The *FREE ARAB VOICE*
December 6, 1998
In this issue of the Free Arab Voice (FAV), we present:
1) "Palestine and the Game of Posing Solutions": An analysis of
Professor Edward Said's positions on the question of Palestine by
Munir Shafiq, a writer and thinker, originally from Nazareth,
Palestine
2) "One Plot after Another" A Poem by Samir Taha, originally from
Haifa, Palestine
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1) Palestine and the Game of Posing Solutions
by Munir Shafiq
Introduction:
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Professor Edward Said stands at a point in the Palestinian political
arena that is equidistant from both Arafat's Palestinian National
Authority (PNA) and Palestinian opposition groups, and that is even
farther away from Hamas and the Islamic Jihad. He proclaims his
disagreement with Arafat and his policies. Yet he purposely underrates
any points of intersection on Oslo and other issues with opposition
groups, while doling out bitter criticism to armed resistance against
the Zionist occupation, especially that of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad.
What follows is to highlight and analyze some of the features of
Professor Said's political statements as published on the internet and
in several Arab papers like al-Hayat and al-Ahram.
Zionists on Our Side?
- - - - - - - - - - -
In an article published in al-Hayat on June 9, 1998, titled al-Willayah
al-Ukhrah, Professor Said introduces his alternative vision on how to
tackle the conflict with the Zionist State and resolve the question of
Palestine. To be fair, the ideas in that article have to be treated as
part of a grander vision which he presents elsewhere. Nevertheless,
these ideas remain a pillar, not a minor appendage, to Professor Said's
line of march.
This vision then rests on the concept that "Palestinians have no way of
regaining their rights without the active participation of Israelis in
their struggle". The viewpoint of absolute separation between us and
every "Israeli" is criticized. Professor Said points out that he
suggested in a previous article that we should all talk to "Israeli"
intellectuals and independents directly. Maybe even organize with them
an international campaign against settlement activities. In the absence
of a real military option, and of a great divide separating Palestinians
from "Israelis", he says, there is no alternative for "Israeli"
participation in the Palestinian struggle. The validity of this
conclusion does not only obtain from premises derived from the
Palestinian experience, but from the international experiences as well
in Vietnam, Algeria, and South Africa, and even from the civil rights
movement in America.
Three Things Edward Said Neglects:
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The main problem with this line of argumentation however is that it
NEGLECTS THE OTHER ESSENTIAL INGREDIENTS IN THE STRATEGY OF LIBERATION.
The idea of including members from the other side in the struggle to
regain rights, whether in Palestine, or in the historical examples of
Vietnam, Algeria, and South Africa, becomes totally meaningless and
useless, and even harmful when taken alone, without the other essential
ingredients in the process. In spite of all the importance rendered
political action amongst the ranks of the other side, THAT IN ITSELF
GAINED ITS IMPORTANCE THROUGH THE STRATEGY AND TACTIC OF ARMED STRUGGLE
in Vietnam, and Algeria, and the momentum of mass-demonstrations and
armed struggle in South Africa.
Political action gained its importance as well from THE PRESENCE OF A
LEADERSHIP THAT WAS ABLE TO UNITE THE PEOPLE BEHIND IT, AND COORDINATE
POLITICAL ACTION ON THE OTHER SIDE, INCLUDING THE CORRECT IDENTIFICATION
WHICH FORCES COULD BE CONTACTED, WHICH COULD BE NEUTRALIZED, AND WHICH
SHOULD BE BOYCOTTED AND FOUGHT ON THE OTHER SIDE.
Therefore, citing thus the Palestinian need to work on the other side
based on the experiences of Algeria, Vietnam, and South Africa is to
take that principle totally out of the necessary context of a political
leadership running the struggle and the daily work. Professor Said does
not even like the "Israelis" that the PNA is working with. Neither does
he have a place for the Palestinian opposition or for the Islamic
resistance in this project of his. Neither does he delegate the mission
of contacting "Israelis" to any Palestinian leadership or group in
particular. Rather, he flings his call haphazardly into the lap of
whomever it may concern. Hence, in the hodge-podge of Palestinian
political chaos, i.e., the dispersion of the diaspora, and the lack
of leadership and direction that Palestinians are generally reeling in,
Professor Said's call to whomever to talk directly to "Israelis" amounts
effectively into a call for mass-normalization with "Israel". It weakens
the struggle to regain "Palestinian rights", whatever that means in
specifics to different individuals on our, and on the other side
(more to follow on this later); and it even weakens the hand of
Palestinian negotiators.
The second thing Professor Said glosses over is the fact that in
Algeria, Vietnam, and South Africa, the conditions for political
action on the other side matured only after protracted effective
resistance made even some rulers and elites on the other side develop
the stern conviction that it was no longer possible to crush with brute
force the resistance and the will of the people under occupation. The
strategy of occupation henceforth enters a crisis. The state, society,
and economy of occupation enter a state of debilitating attrition out
of which those on the other side calling for the rights of Algerians,
the Vietnamese, and the Africans, would effectively be making an appeal
to save their own countries. BUT THAT STAGE DOES NOT ARRIVE THROUGH
DIALOGUE WITH, OR BY PETTING PEOPLE FROM THE OTHER SIDE, BUT THROUGH
THE BASIC STRATEGY OF THE STRUGGLE.
Evidently this is not to underestimate the role of political action
on the other side, but rather not to overestimate it. Those who think
that political action on the other side dropped out of the blues to
play the decisive role in the success of the struggles of Algeria,
Vietnam, or South Africa, do not pay attention to the fact that it
emerges as a recognizable force only in the latter phases of the struggle,
as a result of lots of preliminary work on the ground, not in the earlier
or less successful phases of the struggle. That's why you'll find more
"Israelis" today supporting an unconditional withdrawal from South
Lebanon than you would have found ten or twenty years ago, or more
"Israelis" supporting a withdrawal from Gaza after than before the
Intifada.
The third thing Edward Said forgets in this call to dialogue the other
side is the long Palestinian experience in this area. The literature
of the PLO in the sixties and the seventies was full of references on
the need to work politically, not only in "Israeli" society, but also
among the world Jewry. It was a staple of the mainstream of the PLO,
the official line of Fatah, its large contingent of leftists, and of
Palestinian leftist organizations like the PFLP. Many Jews came to PLO
camps as members of the international neo-left. Dialogue was based on a
common belief in a secular and democratic state of Palestine, regardless
of religion or race.
Then when the PLO approved the ten-point program in 1974, it moved
towards the concept of establishing a Palestinian state on any inch of
Palestinian soil it can lay its hands on. Dialogue thereby targeted a
different level or set of Jews/"Israelis". Now all those Zionists who
may agree to the establishment of a Palestinian state were being
approached, including members of the Labor Party. The process devolved
from one rung to the next as the PLO leadership got sucked into the game
of "peace", until it: 1) abandoned other forms of struggle in favor of
dialogue, and 2) reached the pragmatic conclusion that the "Israelis"
that should be dialogued are in fact only those that can make decisions,
be they from Likud, Labor, or Lala-land.
That's why, when some PLO officials who have been involved in this
process of dialogue with the other side hear of Edward Said's renewed
call to earnestly dialogue and work with "Israeli" intellectuals and
independents, they simply laugh very hard as they reminisce: "Yes, we
have been there before, about twenty-five to thirty years ago!!!".
The Third Way: No Way at All!
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Nowadays, one of the tenets of Edward Said's political line is the
notion of a bi-national state as an embodiment of Palestinian rights.
This idea is currently being promoted by "Israeli" Knesset member Azmi
Bshara and others, as a just resolution to the Arab-Zionist conflict,
which the professor insists on calling Palestinian-"Israeli". In the Le
Monde Diplomatique of August/September 1998, Edward Said published "A
Reply to Arab Intellectuals Israel-Palestine: A Third Way".
In defining the Third way, Professor Said says: "The third way avoids
both the bankruptcy of Oslo and the retrograde policies of total
boycotts. It must begin in terms of the idea of citizenship, not
nationalism, since the notion of separation (Oslo) and of triumphalist
unilateral theocratic nationalism whether Jewish or Muslim simply does
not deal with the realities before us. Therefore, a concept of
citizenship whereby every individual has the same citizen's rights,
based not on race or religion, but on equal justice for each person
guaranteed by a constitution, must replace all our outmoded notions of
how Palestine will be cleansed of the others' enemies".
Professor Said adds: "What Azmi Bishara and several Israeli Jews like
Ilan Pappé are now trying to strengthen is a position and a politics by
which Jews and Palestinians inside the Jewish state have the same
rights; there is no reason why the same principle should not apply in
the Occupied Territories where Palestinians and Israeli Jews live side
by side, together, with only one people, Israeli Jews now dominating the
other. So the choice is either apartheid or it is justice and
citizenship".
"It's the Land, Edward"
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Thus, with one stroke, the problem of the Palestinian people becomes how
to get citizenship and citizenship rights in the Hebrew State, or some
other supposedly post-Zionist state that emerges out of it. Because
when we pose the issue, as above, as one "of citizenship whereby every
individual has the same citizen's rights, based not on race or
religion", THE PROBLEM CEASES TO BE A PROBLEM OF LAND, RIGHT OF RETURN,
JERUSALEM, ZIONIST COLONIES, REFUGEES, AND SELF-DETERMINATION. It
ceases to be the problem of Palestine, which concerns Palestinians,
Arabs, and Muslims, and instead TURNS INTO THE PROBLEM OF SOME
PALESTINIANS WHO ARE SUFFERING FROM THE LACK OF CITIZENSHIP RIGHTS!!!
Then when Professor Said says, as above, that "there is no reason why
the same principle [of the Third Way] should not apply in the Occupied
Territories where Palestinians and Israeli Jews live side by side", does
that mean that the Palestinians in the lands occupied in 1967 should
launch mass-demonstrations, as long as those are non-violent and include
activists from the other side, to have their regions annexed to
"Israel", so that they may enjoy, or struggle to enjoy, equal
citizenship rights there?!
If so, then surely this Third Way is one unique solution because even
Likud proposals for a political solution do not include the full
annexation of the West Bank and Gaza into "Israel". In fact, the
Zionists have always wanted THE LAND WITHOUT THE PEOPLE. They have
forever been fearful of formally annexing more regions with high
concentrations of Palestinians into their state because they cringe from
the mere the political consequences, say fifty years down the road, of
our high Palestinian population growth, even if Palestinians accept the
status of fifth class citizens in the meantime in "Israel".
Thus the fact that the Third Way may meet lots of opposition in
"Israeli" society too gives it no credibility whatsoever over other
proposals. Oslo itself met extensive opposition in "Israeli" society,
and it gave Zionists time to inhale Greater Jerusalem and large swaths
of the area of the West Bank. For what Professor Said, Azmi Bshara, and
some of the others who advocate the Third Way seem to forget is that THE
PROBLEM ZIONISTS HAVE WITH PALESTINIANS IS THAT PALESTINIANS MERELY
EXIST. The majority of "Israelis", and most decision-makers in
"Israel", would at least disagree with a Palestinian existence on "Ertz
Israel" even if that was WITHOUT any citizenship rights!
Consequently, by overlooking the fact that the main problem is that of
LAND, the Third Way concept of a just solution lags even behind the
lagging positions of the Palestinian National Authority of Yasser
Arafat, whose nominal position is still so far the restoration of the
LAND of the West Bank and Gaza. And if Oslo had left the issues of
Jerusalem, settlements, refugees, the occupation, and self-determination
twisting in the wind, the Third Way has gone beneath that by foreclosing
before hand the issues of Palestinian land and self-determination, and
by turning the issue into a question of citizenship rights in "Israel"
or some next of kin. Of course, this is not to mention the fact that
the Third Way says nothing either about the Palestinians of the
Diaspora. If we were to extrapolate however, Palestinian refugees would
practically become no more than "Israeli" political refugees, who have
been deprived of their citizenship rights, and whose problems may be
handled by human rights organizations, on the other side.
What Palestine? What Solutions?
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Perhaps the most serious flaw with the Third Way, and the design of a
bi-national state, is that it would be a purely Palestinian-"Israeli"
deal that drags the Palestinians farther away from any possible
political coordination with Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, or other Arab states.
On a deeper more serious level, by taking Palestinians as wanna-be
citizens in the Hebrew State, the Third Way neglects the fact
Palestinians are an intrinsic part of the Arab nation and the Islamic
world. Thus, a whole set of issues relating to identity, loyalty, and
history are passed over. ANY TALK ABOUT A BI-NATIONAL STATE, AND UNDER
ANY CONDITIONS, WILL INSTANTLY BUMP INTO THE HARD QUESTION OF HOW
PALESTINIANS RELATE TO ARABS AND MUSLIMS.
But will this change if the bi-national state was declared secular?
First of all, secularism by itself does not guarantee that a state or
society won't be racist. Afro-Americans who lived as slaves in America
were living in a secular not a religious state. Furthermore, enshrining
equality amongst citizens in the constitution is a necessary but an
insufficient condition for equality before the law between the citizens
of a state. Hence, the exact conditions necessary for the [peaceful?]
transformation of "Israel" into a non-racist, non-expansionist, and
non-aggressive state need to be elaborated on a lot more by the
proponents of the Third Way.
Nevertheless, it helps to point out here how the proposal for a
bi-national state at this stage fits politically into the game of posing
solutions for the Palestine issue. At first, the PLO adopted the
project of a secular democratic state in Palestine, with special
emphasis on an ethical and humane solution, where the demographic
results of the Zionist invasion of Palestine would be accepted with
pleasure, as long as Jews accept to live equally with Muslims and
Christians before the law. Pressures mounted on Fatah, the mainstream
group of the PLO, to give a few more concessions. The PLO was told that
a secular democratic state is unrealistic since it did not fit U.N.
resolutions and sought in fact to destroy "Israel".
BUT AS LONG AS THE PLO HAD ALREADY ACCEPTED THE PRINCIPLE OF A
COMPREHENSIVE SOLUTION INVOLVING COEXISTENCE, they were told, why not
take a more realistic step in order to make it big into the club were
solutions to the Palestinian question are posed and peddled!!! The
leadership of the PLO obliged. The ten-point program was endorsed in
1974, implicitly dropping the concept of total liberation inherent in
the secular democratic state and accepting instead, ostensibly
temporarily, a Palestinian state on any inch of Palestine. The chain of
concessions always giving up more and more Palestinian rights and
sovereignty to get "more realistic" followed through until Oslo 1 was
reached. Then Oslo 2, the Hebron Agreement, and recently Wye Plantation
completed the circle of retreat.
Now the Third Way is allegedly being suggested as an alternative to the
miserable consequences of that downward spiraling process delineated
above. Moreover, it is being presented as a humane and ethical solution
that might even appeal to elites and intellectuals in "Israel" and the
West, and thus be more effective in promoting Palestinian rights. Yet
the danger of this Trojan Horse is that it is being sugarcoated and
window-dressed not to appeal to those who can make decisions or make a
difference on the question of Palestine, BUT TO APPEAL TO THE SUPPORTERS
OF THE ISLAMIC AND OTHER PALESTINIAN OPPOSITION GROUPS TO SET THEM ON A
SLIPPERY SLOPE SIMILAR TO THE ONE FATAH TOOK WHEN IT ADOPTED THEN
REPUDIATED THE SLOGAN OF THE SECULAR DEMOCRATIC STATE IN ALL OF
PALESTINE. The Third Way has only a few marginal supporters in
"Israeli" society itself. But more importantly, it suffers from a real
lack of understanding for the nature of the Zionist entity and a more
severe lack of understanding for the essence of the Palestinian cause
and rights.
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2) "One Plot after Another" A poem by Samir Taha
http://www.mindspring.com/~fav/onePlotAfterAnother.htm
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