Demoralisation
And Absence
By
Ramzy Baroud
02 December,
2007
Countercurrents.org
A
once profound and widely read commentator recently claimed he no longer
writes about the Palestine/Israel conflict because "Palestinians
are killing each other". Feeling his words have ceased to carry
weight he simply decided not "to take sides".
What should
be made of such a reaction? Granted, what has transpired in Palestine
in recent years is disheartening, demoralising and confusing.
It is disheartening
because a long-victimised nation, subject to an intense and ongoing
colonial project should deploy all its energies in fighting its enemy's
long-term goal of an ethnically cleansed Palestine, i.e. a Palestine
without Palestinians. Infighting is hardly an appropriate response to
colonialism.
It is demoralising
because the Palestinians should inspire a global movement aimed at sending
a clear message to Israel, that racism, colonialism and apartheid no
longer have a place in a world that seeks equality, peace and harmony.
Unfortunately a divided nation cannot present a unifying leadership,
let alone a unified message.
And what
is happening in Palestine is very confusing to many of those who have
long sided with the Palestinian struggle for freedom. It is a struggle
that has been manipulated to suit the aims of different groups, each
spurred on by ideological, religious and other motives. In some places
the fight in Palestine is conducted on behalf of Islam, in others it
is to resist racism. For some, the Palestinian struggle is an aspect
of the class war, and I once read, somewhere, the battle between Israel
and the Palestinians described as a civil war.
Thus is the
conflict between a nation denied its land and basic freedoms and a state
with immense wealth and power distorted, allowing the latter to defy
international law on a daily basis, thanks in part to the backing of
the world's only superpower, the United States. Decontextualised, the
struggle has become the vehicle for spurious meanings that lead to the
misunderstanding of what is in fact transpiring. In some instances it
has led to an over-romanticising of the conflict, which goes part way
to explaining the bewildered response of many who long stood in solidarity
with the Palestinian people.
But the Hamas
takeover of Gaza in June 2006, and the factionalism and bloodshed associated
with it should not have come as a surprise. The conflict in Palestine,
like any other conflict, is rational, and can serve as a classic example
of a regional conflict with international boundaries, allowing opportunity
for analysis that does in fact matter to Americans (the role of their
country in the conflict, and the power of the Israeli lobby in their
midst), the Europeans (who wish to see a truly independent Europe playing
a less injurious role in a region where they have a vested interest
in stability), the United Nations (whose credibility has been damaged
too often by the belligerent US-Israeli alliance), and others.
Many questions
must be asked and debated. Should solidarity with the people of Palestine
wane because the Palestinians chose a religious group to represent them
in democratic elections, hurting the secular sensibilities of many of
their supporters? Can the Palestinians be held collectively responsible
for the few among them who choose to align their interests with those
of power and capital? Is what Mahmoud Abbas did -- working with the
coloniser to isolate a large segment of his people -- unprecedented?
Has any nation that fought for its freedom actually managed to avoid
the peril of infighting?
One can understand
the sense of demoralisation that has struck many supporters of the Palestinian
cause as events unfolded in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. However,
it is also important to warn that if such demoralisation is caused by
the Palestinians failing to live up to the ideological and religious
expectations of others, then it is perhaps time for those others to
engage in some serious introspection as to why they wished to support
the Palestinian struggle in the first place.
I believe
that there is no choice but to side with that which is just and morally
upright even at the risk of creating ideological inconsistencies or,
dare I say, upsetting religious dogma. The conflict in Palestine doesn't
have to be a straightforward clash between haves and have-nots, blacks
and whites, Muslims and Jews.
The responsibility
of deciphering recent accretions to the seemingly mystifying conflict
is the responsibility of the intellectual who is capable of research,
analysis and articulation. The intellectual is not a cheerleader, nor
a poet, and should, no matter where his sympathies lie, remain capable
of dispassionately approaching the subject at hand.
Over 30 years
ago, Noam Chomsky wrote in the New York Review of Books : "Intellectuals
are in a position to expose the lies of governments, to analyze actions
according to their causes and motives and often hidden intentions. In
the Western world, at least, they have the power that comes from political
liberty, from access to information and freedom of expression."
No one can
claim that the Palestinian question is easy to understand. It may be
a classic colonial case that should not have been allowed to fester
for so long but to grasp an event as recent as Palestinian infighting
requires an examination of various layers of analyses, local, regional
and international. One must ask questions about causes, motives and
hidden intentions. If done properly, this will show that as disheartening,
demoralising and confusing as they may seem from the outside, recent
developments in Palestine were predictable and are consistent with the
history of past national struggles. If we do not wish to shirk our moral
and intellectual responsibilities we must resist the temptation to make
of Palestine an exception.
Ramzy
Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com.
His work has been published in many newspapers and journals worldwide.
His latest book is The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a
People's Struggle (Pluto Press, London).
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