2 Responses to An Ongoing Displacement

1. Manni says:

   May 15, 2013 at 8:05 am

   This infographic is – from an german perspective – quite questionable. Why? This graphic shows suggestively Isarel as an colonial power and the Palestine population as colonialized. In the cartograpics the Palestine are dispalyed white (connotated with good, pure, generally positive) and the Israelian are displayed black (connotated with evil, unpure, generally negative). Also is the description of the Populatoin ratio divided in Palestine and Jewish. Why isn’t written Israelian like at the end of the infographic. My problem is that Israel has an extra status and the problem of recognition as a nationstate. Ok, that also leads to the contradictory position of anti-nationalism on the one side and pro-israel on the other. Israel is still threated by antisemitism, which is also wide established in the faschist organization of Hamas. So I’m not quite sure, if a one sided view, shown above is a fruitful way treating this topic.

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2. stuartelden says:

   May 15, 2013 at 3:33 pm

   Thanks for the comments.

   Israel began as a colonising process, and is still described as that – Ilan Pappe uses the term ‘settler-colonialism’. The point with the colours is to show the first settlements/land ownership, and gradually the dots join up to cover the whole of the territory. They are just colours – the reverse would not have shown the same thing.

   It’s perfectly possible to recognise the state of Israel, and accept its right to a peaceful existence, and still be critical of the policies of its governments. I certainly believe that there is anti-Semitism still, but don’t accept that all criticism of the policies of the Israeli state is anti-Semitic, no more than criticism of the Bush government was anti-American or of the Blair government was anti-British.

   The point about the Jewish/Palestinian labelling is complicated. I suspect they are trying to avoid thinking all Israelis are Jewish. So-called Arab-Israelis would object to that. The northern areas in the Galilee are still showing areas that have not been settled – Nazareth is a good example of a large Arab city within Israel’s pre-1967 borders. You might say that Palestinian should then have been labelled as Arab, but part of the Israeli claim is to downplay their Palestinian identity and suggest that they are no differences with their neighbours, or that there is even ‘no such thing as a Palestinian’.

   I see the graphic as a powerful attempt to redress the standard (and itself one-sided) way of portraying the conflict, but it is of course only way to do so.

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