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The Arabs, the Jews and the Israelis: Understanding the Complexities
From a national and cultural point of view, the inhabitants of Palestine today are Arabs. Ethnically, though, they descend from centuries-old migrations of Canaanites, Phoenicians, Arabs, Greeks, Italians, Maltese, Romans, Egyptians, Africans, North Africans, Kurds, Turks, Persians, Chechens, Daghestanis, Circassians, or descendents of Eastern and Western European Crusaders, as well as others.
The way the situation is today is that the Palestinian people are scattered geographically the same way the Jews were in the Diaspora.
1. There is a Palestinian Yishuv, i.e. a Palestinian community still living in its ancestral homeland, whose members are citizens of Israel, and whose life has become a cross between their historic Arab heritage and their day-to-day life in a rather European Israeli society.
2. There is a Palestinian refugee population scattered in various neighbouring Arab countries, most of whom are stateless, though some may have obtained the citizenship of their country of refuge. Those who did not acquire another citizenship, hence have no formal passports, but Laissez-passer documents issued by Arab governments, that renders the travel of pets easier than that of Palestinian refugees.
3. There is a world-wide Palestinian Diaspora on all continents; some are naturalized, such as Palestinian-Americans for example, and some live as foreign residents on temporary work permits, such as Palestinians bearers of Jordanian passports living in Saudi Arabia, for example.
4. There is a West-Bank population living under Israeli occupation in quasi-concentration camp conditions; complete with separation walls and watchtowers manned by machine gun toting guards.
5. Finally, there is the Gaza Strip, whose population is treated by all alike like a lepers’ colony and kept under isolation, or at best like the untouchable castes of India.
In the Middle East, as in Northern Ireland and several other countries around the world, your religion is your identity. So the Palestinians and the rest of the Arab people everywhere refer to the Israelis as “Yahoud” (from Yahweh), i.e. the Jews, which is the term used since time immemorial. The Palestinians who became citizens of Israel are referred to by the Arabs in general either as the “Palestinians of Israel”, the “Arabs of Israel”, or the “1948 Arabs”. The latter description is considered by some Palestinian citizens of Israel to be a rather derogatory term, even though those who refer to them as such through common usage do not mean to belittle them in any way.
The way the Jews see themselves, as well as how the world of Goyim (i.e. gentiles or non-Jews) sees them, being Jewish is their identity, i.e. they are both Jews as a people and as a religion irrespective of their actual ethnic heritage. Ethnically they are not all the same, since some are Europeans, others Asians, Africans or Arabs. However, the creation of the State of Israel allowed for the ingathering of Jews from everywhere under one citizenship (In many cases of course, they could carry double or even triple citizenships). The Israeli citizenship also became that of practically all the Muslim, Christian, Druze, and Jewish Palestinians who did not leave or were driven out of Palestine in 1948 when the State of Israel was created. Common usage remains that when the description ‘Israeli’ is mentioned, it only means “Jewish” citizens of Israel.
Most Israelis refer to the Palestinians as “the Arabs”, the term being occasionally used as a derogatory term, or to further eradicate the identity and existence of the Palestinians as a distinct people, and partially because it somewhat encompasses everybody, i.e. both Christians and Muslims. When the Israelis want to further identify the Palestinians, they refer to them as “Muslim or Christian Arabs”. Palestinian followers of the Druze faith living in Israel are treated differently from the rest of the Palestinian population.
Many Israelis look down on the Palestinians more or less in the same way the Nazis looked down on Jews in Germany. Any Arab or Muslim is viewed as a potential terrorist. For Arabs in general, the word “Jew” is synonymous with Israeli intelligence agent, while Jewish settlers are nothing more than state-sponsored armed hooligans. That is of course a very sad situation, albeit an understandable one. Both people need to recognize what others consider as their heritage so that the other in turn recognizes theirs. As difficult as it sounds for some, the Weltanschauung (i.e. the world view) of both Israelis and Palestinians of course must include those next to them and around them. Easier said than done, but there is always a first step, and education at home and at school are always the best starting point, especially if the long term-goal is to achieve accommodation followed by peace between the two nations. |
