Avi Shlaim calls for critical reflection

ISRAELIS APPROACH the 75th anniversary of the establishment of their state in a subdued and sombre mood. Israeli society is deeply divided, the country is in the throes of a constitutional crisis, and there is no consensus on how to mark the milestone. On the one hand, Israel can boast some remarkable successes in the economic, technological, scientific and cultural spheres. And in its central aim of providing the scattered Jews with a haven, instilling in them a sense of nationhood and forging a modern nation-state, Zionism has been a brilliant success.

Success, however, came at a price, a price that the Palestinian people were forced to pay. Nineteen forty-eight was a year of triumph and tragedy, an Israeli triumph and a Palestinian tragedy. What Israelis call “The War of Independence” is known in Arabic as the Nakba (catastrophe): about 750,000 Palestinians, more than half the Arab population of the country, became refugees and the name Palestine was wiped off the map. Seventy-five years on, there is still no solution in sight to the refugee problem and the Palestinian people are still denied freedom, independence and statehood.