Otherwise Occupied / The commandment to expel
Israel excels at camouflaging the expulsion of Palestinians via various mechanisms. Here is an inventory of the various methods.
By Amira Hass | Oct. 20, 2014 | 3:41 AM | 1
As
the descendants of a people which was banished throughout history from
its homes and various homelands, we Israelis have developed our own
expulsion skills – skills that would not embarrass the kings, nobles and
officials of the goyim. Our contribution to the family of banishing
nations is great, especially considering our short existence as a
sovereign entity.
After
the big expulsion of between 700,000 and 800,000 Palestinians in 1948,
we have made do with smaller expulsions, and excel in camouflaging them
under various legal definitions or varying circumstantial theories. The
Israeli civil-military bureaucracy does not attempt to bathe its acts in
any single guiding ideology. But the spirit of Avigdor Lieberman,
Naftali Bennett, Rehavam Ze’evi and Yosef Weitz is watching from above.
Here is an inventory of the methods of expulsion in their various concealments:
1.
“Stop
being a resident.” Israel’s control of the Palestinian Population
Registry allowed it to expel some 250,000 Palestinians from the West
Bank and Gaza Strip between 1967 and 1994 by revoking their status as
residents (because they remained overseas for over seven years). These
figures were provided by the Defense Ministry to HaMoked: Center for the
Defence of the Individual, in 2011 and 2012. We must add about 100,000
Palestinians (at least) to this number, who fled or were expelled from
the West Bank and Gaza during the June 1967 war and were not present
during the census conducted that summer. They have not been allowed back
to their homes. The Israelis who have emigrated to Los Angeles, it
should be noted, continue to be Israelis.
2.
“Trickery.”
The Oslo Accords speak of a mechanism for the gradual return to the
West Bank and Gaza of those who “lost” their identity cards in 1967.
Later, Israeli representatives in the negotiations claimed that the
intention was for those who had physically lost their ID cards, not
residency status itself. In the meantime, here we have another section
of the agreement that Israel is not carrying out, while demanding the
Palestinians follow their commitments in full.
3.
The
continued control of the Palestinian Population Registry in the West
Bank and Gaza, 20 years after the establishment of the Palestinian
Authority, allows Israel to continue and prevent hundreds of thousands
from returning to their homes and families. Also, to approve only a few
tens of thousands to return through the goodwill gesture of “family
reunification.”
4.
Defining
the Palestinians born in East Jerusalem as “permanent residents” whose
status is a sort of favor the country grants – like the favor it grants
to a priest from the Philippines, for example, who wants to live in the
Holy Land under Israeli rule. However, this is a favor with a condition:
Whoever lives abroad for seven years will see this favor revoked. His
status as a permanent resident will be revoked. But the Palestinians
born in Jerusalem are what they are: Born there. In Palestinian
Jerusalem. They did not choose to live under Israeli rule; it is Israel
that chose to occupy them. And it is the one which decided that whoever
lives and works abroad (even in the West Bank, a kilometer north of
their homes) will lose his/her status as a permanent resident. In other,
simpler, words to understand: They will not be allowed to return. Since
1967 through the end of 2013, Israel expelled 14,309 Jerusalem-born
Palestinians that way (according to information that the Interior
Ministry gave to HaMoked). Not so many? Think about the 7,000
“victimized” settlers from the Gaza Strip and the noise they are still
making because their project of land theft and water robbery came to an
end in 2005. The sword of expulsion is quietly hovering over the heads
of all Jerusalem Palestinians, concealed under the cover of the laws of
Israel and its glory.
5.
Bedouin.
Who counts them? They are always being expelled. From water sources,
pasture lands, because of military firing ranges. Because of nature
reserves. In the 1990s they were banished to the garbage dump of Abu Dis
to make room for another neighborhood of Ma’aleh Adumim. Now there are
plans to expel other groups of Bedouin to a town to be built north of
Jericho.
6.
Bedouin.
Who counts them (II)? Under media silence, a few dozen Bedouin from the
Kaabneh tribe, who had lived in East Jerusalem since the 1950s, were
expelled to the West Bank.
7.
“Area
C.” Even before being defined as such, the Israel Defense Forces and
Civil Administration implemented draconian rules (for Palestinians only)
on housing, construction and agriculture. This is the reason that only
some 300,000 Palestinians – 12% of the residents – live on some 60
percent of the area of the West Bank. Residents of “unrecognized”
villages are required to move to the enclaves of Areas A and B.
8.
In
2002, Israel expelled 26 of the Palestinians who were besieged in the
Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, to Gaza. They were promised they
could return after two years. So they were promised. Since then, they,
their wives and children are living in Gaza, in exile, 70 kilometers
from the homes where they were born. The Jews are a merciful people –
two or three times they allowed the aging parents to visit their sons.
9.
Making
life in the enclaves insufferable. The chances of a young Palestinian
finding work are shrinking, mostly because of Israeli control over most
of the territory of the West Bank, and because of the limitations on
movement it imposes. Twenty percent of the residents of the West Bank,
and 40 percent of the residents in the Gaza Strip, say they would like
to emigrate. And let us not forget the young people of East Jerusalem,
whose odd jobs with the Jewish masters are often a trap for racist
attacks. Is it possible that Israeli demographic experts are not aware
of the link between economic hardship, a lack of a political and
professional horizon, and military and racist attacks, and the desire to
leave?
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