hijacking palestinians'narrative

Hijacking the Palestinians' narrative
Israel's hard-line supporters in the US Congress have fired the latest
volley in their sustained campaign against the rights of Palestinian
refugees and against the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) that
provides for their basic needs.
On Oct. 28, members of the US House of Representatives, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen
(Republican from Florida), Jerrold Nadler (Democrat from New York), and
Frank Pallone (Democrat from New Jersey), introduced House Resolution 311,
"expressing the sense of Congress that the international community should
recognize the plight of Jewish refugees from Arab countries."
It also requested that the UNRWA should resettle Palestinian refugees in
their current host countries. Ros-Lehtinen was one of the lead sponsors of
the recently passed Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty
Restoration Act.
The new resolution claims "there is evidence that UNRWA facilities have been
used for terrorist recruitment and training, as well as bases for terrorist
operations, with little attempt by UNRWA to prevent attacks or alert
relevant law enforcement authorities about terrorist attacks."
The resolution also demanded: "UNRWA should immediately replace textbooks
and educational materials used in the UNRWA educational system that promote
anti-Semitism, deny the existence and the right to exist of the state of
Israel, and exacerbate stereotypes and tensions between Palestinians and
Israelis."
While UNRWA has no mandate whatsoever to resettle refugees, the
unsubstantiated charges linking it with "terrorism" and "incitement" have
become a staple of the escalating campaign in the US against the agency. The
United States is UNRWA's largest donor, contributing a third of its annual
budget. Israel's congressional allies last year succeeded in attaching a
requirement to Washington's contribution for the 2003 fiscal year, that the
General Accounting Office (GAO) carry out an audit of UNRWA. The audit,
according to the law, must ensure that the US provides no aid to the agency,
"except on the condition that UNRWA take all possible measures to assure
that no part of the United States contribution shall be used to furnish
assistance to any refugee who is receiving military training as a member of
the so-called Palestine Liberation Army or any other guerrilla-type
organization or who has engaged in any act of terrorism."
A GAO staffperson responsible for the audit confirmed to me that his agency'
s team had already returned from a field visit to Palestinian refugee camps
in the West Bank and Jordan, and was preparing to report formally to
Congress within a few weeks. When asked why he thought Ros-Lehtinen and her
colleagues had introduced their resolution now, rather than after the
release of the congressionally-mandated GAO report, the official said that
although the GAO is the investigative arm of Congress, "our work operates
independently of that resolution."
Brett Heimov, Jerrold Nadler's chief of staff, explained why the
congressional resolution could not wait: "Congressman Nadler doesn't need to
see a GAO audit to know the situation in the camps is dire . waiting for a
GAO audit is pointless." When asked if Nadler had ever actually visited a
Palestinian refugee camp himself, Heimov said he had not. Heimov said Nadler
relied for his information principally on "various news reports" and reports
from "various organizations."
Who might these organizations be? The influential American Jewish weekly The
Forward reported in its Nov. 7 issue: "The main driving force behind the
campaign to link the two groups of Middle East refugees (Arab Jews and
Palestinians) is the World Jewish Congress (WJC) and its secretary-general,
Avi Beker. Shortly after taking over the reins of the organization a year
ago, Beker started a campaign against UNRWA. This year he linked that issue
to a push for the recognition of Jewish refugees' plight."
The Forward also quoted a "congressional source" claiming that Beker's
efforts were primarily responsible for the resolution introduced by
Ros-Lehtinen, Nadler and Pallone.
The congressional campaign also appears to be coordinated with the Israeli
government. The Forward reported that "Israeli diplomats opened a second
front against UNRWA this week in New York, formally charging that the
refugee agency has become a political advocate for the Palestinian cause and
that it has allowed its facilities to be used by terrorists."
Responding to the charges, Peter Hansen, the commissioner-general of UNRWA,
told The Forward: "We have asked Israel to give us the evidence, and they
haven't done so."
While attacking UNRWA and demanding "resettlement" of Palestinian refugees
is one half of the campaign, the claims about "Jewish refugees" are equally
prominent. House Resolution 311 asserts that "during the time period
surrounding the creation of the State of Israel, nearly 900,000 of these
Jews fled Arab countries because they feared a campaign of ethnic cleansing
and were forced to leave behind land, private homes, personal affects (sic),
businesses, community assets and thousands of years of their Jewish heritage
and history." Nadler told The Forward that he viewed the departure of Jews
and Palestinians from their respective homelands as a "population exchange."
Last January, Israeli scholar Ran HaCohen observed that counterclaims about
"the so-called ethnic cleansing of Jews from the Arab countries" seem to be
the "Pavlovian pro-Israeli reply whenever the ethnic cleansing (of
Palestinians) of 1948 is mentioned." HaCohen acknowledged that although
hundreds of thousands of Jews did eventually leave Arab countries, this
occurred after Palestinians were expelled, so "it is therefore somewhat
awkward to claim that Israel had deported its Arabs because of the exodus of
Arab Jews that occurred years later."
HaCohen added that while many Jews were indeed harassed into leaving Arab
countries, "blaming the Arabs (for) ethnic cleansing is shamefully cynical
when it is imputed by the very Zionists who demanded 'let my people go,' or
by the same Israel that did all it could to force those very countries to
let their Jews leave."
In other words, HaCohen implied, both the destruction of Palestinian society
in Palestine and Jewish societies in Arab countries were necessary
conditions for the fulfillment of the Zionist project. For years Israel's
supporters welcomed the departure of Arab Jews from their homelands to
Israel. Their exodus has only now become a "plight" to the extent that it is
useful for propaganda purposes or to offset Palestinian rights to
compensation and return. Because there is no groundswell among Arab Jews in
Israel to exercise their own undeniable right to return and compensation,
certain Zionist advocates have used them as a weapon to demand that
Palestinians be similarly satisfied through resettlement outside their
homeland. Having been unable to suppress the Palestinian narrative of
dispossession, these supporters of Israel are now apparently trying to
appropriate it for themselves.
According to The Forward, other Israeli commentators are not pleased by this
rewriting of official Zionism, and "have criticized the WJC campaign to have
Jews from Arab lands recognized as refugees, arguing it undercuts the
Zionist claim that Jewish immigrants to Israel were not homeless refugees
but returnees to the Jewish homeland."
It is not yet clear when the new House resolution will come to a vote. But
judging from the success the resolution's backers have had so far in
advancing their cause in Congress, the debate will be little affected by
actual evidence, be it from the GAO or other credible or objective sources.
This is never truer than during an election year.