Professor Saul J Takahashi, the director of Osaka Jogakuin University’s Research Institute of International Collaboration and Coexistence in the 21st Century, presented Monday a paper on 'Linguistic Rights of ’48 Palestinians' at the Annual Palestine Forum.
The scholar, who has spent five years in Palestine and well-versed in the Palestinian issue, spoke to Gulf Times on the linguistic rights and self-determination of the Palestinian people.
“I see that the Israelis have been doing this for a long time ... and it is not just language, it is the appropriation of Palestinian food like humus, which they present as Israeli food, for example,” Prof Takahashi said. “They have been after the eradication of the Palestinian people as a whole, through culture, history, renaming place names.”
“In 1948 the whole thing was geared towards the eradication of the Palestinian people as a whole, not just in physical sense, but culturally, linguistically, everything, and that is a gross violation of international law,” he added.
“Self-determination translated into hard reality through the continuous lobbying and putting on pressure on the international community to abide by the standards that they themselves have adopted,” Prof Takahashi said.
“Of course the Palestinians have been doing this and they will continue doing this,” he continued.
“Finally, I think we are seeing it bear fruit, through the recognition of Israel as practicing apartheid by very prominent international human rights non-governmental organisations (NGOs),” the academic pointed out. “Finally, the International Criminal Court ... we see it is starting to move, Insha Allah.”
“Also the UN General Assembly has asked the International Court of Justice to provide an opinion on the continuing occupation,” he added.
“Once again, not perfect, not full, but still moving in the right direction. Certainly, we are moving in the right direction,” Prof Takahashi emphasised. “Also, the political shifts in the US are definitely favourable towards moving in the right direction.
“Insha Allah, I am a human rights person, so I do think that the good guys will win in the end, and justice will triumph,” he said.
“As an international lawyer, I think certainly that the entire two-state solution paradigm is based on injustice,” he stated.
“It is based on the partition of the Palestinian people’s country,” Prof Takahashi explained. “That the two-state paradigm has been going on and on since 1947, the partition resolution, ... it is based on a gross injustice.”
“I do not see how the two-state solution but that,” he said. “It is important that we have peace in Palestine, the true peace can only be achieved with true justice.”
“I have a problem with seeing how this can be possible under the two-state solution, which is impossible now in any case, with all the Israeli colonies dotting the West Bank,” Prof Takahashi remarked. “I just do not see that it is going to happen.”
"So, I do think that we are heading towards a one-state solution, what exactly that means, we have to see,” he said. “There has to be insuring justice in any kind of one-state solution that means addressing past violations.”
"Without the US policies changing, it is hard to see any serious change in the situation in Palestine, but that is coming and that is already taking place,” he added.
“So, definitely, Insha Allah I see it happen. Of course, political issues should also be resolved amongst Palestinian factions ... they need to be sorted out, so that it cannot be used as an excuse for not allowing self-determination,” Prof Takahashi concluded.