Reclaiming
Palestine
By Osamah Khalil
01 August, 2007
The
Electronic Intifada
Today,
Palestine and the Palestinians are divided as never before. The West
Bank and Gaza are geographically and politically separated, and Israel's
Apartheid Wall is carving the West Bank into isolated cantons. These
divisions are exacerbated by the political rift between Fatah and Hamas
and the specter of civil war. Meanwhile, stateless Palestinian refugees
are largely disconnected from their brethren in Palestine and the Diaspora,
as well as from any semblance of a representative national movement.
Another far more intangible factor, has been the impact on the Palestinian
psyche not just of 41 years of a brutal occupation, but of assisting
in their own oppression since the Oslo Accords were signed. This environment
does not create states or peace, it perpetuates personal and societal
devastation. Thus begging the question: what can be done to reverse
this trend toward permanent dislocation? By concentrating on dissolving
the Palestinian Authority (PA) and reviving the Palestine Liberation
Organization (PLO), Palestinians, and all those sympathetic to their
cause, can take advantage of a window of opportunity that currently
exists to reclaim their national movement.
The PA currently represents
Washington and Israel's most vulnerable ally in their shared vision
for reshaping the Middle East. With a "caretaker government"
populated by a coalition of bland unelected technocrats and led by a
president who long ago chose the United States and Israel over his own
people, the PA is no longer a viable political entity for Palestinians.
For Israel, however, it is essential because it maintains the facade
of Palestinian civil rule, from which it derives extensive political
and economic benefits. From a public relations perspective, the existence
of the PA has allowed supporters of Israel to claim that there is no
occupation, that these territories are "disputed" or the more
extreme statement that the Palestinians already have their own "dysfunctional
state and government." This situation has also served to confuse
the basic facts of the conflict, leading some misguided observers to
believe that there are two states whose armies are at war, rather than
one state, Israel, occupying an entire people on their own land.
By outsourcing civil services
to the PA, Israel has been able to free itself from the burdens of providing
an Israeli staff for the top bureaucratic positions, as it did from
1967 to 1994. Moreover, because it is still collecting tax revenues
for the PA, one of many myopic provisions of the Oslo Accords, and withholding
them when and for as long as they see fit, Palestinian civil service
employees are compensated intermittently, if at all. The fanfare surrounding
Israel's recent release of $120 million dollars in an attempt to bolster
President Mahmoud Abbas, largely ignored that this was a fraction of
the $500 to $700 million owed. Israel claims that it continues to withhold
money due to PA debts, including for water and power services. Due to
another short-sighted arrangement under Oslo, Palestinians have the
privilege of paying more for inconsistent and inadequate utility services
than either Israeli citizens or Israeli settlers in the occupied territories.
Moreover, Israel's political and military policies prevent the establishment
of efficient and independent utility services for the Palestinians.
Indeed, Israel's monopoly over these services is more than just a deliberate
policy of "de-development," as Harvard scholar Sara Roy has
demonstrated; it ensures a perpetual state of dependence and occupation,
to which the PA is an active participant.
The PA will not dissolve
itself. Without pressure from the entire Palestinian community, inside
and outside of the occupied territories, the political hacks and their
entourage of sycophants that populate the PA leadership will not relinquish
power. Their careers and personal fortunes, skimmed from the public
coffers, are dependent upon their continued rule. Success requires that
this effort be led by Palestinians living in the occupied territories
across all levels of society. They elected both Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas
in free and fair elections, and they must declare that they no longer
have confidence in the body that purports to represent them. As past
attempts have demonstrated, this must be a broad-based effort, not just
limited to an elite clique of intellectuals or an isolated group of
committed grass-roots activists. This will require "rank and file"
members of Fatah to acknowledge that their leadership has failed them
and the Palestinian people. Similarly, the Hamas leadership must reiterate
its commitment to national unity and to join a larger movement whose
goal is an independent Palestinian state. While those Palestinians who
have advocated for a "third way" now have an opportunity to
be part of a broader coalition which will help them achieve the political
goals they have advocated. At the grassroots level, this process must
be supported by the different trade unions and federations in the territories,
whose membership comprises a broad swath of the Palestinian public that
has arguably suffered the most from the brutality of the Israeli occupation
and the corruption and incompetence of the PA. Similarly, the civil
servants of the PA who have attempted to serve their people honorably
must also recognize that the leadership has not done the same. Obtaining
participation by all these groups will not be easy, but it is essential.
National unity is the only path to success, factionalism and petty fiefdoms
will result in failure.
These efforts can, and must,
be supported by Palestinians in the Diaspora. Those who believe in the
need for national unity should begin organizing at the local and national
levels to withdraw the political, financial, and moral support for the
PA and its leadership. This support must be redirected toward those
individuals and groups in the West Bank and Gaza organizing against
the PA. Roughly 160,000 Palestinians are currently employed by the PA,
but they represent over 750,000 Palestinians due to extended family
networks, and mechanisms must be developed to support them financially.
Palestinian professional and intellectual groups outside the territories
must coordinate and unite with their counterparts inside Palestine to
declare as publicly and widely as possible, in Arabic and English, that
the PA must be disbanded. This declaration should be expanded by boycotting
officials and institutions associated with the PA, including diplomatic
fronts like the American Task Force on Palestine, a group that boasts
among its slim record of "achievements," sponsoring polo matches
and hosting a speech by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. At the
very minimum, all Palestinians who live in countries with a PA mission
should contact it and demand that the PA leadership resign, the PA be
dissolved and new elections to the Palestine National Council (PNC)
be held. Silence is no longer an option; it provides a leadership that
has lost its legitimacy with security and consent and further enables
the occupation.
In conjunction with these
efforts, a delegation of former PLO officials who resigned after Oslo
must meet with the remaining current leadership untainted by the PA.
It is imperative that these current PLO officials live up to the duties
of their office and reaffirm their commitment to the national movement
by helping to organize new elections to the PNC. Similarly, negotiations
must be held with key Hamas leaders, inside and outside the occupied
territories, to formally bring the organization into the PLO so they
can participate in the PNC elections. If the current officials refuse
to act, then they must be pressured to step aside. This is a time for
leaders, not divas.
However, Palestinians can
expect that any attempt to reassert control over their representative
institutions will be resisted by the United States and Israel with assistance
from the European Union and conservative Arab regimes. This will include
promoting alternative organizations and leaderships, as well as rebranding
a revived PLO as a "terrorist organization," regardless of
its political strategies and policies. Yet, this cannot be a deterrent
or an excuse for non-action. Palestinians have faced these obstacles
before and must do so again if they have any hope of ending Israel's
occupation, realizing the right of return, and achieving an independent
state.
What has been proposed above
is not a comprehensive strategy or a blueprint, it is a starting point
for a discussion in which all Palestinians must engage and contribute.
Nor are these suggestions novel or revolutionary. For ten years until
his death, Edward Said wrote and spoke eloquently and passionately about
the depravity of the PA and the need for a new representative body free
of the machinations of Yasser Arafat and his coterie. If you agreed
with him then, his words are even more relevant today. Even those who
dismissed his contentions as ivory tower griping must now acknowledge
that his analysis was prescient. The PA is not the future of Palestinian
self-government but an abortion masquerading as one. In the name of
all those who have sacrificed their lives for freedom and justice in
Palestine, it is imperative that Palestinians act now.
Osamah Khalil
is a Palestinian-American doctoral candidate in US and Middle East history
at the University of California, Berkeley, focusing on US foreign policy
in the Middle East. He can be reached at okhalil at berkeley.edu.
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