Elias Khoury: For Israelis, an Anniversary. For Palestinians, a Nakba.
[Elias Khoury, the editor of the literary supplement of the Beirut daily An Nahar and a professor at New York University, is the author of the novels “Gate of the Sun” and “Yalo.” This essay was translated from Arabic by Michael Scott.]
... No one wishes to hear the Palestinian story. Their history has been written by the victors: Israel has thus succeeded in blotting out its “original sin,” as the French author Dominique Vidal referred to the situation. Were it not for the courageous voices of Israeli “new historians” like Ilan Pappé, the world would not have come to admit that a people had been expelled from their land in a comprehensive ethnic cleansing operation, given the name “Plan D” by Israelis.
As Israel celebrates the 60th anniversary of its independence, it is pointedly ignoring two truths: First, that there is another people, composed of the previous inhabitants of the country, who consider that anniversary to be a day of national disaster, and consider the nation of Jewish immigrants to have been built on the rubble of another nation, Palestine....
Recognizing the sufferings of the victim, even if they are of the victim of a victim, is the necessary condition for an exit from this long and tragic tunnel. However, as the Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci suggests, it is difficult to maintain the optimism of the will in the face of the pessimism of the intellect.
Pessimism of the will is what we are living today in the Middle East. It is a pessimism that warns not only of the danger of recurring episodes of catastrophe as Arab societies break apart, but of the dismal prospect of an endless war that will provoke future tragedies in the 21st century.
Second, that Israel’s continued occupation of the remaining portions of Palestine, in the West Bank and Gaza, has transformed the nakba from a historic incident to a daily reality, experienced by Palestinians through the invasive settlements, the wall of separation and the checkpoints that disconnect their lands and sever the links between them, making their lives a hell on earth.
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... No one wishes to hear the Palestinian story. Their history has been written by the victors: Israel has thus succeeded in blotting out its “original sin,” as the French author Dominique Vidal referred to the situation. Were it not for the courageous voices of Israeli “new historians” like Ilan Pappé, the world would not have come to admit that a people had been expelled from their land in a comprehensive ethnic cleansing operation, given the name “Plan D” by Israelis.
As Israel celebrates the 60th anniversary of its independence, it is pointedly ignoring two truths: First, that there is another people, composed of the previous inhabitants of the country, who consider that anniversary to be a day of national disaster, and consider the nation of Jewish immigrants to have been built on the rubble of another nation, Palestine....
Recognizing the sufferings of the victim, even if they are of the victim of a victim, is the necessary condition for an exit from this long and tragic tunnel. However, as the Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci suggests, it is difficult to maintain the optimism of the will in the face of the pessimism of the intellect.
Pessimism of the will is what we are living today in the Middle East. It is a pessimism that warns not only of the danger of recurring episodes of catastrophe as Arab societies break apart, but of the dismal prospect of an endless war that will provoke future tragedies in the 21st century.
Second, that Israel’s continued occupation of the remaining portions of Palestine, in the West Bank and Gaza, has transformed the nakba from a historic incident to a daily reality, experienced by Palestinians through the invasive settlements, the wall of separation and the checkpoints that disconnect their lands and sever the links between them, making their lives a hell on earth.