When is the Nakba from 1948? In the past, as most Israelis implicitly think? or in the future, as implicitly thought by many Palestinians and Arabs? The answer is: both.

It is in the past because generations of Israelis were born there and did not know other countries. The idea of sending them back to where they came from or subjecting them to an Arab power, especially in these times of explosions of identity-based desires, is like a fantasy of science fiction. The Nakba is also in the past because there are also generations of Palestinians born in third countries, of which they are now an integral part, more than they are part of Palestine.

The creation of Israel dates from the same period as the independence of the Arab countries [the end of the French and British mandates in the Middle East]. And for all kinds of reasons, both events do not want to coexist. Seventy years later, the creation of Israel gave a far stronger result than that of Arab independence. This strength is not only in its military power, but also in its democracy, economy and education.

But the Nakba is also in the future (knowing that the word “future” is not necessarily positive). Indeed, as long as Israel does not recognize the Nakba and does not make it a subject of debate, as long as Israel refuses to pay its moral and political debt to the Palestinians - those Palestinians who have been uprooted and driven from their homes - and as long as it prevents the creation of a Palestinian state, the question will continue to weigh on the future.

Two irreconcilable visions

On the Arab side, the situation of Palestinian refugees, held in abeyance in these countries, goes in the same direction. The Arab regimes, like their societies, have confirmed them as Palestinians and have maintained the illusion of their return [to Palestine] for the simple reason that they did not want to admit them as citizens at home. The end of Israeli-Palestinian political peace processes would exacerbate the two irreconcilable visions.

To pretend that the Nakba belongs to the past, not to the line, is a trickery and a sham. Those who defend this vision, assemble “Israeli independence” on a hidden corpse, the Palestinian corpse. This independence has been presented solely from the perspective of breaking with the suffering of the Jews, and as a starting point for a better future. And at the same time, it became taboo to say that it also sounded the beginning of the suffering of the Palestinians. And the myth of the God-promised land of the Jews has turned the Israeli version of the political debate into a sacred taboo. In this version, Palestinians appear as coming from nowhere, and are reduced to being only an obstacle to the divine will.

On the other hand, those who claim that the Nakba is in the future, line by line, oppose to the Israeli sacred myths their own myths. They claim that “Israel is the Commissioner of Imperialism”, or reduce the suffering of European Jews to something that oscillates between a Zionist lie invented from scratch (as the Arab anti-Semites say) and a goodwill instrumentalized by the Zionists (as the Arabs say, who give up anti-Semitism).

The Nakba will come out of history

The creation of Israel has been called all names. It has become a separate event, and like everything else, it requires a particular solution, to the point that any solution becomes impossible. The Arab military-nationalist regimes have not been left out to generalize this conception of an impossible solution. They adopted it because [in the fight against Israel] it gave them an ersatz of the legitimacy they lacked. Thus was born this famous “Palestinian cause”, which resembles especially the tribal vendetta of which one never leaves, neither by the policy, nor by the war.

By limiting itself to saying “The Nakba is only of the past”, Israel has turned its initial sins into ferocity, driving out all the sensibility of its soul. For their part, the Palestinians, who do not quibble and say“This Nakba is our future,” have seen their society Islamize while waiting for the time of revenge. After seventy years of struggle between the “nothing but the past” on one side and the “nothing but the future” on the other, there is reason to fear that the Nakba will come out of history. Only the sacred can welcome him. And the sacred, in this world, has become a mixture of hatred, mud and blood.

Hazem Saghieh

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