Israel Threatens to Outlaw Palestinian Memory

Israel is set to approve a radical new bill which threatens to legalise discrimination against its sizeable Arab minority for the first time. The bill, approved this week by the ministerial committee for legislation, would make it illegal to relate to the creation of the State of Israel on May 15, 1948 as a day of mourning, thereby banning Arab Israeli citizens from marking what Palestinians call the Nakba - their "Great Catastrophe". Although the bill has some way yet to become law, it is already arousing considerable consternation among liberal Israeli Jews and the entire Arab community, 20 percent of Israel's population.

Along with Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, and around the world, some Arab Israelis mark the yearly Nakba anniversary with mourning and commemoration events. Jewish Israelis celebrate their Independence Day at the same time of year, although according to the Hebrew calendar. Under the proposed legislation, people caught commemorating the Nakba could be jailed for up to three years. The bill was proposed by a member of Yisrael Beteinu (Israel Our Home), an ultra-nationalist - some call it racist - party, which came third in the recent general election under the campaign slogan, "No Loyalty, No Citizenship". This proposed new law is seen as the first translation of that slogan into a tangible loyalty test which would demand of Arab citizens that they swear allegiance to Israel as a "Jewish, Zionist and democratic" state if they want to be accepted as citizens. It is also viewed as the first tangible translation of a populist mood that is inclined to disallow freedom of expression for Arab Israelis and liberal Jews who line up with them. Sikuy, the Association for the Advancement of Civil Society in Israel, says the bill is in stark contrast to the values on which Israel was established. It would "be destructive to efforts to bring about reconciliation between Jews and Arabs," the NGO said. Well-known Jewish novelist Sami Michael, president of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), described the bill as "a sign of a democracy losing its bearings. Marking the Nakba in no way threatens the safety of the State of Israel.

It is a legitimate and fundamental human right of any person, group or people to express grief in the face of a disaster they experienced." A petition denouncing the proposed legislation has been signed by some 2,000 intellectuals. One of the signatories, Hebrew University historian Prof. Steven E. Aschheim told IPS: "It's absurd, it's madness, to legislate against any group's historical memory. This is to deprive part of the population of a basic right." Another academic who declined to be identified, said, "To outlaw expression of grief is tantamount to outlawing an historical event. It's akin to legislating against native Americans or indigenous Australians remembering their historical pain." Apart from Jewish and Arab civil society activists, opposition to the bill comes mainly from Arab Israeli political parties who were themselves nearly outlawed just before the February elections. Mainstream Jewish Israelis do not seem to be particularly aghast, however.

In a phone-in programme on Israel Radio, one woman caller reiterated the mainstream Jewish national narrative as explanation for this new searing demand on Arab Israeli citizens: "In 1947, there was a Partition Plan for Mandatory Palestine; we Jews accepted it, the Arabs didn't; they launched a war; they lost that war and our State came into existence. Those that stayed have to accept that." During the so-called peace process ye