The Politics of Denial: Israel and the
Palestinian Refugee Problem
By Nur Masalha
Pluto Press, 304 pp., October 2003, 978-0745321202
Review by Muhammad Idrees Ahmad
spinwatch.org.uk, 16 January
2007
Mainstream discourse on the question of Palestine confines itself
largely to the land occupied by Israel in ‘67 and the fate of
the people living therein. In the various peace processes convened
under American aegis, the refugees of ’48 and their right of
return, enshrined in UNGAR 194, received scant attention. This trend,
curiously, has been replicated on the left by some of its luminaries.
Some have arrogated themselves the right to decide whether the fate
of more than four million Palestinians living in the squalor of
refugee camps is a “realistic” consideration to burden
Israel with in a prospective settlement. In The Politics of
Denial: Israel and the Palestinian Refugee Problem, Nur Masalha
lays to rest the notion that sustainable peace in the region is
possible without addressing the rights of the Palestinian refugees.
Masalha also exposes concerns that inform Israel’s persistent
denial of its responsibility in creating the refugee problem and its
history of foiling attempts at repatriation and restitution.
Masalha’s scrupulously researched analysis of the the
Palestinian refugee question begins with the early twentieth century
arrival of Jewish settlers, accompanied by an ideology that aims to,
and to a large degree succeeds in, ridding the land of its native
population. Zionism seeks self determination for its people on a land
inhabited by another; hence it must not only expel the native
population, but also deny the reality of their dispossession. Thus
are laid the foundations of the Palestinian tragedy.
Beginning with Ahad Ha’am’s description of the abuse of
Palestinian peasants by the early Zionist settlers, Masalha
reconstructs the story of the colonization of Palestine, culminating
in al Nakba, the Palestinian tragedy of 1948. In discussing
the contributions of Israel’s “New Historians” towards
the understanding of the events of ’48, Masalha exposes the
egregious shortcomings in the work of the most famous among them:
Benny Morris. Contrary to Morris’s claims, Masalha reveals that
the expulsion of Palestinians was born not of war, but of designs
going back all the way to Herzl, the founder of political Zionism.
Referred to euphemistically as “transfer” the idea of
ethnic cleansing remained central to the Zionist project.
With painstaking attention to detail, and copious documentation
Masalha deconstructs the myths surrounding the expulsion of
Palestinians in ’48 and the subsequent expropriation of their
lands. He describes the massacres, intimidation, armed eviction and
destruction of villages that precipitated the Palestinian flight.
There were fifty major and a hundred minor massacres committed by the
Zionist forces. Operation Dalet, which preceded the creation of the
state of Israel, was responsible for the widespread panic which was
exploited by the Zionist military to drive out the Palestinians.
Operation Hiram took care of those left behind.
The most important part of this study deals with the mechanisms
employed by the Jewish state to expropriate Palestinian lands. The
Jewish National Fund – an organization that still retains
tax-deductible charitable status in Britain, Canada, US and Australia
– worked in conjunction with the Transfer Committees to pave the
way for the ultimate ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. Operating
as a quasi government, the JNF and Jewish Agency had already
established the structure of a government before the formation of the
State. On partition, the Zionists therefore had an advantage over the
Palestinians whose organizations and institutions had been destroyed
by the British colonial authorities during earlier uprisings.
Once Palestinians were driven out, Israel sold Palestinian lands
to the JNF to stave off anticipated international pressure to
repatriate the refugees. Israel could then claim that the land was
now owned by a private organization over which it had no authority,
except that JNF is a quasi governmental organization, and more
importantly, its charter prevents the land it owns from ever being
sold or leased to someone who is not a Jew. Although the JNF itself
owns only 13% of Israeli land, it appoints half the board members on
Israel Land Authority which controls most of the rest of
Israel’s lands. Through this mechanism, the Jewish state
conceals its Apartheid policies.
There were also 220,000 of those who were internally displaced,
i.e. they were driven from their homes but they remained within the
borders of Israel. Absurd legal designations like
“Present-Absentees” were invented to keep them from their
lands. Many were expelled in the following years.
The emergency regulations enacted have remained in place since and
military expropriation of their lands continues to date. Restitution
and repatriation was strictly prevented for the fear that it might
set a precedent.
Having denied dispossessed Palestinians the right to return to
their homes after the end of hostilities, Masalha documents the
various proposals that were floated to resettle the refugees –
in neighboring Arab countries, Libya, even South America. Attempts
were also made to link the Palestinian refugee issue with the issue
of the Jews who immigrated to Israel from other Arab countries. What
is generally overlooked in these cases of course is the role of
Mossad-B in precipitating their flight through acts of sabotage and
intimidation to encourage them to immigrate to Israel.
Come ’67 another 250,000 Palestinians found themselves
homeless as a result of Israel’s latest offensive which inter
alia destroyed many ancient sites in Jerusalem. Destroyed Palestinian
villages of Imwas, Yalu and Bayt Nuba were helpfully concealed under
the Canada Park, developed through funds donated to the JNF by
Canadian Jews to “make the desert bloom” (elsewhere, the
British Park conceals evidence of a similar atrocity). Denial of the
Palestinian reality was necessary to the Zionist project, and the
ruins bore witness to the ugly crimes sustaining it.
In the immediate aftermath of the war, another 200,000 were
expelled from the West Bank. By now the idea of “transfer”
had entered the mainstream and even espoused by liberal Zionist
authors, poets and intellectuals. Various plans were mooted to take
care of Israel’s “demographic problem”, the
alternatives being “transfer” (ethnic cleansing) or
Apartheid (isolated Bantustans). The Oslo peace process conformed to
the latter with Israel refusing to accept any responsibility for
creating the refugee problem.
In Madrid, and subsequently in Oslo, the Palestinian
negotiator’s failure to link the refugee question to UNGAR 194
made it easy for Israelis to relegate it to a secondary status. At
Camp David, Masalha reveals there was “no progress on the issue,
in fact no real negotiations on the subject”. For this, and its
numerous other shortcomings, the process was doomed to failure.
However the death of the “peace process” has once again
revived the question of the Right of Return and Israeli
responsibility in creating the refugee problem. As Masalha rightly
concludes, there is no possibility o f a just and lasting peace, or
for that matter negotiation towards that end, unless Israel
acknowledges its responsibility in creating this the refugee problem.
Muhammad Idrees Ahmad is a researcher at
Spinwatch. His regular commentaries appear on The Fanonite
