If my sense of time, my cellphone and all means of determining the date were taken from me, I'd probably still know when Independence Day is approaching. Usually it's the combination of warmer weather and the blue and white streamers that begin to decorate main roads in preparation for the real thing: the national flag as far as the eye can see.
Next week, when the State of Israel marks its 75th Independence Day, most Arab citizens, especially those who identify as Palestinians (and are not the pro-Israel activist Yoseph Haddad, for example) will continue the new tradition that has developed in the wake of the events of October 2000, when Israeli police shot dead 13 Arabs, 12 of them Israeli citizens, during violent protests. They'll get up in the morning, curse the day, envy slightly the Jews, who have a state, and write on Facebook that “their Independence Day is our Nakba Day.” Some will feel a need to go into more detail, while others will choose to downplay it. After all, Arabs have been fired over likes on social media, so what might happen over a post that denies the legitimacy of Independence Day?
In any event, even if they enjoy having the day off, Arabs don’t grill meat outside on this day, lest it be misinterpreted. In all the years I lived in Tel Aviv, I avoided going out on Independence Day eve, when the holiday begins. Even if sometimes the date left me with a sense of despair and apathy, and even when leftist friends invited me to “non-celebrations” – and there were such events, especially when I was a student at Tel Aviv University – I didn’t go.
It wasn’t always like that. When I was little, in the merry ‘90s, and my father got a day off work (his annual vacation days could be counted on one hand), we would take advantage of Independence Day to go up north. We didn’t give it all that much thought back then. But this “tradition” stopped in the early 2000s, which brought with it a painful awakening regarding identity.
But it’s not just the trips to the north. From the first decades of the state and up until the 1990s, generations of Arab schoolchildren sang the immortal song “Fi Eid Istaklal Baladi Gharad Al-tayir Al-shadi” (On Independence Day a bird is chirping”), and also “Fi Eid Istaklalna, Al-daniya Bath’halalna” (On Independence Day, how beautiful our lives are). I remember being in the school chorus in third grade, singing songs for the state on Independence Day.
Whenever I remember this time, I don’t think about my younger self who didn’t understand what she was singing, but about the people around me: the teacher, the principal, the students’ parents, how they dealt with the fear, the silencing and the self-censorship.
I received answers to my questions years later while watching historical documentation on the first decades of the state. These taught me about the degree of “interest” the state had in Independence Day events in the Arab communities. How officials in the military government (1948-66) and later in the Israel Police debated with great seriousness questions such as who waved a flag in what village, where and what kind of celebrations were held, who watched the military parade and who didn’t, which teacher spoke about the Nakba, and of course the officials’ interference in the hiring of principals, and various and sundry additional means of control and intimidation.
I wish for myself and all the inhabitants of this land, from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River, to live to see the day when we can all celebrate true independence.
All Israelis Are Still Waiting to Celebrate True Independence
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24.04.2023
If my sense of time, my cellphone and all means of determining the date were taken from me, I'd probably still know when Independence Day is approaching. Usually it's the combination of warmer weather and the blue and white streamers that begin to decorate main roads in preparation for the real thing: the national flag as far as the eye can see.
Next week, when the State of Israel marks its 75th Independence Day, most Arab citizens, especially those who identify as Palestinians (and are not the pro-Israel activist Yoseph Haddad, for example) will continue the new tradition that has developed in the wake of the events of October 2000, when Israeli police shot dead 13 Arabs, 12 of them Israeli citizens, during violent protests. They'll get up in the morning, curse the day, envy slightly the Jews, who have a state, and write on Facebook that “their Independence Day is our........
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