Who are we? Thoughts and reflections on national identity:
Palestinians of the interior between Arabism and Palestinization
National identity is not just a slogan or a mere stance, but a past with roots, a present with struggle, and a future with a project. It is national identity, not the opposite of ethnic identity or a diminution of its weight, but rather its affirmation and a cornerstone in building a sound, integrated self-awareness priority.
Weeks ago, I participated as a lecturer in a course preparing German school teachers for a visit to Israel and Palestine. On the other side, the Israeli side, participated an Israeli Jewish woman of Moroccan origin who studied in Germany, married a German, and lives in Nahariya and a town in western Germany. She added that she had been active for years in what is called the “Zionist left” and also in the peace movement. When she asked me to introduce myself, I said my full name and added that I am from the Palestinian minority in Israel. Then the woman smiled slyly and said: You mean the Arabs of Israel, and added that before 1948 no one knew themselves as Palestinian, but only as Arab, and the term Palestinian is a new invention and the political class representing you calls itself Arab and refers to themselves as Arabs of Israel, etc. I smiled slyly, thanked her for her naivety, and told her that she had now opened a door I did not want to enter in this course, so as not to embarrass her, but since she opened it, I will not disappoint her!
Immediately, I recalled examples centered on the Zionist movement’s studied strategy to erase the Palestinian national identity.
Despite all this, we must know that this woman is part of an ideological factory operating with high technology and still masters the art of tightrope walking. I must also admit that the deliberate confusion programmed for the identity of the indigenous people of Palestine has succeeded and its effect still influences us today. We still live inside what I call the “identity vortex” with all its impact on the development of correct national and ethnic belonging and political interaction and actual engagement in it.
The bill submitted last week by the Joint List to the Israeli Knesset to recognize us as an Arab national minority is part of this confusion, evidence that political leaderships are still stuck in place on this issue specifically and have not been able or dared to take a single step forward in affirming the Palestinian national identity, repeating the discourse of their predecessors.
Returning to the question of belonging and identity, I must emphasize again that since its inception, the Zionist movement has aimed to deny the Palestinian national identity of the indigenous population and prevented them from using it, but allowed and supported the use and circulation of Arab ethnic identity without legally recognizing the indigenous people of the country as a national minority, though it allowed expression of ethnicity almost without restriction.
Here are many examples of this strategy:
First: The early Zionists used three terms: the Arab question (not Palestinian), the Arab problem, and “transfer,” terms that formed the backbone of the Zionist strategy for ethnic cleansing and displacement in historic Palestine and erasing the national identity of the indigenous people to facilitate their “transfer” from one Arab land to another without causing an uproar in the world and to “ease the conscience” of doubting Jews who began questioning the colonial nature of Zionism. For those wishing to expand on the topic, I recommend the books of historian Dr. Nour al-Din Masalha: The Transfer Idea, More Land and Fewer Arabs.
Second: Denial of the Palestinian national identity of the indigenous people has been propagated by Zionist state leaders from the beginning until today. Golda Meir, former Israeli Prime Minister, stated: “It was not as if there was a Palestinian people in Palestine. We came and expelled them and took their land by force. Such a people did not exist at all.” (Quote from Uri Avnery’s book; Israel without Zionism; New York 1971, p. 262) This falsehood and historical distortion was repeated by Netanyahu in his official visit to Austria in 1997, declaring that huge numbers of Arabs migrated to Palestine to work after the Zionist movement began building the state in the early twentieth century and opened livelihood opportunities for them. In the same press conference, he repeated the Zionist ideological phrase by Israel Zangwill “A people without a land on a land without a people” and brazenly added: Today the barren land without a people has become fertile land and a prosperous country (quote from the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung dated 23-9-1997). The same was repeated by the “Israeli dove” Tzipi Livni before the Zionist lobby conference in Washington, followed by Naftali Bennett presenting “a solution to the Israeli-Arab conflict” in a lecture at a hotel in occupied Jerusalem in 2012.
Third: Israeli governments of various colors have not opposed education in Arabic language and teaching Arab history and Islamic history, of course according to their own vision and limits, but they allowed all this and did not restrict the use of the Arabic language and Arab ethnic slogans, and adopted a broadcasting space in Arabic.
Israeli governments have nurtured ethnic identity at the expense of national identity for the reasons mentioned earlier.
This strategy based on erasing the national identity of Palestinians of the interior and calling them Arabs led them to adopt Arabic as a second language alongside Hebrew in their state to appear democratic and facilitate marketing their humanitarian crimes against the Palestinian people.
The bill submitted by the Joint List to recognize us as an Arab national minority inside Israel, despite its initial importance, is a lame and incomplete project, an attempt to adapt to the status quo for over seventy years and an attempt to stabilize the “identity vortex.”
This vortex and confusion are reflected in the terms used by Palestinian leaderships inside and outside and adopted by the media without exception for our Palestinian people inside; Arabs of the interior, Arabs of Israel, the Arab minority in Israel, ’48 Arabs, and other derivatives and combinations that deliberately or unintentionally twist the national identity.
The qualitative shift will occur when political leaderships inside Palestine respond to the growing demand to reveal and declare the Palestinian national identity of our people inside. They must be pioneering and lead the masses, not walk far behind them.
As I said, Arab ethnic identity has never been in danger since the usurpation of Palestine; on the contrary, as I explained above. The Palestinian national identity and organic belonging to the Arab Palestinian people were and still are in danger.
Until 1994, it was forbidden for us to call ourselves Palestinians or use slogans indicating our national identity such as the flag and the map, etc.
What is now allowed as manifestations indicating the Palestinian national identity of the indigenous people happened due to a mistake made by Zionist leaderships when they exchanged recognition with the PLO and the Israeli institution could not overcome this mistake and limit the increasing vigor and eagerness to use national identity and its slogans, especially among the younger generations, proud of belonging to this national identity.
The political leaderships of Palestinians of the interior are confused in their national and ethnic identity, and their actions contradict their words and demands. Their behavior and discourse have evolved only slightly from their predecessors among political leaderships.
Here I give one example illustrating the contradiction experienced by Palestinian political leaderships inside.
Months ago, members of Zionist Jewish parties submitted a proposal to the Israeli Knesset to cancel the Arabic language’s status as an official state language. The Palestinian political leaderships were rightly outraged by this racist act but did not put the correct marks and signals to confront this danger that began years ago by writing city, village, and official institution names in poor Arabic with deliberate spelling errors.
Palestinian Knesset members defended the Arabic language, a symbol of ethnic identity, but spoke in Hebrew! They compete among themselves over who is more proficient in Hebrew and speak in the Knesset in Hebrew, despite Arabic being an official state language! This is called in psychology split personality.
So why give up progress served to you on a silver platter when all you have to do is develop it and work on rooting it in mind and consciousness?
This is a question I pose to the political leaderships of our Palestinian people inside. I realize the pressure on the brothers and sisters in the Joint List and everyone working directly in the political field for Palestinians of the interior, and I am sure that their abandonment of supporting national identity and demanding recognition as a national minority is difficult and not even welcomed by some Palestinian leaderships in the PLO who avoid any confrontation with Israeli leaders, but I also realize that history is unforgiving and the course of events for the development of a people can be slowed or slightly diverted but cannot be stopped or completely changed.
Our people inside Palestine, especially the youth, openly say there is no alternative to our Palestinian national identity and emphasize this demand, affirming this path on every occasion. Those who follow the social media pages of this segment of our people inside will inevitably conclude that the people have preceded their political leadership and the course of history and daily events show the masses’ distancing from these leaderships, which itself is a warning we must hear and analyze calmly.
