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<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element"> <font
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href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190507-the-two-narratives-of-palestine-the-people-are-united-the-factions-are-not/">https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190507-the-two-narratives-of-palestine-the-people-are-united-the-factions-are-not/</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">The two narratives of Palestine: The
people are united, the factions are not</h1>
<div class="credits reader-credits">Ramzy Baroud - May 7, 2019<br>
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<p>The <a
href="https://www.izu.edu.tr/en/ciga/conferences/international-conference-on-palestine"
data-toggle="tooltip" target="_blank">International
Conference on Palestine</a> held in Istanbul between
April 27-29 brought together many speakers and hundreds
of academics, journalists, activists and students from
Turkey and all over the world.</p>
<p>The Conference was a rare opportunity aimed at
articulating a discourse of international solidarity
that is both inclusive and forward thinking.</p>
<p>There was a near consensus that the Boycott, Divestment
and Sanctions (BDS) movement must be supported, that
Donald Trump’s so-called ‘Deal of the Century’ must be
defeated and that normalisation must be shunned.</p>
<p>When it came to articulating the objectives of the
Palestinian struggle, however, the narrative became
indecisive and unclear. Although none of the speakers
made a case for a two-state solution, our call for one
democratic state from Istanbul – or any other place
outside Palestine – seemed partially irrelevant. For the
one-state solution to become the overriding objective of
the pro-Palestine movement worldwide, the call has to
come from a Palestinian leadership that reflects the
genuine aspirations of the Palestinian people.</p>
<p>One speaker after the other called for Palestinian
unity, imploring Palestinians for guidance and for
articulating a national discourse. Many in the audience
concurred with that assessment as well. One audience
member even blurted out the cliched question: “Where is
the Palestinian Mandela?” Luckily, the <a
href="http://www.palestinechronicle.com/mandelas-grandson-we-must-use-every-opportunity-to-make-palestinian-struggle-visible/"
target="_blank">grandson of Nelson Mandela</a>,
Zwelivelile “Mandla” Mandela, was himself a speaker. He
answered forcefully that Mandela was only the face of
the movement, which encompassed millions of ordinary men
and women, whose struggles and sacrifices ultimately
defeated apartheid.</p>
<p>Following my speech at the Conference, I met with
several freed Palestinian prisoners as part of my
research for my forthcoming book on the subject.</p>
<p>Some of the freed prisoners identified themselves as
Hamas, others as Fatah. Their narrative seemed mostly
free from the disgraced factional language we are
bombarded with in the media, but also liberated from the
dry and detached narratives of politics and academia.</p>
<p>“When Israel placed Gaza under siege and denied us
family visitations, our Fatah brothers always came to
our help,” a freed Hamas prisoner told me. “And whenever
Israeli prison authorities mistreated any of our
brothers from any factions, including Fatah, we all
resisted together.”</p>
<p>A freed Fatah prisoner told me that when <a
href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-22902880"
target="_blank">Hamas and Fatah</a> fought in Gaza in
the summer of 2007, the prisoners suffered most. “We
suffered because we felt that the people who should be
fighting for our freedom, were fighting each other. We
felt betrayed by everyone.”</p>
<p>To effectuate disunity, Israeli authorities relocated
Hamas and Fatah prisoners into separate wards and
prisons. They wanted to sever any communication between
the prisoners’ leadership and to block any attempts at
finding common ground for national unity.</p>
<p>The Israeli decision was not random. A year earlier, in
May 2006, the leadership of the prisoners met in a
prison cell to discuss the conflict between Hamas, which
had won the legislative elections in the Occupied
Territories, and the PA’s main party, Fatah.</p>
<p>These leaders included <a
href="http://www.palestinechronicle.com/imprisoned-barghouti-calls-palestinian-dialogue-end-division/"
target="_blank">Marwan Barghouthi</a> of Fatah, Abdel
Khaleq al-Natshe from Hamas and representatives from
other major Palestinian groups. The outcome was the <a
href="https://unispal.un.org/DPA/DPR/unispal.nsf/0/CE3ABE1B2E1502B58525717A006194CD"
target="_blank">National Conciliation Document</a>,
arguably the most important Palestinian initiative in
decades.</p>
<p>What became known as the Prisoner’s Document was
significant because it was not some self-serving
political compromise achieved in a luxurious hotel in
some Arab capital, but a genuine articulation of
Palestinian national priorities, presented by the most
respected and honoured sector in Palestinian society.</p>
<p>Israel immediately <a
href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160113114456/http:/www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/foreignpolicy/issues/pages/palestinian%20prisoners%20document-%20stepping%20away%20from%20peace%2029-jun-2006.aspx"
target="_blank">denounced</a> the document.</p>
<p>Instead of engaging all factions in a national dialogue
around the document, PA President, Mahmoud Abbas, gave
rival factions an ultimatum to either accept or reject
the document in full. Abbas and the warring factions
betrayed the spirit of the unity in the prisoners’
initiative. Eventually, Fatah and Hamas fought their
tragic war in Gaza the following year.</p>
<p>On speaking to the prisoners after listening to the
discourse of academics, politicians and activists, I was
able to decipher a disconnection between the Palestinian
narrative on the ground and our perception of this
narrative from outside.</p>
<p>The prisoners display unity in their narrative, a clear
sense of purpose, and determination to carry on with
their resistance. While it is true that they all
identified as members in one political group or another,
I am yet to interview a single prisoner who placed
factional interests above national interest. This should
not come as a surprise. Indeed, these men and women have
been detained, tortured and have endured many years in
prison for being Palestinian resisters, regardless of
their ideological and factional leanings.</p>
<p>The myth of the disunited and dysfunctional Palestinian
is very much an Israeli invention that precedes the
inception of Hamas, and even Fatah. This Zionist notion,
which has been embraced by the current Israeli Prime
Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, argues that <a
href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-03/at-election-time-israel-talks-about-anything-other-than-peace"
target="_blank">‘Israel has no peace partner’</a>.
Despite the haemorrhaging concessions by the Palestinian
Authority in Ramallah, this claim has remained a fixture
in Israeli politics to this day.</p>
<p>Political unity aside, the Palestinian people perceive
‘unity’ in a whole different political context than that
of Israel and, frankly, many of us outside Palestine.</p>
<p>‘Al-Wihda al-Wataniya’ or national unity is a
generational quest around a set of principles, including
resistance, as a strategy for the liberation of
Palestine, Right of Return for refugees, and
self-determination for the Palestinian people as the
ultimate goals. It is around this idea of unity that the
leadership of Palestinian prisoners drafted their
document in 2006, in the hope of averting a factional
clash and keeping the struggle centred on resistance
against Israeli occupation.</p>
<p>The ongoing <a
href="http://www.arabnews.com/node/1475956"
target="_blank">Great March of Return</a> in Gaza is
another daily example of the kind of unity for which the
Palestinian people are striving. Despite heavy losses,
thousands of protesters insist on their unity while
demanding their freedom, Right of Return and an end to
the Israeli siege.</p>
<p>For us to claim that Palestinians are not united
because Fatah and Hamas cannot find common ground is
utterly unjustified. National unity and political unity
between factions are two different issues.</p>
<p>It is essential that we do not make the mistake of
confusing the Palestinian people with factions, national
unity around resistance and rights with political
arrangements between political groups.</p>
<p>As far as vision and strategy are concerned, perhaps it
is time to <a
href="https://unispal.un.org/DPA/DPR/unispal.nsf/0/CE3ABE1B2E1502B58525717A006194CD"
target="_blank">read</a> the prisoners’ National
Conciliation Document’. The Nelson Mandelas of Palestine
wrote it, thousands of whom remain in Israeli prisons to
this day.</p>
<p>The views expressed in this article belong to the
author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial
policy of Middle East Monitor.</p>
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