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The Meaning of the Disaster

From Constantine Zurayk (1948) to Salman Abu Sitta (2016/2022)

Helga Baumgarten
27/04/2024

Introduction: “Despite Everything”

[“Despite Everything is a quote from Rosa Luxemburg. In German: “Trotz alledem!“]

The World is celebrating the 75th anniversary of the establishment of the State of Israel. At the same time, Palestinians and their plight are simply overlooked. This essay will put them center stage.

I will start with an important question:

What was the effect, or in the words of Constantine Zurayk, what was the meaning of the establishment of the State of Israel for the Palestinians, the indigenous population of the land between the Mediterranean coast and the Jordan River Valley?

For Zurayk, it was the disaster, an-Nakba in Arabic: 750 000 Palestinians were driven out of their homeland and no Palestinian state was allowed to come into being.

When looking at the way Palestinians and Arabs dealt with this disaster of 1948, I will focus on agency. In particular, I will look at the proposed ways to overcome it. In this context, I will put individuals center stage, in particular intellectuals and writers, like Constantine Zurayk and Salman Abu Sitta.

I will not try and add to the analyses of Israel as a settler-colonial state. But I want to stress that the first analysis of Israel as a settler-colonial state was published by Palestinian historian Fayez Sayegh [Sayegh (1965)], and a few years later a second one by French Marxist Maxime Rodinson [Rodinson (1967) and Rodinson (1969)]

We will always be indebted to the work of Patrick Wolfe. In his path-breaking article „Settler Colonialism and the elimination of the native” [Wolfe (2006)], he was able to show that settler colonialism is not a single historical event, but rather possesses a structure and constitutes an historical process aiming at the elimination of the native.

In my contribution, though, I want to focus on the role of individuals in history and in political processes. I hope to show through the example of Constantine Zurayk and Salman Abu Sitta, how their work, in the case of Abu Sitta exclusively empirical, preceded and even anticipated the theory of settler colonialism.

I will argue that Zurayk and Abu Sitta are immensely relevant until today for Palestinian and Arab intellectuals, activists and political parties. The main reason is twofold. Both Zurayk and Abu Sitta insist on a critical respectively self-critical approach to the analysis of the 1948 disaster as well as to developments until today. This involves also an open critique of those in power. Secondly, both insist on the importance of truth, as long as it is based on empirically established facts. Both are convinced that right in the end will overcome might. And both believe in the possibility of change, provided that all involved endeavor to bring it about.

Critics of Zurayk and Abu Sitta might accuse them of naïve idealism. In their defense, I should like to quote Lenin, certainly not an idealist: “It is necessary to dream, but with the condition of believing in our dreams. To examine real life carefully, to confront our observation with our dreams, and to perform our fantasy scrupulously.”

Zurayk and Abu Sitta certainly have been following Lenin in this respect, and they have been doing all in their power to turn their dreams into reality.

In the first part of this essay I want to introduce Zurayk’s small book – almost forgotten today – which he published in 1948 in Beirut under the title: ma’na an-nakba. The book was translated into English in 1956 and also published in Beirut under the title “The Meaning of the Disaster” [Zurayk (1956)].

I will first present and discuss his arguments, before drawing a line from Zurayk in 1948 to Salman Abu Sitta in 2022, when Abu Sitta established the Palestine Land Studies Center (PLSC) at the AUB, the same university where Zurayk taught. Three texts will be in the center of my analysis of Salman Abu Sitta: his book, Mapping my Return [Abu Sitta (2016)], his speech at the AUB for the opening of the PLSC [Abu Sitta, 2022], and last but not least his remarkable speech at Edinburgh University on November 2, 2022, 105 years after the proclamation of the Balfour Declaration.

I. Constantine Zurayk

Who was Constantine Zurayk? He was born in Damascus and studied at the American University in Beirut, before moving on to Princeton, where he got his PhD. Back in Beirut, he started to teach at the AUB. Between 1945 and 1947, he worked briefly as a diplomat, first at the Syrian Embassy in Washington, then at the UN in New York. Upon his return to academic life, he served as Vice-President at the AUB, then for 3 years as President of Damascus University. In 1954, he made his final return to Beirut, was president of the AUB from 1954 until 1956, and after that continued to teach there as a professor. He died in August 2000 [See introduction to English translation of an-nakba, written by the translator, Bayly Winder. See also Collected works of Constantine Zurayk].

The Meaning of the Disaster

What made him write this book right after the establishment of the State of Israel?

As an academic, a former diplomat, but above all as a progressive Arab nationalist, he had to respond to these momentous events. Already in December 1947, he had been asked to write an article for the Beirut newspaper al-Amal, and on May 31, 1948, he was given the chance to deliver a speech on Palestine live on Lebanon Radio.

For Zurayk, the proclamation of the State of Israel on the land of historic Palestine constituted “a disaster (nakba) in every sense of the word” [Zurayk (1956), p2)].

What was done to the Palestinians in 1948, when their land was taken away from them and handed over to immigrants and settlers, this IS the disaster [Surayk (1956. pp5-6, 9, 69-71.]. In other words, 1948 resulted in their wholesale expulsion from Palestine and deprived them of their right to self-determination.

For Zurayk, the Nakba, on one hand, was a matter of

expulsion of 750,000 out of a total of 900,000 Palestinian inhabitants in the area of the newly created state of Israel, not least with the help of a whole series of the most brutal massacres. Over 500 villages were destroyed and razed to the ground. Almost all Palestinians were expelled from the important coastal cities of Jaffa, Haifa and Akka [Pappe (2014). See also Morris (1989), Manna (2022), Khalidi (1961) and Raz (2021:2)}.
systematic prevention of the return of the displaced Palestinians after the end of the violence and the beginning of the ceasefire [Masalha (2003). See also Habibi (1974)].

On the other hand, the Nakba for him

resulted in the failure to create a Palestinian state. Instead, Israel expanded in clear violation of the UN partition plan. Jordan for its part, and with the full support of Great Britain and Israel, annexed the West Bank and East Jerusalem [Shlaim (1988)].

What are the main contributions of Zurayk in his little book and what makes them valid until today?

He gives his readers a detailed description as well as a new conceptualization of the disaster. Zurayk, in contrast to Sayegh, Rodinson and Wolfe, uses the term Imperialism instead of settler-colonialism, but uses the term for Jewish/Zionist colonies in Palestine [Zurayk (1956), pp 2, 5, 15].

Most relevant for the situation of Palestinians and Arabs today is his bitter and acerbic critique of Arab States, whom he considers responsible for the Nakba. While he concedes the strength of Zionism and of the newly created state of Israel, in particular the wide international support for it [Zurayk (1956), pp 4-5], he uses the example of Zionism and Israel to deepen and also to conceptualize his critique of Arab states and Arab society.

Throughout his book, we find an underlying demand for realism [Zurayk (1956), pp6-9 and passim… all over the book], starting with the necessity to be self-critical. Only if Palestinians and Arabs confront reality critically, will they be able to start long-term planning in order to achieve their clearly defined goal: overcoming the nakba and liberating Palestine.

This self-critical assessment of the Arab world, of its states and of Arab society will achieve the required and overdue “fundamental change in the situation of the Arabs, and a complete transformation of their modes of thought, action, and life.” [Zurayk (1956), p34]

This transformation is unavoidable, because in Zurayk’s analysis Arabs still live in past, have not arrived in modern life, even reject modern life. He contrasts this assessment with his analysis of the Zionist movement and of Israel. Zurayk sees them as modern, with a Western mentality, capable of living in the presence and planning for the future. Unlike the Arabs, they have achieved national unity, which served as the basis for their success in 1948 [Zurayk (1956), p34].

He therefore demands that Arabs need to recognize self-critically that until now they have not been able to constitute themselves as a nation. And without national unity, so Zurayk, they cannot realize their potentials for the future.

Zurayk’s central demand is the struggle for unity:

“… this unification which we seek in the fields of war, politics, economics, propaganda etc., is linked to the … present situation in the Arab. … However, the danger is great and imminent… It is not possible to wait for that fundamental transformation in the Arab situation which will ensure the basic and necessary unity capable of guarding the Arab being and defending it… Therefore, those in power … in the Arab states must place the general goal before particular goals; and public opinion in the various Arab lands must continuously urge co-ordination and unification, must exert as much pressure as possible in this direction, and must rebel at every division in the Arab front so as to overcome … the obstacles which today confront Arab security and thus protect … the Arabs in this battle.”

[Zurayk (1956), p24]

For Zurayk, it is the role of the elite, … a progressive, revolutionary elite, consisting … of Arab youth, to bring about the required transformation and to establish unity.

“This elite must … organize and unify itself into well-knit parties and organizations. These must stand on a unified … doctrine and must be bound by a strong … loyalty to which the elite will subjugate all its divergent tendencies….”

[Zurayk (1956), p43]

Only if the elite bases itself on society at large and if it works for the participation of popular forces, will it be successful.

“The struggle must not be limited to governments and regular armies, but it must extend to all classes of society so that every individual in the nation will undertake his share of it.”

[Zurayk (1956), p25]

And he continues with a clear warning:

“Let this be a warning to those who distrust the people and oppose popular participation in the struggle…. It will perhaps first revolt against those who have repressed it. Then it will be released in all parts of the nation so that it can defend the fatherland ….”

[Zurayk (1956), p27]

The transformation, which Zurayk demands, is only possible if it is based on broadly defined development: economic, social and intellectual.

As a first step, Arabs, led by the new elite, must end feudalism and tribalism, sectarianism, fatalism and occultism.

In a second step, they must achieve the separation of state and religion.

In a third step, they must start to train their youth in the positive and empirical sciences.

The fourth step must consist of a process of industrialization all over the Arab world.

Last but not least, regimes in Arab states must be changed by the new elite, an elite supported by all classes of society.

To conclude, he poses a decisive question:

“Where is the road to this all-inclusive revolution… which will assure national progress”?

[Zurayk (1956), p41]

For Zurayk, it is the struggle of the new progressive, revolutionary elite, which he postulated. This elite, in order to be successful, had to be well organized, and ready to achieve the necessary transformation and the unity in the Arab world. Only through this transformation and only through unity, so Zurayk, can the Nakba be overcome and the Palestine problem be solved [Zurayk (1956), pp41-46].

Role of Zurayk in pushing for the realization of these goals

At the AUB in Beirut, Zurayk had Arab nationalist students who were very active and eager to translate his teachings into action. They were organized in the group ‘urwa al-wuthqa, which had developed around the journal with the same name. Constantine Zurayk served as their advisor.

Zurayk demanded that the students had to establish a new political organization, based on science, under their leadership.

An anonymous article in al-‘urwa in 1951 took up this demand as the basis for overcoming the Nabka. And George Habash from al-Lydda, student of medicine at the AUB and an ardent admirer and follower of Zurayk, wrote an editorial for al-‘urwa in spring 1949:

“We have to tell the readers of al-‘urwa … about those who left the ship to the storm [here he is referring to the Arab leaders and regimes, HB]. But we want to stress that this nation has youth with a strong will, ready to confront all difficulties, even ready to die… they will fight until they have reached safe shores … and save the nation”.

The students were ready to follow the program laid out by Zurayk.

However, already in 1949, they got into problems with their teacher, because they were far too emotional and were drawn into blind actionism.

They decided to try and assassinate Arab leaders whom they considered responsible for the loss of Palestine. All of these leaders were traitors in their eyes, who could only be dealt with through violence. This violence, once successful, would make the Arab masses take up the struggle for liberation.

They established an underground organization, kata’ib al-fida’ al-‘arabi, and attempted – in vain – to assassinate Arab leaders. The whole endeavor proved short-lived and ended in total failure [Baumgarten (1991)].

Only in 1952, after their graduation and after they had moved to Jordan or to their respective home-countries, did Habash and his friends establish an organization as postulated by Zurayk: harakat al-qaumiyin al’Arab, and later, in 1967, the PFLP.

The main goal of both organizations was, again as demanded by Zurayk, a fundamental transformation of the Arab World and of the Arab individual, a revolution in the true sense of the word. The Arab people, led by the nationalist youth and their organization, would implement this transformation.

The young nationalists sketched an ideal-type of the revolution:

It would transform everything from scratch and establish a new system in the Arab world, without any exploitation. Borders and single states would be done away with. All armies of occupation in the whole region would be driven out and with it the end of the state of Israel would be achieved. Only then would the Arab world be free, no longer subdued by other states and no longer exploited by the imperialist West. The new Arab nation state would exclusively serve the Arab nation.

II. Salman Abu Sitta

What connects Salman Abu Sitta to Constantine Zurayk and how does he build on Zurayk’s proposed transformation?

Who is Salman Abu Sitta? He is a Palestinian who directly experienced the disaster, the Nakba, as a ten-year old boy. While Zurayk was born in an Arab metropole, Damascus, and George Habash grew up in the small city of al-Lydda in the center of Palestine, Salman and his family are from the Bedouin south in Palestine. His father, Sheikh Husain Abu Sitta, occupied an important position as a leader of the local Bedouins. He was astonishingly open for modernization and development and built the first school for the children in the area. In order to get the project started, he even paid from his own pocket both for the school and for the salaries of the teachers.

The socioeconomic status of the family can best be guessed from the description of an Israeli officer in 1948 when the army came to destroy the Abu Sitta house.

“We went to the Abu Sitta home and were stunned: in the middle of the desert unbelievable richness: luxurious furniture, many Oriental and European clothes, a radio, a truck, a beautiful Bedouin sword made of silver, a large important archive of photos and documents…. Shakespeare’s Othello in English, by the side of the Kor’an”.

[Abu Sitta (2016), p 259]

Already as a child, Salman was introduced, first and foremost by his father, to the importance of education, development and modernization in general. After the Israeli army had driven them out of their home and transformed them into refugees in the neighboring Gaza Strip, Salman was sent to Cairo where he finished high school and then went on to study Engineering at the university. After graduation, he continued for his PhD in London, in Civil Engineering, with a focus on infrastructure. With his PhD, he was able to find work in the Gulf states, where he gained extensive experience over many years in the field of infrastructure development [Abi Sitta (2016), passim].

When looking at his education and his work, one cannot but help seeing him as the ideal student of Constantine Zurayk, in a way the embodiment or personification of the demands made by Zurayk from the new elite, which was supposed to develop and transform the Arab nation, unify it and liberate Palestine.

But in contrast to the students of Zurayk at the AUB, Salman Abu Sitta started out his struggle for Palestine on the individual level. However, this struggle possessed a very unique quality. It was empirical, scientific and oriented in two directions. His first goal was to dismantle the Zionist myth, the Zionist propaganda, of a land without people and of a desert which the Zionists made bloom. After all, this myth lives on, as the example of Ursula von der Leyen, Head of the European Commission in Brussels, shows when she claimed as late as 2023 how impressed she had been by Israel’s historical success in making the desert bloom. Abu Sitta wrote a letter to her in which he thoroughly shamed her [Abu Sitta (2023). In this letter, he took up quotes from von der Leyen’s congratulation to Israel on the 75^th anniversary of its establishment, in particular her claim, “Israel made the desert bloom”, which he destroyed through the facts presented to her.]. His second goal, perhaps more important from the perspective of today, was the keeping alive of the Palestine of 1948 and before, in order to prepare for the return of Palestinians to their homeland.

He painstakingly collected information on everything, on the location of houses, villages and towns and cities, on agriculture, and on manufacturing. He searched for maps, photos and archive materials and gathered them together.

Finally, and now we turn to the present, he started to develop concrete plans for the return of the Palestinians to their home, from which they were driven out by sheer force in 1948. And his planning was, as Zurayk had demanded in his book in 1948, empirical and scientific.

Before turning to the results which Salman Abu Sitta achieved until today, I should like to turn to his devastating critique of Balfour. This critique, too, could have been written by Zurayk, as a short look at The Meaning of the Disaster shows [Zurayk (1956) pp57ff].

Aware of the symbolism of historical memory at the relevant place, Abu Sitta went to the University of Edinburgh, the alma mater of Arthur Balfour where he served as Imperial Chancellor for 40 years. In a lecture room at the university, he delivered his speech on the occasion of 105 years of the Balfour Declaration. Just like Zurayk, he demonstrated how this declaration clearly violated international law. At the same time, he shows how the declaration was based on outright racism towards the Palestinians who are only “the others” in the declaration which focuses almost exclusively on Jews. And these “others”, for Balfour, were simply “wholly barbarous, undeveloped and unorganized black tribes”.

He concludes his speech by rather ironically asking Balfour to join him in the following call to the British government. After all, or so he argues – and now he becomes cynical – Balfour could hardly be afraid of the truth, because it is only criminals who fear the truth.

Abu Sitta demands from the British Government,

to apologize to the Palestinian people for their suffering,
to support the implementation of the inalienable Right of Return of Palestinians to their homes,
to pay full compensation for all losses and damages to the Palestinian people,
to help in the rebuilding of new Palestine and the repatriation of its people…
to restore Palestine to its people in justice and freedom, as Allenby found it in 1917, and to liberate Palestine from all the ills of humanity, Zionism, racism, apartheid, occupation and war crimes.”

What has Salman Abu Sitta achieved until today?

He started out as an individual with an almost exclusively individual struggle, with unbreakable perseverance, almost obsessive (in a positive sense), which he never gave up even for a moment, with a clear goal and the determination to plan for the implementation of this goal. He then worked on the transformation of his livelong efforts into a struggle led by a whole movement of young people joining him in his task. And in a final step, he succeeded in institutionalizing his struggle by establishing the Palestine Land Society Center at the AUB, i.e. at the university where Constantine Zurayk had written his book, Meaning of the Disaster, and where he had taught a new generation of Arab leaders.

Let me go into some more detail into the way Abu Sitta worked. The starting point for him was an experience in London, during the time he did his PhD. When he looked for maps of Palestine, he was not able to find one single map, neither in the Royal Geographic Society, nor in the British Library. The only maps available were maps of “Israel”. The conclusion of Abu Sitta was clear: “This denial started the Palestinians’ long battle for recognition and survival” [Abu Sitta (2022)]. Obviously, it was also the beginning of the struggle Abu Sitta embarked on.

“I started on a long trek, from the time my hair was black till it turned silver, to collect every map, document or record I could find about erased Palestine.”

Over the years, he travelled all over: from Britain to France, to Germany and to the US. He still thinks that his research is incomplete. He is aware of resources in the Vatican, in St. Petersburg in Russia, in the Ottoman Archives in Turkey, resources still untapped. His conclusion, therefore, is clear: the work has to continue.

The “harvest” of his searches all over can today be found in the library of PLSC, which he proudly presented in his speech for the inauguration of the Palestine Land Society Center at AUB in January 2022 [Abu Sitta (2022)].

10,000 books on Palestine …
2000 maps of Palestine in the last 200 hundred years…
5000 Aerial photos of Palestine in 1945, taken just before the unceremonious, hurried departure of Britain from Palestine…
300 aerial photos of Palestine taken by the German Air force in World War I…
500,000 land property records by the UN (which he considers of special value). This is the record of Palestinian property seized by Israel which amounts to 94% of the part of Palestine that was renamed Israel…
14 volumes of the documentation about Palestine borders, separating it from the rest of the Arab world from 1833 to 1947.
Several thousand fortnightly reports about every district in Palestine from 1920 to 1948.
12 volumes of Zionist and Israeli archives from 1830 to 1955.
Documents of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Palestine 1948- 1950, in Geneva.
Reports of UN Truce Observers Supervision on Atrocities 1948, DAG 13/3.3.1.
Archives of AFSC (Quakers) on Palestine, Philadelphia, in the period 1948-1950. … and many more.”

Interestingly, Salman Abu Sitta, again just like Constantine Zurayk 75 years ago, stresses the role of the intellectual in the struggle to overcome the disaster and to prepare for the return to Palestine. He summarizes his own work as an intellectual since the beginning of the new millennium:

“Twenty two years ago, I formed in London the Palestine Land Society. The idea was to represent our cause in a scientific, factual and relevant manner, in order to face the deluge of denial, deception and misinformation which filled the Western cyber space.”

The quote could just as well be taken from Zurayk.

Among the major publications of Salman Abu Sitta and the Palestine Land Society, are four different atlases:

Atlas of Palestine 1948
Atlas of Palestine 1917-1966
Atlas of Palestine 1871-1877 and finally
the Return Journey Atlas which “shows Palestine that we knew before al Nakba and superimposed on it the Zionist colonization today”.

He is convinced, just like Zurayk, that even against the strongest enemy “there is no refutation of facts”. And he is even more convinced, that all so-called peace plans could never materialize once Palestinians have “the irrefutable facts”, but also, and again he is in agreement with Zurayk, “a strong leadership”.

Obviously, Abu Sitta through his work made these “irrefutable facts” available to Palestinians and to Palestinian society. What has been missing, both in 1948, when Zurayk wrote, and in 2022/23, in the latest period of Abu Sitta’s work, is this strong leadership, which both ask for.

While Zurayk asked his students to build new political parties and to work for Arab unity so that a united Arab army could finally liberate Palestine, Abu Sitta chooses a different approach.

“You do not need to wear a uniform and carry a gun to assert your identity or recover your lost home. You just need to be diligent and determined…Never lose hope….
Claim your own rights…You just want to take back what is taken from you…
Remember: if there is no Palestine there is no Lebanon no Syria no Egypt.”

And he concludes his speech: “I am confident that our path is planned and the vehicle is here. Now we need the fuel to make it run.” He expects that soon PLCS will “present a brilliant plan which will have an impact on our future. It can and will happen”.

And here the circle closes between Constantine Zurayk and his argument in “The meaning of the disaster” and between Salman Abu Sitta and his work until today. Both of them are driven by an unbreakable optimism. Abu Sitta ties this optimism to the motto of his family: “We persevere”. Only this perseverance, based on optimism, will bring about justice and the return of the Palestinians to their homeland. And just like Abu Sitta, Zurayk never stopped to believe in the final victory of justice.

Conclusion

Constantine Zurayk and Salman Abu Sitta should be seen as teacher and student and at the same time as intellectuals and thinkers working in the same direction.

Even more so than Zurayk’s students at AUB, taking George Habash as their most outstanding representative, Salman Abu Sitta took up, consciously or not (he had read of course Zurayk’s book and all the other books published in the period on the nakba, from Aref al-Aref’s al-nakba. Nakba of Jerusalem and the lost paradise, to Walid Qamhawi’s al-nakba and reconstruction), the demands of Zurayk for empirical and scientific work, for self-criticism, for untiring engagement, and for trust in the power of truth over lies and violence.

Both Zurayk and Abu Sitta, consider intellectual struggle as central for any struggle, and in particular for the struggle for Palestine. Both put their trust in the Arab (Zurayk) and Palestinian (Abu Sitta) elite which they consider capable of overcoming all disasters, old and new: the Nakba of 1948, the Naqsa of 1967, and the renewed Nakba, in the words of Abu Sitta, of Oslo 1993 onwards.

In particular, they are both outspoken in their harsh criticism of the existing leadership regarding the wider Arab and the particular Palestinian level. They place all responsibility for the ongoing Arab and Palestinian disaster since 1948 on these leaders.

Zurayk, more so than Abu Sitta, stresses the importance of organization and of political parties. These parties, though, and Zurayk is crystal clear in this demand, must be united by a program based on a realistic critique of the challenges of the particular period they are active in. And this critique based on realism is only possible if it builds on the empirical sciences. Also, these political parties, led by a conscious elite, must be closely related to society, to all classes, to the masses on the street, in order to be successful.

Both know and insist on institutionalization, again in a self-critical manne

Obviously, the young leaders of the revolts in 2011, in particular in Cairo, had not read Zurayk. Otherwise, they had known that leaderless mass-struggle without an organized political party with clear goals would soon collapse and be replaced by a renewed military dictatorship.

And Palestinian political parties and their leaders, too, do not seem to be aware of the centrality of self-criticism postulated by Zurayk. Any critical assessment of the reality in which they are active and of the context of their struggles, but also self-critical assessment of their past struggles, strategies and tactics, since at least 1967, have been sorely missing.

Salman Abu Sitta’s tireless struggle for a Palestinian return to their homes takes up the question posed by Zurayk in his book: “Where is the road to this all-inclusive revolution… which will assure national progress”? Abu Sitta’s appeal to Palestinian youth follows suit with the answer he gives: “You do not need to wear a uniform and carry a gun to assert your identity or recover your lost home. You just need to be diligent and determined. Never despair. Never lose hope. Never betray your roots…”

Bibliography

Salman Abu Sitta. (2016): Mapping my Return. A Palestinian Memoir. (Cairo-New York: The American University in Cairo Press) (2017 paperback)

Salman Abu Sitta (2022): Inauguration of the PLSC at AUB, January 25, 2022

Salman Abu Sitta (2023): An Open Letter to Madame Ursula von Der Leyen. President of the European Commission, 29.April 2023

Helga Baumgarten (1991): Palästina: Befreiung in den Staat (Palestine: Liberation into the state). (Frankfurt: ed. suhrkamp)

Emile Habibi (1974): The Secret Life of Saeed. The Pessoptimist. (Interlink World Fiction (English Translation 2001. Arabic Original)

Walid Khalidi (1961): “Plan Dalet – The Zionist Master Plan for the Conquest of Palestine”, in: Journal of Palestine Studies (JPS) 37:9

Adel Manna (2022): Nakba and Survival. The Story of the Palestinians who remained in Haifa and the Galilee, 1948-1956. (Univ. of California Press)

Nur Masalha (2003): The Politics of Denial. Israel and the Palestinian Refugee Problem. (London: Pluto Press)

Benny Morris (1989): The birth of the Palestinian Refugee problem, 1947-1949. (Cambridge Univ. Press)

Ilan Pappe (2014): The ethnic cleansing of Palestine. (Berlin: Haffmans &Talemitt.) (Paperback 2019: Westend Verlag)

Adam Raz (2021): Classified Docs Reveal Massacres of Palestinians in 48

Adam Raz. (2021: 2): What Israeli Leaders Knew. Haaretz, December 9, 2021.

Maxime Rodinson (1967): Israel: Fait colonial, Les Temps modernes – special issue: Peuple Juif ou problem juif?

Maxime Rodinson (1969). Israel : A colonial-settler state ? (New York: Monad Press)

Fayez Sayegh (1965): Zionist Colonialism in Palestine (Beirut: Palestinian Liberation Organization Research Center)

Avi Shlaim (1988): Collusion over the Jordan. King Abdallah, the Zionist Movement, and the Partition of Palestine. (Oxford: Clarendon Press)

Patrick Wolfe (2006): Settler colonialism and the elimination of the native, Journal of Genocide Research 8:4

Constantine Zurayk (1956): The Meaning of the Disaster. (Beirut: Khayat’s College Book Cooperative)

The philosemitic Delusions of Sascha Lobo

German star columnist and blogger is mindlessly repeating Israeli propaganda about antisemitism and Palestine

Dan Weissmann
26/04/2024

Nuremberg, 2015: 400 audience members await the star speaker for the Forum Wellpappe at the Fachpack 2015, the annual conference of the German packaging industry. The guest speaker of the Corrugated Cardboard Association is Sascha Lobo, Germany’s digital expert, internet explainer, and “alpha blogger” about to enlighten manufacturers of corrugated cardboard why they need to be ready for the digital economy. The then 40-year old is still a sought after speaker for anything digital. He is the most prominent voice in Germany making a living of explaining to virtually anyone who will hire him the pitfalls and opportunities of the digital age.

His appearance is rather unassuming. He could easily be mistaken for the president of the local community garden association if it weren’t for his trademark haircut, a pink-red mohawk. Extravagant personal branding seems to have always been the modus operandi of Lobo. Contemporaries of his younger years recount that he used to show up to parties with sunglasses on his face, fox pelt around his neck and cucumber in hand. The fox pelt to stand out, the cucumber as a prop to strike up conversations; whether it worked is not clear. After a brief stint as an unsuccessful digital advertising and PR-agency owner in the early 2000s, Lobo became a freelance marketing and strategy consultant, public speaker and book author. Since 2011 he is also a columnist for Der Spiegel, Germany’s biggest weekly news magazine, explaining the digital world to its readers.

In his role as columnist, Lobo slowly transitioned from a master of the digital to a jack of all trades as he began to write about anything that crossed his mind, often with a lot less or no expertise at all. No topic makes this more evident than the ten columns he has so far penned on Israel and Gaza since the 7th of October attack by Hamas. In short, his utterances and arguments are a string of copy and paste jobs of press releases from Israeli military or government spokespeople, decades old ahistorical and long disproven talking points gathered together from pamphlets of the Deutsch-Israelische Gesellschaft or the Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung, and an imagined Israel that only exists in a German happy-end-fantasy-world. In fact, there is no evidence that Lobo has ever engaged meaningfully with any scholarship or literature other than those sanctioned by the German state.

In his first piece after the 7th October, he appeals to his readers that the attack on Israel does not need to be contextualised, and if they are in favour of BLM and against the AfD they also ought to support Israel unconditionally. Yet, the same piece argues that the growing extremism in Israeli society is caused by the permanent threat of Palestinian rocket attacks and not, for example, by the militarism required to maintain a 57-year occupation. The obvious question his own claim raises is one that is never asked, and much less answered: If the radicalisation of Israeli society is supposed to be the result of Palestinian attacks, then what forms of radicalisation would a decades long occupation and the creation of a ghetto cause among its victims?

For Lobo it is clear: the hatred and violence displayed by Israelis and the state of Israel is a result of historical, geographical, and material conditions. The hate Palestinians have for Israel is inherent to who they are, it is part of their innateness and therefore unjustified bigotry. This becomes most apparent as every act of Palestinian resistance to occupation, peaceful or otherwise, is framed as being first and foremost motivated by a hatred of Jews, and therefore irrational, instead of a rational hatred for the occupation and those who enforce it.

The column titled “Hamas-Propaganda of Omission” devotes itself to the Palestinian victims of Israel’s attack on Gaza not in an empathetic way, but in one that questions the validity of the number of victims reported by the Gazan Health Ministry. While Lobo avoids openly calling the numbers false or fabricated, he instead frames the numbers of Palestinian casualties as Hamas propaganda which should not be trusted. However, in an unsurprising twist, the piece omits that the Gazan Health Ministry has been judged a reliable source not only by the UN and all major human rights groups for a long time, but by Israeli intelligence itself.

The same piece argues that the cutting off of water and electricity to Gaza by Israel is not a form of collective punishment or war crime, but merely a withdrawal of goodwill and voluntary help on the side of Israel to supply Gaza with water prior to the 7th of October. Because, according to Lobo’s expertise on the matter, Israel is not liable for the supply of water to Gaza despite the fact that Israel is the internationally recognised occupying force in control of the water supply. In fact, Israel is the internationally recognised occupying force in control of every aspect of life in Gaza and the West Bank. Ironically, through omission of well established facts, Lobo manages to convince himself that others are guilty of the propaganda of omission. It appears that every accusation he makes inadvertently turns into an unintended admission on his part.

His most misanthropic column appeared in mid-February 2024, when in the midst of the Israel-made humanitarian catastrophe and emerging famine in Gaza, Lobo demanded the disbanding of UNRWA under the exasperated headline “Disband the Palestinian Relief Agency Already”. In it, he attests UNRWA to have overlapping interests with Hamas, although which interests exactly seems to be unclear. Neither does he provide evidence, except that of the notorious pro-Israel lobby group UN-Watch. He seems to care little that UNRWA is the only organisation in Gaza capable of stemming the tide of famine and further mass deaths if equipped appropriately and not targeted by the Israeli military. Lobo’s main grudge against UNRWA is that it is an institution which keeps the legal claims to the land by Palestinian refugees alive.

If it were up to him, UNRWA would help Palestinian refugees assimilate into the societies of the surrounding states. Since Palestine is not an officially recognised state, Palestinians do not have an official passport which could prove their national identity. Admittedly, the Palestinian Authority does issue passports but they are essentially glorified travel permits which are only given to residents of Gaza and the West Bank (excluding East Jerusalem), granted they also have an Israeli issued ID. Without UNRWA, there is no internationally recognised body attesting that Palestinians as a whole exist. While the motivation behind Lobo’s demand to disband UNRWA might be superficially different from that of Netanyahu, the result will be what Netanyahu intends, the cultural destruction of the Palestinian diaspora as a recognised national group with legal rights and claims. To make matters worse, Lobo decided to publish this piece two weeks after the International Court of Justice ruled that there is a plausible case for genocide occuring in Gaza and therefore ordered Israel to implement measure for its prevention.

According to Lobo, anyone who points this out is motivated by antisemitism. Antisemitism is the driving force of Palestinian resistance to their occupation and victimisation. It is also the driving force of anyone who dares to demand the humanity and universal rights of Palestinians. Hence, Lobo has become over the last six months not only an expert on Palestine and Israel, but also on antisemitism. If someone sees antisemitism as the key motivator of every social phenomenon relating to Palestine, then antisemitism is everywhere, as Lobo assures his readers is the case:

“Hatred of Jews manages the incredible feat of hiding everywhere and appearing quite openly at the same time. New variants are constantly being added and ancient Jew-hatred practices are being reinterpreted: Nazi anti-Semitism, Islamist anti-Semitism, right-wing anti-Semitism, left-wing anti-Semitism, Christian anti-Semitism, Muslim anti-Semitism, ethnic anti-Semitism, post-colonial anti-Semitism, bourgeois anti-Semitism, woke anti-Semitism, conspiracy theory anti-Semitism, vulgar anti-capitalist antisemitism, pseudo-anti-racist anti-Semitism, intellectual anti-Semitism, accepting anti-Semitism, self-exoneration anti-Semitism and, among many others, the currently largest movement: Israel-related anti-Semitism. Often enriched with a new, well-known annihilative anti-Semitism.”

This proclamation does not only fearmonger an already anxious Jewish community, it also downplays right-wing antisemitism as merely one of a myriad of forms of antisemitism, despite it being by far the most common and violent form of antisemitism in Germany. Ultimately, this list is nothing but an admission that Lobo is willing to use Jewish fears and suffering to weaponize antisemitism for any issue that irks him, justified or not.

Engaging with Lobo’s post 7th October oeuvre, it becomes clear that his primary objective is not the care for Jewish life, but protecting Israel from criticism. Lobo shows throughout his writing and podcast appearances that he seems to be incapable of distinguishing between Jews as individuals or communities and the state of Israel. It isn’t even clear if he acknowledges the existence of anti-zionist Jews. He betrays a worldview in which he projects the real, catastrophic victimisation of Europe’s Jews onto Israel, a nuclear armed state and regional military goliath. With this, he proclaims it as the victim no matter the circumstance, using his favourite phrase Täter-Opfer-Umkehr (perpetrator-victim-reversal).

Two years before his death in 1969, Theodor Adorno attested that in German post-war society (he called it “post-hitlerian Germany”, although he was not entirely convinced by the truthfulness of his phrase) the philosemitism it developed in the wake of the Holocaust was nothing but the continuation of antisemitism, as it kept alive the dehumanisation of Jews. It is this philosemitism, the dehumanisation of Jews by elevating them to one dimensional, higher status objects who deserve protection because they are Jews and not because they are human beings, which is the metanarrative of Lobo’s writing. In fact this philosemitism is the metanarrative of most of the discourse on Palestine and Israel emanating from the German mainstream, and has replaced universalist values with particularist ones under the guise of fighting antisemitism.

As a result, it not only positions Israel as the equivalent and sum of all Jews, but as a state under constant threat from annihilation, (i.e. another Holocaust) and in doing so justifies not only Israel’s existance as an ethnostate, but the inherent violence of such a state. The assumption that Jews can only be safe in an ethnostate that metes out violence onto others is an implicit and, from Lobo’s worldview where Israel is the eternal victim, paradoxical admission that Jews can only be safe if they become perpetrators of mass violence themselves. Yet, this mass violence has to be denied or whitewashed so as not to jeopardise the safety of Jews everywhere else and to uphold the victim status of a nuclear military power. A vicious, deadly cycle that leaves no soul unscathed.

The acceptance of this cycle is slowly crumbling among western publics. In the global south it was never really accepted in the first place. Even in Germany, only two groups oppose putting pressure on Israel to end its war against Gaza, the proto-fascist AfD including its supporters, and liberal politics and media Meinungsmacher (thoughtleaders). Sascha Lobo is the archetype of those so-called liberals who pride themselves on their supposed anti-fascist, anti-racist and pro-LGBTQ+ credentials at home, yet increasingly turn fanatical in their support of Israel abroad. They deny the crimes of the Israeli regime while paradoxically demanding more in the name of fighting antisemitism. This is the obvious endpoint of a misguided and ultimately reactionary memory culture, which chooses particularism when it should have chosen universalism, and instead ends up cheering on genocide as the latest ritual of liberal Holocaust atonement.

Consolidating fortress Europe: The EU’s New Pact on Migration and Asylum

Despite its claims, the recent reforms of CEAS will make conditions for asylum seekers much worse

Noa Paul
24/04/2024

On April 10th, the European Parliament voted in favor of the remaining 10 legislative pieces of the EU’s New Pact on Migration and Asylum, meaning that the years-long reform process is done. All that’s needed is the Council of the EU’s approval, considered a formality. The pact is being sold by German chancellor Olaf Scholz as a “historic, indispensable step” improving the efficient management of migration and enhancing solidarity among member states while protecting migrants’ fundamental rights. In reality, it seeks to deter the immigration of racialized people by curtailing their rights, worsening their treatment, and increasing deportations, moving the EU border regime further towards the political agenda of the far-right. At the same time, it fails to address the actual (and extensive) shortcomings of the current migration and asylum system, and at best stands at odds with many of the EU member states fundamental rights obligations. This article is an attempt to explain how the pact came into existence, what it contains, why we should oppose it, and what can be done now to at least prevent its worst repercussions.

Background: The EU Rules on migration and asylum, the Pathway to the Reform, and the role of Germany

International and EU law differentiate between migration that is considered ‘forced’, thus of asylum seekers and refugees fleeing their home countries because of persecution, inhuman or degrading treatment, or other severe hardships, and ‘voluntary’ migration, hence of the migrants who move for other reasons, such as work or family. In the EU, the treatment of asylum seekers and refugees is governed under international and EU law to differentiate between migration that is considered ‘forced’ and that which is considered ‘voluntary’ when someone moves for work or family. In the EU, the treatment of asylum seekers and refugees fleeing their home countries because of persecution, inhuman or degrading treatment, or other severe hardships is governed under the Common European Asylum System (CEAS), which was introduced in the late 1990s. CEAS regulates which country is responsible for processing an asylum application, the conditions for recognition as a refugee, and the reception conditions for asylum seekers and refugees.

The pact amends both CEAS and the rules regulating ‘voluntary’ migration. The reform process started in 2016 with the goal of distributing the responsibility for performing asylum procedures more equally between the member states after the previous rules had proven dysfunctional. The so-called Dublin Rules put the responsibility for processing asylum applications primarily on the countries of first entry, in effect the external border states like Italy and Greece. This partially led to the catastrophic reception conditions people on the move faced in places like the Greek islands, as other member states refused to take over responsibility for those seeking protection. After a year-long back-and-forth process between the negotiating parties that many considered would fail, the parties negotiated amendments and compromises which culminated in the consolidation of an agreement for the reform in 2023 and the Parliament’s vote in favor on the 10th of April 2024. The German government in principle supported the reform, as it reflects its interest in curbing so-called secondary migration, referring to the further movement of people arriving at the external borders continuing towards Germany and other countries without external EU borders. At the same time, it had sought to achieve some protection improvements in the 2023 negotiations for families with minor children, which mostly failed. In October 2023, Germany conceded to compromises on its proposals.

Unpacking the pact: What is in it, what is not?

The pact is made up of a highly-complex set of reforms and policies regarding immigration, asylum and deportation within the EU, governing what happens when a non-EU national reaches the territory of a member state. Officially, the pact comprises four pillars: secure external borders, efficient asylum procedures, a system of fair responsibility sharing between member states regarding the processing of asylum procedures, and partnerships with other countries to reduce migration towards the EU. An analysis of the different provisions, however, shows that the reform first and foremost aims at deterring “irregular” immigrants, hence those who want to enter the EU without prior permission, without actually rendering the system more fair or efficient. This becomes apparent in the pact’s main elements.

1) Difficult access to asylum procedures and focus on deportations

The core of the pact is the introduction of a new toughened common asylum procedure at the European borders applied to non-EU citizens arriving without entry requirements such as a visa. This new procedure risks curtailing several fundamental rights of asylum seekers and legal obligations of EU states, among others the individual right to asylum and the prohibition of pushbacks.

Under the new procedure, within seven days of arrival at an EU external border, people will undergo a screening process in a closed facility to establish their identities, before being directed to either a regular length asylum procedure, or an accelerated border procedure of 12 to 16 weeks. The accelerated border procedure aims at increasing deportations from the borders by leading those receiving a negative asylum decision directly to a “return procedure” (deportation). Further, during the screening, accelerated border, and return procedures, people will be considered not having entered the European territory (despite being physically there). With this so-called fiction of non-entry, member states claim to have less protection duties towards migrants. This practice is highly controversial in legal terms, but applied in the proposals, which stipulate that applicants can be held in conditions tantamount to detention during the procedures, with almost no exceptions for families with children and other vulnerable people.

Most applicants could go through the accelerated border procedure, which is mandatory for those whose chances of being granted asylum are considered low because they come from countries with an EU average protection rate of less than 20% or are considered a risk, and which can be applied to almost anyone entering the country without the required entry documents. This means that thousands of people will be deprived of their freedom and will be stuck at the borders for months. Border procedures are already being used on the Greek hotspot islands, where the consequent prolonged de facto detention leads to immense physical and psychological harm.

These procedures undermine the right to asylum and risk a massive increase in illegal pushbacks, as the limited duration of the procedures hardly allows for a proper examination of asylum applications, and the direct transfer of rejected asylum seekers to the return procedure does not provide opportunity to effectively challenge negative asylum decisions and prevent deportations. Legal safeguards have also been reduced, with shortened appeal deadlines, which can be reduced even more in cases of “migratory pressure” such as when a non-EU country is considered using migration as a political tool.

2) Maintenance of the border countries’ primary responsibility to process asylum applications

Despite the reform’s goal to achieve more equal responsibility sharing between EU member states, as mentioned previously, the criteria to determine the responsible member state remain widely the same, upholding the obligation of the country of first entry. Furthermore, the pact introduces a new mandatory solidarity mechanism to be activated when countries face “migratory pressure”, whereby the other member states must support this state. However, they can choose to do so by either relocating asylum seekers to their own territory, providing financial, operational, or technical support. Given the unwillingness of many EU countries to take in people on the move, the lack of mandatory relocation renders the chances of actual relocation and responsibility sharing very low.

3) Externalising European responsibilities and borders

The pact provides for further agreements with “third countries” (non-EU countries) in order to stem migration from and through these countries. This is in line with the recent increased efforts of the EU to conclude agreements with primarily African and Eastern European countries, shifting the responsibility to intercept people on the move to these countries in exchange for EU funds. In addition, the possibilities for deporting asylum seekers to third countries that are considered “safe” for them are being expanded. This practice, which is already applied within the framework of the EU’s cooperation with Turkey, has proven to be inhumane given the catastrophic reception conditions for many people in Turkey. The extension of this principle increases the risk that people will be deported to countries that are anything but safe for them.

4) Deterrence of ‘secondary migration’

As mentioned earlier, one of the main focuses of the pact is to stop migrants from moving within the EU. Next to the new border procedures, several amendments are supposed to further curb secondary migration, among others through the collection of sensitive data and the obligation for people who have been granted protection in one EU country to remain residing in that country. This means that recognised refugees are still allowed to travel within the EU for a certain time period, but may be sanctioned if overstaying the specified period. If contravened, member states could complicate access to long-term residence permits and impose temporary mobility restrictions.

5) Increased surveillance of people on the move

In line with the overall trends of the increased surveillance and securitization, the pact increases member states’ ability to collect and preserve sensitive data of people on the move. Fingerprints, facial images and other biometrical data of asylum seekers will be collected during the screening, with the age threshold being lowered to six years.

While the pact will surely deteriorate the living conditions of people on the move and increase their oppression and exploitability, the vagueness and complexity of the provisions render it difficult to predict the exact consequences. The ambiguity of the rules in itself exacerbates the described risks for migrants, as it leaves much room for interpretation to the implementing authorities.

What is happening now and what can be done against the pact?

After the council’s vote, member states have two years to implement the new rules. While many of the new rules seem unpractical, they will increase the EU’s oppression and exploitation of people on the move. At the same time, the extent of the consequences will depend on the implementation of the rules, and individual member states are still developing implementation plans. This means we should not stop mobilizing against it now – on the contrary, these plans should be accompanied by mass-scale protests and alternative proposals. There are many European and national/local movements who are already resisting, like Abolish Frontex and, in Germany, the Stop Geas Movement. Finally, mobilizations around the upcoming European Elections are important, as the Parliament will monitor the implementation of the new rules. Let’s #StopCEAS!

Dangerous Language Bans at Pro-Palestine Camp in Berlin

Gaeilge is an official EU language. Yet when Irish activists tried to speak it at a protest camp in Berlin, they were threatened with arrest

Nathaniel Flakin

Berlin police have recently banned the use of the Irish language at a pro-Palestine protest camp. Gaeilge is the national language of the Republic of Ireland, and since 2007, it has been an official language of the EU as well. Last Friday, a new group called the Irish Bloc Berlin invited people to a cirocal comhrá, a conversation circle where people can practice a language that is notoriously unpronounceable for English speakers.

The cops informed them that flags, banners, speeches, chants, and songs in Irish were all prohibited. At the ongoing protest camp in front of the Reichstag, the police only allow German and English to be spoken – Arabic is permitted for a short window at 6pm. As the police confirmed to the Irish Independent, they ban languages they don’t understand, so they can check if anything illegal is being said.

Cops split the 40 or so Irish immigrants into smaller groups. Even after they been led away from the demonstration, officers continued to prohibit the use of Gaeilge. When the group left and sought shelter in a nearby museum, police followed them inside. They were not accused of any crime – besides speaking Irish without a permit.

This ban is disturbing for a number of reasons – and I have never encountered such a language ban before. Is Hebrew allowed at pro-Israel demonstrations? Shockingly, at the pro-Palestinian camp, even Hebrew is verboten.

Justice Minister Marco Buschmann said he looks forward to »the day when people can speak Hebrew on the street without fear.« How does he think Israelis feel when German officers in dark uniforms tell them they will be arrested for speaking their language? The police have violently attacked a number of Jews at the protest camp, knocking off kippahs with punches.

In a statement, the Irish Bloc wrote that »we as Irish people are all too familiar with having our language oppressed.« In the 19th century, Gaeilge was banned in schools by British colonial authorities, who ruled the island for 800 years. Today, about 40 percent of people in Ireland some Irish, but only 100.000 or so use it on a daily basis.

The Irish language became a symbol of the struggle for a Republic. Political prisoners learned and spoke Irish in British jails. Bobby Sands coined the battle cry »Tiocfaidh ár lá« (pronounced »chucky arlaw«), meaning “our day will come”. That’s why the ban on Irish, more than any other language, is ruffling feathers.

The Irish press is all over the story. Paul Murphy, a Teachta Dála or member of the Irish parliament, called this »disgraceful«: »This highlights the extreme lengths the German establishment is going to in their attempt to silence the Palestine-solidarity movement.« As Murphy explained to »nd«, »Irish people stand in solidarity with the Palestinians because of our own history of colonial oppression.«

Ireland served as an imperial laboratory where strategies of partition were first tested before being applied across the globe. Today, many former colonies are dealing with the bloody legacy of divide-and-rule policies. Due to this parallel history, Ireland has long been the most pro-Palestinian nation in Europe.

I also find this ban outrageous. I am one of 36 million Irish Americans – compared to just seven million Irish people on the island. I have never been to Ireland, and I have no idea where my ancestors were from, and even if you told me, I wouldn’t be able to find it on a map. Yet I sing all the old Irish rebel songs to my kid, and I can’t believe I can’t sing them in public.

Germany has been coming up with ever more absurd forms of repression against Palestine solidarity, such as banning Hebrew and disinvite Jewish professors. Yet this Irish language ban seems like the most ridiculous step yet.

This is a mirror of Nathaniel’s red flag column for Neues Deutschland. Reproduced with permission

Peace And Love For Palestine

A poem for Gaza

David P Carroll

How can there be peace

When the Palestinians

Are dying and the little

Children are crying and

For harmony’s sake

It’s justice we seek

Not pain and heartache

And to ensure that rightness

Takes its peak

How can there be

Peace when Palestinians

Are sadly dying and my heart is crying

And I feel there pain and

Equality for all is meant

And I care for the suffering

And the dying

So everyone reach into your

Hearts and your souls

And pray for Palestine today

And may there be peace and justice

And let all the hatred be

Forever turned into love and peace.