Genocide Memorial Day 2012 has been commemorated by the Islamic Human Rights Commission since 2010, who invited guests to remember the victims of all genocides that have been perpetrated and are still being perpetrated today. www.ihrc.org.uk

This year’s event on 22nd January 2012 at SOAS, London, featured a range of presentations by panel speakers including Ilan Pappe, Professor of history who discussed ‘Memorcide: Crime, Closure & Reconciliation in Palestine’. A video of his presentation can be found here -  http://youtu.be/EE77UjCbLjk

The Professor provided that culturcide & memorcide though linked to genocide often cover a more incremental and slow extermination of people and how important these terms are in relation to discussions of Palestine. These strategies have resulted in the adoption of a view that Palestine comprises of only the West Bank & the Gaza Strip and that Palestinians are the people living there. In reality this reflects only 20% of Palestine & less than half of the Palestinian community globally. He confirmed that the greatest success of Israel with the help of its western allies from early on in the history of the Palestinian issue was to reduce Palestine geographically and demographically to a small size.

He explained that this belief is so widespread that it’s even accepted by some Palestinian politicians and leaders. “The whole idea of the Oslo Process which could not have been possible without a Palestinian partner is based on the premise, that Palestine is only the West Bank and only the Gaza Strip and the peace process is the future of these two territories and then when you divide yourself in the world between someone who supports peace in Palestine and someone who doesn’t support peace of Palestine, you are limited geographically and demographically into that part which is only 20% of Palestine and that community which is less than half of the Palestine community in the world".

In 1948 the Jewish state was created over 80% of Palestine, “a country Arab in its human landscape, Mediterranean in its natural landscape and mostly Muslim in its civilisation”. He identified that this was a problem as to occupy and colonise a place would not mean that it would immediately lose its nature. “Israel’s policy makers were aware of this, that the land speaks Arabic, trees speak Palestinian, buildings speak Islamic” and as long as this remained in the future, it would be “difficult as the years would go by to justify the creation of Israel on the ruins of these realities. Far more important for the Israelis than the occupation of 80% of Palestine that happened in 1948 and the expulsion of Palestinians which was an essential part of dearabising the part that became Israel which is the ethnic cleansing of Palestine was to make sure you can erase the memory of Palestine as an Arab or Muslim country. That you could transform by force the nature of a country and make it look like something that Europe could identify as part of Europe and not just part of the Arab world”.

The professor confirmed that the idea that Palestine is not actually in the Middle East, not an Arab country and not part of Muslim civilisation was there from the beginning of Zionism & that he could not think of any other modern movement in the 20th century that was as “callous & efficient”. In 1948, within 6 months, 500 Palestinian villages were wiped out, European trees planted and recreational parks built over these villages, Arab houses demolished and names were hebrewsized from Arabic. Recent research found that “30,000 Arab books were destroyed in an attempt to downsize any written & visual legacy of the past”.

In closing he clarified that this strategy has worked on one level and this is where humanitarians must now succeed. This is a level where political, economic, academic and journalistic elites of the west have decided even before the dearabisation of 80% of Palestine was completed to accept the major Israeli claim that 80% of Palestine is not Palestine. “Anyone like you or like me who would say that Haifa, where I was born, may be an occupied place or Tel Aviv is a colony built on the ruins of Jaffa, we would look insane and we still are imagined insane people when we say it…, if realism is denying the Arab nature of Palestine then I am not a realist”.

The professor enjoins upon us to look at those who claim that Palestine is just the West Bank & Gaza strip and that Palestinians are only the people that live there as if they are insane and unrealistic. “Make sure that as the night is clear and as the day is clear, nobody would have any doubts anymore what Palestine was, what Palestine is and what Palestine will be in the future”.

Assalamu Alaiku, peace be upon you.