A Remembrance Day to be forgotten

Remembering the dead at noon the day before Independence Day on May 7 may seem appropriate for the majority of those living in Israel. But for the Palestinians, a small minority, the two days represent and symbolize a vast divide in ideological differences.

For the residents of Israel, everything comes to a standstill at the middle of the day – cars screech to a halt, tourists stand bewildered at the developing scene and those with children firmly ensure their confused infants stand at attention.

For several minutes, air sirens spanning the country from Metula to the Negev, from Rosh Hanikra to Ashkelon, will blare, not indicating an incoming cross-border breach by Hamas or an incoming Katyusha rocket attack from southern Lebanon.

Rather, these sirens beckon the population to remember the dead as well as the men and women who fought in all the battles and wars since the inception of the Jewish state nearly 60 years ago.

History displayed a struggle for independence in 1947-1948, the 1956 War, the Six-Day War in 1967, the October War during Yom Kippur in 1973, the surprising descent upon Beirut, an Arab capital in 1982, the Intifada in 1987, as well as the 2006 engagement with Lebanon. This is but a brief, abbreviated version of all that has plagued the region for the past three generations.

Do the events surrounding these two days in May typify Israel? This is a country that boasts the fourth highest defence budget in the world, and rewards its war hawks with ministerial positions with portfolio, invitations to form a coalition government and heaps of praise for the living and those having died as martyrs.

The irony of the day of remembrance lies in its proximity to the celebration of the creation of Israel as a state on May 14, 1948. For those having been ushered out as a result of the influx of Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews after World War II into the biblical lands of Canaan, Judea and Samaria, the nakba (catastrophe) is a haunting memory. A convincing and apt comparison for the people of ‘Palestine’ is the Holocaust or shoah.

While the Jewish population is busily celebrating their exodus to the Holy Land, refugees are bemoaning the cards that history has dealt them. They are a people without land who, and especially on Independence Day, are inundated with a chorus of, ‘this land is our land.’

These two days are a blatant and taunting exercise in the eyes of Palestinians, erasing from all memory what happened in Sabra and Shatila, Hebron, the Shebaa Farms, Jenin and for that matter other refugees who have had to forcefully watch while hundreds are killed, thousands are sent to a prison-like atmosphere and more settlements are built on top of their bulldozed tracts of land.

History is often written by the victors and this much is true in Israel. What losses the victors have aggregated in the past will soon be forgotten, remembered in the light of anticipation for the next day, the day of absolution, the day of atonement, the day of independence.

Posted by robbiets2000
Robert Terpstra is a freelance journalist, having filed reports in 42 countries. His op-eds appear weekly in four countries spanning three continents focusing on south Asian current affairs and domestic issues in Pakistan - the content to foment a book due out in 2011.