Unmasking
The Second
Palestinian Intifada
By Remi Kanazi
01 November, 2006
Countercurrents.org
Over
the last five years, the Palestinian people have faced a host of obstacles
in their fight for sovereignty, preventing them the opportunity to create
a life those in the Western world brag about. A principal impediment
facing the Palestinian struggle today is the constant reaffirmation
that the Palestinian people—deemed by Israel and the US—are
“terrorists,” “militants,” or animalistic beings
lesser than those of the “civilized world.” In Ramzy Baroud’s
new book, The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of People’s
Struggle, this myth is shattered. The propaganda that has infiltrated
Western discourse has proven counterfeit; misinformation that has framed
US policy regarding Israel, leading to a multitude of double standards
imposed upon Palestinians. These inconsistencies have exponentially
magnified the suffering of the Palestinian people and hindered their
efforts to gain control of the land in which they live.
Baroud poignantly describes
the dilemma Palestinians face. The generalization that all Palestinians
are “terrorists” or “militants,” allows the
Israeli government to act with virtual impunity and equips Israeli forces
with a moral endowment; they are acting in the name of “good”
and challenging this policy is tantamount to collusion with the “forces
of evil.” Baroud offers the reader this grim truth, “Being
a Palestinian activist means you could be targeted in a taxicab, in
your office, sipping coffee with your neighbors, or sitting in your
home. When you live, you live in poverty, deprived of all freedoms and
joys of life. And when you die, it’s a horrible death by a surface-to-surface
missile, a car bomb, or a sniper’s bullet.”
The sincerity and passion
in Baroud’s approach is remarkable and commendable. The reader
is given the opportunity to feel the angst and heartfelt anger sparked
inside Baroud, a Palestinian born in a Gazan refugee camp and a writer
who searched Jenin in hopes of finding the truth and preserving the
stories of those that had suffered. Baroud has worked tirelessly to
shine light on the mischaracterized Palestinian; civilians and activists
who have been and continue to be sacrificed as inconsequential variables
in Israel’s fight for “the greater good.”
For more than five years,
successive Israeli governments implemented policies that undermined
the possibilities of freedom and democracy in Occupied Territories,
the very principals the United States proclaimed it tried to spread
throughout the region. Palestinians further saw their human rights and
chances for sustenance and sustainability calculatedly stripped away
by Israel’s supposed “moral” military. Time and again,
Baroud debunks the falsehoods put forth by Israel and America, falsehoods
consequently disseminated by Western media outlets. Israel’s objective
is to reinforce the notion that it is the Palestinian people who are
the aggressors, while Israel is the patient victim—acting in self
defense under only the most extreme cases. Baroud notes, “It’s
the same dreadful scenario repeated incessantly. Israel murders many
innocent civilians; the international community hears nothing, sees
nothing, and does nothing…in anger and desperation, a Palestinian
blows himself up in a crowd of Israeli…the Western world is utterly
overcome with a wave of condemnations of “Palestinian terrorism,”
“the enemies of peace.”
Baroud comes back to the
issue of suicide bombings several times in his book. An erroneous claim
presented in Western circles is that the Palestinian people are brought
up to hate, kill, foment intolerance and engage in regressive thought
and actions. This supposedly triggers the reason for a Palestinian to
become a suicide bomber. Baroud aptly asserts, however, that Palestinians
are not driven to end their lives because they are products of intolerance
or consumed with hatred. Rather he gives a more practical motivation
for one to commit such an act. Baroud states, “When a policy of
starvation, assassination, and systematic killing is imposed, when people
are brutalized in the streets, when schools are raided by Apache helicopters…when
a whole nation is collectively abused and violated with almost no protection…for
those victims…blowing oneself up might actually seem like a rational
way out of a despairing situation.”
Baroud makes it clear that
the way forward is to take the moral high ground, no matter how hard
the struggle, and no matter what dividends one may think it yields,
politically or personally. This is what has fundamentally separated
the occupier and occupied for so long in this conflict; a clear cut
victim existed, it was the Palestinians, suffering 39 years of occupation,
with many still affected by the hardships of dispossession 58 years
later. Baroud writes, “To maintain its moral edge, the Palestinian
revolution should not depart from its all-encompassing, tolerant, and
inclusive path, it should not be tainted by the fallacies of the occupier…These
values must remain untainted, wholesome even, so that the will of the
people might some day prevail over tyranny and oppression. And it will,
of this I am certain.”
The spirit of non-violent
resistance has been alive since the birth of the Palestinian struggle.
Most notably, the non-violent protests of the first Intifada, which
were met by the iron fist of the Israeli state. This iron fist policy
was a specialty of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon during the second Intifada.
Baroud writes, “They go to the streets to protest the killing
of a child, and they return home carrying another shot while protesting.”
Non-violent protests have been plentiful in the second Intifada, but
through growing desperation, measures that were traditionally absent
from the Palestinian struggle were taken up by individuals consumed
with feelings of helplessness and anger, triggered by the wrongs inflicted
upon their people by the Israeli state.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon,
the “Butcher of Beirut,” the rogue military man who wasn’t
afraid of controversy and saw diplomacy as a nuisance, wasn’t
scared to put down resistance of any kind, whether the resistance came
in the form of children throwing rocks or a group non-violently protesting
against the Apartheid Wall. His bulldog tactics and ruthless policies
were not only his modus operandi but his raison d’être.
It was in this context that his policies were carried out, without regard
to “collateral damage.”
Baroud aptly asserts that
the Palestinian response to Israeli aggression “should have been
a wake-up call for the Israeli government, making it clear that violence
begets nothing but violence and…that a solution to the conflict
would only come through the implementation of international law, not
Apache helicopters and missiles.” If the Israeli government wouldn’t
pull back the reigns of Ariel Sharon, then surely the US, the UN, the
EU or any country with the slightest backbone could have uttered words
of condemnation against Israel. The status quo, however, continued:
America rallied around Israel, the rest of the international community
remained silent and the Palestinians suffered the consequences.
In deep rooted conflicts,
it is important to note that intention matters much more than action.
Take for example, the unilateral disengagement of the Gaza Strip; Sharon
had no intention of giving the Palestinian people autonomy, nor did
he have the intention of giving Gazans control of their resources, airspace,
territorial water, or borders. Sharon saw the pullout as a necessary
militaristic and political move, a shift in policy that benefited Israel,
without any consideration for the lives of the 1.4 million Palestinians
that would be left living in an open air prison, under de facto Israeli
occupation. Without missing a beat, the international community and
media applauded Sharon’s “gesture of peace.” This
was the fundamental flaw of the unilateral disengagement of the Gaza
Strip, it was predicated on the assertion that disengagement equated
to peace, and it’s what makes the notion that Sharon had gone
through a transformation such an egregious fallacy.
Throughout the conflict,
the primary US excuses to support Israel has been that “Israel
is our friend,” it is the “only democracy in the Middle
East,” and “given the times we live in” (i.e. the
post 9/11 world), it is more crucial than ever to support Israel’s
struggle against “tyranny and Islamic fanaticism.” After
that tragic morning, when nearly 2800 American citizens lost their lives,
the people of the US have been constantly ingested with propaganda promoting
policies suitable for the US government and its “friends”,
but directly contradict the principals of humanity and any sensible
definition of justice. Policy makers and government officials in the
West have used this heartbreaking event to create an “us versus
them” type of world, without educating us on who “them”
is.
Baroud explains the new model,
“Fighting terror is the new trend; whereby aggressive, powerful
countries crush their weaker foes, deprive them of freedom, while continuing
to blame them for all the woes of the world. And we, the people of this
world who mean well but fail to act, are expected to believe everything
we are told. Israel is defending itself as though it were the Palestinian
who occupy Israeli territories, besiege the Israel people, blow up their
homes, steal their land, and gun down their children.” At some
point the light switch has to turn on in our heads that killing and
creating “evil empires” when it serves interests, rather
than when it serves logic, is a flaw that tears at the very fabric of
truly democratic societies. Baroud writes, “When will we treasure
the lives of people of all nations on an equal level, whether they be
American, Afghani, Iraqi, Israeli, Palestinian, Turkish, Kurdish, Russian,
Chechen, or any other? How long will we remain blinded by empty slogans,
unexplained hatred, and pretentious condemnations?”
Baroud leaves no one untouched
in The Second Palestinian Intifada. He does much to underscore the shortcomings
of the late Yasser Arafat, the weakness and lack of credibility of Mahmood
Abbas, and the many failures of US intervention (passed off as honest
brokering). Baroud doesn’t pull punches when critiquing the Palestinian
Authority (PA), particularly its corruptness and incompetence.
Baroud specifically uncovers
the disingenuousness of “negotiations” led by Abbas and
highlights the acquiescence and political posturing of Palestinian figures
in times when strength and political purity was needed. Under the rule
of the “old guard,” the PA lost sight of the Palestinian
struggle. The PA’s duties were supposed to include preserving
and fighting for the rights of its people, defending its citizens against
the sordid policies of Israel, and demanding that the international
community intervene. Yet, the leaders within the PA were so intent on
keeping power and following defunct policies rooted in corruption and
nepotism, that they failed to remember that they weren’t representing
themselves, but a population of 3.8 million people, a people who were
suffering the daily realities of occupation.
Palestinian ineptitude only
strengthened Israel’s position and policy, which Israel had no
intention of changing. Israel never had any desire, or pressure, to
implement international law, nor did it intend to pursue a course of
action that respected Palestinian human rights. Whether Labor, Likud,
or Kadima, each Israeli administration knew that a change in policy
would fly in the face of what it was trying to accomplish: the territorial
control and expropriation of fertile Palestinian land in the West Bank,
the annexation of East Jerusalem, the control of the Palestinian people’s
water supply, and the suppression of the Palestinians inalienable right
to autonomy and freedom from occupation in any form. This is why resolution
194 (calling for the right of return), and resolution 242 and 338 (calling
on Israel to pull back to the June 1967 borders) have never been seriously
discussed—not after the signing of the Oslo Accords, not at Camp
David in 2000 and surely not since.
It is not just the ruling
Palestinian Authority that faced problems, but rather all factions,
particularly in the lead up to the unilateral “disengagement”
of the Gaza Strip. Baroud suggests, “By failing to take care of
their own destiny in a unified fashion, Palestinians…were taking
the risk of being marginalized and victimized by mandates and caretakers…A[n]
internal dispute coupled with muscle-flexing would deeply harm all that
the Palestinians had fought long and hard to achieve. The media was,
as ever, willing to condemn and lambaste Palestinians, their incompetence
and failures, retrospectively validating Israel’s policy”
Baroud’s glimpses of
frustration, anger, and jarring sarcasm gives his story a distinct humanness,
a tone that is refreshing, and one that the reader can identify with.
After being inundated with death tallies and daily reports of carnage,
readers many times become desensitized to the news, making one forget
how horrible, tragic, and grueling occupied Palestinian life truly is.
At one point, Baroud seems
fed up with the almost comical confines the Palestinian people are put
in. Baroud asserts, “It [Israel] killed and wounded hundreds of
civilians in its ‘targeted killing’ sprees. Yet, Palestinians
were condemned if they showed the mere desire to respond. Even the targeting
of occupation soldiers was taboo. So what were the Palestinians permitted
to do in self-defense, in accordance with the twisted pro-Israeli Bush
doctrine? How about marching in a peaceful demonstration? In, Rafah,
that too was anathema and could not be tolerated. It was handled with
resolute vigor, the same way a ‘terrorist’ threat deserved
to be handled: A missile fired from a U.S.-supplied Apache helicopter
was all that it took to eliminate that option of resistance.”
The Second Palestinian Intifada
is not merely a tirade on the Palestinian people being subjected to
Israeli policy and US support of that policy. The way forward is clear:
the acceptance and instituting of international law, the end to the
39 year occupation, and the emergence of fair brokers, mainly the US,
the UN, and the European Union.
The relevancy and necessity
for Baroud’s analysis and critique in these pressing times cannot
be overstated. The genuineness of Baroud’s approach is one to
be admired and applauded. His insistence to uncover injustices carried
out by Israel (with full support of the US administration) is unwavering,
yet doesn’t cloud his judgment.
At his core, Baroud stays
hopeful, “It has always been an old habit of mine to sign off
messages in the days preceding the New year by expressing: ‘I
pray that the coming year will bring peace and justice to our troubled
world.’ Despite disappointing experiences, I persist in this,
because hope is essential.”
The fight for Palestine,
a vision to end the injustice imposed upon them, illustrates the common
threat of injustice that plagues all oppressed people. This struggle
is something to be cherished, to work for and to improve. Baroud explains,
“In spite of dashed hopes and failed summits, peace and justice
movements around the word, representing an array of struggles, continue
to look to the Palestinian people as an icon of resistance.”
What is happening today in
the Occupied Territories isn’t politics. It is an overwhelming
nightmare that plagues 3.8 million people every day. Each person in
the Occupied Territories has a story, a story that is equally significant
and heartbreaking, whether revealing that a relative has been killed,
land has been taken from them, their home has been bulldozed to the
ground or the humiliating act of being stopped, restricted, or harassed
by Israel forces, this is the reality with which they live. The human
story Baroud puts forth is meant not only to educate and inform, but
to encourage and inspire. The peoples of struggle mustn’t be forgotten,
nor should they be silenced. Baroud does service to this cause and because
of it, has left the flame of struggle burning brighter.
The Second Palestinian Intifada : A Chronicle of a People’s Struggle,
published by Pluto Press, can be found on Amazon.com.
Remi Kanazi
is the primary writer for the political website www.PoeticInjustice.net
He is the editor of the forthcoming book of poetry, Poets for Palestine,
for more information go to Poetic Injustice. He lives can reached via
email at [email protected]
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