by RAMI G. KHOURI
The simultaneous marches Sunday by thousands of Palestinian refugees who approached, and in places breached, the Israeli borders, causing Israeli troops to open fire and kill over a dozen refugees, have been treated by Israel as an existential threat – which is exactly what this is.
The fact that the grandchildren of the original Palestinian refugees made this symbolic gesture on the anniversary of the dismemberment of Palestine and the creation of Israel in 1948 should worry the Israelis deeply, because it speaks volumes about the state of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict today.
The symbolism of what happened Sunday is terrifying for Israelis, in fact far more terrifying than any military threat that Israel has ever faced, because it reflects three cardinal realities that mean only trouble for Israel. The first is that the element of time is working against the Zionist strategy of creating a powerful Israeli state that can either intimidate the Palestinians into forgetting about their right to return to their homes in Israel, or simply generating hopelessness among the refugees that ultimately makes them give up their quest for repatriation or restitution. Time since 1948 has only turned the original 750,000 Palestinian refugees into 4.5 million refugees today whose attachment to their land, home and rights is stronger than ever.
In this respect, Israelis who take a moment to reflect on the meaning of what happened Sunday should see in the acts of the Palestinians a compressed historical image of the Jews’ own epic determination to return to their ancestral homeland in Palestine, after thousands of years of exile. The combination of historical memory, nationalist identity, and political activism is stronger than any military means that can be used to regain one’s national rights – as the Israelis should know from their own experiences and their own national struggle.
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