Issue 4 Link Archives: September-October, 2013
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Published by Americans for The Link Middle East Understanding, Inc. Volume 46, Issue 4 Link Archives: www.ameu.org September-October, 2013 By Miko Peled © 2013 I would like Americans to know what my mother told me. I can’trecall how old I was when my mother told me this story, I only remember that it troubled me for many years. It was not until I was in my late 40’sthat I under- stood what the story meant and why it disturbed me. (Continued on Page 3.) The Link Page 2 AMEU Board of Directors About This Hope Jane Adas (Vice President) Issue © 2011 by Alice Walker Elizabeth D. Barlow Edward Dillon The photographs on pages 3, Hope never Rod Driver 5, 6, and 7 come courtesy of our to covet John Goelet author, Miko Peled; they are pic- the neighbors’house tures of four individuals who David Grimland with the fragrant caused him to think twice about garden Richard Hobson (Treasurer) what he had been taught as a boy from which a family Anne R. Joyce about his country. His hope is has been Hon. Robert V. Keeley that they will cause his country’s driven by your soldiers; Kendall Landis best friends, us Americans, to mother, father, Robert L. Norberg (President) think twice as well. grandparents, the toddler and Hon. Edward L. Peck Miko’sarticle is based on his the dog Donald L. Snook book “The General’s Son: Jour- now homeless: ney of an Israeli in Palestine,” Rosmarie Sunderland huddled, holding on James M. Wall published in 2012 by Just World to each other, Books. Permission to reproduce stunned AMEU National excerpts contained in the article and friendless Council must be obtained from the pub- beneath you Hugh D. Auchincloss, Jr. lisher (rights@justworld in the street: William R. Chandler books.com). sitting on Kathleen Christison The Pulitzer Prize winning cobblestones as if on the sofas Paul Findley author, Alice Walker, has granted AMEU permission to reprint her inside Moorhead Kennedy that you have decided poem, seen on the right, as well Ann Kerr to clean, recover and as excerpts from her Foreword to Nancy Lapp keep. Miko’sbook; see pg. 14. George E. Mendenhall Hope never Mary Norton Copies of Miko’s book are to say yes Don W. Wagner available from the publisher to their misery. Miriam Ward, RSM (www.justworldbooks.com) and Hope never to gaze from AMEU; see pg. 15. down into their faces from what used to be Executive Director Also on pg. 15, our video se- their rooftop. John F. Mahoney lections include the Oscar- Hope never to believe nominated documentary “Five AMEU (ISSN 0024-4007) this robbery grants permission to Broken Cameras,”recommended will make you a better reproduce material from The by Miko Peled in his article. It is citizen of your new Link in part or in whole. a snapshot of Israel’s ongoing country AMEU must be credited and colonization. one copy forwarded to our as you unfurl and wave office at 475 Riverside Drive, its recent Room 245, New York, New flag York 10115-0245. Tel. 212- John F. Mahoney that has been given 870-2053; Fax 212-870- Executive Director to assure you 2 0 5 0 ; E - m a i l : of this impossibility. [email protected]; Website: www.ameu.org. The Link Page 3 (Continued from Page 1.) At this point my mother would add: It was 1948 in Jerusalem and Zika Katsnelson- I knew the Palestinian families as a child growing Peled, my mother, was 22 years old. She was a up in Jerusalem. How could I take the home of an- daughter of the Zionist elite. Her father, Dr. Avraham other mother knowing full well that the rightful Katsnelson, was a member of the provisional Zionist owners of these homes were now refugees? government in Palestine and later a signatory of Is- And she would continue: rael’sDeclaration of Independence. Her mother, Dr. To see how the soldiers looted these homes, tak- Sima Kaplan, was a dermatologist and one of the first ing the rugs and furniture. How were they not female doctors in Palestine. They all shared a small ashamed? And you know, when the soldiers apartment in Jerusalem, where my mother herself came into the homes, the coffee was still warm, was born and raised. sitting on the breakfast table. In the spring of 1948, the And that was it. That was the Haganah (the Zionist militia story. We forced people to leave, which later became the Israeli we stole their possessions and we Defense Forces, or IDF) took the took their homes. How that story neighborhoods of western Jeru- bothered me, for years. It bothered salem, including Katamon, me because, in my mind, it could- Talbiye, and Bak’a,among oth- n’tbe true. I was taught that we ers. are Israelis, we are the Jewish peo- The inhabitants of these ple, and we are righteous. We ac- neighborhoods, like hundreds cepted the U.N. partition resolu- of thousands of Palestinians tion of 1947 even though it only across the country, were forced gave us a portion of Eretz Israel to leave their homes and go into and not all of it, as we deserved. indefinite exile. The homes in We wanted peace yet Arab bandits these neighborhoods still stand, who wanted to kill us viciously impressive houses built with attacked us and we acted hu- distinctive Jerusalem stone. manely towards them, making They generally have wide bal- My mother Zika sure not to harm women and chil- conies overlooking front yards, dren. We miraculously survived a lemon tree in the backyard, high arched ceilings, the war of 1948, defeated the ad- and oftentimes an inscription with the date that the vancing Arab armies and were able to establish a Jew- home was constructed. These were the homes of well- ish state in the land of Israel after 2000 years in exile. to-do Jerusalemite Palestinians who were all forced to So what was my mother saying? Why was my leave, and never allowed to return. mother presenting a moral dilemma where there The invading Zionist militia looted the furniture, couldn’tbe one? rugs and other valuables such as rare books and One aspect of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict manuscripts and, according to a 2013 documentary that makes it unique is that the disagreement is not film by Benny Brunner, “The Great Book Robbery,” merely over land rights, or an interpretation of his- the Zionists even had a special librarian unit that fol- tory, but rather over the facts themselves. The Israeli lowed the forces to collect and index the books they and Palestinian narratives are diametrically opposed found. As the daughter of a member of the Zionist in that they claim two separate sets of historical facts, elite and the wife of a captain in the Haganah’s creating a situation where no middle ground, no Giv’ati brigade, my mother was offered one of these “balance”can be found. If two opposing histories are looted homes, as were a handful of other Israeli fami- presented, then one of them must be wrong. And in- lies. She refused. deed one of them is wrong. The Link Page 4 The Israeli narrative begins with the right of of the stories we heard as children, and a close ex- Jewish people to “return” to their ancestral home- amination of the story of the birth of Israel reveals land. This so-called “return” is their right because the following: by 1947 the Jewish community in Pal- the Jewish people of today claim to be the descen- estine numbered close to half a million people, dants of the ancient Hebrews who resided on that mostly immigrants like my grandparents, and their piece of land some two or three thousand years ago. children, my parents’ generation. The Palestinian In response to intolerance by regimes in Christian community, numbered close to 1.5 million. This ex- Europe towards their Jewish population, the Zionist plains the Palestinian rejection of a plan that was to movement was established and took on the task of give a small community of Jewish immigrants the recreating a state for the Jewish people in their an- lion’s share of Palestine. While both communities cient homeland. After decades of diligence, and what had already begun developing institutions of state, can only be described as diplomatic ingenuity, Zion- one thing in which the Jewish community had in- ist leaders like my grandfather managed to convince vested heavily, while the Palestinians had not, was the world that this was a valid argument. Their hard an armed militia. work and dedication paid off and, on Nov. 29, 1947, By 1947 the Zionist militia numbered close to the United Nations passed Resolution 181 that called 40,000 armed, well-trained men, many of whom for the partition of Palestine, and the allocation of the were trained by the British. There was no Palestinian larger part of the country for a Jewish state. equivalent to the Zionist militia. So the question that According to the Zionist narrative, the Arabs re- begs to be asked is: if the Palestinians had no armed jected the resolution and immediately Arab forces militia, who then were the Arabs who attacked the began attacking the Jewish community in an attempt Jewish community? Armies of neighboring countries to destroy what the Zionists were trying to build. intervened in Palestine, but that wasn’t until the This narrative claims that the Jewish community pre- fighting had been going on for months, and mostly vailed, despite being smaller and weaker than the after the British had left Palestine in May of 1948.