Today, the Palestinians will commemorate their Nakba [the catastrophe], an occasion that the fascist Israeli government banned as it passed a law prohibiting the native inhabitants of the country from commemorating, and punishing those who do. They are catastrophes, nut just one. In 1948, Palestine was occupied by European Khazari Jews who murdered large numbers of its people, and forced around 600 thousand to one million others to emigrate. Then following the occupation of 1967, or the second Nakba, and to the present day, some quarter million Palestinians were obliged, or forced to leave the West Bank. There are also official Israeli figures that speak of a third Nakba: Since the occupation of the West Bank, Israel withdrew the permits of 140 thousand Palestinians there. In other words, a Palestinian who leaves the West Bank is not allowed to return there, while a Jew from Russia is readily allowed to settle and a Jew from Moldova may bear the Israeli nationality without even living there for a single day. Not all Israelis or Jews are like Benjamin Netanyahu, Avigdor Lieberman or Eli Yishai. On the eve of the 63rd anniversary of the Nakba, many Israelis have defended Palestinian rights, and many Jews around the world have advocated for them, especially in Western universities where Jews are a basic component of the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaigns against Israel. I choose today to talk about two of the leading supporters of the Palestinians, who were in the news all throughout the week that preceded the anniversary of the Nakba. Perhaps a small number of Arabs has heard the name Tony Kushner, and most of these would have probably learned his name from the film Munich, which caused a controversy when it was released in 2005 for portraying Israeli commandos sensing regret after killing the Palestinian militants who carried out the attack at the Olympic Games in Munich in 1972, which ended with the killing of the Israeli athletes. Kushner is a Pulitzer-winning playwright. He caused a stir in the Western media in recent days. He was nominated for an honorary doctorate at the City University of New York (CUNY). But in the beginning, the Board of Trustees at CUNY refused to grant him the honorary degree, at the instigation of a Likudnik Trustee named Jeffery Weisenfeld, who accused Kushner of being a Jew who hates Israel, with anti-Semitic stances on it. The Likudniks from Israel, Europe and America, all welcomed the decision not to grant him the honorary degree, and wrote spitefully against Kushner and people with similar stances. However, the decision caused a firestorm among academicians. Then last Monday, the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees at CUNY voted with a majority of six to one to overturn the previous decision, and grant Kushner the honorary doctorate. The playwright's supporters said that granting him the honorary degree has nothing to do with his political views. Nonetheless, he remained committed to his principles, and after the first vote denying him the honorary doctorate, he sent a letter to CUNY's administration in which he insisted that Israel practices ethnic cleansing against the Palestinians, whom he said bear the brunt of the ills that befall the Middle East. In truth, the CUNY Board Chairman Benno Schmidt admitted that the original vote was a mistake of principle and not merely of policy. And now, Kushner's supporters are calling for the impeachment of Weisenfeld who stood against him, because he does not deserve to be a member of the Board of Trustees. The confrontation ended with the defeat of Israel's supporters at the hands of a pro-Palestinian Jew, who had protested in New York in 2009 against Israel's incursion into the Gaza Strip. From New York, we go to Gaza, where the Argentinean-Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim took an ensemble of 25 musicians from leading European orchestras, to perform at a cultural club on the coast, as part of a first of its kind concert in Gaza. I wish my dear friend, the late Edward Said, were alive to attend the concert. Among Said's many talents is that he is a world-class pianist. He and Barenboim started the West-Eastern Divan to bring children together through music. Barenboim's positions on the Palestinians, their Nakba, and their ongoing suffering are similar to those of Kushner. He addresses the audience in Gaza by saying, “I'm Palestinian”, and then continued by saying, “I am an Israeli”. He also said that it is possible to be both Palestinian and Israeli, and for the two peoples to live together side by side, instead of back to back. On the anniversary of the Nakba, I chose to remember two Jews who were all over the news throughout last week, and I would like to also remember along with them writers in Haaretz, such as Gideon Levy and Akiva Eldar, and the Israelis who defended the Palestinian bookseller whose residence permit was withdrawn in Jerusalem, as well as the advocates of the boycott of Israel in the West, and also Nurit Peled and the peace activists like her who demand Palestinian rights with the enthusiasm of the country's native inhabitants themselves. [email protected]
