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<dd><h1><b>What we Palestinians need</b></h1>
<dd><font size=3>(one of a number or differing arguments and positions
worth reading)<br><br>
<br>
<dd>Irrespective of what political settlement is ultimately embraced,
Palestinians need a unified strategy for confronting and overcoming
Israeli racism, apartheid and oppression. Mustafa
Barghouthi</b>
<a href="http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/print/2009/960/op13.htm#1">*</a>
outlines the basis of such a strategy <br>
<br>
<dd>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.<br><br>
<dd>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. <br><br>
<dd>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</i> more
explicitly underscore its essential racist character.<br><br>
<dd>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.<br><br>
<dd>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. <br><br>
<dd>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". <br><br>
<dd>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:<br><br>
<dd>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.<br><br>
<dd>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. <br><br>
<dd>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.<br><br>
<dd>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.<br><br>
<dd>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.
<br><br>
<dd>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. <br><br>
<dd>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.
<br><br>
<dd>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. <br><br>
<dd>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. <br><br>
<dd>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.<br><br>
<dd>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. <br><br>
<dd>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. <br><br>
<dd>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!"<br>
<a name="1"></a><br>
<dd>* The writer is secretary-general of the Palestinian National
Initiative</i> <br><br>
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reserved<br><br>
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<dd>Al-Ahram Weekly Online : Located at:
<a href="http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2009/960/op13.htm">
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2009/960/op13.htm</a> <br><br>
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