[News] What we Palestinians need

Tue Aug 18 14:04:10 EDT 2009

What we Palestinians need

(one of a number or differing arguments and positions worth reading)

Irrespective of what political settlement is 
ultimately embraced, Palestinians need a unified 
strategy for confronting and overcoming Israeli 
racism, apartheid and oppression. Mustafa 
Barghouthi<http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/print/2009/960/op13.htm#1>* 
outlines the basis of such a strategy

Palestinians have only two choices before them, 
either to continue to evade the struggle, as some 
have been trying to do, or to summon the 
collective national resolve to engage in it.

The latter option does not necessarily entail a 
call to arms. Clearly Israel has the overwhelming 
advantage in this respect in both conventional 
and unconventional (nuclear) weapons. Just as 
obviously, neighbouring Arab countries have 
neither the will nor ability to go the military 
route. However, the inability to wage war does 
not automatically mean surrender and eschewing other means to wage struggle.

As powerful as it is militarily, Israel has two 
major weak points. Firstly, it cannot impose 
political solutions by force of arms on a people 
determined to sustain a campaign of resistance. 
This has been amply demonstrated in two 
full-scale wars against Lebanon and, most 
recently, in the assault against Gaza. Secondly, 
the longer the Palestinians have remained 
steadfast, and the greater the role the 
demographic factor has come to play in the 
conflict, the more clearly Israel has emerged as 
an apartheid system hostile to peace. If the 
ethnic cleansing of 1948 and the colonialist 
expansionism describe the circumstances 
surrounding the birth of the Israeli state, the 
recent bills regarding the declaration of 
allegiance to a Jewish state and prohibiting the 
Palestinian commemoration of the nakba more 
explicitly underscore its essential racist character.

Ironically, just as Israel has attained the peak 
in its drive to fragment the Palestinian people, 
with geographical divides between those in Israel 
and those abroad, between Jerusalem and the West 
Bank and the West Bank and Gaza, and between one 
governorate and the next in the West Bank by 
means of ring-roads, walls and barriers, 
Palestinians have become reunified in their 
hardship and in the challenges that confront 
them. Regardless of whether or not they bear 
Israeli citizenship, or whether they are 
residents of Jerusalem, the West Bank or Gaza, 
they all share the plight of being victims of 
Israel's systematic discrimination and apartheid order.

If the only alternative to evading the struggle 
is to engage in it in order to resolve it, we 
must affirm that our national liberation movement 
is still alive. We must affirm, secondly, that 
political and diplomatic action is a fundamental 
part of managing the conflict, as opposed to an 
alternative to it. In fact, we must elevate it to 
our primary means for exposing the true nature of 
Israel, isolating it politically and pressing for 
international sanctions against it.

In this context, we must caution against the 
theory of building state institutions under the 
occupation. An administration whose security 
services would be consuming 35 per cent of the 
public budget, that would be acting as the 
occupation's policeman while furthering 
Netanyahu's scheme for economic normalisation as 
a substitute for a political solution, is clearly 
geared to promote the acclimatisation to the 
status quo, not change. Building Palestinian 
governing institutions and promoting genuine 
economic development must occur within the 
framework of a philosophy of "resistance 
development". Such a philosophy is founded on the 
dual principles of supporting the people's power 
to withstand the hardships of the occupation and 
reducing dependency on foreign funding and 
foreign aid. The strategic aim of the Palestinian 
struggle, under this philosophy, must be to "make 
the costs of the Israeli occupation and its 
apartheid system so great as to be unsustainable".

If we agree on this course for conducting the 
struggle, then the next step is to adopt a 
unified national strategy founded upon four pillars:

1. Resistance. In all its forms, resistance is an 
internationally sanctioned right of the 
Palestinian people. Under this strategy, however, 
it must resume a peaceful, mass grassroots 
character that will serve to revive the culture 
of collective activism among all sectors of the 
Palestinian people and, hence, to keep the 
struggle from becoming the preserve or monopoly 
of small cliques and to promote its growing 
impetus and momentum. Models for this type of 
resistance already exist. Of particular note is 
the brave and persistent campaign against the 
Separation Wall, which has spread across several 
towns and villages, offered five lives to the 
cause, and become increasingly adamant. The 
resistance by the people of East Jerusalem and 
Silwan against Israeli home demolitions and the 
drive to Judaise the city presents another heroic 
model. Yet a third promising example is to be 
found it the movement to boycott Israeli goods 
and to encourage the consumption of locally 
produced products. In addition to preventing the 
occupation power from milking the profits from 
marketing locally produced products, this form of 
resistance can engage the broadest swath of the 
population, from old to young and men and women, 
and revive the culture and spirit of communal 
collaboration. The campaigns to break the 
blockade against Gaza, as exemplified by the 
protest ships, the supply caravans and the 
pressures on Israel to lift its economic 
stranglehold, are another major type of resistance.

2. Supporting national steadfastness. The 
importance of this pillar is its focus on 
strengthening the demographic power of the 
Palestinian people so as to transform their 
millions into an effective grassroots force. It 
entails meeting their essential needs to enable 
them to remain steadfast in their struggle, and 
developing Palestinian human resources as the 
foundation for a strong and independent 
Palestinian economy. However, in order to achieve 
these aims the Palestinian Authority (PA) 
economic plan and budget must be altered in a way 
that pits their weight behind development in 
education, health, agriculture and culture, as 
opposed to squandering a third of the budget on security.

For example, the passage and immediate 
implementation of the bill for the national 
higher education fund would serve the educational 
needs of hundreds of thousands of young adults. 
In addition to elevating and developing the 
standards of university education, it would also 
work to sustain the impact of development aid and 
eventually reduce reliance on foreign support. 
The fund would also alleviate the school tuition 
burdens on more than 150,000 families, put an end 
to nepotism in the handling of student study 
grants and loans, and provide equal opportunity 
for academic advancement to all young men and 
women regardless of their financial 
circumstances. Equally innovative and dynamic 
ideas could be applied to other areas of 
education, or to stimulating the fields of public 
health, agriculture and culture with the overall 
aim of developing the educated, innovative and 
effective modern human resources needed to meet 
Palestinian needs as autonomously as possible 
and, hence, capable of weathering enormous pressures.

3. National unity and a unified national 
leadership. This strategic aim entails 
restructuring the Palestine Liberation 
Organisation on a more demographically 
representative basis and putting into effect 
agreements that have been previously reached in 
the Palestinian national dialogues held in Cairo. 
Over the past few years, the thrust of Israel's 
greatest advantage and the thrust of its assault 
centred around the Palestinian rift and the 
weakness of the disunited Palestinian leadership. 
In order to redress this flaw, the Palestinians 
must adopt a new mentality and approach. 
Specifically, they must: relinquish the mentality 
and practice of vying for power over an illusory 
governing authority that is still under the thumb 
of the occupation, whether in the West Bank or in 
Gaza; give up the illusion that Palestinian 
military might, however great it might become, is 
capable of leading the Palestinian struggle 
alone; adopt democracy and pluralistic democratic 
activities and processes as a mode of life, self- 
government, peaceful decision-making, and the 
only acceptable means to resolve our differences 
and disputes; resist all outside pressures and 
attempts (particularly on the part of Israel) to 
intervene in our internal affairs and to tamper 
with the Palestinian popular will. There must be 
a firm and unshakeable conviction in 
Palestinians' right to independent national self- determination.

The most difficult task that we face today is 
creating a unified leadership and strategy 
binding on all, from which no political or 
military decisions will depart, and within which 
framework no single group or party has a monopoly 
on the decision-making processes. Only with a 
unified leadership and strategy will we be able 
to fight the blockade as one, instead of evading 
unity for fear of the blockade. With a unified 
leadership and strategy we will able to seize the 
reins of initiative from others, as opposed to 
spinning from one reaction to the other, and we 
will be able to focus our energies on asserting 
our unified will instead of squandering them in 
internal power struggles in which the various 
parties seek outside assistance to strengthen 
their hand against their opponents on the inside. 
Only then will we be able to shift the equations 
that subordinated the national liberation 
movement to the narrow concerns of the PA (both 
in the West Bank and Gaza) and turn the PA into 
an instrument in the service of the national liberation movement.

4. Building and enhancing an international 
pro-Palestinian solidarity movement combined with 
a drive to impose sanctions against Israel. That 
such a movement already exists and is steadily 
growing is heartening. However, it will take 
enormous efforts to organise it and coordinate 
its activities properly so as to ensure it has 
the greatest possible influence upon 
decision-makers, especially in Europe and the 
West. Palestinian, Arab and Muslim communities 
will need to be orchestrated towards the 
realisation of the same goals. If the solidarity 
movement has scored significant successes with 
the organisation of a boycott of Israeli 
products, the decision by the Federation of 
British Universities to boycott Israeli 
academics, and the decision taken by Hampshire 
College and some US churches to refuse to invest 
in Israel, much work has yet to be done to expand 
the scope of such activities and build up the 
momentum of the solidarity movement.

The Palestinian plight, which Nelson Mandela has 
described as the foremost challenge to the 
international humanitarian conscience, strongly 
resembles the state of South Africa at the outset 
to the 1980s. It took years of a concerted 
unified drive before the South African liberation 
movement finally succeeded in bringing around 
governments to their cause. The tipping point 
came when major companies realised that the 
economic costs of dealing with the apartheid 
regime in Pretoria were unsustainable. In the 
Palestinian case, the success of an international 
solidarity movement is contingent upon three 
major factors. The first is careful organisation 
and detailed planning, a high degree of 
discipline and tight coordination. Second is a 
rational, civilised rhetoric that refuses to play 
into Israel's tactics of provocation. The third 
is to address and recruit progressive movements 
and peoples in societies abroad, including 
anti-Zionist Jews and Jews opposed to Israeli policies.

None of the foregoing is new, by any means. 
However, these ideas have yet to be put into 
practice. The logical springboard for this is to 
operate on the principle that while the 
Palestinian cause is a Palestinian, Arab and 
Muslim one, it is above all a humanitarian cause 
that cries out to all in the world who cherish 
humanitarian principles and values. The success 
of the freedom fighters of South Africa, the 
anti-Vietnam war movement, and the campaigners 
for the independence of India stemmed primarily 
from their ability to forge a universal appeal. 
And this is precisely what we must do. Our mottos 
for the solidarity movement with the Palestinian 
people must be "the fight against the new 
apartheid and systematic racism" and "the fight 
for justice and the right to freedom." The 
International Court of Justice's ruling on the 
Separation Wall, the illegality of Jewish 
settlements and altering the face of Jerusalem is 
a valuable legal precedent that official 
Palestinian governing institutions have ignored 
for four years. This ruling should now become our 
platform for a drive to impose sanctions against 
Israel, just as the UN resolution against the 
occupation of Namibia proved a platform for 
mounting a campaign against the apartheid system in South Africa.

The four-pronged strategy outlined above, which 
is espoused by the Palestinian National 
Initiative Movement, can succeed if it is guided 
by a clear vision, patience, and systematic 
persistence. I do not expect that it win the 
approval of all. The interests of some combined 
with their sense of frustration and despair have 
deadened their desire to engage in or to continue 
the confrontation with Israel. We also have to 
acknowledge that certain sectors of Palestinian 
society have become so dependent upon interim 
arrangements and projects and the attendant 
finances as to put paid to the possibility of 
their contributing to the fight for real change. 
Yet, the proposed comprehensive strategy does 
respond to and represent the interests of the 
vast majority of the Palestinian people and holds 
the promise of a better future.

The Palestinian national struggle has so far 
passed through two major phases: the first 
steered by Palestinians abroad while ignoring the 
role of Palestinians at home, and the second 
steered by Palestinians at home while ignoring 
the role of Palestinians abroad. Today we find 
ourselves at the threshold of a third phase, 
which should combine the struggle at home and the 
campaign of Palestinians and their sympathisers abroad.

In closing I would like to address the subject of 
a one-state or a two-state solution. It is both 
theoretically and practically valid to raise this 
subject here for two reasons. First, Israel has 
consistently tried to undermine the prospect of 
Palestinian statehood by pressing for such 
formulas as home rule, or an interim state, or a 
state without real sovereignty. Second, the 
changes produced on the ground by Israeli 
settlements and ring roads have come to render 
the realisation of a viable state unrealisable. 
To some, especially Palestinians in the Diaspora, 
replacing the call for a one-state solution with 
calling for a "two-state solution" seems to offer 
a remedy that gives relief. It is a better 
remedy, without a doubt, but it is a long way 
from offering relief. Slogans do not end 
liberation struggles. Slogans without strategies 
and efforts to back them up remain nothing but 
idle wishes or, to some, a noble way to avoid 
responsibility and the work that goes with it.

Now, let us be clear here. Israel has been 
working around the clock to destroy the option of 
an independent Palestinian state on the ground 
and, hence, the two-state solution. But that does 
not leave the Palestinian people without an 
alternative, as some Zionist leaders undoubtedly 
hope. The single democratic state (not the single 
bi-national state) in which all citizens are 
equal in rights and duties regardless of their 
religious affiliations and their origins is an 
alternative to the attempt to force the 
Palestinians to accept slavery under occupation 
and an apartheid order in the form of a feeble 
autonomous government that is dubbed a state.

However, whether the aim is a truly independent 
sovereign state or a single democratic state, 
both of which Israel dismisses with equal 
vehemence, neither of these aims can be achieved 
without exposing and destroying the apartheid 
system. This requires a strategy. Therefore, 
instead of allowing ourselves to become divided 
prematurely over whether to go for the one-state 
or two-state solution, let us unify behind the 
common aim required to achieve either: the 
formulation and implementation of a strategy to 
fight the occupation, apartheid and racial 
discrimination. This will lead us to something 
that is absolutely necessary at this stage, which 
is to move from the world of slogans to the world 
of practical activism in accordance with viable 
strategic plans that mobilise demonstrators 
against the wall, intellectuals and politicians 
and other sectors of society. It is high time we 
realise that diplomatic endeavours and 
negotiations do not free us from the nuts and 
bolts of actual struggle. We have one road that 
leads to a single goal: the freedom of the 
Palestinian people. There is nothing nobler than 
to follow this road to its end. This is not a 
project for some point in the future; it is one 
that cannot wait. Indeed, we should probably 
adopt the slogan of the freedom fighters of South 
Africa: "Freedom in our lifetime!"

* The writer is secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative

Al-Ahram Weekly Online : Located at: 
<http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2009/960/op13.htm>http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2009/960/op13.htm 

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