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Cohen.Chp:Corel VENTURA Land, Memory, and Identity: The Palestinian Internal Refugees in Israel Hillel Cohen Abstract he Internal Refugees in Israel are Palestinians who This article describes and analyzes the processes the Inter- were uprooted from their villages in the course of the nal Refugees have experienced since the establishment of T1948 war, but found refuge within the borders of the the state till this day from the perspective of the struggle state and became its citizens. From 1948, up until today, they over the “refugee identity.” While the state has tried to un- have continuously voiced their demand to return to their villages, only to be met by the refusal of all Israeli govern- dermine this identity as part of its policy against the Right ments. For the most part, their lands were allocated to Jewish of Return, activists from the refugees’ communities have settlement. While constituting a part of the general refugee done their best to preserve it. In the late 1980s it looked as problem, the moral, political, and practical controversy if the state’s goal of uprooting the refugee identity was about the Internal Refugees is one of the most concrete achieved, but the last decade witnessed an awakening of this expressions of the structural conflict between the state of identity. This has a lot to do with the Israeli-Palestinian Israel and its Arab citizens. peace talks, but also, it is suggested here, with the very na- This article aims to analyze the relations between the ture of “refugee identity,” which has two components, of State of Israel and the Palestinian Internal Refugees from which one is positive (“my roots are there”) and one is the perspective of the struggle over the “refugee identity” negative (“I am not from here”). from 1948 war onwards. After introducing the roots of the problem of the Internal Refugees and the legal mechanisms Résumé through which Israel took over their lands, the article deals Cet article décrit et analyse les processus vécus les réfugiés with the Israeli policy of abolishing their identity, and with the resistance of groups within these communities. The last internes depuis l’établissement de l’État (d’Israël), jusqu’à decade is witnessing a revival of the “refugee identity,” aujourd’hui et ce, à travers de leur lutte pour leur « iden- which will be presented and analyzed at the end of the paper. tité comme réfugié ». Bien que l’État se soit efforcé de saper cette identité dans le cadre de sa politique contre le The Roots of the Problem and the Denial of Droit au retour, les militants des camps de réfugiés ont Return tout fait pour la préserver. Vers la fin des années 80, il a The roots of this phenomenon are to be found in the way in semblé que l’État avait effectivement réussi à atteindre which Palestinian Arabs were uprooted from areas con- son but, soit de déraciner l’identité des réfugiés; mais la quered by Jewish forces in the 1948 war. Terrified by the dernière décennie a vu une renaissance de cette identité. advancing Israeli army, whole communities had left their Les négociations de paix israélo-palestiniennes ont grande- villages and sought refuge in neighbouring villages, which had not yet been conquered, or in large towns, which they ment contribué à cet état de chose, mais l’article suggère, believed would never be taken by the Israelis. But most of qu’en plus, cela se rapporte à la nature même de « l’iden- these villages and towns were indeed conquered, and their tité du réfugié », qui comporte deux aspects, l’un positif inhabitants, as well as their “guests,” were uprooted. In the (« mes racines sont ici ») et l’autre négatif (« je ne suis pas rare cases where the host communities had stayed in place, d’ici »). the refugees from the neighbouring villages stayed with Land, Memory, and Identity them, or at least tried to.1 That was the case with thousands ans and the Arab states were preparing themselves for a of villagers from the eastern Galilee, who concentrated in the second round of warfare in order to remove the disgrace of town of Nazareth prior to its occupation. The same goes for their defeat in 1948 and destroy the state of Israel. The Arab many refugees who, relying on the close ties between the citizens of Israel were perceived as a fifth column, waiting Druze leadership and the Israeli army, fled to Druze villages, for such a move and preparing to help it. This assumption hoping they would be allowed to stay. Many others found resulted in the evacuation of Arab villages from border asylum in villages which had surrendered later to the Israeli areas (Ikrit and Bir’am were the best-known examples). army without battle, and became parts of the new state of Thus the Bedouin of the Zbedat tribe in lower Galilee were Israel with their inhabitants.2 evacuated under the accusation that they were delivering The first reaction of the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) was intelligence information from Jordan to Lebanon. Resi- to drive the refugees who remained in the state of Israel over dents of small villages in the Triangle were transferred to the border, in order to prevent them from returning to their larger villages.8 The same kind of reasoning led to the villages. Thousands of refugees were thus expelled from the decision to forbid resettlement of abandoned villages. In- region of Ramah and Peqi’in (in upper Galilee) and from stead, the Internal Refugees were concentrated in towns or the town of Majdal (Ashkelon, on the southern coast of the villages and were distanced from strategically important state). Similarly, Israel has pressured refugees who had areas, such as main roads and highways. settled in villages in the Arab triangle to leave their new homes The third reason can be seen as vengefulness or, alterna- prior to the allocation of this area to the state of Israel (as was tively, as a refusal to reward those who were conceived of agreed upon in talks with Jordan held in Rhodes).3 as the agressors. The Jewish community perceived the 1948 In spite of the forced expulsion, according to official war as one which was forced on its peace-loving members, estimates some twenty-five thousand Internal Refugees re- so in the aftermath many of them supported an Iron Fist mained within the borders of the newborn state, mainly in policy toward the Arab citizens, and particularly toward the Galilee, constituting about one-sixth of the total Arab villagers who participated actively in the fighting. Those population.4 Unable to carry on extensive acts of deporta- who started the war, so was the consensus, had to pay the tion after the war, Israel now had to tackle the task of price. Moreover, some believed that allowing the Internal preventing them from returning to their villages and reoc- Refugees to return to their villages in spite of their past cupying their lands. aggression would be perceived by them as an indication of One can find three reasons for the Israeli refusal to allow weakness and would cause them to disparage the state of the return of the Internal Refugees to their villages and Israel. This notion is illustrated in Prime Minister Ben- lands. The first was the will to expand Jewish settlement. In Gurion’s reply to a question put by the communist member this context the uprooting of Arab residents was seen by of the Knesset (the Israeli parliament), Tawfik Tubi: Israeli Zionist leaders as a golden opportunity, after years of restrictions on Jewish land acquisition. The expected The village of Birweh is an abandoned village destroyed in the mass immigration of Jewish refugees from all over the battles. Its residents cooperated with the Qawuqji gangs [the world increased the need for land, and existing settlements term used by Israeli officials for the Arab Liberation Army, were also demanding more agricultural land.5 Thus in the organised by the Arab Leauge to Assisst Palestinian Arabs in the course of war, old and new immigrants were settled in war]. The IDF and the government dealt generously with them abandoned Arab villages, including those whose original and permitted them to stay in villages near Birweh and to be inhabitants had found refuge in a neighbouring village.6 In residents of Israel.9 that period, among other such projects, kibbutz Megiddo was established on the lands of Lajjun, some of whose After the war, which took the life of six thousand Jews, residents moved to Umm el Fahm. Kibbutz Yas’ur in west- one per cent of the Jewish population, the Zionist leadership ern Galilee was established on the lands of el-Birweh, whose saw no moral fault in refusing to allow the Internal Refugees residents moved to Majd el-Kurum, Makr, and Jdeideh, to return home. Permitting them to remain in nearby villages while kibbutz Beit Ha’emek was established on the lands of was presented as a humanitarian gesture. Israel, aided by Kweikat in western Galilee, some of whose former residents UNWRA, provided basic welfare in food and housing, while found refuge in Abu Sinan.7 The settlement of new immi- the refugees’ land was settled by Jews. grants in abandoned Arab villages was to continue during the 1950s. The Appropriation of Land: Legal Mechanisms The second reason was security. The dominant concept Parallel to the denial of return, the state authorities began to among Israeli leadership at the time was that the Palestini- undertake legislative measures designed to legally establish Volume 21 Refuge Number 2 the appropriation of the refugees’ lands.
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