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CounterPunch
August
13/19, 2002
Our Failures Are Borne by Palestinians
by Robert Jensen
I was wearing a pro-Palestinian T-shirt; he was
wearing a yarmulke. As we sat at the airport waiting for the
same flight, he glanced at my shirt and asked me to turn so he
could read the message: "Palestine -- 50 years of dispossession,
1948-1998" a shirt produced during Israel's 50th anniversary.
He scowled, and we began talking.
I tried to make sure that two fundamental
facts were not lost in the discussion: The ethnic cleansing of
about 700,000 Palestinians in 1948, driven from their homes by
the Israelis during the birth of that nation that year; and Israel's
illegal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, captured during
the 1967 war. He said Arabs want to destroy Israel, and therefore
Israel's attacks on Palestinians are justified. We challenged
each other's facts and interpretations. He invoked God; I cited
international law. It was tense, but civil.
 Then he suggested that one solution would be
for all the Palestinians to leave and settle in other Arab lands
-- the "let them go live with their own kind" answer.
Often called "transfer" or the "Sharon plan,"
it was once considered absurd by all but the most reactionary
forces in Israel; now it's increasingly being taken seriously
in Israel and the United States.
On the surface, it seems simple to many:
The Gaza Strip and West Bank are relatively small parcels of
land -- why fight over them? Why can't Palestinians just resettle
in other Arab nations? If their Arab brothers and sisters truly
cared, wouldn't they take them in?
I offered the man in the airport an analogy.
I'm originally from North Dakota, I explained. Let's say that
the Canadians swept down into North Dakota after a border dispute
and captured territory during a war. After occupying the land
for decades and settling Canadians in the most desirable spots
and taking most of the water, let's imagine the Canadians were
to suggest that a solution would be for North Dakotans -- those
still living in North Dakota under Canadian military occupation
and those in exile or refugees -- to relocate to South Dakota.
I no longer live in North Dakota, but
I can say with confidence that the people there would not pack
their bags and accept such a "solution." They would
resist, as people anywhere would. Some would choose nonviolent
strategies, but I suspect a fair number would take up arms. The
man in the airport glared at me and said, "You're a racist."
I don't know what took him from my analogy
to that accusation, but it's easy to speculate he was projecting
his own racism; his contempt for Palestinians, and Arabs more
generally, was palpable. Our discussion ended and we boarded
the plane.
I sank into my seat feeling defeated
-- not because I thought his arguments were better than mine,
but because the argument I had made about the humanity of the
Palestinians didn't seem to matter to him. My sense of defeat
was not about an argument lost, but about the consequences.
Those consequences are clear: So long
as Americans ignore these basic issues about justice, U.S. financial,
military, and diplomatic support for Israel will continue. And
as long as the United States supports Israeli expansion and aggression,
there is no hope for an end to the violence.
As I sat there, I could not escape the
knowledge that the burdens of our failures in the United States
are borne not by us but by the Palestinians.
Robert Jensen
is an associate professor of journalism at the University of
Texas at Austin, a member of the Nowar Collective, and author
of the book Writing
Dissent: Taking Radical Ideas from the Margins to the Mainstream
and the pamphlet "Citizens of the Empire." He can be
reached at rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu.
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