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Palestine@UN: Too few cooks spoil the peace

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The asymmetry in power between Israelis and Palestinians and the exclusion of key players mean that the quest for UN recognition of an independent Palestine is like the icing on an uncooked cake.

Thursday 8 September 2011

September 1993 marked what many at the time described as a revolutionary breakthrough in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. It was the month that saw the sealing of the Declaration of Principles – commonly known as the Oslo Accords – between the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), represented by Yasser Arafat, and the Israeli state.

On the 18^th anniversary of the failed accords, analysis has focused on the role of the potentially significant United Nations recognition of an independent Palestinian state. The real question, for those interested in conflict resolution, is not whether the UN recognises Palestine but to what extent have things changed since Oslo? Have the ‘spoilers’ of the peace process learnt from the lessons of Oslo? Has the environment in anyway changed to create a context that is more conducive to resolving the conflict?

Essentially, has the situation really changed to allow for the current diplomatic initiative to transcend legal rhetoric and elite jubilance and deliver significant change for those living, day in and day out, this conflict?

Looking at peace processes broadly, especially seemingly successful ones, such as the Northern Ireland case, the essential elements for success are inclusiveness, accountability and an environment that limits spoiler success. Spoilers are actors who attempt to derail the peace process for their own interests.

So did the Oslo recipe include these vital ingredients?

Oslo could in no way be described as inclusive. An elected Israeli government representative could be described as representative of the Israeli people but on the other side of the negotiating table sat Arafat and his clique. Despite it being described as a negotiation with the PLO, the umbrella group representing Palestinian factions, the reality was far from the case.

The Palestinian side was Arafat-centric and, despite claims that the PLO was a representative of the Palestinians, the context in which they came to the negotiating table was one of a bedraggled, increasingly irrelevant group of people who not only physically but mentally were moving away from those whose cause they were representing.

The condition in which the PLO went into negotiation has been described as one of desperate need. Booted out of Lebanon, pushed into Yemen and Tunisia, lacking significant Arab state support following the PLO’s backing of Saddam Hussein during the 1990 Gulf war, not to mention the collapse of the Soviet Union, one of its major funders, all contributed to the organisation feeling very alone and isolated.

In addition, within the occupied territories, groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, later to become some of the key external spoilers to the conflict, had begun to gain ground. Islamic Jihad formed as a radical splinter group of the Muslim Brotherhood and, alongside Hamas, played a role in igniting the first intifada. Yet, the two groups were excluded from the Israeli-Palestinian talks.

This dismissive attitude towards militant groups was a hindrance to the peace process. And it is this continued ostracisation of important, even if controversial and questionable, groups that limits any future chance of effective conflict resolution. That said, the recent Fatah-Hamas unity deal in Cairo, although labelled as a setback for peace by the Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, certainly forces an important, even if undesired, extra actor to any future negotiating table.

By comparison, the Good Friday agreement in Northern Ireland ensured inclusiveness from the outset through the participation – later democratic – of extremely opposing groups and potentially militant movements who were offered a non-violent platform to express their grievances and work towards democratic mobilisation of the masses.

Oslo, on the other hand, not only closed opportunities for participation in the early days but also failed to open up the spectrum for participation gradually. By centring the Palestinian side of the negotiations on an individual and his tightly knit group, it left no room for others to get involved. In addition, the responsibility and title the Oslo process bestowed on the PLO representatives encouraged them to close off the political system to other players. This has not only led to the rise of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, but also the clear creation of an authoritarian regime, in the guise of the Palestinian Authority, led by Fatah.

As the late Edward Said once put it: “After years of being the victims of Arab and Israeli repression, Palestinians have finally earned the right of a repressive system of their own.”

Israel’s insistence on only negotiating with one party has closed the system off to the development of a more representative group of Palestinian negotiators. To this day, negotiations do not take place with those that the Palestinians feel represent them but rather the group, or more commonly the individual, that Israel and the United States deem should represent them. With such a chasm between the masses and the elite, the perfect gap is created for spoilers to do what they do best: spoil the process.

Essentially, a successful attempt at resolution of this conflict would see the Palestinians experiencing improvement in their daily lives and Israelis feeling more secure in their own homes. Unfortunately, Oslo set the tone for an environment of very little positive change, which gave the spoilers on both sides the perfect opportunity to wreak havoc with very little accountability.

The extremely violent, uncompromising, fervent settler communities of the occupied territories are never going to be satisfied with any compromise with the Palestinians on the issue of the land that they feel is rightfully theirs. An example of the actions of their most extreme fringe was the attack carried out by Baruch Goldstein, a resident of the Hebron settlement, who walked into the Ibrahimi mosque and shot 29 Palestinians as they prayed. The reaction from the Israeli state was to increase the number of IDF troops on the ground and impose a curfew on Palestinians to protect the settler community.

This incident continues to reverberate in the minds of Palestinians to this day. Hebron itself has come to be remembered as one of the biggest tragedies of the Oslo agreement. “For the sake of the 500 Jewish settlers, everyday life for the 35,000 Palestinians, who resided in the same area, became a living nightmare”, according to Ghada Karmi(???), and continues to be so.

What became clear after Oslo is that “the Israelis with all their military power cannot extinguish Palestinian aspirations and the Palestinians with all their anger [...] will not force the Israelis to submit,” Dennis Ross, Bill Clinton’s special Middle East coordinator, once noted.

What was needed to contribute to a more peaceful coexistence was an understanding of leadership constraints. It is the case that both the Israeli and Palestinian leadership today fail to understand key traits of leadership, especially since they feel their position to be extremely vulnerable. Leaders make decisions, which sometimes anger or disappoint their constituency, and so they sometimes must pay the price with their own career. But no leaders on either side show that level of daring.

The desire for many Palestinian political actors to act as the symbol of Palestine makes the political elite lack a clear strategy, something which is desperately needed. Israeli leaders also lack a clear vision for peace, while the current leadership has a clear anti-peace agenda.

Binyamin Netanyahu, during the Oslo years and now, “showed hatred and bitter animosity towards the Palestinians”, according to the British-Israeli historian Avi Shlaim. This meant, in the words of Ron Pundak of the Peres Centre for Peace, that Netanyahu “sabotaged the peace process relentlessly and made every effort to de-legitimise his Palestinian partners”. The re-election of a leader with such a track record indicates that few lessons have been learnt.

Finally, whilst the Israeli-Palestinian conflict certainly fits the bill of being an intractable conflict, it is not one based on an equal stalemate. The reality of the asymmetrical nature of the conflict makes any negotiations, in themselves, a paradox, as the actors are unlikely to feel the harm of the conflict equally.

Asymmetry is evident in the nature of the relationship between the two sides: the relationship of the occupied to the occupier based on a history of power and military successes for Israel in the face of one loss after the other in the eyes of the Palestinians.

In such an environment, “when a peace process is being conducted between two utterly unequal parties in the context of a deeply asymmetric power relationship, the role of the third party becomes critical”, argues Sumantra Bose of the London School of Economics. Essentially the issue of asymmetry can only been resolved if a neutral third party is present, one that would balance the negotiating table.

The involvement of the United States in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been largely unsuccessful and Washington has taken no steps to change the conflict into some mutually beneficial arrangement. Whilst the United States appeared to act as a neutral party in brokering peace in Northern Ireland, it has traditionally been biased towards the Israelis.

The perception among Palestinians and their supporters is that the US just provides Israel with a cover for its violations on the ground. Washington’s approach is perhaps unsurprising, given that Israel is the largest beneficiary of American military aid, a strategic Middle Eastern ally and the protégé of the influential pro-Israel lobby. This leads to Palestinian resentment to brew against the foundations and the hypocrisy of the entire process.

So whilst reactions have been positive rhetorically, it is understandable why many in Palestinian society are sceptical about what positive changes a UN vote would actually bring.

In the case of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, not only are common external spoilers a threat, but those heralding peace and compromise have had a destructive impact. There is little intent from the Israeli government to follow through with promises and no one to hold it to account. Moreover, the blatant asymmetry between the Palestinians and Israelis is exacerbated by a biased broker and a self-interested approach to conflict resolution that, unfortunately, lead to any confidence-building efforts to become mutually destructive.

Combined, these factors make any potential UN recognition just the icing on an uncooked cake.

This article is part of a special Chronikler report on the Palestinian quest to seek United Nations recognition.

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Tags: asymmetry, binyamin netanyahu, conflict resolution, good friday agreement, hamas, inclusiveness, islamic jihad, israel, northern ireland, northern ireland peace process, oslo accords, oslo process, palestine, palestine liberation organisation, palestine@un, palestinian statehood, peace process, settler movement, settlers, spoiler, UN recognition, united nations, yasser arafat

Palestine@UN: a Palestinian Masada?

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By Sohair Mohidin

Are Palestinian plans to go to the United Nations a case of passing the political hot potato, reinventing the Oslo process or a hopeless last stand?

Tuesday 6 September 2011

The Palestinian initiative has succeeded in one thing so far: it has stirred up controversy and grabbed the world’s attention despite the intensive media coverage of the ongoing Arab revolutions in Libya, Syria and Yemen. An intensive battle is now taking place in the media because Palestinian plans to seek UN recognition are of political and symbolic value more than anything else – which is fitting since the Palestinian Authority has no capacity to influence reality under occupation anymore.

Palestinian officials seem to have no real strategy behind this call except the vague hope of reviving or reinventing the Oslo process, as illustrated by a document prepared by the former chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, which expressed the hope that this move would facilitate future dialouge with Washington.

However, on the ground, UN recognition will not free Palestine from the occupation and will not restore or honour the historical rights of Palestinians. Nevertheless, with the situation in deadlock, the Palestinians are not left with much other choice but to pass the hot potato of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the international community in another form.

But is it about passing the hot potato again to its cook or is it about exposing, before the mirror of global public opinion, the naked ineffectiveness of the international community, especially the US administration, to broker a just peace deal? Is the Palestinian initiative a symptom of impotence or is designed to question impotence?

It could simply be a way for Palestinians to reject the “siege” Israel has been inflicting on them through a series of measures aimed at aborting the peace process and making the world believe that Israel has no “partner for peace”. This siege in all it forms – whether through hindering negotiations, increased settlement activities, the “apartheid” separation wall, or the daily humiliation the Palestinian people are subjected to by the Israeli occupation – could be likened to a “new Masada” in which Palestinians are pushed into a suicidal last stand in September, in their only remaining “fortress”, the United Nations.

But why is going to the United Nations suicidal? Because so far there’s no clear vision of what kind of state or lack of awaits the Palestinians the day after. There are also questions about the legitimacy of this state. “Who, though, is the state, and what are the democratic links between those who will represent the state at the UN and the people of Palestine? An abstract entity – a state – is proposed, but where are the people?” is the alarming question posed by Guy Goodwin-Gill, a professor of public international law at Oxford University, in an interview with al-Jazeera.

So why go there? Perhaps it is an attempt to win the media battle.

In February 2010, the images of young Palestinians disguised as characters from the film Avatar during a protest against the separation wall in Bilin caught the attention of the international media and spread virally via the social media platforms. In the world of modern mass communication, the image speaks, provokes and can act as a mobilisation multiplier, as is being demonstrated by the ongoing Arab revolutions.

The current “tent protests”, which have brought together Israelis of almost all political stripes, have effectively acted as another way to force the “siege” on the Palestinians and contribute to their state of despair. Not only do Palestinians lack a peace partner in most Israeli governments of the past 18 years, but they were also disappointed to realise that the Israeli civil society protesting against the socio-economic policies of their state – which Dan Senor glorified in his book The Start-Up Nation – managed to exclude their rights, especially in the early days of the movement.

Why did the largest social movement in Israel’s history succeed in ignoring Palestinian rights including those of Palestinian-Israelis? It also failed to include the least criticism of Israel’s occupation policy, and even announced clearly from the beginning that there was no room for politics in these demonstrations.

However, one political party, the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality, which represents a large number of leftist Palestinian-Israelis and Israeli-Jews, took the wise step of joining the movement when they realised the risk of being excluded. Tents were pitched in some Arab villages and cities, such as Nazareth and Haifa, where Arabs and Jews came together to campaign for equal rights, justice and peace for all. This was the first time that Arabs were included in the mobilisation.

Perhaps successive Israeli governments succeeded in dehumanising the Palestinians in the Israeli collective mind. Nevertheless, there are voices of dissent, such as Akiva Orr who considers the tent demonstrations are only the beginning of the end of young Israelis being “political fodder”, as he put it in a recent commentary he made on J14. “Give them time and many will become anti-Zionist. One cannot be weaned in a week from what one embraced uncritically for many years at home, in nursery and school.”

But can the Palestinians afford this “time” for Israelis to wake up? Can Palestinians continue to afford the impotence of the international community while they continue to live under siege and in deadlock?

Whether or not Palestinian can afford the time, they do possess an abundant supply of hope. As late Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish put it in his poem, State of Siege, Palestinians are affected by an incurable “disease called hope”:

We do what prisoners do
We do what the jobless do
We sow hope

Nevertheless, Israelis, together with the international community, should realise that, under these circumstances of change in Israel and the energising regional context of Arab revolutions, the Palestinians can no longer afford to sit idly by and watch their boat of hope sink, day after day, in the maelstrom of the status quo.

This article is part of a special Chronikler report on the Palestinian quest to seek United Nations recognition.

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Tags: israel, mahmoud darwish, masada, media, media war, oslo accords, oslo process, palestine, palestine@un, palestinian statehood, peace process, UN recognition, united nations

Egypt, Israel and Palestine: towards the promised land of peace?

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By Khaled Diab

It is high time for Israelis and Palestinians – with grassroots support from Egyptians – to unlock their latent people’s power and forge a popular peace.

Monday 15 August 2011

Although it has primarily focused on domestic issues, the Egyptian revolution has sent ripples of hope and shockwaves of fear across the Middle East. Not only has Egypt traditionally been regarded as the unspoken leader of the Arab world, the dramatic exhibition of people power in action has inspired ordinary people everywhere and terrified the region’s fossilised leadership.

As Egyptians grapple to redefine their relationship with those who govern them, questions are being asked about how the revolution will affect Egypt’s foreign policy. One area of particular interest is how the ‘New Egypt’ will relate to Israel and the Palestinian struggle for statehood.

Like other political elites across the Middle East, the Israeli and Palestinian leadership – including both Fatah and Hamas – have been eyeing the Egyptian revolution with nervousness, because it threatens to upset the status quo on which they depend. But reality is gradually sinking in.

Many questions about the future remain. Can post-revolution Egypt play a more dynamic mediating role in the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process? Will Egypt’s cold peace with Israel chill further? Will popular anger at Israel’s occupation spill over into Egypt ‘tearing up’ its peace accord with Israel, as many Israelis fear? Is the enthusiasm of some Palestinians that Egypt’s ’return to dignity’ will help their cause warranted? How will the Egyptian revolution affect Israeli and Palestinian politics and how the two sides relate to each other, and to Egypt?

I will seek to answer these questions, as well as to consider how Egypt can best walk the tight rope of championing the Palestinian cause and nudging Israel towards a just resolution of the conflict, without returning to the ‘bad old days’ of futile belligerence. I will also explore what role the largely uninvolved Egyptian grassroots and civil society can play in bridging the gap between the two sides.

Israelis: between fear and enthusiasm

First, I will consider the Israeli response to the revolution and how the revolution has played out among Israel’s political class, the general public and progressive activists. When the revolution first broke in late January, the initial reaction of the Israeli government and establishment was one of concern and even panic, though ministers and officials were initially ordered not to make any public statements on the issue.

This ‘wait and see’ attitude rapidly shifted when the Mubarak regime looked in real danger of collapsing. Israel’s hard-line prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu even toured Europe and the United States to try to convince Western leaders to prop up the collapsing and corrupt dictator, though he now, at least rhetorically, welcomes the prospect of democracy in Egypt.

So what was behind this diplomatic panic and why was Israel, which describes itself as the Middle East’s “only democracy”, so fearful of the Egyptian people’s democratic aspirations?

In Israel, like in the United States and some parts of Europe, Mubarak was seen as a ‘benign dictator’ who protected both Western and Israeli interests against the perceived threat of extremist Islamism and kept Israel’s western front, historically the most dangerous, quiet.

In addition, many Israeli leaders, including Netanyahu, have long been lecturing that the reason that peace has been elusive is not due to the Israeli occupation but to the absence of democracy in the Arab world. Now what if the dawn of Arab democracy arrives and Israel still fails to resolve its conflict with the Palestinians and the wider Arab world?

In addition, I suspect that the current extremist Israeli government, despite its rhetoric of wanting peace with the Palestinians if only there were a true “partner for peace”, feared the unknown impact of the Egyptian revolution on the Palestinian question. Would Palestinians follow the Egyptian and Tunisian examples of mass protest and disobedience? Would a revolutionary Egypt ratchet up the pressure on Israel to reach a deal with the Palestinians or, worse, side more clearly and robustly with the Palestinians?

Among the general Israeli public who know little about Egypt and the Arab world, and understand it even less, the experts and officials who lined up to deliver dire warning that Egypt could well become the “next Iran” and tear up the Camp David peace treaty pumped up the fear level among a population which already felt isolated, surrounded and beleaguered.

A typical response was delivered by Israel’s president Shimon Peres in February. Expressing his feeling that Mubarak’s “contribution to peace will never be forgotten”, he warned that “”Elections in Egypt are dangerous. Should the Muslim Brotherhood be elected they will not bring peace.”

At the time, I wrote that such fears were unfounded: that Egypt was no Iran and that the country was unlikely to renege on its peace treaty with Israel, though, given the plight of the Palestinians, “this probably means that the cold Egyptian-Israeli peace will become frostier”.

Since then, events seem to have largely confirmed my analysis. Although the Muslim Brotherhood is a significant force in the post-revolutionary landscape, it is by no means the only show in town, despite backroom deals between its leadership and the army’s top brass. In fact, a July poll showed that the Ikhwan’s approval rating stood at only around 17%.

In addition, now that the possibility of entering government has become realistic, the group has demonstrated its political pragmatism. Despite its official opposition to peace with Israel and its call for the Camp David agreement to be reviewed, a spokesman has said that the future of the peace treaty would be up to “the Egyptian people and not the Brotherhood”.

And it appears that most Egyptians desire peace. Two recent polls (here and here) showed that, in addition to supporting the creation of an independent Palestinian state, nearly two-thirds of respondents were in favour of maintaining the peace deal with Israel.

But it would be a mistake to think that the Egyptian revolution lacks support in Israel. Not only have some in the liberal and progressive end of the Israeli media spectrum expressed support for the revolution, a number of voices in its more conservative reaches have also publicised their backing.

Writing in The Jerusalem Post last week, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach chastised Israel’s former deputy prime minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer for expressing admiration for Mubarak. “The unseemly spectacle of the Middle East’s sole democracy failing to support a revolutionary freedom movement in Arab countries is a stark omission that the Arabs are not likely to forget,” he wrote.

More importantly, the Egyptian revolution and the ‘Arab Spring’ in general enjoy a surprising amount of grassroots support in Israel, especially among the young and liberal, with various groups releasing songs and letters of support. I have personally encountered numerous Israelis who wax enthusiastic about it. “[The Arab Spring] has made me more eager to dream that the borders will open one day,” Mati Shemoelof, an Israeli journalist, poet and activist told me over drinks. “And I feel that we can only learn from this fabulous, new, brave movement,” he added.

As if to confirm his point, Israel has subsequently been gripped by protests over soaring housing prices, centred on Tel Aviv’s Rothschild’s Avenue, which has been described by some commentators as the country’s own “Tahrir Square”. Moreover, the protests provide a perhaps unprecedented opportunity for Israelis and Palestinians (both Israelis citizens and those in the West Bank and Gaza) to rally around a common issue – housing shortages – that affect them all.

Although the protests have so far remained apolitical, more and more Israelis are connecting the housing crisis within Israel to the generous state subsidies lavished on West Bank settlements and the high cost of maintaining the occupation.

“By removing the single most divisive issue in Israeli politics, the protesters have created a safe space for Israelis of all ethnic, national and class identities to act together,” Dimi Reider and Aziz Abu Sarah wrote in the New York Times earlier this month. “Israel will never become the progressive social democracy the protesters envision until it sheds the moral stain and economic burden of the occupation,” they went on to caution.

Palestinians: inspired but disillusioned

Palestinian reactions to the Egyptian revolution have been complex and divided, both at the official and popular level. Fatah, which received a lot of backing from the Egyptian regime, tried to walk the tight rope of supporting both Mubarak and the “legitimate demands” of the people.

“We hope that Egypt manages to overcome this crisis while preserving its achievements and meeting the legitimate demands for democracy, political reform, and popular participation,” was Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad’s reaction in early February, according to the al-Ayyam newspaper.

The extremist Islamist group Hamas, too, has been lukewarm about the Egyptian revolution. Although Hamas despised the former Egyptian regime’s hostility to the movement and Egypt’s collaboration in the blockade of Gaza, the secular nature of the youth spearheading the revolution and the sidelining of the Muslim Brotherhood worried the Islamic movement. In addition, like the PA, Hamas also benefits from the status quo and has entertained fears that the Egyptian people’s example might inspire Gazans to rise up against Hamas and its increasingly repressive rule.

Hamas witnessed an inkling of this possibility when a Facebook page calling for a ‘Day of Rage’ in Gaza against the Islamist movement attracted 10,000 members within only three days, despite the intermittent power cuts and relatively low internet penetration in the Strip.

This might explain why both Hamas and the PA suppressed, in the early days of the revolution, rallies in support of the Egyptian and Tunisian revolts.

However, at the grassroots level, the majority of Palestinians seem to feel solidarity with their Egyptian neighbours. Ever since I moved to Jerusalem a few months ago, most Palestinians I have encountered have reacted very positively to the Egyptian revolution. Everywhere I go, I receive warm congratulations as if I was the father or the midwife of the uprising!

While out researching an article in a tiny Palestinian village effectively cut off from the outside world by settlements, the locals I met got sidetracked from talking about their demoralising plight to enthuse about the achievements of the Egyptian people. “You Egyptians have raised the head of every Arab,” Mohammed Barakat, a local lawyer, told me, in a typical reaction.

Even in the more glitzy surroundings of a luxury hotel in Ramallah, at an official celebration of the 23 July revolution hosted by the Egyptian consulate, Salam Fayyad launched into rhetorical acrobatics to pay tribute to both the 1952 and 2011 revolutions, even though the latter only came about because the earlier failed to deliver on its promises.

In addition to awakening hopes that the Egyptian revolution will lead Egypt to become more supportive of the Palestinian struggle for statehood, the protest movement in Egypt has inspired some dedicated young Palestinian activists, under the umbrella of the so-called March 15 movement, to agitate for change.

The date refers to the day when organisers employing social media, text messaging and word of mouth managed to draw thousands of protesters on to the streets of Ramallah and other parts of the West Bank, as well as Gaza City.

However, their demands were not wholesale regime change, but reconciliation. “Our top priority is to end the divisions within Palestinian society. This is the only way to deal with the occupation,” Z, one of the young founders of the movement in Ramallah, explained to me.

That said, the movement has not managed to replicate the most successful ingredient of the protests in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Bahrain: constant pressure from the streets. This is partly due to the two-tiered nature of the oppression facing Palestinians, and the restrictions on their movement imposed by the occupation. “Unfortunately, we have two levels of repression in Palestine: Israeli and domestic,” says Z.

In addition, there is the psychological barrier of widespread despair and disillusionment afflicting wide swaths of the population. “The problem among Palestinians is that revolutions are nothing new, yet nothing changes or things get worse,” Z observes. “Neither uprisings nor negotiations have worked, Palestinians believe – we’re still under occupation.”

This sense that whatever happens, the Palestinians are screwed might help explain why quite a few Palestinians I meet are despondent about the ultimate outcome of the Egyptian revolution, with some expressing their expectations that Egyptian will revert to dictatorship. A few, probably drawing on their sense of powerlessness, have even expressed their suspicions that the revolution is not an expression of the will of the Egyptian people but a joint CIA-Mossad conspiracy.

Nevertheless, a number of observers believe that the Egyptian-brokered Hamas-Fatah reconciliation agreement – despite its clear weaknesses – was partly a sign of the success of the youth protest movement. It was inspired, they say, by the fear that ordinary Palestinians would follow the Tunisian and Egyptian lead and rise up against the oppressive rule of Hamas in Gaza and Fatah in the West Bank. In addition, it has been viewed as an indication of the more robust role post-revolutionary Egypt can play in the Palestinian struggle. Similarly, Egypt’s decision to open the Rafah crossing has been interpreted as an early indication of the New Egypt’s more sympathetic approach to the plight of the Palestinians.

September: Palestine or the Palestinians?

We are only a few short weeks away from the moment of truth, when the Palestinian leadership plan to go to the United Nations and demand the world body’s recognition of Palestine as a state.

It strikes me that Palestinians, disillusioned, demoralised and desperate are screaming out to the international community, and particularly the United Nations: “You got us into this mess. Now get us out of it.”

There are parallels to be drawn between this bid and the 1947 UN partition plan which paved the way, despite Arab rejection, to the creation of the state of Israel. However, this time around it is unlikely to serve the Palestinians as well because they are too weak, the Israelis too powerful and the international community lacks the wherewithal to impose a solution on the two parties. Besides, if we are to learn anything from the tragic past, it is that UN involvement with only one side’s support was disastrous, and there is no reason to think it won’t be again.

Personally, I can’t help thinking that, rather than grant Palestinians the statehood they desire, the unilateral UN option could backfire by ending in failure or resulting in a virtual but hollow state that enjoys the sheen of international legitimacy but does not actually exist on the ground.

And I’m not the only one with misgivings. Earlier this week, a young Palestinian activist told me: “I think that nothing will really change on the ground.” He added: “I am really afraid of the PA because they will not ask for a full membership of the UN and instead they will go for non-member status which will not help us in this movement but they will sell it to us as a victory.”

The main reason that Palestinians might shy away from demanding full membership is a function of the way the UN operates. For a country to gain membership to the world body, the UN Security Council must first recommend statehood to the General Assembly. And judging by previous and current form, Washington is very likely to veto any such proposal. In fact, some US officials have warned that Washington could withdraw its funding for the UN, if the proposed vote goes ahead.

Of course, there is a chance that Abbas and the Palestinian leadership are actually not seriously contemplating going to the UN and are using this as a bluff to focus Israeli minds, lure Israel back to the negotiating table and force it to offer the Palestinians a viable state along the pre-1967 borders. But if that is the case, it looks like Israel has decided to call their bluff.

The Israeli reaction to possible UN recognition of Palestinian statehood is difficult to gauge but it is unlikely to be positive. The UN option enjoys the backing of some Israelis who see in it a ‘win-win’ solution for both sides. But such an enlightened Israeli view is a minority one, and the Israeli government and much of the public interpret the plan as an act of hostility.

Besides, previous declarations of statehood achieved little. Palestine, which has existed as a virtual state for decades, and is currently recognised bilaterally by over 110 countries, including Egypt, still remains a state-in-waiting. For example, the 1988 unilateral Palestinian Declaration of Independence, which was made in exile by the PLO in Algiers, was little more than an exercise in symbolism.

The real gains for the Palestinian cause were being made, a quarter of a century before the ‘Arab Spring’, by the ordinary Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza who rose up in the largely peaceful and leaderless first intifada, paving the way to the peace process and the two-state solution.

New Egypt and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Until now, the impact of the Egyptian revolution on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been difficult to gauge. Nonetheless, a number of positive and negative ramifications can be discerned.

On the negative side, the upheavals in Egypt and other parts of the region connected to the Arab Spring have diverted much of the global interest away from the Palestinians question. It has also enabled Israel to more or less quietly create more ‘facts on the ground’ ahead of the Palestinians plan to go to the UN in September. This can be seen, for instance, in the accelerated rate of evictions, displacements and demolitions in East Jerusalem and ‘Area C’ of the West Bank this year.

On the positive side, Egypt has already taken some action that was aimed at improving the situation, such as brokering the Palestinian reconciliation agreement and easing restrictions on Gaza. More intangibly, the Egyptian revolution has provided both the Israeli and Palestinian leadership with a taste of what can happen when an unjust and untenable status quo is left to fester unattended for too long.

In the longer term, many commentators have expressed hope that a democratic Egypt can play a more robust and vibrant role as a peace broker and help mediate some form of reconciliation and peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Some more militant and extremist Palestinians hope, and many Israelis fear, that Egypt will become more hostile and belligerent in its support of the Palestinian cause and its opposition to the occupation.

Personally, I don’t expect either outcome is likely. However, a democratic Egypt more in tune with its public’s mood might act as a deterrent against excessive Israeli militarism. That said, for many years to come, Egypt will be embroiled primarily in domestic affairs. This includes the construction of a new political system, fixing the economy, addressing inequalities, combating corruption, dealing with sectarian tensions, and more. Moreover, even a democratic Egypt will lack the clout to impose a resolution and Egyptians have learnt through long and bitter experience that belligerence leads nowhere.

So, it would perhaps be a mistake for those Israelis and Palestinians who pine for peace to await an Egyptian saviour. Instead, they should look to the more intangible support that Egypt can provide, namely that they need not await a foreign messiah because their true saviour is within themselves.

Egypt has provided Palestinians and Israelis, long cynical and disillusioned that the powers that be can bring about any meaningful change in their situation, with a dose of much-needed hope and inspiration, especially in their own latent powers as people.

People power: the missing link

I am a strong believer in the idea that ‘people power’ is the missing link in the quest for peace between Israelis and Palestinians. The vast majority of the discourse relating to the conflict focuses on a top-down solutions in which an international broker or brokers bring the two parties together to the negotiating table and lean on them until they kiss and make up and agree to live together happily ever after.

The trouble with this model is that it overlooks the fact that no external mediator enjoys the kind of clout or willpower necessary to push through a resolution. In addition, it ignores the glaring disparities in power between Israelis and Palestinians. It also turns a blind eye to the fractured and divided political landscape on both sides which makes reaching a consensus over the painful realities both sides must accept for the sake of peace a task of Herculean proportions.

This is particularly the case given the decades-long mutual distrust and loathing, which renders the necessary groundswell of popular opinion required to achieve peace impossible to attain.

I believe that it is time to follow a new track in which ordinary people lead the process and not just act as passive by-standers. Palestinians and Israelis need to awaken to their own power and unlock their dormant potential to steer their own destiny towards peace and reconciliation. And the best way to do this, as the ‘Arab Awakening’ is illustrating, is through mass, peaceful joint activism.

For many years, a minority of activists on both sides have joined forces and found common cause in opposing the occupation, settlement building, the separation wall and home demolitions and evictions. This needs to be stepped up and activists must find creative ways of inspiring the mainstream – they need to make their movement go viral.

Being the dreamer that I am, I cannot shake the vision in my head of joint Israeli-Palestinian activism infecting the masses, and the current housing protests could be a good foundation upon which to build such a movement.

In my vision, squares in cities across Israel and Palestine would be filled with people rallying around a single goal: “The people demand an end to the occupation.” Protesters on both sides would also pitch tents at checkpoints to demand their removal and, who knows, perhaps one day have their own Berlin wall moment.

Likewise, ordinary Egyptians need to overcome their own apathy and passivity and help facilitate and mediate such a ‘people’s peace’. For the sake of peace and the future, Egyptians need to cast aside their ideological opposition to dealing with Israelis and act in active and open solidarity with the Israeli-Palestinian peace movement and export the spirit of their revolution to neighours who are in desperate need of it.

This article is based on a talk given by Khaled Diab at a conference on the future of Egypt organised by the International Peace Studies Centre which took place in London on Saturday 13 August 2011.

Rating: 7.3/10 (9 votes cast)

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Tags: arab spring, arab world, area c, binyamin netanyahu, camp david, civil society, conflict, displacement, east jerusalem, egypt, egyptian revolution, fatah, gaza, hamas, ikhwan, independence, iran, islamism, israel, israeli-palestinian conflict, middle east, mubarak, muslim brotherhood, palestine, palestinian state, palestinian statehood, palestinians, peace process, promised land, rafah, tahrir square, tunisia

Which comes first: Palestine or the Palestinians?

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Rating: +4 (from 4 votes)

Rating: 9.3/10 (3 votes cast)

By Khaled Diab

Rather than grant them statehood, Palestinian plans to go to the UN could backfire. Instead, come September, the Palestinians should formally hand over control of the Occupied Territories to Israel and demand full citizenship.

Tuesday 28 June 2011

On Sunday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas reaffirmed that, with no prospects of renewed peace talks in sight, he still plans to go to the United Nations in September to demand formal recognition of an independent Palestinian state on the pre-1967 borders.

“I say that if negotiations have failed, we will go to the United Nations for membership,” Abu Mazen told a meeting of the Palestine Liberation Organisation. “Until now there have been no new incentives to return to negotiations.”

It strikes me that Palestinians, disillusioned, demoralised and desperate are, through this latest bid, screaming out to the international community, and particularly the United Nations: “You got us into this mess. Now get us out of it.” But I can’t help thinking that, rather than grant them the statehood they desire, the unilateral UN option could backfire by ending in failure or resulting in a virtual but hollow state that enjoys the sheen of international legitimacy but does not actually exist on the ground.

Nevertheless, at one level, the plan is commendable because it is attempting to inject a new dynamic and a sense of urgency into the stagnant swamp of the so-called peace process. And the idea has garnered a lot of international support – particularly among Arab states, in the developing world and some parts of Europe.

That said, some countries which already recognise Palestine bilaterally, such as in Latin America, might actually not do so at the UN. Moreover, the Palestinian bid lacks US support, which is vital given how the United Nations operates. For a country to gain membership to the world body, the UN Security Council must first recommend statehood to the General Assembly. And judging by previous and current form, Washington is very likely to veto any such proposal. In fact, some US officials have warned that Washington could withdraw its funding for the UN, if the proposed vote goes ahead.

Some Palestinians I have spoken to fear that it might lead Israel to accelerate its unilateral border carve-up started by Ariel Sharon with his wall but possibly, as punishment, leave the Palestinians with even less land than Sharon, not known for his generosity towards the Palestinians, had foreseen. Alternatively, Israel could simply use UN recognition as a smokescreen to continue its occupation and settlement building as before while arguing that Palestinians already have their internationally sanctioned state.

Worse still, the Israeli government, under the hard line Binyamin Netanyahu, could, in an interesting but bloody historical parallel, interpret the move as an ‘act of war’, as the Arabs did towards the original 1947 partition plan, and launch an armed campaign against the Palestinians and/or tighten its military grip on the Palestinian territories.

Some Palestinian advocates of the idea will counter that gaining international legitimacy for their national project, even if not immediately, will eventually bring the prospects of statehood that bit closer. This is possible but unlikely under the current crop of rightwing ideologues running the Israeli government.

Besides, previous declarations of statehood achieved little. Palestine, which has existed as a virtual state for decades, and is currently recognised bilaterally by over 110 countries, still remains a state-in-waiting. For example, the 1988 unilateral Palestinian Declaration of Independence, which was made in exile by the PLO in Algiers, was little more than an exercise in symbolism.

The real gains for the Palestinian cause were being made, a quarter of a century before the ‘Arab spring’, by the ordinary Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza who rose up in the largely peaceful and leaderless first intifada, paving the way to the peace process and the two-state solution.

So it is not in the hallowed corridors of international power, which consistently failed in brokering a just and lasting solution, that the Palestinian leadership needs to look for a new dynamic to resolve their people’s predicament and improve their plight but to their own grassroots.

One young Palestinian I know who works for an NGO suggested a radical proposal that deserves the full attention of the Palestinian leadership. Come September, if no concrete progress towards the creation of an independent Palestinian state on the pre-1967 borders has been made, he suggests that the Palestinian Authority, Legislative Council and security services should inform Israel that they plan to disband themselves and invite the Israelis back to take full control of the territories, thereby ending the “outsourcing” of the occupation.

This, he argues, will lay the full moral, human and material burden of the occupation back on Israeli shoulders, drawing Israeli public attention to how costly in both human and financial terms the occupation, which Israel has been “getting on the cheap” thanks to international support for the PA, actually is.

In parallel with this, the Palestinians should launch a massive grassroots civil movement in which they demand from Israel, since it insists on continuing its occupation of their future state, to grant them Israeli nationality and full civil rights, including the right of free movement everywhere in the Occupied Territories and Israel proper; the right to use Israeli highways and byways; the right to live and work everywhere, including in the settlements; and, above all, the right to vote.

This will leave Israelis with two clear choices: do they want the land to be Jewish or its people to be? If it wishes to maintain a Jewish majority in Israel, then it will have to make way for an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, with East Jerusalem as its capital. If it wishes to maintain control of the land, then it will have to accept a new identity as a multiethnic, multicultural melting-pot in which Jews, though they will never be a tiny minority, will nonetheless soon be outnumbered by Muslims and Christians.

For Palestinians, though giving up the dream of an independent homeland to call their very own will be unacceptable to many, the time has arrived to decide whether Palestine is more important than the Palestinians, or whether people’s well-being should take priority over questions of who controls the soil.

Rating: 9.3/10 (3 votes cast)

Rating: +4 (from 4 votes)

Tags: arab spring, binyamin netanyahu, citizenship, civil rights, east jerusalem, independence, israel, mahmoud abbas, palestine, palestinian statehood, peace process, politics, un, united nations, usa, washington

Jerusalem: the city where peace lost its way

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By Khaled Diab

Although it is called the ‘House of Peace’, Jerusalem’s reality is that of conflict and dwindling hope. But can this divided city ever live up to its name?

Thursday 16 June 2011

There is something quite surreal about actually living in Jerusalem. It’s not just the historical and spiritual backdrop, but there are also the conflicting realities of one’s mundane domestic routines carried out in a bubble of relative tranquillity amid the wider context of tension caused by a rapidly changing geopolitical situation.

When paths cross in Jerusalem. Photo: ©Khaled Diab

For instance, every morning my son, Iskander, and I walk through the old city to get to his crèche, where the Israeli soldiers with ridiculously oversized assault rifles slung over their shoulders have already become part of the ‘normal’ background, except when they stop you to check your ID.

We pass within spitting distance of some of the holiest sites in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. And, for someone who lacks religious conviction, the city’s catwalk of the assorted faithful – some of whom truly have their own crosses to bear while others are slaves to the bizarre fashion diktats of religion – is quite a sight to behold, especially when we arrived here around Easter/Passover time.

In Hebrew, Jerusalem (Yerushalayim) probably means House or Abode of Peace, rather like Dar el-Salam in Arabic. And although peace is quite literally on everyone’s lips – Palestinians and Israelis meet and greet strangers and friends alike by saying salam/shalom (i.e. “peace”) – the hope that this wish will become a collective reality appears to be diminishing rather than growing.

Despite the apparent tranquillity of this medium-sized town of colourful diversity, tension and apprehension stir just below the surface. Held in a vice by settlements and walls, Palestinian East Jerusalem, now living in almost solitary confinement from the wider West Bank, feels like a dying civilisation under siege, especially when compared with that more vibrant and dynamic upstart, Ramallah, the Palestinian equivalent of Tel Aviv.

Even the apparently idyllic suburbia in which we live conceals the fact that it is on the front line of the battle for the soul of East Jerusalem. Although the area appears to be very Palestinian at first sight, there are four large Israeli settlements, as I learnt from my wife who researches such things, within easy reach, and we are a stone’s throw away from a section of the Israeli separation wall.

As many soldiers as protesters in East Jerusalem. Photo: ©Khaled Diab

When it comes to the Palestinians of Jerusalem, I sense that there is little optimism for the future, as demonstrated by the puny turnout to a Nakba day rally we encountered. This is perhaps unsurprising among people who feel like unwanted guests, even aliens, in their own hometown, which many have seen change beyond recognition in their own lifetimes.

Take our still-sharp and lucid neighbour who is nearly 90. She recalls fondly the years when her family lived in a mixed neighbourhood in what is now Jewish West Jerusalem, and counted Jews among their closest friends and best neighbours. Then, in 1948, the year her son was born, this world, along with their home, was lost forever.

Today, few Israelis and Palestinians interact on a personal level, whether in Jerusalem, where they live in close physical proximity, or elsewhere. This has led to a massive mutual distrust and dehumanisation in which the enormous diversity in world views, attitudes and beliefs on both sides are reduced to caricatures, stereotypes and simplistic generalisations.

Jerusalem’s rapidly changing reality has left many Arab Jerusalemites with a sense of impending doom, the anticipation that their society stands on the edge of the abyss of oblivion. This, one Palestinian intellectual told me, has led many locals to abandon any hope for the future, after having held on desperately throughout the 1990s for peace and an independent homeland. A two-state solution has now become impossible, he concluded, and, with the Palestinians as the weaker party, a single state would result in them becoming “second- or even third-class citizens”.

Personally, I do not share this sense of pessimism. Though extremely difficult, a two-state solution is not beyond the bounds of possibility, with the right political leadership. As for a single, binational federation (my preferred option), with the right legal guarantees and a vibrant civil rights movement, it can truly become a state for all its citizens. After all, the Arab citizens of Israel show, despite recent setbacks, that relative equality is possible.

On the Israeli side, although a Jewish Jerusalem has largely been achieved and all that signifies spiritually and emotionally for millions of Jews, it is possibly only the settler movement that is truly rejoicing. Despite the official discourse of Israel having “no partner for peace”, many Israelis have awoken or are waking up to the realisation that they cannot have both settlements and a settlement to the conflict.

In fact, the settler movement has, in its bid to cement the Israeli grip on Jerusalem and much of the West Bank (Judea and Samaria), not only gone well beyond the call of duty to bulldoze the peace process by replacing the land-for-peace formula with a land-for-pieces one, but it has also alienated secular Israelis.

An Israeli newspaper editor told me that Jerusalem had seen a major exodus of Israeli liberals over the past two decades to Tel Aviv and other liberal towns, where they are able to keep their distance from the stifling influence of the Orthodox community and live in a comforting cocoon of normalcy in which they can ignore the conflict and even convince themselves that it is not going on.

This polarisation is visible in a multitude of apparently mundane phenomena. Take the controversial Tiv Ta’am supermarket chain – which has been at the centre of the ‘Kosher wars‘ for selling pork and staying open on the Shabbat when most of the country comes to a grinding halt – has no branches in Jerusalem.

The newspaper editor noted that the only liberals he still personally knew in Jerusalem were kept there by their work at the Hebrew University. Of course, there’s also David Grossman.

We had dinner with a couple who belong to this ‘dying breed’ of secular Jewish Jerusalemites, worldly university professors who presented a thoughtful and sensitive contrast – and one that is sadly not encountered regularly by the average Palestinian – to the mindless ideologues carrying the settler banner ever deeper into ‘enemy’ territory, including inner city neighbourhoods of Jerusalem, such as Sheikh Jarrah.

Sadly, all the signs are that the Holy City will continue in its unholy role as the symbolic and actual focal point of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for the foreseeable future. Nevertheless, although I doubt I will ever succumb to a secular version of the ‘Jerusalem syndrome‘, I refuse to succumb to despair and continue to hold out the hope and conviction that, one day, the right dynamics will fall into place for a just and lasting resolution. It happened in other longstanding and bitter conflicts, why can’t it happen in the House of Peace?

Rating: 7.0/10 (3 votes cast)

Rating: +2 (from 2 votes)

Tags: east jerusalem, faith, israel, israeli-palestinian conflict, jerusalem, peace process, settlements

The six-day curse

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Rating: 9.8/10 (6 votes cast)

By Khaled Diab

Rather than an almost miraculous blessing, Israel’s six-day victory in 1967 has proven to be a naksa for Israelis and Arabs alike.

Monday 6 June 2011

In the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, there have been precious few win-win situations, and each side’s victory is usually the other’s loss; its joy, the other’s grief. The most striking example is the dichotomy between the sorrowful Palestinian Nakba Day – which was marked, this year, by thousands of Palestinian refugees attempting to return symbolically to their abandoned homes – and Israel’s Independence Day, with all its zealous flag-waving, partying and national joy.

Another notable example is the contrast between the nakba-rhyming naksa (or ‘setback’), which commemorates the Arabs’ crushing defeat at the hands of Israel in June 1967, and Jerusalem Day, which celebrates Israel’s stunning six-day victory and the ‘reunification’ of the Holy City – although even among Israelis, Jerusalem Day is not much of a cause for celebration and “most people in Israel don’t even know, and don’t care, why it even exists”, according to Yossi Sarid.

“Jerusalem 2011 is a sad city pretending to be glad,” adds Sarid.

The "No dividing Jerusalem" petitioner never takes a holiday. Photo: ©K. Diab

And the gladdest were the right-wing settler and religious Zionist movements. On 1 June, I came across hundreds of Israeli youths dressed in celebratory white shirts and matching kippahs streaming excitedly out of the city’s Damascus Gate (Bab el-Khalil) in East Jerusalem, in unspoken defiance and insensitivity to the passers-by in this predominantly Palestinian section of the city.

In the Mamilla shopping arcade, just outside the old city’s walls, an obsessive petitioner, who haunts shoppers at the mall on an apparently daily basis, didn’t even take Jerusalem Day off from his quest to collect signatures to keep Jerusalem “united”. He implored shoppers and strollers to sign his petition urging the prime minister not to “divide” the city. Perhaps he’d mistaken Binyamin Netanyahu for some sort of closet peacenik who cared about international law and the rights of the Palestinians. He’d also obviously missed Bibi’s reality-defying speech to the US Congress in which he said quite unequivocally: “Jerusalem must never again be divided. Jerusalem must remain the united capital of Israel”.

Inside the old town, near Zion Gate, a group of jubilant performers dressed up as Israeli flags danced the Horah, a circle dance originally imported from the Balkans by Romanian Jews which has become the quintessential folk dance in Israel and somewhat resembles maypole dancing, but without the pole.

Performing the Horah or dancing on the grave of the peace process? Image: ©Khaled Diab

Though the dance was well-choreographed and pleasant enough to behold and the joy of the dancers seemed genuine, what they were celebrating – the conquest of Jerusalem and the West Bank – made it seem like they were cheerfully running circles around the prospects of a peaceful resolution to the conflict, rather like the settlement ring around Jerusalem, and dancing on the grave of the peace process.

Other aspects of the Jerusalem Day celebrations were not as good-natured. For the first time, the focal point of the day’s main event, the so-called Flag Dance, was provocatively the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of East Jerusalem, where settlers have been making hostile inroads in recent years.

Tens of thousands of settlers marched from there, through Damascus Gate, finishing off at the Western Wall. During the procession, some marchers were witnessed chanting offensive slogans, including the worryingly violent “Death to leftists” and “Butcher the Arabs”, not to mention “Muhammad is dead” (which is something of a bizarre insult, considering that everyone knows that).

In many ways, Jerusalem Day is a poignant symbol of how Israel’s 1967 victory was perhaps more of a naksa (setback) for Israelis – albeit a disguised one – than for Arabs, for whom it was an overwhelming defeat. Prior to the war, many Israelis saw their young state as militarily vulnerable, and this apprehension created a certain pragmatism in a number of Israeli circles about the need for peaceful coexistence.

This was perhaps best embodied in the views of Israel’s second prime minister Moshe Sharett, who exchanged secret peace overtures with Egypt’s Gamal Abdel-Nasser in the early 1950s. Unfortunately for posterity, these efforts were torpedoed by David Ben-Gurion, the Lavon Affair and the fact that the Egyptian leadership feared that the “Arab Street” was not yet willing to accommodate Israel.

The 1967 war bred a dangerous philosophy in Israel which blended unilateralism and militarism with complacency over the long-term consequences of continued occupation of large swathes of Arab land and exercising military control over the lives of millions of Arabs. This was perhaps the course of least resistance, considering Israel’s fractured political landscape, which provides the ideal habitat for hawks to turn the doves into lame ducks.

Naturally, there were Israelis at the time who wanted to use the captured lands (with the notable exception of Jerusalem and much of the West Bank) as a bargaining chip towards a peace settlement with the country’s Arab neighbours. But these voices were too few and too disorganised amid the euphoria and greed triggered by overwhelming victory and the apparent Arab intransigence signified by the famous “three nos” of the Arab League’s Khartoum Resolution.

However, the well-organised and ideologically driven settler movement quickly moved to sideline these voices of reconciliation by establishing the first illegal settlements. While this was going on, Israel’s political class was either happy to let them have their way or allowed themselves to be bullied and browbeaten into acquiescence.

In fact, Israel’s “miraculous” military success also turned Religious Zionism, with its uncompromising attitude towards the conquered lands, especially the West Bank (which Israel officially calls Judea and Samaria), from a marginal movement and thrust it right into the Israeli mainstream.

Since then, the settler movement has worked hard to establish “facts on the ground” to guarantee the “integrity” of the “Land of Israel”. For example, the settler population has tripled since the launch of the Oslo peace process, thereby derailing the two-state solution by slicing up much of the land that was earmarked for the future Palestinian state.

Although the idea of “land for peace” emerged internationally in the wake of the war, as embodied in UN Security Council Resolution 242, many Israeli leaders have been motivated by an underlying assumption that, with time, military superiority could deliver both.

Meanwhile, the crushing defeat gradually led many Arabs and Palestinians to become far more realistic about the effectiveness of an armed solution to the conflict. Even the Khartoum Resolution, despite its rejectionist tone, recognised that diplomacy, not war, was the way forward.

The late Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat was the first Arab leader to act openly on this philosophy. Even though he instigated the 1973 war, his aims were tactical: to readjust the military balance of power and force Israel to the negotiating table. Despite initial Arab hostility towards Sadat’s peace overtures and their anger over Egypt’s separate peace deal with Israel, not to mention Sadat’s arrogant condescension and sidelining of the other Arabs, all the Arab states eventually accepted the premise openly. On a side note, one can only speculate about how much stronger Egypt’s bargaining power would have been had the other Arabs presented a united front with, rather than against Egypt, and had Israel agreed to comprehensive rather than bilateral talks.

Today, Arab countries not only accept this principle but have offered Israel, through the Arab Peace Initiative, full recognition and normalisation in return for a complete withdrawal from the occupied territories (the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights) and a “just settlement” of the Palestinian refugee crisis.

Despite this, Israel’s leadership continues to procrastinate, preferring mushrooming settlements to a comprehensive settlement, apparently secure in the belief that military might will prove right in the end. But this sort of battlefield diplomacy is bound to fail and will lead to Israel living in a state of perpetual conflict which, though it may appear manageable today, could easily backfire in the future.

History has shown repeatedly that denying a people their rights cannot continue indefinitely, especially if the wave of change currently washing across the region inspires the Palestinians to mount a mass peaceful movement for their rights. Like the Arabs have learnt through bitter experience, Israelis may one day discover that what they reject today may seem like an unattainable dream in the future.

Ordinary Israelis need to wake up fast to how the settler movement has taken their collective fate, and that of their children and grandchildren, hostage and to mobilise en masse against the settlements while Israel is still in a position to do so. They should take to the streets and say clearly: “Yes to a comprehensive settlement. No to the comprehensive settlement of the West Bank and East Jerusalem.”

As in the story of Genesis which inspired the Israeli name for this war, many of the seeds of the current sorry state of affairs were planted in those six fateful days. It’s time to bring about the dawn of the seventh day of justice and reconciliation. Only then can we all rest.

Rating: 9.8/10 (6 votes cast)

Rating: +3 (from 5 votes)

Tags: 1967 war, anwar el-sadat, arab countries, arab league, binyamin netanyahu, children of the revolution, conflict, egypt, israel, israel-palestine, khartoum, nakba, naksa, palestine, peace process, revolution

Reinventing the Palestinian struggle

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By Khaled Diab

Inspired by the Arab spring, a new generation of Palestinians plan to fight the occupation with olive branches.

Friday 13 May 2001

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Palestinian struggle for statehood once occupied centre stage in the Middle East, especially prior to the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq.

But the youth-led revolutionary wave rocking the region has captured the eyes and imagination of the world and diverted attention to many places that previously floated in the media backwaters or were simply uncharted territories: Tunisia, Yemen, Bahrain, and Libya. For a few unprecedented weeks, Egypt even caused a total eclipse of the international media.

Amid all this tumultuous change, one may be excused for thinking that all is quiet on the Palestinian-Israeli front. But the conflict grinds on ceaselessly under the world’s radar and the factors that make it explosive continue unabated: settlement building, home evictions and expulsions in Jerusalem, a repressive Israeli occupation and oppressive Palestinian leadership.

So why haven’t Palestinian youth risen up like their counterparts elsewhere in the region to demand their rights?

Well, it is not for want of trying. Inspired by events in Tunisia and Egypt, and following the date-based example of counterparts elsewhere in the Arab world, a new youth movement dubbed by some as the March 15 movement has emerged in Palestine.

However, in contrast to other popular uprisings in the region, their demands were not wholesale regime change, despite the undoubted failings of both Fatah in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza, and the absence of a democratic mandate for both parties.

“Our top priority is to end the divisions within Palestinian society. This is the only way to deal with the occupation,” explained Z, one of the founders of the movement in Ramallah, who wished to conceal his identity for professional reasons.

Some of the others involved in March 15 are also reluctant to reveal their identities, partly as an expression of the decentralised and “leaderless” approach preferred by Middle Eastern protesters tired of authoritarianism, and partly to avoid popping up on the radars of security services run by the PA, Hamas or Israel.

Despite its relative success on 15 March, the movement has not managed to replicate the most successful ingredient of the protests in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Bahrain: constant pressure from the streets. This is partly due to the two-tiered nature of the oppression facing Palestinians, and the restrictions on their movement imposed by the occupation. “Unfortunately, we have two levels of repression in Palestine: Israeli and domestic,” says Z, who is in his early 20s.

In addition, there is the psychological barrier of widespread despair and disillusionment afflicting wide swaths of the population, which the Arab spring is just beginning to chip away at. Most Palestinians I have met since I moved to Jerusalem a few weeks ago speak enthusiastically and excitedly about the Egyptian revolution.

“The problem among Palestinians is that revolutions are nothing new, yet nothing changes or things get worse,” Z observes. “Neither uprisings nor negotiations have worked, Palestinians believe – we’re still under occupation.”

And after two intifadas separated by the Oslo peace process, the net outcome for Palestinians has been to witness the gradual vanishing of their historic homeland and the space for a future nation spliced and diced into ever smaller portions, with many of the choicest cuts going to settlers.

Nevertheless, hope is emerging, Z insists. The surprise recent reconciliation agreement signed by Fatah and Hamas, which many reckon was partly due to youth activism, as well as the rapidly changing regional realities, has been a boost.

Z told me that a new generation of Palestinians, many of whom were born around the time of the first intifada, are ready to reinvent the struggle.

Drawing lessons from the failure of the violent second intifada and the success of the largely peaceful first intifada, as well as the now-proven power of mass, nonviolent protest to instigate change in the region, this generation of upcoming leaders plan to fight the occupation with weapons of mass disobedience. “We want to employ ‘smart’ resistance,” Z says.

“A moderate, peaceful intifada is coming. Can’t say when, but it is inevitable,” he adds confidently. “We’re trying to create a snowball effect. In Egypt, it took a decade to get to this stage.”

Palestinian activists, often in collaboration with the Israeli peace movement, have been quietly laying the groundwork for nonviolent resistance in recent years, as demonstrated, for example, by the constant stream of protests against house demolitions and evictions, and the Israeli separation wall.

Being the dreamer that I am, I cannot shake the vision in my head of the joint Israeli-Palestinian activism infecting the masses, with large-scale joint action as the most effective way to end the occupation and bring about peace.

But Z doesn’t believe there is much scope for broader joint action. “We have no problems working with Jews and Israelis. We’re against racial discrimination and so shouldn’t discriminate ourselves,” he says. “However, we don’t feel the majority of Israelis care enough or are interested in our plight to do anything about it. Besides, there isn’t enough mutual trust.”

Z and his comrades are busy formulating a post-reconciliation strategy that seeks, first and foremost, to strengthen the Palestinians internally and prepare them for statehood, and employ this greater unity and strength to bring the occupation to an end.

“We need new political faces and parties. We need renewal through youth,” Z says.

This column appeared in the Guardian newspaper’s Comment is Free section on 12 MaY 2011. Read the full discussion here.

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Tags: arab world, authoritarianism, egypt, egyptian revolution, fatah, gaza, hamas, israel, israeli-palestinian conflict, middle east, non-violent resistance, oslo accords, palestine, peace process, reconciliation, tunisia, yemen, youth

Recognising the weakness of mutual rejectionism

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By Khaled Diab

Palestinian reconciliation offers a golden opportunity for a peace deal. But reaching one requires Israelis, Palestinians and the international community to recognise some hard facts.

Friday 13 May 2011

The Egyptian-brokered Palestinian ‘national unity’ agreement between the two main Palestinian factions, Fatah and Hamas, took the world by surprise when it was announced on 27 April.

Palestinians hope this internal peace deal – officially inaugurated in Cairo last Wednesday – will bring an end to years of infighting and conflict between Fatah, which currently dominates the West Bank, and Hamas, which controls Gaza, and mend the burnt bridges between the two Palestinian territories. With national unity, Palestinians also hope they will get a government that can best serve their immediate and long-term national interests.

However, the agreement is so vague and brief that it raises questions as to whether it can serve as a basis to heal the deep-seated political and ideological rifts between the two parties. But if it enables the Palestinians to create the infrastructure for a state-in-waiting, then it will serve a useful purpose. Encouragingly, it also details a clear path to elections, which will enable the Palestinian people to choose between Fatah and Hamas.

Although much of the world welcomed the news of the deal and saw in it an opportunity to inch towards an eventual Palestinian-Israeli peace deal, Israel’s Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, immediately rejected the agreement, calling on the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah, to cancel it.

“The agreement… is a hard blow to the peace process,” he said following a meeting in Jerusalem with former British prime minister and Quartet envoy, Tony Blair, and just ahead of a European tour aimed at mobilising European opposition to the deal.

Netanyahu’s position has raised Palestinian suspicions that Israel prefers a ‘divide and rule’ approach to the Palestinians in order to keep alive the idea that Israel has “no partner for peace” while it quite literally cements its hold on the West Bank through settlement building.

Of course, Hamas’s own pronouncements do not help matters. In response to Nethanyahu’s rejection of the Palestinian unity deal, Hamas’s Ismail Haniyeh, who is the prime minister in Gaza, called on Fatah to withdraw its recognition of Israel in wake of its “denial of the rights and unity of the Palestinian people”.

To the minds of many Israelis, this confirms Netanyahu’s assessment, when he asked: “How is it possible to achieve peace with a government – half of which calls for the destruction of the State of Israel…?” Of course, Netanyahu is conveniently overlooking that his own Likud party’s political platform “flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan river”.

Haniyeh’s comment is particularly unwise when considering that it is targeted at a society in which memories of mass murder and near-extinction at the hands of the Nazis are still alive and traumatic, as illustrated by the sombre spectacle of the annual Holocaust Memorial Day in May. The prism of the Holocaust makes the symbolic recognition of Israel an issue of paramount importance to many Israelis.

If Haniyeh’s heart is really with the Palestinians and he truly wishes to serve “the interests of our people”, then refraining from such harmful statements would be a first step. This is especially true since he and other senior Hamas figures have, since coming to power, indicated their acceptance of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, as recently reiterated by Hamas’s Khaled Mashal in Cairo.

It is high time for the Hamas leadership to stop beating about the bush, in order to appease hard-liners within the movement, and come out with a clear statement that it recognises Israel’s right to exist within its pre-1967 borders.

Among Israelis, although concern over Hamas’s record of violence and its refusal to recognise Israel is understandable, it is important to distinguish between the symptoms (strident Islamism in Gaza) and the disease (a crushing occupation, poverty and denial of a people’s rights).

It is also wise to recall that Israel helped empower Hamas by illicitly supporting the movement and its precursors as a counterbalance against the secular PLO in order to avoid negotiating with Yasser Arafat and then by refusing to deal with it once it came to power. Such blowback illustrates that the only way to break the cycle of hardening positions is for Israel to recognise Hamas and Palestinian statehood, just as Hamas should recognise Israel.

The gun has failed to deliver peace. It’s time to give the olive branch a real chance.

This article was written for the Common Ground News Service.

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Tags: binyamin netanyahu, blair, egypt, elections, europe, fatah, gaza, hamas, ismail haniyeh, khaled mashal, likud, mahmoud abbas, national unity, palestinian unity agreement, peace process, tony blair

Peace summit or the height of folly?

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By Khaled Diab

Can an activists’ peace summit at the top of Mont Blanc help bridge the abyss of Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

24 August 2010

The young Israelis and Palestinians at the summit of Mont Blanc.

With diplomacy leading nowhere in a hurry and the situation steadily worsening between Israelis and Palestinians in recent years, even the most optimistic doves have had their wings clipped by the hawks who prey on every fledgling initiative, often before it has had a chance to hatch.

Against the backdrop of this political vacuum, a group of young Israelis and Palestinians (all of whom are citizens of Israel) have quite literally held their own peace summit – at the top of Mont Blanc.

Backed by the Swiss NGO Coexistences, the eight young men and women scaled Europe’s highest mountain after months of rigorous training as part of an initiative called Breaking the Ice, which seeks to thaw relations between ordinary Palestinians and Israelis. According to the organisers, mountaineering was chosen because it is an activity that requires a lot of trust and co-operation. Mountains, being imposing and seemingly insurmountable edifices, are also highly symbolic, albeit of a kind that some may regard as clichéd. They represent tough challenges and struggling against the odds which, once overcome, enable the climbers to rise above the situation and reach dizzying new heights.

Those watching carefully will realise that this is not the first time Palestinians and Israelis have joined forces in what some might regard as little more than a stunt. For example, a similar group journeyed all the way to Antarctica in 2003 (also under a “Breaking the Ice” banner, though it is not clear if it is the same initiative) – but their gesture has largely been lost in the wilderness of conflict.

Drawing on an all together different set of symbols, sceptics may wonder whether such small-scale stunts aren’t as futile as making mountains out of molehills and whether such intrepid activists have their heads so high in the clouds that they’ve lost sight of the apparently intractable conflict grinding on relentlessly in the valley below.

At this point, it may be worth asking what the young people involved took from their experience. Well, some were sceptical too, to begin with. “I used to think this sort of programme romanticised the reality, and the reality is not good,” admits Lobna Agbaria, a Palestinian-Israeli law student. “But I live in this reality; this is the situation, so what can I do to help improve [it]?” The experience of such intimate proximity also helped to reshape their perspectives. “This project actually changed my political opinion,” acknowledges Tomer Ketter, an Israeli postgraduate student of geophysics. “Now that I have real friends who are Arabs, I think it opens an entire other world to me.” Some have taken this notion of coexistence much further. For example, Wahat al-Salam/Neve Shalom (Peace Oasis), a community of 50 families, half Jewish, half Palestinian, living together in harmony not far from Jerusalem.

Herein lies the most valuable contributions of such efforts. What critics fail to grasp is that those initiatives do not pretend to entertain grand objectives; they are not about waving a wand to magically bring peace to the Holy Land. In a world where Israelis, Palestinians and Arabs rarely meet, any effort to build a modicum of understanding and empathy is welcome. In this regard, the idea behind a group like Combatants for Peace is doubly poignant. It not only brings together Israelis and Palestinians in a common cause, its members are all ex-fighters who have laid down their arms and reject violence, thereby dispelling two common stereotypes: that the other side only understands the language of violence, and that they cannot work with one another.

With top-level talks consistently proving to be dismal failures, direct contact between Israelis and Palestinians can establish grassroots dialogue and trust. Diplomacy has failed to deliver partly because of the disparity in power between the two sides and the absence of visionary and honest leadership, but also because of the almost complete lack of understanding between people. That is why I have, over the years, become convinced that Israelis and Palestinians need to start a bottom-up peace movement based on dialogue and civil rights issues: both sides are increasingly finding common cause over civil rights questions, as evidenced during regular joint protests held in Bil’in. Although these efforts make little or no difference in the grander scheme of things, they do cause a positive ripple, no matter how small, in the conscience and attitudes of people. And out of lots of little ripples waves are born.

However, some do find that dialogue and co-operation for their own sake are not enough. “I think most efforts [like these] are to be praised,” says Labeeb Baransi, a Palestinian who left his native land to study in the UK and now runs an ICT company in Jordan. “If they carried out the joint effort to support a two-state solution I do feel they have just wasted a tremendous amount of energy. They would have gained a great deal more if they spent it on promoting the one state solution.” Baransi advocates a single secular state for all Israelis and Palestinians, and founded a Facebook group which counts Palestinians, Israelis, Arabs, Jews and other supporters as members.

Although I am in favour of a bi-national, secular state eventually emerging, I do not hold out much hope of any final resolution – one or two states – occurring any time soon. For the time being, the most we can hope for is to help Palestinians and Israelis learn to walk together. As Heskel Nathaniel, who led the 2003 Antarctica expedition, put it: “We want people to see that even enemies can find a way to do great things if they decide to take on the challenge together.”

This column appeared in The Guardian Unlimited’s Comment is Free section on 13 August 2010. Read the related discussion.

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Tags: arab, civil rights, conflict, europe, holy land, israel, israel-palestine, israeli-palestinian conflict, jordan, one state solution, peace process

Learning from the Sadat years

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By Khaled Diab

The Camp David accords between Egypt and Israel remain controversial, but Arabs and Israelis can draw lessons from Anwar el-Sadat’s quest for peace.

1 March 2010

Nearly three decades after his death, the former Egyptian president, Anwar el-Sadat, remains a controversial figure. In Israel and many parts of the West, he is best remembered for his daring trip to Jerusalem, where he became the first and only Arab leader to address the Israeli Knesset, and his deadlock-breaking peace accord with Israel.

But the rosy image of Sadat as world statesman, visionary and peacemaker overlook his questionable domestic human rights record, his dictatorial bent, his disastrous economic policy, the insipid corruption of his regime and his aloofness and arrogance towards other Arab countries.

In Egypt and the Arab world, he is celebrated for the victories he scored in the early parts of the 1973 war, the first time an Arab power had shown the titan of Israel’s military might to be vulnerable and so soon after the crushing defeat in 1967.

However, Sadat’s subsequent peace deal with Israel was far more controversial. Although many Arab leaders privately accepted that peace with Israel was necessary and inevitable – including Sadat’s predecessor Gamal Abdel-Nasser who conducted promising secret peace contacts with then Israeli Prime Minister Moshe Sharett – none at the time were bold enough to say it publicly. Rather than working with Sadat to create a unified Arab position to negotiations, they turned on him instead.

In Egypt, opinion was and remains divided, with many viewing the Camp David Accords as a betrayal. However, most Egyptians, tired of what is widely viewed as the Arab desire to defend the Palestinian cause to “the very last Egyptian”, grudgingly accept the benefits of a cold peace.

Today, with a general Arab consensus on the need for a settlement with Israel, as embodied in the Saudi peace plan, criticism of Sadat has become more muted and nuanced: his vision is accepted, though his unilateral tactics are still widely questioned.

Now, with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict looking as dire and insoluble as ever, what lessons can be learnt from the Sadat experiment?

One important lesson is the importance of symbolism and gesture politics in helping prospective peacemakers scale the walls of paranoia and distrust that separate Israelis and Arabs.

On both sides, many will say that the obstacles to peace – an ultranationalist, right-wing government in Israel, the rise of ultra-conservative Hamas in Gaza, the deadly Israeli siege of the Strip and the disarray and infighting among the Palestinian factions – are insurmountable. But things didn’t look particularly rosy back in the mid-1970s either, when war seemed to be the only show in town.

Then, as now, Israel was led by an ideologically rigid right-wing prime minister who, though he talked of the need for peace, was reluctant to negotiate with the Arabs or give up an inch of the dream of creating Eretz Yisrael. By going to Jerusalem and appealing to the Israeli people directly, Sadat forced Menachem Begin’s hand with a deft masterstroke.

Today’s Arab leaders could do well to learn that, faced with a powerful opponent who nevertheless fears them, a standoffish offer of peace, no matter how attractive, means little when it comes from a great distance. It needs to be delivered in person wrapped in olive branches.

In fact, the need for direct contact and negotiations between politicians from Israel and the frontline Arab states, not to mention the Arab and Israeli peoples, is greater than ever, given the level of mutual dehumanisation and distrust. That does not mean that economic and political ties should be immediately normalised – that will be one of the fruits of eventual peace – but there should be a broad and sincere dialogue and cultural exchange between those on both sides who wish to build enduring peace.

Israel could also draw similar lessons about the value of direct contact. Separated as they are behind physical and ideological walls, ordinary Israelis have negligible contact with their Palestinian neighbours, the people they most need to understand and coexist with. Israel needs to learn the language of its neighbourhood and start dealing with the Palestinians and Arabs in a way that will win them over – a good start would be to end its destructive and counterproductive blockade of Gaza.

In addition, both Israelis and Palestinians need to learn that violence has failed to resolve the conflict and will continue to do so. Israel needs to learn that its gung-ho “deterrent policy” deters little but the prospect for peace, while the Palestinian factions who advocate and employ violence need to realise that it achieves little beyond provoking the wrath of their powerful neighbour. Both sides would do well to learn from the tactics employed by their non-violent peace movements.

In the end, pragmatism is the only solution. As Sadat said in a 1978 speech in Cairo: “Peace is much more precious than a piece of land… let there be no more wars.”

It’s high time for Arabs to overcome their reticence to talk directly with Israel and for Israel to overcome its reluctance to negotiate a simultaneous settlement on all fronts. What we need, but are unlikely to get, is a comprehensive settlement to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

This article was written for the Common Ground News Service on 25 February 2010.

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Tags: anwar el-sadat, camp david, egypt, israel, israel-palestine, menachem begin, middle east peace, palestine, peace process

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