People not Places
A friend sent me this powerful docu-music-video by Detroit-based Hip-Hop artist Invincible (featuring Abeer and Suhell Nafar of the Palestinian group DAM) highlighting the systemic and deeply rooted nature of ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
From their site, EMERGENCE Travel Agency: “Invincible exposes the process of historic and continued colonization of Palestine as being even deeper than land seizure and ethnic cleansing, but one that attempts to erase the indigenous language, culture, and memory of Palestinians.
Intertwined with the music video are interviews that expose how Zionist claims to a Jewish “birthright” to Palestine have come at the expense of the Palestinian Right of Return to their indigenous land. These interviews show how the Right of Return of Palestinians is interconnected with the resistance of occupied and displaced refugee communities globally, from Turtle Island to Puerto Rico and beyond.”
08/17/2009 at 6:54 pm
That’s a brilliant video. Thanks a lot for sharing. I’ll be making sure it does the rounds on Facebook.
08/21/2009 at 1:08 pm
I love the new website… and am looking forward to the recipes… I love trying to cook Palestinian food here in Palestine. I would also love to see a section of “Palestinian Culture for dummies” so i could understand what is going on more often. Thank you for all you commentaries and sharing your life with us!
08/21/2009 at 1:19 pm
I am interested in peoples definitions of ethnic cleansing. An intuitive definition could be a systematic elimination of an ethnic group from a region by killing or by relocation. It then becomes a matter of setting a threshold. You start with a given population, you end with a smaller population, and when the reduction in population is greater than a certain amount or percentage of the original, you have ethnic cleansing.
Seeing as the only ethnic group to undergo a reduction in population in the gaza strip is Jews, it would appear the only people guilty of ethnic cleansing in Gaza is the ethnic Arabs. Of course, we know the Arabs have not committed ethnic cleansing in the Gaza Strip. The Jews left “voluntarily”
The population growth rate of the Palestinian Arabs is amongst the highest in the world, according to UN statistics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_growth_rate
So how can you have one of the worlds highest population growth rates and still complain of ethnic cleansing? I wish someone would explain the matter to me.
08/27/2009 at 8:06 am
Larry,
Ethnic cleansing, according to encyclopaedia britannica: the attempt to create ethnically homogeneous geographic areas through the deportation or forcible displacement of persons belonging to particular ethnic groups. Ethnic cleansing sometimes involves the removal of all physical vestiges of the targeted group through the destruction of monuments, cemeteries, and houses of worship.
So the what makes it ethnic cleansing is the attempt (deliberate action) and not the success in reducing/removing the targeted population. Therefore growth rates of population have nothing to do with the fact of ethnic cleansing.
BTW, it’s not about ethnic cleansing specifically in Gaza, but in Palestine in general, from 1948 onwards.
Even if the Israeli officials say that the Palestinians left on their own accord in 1948, the code-names for the Israeli expulsion plans(like “broom” or “clean-up”) show attempt. (Domicide: the global destruction of home By John Douglas Porteous, Sandra Eileen Smith – they discuss destruction of homes as part of political agendas and ethnic cleansing in various places in the world, you can check the book out at google books, Palestine/Israel is discussed on pp. 89-93)
The Jews from the Gaza strip were removed by the Israeli government in 2005 as part of their unilateral plan. If this classifies as ethnic cleansing (I’m not sure if one can commit ethnic cleansing against their own people) – it is done by the Israeli government on their own accord (it was not required by a treaty or agreement, etc).
To answer you question, one can complain of ethnic cleansing whenever there is an attempt (deliberate action) to remove an ethnic group from a particular territory. It has nothing to do with the targeted populations growth rate or whatever.
08/28/2009 at 7:33 pm
Enisa,
Thank you for your response. It leaves me with a few follow up questions, since terms are used in the answer that remain, to me, ambiguous.
When you say that the ethnic cleansing of Palestine begins in 1948 onwards, what is the region you are referring to as Palestine? Are you referring to the entire mandate area of Palestine? Are you referring the partitioned area? Are you referring to Israel proper today?
For the sake of the conversation, lets assume you are referring to the area of the Palestinian mandate at the time of Israel’s war of independence. There is no doubt in my mind that there was a program of ethnic cleansing trying to eliminate Arab residents from Israel. Even if the vast majority of the Arab population left voluntarily, I am certain no heroic efforts were made by Israel to make them stay. Public proclamations might have been made urging the Arab population to stay, but I suspect that over time we will continue to learn that that was mostly political lip service. That being said, lets put that “policy” into the perspective of the time period. Mass migration was a common political norm. We can look at the Indian/Pakistani migrations that occurred. We can look at the refugee migrations that occurred in Europe as a result of WWII. We can look at the American policy of isolating Japanese citizens, and taking away their property. We can look at the ethnic cleansing of Jews from Arab countries where similar numbers of Jews were driven out of their homes as Arabs were driven out of their homes. We can look at the expulsion of Jews from their homes in Arab occupied Jerusalem. We can look at both Jordanian, and Palestinian law which makes selling property to Jews a capital offense. I am not talking about the parity in numbers but in the common mode of operation of the times. While I might be accused of political incorrectness, perhaps Israels real failure was in doing a partial job of separation, and had the separation been more complete, it might have been more acceptable to the rest of the world.
Again, in 1948-1950 time frame there was ethnic cleansing both in the actual intent and the actual implementation, and it was performed by all parties, Israeli and Arabs.
Lets move the clock forward to today. You have so clearly explained to me that birth rate and growth rate is not an indication of ethnic cleansing. What is important to look at is intent. In terms of Israeli policy, I would like to know where in Israeli policy is the intent to remove Arab populations from their homes expressed. While there is no doubt that there are individuals in Israel who promote such hatred, I do not think you can find a single law or public policy that includes the intent to remove Arabs from their homes. The closest argument that I suspect you can find is the absentee land owner law as part of the basic law of Israel. Removing someone who is not there strikes me as a weak argument.
In comparison, lets look at both the Palestinian National charter:
Article 2: Palestine, with the boundaries it had during the British Mandate, is an indivisible territorial unit.
Article 15: The liberation of Palestine, from an Arab viewpoint, is a national (qawmi) duty and it attempts to repel the Zionist and imperialist aggression against the Arab homeland, and aims at the elimination of Zionism in Palestine
Article 22: Zionism is a political movement organically associated with international imperialism and antagonistic to all action for liberation and to progressive movements in the world. It is racist and fanatic in its nature, aggressive, expansionist and colonial in its aims, and fascist in its methods. Israel is the instrument of the Zionist movement, and the geographical base for world imperialism placed strategically in the midst of the Arab homeland to combat the hopes of the Arab nation for liberation, unity, and progress. Israel is a constant source of threat vis-à-vis peace in the Middle East and the whole world. Since liberation of Palestine will destroy the Zionist and imperialist presence and will contribute to the establishment of peace in the Middle East. That is why the Palestinian people look to the progressive and peaceful forces and urge them all, irrespective of their affiliations and beliefs, to offer the Palestinian people all aid and support in their just struggle for the liberation of their homeland.
and the Hamas charter:
Within the circle of the conflict with world Zionism, the Hamas regards itself the spearhead and the avant-garde. It joins its efforts to all those who are active on the Palestinian scene, but more steps need to be taken by the Arab and Islamic peoples and Islamic associations throughout the Arab and Islamic world in order to make possible the next round with the Jews, the merchants of war.
Basically all of the Hamas charter is a call to eliminate any Jewish entity from the middle east.
In terms of philosophy, attempt, and intent, I would suggest that those most guilty of ethnic cleansing in the Middle East today are the Palestinians.
08/30/2009 at 7:54 pm
Conflating and muddling issues does nothing to help your argument, philosophy, intent and attempt are distinct from an outcome.
Individuals on both sides have expressed an intention for ethnic cleansing- indeed people all over the world have peculiar intentions, attempt bizarre things and have strange philosophies- outcomes are a different thing altogether.
Ethnic Cleansing in this context describes the consequence of an action.
The video argues that in a great many areas of what is now Israel the war resulted in ethnic cleansing of specific villages, areas, towns and communities that were at one time mixed or populated by Palestinians. That process has not been reversed in that individuals who were forced out have not been able to return- so the outcome remains that they were ethnically cleansed from those areas.
05/01/2010 at 12:53 pm
hi to all
I can’t understand how to add your site in my rss reader. Help me, please
05/04/2010 at 9:02 am
Hi marquitta-I just added an RSS option, you should be able to add it now! thanks!