A Second Nakba?

I was giving a lecture last week to a group of Palestinian intellectuals and foreign diplomatsin East Jerusalem, when a Palestinian professor asked: “Do you think that a second Nakba ispossible?”

I was going to answer with a categorical “No”. But suddenly I was seized by doubt: Was I lying tohim? Was I lying to myself?

When a Palestinian says “Nakba” (disaster), he means the expulsion of more than half thePalestinian people from the territories that became the State of Israel in the course of the1948 war. Can the present confrontation lead to a similar disaster?

On the face of it, it seems impossible. How indeed? Who even thinks about it? Are Ariel Sharonand Shimon Peres capable of it? Definitely not!

But this week some disturbing speeches were made in the Knesset. Doubly disturbing, becausethey were broadcast on television without anyone being shocked or protesting. It was saidthat if the Palestinians continue with their violent acts, they should not be surprised if asecond nakba befalls them.

Who said this? Not Minister Rehavam Ze’evi, who is already boring the public with his endlessprattle about “transferring” the Palestinians. Not Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who looksand sounds like an extra-terrestrial from a distant Russian planet, but the “moderate”Minister of Justice, Me’ir Shitreet and the Ecology Minister, Tzachi Hanegbi, both membersof Sharon’s own party.

If some German neo-Nazis or the Austrian Joerg Haider had said anything like that about theforeigners in their countries, there would have been a world-wide protest. Here the speecheswere met with indifference, as if they concerned the weather.

That’s scary, because it shows that these things are “in the air”. Massive expulsion,”transfer”, “nakba”, are gradually becoming legitimate, even routine threats.

In the 1948 war, some 750,000 people were uprooted from their homes and lands. It is not soimportant exactly how this happened – how many fled in order to save their children from theapproaching fighting, how many fled in panic after Dir Yassin and similar massacres, how manywere physically expelled by the victorious Israeli forces. It’s more important to realizethat the expulsion was an integral part of that war. The Jewish side wanted to acquire as muchterritory as possible in order to establish a homogeneous Jewish state, without Arabs. TheArab side wanted to prevent the establishment of a Jewish state and give the whole country backto the Arabs. Therefore, there was no need for a special decision on expulsion – things weredone more or less automatically. Whether the intention was there beforehand or not – when theopportunity presented itself, it was seized.

Now Ariel Sharon says that the present confrontation (“Arab violence”) is a continuation ofthe 1948 war. Sharon was a soldier in that war, therefore he knows what happened then. Meaning:the possibility of ethnic cleansing is indeed hovering somewhere in the air.

There is no need for Sharon and Peres to sit down and take an official decision. It is enough totell the army that every officer has a “free hand” – as they already have been told. Nothing moreis needed. When the opportunity arises, it may happen.

In the last few days, a question was raised in several of the media: Is Israel interested inescalating the confrontation? The commentators who ask this question point to the facts, butwonder about the reasons. The facts say that there is now a fierce competition between armyofficers, especially the brigade and battalion commanders, about who can escalate more. Itis orchestrated by Shaul Mofaz, the chief-of-Staff, who in turn is pushed by Ariel Sharon andhis hatchet-man, Fuad Ben-Eliezer.

The escalation process is manifest. First snipers were employed to kill unarmeddemonstrators. Then helicopters, tanks and cannons were engaged. Now fighter planes aresent into action. The incursions into the Palestinian territories have become routine. Actslike the killing of the five sleeping policemen in Beitounia and the bombing of the nineprison-guards in Nablus are announced on television like the weather report, even if some daythey may reappear in indictments of an international war crimes court.

This is just the beginning. The escalation is built into the process: Palestinian mortars andIsraeli fighter planes, Islamic suicide bombers and Jewish settlers. Acts that today seemextreme may be looked upon tomorrow as moderate, acts bordering on war crimes are consideredas expressions of self-restraint.

What motivates Mofaz and his officers? The naive answer is that they act like officers in everycolonial war. Generals facing a popular uprising do not understand the phenomena and are nottrained to deal with it. They are lost. Their only answer is force, more force and even moreforce, until the whole colonial apparatus comes crashing down. That’s what happened to theFrench in Algeria, to the British in all their colonies, to the Americans in Vietnam, to theSoviets in Afghanistan, to the Russian in Chechnia. Now it is happening to us.

But one can find a much more sinister reason for the escalation. When Shitreet and his like saythat the escalation may lead to a second nakba, one can turn the sentence around; in order tomake a second nakba possible, there must be an escalation. This can be a conscious,semi-conscious or even unconscious intention.

It is possible to foresee that in a few weeks or months Israeli escalation of the conflict willlead to the massive employment of fighter planes, tanks and infantry against the civilianpopulation, in order to induce hundreds of thousand to flee. It will be explained as a”reaction” to Palestinian attacks. The settlers will cooperate enthusiastically, helpingto cleanse the villages and to eradicate them from the face of the earth. Their spokesmenalready demand just that.

Militarily, this will not be difficult. Even now, all the Palestinian enclaves aresurrounded by soldiers and settlers.

Is it possible politically? The heart wants to answer with a categorical “No”. The brain is notso sure. After the Americans put a veto on the sending of an international peace force to thePalestinian territories and desisted from preventing just such a calamity – who knows whatthey will do tomorrow, after an intensive brain-washing campaign? Will Europe, which hasalways been silent, speak out in such a situation? Will the feeble United Nations be able tointervene in spite of the American attitude? Will the “world’s conscience” wake up? Will”enlightened international public opinion” rise up?

Quite possibly, yes. There is a vast difference between 1948 and now. Then, Israel was seen asthe state of the holocaust victims, which could do no wrong. Then, there was no television,which could bring the dreadful scenes into every living-room around the world. Then, therewere no active peace and human rights groups in every country, able and ready to influencepublic opinion. The world after Kosovo is not the world before Kosovo, a fact Ariel Sharon, theenthusiastic supporter of Milosevic, should ponder.

Israel is a strong country, but not strong enough to withstand the onslaught of an arousedworld public opinion. If I were a brigade commander in the Israeli army, I would start right nowto read the protocols of the Hague trials very carefully.

But as an Israeli, I put my trust in the Israeli public. In spite of the intensive brain-washingthat is going on in Israel these days; in spite of the general silence of the lambs whileterrible things are happening every day in the occupied territories; in spite of my bitterdisappointment with our media; I am certain that at the right moment Israeli public opinionwill rise up against an act of mass expulsion. The hundreds, who even now demonstrate almostdaily against the actions of |Mofaz-Sharon-Peres, will turn into hundreds of thousands – ashappened after Sabra and Shatila.

At the decisive moment, thIsraelis will say: NO.