Since the dust settled on the demolished buildings, Zionists have pursued a variety of strategies intended to whitewash Israel’s original sin, and delegitimise the Nakba, running the full gamut from the unbelievably bizarre, to the smilingly disingenuous. The first such strategy is simple yet incredible: it never happened.
Somewhat weakened in recent decades by mountains of evidence from Israeli historians to the contrary (though it is instructive that an Israeli historian is seen as the seal of truthful authenticity), this poker-faced denial however is still repeated today. Some deny that Palestine was even populated when the Jewish settlers arrived to ‘make the desert bloom’, while others assert that the ‘refugees’ were merely transient workers from other parts of the Arab world with no actual ties to the land.
While this suggestion is only entertained by far-right Zionist apologists – most of Israel’s founding fathers were quite frank about the need to empty Palestine of its indigenous people – it is indicative of the colonial nature of the conflict. The Palestinians must prove their ‘willingness’ to negotiate, their ‘desire for peace’ – even their very existence as a people.
The second smear on the history of the Nakba has been to claim that the refugees left of their own accord, or were ‘ordered’ to leave by Arab leaders. This has been comprehensively debunked by numerous historians, though what is interesting here is that even if the Palestinians left of their own accord, as refugees in a time of war, they should surely have been permitted to return after the cessation of hostilities. That they weren’t brings us back to the reason why they ‘left’ (were expelled) in the first place: they weren’t Jewish.
A distraction often added for good measure at this point is to adopt a voice of mock sympathy for these poor refugees, ‘languishing’ in camps, who apparently have been neglected and taken advantage of by their host Arab nations. Again, this is not the time to discuss the betrayals of a host of Arab dictators, nor the quite understandable reasons why any nation would be reluctant to absorb hundreds of thousands of (often unskilled) immigrants. Rather, the question must return, with increasing persistency, to the question of why have they not returned. Responsibility for the refugees lies with the agent of their dispossession, not their imperfect hosts.
As the strains of the lies and distractions fade into silence, Israel’s apologists have two strategies left with which to delegitimise the rights of the refugees, and render the Nakba a mere sideshow to the story of the contemporary Middle East. A popular one is brutal and simple: ‘Get over it’. This is regurgitated by a whole host of politicians, diplomats, and journalists, and gets translated (only slightly more) tactfully as well-intentioned advice to move with the times and not hold on to historical grudges. As a response to the seminal event of a people’s national history, when the majority were expelled from their homes, and the land itself subjected to foreign colonisation and occupation, ‘move on’ seems rather inadequate, if not sickeningly flippant. Moreover, it misses the key point, which is that the Nakba in 1948 is still being perpetuated through Israel’s Zionist institutional framework – it is not ‘just’ a historical grievance, but a contemporary reality.
Finally, when all else fails, the demand for justice for the refugees is met with the shoulder shrug of unfeasibility. ‘We’d love to’, the Zionists are presumably saying, ‘but there’s just not enough room’. What that of course means, as Israeli leaders urge Jews to come and settle in Israel, is that the Palestinian refugees are not allowed back because they are Palestinians. This objection is not practical but ideological, and again returns to the heart of the exile and continued dispossession.
Next year will mark 60 years since the Nakba and in recent times we are witnessing, if you like, the return of the right of return as a forefront issue in the Palestinian struggle. Despite the fact that the Nakba and the refugees have always been at the core of the conflict, for many years, the ‘two state solution’ approach meant that talk of refugees was dismissed as a ‘final status’ issue.
But as Israel’s policies in the Occupied Territories make manifest what many always knew to be the case, the two state solution is increasingly but a fantasy. The refugees, inextricably intertwined with Israel’s Zionist identity from the start, are once more centre stage, demanding that the Nakba be remembered, and reminding us that as long as Israel’s Zionist character persists, the Nakba continues to happen every single day.