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The Need for a New Strategy

Sunday, September 29 2002 @ 02:23 PM GMT


By Nizar Sakhnini
For Palestine Chronicle

A lot of healthy discussion about the need for a new strategy in the struggle for justice and peace in Palestine is taking place these days. The following paragraphs are not an attempt to lay down a new strategy.

This is a task that is beyond the ability of any individual to articulate, whomever he or she might be. What follows are general comments related with the situation that might shed some light on issues directly related with the discussions. (1)

The Goal:

A strategy is laid down to achieve a goal and assessment of the success or failure of any strategy is done through progress made in achieving that goal.

A widely held misconception these days is that the goal of the struggle in Palestine is the creation of a Palestinian State in part of Mandate Palestine and the percentage area of those parts of Palestine occupied in 1967. The implications of this misconception are obscuring the vision and leading to wrong conclusions and unnecessary disputes and waste of valuable time and efforts.

Palestinian resistance to colonization settlement started long before the Balfour Declaration in 1917 and even before Herzl published his Der Judenstaat in 1896.

The first signs of Palestinian resistance were a direct and spontaneous reaction to the behavior of the pioneer Zionist settler colonizers. Their efforts to dispossess and displace the Arab fellahin (peasants) were provocative and led to violent confrontations. The cumulative effect of a series of land purchases from mainly absentee landlords involving expulsions of fellahin and ensuing clashes brought important elements between the Arab urban elite to a realization of the full import of Zionism. Not only was land being purchased, but also its Arab cultivators were being dispossessed and displaced by foreigners whose ultimate political objective was the domination of Palestine. (2)

In the words of Walid Khalidi, "Behind the seemingly labyrinthine complexities of the so-called Arab-Israeli conflict and the baffling maze of claims and counter-claims their lies a continuous and continuing dual process. On the one hand, Zionist determination to implement, consolidate and expand the Basle 'vision', irrespective of the Arab character and patrimony in Palestine and its hinterland; on the other, a corresponding development of Arab resistance to Zionist encroachment and self-fulfillment at Arab expense. This is the essence of the Palestine tragedy. All else is derivative". (3)


This is the core of the conflict: a racist colonial settlement aiming at full control and hegemony against the will and at the expense of the indigenous people of Palestine in a flagrant violation of international law and basic human rights. It has nothing to do with terrorism. It is neither a holy war nor a conflict between Islam and Judaism, nor directed against the Jews per se. The only way to end the conflict is to end its original cause: racial colonial settlement


Without going into much detail at this point, I personally believe that the two-state solution, even if it gives the Palestinians 100% of the areas militarily occupied since 1967, would not provide a real solution and an end to the conflict.

This is the core of the conflict: a racist colonial settlement aiming at full control and hegemony against the will and at the expense of the indigenous people of Palestine in a flagrant violation of international law and basic human rights. It has nothing to do with terrorism. It is neither a holy war nor a conflict between Islam and Judaism, nor directed against the Jews per se. The only way to end the conflict is to end its original cause: racial colonial settlement.

The goal of the struggle was, and still is, an end to racial discrimination and an end to denial of the natural rights of the indigenous population to live as a free people in their own homeland, which they inherited from their parents, grand parents, and grand grand parents since time immemorial.

The Means:

Another misconception is that the so-called "suicide bombings" give Sharon a pretext to go ahead with his criminal behavior and gives legitimacy to his strategy aiming at a completion of the job that was not completed in 1948: a final solution based on complete control within the borders of "Greater Israel", whatever that might be.

It is true that killing of innocent civilians is immoral and should not be condoned or tolerated. It is also true that suicide bombings would not liberate Palestine. However, to insinuate that suicide bombings were the reason for Sharon's killings and destruction is an act of legitimate self-defence and that, once this phenomenon stops, Sharon's war crimes would stop is totally wrong.

Sharon and his military establishment, is no different from all the mainstream Zionist and Israeli leaders before him. They are after the land, all of it, cleansed of its indigenous population.

Replicating the massive expulsions that took place in 1948 proved to be impossible for a number of reasons that are beyond the scope of this short discussion. What is relevant to our discussion is that, to keep their control over the land and avoid the "demographic threat", on the one hand, and to perpetuate and legitimize occupation, on the other hand, the Israeli militarized establishment introduced a new concept following their territorial expansion in 1967: the Palestinians are considered as aliens who happened to be living on the land and that these aliens have no rights. The maximum generosity these aliens might get would be no more than autonomous rule within concentration camps serving as a reservoir for cheap labor. Those who don't like to live al slaves would be free to "voluntarily" leave the land, with no Right to Return. This summarizes the whole Israeli strategy since 1967 as reflected in all the plans designed to deal with the Palestinians starting with Allon's Plan in 1967, Begin's Autonomy Plan of 1977, Sharon's Village Leagues of 1981 and Barak's "generous offer" in Camp David in the summer of 2000. (4)

Absence of "suicide bombings" did not bring about peace and security and did not direct the Israeli Governments to end the illegal military occupation in violation of UN Security Council Resolutions 242 of 1967 and 338 of 1973.

Accordingly, while the "suicide bombings" are morally unacceptable, resistance to occupation and oppression using all means possible, including armed struggle against military targets, is a natural and legitimate act of self-defence that cannot be denied to a people under one of the worst and most oppressive kind of military occupation.

Footnotes:

(1) In addition to the media reports related with the discussions going on within the occupied territories, a lot of discussion is taking place on the internet and an increasing number of articles are being published in the media these days.

(2) Rashid Khalidi, Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness, New York: Columbia University Press, 1997, pp. 99-110.

(3) Walid Khalidi, ed., From Haven to Conquest: Readings in Zionism and the Palestine Problem until 1948. Beirut: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1971, p. xxii.

(4) A detailed documented account of the ethnic cleansing efforts made during the 1967 war and the different plans aimed at full Israeli control and hegemony in the OPT was presented by Michael Palumbo in: Imperial Israel: The History of the Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Ltd., 1990. See also Noam Chomsky, The Fateful Triangle: the United States, Israel and the Palestinians. Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1984 which highlights the relationship between the 1982 War and Israel's plans for full control in the Palestinian areas occupied in 1967.
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Nine-year-old Abdel Salam Sumerin was killed yesterday when Israel Defense Forces troops used live fire to disperse a crowd of school children challenging the army's attempt to impose a curfew on the El Amari refugee camp, in El Bireh.
Friday, September 20, 2002 Tishrei 14, 5763