the option to the refugees to return to within '67 borders. Bessisso: Yes. You see, once we agreed to establish our state on the 1967 border we must have full sovereignty. That means a state which can decide its fate. It can decide who are its citizens and all Palestinians - the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as well as those living outside of the country - even the Palestinians in Europe or the United States must have citizenship in this state. IMRA: But if they say that they are originally from Jaffa and want to return there rather than to Nablus then they would still have the right to say 'I don't want to go to Jaffa, Nablus doesn't interest me.' Bessisso: No. I think that once we sign a final settlement this kind of talk must be stopped. IMRA: You mean you would stop them from deciding to go to Jaffa instead of Nablus? Bessisso: I think that once we reach a historic solution between us and the Israelis I think that every claim must be stopped. The Israelis must stop calling the West Bank "Yehudah and Shomron" and once the Palestinians solve the problem according to UN Resolution 194 they must stop talking about return to Jaffo. IMRA: But I thought that you just told me a minute ago that Resolution 194 does give them the right to return to Jaffo. Bessisso: Yes. They have the right. But remember They must be realistic. They cannot go. IMRA: So you would deny them the choice afterwards. Bessisso: I think the situation now, denying them the right to return. But as a symbolic gesture maybe they can get three thousand or five thousand of the Palestinians to return and that's all. Under the framework of uniting families. IMRA: You mean a limited number. Bessisso: Yes, yes. IMRA: So only some would be allowed to truly make the choice. Bessisso: Yes yes. IMRA: Do you see from a practical standpoint the possibility that you may be creating a problem by focusing so much on the return of the 1948 refugees that they may get a hope that they will be able to return to Jaffa when here you are telling me that in the end they won't be returning back. For example, yesterday when you had the march with the keys [to homes with Israel] . Doesn't this have the problem of raising expectations that they will be able to come back? Bessisso: We don't raise new expectations by this demonstration and activity. Actually, as I told you in the beginning, we have one message: We are here. It is our homeland. We have the right to establish our independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip according to the announcement in Algeria and the refugee problem must be solved in accordance with the UN resolution and that's all. IMRA: Resolution 194 which would allow them to return to within the Green Line. Bessisso: Yes. Yes. IMRA: You say in Algeria which resolution are you talking about? Bessisso: The announcement of the Palestinian State. IMRA: How does that fit in with the earlier plan of stages. That the PLO will take whatever land it can get as a stage. Bessisso: No. You mean the 1974 Nine Point Program. This is very old. We have overcomed it by the announcement of the Palestinian state. Once we recognized Resolution 242 and 338 we accept to establish a Palestinian state within the West Bank and Gaza Strip. IMRA: Ehud Barak said two days ago that his red line is that the large settlement blocs would remain under Israeli control. Is that a total impossibility? Bessisso: I think that it is possible if the settlers are ready to obey Palestinian law. IMRA: You mean Palestinian sovereignty. Bessisso: Yes. IMRA: Not Israeli sovereignty. Bessisso: Right. They can have Israeli citizenship but they must observe our law. IMRA: You would ignore the issue as to whether the settlements are on Palestinian owned land? Bessisso: No. I think that since the Palestinian question is a very special case we have to have a very special solution. Even if we accept them for a period of time maybe they will accept to live in peace with the Palestinians and this is OK and maybe they will decide to leave the Palestinian land and return back to Israel. IMRA: Does the same apply to Jerusalem - to those Jewish neighborhoods beyond the Green Line like Ramat Eshkol and French Hill? Bessisso: The Jerusalem question is very special and specific. It is a religious and nation case and has to be handled from a very special point of view. I think that for Arab Moslems and Christians, Jerusalem must be under Palestinian sovereignty. We hope for an open city in Jerusalem for all followers of religion - Palestinians and Israelis. IMRA: But the status of those Jewish neighborhoods beyond the Green Line would be under Palestinian sovereignty. Bessisso: Yes, yes. We have to think about a special solution for Jerusalem, but under the principle that Israeli forces and administration must return to the pre 1967 borders. Dr. Aaron Lerner,
Marwan Barghouti: Blow Up Settlements, No Deal on Jerusalem IMRA interviewed Marwan Barghouti the head of Fatah West Bank in English, on May 17, 1998. Barghouti is also a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council. IMRA: Before the "Nakba" march last Thursday, the Palestinian Authority (PA) expected at least a million people to participate. Why do you think the turnout was so much lower? Barghouti: I think that there were more people than were expected. In all the centers of the cities in the West Bank and Gaza - Nablus, Jenin, Tulkarem, there were very big demonstrations. huge numbers. This despite the boycott by the Islamic Movement and Hamas of the marches. IMRA: So the reports by the press of around 20,000 people in Nablus were incorrect? Barghouti: More than 60,000 in Nablus. It was the largest one. And there were also in Hebron, Ramallah and Jenin. Under the difficult circumstances in the peace process and under the suffering of the economic situation I think it was a huge success. IMRA: Also on Friday only 20,000 people came to the Al Aksa Mosque while in the past over a hundred thousand have come to the Mosque on a Friday. Were these reports also wrong? Barghouti: You know that the people from the West Bank and Gaza cannot reach Jerusalem. I was there. I was in all the streets in the city and there were more than 2,000 Israeli soldiers and policemen there. They reoccupied the city. It was like the first moment that they occupied the city. It reminded us of the 5th of June 1967. This is the situation. IMRA: What does it mean at the rallies when models of settlements are blown up. What is the message supposed to be? Barghouti: That means that the people are very angry about the enlargement of settlements and the building of settlements. This is an important thing in the view of the Palestinian people. They feel that this thing is putting their future at risk. And this is a dangerous thing that the Palestinians are facing. So this is to encourage the people to resist the settlement policy. IMRA: So blowing up models of settlements is in order to encourage people to resist the settlements. Barghouti: Yes. And I think that we have the legitimacy to resist the settlement policy. IMRA: To blow up settlements? Barghouti: To fight, to resist the settlements. IMRA: So that would include blowing them up. Barghouti: Everything. Because the settlement policy is terrorism. We have the right to fight against the terrorism. IMRA: Two weeks ago Yasser Arafat met with a group visiting from the United States and he is reported to have said at that meeting that he would be willing to consider Abu Dis as the Jerusalem capital. What do you think of that. Barghouti: No. No. I think anybody who is saying that is a traitor. IMRA: Is this just positioning or if the only way Arafat can make peace is by doing this then if he did It Arafat would be a traitor. Barghouti: This is not acceptable for any Palestinian or Arab and I think that the issue of Jerusalem is the core of the peace process in the Middle East. If the Israelis accept everything except Jerusalem then the peace process will collapse. What is the meaning of a Palestinian state without Jerusalem as its capital? It would mean having a state composed of some village here and there and refugee camps. The soul of the Palestinian state will be Jerusalem. IMRA: When you say 'Jerusalem' you mean all of Jerusalem beyond the 1967 line? Barghouti: Yes, yes. Of course. IMRA; There is no compromise on that. Barghouti: Yes. Of course. I don't think that we have to make compromise after this. I prefer to live without peace and continue to fight without accepting a compromise on Jerusalem. IMRA; If the PA had Al Aksa Mosque and other areas in eastern Jerusalem but not all of eastern Jerusalem? Barghouti: Eastern Jerusalem is not just Al Aksa. I am not a religious man. Jerusalem for me is the important thing as a Palestinian. It is the title of Palestine. And also from a geographical point of view it is very important, for example, for the South and North of the West Bank. Jerusalem united the Palestinians over history. It is the symbol of the Palestinian people. IMRA: So even if you got part of Jerusalem but had to compromise on other parts that wouldn't be enough? It would blow it up? Barghouti: Why do we have to do this compromise? We did the historical compromise when we accepted two states for the two peoples in historical Palestine. According to UN resolution Palestine is to be two states with more than 60% Palestinian and the Israelis by force took more than 77% and now they want to partition the remaining 23% - this is the West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza. I don't think that this would be justice - peace. Maybe it would last 10 years, 20 years, 30 years. But finally it will collapse. IMRA: Would Arafat also be traitor if he did something along the lines of Beilin-Mazen regarding settlements. That the large settlement blocs would remain under Israeli control? Barghouti: I have full confidence in Mr. Arafat that he will refuse this. Any Palestinian who accepts a compromise on the pre- 67 War borders would bring a disaster for the Palestinians. I don't like to use this word but regarding Jerusalem it is very clear that anybody who accepts will be a traitor from the standpoint of the Palestinians. Dr. Aaron Lerner,
When Memory Counts: West Lafayette, Indiana, May 17, 1998. I speak for all those who can no longer speak for themselves. I speak for those endless railway cars of Jewish slave laborers whose seemingly inexhaustible supply in Nazi Germany made them less than slaves. I speak for those starved and brutalized victims of unspeakable horrors inflicted by a "respectable" and venerated German corporation during World War II. I speak for the speechless victims of Daimler-Benz. Today the entire business world is aglow about a "marriage made in heaven," the mega-merger of Chrysler with Daimler-Benz. Lost in this grand celebration of new fortunes to be made is the extraordinary history of one corporate partner. During the War, hundreds of thousands of Jews were coerced into forced labor by many major German industrial firms under conditions which the judges at Nuremberg said "made labor and death almost synonymous." In actuality, the victims were barely bits of sandpaper, rubbed a few times by their masters, judged useless and then burned - literally - with the garbage. Daimler-Benz was one of these firms. Together with other privileged German corporations, Daimler-Benz traded and transhipped Jewish forced laborers with nary a hint that they were dealing in human beings. Purchased from the SS, with the understanding that they should not be kept alive for too long (so as not to slow down the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question"), the bewildered and tortured slaves were often housed in tiny animal kennels or underground chambers before "selection" for the gas chamber. After the War, when some very small number of Jewish claimants called upon Daimler-Benz and other criminally-responsible German firms to make some sort of restitution, the victims and their survivors were cruelly rebuffed. Only last November, a German court upheld its government's policy of rejecting compensation claims by Nazi-era slave laborers. The judges based their decision in part on the fact that the pertinent German companies had already paid the Nazi SS for the forced laborers they had "employed" and that therefore no "further compensation" to Jewish victims was owed by the companies. Most of these companies, of course, including Daimler-Benz, are still in business and are doing better than ever. Not one of these companies, including Daimler-Benz, has ever made more than a token payment to their former Jewish slaves. Today, one of these companies, Daimler-Benz, has even become a new and important giant in American industry, darkening both Wall Street and Main Street in ways that are largely without precedent. During the War, Daimler-Benz did pay salaries for their slaves, but the payments were made directly to the SS, which naturally kept the money. The ties between the German industrialists at Benz and other concerns were more intimate than is generally realized. The industrialists were all heavy contributors to Himmler's personal fund. For a Christmas celebration in 1943, Himmler invited these magnates to his own headquarters. An SS film on eradicating Jewish "vermin" was screened, and the distinguished group was entertained by a male chorus of SS men. How did the victorious Allies mete out justice to the German industrialist murderers? No corporate director or manager was compelled to stand before the International Military Tribunal. In subsequent trials against certain leading directors, several defendants were found guilty of crimes against humanity for exploiting Jewish slave labor. Although many were sentenced to long prison terms, by January 1951 not a single corporate criminal was still in jail. An act of "clemency" by John J. McCloy, United States High Commissioner, gave all of these Germans their complete freedom. A mere half-dozen years after the War, all of the criminal German business leaders were free to regain huge personal fortunes. The Jewish slaves who had endured the unendurable were left only with abject poverty, crippling illness, limitless pain, and incessant nightmares. So the Nazi-era crimes of Daimler-Benz have been forgotten or forgiven on Wall Street and Main Street. After all, there is a lot of money to be made in this merger, and no reasonable investor wants to be limited by what is past. Yet, memory, not forgetfulness, is indispensable to justice, and justice is what America is supposedly about. At a minimum, therefore, if only not to degrade further the memory of Daimler-Benz's murdered Jewish slaves - the past must be recalled. For Daimler-Benz, the past is irremediably part of its present, silent but heavy.
Rene Louis Beres Louis Rene Beres (Ph.D., Princeton, 1971) is Professor of Political Science and International Law at Purdue University. He is the author of many books and articles dealing with Israeli security matters. His Austrian-Jewish grandparents were murdered at the SS-killing grounds in Riga, Latvia.
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