The Jenin Operation, as Israelis like to call it, is one episode in a long series of invasions launched by the Israeli army on Palestinian cities and villages. This “treatment” has been used more than once and with increasing intensity each time, but it has not achieved what Israel seeks, which is “living in peace,” as demanded by the Palestinians and their Arab neighbours.
Israel wants the Palestinians and Arabs to treat it as a “normal state” in the region, disregarding the fact that its establishment itself was not “natural,” and that it did not do what it could have done to coexist with the aftermath of what the Palestinians refer to as the “Nakba.” On the contrary, Israel persists in reproducing this Nakba in the face of successive generations of Palestinians, keeping the vivid images hanging on the walls of refugee camps alive in the minds of Palestinian youth.
None of Israel’s leaders, since Yitzhak Rabin and his historic speech at the White House in 1993 when he reached out to Yasser Arafat, and proclaimed, “Enough of killing… enough of shedding the blood of Israelis and Palestinians,” had the courage to say this to the Israelis.
Because no one in Israel has the courage to make such a statement, the path will remain blocked to any acceptable solution to this long and deep-rooted conflict. Generations after generations, will carry the keys of their homes dreaming of return, as they have no other dream and no other solution has been presented to them.
[by Elias Harfoush in Asharq Al-Awsat]
Compiled and translated by Faizul Haque