[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 144 (Tuesday, September 17, 2024)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E910-E911]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
REMARKS ON THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT
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HON. JENNIFER A. KIGGANS
of virginia
in the house of representatives
Tuesday, September 17, 2024
Mrs. KIGGANS of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record
remarks submitted at the request of a Virginia Beach constituent, Rabbi
Dr. Israel Zoberman of Temple Lev Tikvah, and are a reflection of his
views:
On The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Palestinian award-winning author and lawyer, Raja Shehadeh
is co-founder in 1979 of Al-Haq, the Palestinian human rights
organization. The Observer loaded him, ``Palestine's greatest
prose writer'' and the New York Times Book Review heaps
praises as well, ``in his moral clarity and bearing of the
heart is self-questioning and assistance on focusing on the
experience of the individual within the storms of nationalist
myth and hubris, Shehadeh recalls writers such as Ghassan
Kanafani and Primo Levi.''
In his latest book with a challenging title, What Does
Israel Fear From Palestine? New York: Other Press. 2024,
Shehadeh, clearly a Palestinian patriot who was born in 1951
in the West Bank town of Ramallah, offers us a concise packed
yet imbalanced perspective on the long and agonizing
Palestinian-Israeli conflict that the October 7, 2023,
Hamas's vile attack with terrifying Holocaust dimensions, has
brought into sharp view with months of fighting and much
suffering to both sides. The detail-oriented writer and
activist is anchored in the Palestinian saga of loss and
grievances going back to the pivotal 1948 victorious Israeli
War of Independence which the Palestinians painfully regard
as their Nakba (Catastrophe).
Touching are the author's reminiscences of growing up in
Ramallah with his grandma who was a refugee from Jaffa, ever
missing her old home and inculcating in her young grandson an
attachment to the family's past. ``For a long time, I was
hostage to the memories, perceptions and attitudes of others
that I could not abandon. My sense of place was not my own.''
However, following the 1967 War when he was able to visit
Jaffa, his family's roots gained a realistic sense of
belonging. The close physical proximity was a primary factor.
Shehadeh blames the British for the turn of events
culminating in the 1948 Arab defeat and the Palestinian
debacle, pointing at the 1917 Balfour Declaration as the root
cause, stating that the 1922 to 1948 British Mandate was
dedicated to fulfilling the earlier declared British
commitment toward the Jewish people. I believe that
historians would beg to differ, regarding a gradual British
shift in the Arabs' favor and manifested in severe limits on
Jewish refugees before and after WWII and the Holocaust.
Intense Jewish military pressure was created as the British
Empire was disintegrating. The author claims that ``what
happened in Palestine was the utter dissolution of a
nation,'' notwithstanding the acknowledged fact that no such
``nation'' historically existed yet the Israeli Jewish
narrative supported by the Bible claims past millennial
Jewish life and creativity which is cavalierly dismissed by
the author, ``Israel treated the Bible as a historical
document and used it to back up the claim that the land had
belonged to the Jews from time immemorial, having been
promised to them by the Almighty.''
He bemoans the fate of the Palestinian Arabs, about
160,000, who remained in Israel and were ``forced'' to
celebrate Israel Independence Day. Admittedly, they were
caught in a bind but there is no evidence that they were
coerced to celebrate Israel's national festivals. After all
they have enjoyed the benefits of becoming Israeli citizens
and significant progress of integration was accomplished
though challenges remain in a complex scenario with serious
security issues. There is evidence of growing Palestinization
of Arab Israelis while polls reflect no desire on their part
to trade their Israeli citizenship for an Arab one. There is
no mention by the author of the 750,000 Jewish refugees in
1948 from Arab lands who left under duress, subject to
pogroms and losing their belongings following centuries of
discrimination.
It is hard for Shehadeh to come to grips with Israel's
success to establish a modern Jewish national identity,
defined by him as ``Zionist colonization,'' with the
revitalized Hebrew language bestowing Hebrew names on the
rebuilt landscape that had carried Arab ones. He points at, a
non-starter, proposal of his late father, Aziz Shehadeh,
following the 1967 War, to use the 1947 Partition
Resolution--then denied by the Arabs--for a Palestinian
state. Abba Eban, Israel's legendary foreign minister,
insightfully coined that the Palestinians ``never missed an
opportunity to miss an opportunity.'' Indeed, the
controversial Jewish State Law of July 19, 2018, caused
understandable consternation among Israeli Arabs, exacerbated
by the dropping of Arabic as an official language. Sadly, I
share with the author, only 3% of Israeli Jews are literate
in Arabic. That is part of an important discussion concerning
Israel's better integration into the surrounding Arab Middle
East while there are those Israelis who prefer a Western
orientation. I suggest that both approaches ought be pursued
tandem.
The book's Part Two is dedicated to the Gaza War, 2023-4,
triggered by the October 7, 2023, Hamas's massacres which the
author thankfully condemns though seemingly impressed with
the military aspects of catching Israel by surprise as Egypt
did in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the breaking through the
failed billion plus costly barrier, along with the heavy
Israeli fatalities, casualties and captives. ``The brutality
of Hamas's attack and the civilian death toll certainly cast
a shadow on their military success.
Whereas an occupied population has the right under the
international law to resist, they have no right to commit war
crimes. Still, this time the Palestinians did not fit into
the role of victims. To the Israelis it seemed like
aggressors who were challenging Israel's very existence.''
The astute Shehadeh is surely aware that Gaza was returned
to the Palestinians in 2005 by then Prime Minister Sharon,
followed by Hamas's forceful occupation and the cruel
toppling of the Palestinian Authority there with no elections
since the 2006 Hamas's ``victory''. He regards the Israeli
response to the October 7 Nazi-like Hamas's massacres
excessive, expecting public Israeli criticism as back in 1982
with the horrific Sabra and Shatila massacres in Lebanon. The
author though surely knows that the Christian Phalangists had
a decisive hand at that time. Somehow, there is no reference
also to Iran's leading role in directing its radical proxies,
Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis and others, to prevent the near
peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia with the successful
foundation of the Abraham Accords. Also, the author's
comparison of Israel to the once South African apartheid
state is misleading.
I wholeheartedly concur with Shehadeh's following
assessment, ``Young Israelis felt secure enough that they
planned a rave night on the border with Gaza. But when Hamas
broke through Israel's vulnerability and insecurity were
exposed. Israelis were traumatized because they realized they
couldn't go on with their life in the same way, making the
same assumptions about the reality of the state and its
security. Unless, that is, they defeated the aggressor.'' I
also share the author's own response to his book's title,
``The very high human and material cost of the war in Gaza
proves that what Israel fears from Palestine is Palestine's
very existence.'' Surely a Hamas controlled Palestinian state
is not accepted by Israel for obvious reasons.
I do appreciate Shehadeh's optimism concerning the future,
``And yet, looking back at the history of the region it is
only after great upheavals that hopeful consequences
[[Page E911]]
follow.'' However, the central question and challenge remain,
whether two separate and contradictory narratives can be
reconciled for the future sake of both peoples.
Rabbi Dr. Israel Zoberman is the founder of Temple Lev
Tikvah in Virginia Beach. Kazakhstan's only born rabbi, he is
the son of Polish Holocaust Survivors and spent his early
childhood in transit and DP Camps in Austria and Germany. He
grew up Haifa, Israel.
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