The Palestinian Struggle Against Forgetting
by Lory J. Dance
Originally published in Mondoweiss as an Op Ed
October 25, 2023
In solidarity with those who fought racial apartheid in South Africa, bell hooks emphasized, “[The Black American] struggle is also (1) a struggle of memory against forgetting.”
As a Black American with chosen family in Gaza, I support the Palestinian struggle of memory against forgetting. I remember that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is much older and more complicated than the rise of Hamas. I recall the (2) first Zionist Congress in the 1890s, which designated Palestine as the site for a Jewish homeland; and the post-WWI period, during which (3) Great Britain sponsored the Zionist colonization of Palestine. I will not forget an atrocity of the 1940s: Nazi Germany’s Holocaust against millions of Jews and other innocents.
I will also not forget that in the aftermath of this Holocaust, the modern state of Israel was carved out of Palestine in 1948 with the (4) Plan Dalet, which created 750,000 Palestinian refugees and destroyed or appropriated 400 Palestinian towns and villages in only a couple of years. I will not forget the Six-Day War of 1967, after which Israeli leaders sanctioned the occupations of Gaza and the West Bank. Israeli forces have effectively blockaded the Gaza Strip since June 2007. I will not forget that Human Rights Watch has summarized (5) the past 15 years of repression by calling Gaza an “open air prison” for its population of over 2 million Palestinians. I must not forget that the overcrowding and resource shortages in Gaza have been exacerbated by habitual IDF military airstrikes, which the Israeli government euphemistically calls “mowing the grass.”
Like persons of the Palestinian diaspora, and some in the Jewish community, I am a descendant of a displaced people (namely West Africans forcibly removed, brutalized, and enslaved). I understand desires to correct or minimize historical wrongs and return to a homeland. The (6) founding and colonization of Liberia by African Americans in the 1820s was one attempt to correct the tragedy of American slavery. Viewing Africa as the “Promised Land,” African Americans, sponsored by the American Colonization Society, repatriated in West Africa. African Americans did this despite the fact that the region was already inhabited and settled by ethnic groups that had been there for centuries.
Though empathizing with African Americans fleeing American racism, I must not forget that these settlers (now called Americo-Liberians) colonized and seized the lands of pre-existing West African populations. I admit this while recognizing that my beloved hometown of Petersburg, Virginia, and its historically large free Black population sent many Black settlers to Liberia (including Joseph Jenkins Roberts, the first president!). While ensuring that the histories of Blacks from my hometown are not forgotten, I must also remember that Indigenous Liberians were forced to suffer for the sins of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.
I sympathize with the need of Jewish people (particularly Holocaust survivors) to have a sanctuary from the inhumanity of Nazi Germany, the horrifying legacy of European pogroms and massacres, and other forms of antisemitic racism. As I recall the horrors of the Holocaust, I will not forget how Palestinians are continually forced to suffer for the sins of the Nazi Holocaust against European Jews.
I understand this latest Hamas response to occupation as part of a complex history. I remember that in 1948, Israeli forces inhumanely relocated Palestinians from Palestinian townships to the Gaza Strip. While in Israeli-occupied Palestine, I witnessed Palestinians living under apartheid conditions of discrimination and dehumanization, much like Black South Africans did under apartheid there or what African Americans suffered here in the Jim Crow era.
I recall that as recently as March 2023, after (7) Israeli settlers violently torched the village of Huwwara in the West Bank, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich stated, “I think the village of Huwwara needs to be wiped out. I think the State of Israel should do it.” In 2021, Smotrich complained to Palestinian members of Israel’s Parliament, “You’re here by mistake, it’s a mistake that Ben-Gurion didn’t finish the job and didn’t throw you out in 1948.”
Smotrich and other Israeli elites, including Yoav Gallant, Peter Lerner, and Benjamin Netanyahu, fuel an ongoing genocide through generalized references to Palestinians as “mistakes,” “butchers,” and “animals” who deserve to be denied access to humane resources, including electricity, food, and water.
I repeat, “The Palestinian struggle is a struggle of memory against forgetting.” I will never forget the policies, practices, and legacies of ethnic cleansing by Israeli leaders against Palestinians that continue with recent and current attacks on Gaza.
I demand an immediate cease fire!
Note: This piece was originally written for and submitted to a news outlet in the Midwestern U.S. They refused to publish it. This was a not-so-subtle reminder that mainstream American news media would prefer to continue forgetting complexities about Palestinians.
Thank you to Jackson Meredith for his assistance with editing this piece. Thank you to Mette Lundsfryd Stendevad for her crucial presentation at Malmö University (“A Struggle of Memory Against Forgetting: Palestinian Women of Syria Speaking Back”). This presentation inspired the title for my Op-Ed.
References:
1. https://edisciplinas.usp.br/pluginfile.php/7726775/mod_resource/content/1/hooks%20-%20CHOOSING%20THE%20MARGIN%20AS%20A%20SPACE%20OF%20RADICAL%20OPENNESS.pdf
2. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/first-zionist-congress-and-basel-program-1897
3. https://www.un.org/unispal/history2/origins-and-evolution-of-the-palestine-problem/part-i-1917-1947/
4. https://imeu.org/article/explainer-plan-dalet-the-ethnic-cleansing-of-palestine?fbclid=IwAR1lpxQF-cO3Jj3F1_hl0ymHEDkGNkqz5CGZm8ZCCpABknKnug5Y8z9l-uc
5. https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/06/14/gaza-israels-open-air-prison-15
6. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/tumult-and-transition-in-little-america-92437262/?fbclid=IwAR2V-g8pHpn-j2B1my468tCCB7K9EZinUkYRSFAnPSs7cPopTtmR3Y_mmFg
7. https://imeu.org/article/explainer-plan-dalet-the-ethnic-cleansing-of-palestine
Lory J. Dance is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Ethnic Studies. Moreover, she is a lifetime activist with a special focus on anti-racism and Human Rights. She has done solidarity work with Palestinians for over 20 years.
Originally published in Mondoweiss as an Op Ed
October 25, 2023
In solidarity with those who fought racial apartheid in South Africa, bell hooks emphasized, “[The Black American] struggle is also (1) a struggle of memory against forgetting.”
As a Black American with chosen family in Gaza, I support the Palestinian struggle of memory against forgetting. I remember that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is much older and more complicated than the rise of Hamas. I recall the (2) first Zionist Congress in the 1890s, which designated Palestine as the site for a Jewish homeland; and the post-WWI period, during which (3) Great Britain sponsored the Zionist colonization of Palestine. I will not forget an atrocity of the 1940s: Nazi Germany’s Holocaust against millions of Jews and other innocents.
I will also not forget that in the aftermath of this Holocaust, the modern state of Israel was carved out of Palestine in 1948 with the (4) Plan Dalet, which created 750,000 Palestinian refugees and destroyed or appropriated 400 Palestinian towns and villages in only a couple of years. I will not forget the Six-Day War of 1967, after which Israeli leaders sanctioned the occupations of Gaza and the West Bank. Israeli forces have effectively blockaded the Gaza Strip since June 2007. I will not forget that Human Rights Watch has summarized (5) the past 15 years of repression by calling Gaza an “open air prison” for its population of over 2 million Palestinians. I must not forget that the overcrowding and resource shortages in Gaza have been exacerbated by habitual IDF military airstrikes, which the Israeli government euphemistically calls “mowing the grass.”
Like persons of the Palestinian diaspora, and some in the Jewish community, I am a descendant of a displaced people (namely West Africans forcibly removed, brutalized, and enslaved). I understand desires to correct or minimize historical wrongs and return to a homeland. The (6) founding and colonization of Liberia by African Americans in the 1820s was one attempt to correct the tragedy of American slavery. Viewing Africa as the “Promised Land,” African Americans, sponsored by the American Colonization Society, repatriated in West Africa. African Americans did this despite the fact that the region was already inhabited and settled by ethnic groups that had been there for centuries.
Though empathizing with African Americans fleeing American racism, I must not forget that these settlers (now called Americo-Liberians) colonized and seized the lands of pre-existing West African populations. I admit this while recognizing that my beloved hometown of Petersburg, Virginia, and its historically large free Black population sent many Black settlers to Liberia (including Joseph Jenkins Roberts, the first president!). While ensuring that the histories of Blacks from my hometown are not forgotten, I must also remember that Indigenous Liberians were forced to suffer for the sins of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.
I sympathize with the need of Jewish people (particularly Holocaust survivors) to have a sanctuary from the inhumanity of Nazi Germany, the horrifying legacy of European pogroms and massacres, and other forms of antisemitic racism. As I recall the horrors of the Holocaust, I will not forget how Palestinians are continually forced to suffer for the sins of the Nazi Holocaust against European Jews.
I understand this latest Hamas response to occupation as part of a complex history. I remember that in 1948, Israeli forces inhumanely relocated Palestinians from Palestinian townships to the Gaza Strip. While in Israeli-occupied Palestine, I witnessed Palestinians living under apartheid conditions of discrimination and dehumanization, much like Black South Africans did under apartheid there or what African Americans suffered here in the Jim Crow era.
I recall that as recently as March 2023, after (7) Israeli settlers violently torched the village of Huwwara in the West Bank, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich stated, “I think the village of Huwwara needs to be wiped out. I think the State of Israel should do it.” In 2021, Smotrich complained to Palestinian members of Israel’s Parliament, “You’re here by mistake, it’s a mistake that Ben-Gurion didn’t finish the job and didn’t throw you out in 1948.”
Smotrich and other Israeli elites, including Yoav Gallant, Peter Lerner, and Benjamin Netanyahu, fuel an ongoing genocide through generalized references to Palestinians as “mistakes,” “butchers,” and “animals” who deserve to be denied access to humane resources, including electricity, food, and water.
I repeat, “The Palestinian struggle is a struggle of memory against forgetting.” I will never forget the policies, practices, and legacies of ethnic cleansing by Israeli leaders against Palestinians that continue with recent and current attacks on Gaza.
I demand an immediate cease fire!
Note: This piece was originally written for and submitted to a news outlet in the Midwestern U.S. They refused to publish it. This was a not-so-subtle reminder that mainstream American news media would prefer to continue forgetting complexities about Palestinians.
Thank you to Jackson Meredith for his assistance with editing this piece. Thank you to Mette Lundsfryd Stendevad for her crucial presentation at Malmö University (“A Struggle of Memory Against Forgetting: Palestinian Women of Syria Speaking Back”). This presentation inspired the title for my Op-Ed.
References:
1. https://edisciplinas.usp.br/pluginfile.php/7726775/mod_resource/content/1/hooks%20-%20CHOOSING%20THE%20MARGIN%20AS%20A%20SPACE%20OF%20RADICAL%20OPENNESS.pdf
2. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/first-zionist-congress-and-basel-program-1897
3. https://www.un.org/unispal/history2/origins-and-evolution-of-the-palestine-problem/part-i-1917-1947/
4. https://imeu.org/article/explainer-plan-dalet-the-ethnic-cleansing-of-palestine?fbclid=IwAR1lpxQF-cO3Jj3F1_hl0ymHEDkGNkqz5CGZm8ZCCpABknKnug5Y8z9l-uc
5. https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/06/14/gaza-israels-open-air-prison-15
6. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/tumult-and-transition-in-little-america-92437262/?fbclid=IwAR2V-g8pHpn-j2B1my468tCCB7K9EZinUkYRSFAnPSs7cPopTtmR3Y_mmFg
7. https://imeu.org/article/explainer-plan-dalet-the-ethnic-cleansing-of-palestine
Lory J. Dance is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Ethnic Studies. Moreover, she is a lifetime activist with a special focus on anti-racism and Human Rights. She has done solidarity work with Palestinians for over 20 years.
