December 10, 2003

Opinions e¢ the other press ©

 

| Wanna Go Home

Macdonald Stainsby
OP Columnist

The purpose of a column is, at least to the
writer, an opportunity to make the reality of
a viewpoint known...at least as clearly as is
possible in an article. But for this, sometimes, communi-
cation works better with the help of an art form.

It’s also, through analysis and opinion, an attempt at
helping bring across certain parts of the news that get lost
in the highlights and sound bites that are headlines. In
the last week and a half, there have been literally dozens
of stories that have run about the so-called Geneva
Accords. These accords seem to offer that which most
evades the region called the Middle East: peace. What
could be more important than peace? Those who oppose
this accord, so the headlines give the impression, are just
two extreme sides of the same coin. Is this the reality of
what is happening in the West Bank and the side roads of
Tel Aviv?

The treaty is much talked about, but certain explana-
tions of what the issues are, allowing for the fact that the
name of the issues has been mentioned several times, go
completely unexplained. No one mentions that the
accords do not speak of how the conditions of the so-
called “state” being offered the Palestinians will look like.
The idea that is being put forward by the negotiators of
this spook treaty is that a sovereign state can exist with-
out the right to defend itself. Think about that. An entire
country that doesn’t have the right to an army, yet is sur-
rounded on 100 percent of its borders by a state that has
occupied it for over 35 years. This “free” Palestine would-
nt even be able to control its own airspace—a basic right
of every state on the planet.

These points are humiliating, but the worst one is the
one often mentioned. The right of return is supposed to
be surrendered. The right of return is a recognized
human right—the concept of the right of return is that
no one can forcibly expel you from the country of your
origin. You always have the right to enter where you start-
ed out as a human, the right to become a full citizen and
vote, participate in so-called “civil society,” and to buy
property (if private property exists in that society). I con-
sider such measures grossly inadequate, but in former
apartheid South Africa elections have been held and all
members of society, regardless of race can vote, and in
Canada First Nations are still denied full sovereignty but
(since 1961) they have the right to pretend to be full
members of society and vote for different white guys to
run the country. Palestinians are not getting even this
much. They have been expelled outright from their
homeland.

 

The right of return, as previously mentioned, means
the right to go home to where you were born. The fact
that you are not Jewish should not matter. It is simply
wrong, and by the covenants in the UN, it is a violation
of your human rights. You cannot be forced into perma-
nent nomad status, with no nationality.

Israel, because it doesn’t believe in the UN definition of
human rights, has never allowed the millions of individ-
uals who are either refugees from the expulsions of 1948
and 1967 to return to their homes. The majority of these
homes have since been razed to the ground, and Israel
continues to slowly carry out the process through the
demolition of ever yet more homes, lives and futures of
the Palestinians still living in the 22 percent of historic
Palestine that hasn't been fully ethnically cleansed. There
are some five million Palestinians in the world today,
none who have surrendered their identity. Apparently
though, some are quite willing to surrender their right to
go home to Palestinian land, especially the land inside
what is now referred to as “Israel.” Those people don’t
understand the right of return is not a collective right of
Palestine, but an individual right for each and every
Palestinian (or any victim of ethnic cleansing anywhere,

for that matter). It is something that each Palestinian pos-
sesses, and can only be dealt with on a one at a time basis.

Part of the irony of the current conflict is the people
who try to paint this as a religious conflict. It certainly
isn't one, but even if it were, Christians who believe it is
usually think that Judaism is on one side, Islam on the
other, and they side with the cousins of Christianity by
siding with the “Jews” (Zionists). But the reality is the
unspoken history of the Palestinians is one where
Christians abound as Palestinians. Bethlehem, The city
where Christ was born, is still mostly Christian—
Christian Palestinian. But this shouldn't matter, what
matters is human rights, regardless of the religion of the
recipient. That brings me full circle, to the need for the
art form.

A Jew whose concert tour through Israel was canceled
because of his opposition to Zionism wrote a song about
the Right of Return. Named David Rovics, he is quite the
poet actually, writing:

And I have heard my grandpa say
That on the street most every day
The neighbours’ kids would kick a ball
With my dad when he was small

We were Christians, they were Jews

But it was no big deal, religious views

So it was strange when at the point of a gun
Across the river we had to run

 
 
   
 
  

I wanna go home.

We had dabkeh, we had songs

And we all knew where we belonged
We grew crops, life was good

There in the land where Jesus stood
Now we're scattered everywhere

But there’s no peace anywhere

I’m just searching for some kind of sign
For some way back to Palestine

I wanna go home.

Well, though the treaty is not likely to be agreed to by
the Palestinians as a whole, there are those in Israel who
are terrified by it. The problem that these “Israeli nation-
alists”—Zionists—have is that even with Palestinians sur-
rendering approximately 80 percent of their original ter-
ritory and the right to live anywhere on that 80 percent,
they “need” the other 20 percent! Israeli racists want to
maintain and deepen a situation where they already con-
trol all of the water, and divert over 90 percent of it away
from two million Palestinians to just over some 200
thousand Jewish Settlers, mostly from Europe.

Denying Palestinian Christians, Atheists, and Muslims
the right to vote, travel, or move freely, or even run their
own affairs is not enough to settle the desires of the
Settlers. They want to demolish every home and make an
extended Jewish only homeland—without one inch
becoming Palestine.

There are thousands of men in the Israel army who
refuse now to serve in the army that occupies Palestine.
They have decided that even if the so-called security of
the nation of Israel is at stake, they won't occupy Palestine
any longer. In this there is a light, and proof that it isn’t
Jew vs. Christian, Arab, or Muslim. It’s a question of
right and wrong. It’s also a question of International Law.
Finally, it’s a question of posing art as an alternative to
destruction, and humanity to inhumanity.

Macdonald Stainsby is a freelance writer, social justice
activist, and can be reached at mstainsby@tao.ca

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