I’ll post excerpts from Ilan Pappé’s The Forgotten Palestinians in this thread (and those to come), thus summarizing the entire book or the most important parts, In Shā’ Allah. This 🧵covers the prologue. Bismillāh.
To the early Zionist settlers, Palestine was unfamiliar and their journey from Western Europe was often harsh and dangerous. The local Palestinians received them well and gave them advice on how to cultivate the land, but the latter described them as aliens roaming Jewish lands.
The perception of Palestinians as unwanted and unwelcome has remained an important part of Zionist discourse, and although a century later the descendants of some became citizens of Israel, the status did not prevent them from being treated as dangerous threats.
It was incredibly difficult for Palestinians to buy lands, and even those who succeeded in doing so through appeals to the Israeli Supreme Court were not immune from a second takeover. There were those who had been forcefully evicted and their lands turned to training fields.
No one was safe, and this naturally included married women. The village of Jaljulia was in 2007 laid siege to, and its aim was to capture 8 Palestinian women who were taken out of their beds. They were arrested and expelled back to the West Bank on the same night.
Amongst other restrictions, the right to protest and organize is not a given for Palestinians in Israel. In January 2009, the police arrested 800 activists to prevent them from demonstrating and organizing demonstrations the day after.
Attacks by members of the public or police on Palestinian citizens never result in the perpetrators being sent for trial. Since 2000, 41 citizens had been killed by the police (at the time the book was authored). Most had no connection to crime.
Nevertheless, there have been Palestinians who have achieved real success. But that is precisely what has made them more of a threat to Israel. Recent surveys show that the majority of high-school Jewish children do not believe that full rights should be given to Palestinians.
While many actions are evident, there is subtlety at play too. The laws aren’t always so clear, but they’re still in place and applied to keep Palestinians in their place and not allow them to rise or be fully participating members.
The following threads will cover the succeeding chapters, In Shā’ Allāh.
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