"Ariel Sharon says we are foreigners"
Interview with leading Palestinians in Israel
A representative of the Sons of the Village, a major organization of Palestinians living on Zionist occupied territory, gave the following Foley in Paris in August.
Question. What is the Sons of the Answer. Abnal Balad is generally known as the Sons of the Village, but that is not an accurate translation. It would be more correct to say, "Sons of the Fatherland." It was established shortly after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and works mainly among the Palestinians in Israel.
Q. Did it originate among the large numbers of Palestinians who came under Zionist rule following the 1967 war?
A. No. There are 600,000 Palestinians inside the pre-1967 borders of Israel. They are citizens of the Israeli state. These are Palestinians who managed to hang on in the territories on which the Zionists built the Israeli state and the children of these Palestinian survivors.
In 1948, some 150,000 Palestini ins managed to hold on in the Zionistoccupied territory. In that year 384 towns and villages were totally destroyed by the Zionists.
Now the Palestinian population lives in 104 villages and two towns-Nazareth and Beersheva, which had the status of towns before 1948.
But the Zionists were not satisfied They started taking over the lands of the
What happened to the Palestinian families who were deprived of their
A. As a result of this process, most of our people became laborers, workers, not in our society or villages but in Jewish settlements and towns such as Tel Aviv, Haifa, and other cities. Actually, built these settlements and towns.
totally different thing, and it has now started on the West Bank as well.
Q. Since these problems go back to the start of the Zionist takeovers, why was your organization founded specifical-
Before then, there was an organization called "Al Ard" (The Land). It was a Pan-Arab nationalist movement with Nasserist politics. But basically it was a Palestinian organization set up to defend Palestinian land. So, the Israeli authorities banned it.
Police arrest Palestinian in occupied territories (DR) authorities have not accorded the status of town since to any
For example, the town I live in, along with 20,000 other Palestinians, is officially considered a vil-
Over the past 34 years, many of our villages have developed into towns. But if the Israeli authorities granted them that status they would be obliged to give more state aid, financial help, and more land for development. And their policy is to prevent the development of our villages.
Q. What land rights do the villages have?
In 1948, they confiscated all the village common lands, that is the lands that belonged to the village as a whole and which were used for grazing sheep
Officially this land belonged to the British mandate. tion of the mandate, the Zionists declared that the land belonged to them as the sucessor power.
At the same time, the Zionists prevented us from developing any alternative economic base in our areas; they stamped out anything that might lead in that direction. They even took over all the sources of water. These are owned by a Zionist state monopoly called Mekrot. It owns even the springs. It is a Zionist enterprise, like the Jewish Fund, which owns more than 90% of the land.
Q. Are these state corporations or Zionist associations?
A. Both. There is a wrong idea in the West that the Zionist movement is a socialist movement, since they nationalize land and sources of water, etc. This is totally false. They confiscate the land from the original owners and turn it over to Jewish settlements. They do not nationalize the land for the benefit of the peo-
As socialists, we are not against the nationalization of the land if it is for the benefit of the people living on it. this process of Zionist land takeovers is a
We thought that we had to take account of all these experiences to make our struggle more scientific, more public.
So, the idea was that the Sons of the Village would be a public, legal organization.
A Yes, it is a legal organization. We emphasize the public means of struggle, demonstrations, and the formation of unions.
Q. Have you formed unions for Palestinian workers?
A. No, so far we have been unable to do that. But we are struggling to build local labor committees. Such bodies can be set up within the general framework of Histadrut, the organization the Zionists set up to deal with labor matters.
For example, in Nazareth, there is a labor council. We are trying to generalize this phenomenon. In the villages, most of the people are Palestinians and they are conscious of their national and social rights. So, we can influence these coun-
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Q. So, the Sons of the Village is ar accepting conscription.
Q. Isn't Histadrut a Zionist organiA. Yes. It is not just a trade union. It is also the biggest employer in Israel. It owns the country's largest construction company, and most of our people are building workers. Only a section of Histadrut is supposed to be a trade union.
Most of our people are now members of Histadrut. You have to be in order to get health service. Some 90% of our people belong to the health service that is part of Histadrut.
But a campaign was waged against its discriminatory cha-
In 1956, we managed to force it It is still a Zionist organization and serves the Zionist state. For example, the construction company it owns works in Africa and worked before in the shah's Iran. It combines both workers and employers. But nonetheless, it is possible to use some of its institutions. These labor councils can have a certain independence and are supposed to be elected democrati-
Q. What other work does the Sons of the Village do?
A. We also work in committees to support the Palestinian attempt to organize the Palestinian peo-
This is quite difficult in our conditions. We do not have an industrial proletariat. scattered, since most of them are building
They work everywhere in Israel, in the Histadrut and also in private companies. They travel around the country from one building site to another.
A large section of Palestinian workers are also in the services. in restaurants and in cleaning homes. very difficult to organize such workers in trade unions.
But we have been able to organize them on the basis of the national oppres sion from which we all suffer. We set up general committees, such as the one to defend the village councils or the committee to defend the land, which was set up after the Day of the Land in 1976.
Social security is an important issue. Our children get only half what the Jewish children get by way of allowances. The Zionists argue that the fathers of Jewish families serve in the army, whereas Arab fathers do not.
Q. So, there is no conscription of
What effect has the Lebanon war had on the Palestinian community in
A. We are so proud of the struggle of our people in Lebanon. We think that their struggle helps us to hold on in Israel, because we think that the Israeli authori. ties are plotting to drive us out, to make us refugees like more than half of our
Ariel Sharon, the defense minister, says that we are foreigners. tion minister has said that we are a cancer on the body of the state. Now, if a doc tor finds a cancer on the body of a human being, what must he do?
They talk about a "demographic" problem in the Galilee area, because Palestinians make up 51% of the population. Why is this a problem? Why is it necessary to Judaize this area? Because of the racist sound of this word, they use the term "develop," which has come to mean
Conversely, if the Israelis win their objectives in Lebanon-to liquidate the Palestinian resistance movement and defeat the Lebanese national movement, to build a facist regime under the leadership of the Phalange, they will immediately village councils and governments, to defend the right of such councils to autonomy and state aid, to make sure they get what they are entitled to from the various ministries. and local notables, to sign a statement