On May 15, 1948, the Arab armies invaded Israel with the goal of destroying the young Zionist entity, only a day old at the time. On this day each year, the entire Arab world marks the Palestinian Nakba (catastrophe), when some 700,000 Arabs left their homes. Among the uprooted was a boy, Mahmoud Darwish, who would become the Palestinian national poet. His family fled to Lebanon, and when the fighting stopped, they returned to Israel. Like many other families, they found their home in the village of al-Birwa destroyed. Kibbutz Yasur had been built on one part of the village's land, and the town of Ahihod on the other. With great sorrow, the family settled in Kafr Yasif. Darwish developed strong feelings against the Jewish controlling majority, and he managed to turn his difficult emotions into written words. Darwish wrote the poem "Identity Card" in 1964. The poem addresses a representative of the Israeli military administration, who represents for him the controlling Jewish-Israeli majority. And Darwish directs at him his rageful words, which represent the Arab minority under Jewish rule. Among other things, he wrote, "You have stolen the orchards of my ancestors/ And the land which I cultivated/ Along with my children/ And you left nothing for us/ Except for these rocks/ ... / But if I become hungry/ The usurper's flesh will be my food/ Beware... / Beware.../ Of my hunger/ And my anger!" On Independence Day and on Nakba Day, tens of thousands of Arabs make pilgrimages to once-abandoned villages -- which are now, in part, Jewish towns, neighborhoods, industrial complexes, and agricultural fields -- and demand to return, waving Palestinian flags and reciting Darwish's poem. Waving the Palestinian flag turns the civic demand to return to their descendants' land into a national demand. The protesters call for the dispossession of the current Jewish residents from their homes, just because they are Jews who have settled on land that once housed Arabs. By the way, these towns were once settled by Crusaders, by Jews and by Canaanites before them. Similarly, the Arabs of Lod, Ramla, Haifa, Acre and Jaffa -- the five mixed Jewish-Arab cities -- declare that they are the original residents of these places, and that the Jewish residents are invaders, Colonialists. If a survey were conducted in these cities, the fabrication would be revealed: Most of the Arab residents of the mixed cities abandoned them during the War of Independence. Some were displaced from the surrounding communities and settled alongside the few who had clung to their homes. And if you ask about their surnames, you will learn about their origin: Halabi and Hamwi from Syria, Masri and Masarwa from Egypt, Yamani from India and Mughrabi from Morocco. They immigrated here during the 19th century, a mere few years before the first Zionist immigrants arrived. Many of them arrived in the British Mandate period, settling in the country's villages and cities. But they will tell you they are locals, they and their ancestors, that they are the native people of the land, and therefore the Jews that have come here are a bunch of intruders. The U.N. partition plan in 1947 was the lesser evil for the Jewish people who sought a national homeland. Only a strong stand for the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state will prevent the return to partition borders. It is the State of Israel's duty to afford religious and civil rights to the Arab minority, which includes those who were uprooted. On the other hand, complying to national and settlement demands will destroy the homeland and annex territory to a future Palestinian state, a state that will spread this way over the majority of Israel's historical territory. It is our duty to recognize the history of the Arab settlement in Israel so that we will know how to deal wisely with the well-oiled propaganda machine that they use to buy themselves exclusive indigenous rights. It is up to us to advance the Arab minority, to improve their living conditions, to work toward true integration and full equal rights and duties, and even to work to establish science and technology centers and modern neighborhoods in Arab cities and towns. But it is also up to us to make it unequivocally clear that returning to the pre-May 15, 1948 days will never happen. Dr. Yechiel Shabi is an expert in Middle Eastern studies.
Know the history
מערכת היום
מערכת "היום“ מפיקה ומעדכנת תכנים חדשותיים, מבזקים ופרשנויות לאורך כל שעות היממה. התוכן נערך בקפדנות, נבדק עובדתית ומוגש לציבור מתוך האמונה שהקוראים ראויים לעיתונות טובה יותר - אמינה, אובייקטיבית ועניינית.
