[News] Operation Establish a Sovereign Bantustan

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Operation Establish a Sovereign Bantustan

Submitted by Jalal Abukhater on Fri, 09/02/2011 - 11:16
http://electronicintifada.net/blog/jalal-abukhater/operation-establish-sovereign-bantustan

I chose to include the term 
“<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/bantustans>bantustan” 
in the title because it literally describes the 
desperate move the Palestinian leadership is leading Palestine into:

“But it’s no exaggeration to propose that this 
idea, although well-meant by some, raises the 
clearest danger to the Palestinian national 
movement in its entire history, threatening to 
wall Palestinian aspirations into a political 
cul-de-sac from which it may never emerge. The 
irony is indeed that, through this maneuver, the 
PA is seizing ­ even declaring as a right ­ 
precisely the same dead-end formula that the 
African National Congress (ANC) fought so 
bitterly for decades because the ANC leadership 
rightly saw it as disastrous. That formula can be 
summed up in one word: Bantustan,”  wrote 
<http://electronicintifada.net/blog/jalal-abukhater/node/8543>Virginia 
Tilley in “Bantustans and the unilateral declaration of statehood.”

If we can’t learn from recent history, what will 
we ever achieve? We are being lured into a trap 
where the rights of millions of dispossessed 
refugees are at risk, but who is listening?

I said it before and I am willing to say it a 
thousand times more: Our struggle is not a 
struggle for symbolic statehood; it is a struggle 
to gain Palestinians’ basic rights! For more than 
six decades we have been fighting for our 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/right-return>right 
of return, our right to live in our ancestral 
homeland, our right to be treated as equal 
citizens, our right to live in dignity. And our 
leadership is risking all of that in order to 
establish a sovereign state on a tiny piece of 
land of our much bigger homeland.

It was only a few months ago when I published my 
first ever widely-read article on my personal 
blog, which was later 
<http://972mag.com/letter-to-israeli-left-choose-one-state-not-apartheid/>published 
on +972 magazine. In that article, originally 
titled “How do you define coexistence” and later 
titled “Letter to Israeli Left: chose one state, 
not apartheid,” I questioned the motives of many 
Israeli anti-occupation leftist groups, and asked 
them to endorse the one democratic state solution 
as it is the only solution out there that could 
end the struggle and guarantee justice and equality for both sides.

If I have learned anything from debating with my 
Palestinian friends in the last few weeks about 
the September move, it is that I should address 
them, my fellow Palestinian countrymen, in the 
same tone, if not harsher regarding this topic. 
Let us get over talking hope, and move to 
understand actions and consequences of this move.

I believe that if I was to see the West Bank and 
Gaza instantaneously liberated as soon as the 
United Nations recognizes us as a state, I 
wouldn’t worry as much because then the 
leadership would be slightly more able to sort 
out bigger matters related to refugees. But the 
ground reality says something else.

Quoting Ali Abunimah’s 
<http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/04/2011413152522296883.html>opinion 
piece on Aljazeera English news site, he says:

Lebanon has been a member state of the United 
Nations since 1945 and yet this did not prevent 
Israel from occupying southern Lebanon from 1978 
until 2000. Israel’s occupation of Lebanon ended 
not because of any international pressure, but 
only because the Lebanese resistance drove Israel 
and its collaborating militias out. [
] 
Similarly, since 1967 Israel has occupied the 
Golan Heights, which belong to Syria (also a UN 
member since 1945). There has been virtually no 
armed resistance on the Golan Heights nor has 
there been any international pressure for Israel 
to withdraw or for Syrian refugees to return to 
their homes. [
] Why would the situation in the 
“State of Palestine” be any different?



Legal perspective

Besides the fact on the ground in the West Bank 
that the Israeli occupation is going nowhere 
after 20 September, our leadership insists that 
this is the time to declare statehood ignoring 
many consequences of this action. The Palestinian 
delegation to the United Nations has been warned 
that the September move risks the rights of all 
diaspora and 1948 Palestinians as it officially 
“<http://maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=415804>terminates 
the legal status held by the PLO in the UN since 
1975 that it is the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.”

In his seven-page 
<https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/238962-final-pdf-plo-statehood-opinionr-arb.html>legal 
document, Guy Goodwin-Gill, a professor of 
international law at Oxford University, sheds 
light on the legal risks behind the recognition 
of the Palestinian state. He said that millions 
of Palestinian refugees are at risk of losing 
their representation at the UN if the bid succeeds. He concludes:

“In my opinion, current moves to secure 
recognition of statehood do not appear to reflect 
fully the role of the Palestinian people as a 
principle party in the resolution of the 
situation in the Middle East. The interests of 
the Palestinian people are at risk of prejudice 
and fragmentation, unless steps are taken to 
ensure and maintain their representation through 
the Palestinian Liberation Organization, until 
such time as there is in place a State competent 
and fully able to assume these responsibilities towards the people at large.”

It is worth mentioning too that Guy Goodwin-Gill 
is a 
<http://maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=415804>member 
of the team that won the 2004 non-binding 
judgment by the International Court of Justice 
that the route of 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/israels-wall-west-bank>Israel’s 
wall was illegal.

Meanwhile, the Boycott National Committee has 
issued 
<http://www.bdsmovement.net/2011/bnc-reiterates-its-position-on-september-7794>its 
own statement warning of harsh consequences to the UN statehood bid.


Bad move

Many non-Palestinian activists, rights groups, 
politicians, and lawyers are voicing their 
concerns, but not all are able to protest the 
Palestinian leadership’s decision because it is 
an exclusively Palestinian matter. Unfortunately, 
not many Palestinians are fully aware of the 
risks, and currently over 6.5 million 
Palestinians in the diaspora are going to face 
the consequences of an action taken by someone 
they didn’t vote for or agree that he speaks for 
them. The UN move for the state is an action a 
low percentage of Palestinians agree upon, but 
unfortunately it is going to be forced upon them.

The Palestinian leadership in Ramallah is fully 
aware of the consequences of this move, but 
personally I feel that their action is coming 
from anger towards the failing peace process that 
they went into for decades. This anger is pushing 
them for an irrational move, anything that they’d 
be able to claim as a success of their own, 
ignoring consequences. This move aims to separate 
and break the bond between Palestinians all over 
the world, the Palestinian leadership should know 
better and seek a solution that guarantees the 
rights of all the Palestinians they “represent.”


Security Council Veto

Whenever you talk about the September bid for the 
state, you hear Veto. Everyone is almost certain 
that the United States will use its veto power to 
halt any unilateral attempt seeking a declaration 
of a Palestinian state on 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/1967-lines>1967 
lines; some say the Palestinian UN delegation 
will seek other routes to bypass the Security 
Council, and others say it will be the end of the road.

Most Palestinians I meet claim that the move for 
the state in the United Nations is a win-win 
situation. If we succeed, we get our state. If we 
don’t succeed, we’d avoid the consequences of 
having succeeded and we can seek another 
solution. It is irrational, I know. But those 
Palestinians are ready and will gladly accept any 
outcome from the September move.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opposes 
the Palestinian move because he benefits when he 
maintains control over all of the illegal 
settlements in the West Bank. He wants to 
maintain control over all strategic areas and 
water wells and springs. He aims to maintain our 
status quo living in many separate, open air 
prisons across the West Bank. But, in my opinion, 
I believe there is no reason US President Barack 
Obama would oppose the move for two states.

Personally, I doubt the United States will use 
its veto power. The United States is able to put 
an end to 64 years of continuous struggle and 
favor the Zionist end of the equation in this 
solution. Of course, having said this, putting an 
end to our struggle in this way will harm us a lot as I have argued earlier.

The two-state solution will cause fragmentation 
of the Palestinian people, more separation 
between those in the West Bank and Gaza, those in 
Israel, and those living in the diaspora. It will 
forcibly take away the rights of millions.




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