Palestinians in Israel: Their future roles and status

The Palestinians who remained in the Palestinian territories occupied in 1948 have suffered a great injustice at the hands of the Zionist occupation, as it has exercised all forms of racism and oppression against them. These Palestinians have also been subjected to the process of subjugation, Judaisation, and the erasure of their identity and culture. They have also been subjected to the removal of their beings and have been transformed into subjugated humans with no identity, culture, or affiliation; they are mere human robots that act according to the Zionist liking, in a manner that serves their interests. They are made to be spies and informants who kill their fellow Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

However, the Palestinians have refused not to be Palestinians who are committed to their identities, land and affiliations. Therefore, the second and worst oppression they were subjected to is the shame that some Palestinians feel when calling them Palestinians. So sometimes they are called the Arabs of Israel and at other times they are called the Arabs on the inside or the Green Line Arabs. It has reached a point where they have been neglected and forgotten, left to fend for themselves. They were not involved in the decision-making or the drafting of the policies that will map out their future, as they are genuine Palestinians.

Unfortunately, their position declined in the PLO after the decline of the national project. After all of Palestine was considered the right of the Palestinian people and the Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territories (OPT) were considered part of the Palestinian nation as a whole, they have now been cast out of the PLO’s area of concern. This occurred after the national project deteriorated and was limited to the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and after the PLO recognised Israel and considered these Palestinians as an Arab minority in Israel.

However, in the Palestinian collective mind, they are considered part of the Palestinian nation, and in their own minds and hearts, they are Palestinians. Their status will remain preserved and their role is important in the national project, even if some have disregarded them and left them to face their own fates, separate from the fate of the rest of the nation, wherever they are.

It goes without saying that the Palestinian scene is more like a square with four sides, if we lose one side, it would be hard to call it a square. The Palestinians in the OPT are one of these four sides, but the base of this square is not fixed. Sometimes it is Gaza, at other times it is the West Bank, the Palestinians in the OPT, or the Palestinians in the Diaspora. We all know that the four sides of a square are equal; the only difference here is which one of these sides is consider the base? This changes according to the events and the role played by each side, i.e. each part of the Palestinian nation. With this image in mind, we preserve the status of the Palestinians in the OPT as a vital component of the main Palestinian nation.

This is cited by the fact that the Jerusalem Intifada relied, in its early days, on the Palestinians in the OPT in 1948, by means of their presence in the Al-Aqsa Mosque courtyards. Before the outbreak of the clashes, they were the ones confronting the raids and who stood in the way of the settlers, army and police. At that point, they were the base of the situation.

I would not be exaggerating if I said that the presence of our fellow Palestinians from the OPT in 1948 in Jerusalem is what put an end to the plan to divide Al-Aqsa temporally and spatially. Their confrontation of the settlers, occupation forces and police incursions is what sparked the fire of the intifada. This does not mean that this incident alone is what stresses the significance of this important part of the Palestinian people, as they have played major and influential roles throughout the years of occupation and oppression.

I am not hesitant to say that the first to rise up in the face of the occupation were the Palestinians in the territories occupied in 1948, during the Land Day incident, which we view as the First Intifada in the face of the occupation, and we must state this to be fair to our fellow Palestinians in the territories occupied in 1948.

Now, when the Palestinians staged another uprising and the base of the square moved to the West Bank, the rest of the square’s sides continue to play contributing and supportive roles in one way or another. This is a complementary matter where one side advances while the other retreats, and this is based on the single fact that we are all Palestinians with one goal, i.e. the elimination of the occupation. We each have an important role and prominent status.

We must realise the fact that the Zionist occupation only believes in dead Palestinians and will only acknowledge their death 40 years after they have been killed. This is how they are, and they view all Palestinians as the enemy. Throughout the many years of oppression, the occupation has exercised every means of stripping the Palestinians of their “Palestinian-ness” and has used every racist and non-racist method to do so. The occupation also utilised many means of erasing the memory of the Palestinians, changing their culture, to turn them into cooperatives or servers of the Zionist project known as the state of Israel. However, the Palestinians stood in the face of this Israelisation, Judaisation, and the attempts to strip them of their origins, and instead held on to them tighter, acting as a thorn in the side of the occupation. They persevered and withstood all of these actions for the sake of holding on to their “Palestinian-ness”, which has intensified the occupation’s concerns and pushed them to think, if they had not already thought, of eliminating the Palestinian citizens by all means.

Translated from Al-Resalah, 9 November 2015.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.