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The tangible fear of transfer The Palestinian national memory has been haunted for 50 years by the experience of the Naqba during the War of Independence, when Israel uprooted about half the Palestinian people from their land and homes and turned them into refugees. There are many Palestinians who believe the history of 1948 could repeat itself, because they believe there is an innate urge in Zionism and the state of Israel to displace the Palestinians. Since most understand the reality nowadays in the West Bank and Gaza is very different from what existed in the past, the fear now is of circumstances being created by the current conflict, in which the Israeli government forces Arabs to leave their homes. It would not be expulsion to another country since neighboring states would not allow it. But what is possible is the destruction of villages, neighborhoods, and possibly towns, forcing their residents to seek shelter in other population centers. Nobody suspects former Shin Bet chief Ami Ayalon of harboring transfer ideologies, but the statement he made in a prominently displayed interview last Friday in Al Quds, can be perceived as a warning: "If the U.S. attacks Iraq and during that attack there is a mega-terrorist incident in Israel, then Ariel Sharon could exploit the outbreak of rage in the Israeli public to conduct mass transfer of Palestinians." But instead of trying to sketch out a transfer scenario for the future, it's worth describing what is happening now in the territories. Although there are no clear data on the number of Palestinians who left the territories in the last two years, there are many places where the phenomenon is well known. In the Ramallah area, for example, many of the villagers and townspeople from the surrounding areas have gone overseas, mostly to the U.S. Most of the Christian residents of places like Jafna, Taibeh, Abud, Bir Zeit and Ein Arik, have long since left for abroad, and there was emigration to the U.S. from Muslim villages like Ein Yabrud and Bitunya even before the intifada. As a result many of the inhabitants of those places have American passports and both property and business overseas. When life here becomes intolerable, they close their homes and businesses here and go abroad until things calm down. This is a well-known phenomenon in the Christian parts of Bethlehem. How many have left since the intifada began? It's difficult to say. The feeling among the Palestinian public is that IDF operations in the territories have long since deviated from limited security purposes for chasing down terrorists and that the Israeli intention is to so embitter Palestinian lives that they'll leave of their own accord. Until Operation Defensive Shield in March 2002, Israeli spokesmen would explain their purpose was to force the suffering Palestinian population to pressure Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority to start chasing down the terrorists. But ever since the West Bank was reoccupied and the besieged Arafat no longer has security apparatuses and the Palestinian government has been paralyzed, the Israeli argument about pressure on the population rings hollow. "The goal of the Israeli occupation is to eradicate the Palestinian existence in the homeland," the headlines in the Palestinian press say on a daily basis. They are accompanied by reports of curfews, checkpoints, house demolitions, closed factories and ruined farmlands - and in a context that makes clear it has nothing to do with security. The settlers, of course, can always claim they shoot at olive harvesters because the peasants are actually scouts meant to help prepare terror attacks - but the clear truth is that it's really a preparation for transfer. There's no other explanation, as far as the Palestinians can tell, for the outposts affair and the sweeping collective punishments in the territories, other than Israeli efforts to make Palestinian life so miserable they'll choose to live elsewhere. By Danny Rubinstein