|
Ethnic Cleansing and Tourism
by Ahmed Amr
Barely a month after the
spiritual leader of Shas called for exterminating Arabs, Israel's tourism
minister proposed getting rid of 'illegal' Palestinians. Speaking on
Israeli Army Radio, Rehavam Zeevi said that ``We should get rid of the
ones who are not Israeli citizens the same way you get rid of lice. We
have to stop this cancer from spreading within us.'' Zeevi is the leader
of the far-right National Union party that advocates the expulsion of
Arabs living under Israeli rule. This extremist bigot, a vocal advocate of
ethnic cleansing, sits in the Knesset. He even has a full ministerial
portfolio in the 'unity' government led by Ariel Sharon, a notorious war
criminal. Rehavam Zeevi is the guy responsible for bringing in the tourist
dollars. So the same guy responsible for promoting foreign visitors is
taking an active role in advocating the expulsion of the native people.
What is the Israeli travel slogan? "Visit Israel and help us exile the
native Palestinians"?
One need only recall the
measures taken by Europe and America to isolate Haider of Austria for
remarks that were considered anti-Semitic. The xenophobic Haider advocated
reducing the number of immigrants coming into Austria in language that was
quite mild compared to the regular outbursts of hate speech coming out of
the Knesset. All this talk of 'expulsion' and 'transfer' should not be
considered idle conversation. The destruction of Palestinian homes in
Jerusalem and Gaza is just the most recent example of intensifying the
violence of the occupation. Sharon and Zeevi and others are openly
declaring their intent to deal with the demographic Palestinian 'problem'
in a manner similar to what happened in 1948. The vast majority of
Israelis, across a wide political spectrum, from zealous settlers to the
self-appointed 'left', insist that any final solution must include a limit
to the number of native Palestinians allowed to live within the borders of
the 'Jewish' state. Indeed, Israelis abandoned the Oslo agreement when
they realized that the Palestinians were not going to just forget about
their right of return.
Talk of mass expulsion has
always been considered polite conversation in Israel. Most Israelis are
quite comfortable with a military regime that restricts the Palestinians
to a few tiny pockets of their ancestral homeland. From the Jordan River
to the Mediterranean Sea, four million Palestinians are densely packed
into tiny urban islands completely under Israeli siege or military
occupation. As far as the Israeli public is concerned, they are out of
sight and out of mind.
History was not supposed to be
this difficult for the Zionists. In their dogma, the Palestinians should
never have been hanging around the Holy Land in the first place. They had
no 'historical ties' to the land. Besides, if they were not so stubborn
they could have just disappeared and melted into the surrounding Arab
world. It was an act of anti-Semitism for a Palestinian to simply aspire
to live in the land of his birth, since this kind of defiance pre-empted
the 'ingathering of the ancient Hebrew people' who had a land deed
registered in the Torah.
When a Palestinian
encounters another Palestinian for the first time, the first thing they
ask is for your address. They want to know from which 'house' you came.
Such is their intimacy with their homeland. Even as exiles, they are a
provincial people who ascribe certain traits to those who grew up in a
Haifa house as opposed to those stubborn folks from El-Khalil or the
urbane Jeruslamite. The Ramallah Palestinians have their own clubs, even
in their north American exile. To the Israelis, Palestinians are just
bundles of flesh that can be 'transferred' here or exiled there. They see
the Palestinians as people without memories who should just 'move on' and
find some other country; become an Egyptian or a Syrian or a Greek.
It is a rare Israeli who
acknowledges the great harm inflicted on this innocent nation. Demonizing
the Palestinians is a Zionist imperative. The arrogant Israeli contempt
for the natives was an essential component of 'making a Sabra'. And of
making the Shatilas and the Qibyas. If the majority of Israelis ever
abandon their Euro-centric racist contempt for the ancient natives of
Palestine, they would finally become aware that the Zionist narrative is a
historical fraud. The whole Zionist creed is based on historic fiction
combined with a bizarre notion of exceptionalism.
Zionism is the last surviving
19th century ideology; a wicked bit of social experimentation that has
produced a twenty-first century legacy of a nuclear theocracy led by a war
criminal. They have created a 'Jewish' state that is now experiencing a
collective dementia that allows them to ignore half the people living
under Israeli rule.
The day Israelis, and for that matter American Jews, start
to shed their absurd historical mythology; The day they stop electing
racist demagogues and war criminals to high office; The day they wake up
and learn to count and realize that any way you slice it, even without
returning refugees, Palestine is still half Palestinian. When the day
comes and the world starts holding them accountable for fifty years of
apartheid rule and violent Jewish supremacy. When Sharon is restricted to
the confines of a detention cell in the Hague. When Israelis and Jews
apologize and pay reparations for the massive dimensions of their crimes.
Maybe on that day, you can book a flight to Israel with a safe social
conscious. In the meantime, a full tourist boycott would send a chauvinist
Israel a message that appointing a vicious bigot as a tourist minister is
almost as bad as electing a war criminal as Prime Minister.
Mr. Ahmed Amr is Editor
of NileMedia.com in Seattle and a regular contributor to Media Monitors
Network (MMN)
Source:
by courtesy & © 2001 Ahmed Amr
by the same author:
|
