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By Guest Post • Oct 21st, 2009 at 14:36 • Category: Culture and Heritage, Israel, Newswire, Palestine, Resistance, Somoud: Arab Voices of Resistance, War
The First Word War – Palestine Think Tank and Tlaxcala Declare War Against Disinformation
Reclaiming words: identity and thought, We are not Israeli Arabs, we are Palestinians
WRITTEN BY KHALIL NEKHLEH
Personally, I am the remnant of my indigenous Palestinian people who lived in Palestine (nearly 900,000), and who were “ethnically cleansed” in preparation for the establishment of the apartheid Jewish state of Israel in 1947/1948. Only 160,000 of us remained in what became known as “Israel”. I was, and am, a Palestinian, who fortunately was able to stay on the land of historical Palestine, i.e., Palestine under the British Mandate, and who became a member of a growing and vibrant minority of nearly 1.3 million Palestinians, who is living now in the Israeli apartheid state. The label “Israeli Arabs” was coined and imposed on us by our enemies, namely, the Israeli racist apartheid state. Many Arab states chose to disregard our existence, or were totally ignorant of our status, as well as the Western World who supported Zionism, and facilitated and sanctioned the creation of the Israeli racist apartheid state, and who persists in justifying its existence. We were Palestinians before the ethnic cleansing of 1947/1948 and we continue to be Palestinians since, and are proud of it. Our identity and collective destiny is connected to the rest of the Palestinian people in the Palestinian areas occupied by Israel in 1967 and the rest of the dispersed Palestinians in a state of refuge. We are part of nearly 11 million Palestinians all over the world who aspire for freedom and justice.
As our “solidarity debt”, we expect you to address us as “The Palestinians in Israel”. We must purge our and your lexicon of the label of “Israeli Arabs”, the concept of our occupiers and oppressors, that seeks to mould our reality in their own image.
Khalil Nakhleh, Ph.D.
Independent Researcher and Writer
Ramallah, Palestine/Israel
(Struggling to Transform Our Homeland)
The First Word War is an initiative of Palestine Think Tank and Tlaxcala. We welcome our readers to submit entries for publication, translation and dissemination. Send them to contact@palestinethinktank.com or tlaxcala@tlaxcala.es
The First Word War
Tagged as: First Word War, Hasbara, Israel, Palestine, Palestinian Israelis, palestinians, Tlaxcala, Zionism
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