The Palestinians and Israel: A Modern Day ‘Trail of Tears’
The Palestinians are a classic example of a ‘dispossessed’ people, who for reasons of wider geopolitical developments beyond their control, suddenly find themselves struggling to retain rights within the land in which they were born.
The creation of Israel in 1948 led to the uprooting of more than 700,000 Palestinians from their homes – a deeply traumatic event known as the Nakba or “catastrophe”. Seventy-five years later, most descendants of those exiles are still living in refugee camps around the region, whilst clinging onto the unrealistic dream of one day being able to return.
What we are witnessing now in Gaza is a second great ‘dispossession’ – as the residents of that enclave are driven by Israel’s military into ever smaller territorial confines, and Israeli Government ministers openly float the idea that Gazans should be permanently re-settled elsewhere. Of course, in the face of international opposition, as well as the charges of genocide laid against Israel at the International Court of Justice, the Israeli Government is rapidly backtracking, emphasising the measures it has taken to protect civilian lives, and insisting that it has no intention of permanently re-occupying Gaza or removing its residents.
But, in practice, the damage has been done. More than 23,000 people in Gaza have been killed during Israel’s military campaign, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry. Nearly 85% of Gaza’s people have been driven from their homes, a quarter of the territory’s residents face starvation, and much of northern Gaza has been reduced to rubble. Even if most Gazans are eventually able to return to their homes after the fighting stops, most means of livelihood have been obliterated; and their every future movement is likely to be tightly circumscribed by Israeli security. They might technically remain on their land, but not in any meaningful sense in possession of it.
Meanwhile, illegal Israeli settlements continue to be built on Palestinian lands in the West Bank…
