What Indians And Palestinians Share By JUSTINE
MCCABE
Published on 5/29/2005, The Day, New London
Palestinians salvage belongings in the rubble of
destroyed buildings and
houses in the Jebaliya refugee camp, northern
Gaza Strip, in this Oct. 16,
2004 file photo. Amnesty International on
Wednesday, May 25, 2005 accused
Israeli soldiers operating in the Palestinian
territories of committing war
crimes, including unlawful killings, torture,
destruction of property and
targeting medical personnel. The London-based
human right's group's report
for 2004 also condemned the deliberate targeting
of Israeli civilians by
Palestinian militants as a crime against
humanity.
Controversy over Indian rights in Connecticut
recently intensified when
the federal government reversed its recognition
of Stonington's Eastern
Pequots and Kent-based Schaghticoke tribes.
Overall, officials and the
public appear pleased. Attorney General Richard
Blumenthal said, One
reason this is so historic is because no
positive recognition decision has
been reversed before. This is a first for the
nation, which makes it all
the more significant and satisfying, according
to The Litchfield County
Times.
Clearly, it's not satisfying for Connecticut's
indigenous peoples as their
rights and attachment to the land continue to be
challenged even centuries
after first contact with European settlers.
Due-process arguments put into high relief the
irony experienced by
America's native peoples in obtaining
recognition: they must prove they
exist. They must demonstrate that their people
and cultures actually
survived government intentions to eradicate them
and seize land on which
survival depended.
Meanwhile, the original injustice is submerged
in a bureaucratic system
organized to disavow it: even applying for BIA
recognition costs millions,
encouraging many tribes to resort to casino
investors despite their
corruption of traditional native values. Indian
participation (let alone
success) in this admittedly suspect process
arouses only insecurity and
hostility among my non-Indian Kent neighbors.
Tellingly, references to
original dispossession and the enduring
traumatic impact of European
contact are circumvented. Expressions of
collective responsibility or
apologies are absent.
Most Americans experience a kind of collective
denial about our shameful
history. Yet its legacy lives dangerously on
not just at home but also in
our foreign policy.
As Attorney General Blumenthal began challenging
Schaghticoke recognition,
then-Palestinian presidential candidate Mahmoud
Abbas was visiting some of
the 400,000 Palestinian refugees in camps in
Lebanon, reassuring them that
their right to return to their homes in what is
now Israel would not be
abandoned in future negotiations.
There are more than 6 million Palestinian
refugees who have been waiting to
go home since the 1947-49 Naqba(catastrophe).
Most refugees live within
60 miles of their former homes, some close enough
to see and weep for lost
orchards and fields.
Like America's native peoples, Palestinians bear
the burden of proof of
their existence and right to their ancestral
lands.
Possession of keys and deeds, or official
registration as refugees with the
U.N. haven't succeeded. Neither has
international law. In fact, in keeping
with several bodies of law, the U.N. explicitly
conditioned Israel's 1949
U.N. admittance on its implementation of
Resolution 194 affirming
Palestinians' inalienable right to return home.
Despite this, Israel has
refused to allow its native peoples to return.
The U.S. has implicitly
supported this since the Truman administration.
Indeed, American Indian dispossession is older
than that of the
Palestinians. But the same national formative
act and its denial
constitute a significant component of the
special relationship touted
between the U.S. and Israel. This denial begs
attention to fully explicate
the complacency of American foreign policy in
the face of undeniable
antipathy toward the U.S. that has only grown
since the invasion and
occupation of Iraq.
Like Americans, Israelis know what their own
historians have amply
documented: Palestinian dispossession is the
foundation of their state.
Between 1947 and 1949, more than 75 percent of
the native population was
expelled by Zionist forces that seized their
lands for exclusive
Jewish-Israeli use. Then, in 1967, 35 percent of
the population of
Palestinian Gaza and the West Bank were forced
out, some made refugees
twice in a generation.
But for Palestinians and Israelis, this colonial
past is present.
Every day since 1967, the 3.3 million
Palestinians in the Occupied
Territories continue to experience the
post-modern version of manifest
destiny: 400,000 Jewish settlers facilitate an
ongoing Israeli land grab
200,000 during the Oslo peace period. In the
past four years alone, Israel
confiscated over 56,000 acres of Palestinian
land, razed another 18,000
acres of farmland, uprooted over 1.1 million
trees. Over 250 miles of
Israeli-only bypass roads and hundreds of
checkpoints have created more
than 200 disconnected Palestinian reservations.
Even if Israel evacuates
Gaza, Prime Minister Sharon insists that the
huge (illegal) West Bank
settlements will stay. His intention is
underscored by the
soon-to-be-completed separation wall, which
will seize another 15 percent
of West Bank land and leave 600,000 Palestinians
in an open-air prison
between it and the Green Line.
Meanwhile, Israel's non-Jewish citizens cannot
rent, own or live on
state lands reserved exclusively for Jews 93
percent of the country.
Under Israel's Law of Return, any Jew born
anywhere can immigrate to Israel
and become a citizen, yet indigenous refugees
cannot go home.
Why does Israel continue violating
international law? Its answer embraces
that historically familiar but no less
ethnocentric assertion: to
maintain its Jewish character. Yet even within
the Green Line, Israel is
now, and has always been, a multicultural land
where about 28 percent of its
citizens are non-Jews, including at least 20
percent who are Palestinian.
But to the world's formerly colonized people
the vast majority of the
world's populationthere's strong identification
with the injustice to
Palestinians that sustains hostility toward
Israel and the U.S., and
threatens the security of Americans as well as
Israelis. At the deepest
psychological level, American Indians and
Palestinians bear witness to the
fact that human attachment to home and land can
neither be dismissed nor
divided by politicians with impunity.
But it's not too late. Israel has not reached
the entrenched U.S.
condition that reduced American Indians to less
than 1 percent of our
population (about a third of whom live on
reservations to which they were
confined over a century ago). Instead, 78 percent
of Jewish-Israelis occupy
only 15 percent of the country, making it
feasible for Palestinian refugees
to return to largely unoccupied land with little
displacement of Israelis
living there now. Sharing the land is a matter
of fairness and
international will, not viability.
Like the European colonization of America, the
colonization of Palestine
began with the imperial mindset that particularly
flourished in the 19th
century. We give Israel billions of dollars
annually in aid, weapons and
political support to underwrite those
19th-century colonial practices for
which, surely, most 21st century Americans and
Europeans are ashamed,
however much they may want to forget.
We cannot return to colonial America to undo
the degradation of our own
native peoples. But we can act to make sure
ethnic cleansing doesn't
continue in Palestine, now, in our names and with
our money.
Justine McCabe, Ph.D., is a cultural
anthropologist and clinical
psychologist who lives in New Milford.
========
MCCABE
Published on 5/29/2005, The Day, New London
Palestinians salvage belongings in the rubble of
destroyed buildings and
houses in the Jebaliya refugee camp, northern
Gaza Strip, in this Oct. 16,
2004 file photo. Amnesty International on
Wednesday, May 25, 2005 accused
Israeli soldiers operating in the Palestinian
territories of committing war
crimes, including unlawful killings, torture,
destruction of property and
targeting medical personnel. The London-based
human right's group's report
for 2004 also condemned the deliberate targeting
of Israeli civilians by
Palestinian militants as a crime against
humanity.
Controversy over Indian rights in Connecticut
recently intensified when
the federal government reversed its recognition
of Stonington's Eastern
Pequots and Kent-based Schaghticoke tribes.
Overall, officials and the
public appear pleased. Attorney General Richard
Blumenthal said, One
reason this is so historic is because no
positive recognition decision has
been reversed before. This is a first for the
nation, which makes it all
the more significant and satisfying, according
to The Litchfield County
Times.
Clearly, it's not satisfying for Connecticut's
indigenous peoples as their
rights and attachment to the land continue to be
challenged even centuries
after first contact with European settlers.
Due-process arguments put into high relief the
irony experienced by
America's native peoples in obtaining
recognition: they must prove they
exist. They must demonstrate that their people
and cultures actually
survived government intentions to eradicate them
and seize land on which
survival depended.
Meanwhile, the original injustice is submerged
in a bureaucratic system
organized to disavow it: even applying for BIA
recognition costs millions,
encouraging many tribes to resort to casino
investors despite their
corruption of traditional native values. Indian
participation (let alone
success) in this admittedly suspect process
arouses only insecurity and
hostility among my non-Indian Kent neighbors.
Tellingly, references to
original dispossession and the enduring
traumatic impact of European
contact are circumvented. Expressions of
collective responsibility or
apologies are absent.
Most Americans experience a kind of collective
denial about our shameful
history. Yet its legacy lives dangerously on
not just at home but also in
our foreign policy.
As Attorney General Blumenthal began challenging
Schaghticoke recognition,
then-Palestinian presidential candidate Mahmoud
Abbas was visiting some of
the 400,000 Palestinian refugees in camps in
Lebanon, reassuring them that
their right to return to their homes in what is
now Israel would not be
abandoned in future negotiations.
There are more than 6 million Palestinian
refugees who have been waiting to
go home since the 1947-49 Naqba(catastrophe).
Most refugees live within
60 miles of their former homes, some close enough
to see and weep for lost
orchards and fields.
Like America's native peoples, Palestinians bear
the burden of proof of
their existence and right to their ancestral
lands.
Possession of keys and deeds, or official
registration as refugees with the
U.N. haven't succeeded. Neither has
international law. In fact, in keeping
with several bodies of law, the U.N. explicitly
conditioned Israel's 1949
U.N. admittance on its implementation of
Resolution 194 affirming
Palestinians' inalienable right to return home.
Despite this, Israel has
refused to allow its native peoples to return.
The U.S. has implicitly
supported this since the Truman administration.
Indeed, American Indian dispossession is older
than that of the
Palestinians. But the same national formative
act and its denial
constitute a significant component of the
special relationship touted
between the U.S. and Israel. This denial begs
attention to fully explicate
the complacency of American foreign policy in
the face of undeniable
antipathy toward the U.S. that has only grown
since the invasion and
occupation of Iraq.
Like Americans, Israelis know what their own
historians have amply
documented: Palestinian dispossession is the
foundation of their state.
Between 1947 and 1949, more than 75 percent of
the native population was
expelled by Zionist forces that seized their
lands for exclusive
Jewish-Israeli use. Then, in 1967, 35 percent of
the population of
Palestinian Gaza and the West Bank were forced
out, some made refugees
twice in a generation.
But for Palestinians and Israelis, this colonial
past is present.
Every day since 1967, the 3.3 million
Palestinians in the Occupied
Territories continue to experience the
post-modern version of manifest
destiny: 400,000 Jewish settlers facilitate an
ongoing Israeli land grab
200,000 during the Oslo peace period. In the
past four years alone, Israel
confiscated over 56,000 acres of Palestinian
land, razed another 18,000
acres of farmland, uprooted over 1.1 million
trees. Over 250 miles of
Israeli-only bypass roads and hundreds of
checkpoints have created more
than 200 disconnected Palestinian reservations.
Even if Israel evacuates
Gaza, Prime Minister Sharon insists that the
huge (illegal) West Bank
settlements will stay. His intention is
underscored by the
soon-to-be-completed separation wall, which
will seize another 15 percent
of West Bank land and leave 600,000 Palestinians
in an open-air prison
between it and the Green Line.
Meanwhile, Israel's non-Jewish citizens cannot
rent, own or live on
state lands reserved exclusively for Jews 93
percent of the country.
Under Israel's Law of Return, any Jew born
anywhere can immigrate to Israel
and become a citizen, yet indigenous refugees
cannot go home.
Why does Israel continue violating
international law? Its answer embraces
that historically familiar but no less
ethnocentric assertion: to
maintain its Jewish character. Yet even within
the Green Line, Israel is
now, and has always been, a multicultural land
where about 28 percent of its
citizens are non-Jews, including at least 20
percent who are Palestinian.
But to the world's formerly colonized people
the vast majority of the
world's populationthere's strong identification
with the injustice to
Palestinians that sustains hostility toward
Israel and the U.S., and
threatens the security of Americans as well as
Israelis. At the deepest
psychological level, American Indians and
Palestinians bear witness to the
fact that human attachment to home and land can
neither be dismissed nor
divided by politicians with impunity.
But it's not too late. Israel has not reached
the entrenched U.S.
condition that reduced American Indians to less
than 1 percent of our
population (about a third of whom live on
reservations to which they were
confined over a century ago). Instead, 78 percent
of Jewish-Israelis occupy
only 15 percent of the country, making it
feasible for Palestinian refugees
to return to largely unoccupied land with little
displacement of Israelis
living there now. Sharing the land is a matter
of fairness and
international will, not viability.
Like the European colonization of America, the
colonization of Palestine
began with the imperial mindset that particularly
flourished in the 19th
century. We give Israel billions of dollars
annually in aid, weapons and
political support to underwrite those
19th-century colonial practices for
which, surely, most 21st century Americans and
Europeans are ashamed,
however much they may want to forget.
We cannot return to colonial America to undo
the degradation of our own
native peoples. But we can act to make sure
ethnic cleansing doesn't
continue in Palestine, now, in our names and with
our money.
Justine McCabe, Ph.D., is a cultural
anthropologist and clinical
psychologist who lives in New Milford.
========
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com
YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS
- Visit your group "VTJP" on the web.
- To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
- Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
