Gaza in Crisis by Chomsky Noam Pappe Ilan

Author:Chomsky, Noam, Pappe, Ilan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Current Affairs, Middle East
ISBN: 111-1-11-111111-1
Publisher: Haymarket Books
Published: 2013-11-12T00:00:00+00:00

Reselling the Past

The struggle over memory in the case of Palestine seems to be the most important task in this century for anyone committed to the Palestine cause. The convergence of industrious Palestinian historiography with the new revelations made by revisionist historians in Israel transformed not only the research agenda of academia but also the public discourse among activists. It was in many ways the exposure to the full picture of what occurred in 1948 that expanded the spectrum of peace activists and members of Palestinian solidarity committees so that it included the 1948 Nakbah. Even President Obama in his June 2009 Cairo speech acknowledged a Palestinian suffering that spans over sixty years.

The struggle over historic memory is highly relevant to the debate about a one-state solution. Only the historical perspective reveals the reductionist nature of the two-state solution: the fact that “Palestine” refers to only one-fifth of the land and about one-third of the Palestinians.

A deeper historical recognition exposes the colonialist nature of the Zionist movement. It does not only show that Palestinians were ethnically cleansed in 1948 and were never allowed to return, but also that the ideology that produced that policy is still operative today.

A brave Italian journalist and writer compared the narrative employed hitherto as the raison d’être of a two-state solution to a historical narrative that explains the French Revolution as a violent juncture that has no origins or any background information.7

The unified Palestinian experience from the late nineteenth century up to 1948 has been replaced by discrete experiences due to the fragmentation of the people and the bisection of the land. But these new disjointed experiences all without exception relate to what happened in 1948: in other words whether you live in Ramallah, London, Yarmouk, or Nazareth, your present predicament is a direct result of what occurred in 1948.

Moreover, the ideology that produced the 1948 ethnic cleansing is the one that keeps refugees in their camps today, discriminates against Palestinians inside Israel, and oppresses those under occupation in the West Bank and imprisonment in the Gaza Strip.

Seen from that perspective, a two-state solution is a small lid trying to cover a huge boiling pot and whenever it is put on, it drowns. The resolution of a conflict can only occur when such a lid can be put firmly on the past and bring its horrors and evils to a close.

At the academic and civil society level this realization is solid and has created fertile ground for the discussion about a one-state solution. However, this is unfortunately not the case with the mainstream media and political arena in the West or in the Arab world. There is a better chance to debate the historical narrative that to propagate the one-state solution at this stage in the struggle. Mainstream media and politicians reject out of hand the one-state solution, but may be willing to accept that their historical narrative so far was distorted and wrong and that they should view the conflict as a process that began in 1948, even in 1882, and not in 1967.

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