About 2,000 years ago the
ancient kingdom of Israel ceased to exist when wars and conquering emperors
scattered the Jews across the globe. Now many people, especially Zionists and
Christian Zionists, celebrate the creation of Israel as a fulfillment of
biblical prophecy and the return of an exiled people to their homeland. Any Jew
may immigrate to Israel and obtain citizenship in Israel, claiming that it is
their birthright as Jew. At the same time
Supporters of Israel give
two common answers to this question. Many say it is God’s will that the Jews
return to their homeland, and that the creation of Israel is a fulfillment of
biblical prophecy. I am a Christian and
I believe in the prophecies in the scriptures, but I think all religious people
recognize that there are many cases in history where prophecy has been
misinterpreted and the Bible used as an excuse to put one group of people
higher than another and persecute the innocent. None of us can pretend to know
the will of God. But we do know how Jesus lived. He said “love your enemy.” He
was gentle, a friend to all, he healed and forgave the people who arrested and
killed him. No matter who is in the
right politically, the war and violence cannot be justified in the name of
biblical prophecy. While I believe in biblical prophecy, I do not believe
Israel is a fulfillment of it. Does it even matter? Doesn’t God love all his
children? The second answer I often hear as for why Israel had the right to be
founded the way it was and kill the way it does is that because of
anti-Semitism and especially the holocaust, there was nowhere else for the Jews
to go. Why should Palestinians be responsible for the tragic and horrific
actions of anti-Semitic European nations? Why shouldn’t it have been Germany
and Russia who gave up parts of their land to provide a safe place for the Jews
to establish a country? Many anti-Semitic nations supported the creation of
Israel as a solution to the “Jewish problem,” a way to get them out of their
country. Russia supported the creation of Israel largely due to the fact that
Israel was built on socialist principles. It is Israel’s bellicose treatment of
its neighbors that sews the seeds of hate among Palestinians and other Arabs.
According to history, logic
and international law, Palestinians naturally have the ancestral and legal right
to live in Palestine/Israel/Jerusalem. It is because of Israeli law and the United
States’ refusal to support international law that Palestinians’ rights remain
unrecognized. The Israeli Law of Return, signed July 5th 1950, allows any Jew
living anywhere in the world to immigrate and obtain Israeli citizenship.[i]
I once met a young British Israeli man living in Sderot, Israel on the border
of the Gaza strip. He took me on a tour of his city. The first thing I heard
upon arriving in Sderot was “If you hear a siren go off you have 15 seconds to
make it to a bomb shelter before a rocket hits.” We walked through the streets
which were dotted with bomb shelters, and where I could actually feel the fear
in the air. Saw the playgrounds where
long tunnels in the form of brightly painted caterpillars acted as bomb
shelters. The community center screened a documentary with footage of
Palestinian rockets hitting the city, and of children running from the
schoolyard into a bomb shelter inside the school. He led me to the top of a
hill on the outskirts of the city where the majority of the rockets hit and
where there are no bomb shelters within a 15 second sprint. There we were,
overlooking the Gaza strip, less than a mile away. A place which I don’t think I
would ever dare to enter. As rough as the situation was there in Sderot I knew
that just beyond that barbed wire fence the conditions are 100 times worse. In
Gaza it isn’t small homemade rockets whose casualties are tragic but rare, but
rather it is precision missiles, tanks, ground troops and chemical weapons like
white phosphorous that kill hundreds of people. |
| white phosphorous fired over civilian population in Gaza |
 |
| White phosphorous fired on Palestinian school in Gaza |
The Right of Return is the
Palestinian and Arab political belief that Palestinian refugees and their
immediate descendants have the right to return to their land. [ii]
The logic and legality of this claim is difficult to dispute. In 1948 the UN
passed resolution 194 declaring that “the
[Palestinian] refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with
their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date,
and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to
return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of
international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or
authorities responsible”.[iii]
Instead, those homes and villages were occupied by Israeli residents or
destroyed to make room for Israeli villages or forestry projects. U.N.
resolution 3236, passed in 1974, affirms that "the inalienable right of Palestinians to return to their homes and
property from which they have been displaced and uprooted, and calls for their
return."[iv]
Al-Awda: The Palestine Right to Return Commission describes in detail the
demand of international law for the Right of Return. These laws include The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial
Discrimination, The International Convention on Civil and
Political Rights and the principle of self determination.
From the very
beginning of peace negotiations the Right of Return has been one of the major
obstacles in getting all sides to agree. Israelis will not allow Palestinians
to return because there would no longer be a Jewish majority in the state.
Israel sees itself as a Democratic Jewish state. Jews do not believe that the
state can be both Jewish and Democratic unless they are the overwhelming
majority. To solve that problem they drove out hundreds of thousands of
Palestine’s inhabitants until now only 20% of Israel’s population is
Palestinian.
Why should Palestinians and Arabs be blamed for this conflict? While Jews were being persecuted in Europe and America they were welcomed in the Middle East. Why should Palestinians be punished for the actions of anti-Semitic nations? And why should the United States continue to support Israel in preventing the rightful return of Palestine’s people?
Israel’s Law of Return must be amended so that
Jews facing persecution may have Israel as an option for refuge, and so that
those Palestinians living in exile may return to their homeland. But then Israel as we
know it would cease to exist, becoming either democratic and pluralist (and
non-Jewish), or Jewish and apartheid (where the laws, rights and living
conditions are different for each race). But why did Palestine, where
Christians Jews and Muslims lived side by side in harmony, have to be wiped off
the map? Would it not be better to return to that state, be it called Israel,
Palestine or any other name? That is why Palestinian refugees and exiles must
be permitted to return to their homeland. The state that emerges then will become
a true ally and the real example of democracy and human rights that Israel
claims to be.
[i]Israel’s
Basic Laws: The Law of Return”https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Politics/Other_Law_Law_of_Return.html
[ii] Al-Awda: The Palestine
right to return commission. http://www.al-awda.org/
[iii] United Nations.
Palestine- Progress Report of the United Nations Mediator. 194. December 1948. http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/0/c758572b78d1cd0085256bcf0077e51a?OpenDocument
[iv]
United Nations. The Question of Palestine. 3236. November 1974. http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/025974039acfb171852560de00548bbe?OpenDocument
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