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<h1 class="reader-title">Palestinian national unity and class
conflict by Khaled Barakat</h1>
<div class="credits reader-credits">samidoun</div>
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<div class="reader-estimated-time">November 3, 2018<br>
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<p><em>The following article by Palestinian writer Khaled
Barakat, coordinator of the <a
href="http://freeahmadsaadat.org/">Campaign to Free
Ahmad Sa’adat</a>, was originally published in
Arabic in Al-Adab magazine on 2 November 2018. To read
the original Arabic text, please visit the <a
href="http://al-adab.com/article/%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%88%D8%AD%D8%AF%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%88%D8%B7%D9%86%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%81%D9%84%D8%B3%D8%B7%D9%8A%D9%86%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D9%88%D8%B5%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%B9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B7%D8%A8%D9%82%D8%A7%D8%AA">Al-Adab
website</a>.</em></p>
<p>When the positions of national forces clash in a
country confronting occupation and colonization, as has
been the case in Algeria, Ireland, India, South Africa
and elsewhere, it is natural to inquire as to the
motivations of this conflict and to identify those who
benefit from the situation as well as those who are
negatively affected.</p>
<p>The political and ideological struggle may progress
toward armed internal war or civil confrontation,
especially if the colonizer is not far away from the
situation.</p>
<p>As we examine the contradictions between forces, we
must also understand the role of “surrounding” forces
that may appear outside the frame of the picture or who
attempt to emerge in the role of “mediator.” In reality,
these forces may be a cause of the conflict itself.</p>
<p>While a class-based analysis dominated the thinking of
the left in general at one stage and at times became the
only reference in addressing every issue (at times to
the exclusion of relevant matters), unfortunately, in a
later period, it has become almost or completely absent.
This is particularly true in terms of the interpretation
of contradictions on the Palestinian national political
scene.</p>
<p>Therefore, it is necessary to paint a picture, even an
incomplete and general one, of the conflicting
Palestinian class interests, of which these intellectual
and political contradictions reflect their public faces.</p>
<p><strong>The dominant Palestinian minority</strong></p>
<p>These are the interests and sectors that have dominated
the ranks of the Palestinian leadership, including the
leadership of the people and the revolutionary movement
for the past century. For example, these sectors have
dominated the Higher Arab Authority, the key leadership
titles of the PLO, the Palestinian Authority and the
Palestinian National Council. These interests have
symbols and slogans that are subject to change at every
stage. The leading Palestinian families may be the same,
but their performance changes alongside changing modes
of production, changing relationships with the foreign
colonizer and reactionary systems of guardianship and
authority and then with the Zionist occupation. However,
in all cases they occupy the same central location.</p>
<p>This Palestinian minority has led us, after every
stage, battle, revolt or uprising, into a major
disaster. This occurred at the hands of the “Pasha”
class, the remnants of Palestinian feudalism, the great
landowners, merchants and “figures” who participated in
aborting the 1936 revolution. The same happened in 1947
and later, to put an end to the great intifada of
1987-1993, and again from 2000-2005. As long as this
minority, with abundant capital and power yet which does
not exceed a few thousand individuals, continues to
dominate over the Palestinian popular majority and to
grasp the keys to the Palestinian political decision,
our people will continue to suffer further
disappointments and defeats.</p>
<p><strong>Who forms this minority today?</strong></p>
<p>It is difficult to identify one sector and call it the
“class of the minority.” It has multiple roots, but it
works in the service of the Zionist entity, the
reactionary Arab regimes and imperialist forces, through
a network of overlapping political and financial
institutions, banks, corporations and economic projects.
It has a government, prisons, ministries and embassies,
particularly following the establishment of the
Palestinian Authority in 1994.</p>
<p>This authority, which targets the armed resistance and
cooperates with the Zionist enemy and foreign
intelligence services, is a tool for both the Zionist
occupation and this group, which we could call the Oslo
class. It has a dual function – to consecrate the
interests of the Palestinian minority and to protect the
enemy in order for it to be “accepted” in its
institutions, security and economic system. It continues
to derive legitimacy from the Arab and international
official recognition of it as the sole legitimate
representative of the Palestinian people. And the
Zionist entity responds to the needs of this class which
is dependent upon it, strengthening its position within
Palestinian society, and dealing with it as a junior
follower or partner, giving it a share of the market in
“Palestinian areas in Judea and Samaria.” This is
formalized in the framework that has been officially
labeled “economic peace.”</p>
<p>In other words, the class of the ruling Palestinian
minority is a puppet of the occupation that consists of
hundreds of big capitalists, their agents, business
owners and subcontractors of projects with the
occupation. The “Palestinian Authority” is a local
administration for the projects of these large bourgeois
interests.</p>
<p>Criticism of the positions of the PLO and Palestinian
Authority leadership is, in essence, a critique of the
dominant Palestinian interests that established the
“wasta” system (“mediators” between the occupation and
the masses), serving as a comprador class inside
occupied Palestine. These sectors have tightened their
control over the Palestinian political decision since
1974, when they seized control of the “revolution” and
the Palestinian establishment, gradually moving toward
the era of “Authority.” This transition has come about
through the acceptance of the “self-rule” framework,
through undemocratic and twisted machinations of the
traditional Palestinian leaders and forces and through
their largest political party, the Fateh movement.</p>
<p><strong>Who is the Palestinian popular majority?</strong></p>
<p>Since 1948, we have no longer been one coherent society
living on our land, but many dispersed contingents,
societies and communities inside and outside occupied
Palestine, that have no bridges to connect them or
meaningful economic, political and organizational
connections.</p>
<p>The most prominent of these are the Palestinian refugee
camps, numbering over 60. Some of these have been
destroyed by continuous wars, Zionist and official Arab
massacres at times and economic siege at other times.
Their suffering continues daily with racist laws,
negation of the refugees’ identity and ongoing
resettlement projects. They are like “cantons” groaning
under siege and poverty in the occupied homeland and in
exile, and forming with the working classes and other
marginalized sectors the popular Palestinian majority.
These Palestinian belts of misery stretch from the Naqab
to Jabalya, through Shatila, Baqaa and Yarmouk, to the
faraway lands of migration, facing isolated struggles as
if they are islands and filled with a sense of
disappointment, anger and rage at the ongoing
deceptions.</p>
<p><strong>Who are they, and who are we?</strong></p>
<p>So, we see two contradictory forces. While the
Palestinian majority lives with isolation,
marginalization and impoverishment, the minority strives
for a fortune of $40 billion, lives a safe and protected
life, lives in palaces, accumulates wealth, sends its
children to prominent universities and institutions in
the United States and Europe and pays no human price in
the national liberation struggle, in comparison to the
work and sacrifices of the masses.</p>
<p>As the class conflict intensifies between the dominant
minority and the overwhelming majority, the minority
attempts to resolve its own problems and its economic
and political crises at the expense of the national
rights of the majority: undermining the right of return;
confiscating the rights of martyrs, prisoners and the
wounded; plundering public property. This class attempts
to deceive the majority politically, especially through
the slogan of the so-called “independent Palestinian
state,” which is, ultimately, the project of the
Palestinian large bourgeoisie. However, this project is
doomed to failure after its results have been made
clear: the failure to prevent intensified settlement
construction, the Judaization of Jerusalem, the
imposition of the siege on Gaza and the continued denial
of refugees’ return. The policies of the enemy, and even
its bulldozers and aircraft, in some sense create a
reality that destroys the icon of the “Palestinian
state” created by this enemy itself.</p>
<p>The Palestinian popular majority has lost almost
everything, including its natural position in the
“revolution,” the PLO and the Palestinian national
project, in favor of the large capitalist class that has
taken control of everything. If the popular classes are
those who have built the pillars of the revolution and
the PLO, today, they find themselves cast to the side of
the road. Yes, the struggling and working classes in
occupied Palestine – workers, peasants, fishermen,
lawyers, engineers, teachers, students, artisans and
even the owners of small factories, workshops and
projects – carried all the burdens of the revolution,
the intifada and the armed struggle. They are the
historic opponents of the Palestinian palaces and the
Zionist entity. They are, especially in the camps, the
primary stakeholders in the completion of their
struggle: return and liberation.</p>
<p>This large popular Palestinian bloc that built the
revolution is not looking for a fictitious “state.” It
is fighting for the restoration of the land, the rights
and the property that has been usurped. How can the
popular classes, impoverished communities and
marginalized groups be able to resume their role and
reclaim the revolution that has been dispersed and
degenerated?</p>
<p>Achieving this goal requires that this majority be
aware of its historical role in the revolution and the
movement for social change. This role can not only
defeat the American-Zionist-reactionary liquidation
project, but also defeat the project of the Palestinian
minority of the imaginary “state,” instead moving toward
a process of revolution and a movement for comprehensive
change. This time, it must be led by the popular
classes, for the first time in the history of the
Palestinian national liberation struggle.</p>
<p>Phrases and slogans like “national reconciliation,”
“ending the division,” “sole legitimate representative,”
“Palestinian state,” “national project,” “independence,”
“freedom,” “legitimacy,” “Jerusalem,” “popular
resistance” and “the right to self-determination,” among
others, have been exploited relentlessly. If put to the
test today, you will find that each Palestinian party
has its own definition of these concepts. The
degradation of Palestinian political discourse in
general and the use of deceptive language and concepts
that are directed to justify the current political
situation are constant policies of the ruling class, its
intellectuals and its tools in the media.</p>
<p><strong>Internal contradictions and the “peace process”</strong></p>
<p>Nothing reveals the internal Palestinian contradiction
more clearly and defines its parties more precisely than
their positions on the “peace process.” This is because
the conflict between the Oslo class and the Palestinian
popular classes is revealed clearly in the stages of
this deceptive project. For the Palestinian people, the
“peace process” means a comprehensive liquidation of
their cause, through colonization, ethnic cleansing, and
the pacification of their movement; for the Palestinian
financial class, it is a profitable process and a way of
life!</p>
<p>A quarter of a century has passed since the signing of
the Oslo accords, which constituted the major turning
point in the Palestinian struggle for the occupation,
imperialist powers and the large Palestinian
bourgeoisie. It marks the beginning of the material
transformation from the stage of the intifada/popular
revolution to the phantom authority/pseudo-state. And on
the shoulders of the Palestinian popular majority and
the popular and armed resistance movement, rests the
task of creating a revolutionary alternative that can
confront the attempted liquidation of the Palestinian
question and protect the unity of the people, the land
and their rights.</p>
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