Adonis Diaries

Discriminated against on all sides: Palestinians with Israel passport

How could you figure out this paradox: An Arab State (probably Qatar) invited two Jewish Israeli swimmers to participate in a sport event, and denied a Palestinian scholar (see not) to attend a scientific conference on the ground that his passport is Israeli?

In 1948, only about 150,000 Palestinians steadfastly remained and held on their land while Israel was pursuing its policy of “transferring” all Palestinians from Palestine, by all means available, including genocide and erasing entire villages…

Those 150,000 Palestinians living within the State of Israel suffered all kinds of discrimination, humiliations and indignities and they are currently around 1.5 million or 20% of Israel total population. 

Mind you that the Jews in Palestine during the British mandated power over Palestine were less than 20% before WWII, and the Zionist organization pressured the British Empire never to engage in any democratic election in Palestine, as long as the Jews are in the minority. The British failure to conduct even municipal election lead to a mass civil disobedience that lasted 4 years (1935-1938) and prompted Britain to dispatch 100,000 soldiers to put down this intifada.

It is these Palestinians who supposedly enjoy the same civil rights as the Jews in Israel that worry greatly the racist and apartheid State of Israel.  The radical Jewish right wings want a totally Jewish State and abhor the existence of those “Arabs” in their midst. In the last decade, there has been a frenetic flurry of apartheid laws, enacted by the Knesset, in order to restrict the civil rights of the Israeli Palestinians, and threaten them of massive transfer to the Palestinian State if the UN decides for an independent Palestinian State…

The “Israeli Arabs” as the Zionists would like to discriminate against the Israeli Palestinians know their rights as Israeli citizens and keep demanding their entitled rights from the Justice system and the Israeli institutions.

For example, the “Israeli Palestinians” launched the “Homeland Day” on March 30, 1976 and conducted civil disobedience to resist any further expropriation of their properties.  Plenty of blood was shed as the Israeli army intervened violently. The “Homeland Day” is celebrated every year by Palestinians all over the world.

The “Israeli Palestinians” participated in the “1987 Intifada” (civil disobedience), which was organized by the Palestinians in the occupied territories of West Bank and Gaza, and the Israeli police force quelled the peaceful demonstrations of the “Israeli Palestinians” in the norther cities and towns and dozens were killed and injured. Actually, the “Homeland Day” is basically celebrated to keep the memory of the martyred Israeli Palestinians who fell by the Israeli police on that day.

Israel wanted to transfer all Palestinians from Israel, but time was pressing and the western States needed to keep a “sample of Palestinians” within Israel to demonstrate that the UN resolution of 1948 of two homelands was still on the books.  Without a sample of Palestinians within the State of Israel, it would have been totally untenable to keep supporting an apartheid system and claim Israel as the “sole democracy” in the Middle-East.

I knew one Israeli Palestinian (labelled Palestinians of 1948 by the “Arabs”) during my graduate study in the USA, and he was very sad, aloof, and perturbed. Kind of not knowing who he really is: an arab, an Israeli, an enemy to the “Arabs”, a spy to the Israeli government…Basically, the problem was “How am I perceived by the “Arabs” around me and by the Jews?”

Is is an outrage that Arab States and “Arabs” in general tend to discriminate against the Israeli Palestinians, instead of viewing them as their main ally to rectify harms done in the last 6 decades…

Note: Marwan Duwairy, a Palestinian Israeli and a social psychology researcher, is the scholar who was discriminated against by an Arab State. The university of Columbia (USA) had publihed his book in 2006 on social therapy and has been invited by many scientific conferences to give speeches. He currently resides in Israel.