Does
It Matter What You Call It?
Genocide
or Erasure of Palestinians
by
KATHLEEN and BILL CHRISTISON
During an
appearance in late October on Ireland's
Pat Kenny radio show, a popular
national program broadcast daily on Ireland's
RTE Radio, we were asked as the opening question if Israel
could be compared to Nazi
Germany. Not across the board, we said, but there are certainly some
aspects of
Israel's
policy toward the Palestinians that bear a clear resemblance to the
Nazis'
oppression. Do you mean the wall, Kenny prompted, and we agreed,
describing the
ghettoization and other effects of this monstrosity. Before we could
elaborate
on other Nazi-like features of Israel's
policies, Kenny moved on to another question. Within minutes, while we
were
still on the air, a producer handed Kenny a note, which we later
learned was a
request from the newly arrived Israeli ambassador to Ireland
to appear on the show, by
himself. Several days later, on the air by himself, the ambassador
pronounced
us and our comparisons of Israeli and Nazi policies "outrageous."
What
else? We were not surprised or disturbed by his outrage. We had
just spent two weeks in the West Bank witnessing the oppression, and it
was a
sure bet that, even had he not been fulfilling his role as propagandist
for
Israel, the ambassador would not have known the first thing about the
Palestinian situation in the West Bank because he had most likely not
set foot
there in any recent year. In retrospect, we regret not having used even
stronger language. Having at that point just completed our fifth trip
to Palestine since early 2003, we
should have had the courage
and the insight to call what we have observed Israel
doing to the Palestinians by
its rightful name: genocide.
We
have long played with words about this, labeling Israel's
policy
"ethnocide," meaning the attempt to destroy the Palestinians as a
people with a specific ethnic identity. Others who dance around the
subject use
terms like "politicide" or, a new invention, "sociocide,"
but neither of these terms implies the large-scale destruction of
people and
identity that is truly the Israeli objective. "Genocide" -- defined
by the UN Convention as the intention "to destroy, in whole or in part,
a
national, ethnical, racial, or religious group" -- most aptly describes
Israel's
efforts, akin to the Nazis', to erase an entire people. (See William
Cook's
"The Rape of Palestine," CounterPunch, January 7/8, 2006 for a
discussion of what constitutes genocide.)
In
fact, it matters little what you call it, so long as it is recognized
that what Israel
intends and
is working toward is the erasure of the Palestinian people from the Palestine
landscape. Israel
most
likely does not care about how systematic its efforts at erasure are,
or how
rapidly they proceed, and in these ways it differs from the Nazis.
There are no
gas chambers; there is no overriding urgency. Gas chambers are not
needed. A
round of rockets on a residential housing complex in the middle of the
night
here, a few million cluster bomblets or phosphorous weapons there can,
given
time, easily meet the UN definition above.
Children
shot to death sitting in school classrooms here, families
murdered while tilling their land there; agricultural land stripped and
burned
here, farmers cut off from their land there; little girls riddled with
bullets
here, infants beheaded by shell fire there; a little massacre here, a
little
starvation there; expulsion here, denial of entry and families torn
apart
there; dispossession is the name of the game. With no functioning
economy,
dwindling food supplies, medical supply shortages, no way to move from
one area
to another, no access to a capital city, no easy access to education or
medical
care, no civil service salaries, the people will die, the nation will
die
without a single gas chamber. Or so the Israelis hope.
Surrender vs. Resistance
A
major part of the Israeli scheme -- apart from the outright land
expropriation, national fragmentation, and killing that are designed to
strangle and destroy the Palestinian people -- is to so discourage the
Palestinians psychologically that they will simply leave voluntarily --
if they
have the money -- or give up in abject surrender and agree to live
quietly in
small enclaves under the Israeli thumb. You wonder sometimes if the
Israelis are
not succeeding in this bit of psychological warfare, as they are
succeeding in
tightening their physical stranglehold on territory in the West Bank
and Gaza.
Overall, we do not
believe they have yet brought the Palestinians to this point of
psychological surrender,
although the breaking point for Palestinians appears nearer than ever
before.
The
anger and depression, even despair, in Palestine are palpable these days,
far worse
than we have previously encountered. We met two Palestinians so
discouraged
that they are preparing to leave, in one case uprooting family from a
Muslim
village where roots go back centuries. The other case is a Christian
young
person, also from an old family, who sees no prospects for herself or
anyone
and who feels betrayed by her Catholic Church for having abandoned Palestine's
Christians.
She would rather just be elsewhere. A Palestinian pollster who has
tracked
attitudes toward emigration recently reported that the proportion of
people
thinking about leaving has jumped from about 20 percent, where it has
long
hovered, to 32 percent in a recent poll, largely because of despair
arising
from intra-Palestinian factional fighting and from Hamas' inability to
govern
thanks to crippling Israeli, U.S.,
and European sanctions.
Nothing
like one-third of Palestinians will ultimately leave or even
attempt to leave, but the trend in attitudes clearly points to the kind
of
despair that is afflicting much of Palestine.
One thoughtful Palestinian writer with whom we spent an evening feels
so defeated
and so oppressed by Israeli restrictions that he thinks Hamas should
abandon
its principled stand and agree to recognize Israel's right to exist, in
the
hope that this concession might induce the Israelis to lift some of the
innumerable restrictions on Palestinian life, end the military siege on
Palestinian territories and the land theft, and in general ease the
day-to-day
misery that Palestinians endure under occupation. Asked if he thought
such a
major Hamas concession would actually bring meaningful Israeli
concessions, he
said no, but perhaps it would ease the misery a little. It was clear he
holds
out no great hope. His village's land is gradually disappearing
underneath the
separation wall and expanding Israeli settlements.
We
met westerners who have lived in the West Bank, working on behalf of
the Palestinians for various NGOs for a decade and more, who are
planning to
leave out of frustration at seeing the situation worsen year after year
and
their own work increasingly go for naught. Many other western human
rights
workers and educators, particularly at venerable institutions like the
Friends'
School in Ramallah and Bir Zeit University,
are being denied visas by the Israelis as part of their deliberate
campaign to
keep out foreign passport holders, including thousands of ethnic
Palestinians
who have lived in the West Bank with
their
families and worked for years. The Israeli campaign to deny residency
and
re-entry permits is a deliberate attempt at ethnic cleansing, a hope
that if a
husband or wife is barred, he or she will remove the rest of the family
and Israel
will
have fewer Palestinians to deal with. In addition, the entry denial
campaign
targets in particular anyone, Palestinian or international, who might
bring a
measure of business prosperity to the Palestinian territories, or
education, or
medical assistance, or humanitarian assistance.
The
campaign against foreigners who might help the Palestinians or bear
witness for them became particularly vicious in mid-November when a
19-year-old
Swedish volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement escorting
Palestinian children to school was brutally attacked by Israeli
settlers in Hebron
as Israeli
soldiers watched. The young woman, Tove Johansson, was walking through
an
Israeli army checkpoint with several other volunteers when they were
set upon
by a group of approximately 100 settlers chanting, "We killed Jesus,
we'll
kill you too!" A settler hit Johansson in the face with a broken
bottle,
breaking her cheekbone, and as she lay bleeding on the ground, the
settlers
cheered and clapped and took pictures of themselves posing next to her.
The
Israeli soldiers briefly questioned three settlers but made no arrests
and
conducted no investigation. In fact, they threatened the international
volunteers
with arrest if they did not leave the area immediately. The assault was
so raw
and brutal that Amnesty International issued an alert warning
internationals to
beware of settler attacks. The U.S.
media have not seen fit to report the incident, which was clearly part
of a
longstanding effort to discourage witnesses to Israeli atrocities and
deprive
Palestinians of any protection against the atrocities.
Palestinian
resistance does figure in this dismal story. In the same
small village where one of our acquaintances is uprooting his family,
others
are building, building small homes and multi-story apartment buildings,
simply
as a sign of resistance. International human rights volunteers are
still trying
to reach the West Bank and Gaza
to assist Palestinians. When we told one Palestinian friend about our
conversation with the writer who wants Hamas to concede Israel's
right
to exist, his immediate reaction was "absolutely not." He is himself
a secular Muslim, a Fatah supporter, does not like Hamas and did not
vote for
Hamas in last January's legislative elections, but he fully supports
Hamas's
refusal to recognize Israel's right to exist until Israel recognizes
the right
of the Palestinian people to exist as a nation. "Why should I recognize
you until you get out of my garden?" he wondered.
Our
friend Ahmad's views reflect the general feeling among Palestinians:
a poll conducted in September by a Palestinian polling organization
found that
67 percent of Palestinians do not think Hamas should recognize Israel
in order
to satisfy Israeli and international demands, while almost the same proportion,
63 percent, would support recognizing Israel if this came as part of a
peace
agreement in which a Palestinian state was established -- in other
words, if
Israel also recognized the Palestinians as a nation. Surrender is not
yet on
the horizon.
On
the possibility of pulling up stakes and leaving Palestine, Ahmad was equally adamant.
"Why should I leave and then have to fight to get back later? Empires
never last." He mentioned the Turks and the British and the Soviets,
"and the Americans and the Israelis won't last either. It may take a
long
time, but we can wait." He was angrier than we have ever previously
seen
him, and more uncompromising -- and with good reason: the separation
wall is
now within a few yards of his home and demolition is threatened. Ahmad
and some
neighbors have been fighting the wall's advance in court and succeeded
in
stopping it for over a year, but construction is moving ahead again. He
already
has to drive miles out of his way to skirt the wall on his way to work
and will
be able to exit only on foot when the wall is completed -- assuming his
house
is not demolished altogether.
But
he is not giving up. He thinks suicide bombers are "a piece of
shit," but he believes the Palestinians have to resist in some way, if
only by throwing stones, and he sees some kind of explosion in the
offing. If
Palestinians do nothing at all, he said, "the Israelis will just
relax" and will feel no pressure to cease the oppression. Palestinians
everywhere are keeping up the pressure. Haaretz correspondent
Gideon
Levy described a cloth banner displayed in Beit Hanoun immediately
after Israel's
devastation of that small Gaza
city during the
first week in November. "Kill, destroy, crush -- you won't succeed in
breaking us," declared the banner.
Palestinians
in Beit Hanoun, as well as throughout Gaza
and the West Bank, have been putting up resistance to their own
incompetent,
quisling leadership, as well as to Israel. It has not escaped
the
notice of the Palestinian man in the street that, while Israel
slaughters men,
women, and children in Beit Hanoun and continues its march across the
West
Bank, Palestinian Authority President Mamhud Abbas has been cooperating
with
the U.S. and Israel to undermine the democratically elected Hamas
government.
The U.S. is arming and training a militia that will protect Abbas' and
Fatah's
narrow factional interests against Hamas' fighters, in what can only be
termed
an open coup attempt against the legally constituted Palestinian
government.
Few
Palestinians, even Fatah supporters, condone this U.S.
interference or Abbas' traitorous acquiescence. "Fatah are thieves,"
a local leader who is a Fatah member himself told us. "Hamas won
because
we wanted to get rid of the thieves." He thinks that if there were an
election today, "ordinary people" -- by which he means people not
associated with either Fatah or Hamas -- would win. In each house, he
said,
"we find one son with Hamas, another son with Fatah, so how is a father
going to support one or the other?" It is perhaps this knowledge that
they
cannot fight each other without destroying the nuclear and the broader
Palestinian family, and that they must not succumb to Israeli and U.S.
schemes
to fragment Palestinian society, that have motivated the intensive
Palestinian
efforts to achieve some kind of unity government.
Around the West
Bank
In
Bil'in, the small town west of Ramallah that has seen a non-violent
protest against the wall by Palestinians, Israelis, and internationals
every
Friday for almost two years, the village leader, Ahmad Issa Yassin,
talked
about the lesson his youngest son learned after being arrested last
year at age
14 in
an
Israeli raid. "He is more courageous now, more ready to resist,"
Yassin said. "So am I." We first met this boy a few months before his
arrest, a particularly friendly young man with a sweet smile. He
greeted us
again this year with another warm smile and bantered with us as we took
his
picture. He gave no hint of having spent two months in one of Israel's
worst
prisons or of the horror of having been arrested in a Nazi-style
middle-of-the-night raid. Perhaps he threw stones at the Israeli
soldiers who
converge on his village at least once a week and respond to non-violent
protests with live ammunition, rubber bullets, teargas, concussion
grenades,
and batons. This boy was no terrorist. On the other hand, the Israelis
may have
turned him into a young man willing to fight terror with terror a few
years
from now.
Yassin
walked us to his olive grove, half destroyed, on the other side
of the wall. The Israelis allow the villagers access to lands that now
lie on Israel's
side
of the wall, but there is only one gate, manned by Israeli soldiers who
may or
may not bestir themselves to open it. The villagers' names are all on a
list of
Palestinians authorized to pass through the gate. At this particular
village,
one of many whose lands have been cut off from the village, protesters
have
established an outpost or, as they call it, a "settlement" on the
Israeli side to stake a claim to the land for the village even though
it now lies
on Israel's side in the path of an expanding Israeli settlement. The
Palestinian "settlement" consists of a small building, a tent where a
couple of activists maintain a constant vigil, and a soccer field for a
bit of
normality.
Yassin
took us uphill on a dirt path running alongside the wall, which
in this rural area consists of an electronic fence, a dirt patrol road
on each
side where footprints can be picked up, a paved patrol road on the
Israeli
side, and coils of razor wire on each side -- encompassing altogether
an area
about 50 meters
wide, where olive groves once stood. We waited at the gate in the
electronic
fence while Yassin called several times to the Israeli soldiers, whom
we could
see lounging under a tent canopy on a nearby hillside. When they
finally came
to the gate, they checked Yassin's name against their list of
permitees,
recorded our names and passport numbers, and officiously warned us
against
taking pictures in this "military zone." As we made our way across
country to the Bil'in outpost, Yassin pointed out olive trees burned
and
uprooted by Israelis and, at the outpost right next to the stump of a
tree that
had been cut down, a new tree sprouting from the old one.
We
talked for a while with a Palestinian activist from the village and a
young British activist who had both been sleeping late into the
morning, after
enjoying a Ramadan meal, the Iftar, late the night before. When we
returned to
the gate, the Israeli soldiers were even slower arriving to open it,
obviously
totally bored with their duty. The following Friday at the weekly
protest, they
enjoyed a little more excitement as protesters managed to erect ladders
to
scale the fence. The soldiers responded with batons and teargas.
The
resistance goes on, but so does the Israeli encroachment. We took
away with us two striking impressions: the little olive tree being
carefully
nurtured as a sign of renewal and resistance, and in the near distance
the
constant sound of bulldozers and earth-clearing equipment working on
the
Israeli settlement of Modiin Illit, being built on the lands of Bil'in
and
other neighboring villages.
Elsewhere,
signs of the Israeli advance override the continuing signs of
Palestinian resistance. In the small village
of Wadi Fuqin southwest of Bethlehem, a
beautiful
village sitting in a narrow, fertile valley between ridge lines that is
being
squeezed on one side by the wall, still to be constructed, and on the
other by
the already large and rapidly expanding Israeli settlement of Betar
Illit, we
saw more destruction. The settlement is dumping vast tonnages of
construction
debris down onto the village, so that its fields are gradually being
swallowed.
This was more evident this year than when we visited last year. The
settlement's sewage often overflows onto village land through sewage
pipes
evident high up on the hillside. Israeli settlers swagger through the
village
increasingly, as if it were theirs, swimming in the many irrigation
pools that
are fed by natural springs dating back to Roman times.
In
the village of Walaja, not far away to the north, nearer Jerusalem, Ahmad
took us
to visit friends of his. The village is scheduled to be surrounded
completely
by the wall because it sits near the Green Line in the midst of a
cluster of
Israeli settlements. We sat in a garden of fruit trees with a family
whose
house is on a hill overlooking a spectacular valley and hills beyond. Jerusalem sits
on another
hill in the distance. We commented that, except for the Israeli
settlements
across the valley, the place is like paradise, but our host responded
with a
cynical laugh that actually it is hell. Even beautiful scenery loses
its appeal
when one is trapped and surrounded.
In
another encircled village that we visited last year, Nu'man, the
approximately 200 residents are also trapped between the wall, now
completed,
on one side and the advancing settlement of Har Homa, which covets the
village
land, on the other. Although last year, with the wall incomplete, we
could
drive in, this year we were denied entry at the one gate in. With
Ahmad, we
tried to talk to four obviously intimidated young Palestinian men
waiting
across the patrol road from the gate to gain entry to their homes, but
the
Israeli soldiers told them not to talk to us; one of them said a few
words to
Ahmad but never took his eyes off the Israeli guardpost. We drove off
and left
them to their plight. We could have tried to get to the village with an
arduous
cross-country walk, but we did not.
"Grand" Terminals
With
the near completion of the separation wall, the Israelis have
systematized the West Bank prison.
Since
August 2005, the number of checkpoints throughout the West Bank has risen 40 percent, from 376 to 528,
according to OCHA, the
UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which carefully
tracks
the numbers and types of Israeli checkpoints, as well as other aspects
of the
Israeli stranglehold on the Palestinians. As part of the
systematization, a
series of elaborate terminals now manage the humiliation of
Palestinians at
major checkpoints, particularly around Jerusalem.
The terminals are huge cages resembling cattle runs, which direct foot
traffic
in snaking lines that double back and forth. At the end of the line are
a
series of turnstiles, x-ray machines, conveyor belts, and other
accoutrements of
heavy security. Any Palestinian entering Jerusalem
from the West Bank to work, to visit family, to pray at al-Aqsa Mosque
or the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre, to go to school, or for medical treatment
must
have a hard-to-obtain permit from Israel. The turnstiles and
other
security barriers are controlled remotely by Israeli soldiers housed
behind
heavy bullet-proof glass.
The
cages are currently painted a bright, cheerful blue, but it's a fair
bet that when they are older and worn, the paint job will not be
renewed.
Adding to the false cheer, the Israelis have erected incongruous
welcoming
signs at the terminals. Most egregious is the giant sign at the Bethlehem
terminal.
"Peace be with you," it proclaims in three languages to travelers
leaving Jerusalem for Bethlehem. This
is on a giant pastel-colored
sign erected by the Israeli Ministry of Tourism, as if travel through
this
terminal were the ordinary tourist lark. At the Qalandiya terminal
between
Ramallah and Jerusalem,
a large cartoon-like red rose welcomes Palestinians with a sign in
Arabic.
Early this year when the terminal was opened, the rose was on a sign
that
proclaimed, in three languages, "The hope of us all." Apparently
embarrassed at being caught so red-handed in their hypocrisy, the
Israelis removed
the sign, preserving only the rose, after a Jewish activist stenciled
over it
the words that once graced the entrance to Auschwitz,
"Arbeit Macht Frei" -- work makes you free. There is still a
sign saying in three languages, "May you go in peace and return in
peace." The Israelis still don't really get it.
Nor
do the Americans. The terminals, advertised as a way to "ease
life" for Palestinians by prettying up the checkpoints of old and
making
passage more efficient, were paid for out of U.S. aid monies designated
originally for the Palestinian Authority (before the Hamas election)
but
diverted to Israel's terminal-building enterprise -- helping Israel
make
Palestinian humiliation more efficient. Steven Erlanger in the New
York
Times, among others, fell for the scam, noting when the Bethlehem
terminal opened in December last
year that the terminals were aimed at "easing the burden on
Palestinians
and softening international criticism." He labeled the Bethlehem
terminal a "grand"
gateway for Christians visiting Jesus' birthplace -- not acknowledging
that
Christians had been visiting for two millennia without benefit of
turnstiles
and concrete walls.
The
burden on Palestinians has not been significantly eased as far as we
could tell. We spent some time watching at several of the terminals --
feeling
like voyeurs of Palestinian misery. At Qalandiya, about 100 people
stood
waiting to pass through three locked turnstiles. A young Israeli woman
soldier
sat in a glassed-in control booth barking commands at them. Our friend
Ahmad
speaks Hebrew as well as Arabic and could not even make out which
language she
was speaking in. There was no reason for her anger or for her decision
to lock
the turnstiles. When she saw us observing, carrying a camera, she shook
her finger
in an apparent warning against taking pictures. They don't like
witnesses.
Immediately after this, she unlocked the turnstiles.
We
walked through after everyone else who had been waiting, and Ahmad
took us to the waiting area on the other side where Palestinians from
the West
Bank apply for permits to enter Jerusalem.
About 50 people were waiting. A middle-aged man walked up to us and
began
telling his story. He was scheduled for neurosurgery at Maqassad
Hospital in East Jerusalem in two days, according to a
certificate from the
hospital, written in English and clearly intended for Israeli permit
authorities. He had already been waiting for six days -- three futilely
sitting
in this waiting area and a previous three when the Israelis had closed
the terminal
altogether for Yom Kippur. He was beginning to fear he would never get
his
permit and, as he expressed his frustration and desperation, he began
to cry.
He asked that we take his picture holding the certificate and tell the
world.
We did, but we will never know if he obtained his permit in time, or at
all.
At
another terminal, leading from al-Azzariyah, the biblical Bethany, into Jerusalem,
a soldier screamed at us -- quite literally, his face red, blood
vessels
standing out on his neck -- when he saw us taking pictures of his
soldier
colleagues questioning Palestinians before they entered the terminal
area, a
pre-screening for the screening at the terminal. We told the soldier we
thought
pictures would be all right; this terminal was run after all by the
Ministry of
Tourism and so must be a tourist attraction. But our flippancy didn't
go over
well. He pushed us toward an exit gate, screaming that this was the
"Ministry of Gates" and that we had to get out. We managed to remain
inside until Ahmad, who was talking to another Israeli soldier,
finished and
exited with us. Maybe we saved one or two Palestinians from scrutiny by
distracting a couple of soldiers -- or maybe unfortunately we just
delayed them
further.
At a
third checkpoint, this a makeshift one set up temporarily at an
opening in the wall where the concrete barrier is still incomplete, we
watched
as a growing crowd of Palestinians wanting to enter Jerusalem to pray
at
al-Aqsa Mosque tried to negotiate with two young Israeli soldiers. It
was a Friday
in Ramadan and, although these Palestinians had permits to enter Jerusalem, their
names
were not on the authorized list at this particular checkpoint. They had
to go,
according to Israel's
administrative fiat, to the main terminal from their area into the
city. As the
crowd gathered, more Israeli soldiers arrived. The crowd included women
as well
as men, and several children. Being watched by a couple of Americans
who
probably appeared more patronizing than helpful clearly did not improve
the
mood of most of the crowd.
One
little boy of about five, dressed neatly in a tie and pressed white
shirt, stood looking at the commotion for a few minutes, standing
slightly
apart from his father, and suddenly burst into tears. A few minutes
later, the
soldiers exploded a concussion grenade, and most of the crowd
dispersed. It's
the Israeli way: make them cry, run them off in fear. We left,
embarrassed by
our own inadequacy.
Terminology
Is it
genocide when a little boy is made to cry because belligerent
armed men intimidate him, intimidate his father, and ultimately run
them off;
when they are forbidden from performing their religious ceremonies
because a
belligerent government decides they are of the wrong religion; when
their town
is encircled and cut off because a racist state decides their ethnic
identity
is of the wrong variety?
You
can argue over terminology, but the truth is evident everywhere on
the ground where Israel has extended its writ: Palestinians are
unworthy,
inferior to Jews, and in the name of the Jewish people, Israel has
given itself
the right to erase the Palestinian presence in Palestine -- in other
words, to
commit genocide by destroying "in whole or in part, a national,
ethnical,
racial, or religious group."
As we
debate about and analyze the Palestinian psyche, trying to
determine if they have had enough and will surrender or will survive by
resisting, it is important to remember that the Jewish people, despite
unspeakable tragedy, emerged from the holocaust ultimately triumphant. Israel and its supporters should keep
this in
mind: empires never last, as Ahmad said, and gross injustice such as
the Nazis
and Israel
have inflicted on innocent people cannot prevail for long.
________________
Kathleen Christison is a former CIA political analyst
and has worked on Middle East issues
for 30
years. She is the author of Perceptions
of Palestine and The
Wound of Dispossession.
Bill Christison was a senior official of the CIA.
He served as a National Intelligence Officer and as Director of the
CIA's
Office of Regional and Political Analysis. They spent October 2006 in Palestine
and on a speaking tour of Ireland
sponsored by the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
They can be reached at
kathy.bill@christison-santafe.com.