Rethinking the Palestinian Problem and 'The Right Strategy' for Palestinian Liberation.

• Author: Aral, Berdal
• Position: COMMENTARY

Introduction

The forced eviction of Palestinians from Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood and the ensuing mass protests that started in East Jerusalem in May 2021 immediately saw the assault by Israeli security forces on worshippers in and outside of al-Aqsa Mosque. Many Palestinians were killed, and hundreds were injured in the carnage. The wave of protests also spread into Gaza, other parts of the West Bank, and to areas of Israel populated mostly by Palestinians. In response to the Israeli refusal to remove its security forces from the al-Aqsa Mosque, Hamas forces began launching rockets into Israel on May 10, 2021. The Zionist state, in other words, Israel, as founded on Zionist nationalism with the goal of creating a Jewish state in Palestine, retaliated by launching a campaign of massive airstrikes that continued for 11 days causing enormous damage, mostly, to civilian targets. The human and physical devastation resulting from this latest episode of Zionist aggression against Gaza, consisting of a stream of war crimes, was appalling; more than 250 Palestinians, including 66 children, were killed, about 2000 were wounded and more than 72,000 inhabitants were displaced.

This commentary begins with a sketch of the Palestinian ordeal as an 'international' problem. It is noted that the Palestinian problem is not only a matter for 'Palestinians,' but the direct or indirect victims of Zionists should also encompass various peoples in the Arab world. This essay, then, takes issue with the mantra of the 'two-state solution' and asserts that this narrative is a cul-de-sac for Palestinian aspirations. After this, the paper probes into the anomaly of Israel's treatment by international society as a 'normal' state. Based on evidence, it concludes that, inter alia, the Zionist state's colonial-settler nature and the system of apartheid which it has officialized, requires that it should be treated as a pariah state. This essay, next, endeavors to indicate how, as is manifest in the Organization of Islamic Cooperation's (OIC) general posture and resolutions, the Muslim world's failure to stand against the Zionist aggressor through concrete action, has been a major facet of the deepening occupation and ethnic cleansing in Palestine. The commentary ends with some concluding remarks that identify the urgency of the need for imperative international action against Israel, such as embargos and political alienation, within and without the United Nations (UN), as was the case against Apartheid South Africa during the Cold War.

The Palestinian Tragedy as an 'International' Problem

The Palestinian problem is, before anything, a tragedy that has befallen on the people whom we identify as 'Palestinians.' Doubtless, the emergence and aggravation of the Palestinian problem is closely linked to the malaise within the international system; and to the onset and endurance of neo-colonial and imperialistic onslaught on the Middle East after the demise of the Ottoman Empire. Palestinians are, first of all, a part of the broader Arab nation. In the light of the unceasing Zionist aggression against the Arab states, such as Syria and Lebanon, right from the genesis of Israel in 1948 and of its devious strategy of sowing the seeds of disunity among various Arab states, the Zionist state poses a major threat to the Arab world. Therefore, making emancipatory headways towards the solution of the Palestinian problem is very much dependent on petering out the imperialist penetration in the area (and, in fact, in much of the non-western world). Therefore, Palestinian liberation can only be achieved if the Palestinians and the Arab world threw away the persistent patterns of domination and exploitation by outside hegemonic powers which arrest the economic and political emancipation of Arab societies.

An occupied Palestine is not only a Palestinian and Arab problem but is also a 'Muslim' problem. The fact that al-Quds, which, inter alia, hosts al-Aqsa Mosque, is held in sanctity by the Islamic faith, that most of the Palestinians are Muslims, and that Israel is situated at the very core of the Muslim geography, add additional impetus to the existing Muslim grievances about the horror of injustices committed against the Palestinian people. This explains why the Palestinian problem was the mainframe of reference that ignited the founding of the Islamic Conference Organization in 1969.

The Palestinian tragedy is also a problem of the global South. Israel has always acted as a stooge of imperialism that has relentlessly sought to subvert anti-imperialistic political movements in Asia and Africa. The attitude that different states adopt in regard to the Palestinian problem is a major indicator of their posture vis-a-vis the global hegemonic system and the role that they play in this system. The Palestinian problem is the very epitome of global injustice, and any state that supports the Zionist state against the Palestinians is in fact purchasing evil in exchange for goodness. Unless the Palestinians are 'decolonized,' one could not convincingly speak about the real 'decolonization' of the formerly colonized countries and peoples across the world. The mechanisms of colonialism and racism which link many non-western societies into the fold of a white supremacist hegemonic world system, decree the former's subjugation to the system. Therefore, the liberation of Palestine, as the mother of all contemporary injustices and a product of the international systemic malaise, is also a key ingredient of the global South's age-old struggle for freedom from the imperial yoke.

Finally, the Palestinian problem is the kind of tragedy with which the whole world/entire humanity can identify. This is because, granting that this long-lasting and deep-seated tragedy encapsulates almost all forms of human suffering that oppressors could possibly inflict on their victim communities, and, therefore, is a sort of textbook written in blood. These crimes range from settler-colonialism, military occupation, racism, egregious human rights violations, uprooting of the indigenous population, war crimes, and crimes against humanity through to the denial of indigenous identity and culture, as well as daily humiliation of individual Palestinians, which together evoke the natural human revulsion against injustice and oppression. In comparison to western societies, the Palestinian ordeal has possibly deeper emotional connotations with societies in the global South, simply because the tragic colonial subjugation of most Asian and African societies in the past centuries allows non-western peoples to greatly sympathize with the unmistakable suffering of the Palestinians at the hands of Zionist settler-colonialism. Such subjugated societies, like the Palestinians of the recent past and today, were dehumanized in the narrative of European colonialism on account of their 'inferior' ethnic and cultural identity. Edward Said notes that the European rush for grabbing new territories as part of their colonial enterprise in the second part of the 19th century largely coincided with the beginning of the Zionist immigration into Palestine. (1)

The Mantra of the 'Two-State Solution'

Leading international actors, such as the U.S., the European Union, and the United Nations, that pay lip service to the two-state solution are not 'in fact' sufficiently committed to the resolution of the Palestinian problem. The Oslo Peace Process that kick-started in 1993 has laid bare before our eyes that Israel has no intention to accept the existence of a sovereign and sustainable Palestinian state. The key global actors who could potentially have some bearing on the solution of the Palestinian conundrum are precisely the ones that pursue 'conciliation' towards this aggressor state. While they repeat the mantra of a 'two-state...