November 13 – Nazareth, "A Time to Remember"

First full day of the Sabeel Conference. The theme for the day is “A Time to Remember.” The morning began with the first half of an excellent documentary, “The Land Speaks Arabic,” by Maryse Gargour. The film frames the Zionist settlement in Palestine as a colonial venture, carried out at a time when most other colonies gained their freedom from their respective colonial powers. For more information of the film, see www.menassat.com/?q=en/news-articles/4211-land-speaks-arabic.

The film was followed by 4 panel presentations:

(1) Memory and 1948. Two scholars, one Palestinian the other Jewish, reflected on the Nakba and its representation in public discourse, among Palestinians, the official Israeli ideology, and the memory of Palmach fighters.

(2) The Present Reality of Arab Citizens of Israel. The three panelists discussed the political and socio-economic reality of Palestinians in the Israeli state and their identity as Palestinian Israelis.

(3) The Challenge of Israel as a Jewish State. Two non-Zionist Israelis of Jewish heritage, one a politician, the other a scholar, discussed the ways the Palestinian minority holds the Israeli state accountable to its own democratic principles, which it fails to practice. Israel has no constitution and recently has implemented a series of racist legislation. Are the boundaries of 1947 (British-mandate Palestine) the ones that a solution must be based upon or should a peace agreement be based upon the “green line” of 1967 (justice vs. realpolitik)?

(4) Can Israel be a State for all its Citizens? A Palestinian legal scholar and a self-proclaimed “cultural Zionist” rabbi discussed the identity of Israel as a Jewish state. Can any state base citizenship on ethnic criteria (i.e. that Jews anywhere in the world have potential citizenship)? Are there two rightful claims to Palestine as homeland to both Palestinians and Jews that clash? Does the future rest in a one-state solution in which the universal right of return is abolished for both Jews and Palestinians, but in which immigration quotas are implemented for both groups?