We,Palestinians, wake up every moring to teach the rest of the world LIFE
Tomorrow, President Mahmoud Abbas is supposed to give a speech at the UN 69th General Assembly annual General Debate. I wish to remind you that Palestine has been accorded the status of a non- member State of the UN in 2012 and since then little has been achieved, even if Palestine can attend all those formal meetings.
Reading the Palestinian newspapers, I found out that Abbas will launch a proposal to end the occupation and to implement the decisions taken by the international community with regards to Palestine. It seems that the Palestinian Authority has had enough with the US-brokered peace talks and that it put on its political agenda the end of the occupation, something it should have done many decades ago.
While recognizing the importance for Palestine being part of the UN institutions, I really doubt that tomorrow someone will listen to us and that we’ll achieve any result whatsoever. Important move but not enough.
At the same time, Fatah is conducing parallel talks in Cairo with Hamas, in order to establish who will be in charge of the reconstruction in Gaza. Though, the issue is more about power than about the reconstruction of a destroyed place: indeed, there seem to be a conflict on who has authority in the Strip. How disgusting it is to talk about power in a situation where schools, infrastructures, hospitals, (maybe also graveyards), water and waste water sewage systems have to be rebuild; where just recently the UN struck a deal between Israel and Palestine allowing the entry of raw materials needed for the reconstruction of the Strip (a month AFTER the end of the bombings); where families are still crying their beloved ones. I really can’t believe that neither in those extreme situations politicians can be more human and less cynic and selfish.
In Cairo, Palestinian leaders should also meet Israeli negotiators in order to discuss the ease of the 7 year long blockade imposed on the Strip, though it is unlikely that this topic will be discussed, along with the construction of an airoport and a sea port, given that Israel wants a demilitarised Hamas, which in turn doesn’t consider that option. Additionally, on Al Jazeera I read the following statement, given by Israel’s Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz:
“Apart from the immediate rehabilitation [of Gaza], there is no real, long-term solution to the situation”. Unless Hamas demilitarises. Well, I think that even if Hamas had to renounce to its weapons, it is unlikely that Israel will ease the blockade and allow Gazans to live a normal life.
Additionally, the bad guy Israel has been once again criticised by a UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights (now is Makarim Wisibono), because the Israeli authorities did not allow him to go to the West Bank and East Jerusalem and I think they will not allow him to enter the Gaza Strip through the Rafah crossing either. Serious violations of human rights law and humanitarian law are daily committed by Israel and had escalated in Gaza this summer. Though, it is not something new, it’s the Palestinian daily life. Why do we need more than 2000 dead to be seen and taken into consideration, this is still a clue for me. Additionally, this is not the first time that Israel denied access to the Palestinian territories to UN Special Rapporteurs and it won’t be the last.
As far as Israel will join the impunity of the international community and as far as other States will accept breaches of international law and a complete dual standard, human rights insitutions and international law are only written paper without any significance. If the situation persists, the only thing we can say is that, in the end, in contrast with the spirit following the World War II, international law is the maximum apology of power relationships between States and that ultimately the system of international law, as it has been conceived, failed.
That said, let me end this post with a personal anedocte. I’m taking a course on the International Relations in the Middle East, with a Professor whose name I won’t mention (suffice here to say that he has also been criticised by Edward Said), and when we were discussing the US foreign policy towards the Middle East and the influence Israel and the Israel lobby have on its formation, his comment has been that, in the end, why should the US and Isral change their policies? Arabs and the Palestinians have nothing to offer (see militarly or economically). Well, already it’s sad to think the world in those terms and not only it’s sad, it’s also immoral or maybe A-moral. But that a professor says that to a class is even more dangerous and serious, given the spread anti-Arabism present in the Western world.
I don’t know if Arabs have something to offer to the world, or at least economically, except from the Gulf States. But I’m sure that Palestinians have. I would like to quote Rafeef Ziadah: “We teach life, Sir”.
There is not such a thing called status quo in Palestine
More than one month passed from my last post. This is mainly due to technical difficulties in having access to Internet, though I won’t bother you with my personal experiences, because it’s not the main topic of this blog. Be it as it may, the fact that I didn’t publish anything doesn’t mean I didn’t follow what happened in Gaza, which were the consequences of the brutal Israeli assault on the Palestinian population and that I do not have an opinion on that.
Even though a ceasefire has been reached and the bombing of the Gaza Strip ended, the situation is far from being settled and Palestinians, both in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, are still suffering and going through many hardships.
This month has seen many things happening in Palestine and in the region unanimously called Middle East. All the region is in turmoil: the Arab- Israeli conflict is still unsettled after more than half a century; the political situation in Lebanon is extraordinarily complicated; Syria is devasted by a 5 year civil war; a “new” entity, that called itself Islamic State, is destabilizing an already weak Iraq and taking possess of parts of Syria, further complicating the situation; the US decided to intervene against the IS with weak and arguable arguments which seem to further their old dream of transforming the Middle East; it’s not still clear the role Saudi Arabia and Iran will play with regards to Syria and the IS, that is also fighting against the Syrian opponents to Assad’s regime.
All these latest events have eclipsed and move to the background the Palestinian cause, which resonates in the media only when thousands of civilians die. Quite sad constatation, but that’s the reality.
To answer some questions I had in my mind and to find some other analytical tools to decipher the recent attack on the Gaza Strip, I started to read the wonderful book Edward Said wrote during the Second Intifada (“From Oslo to Iraq and the Road Map”): it’s quite astonishing that the main considerations of this great thinker, made 10 years ago, are still valid today. Israel used its military supremacy against an undefended population, that found itself stuck between the formal occupant (Israel) on the one hand and its “legitimate” authority (the PA) on the other hand, completely unable and uncapable to protect it and to represent its interests and aspirations. Even more astonishing is the constant silence of other Arab countries, now seemingly turning against the Palestinians, as the reaction of the Egyptian government showed. Arab silence and the impotence of the international community towards the Palestinian plight are the same today as they were yesterday.
During the Second Intifada, Edward Said remarkably and constantly criticized not only the Arab disunity, but also and with even more fervor the incompetent Palestinian leadership, unable to represent its people, its national aspirations and frustrations. The same is happening today. Instead of organizing daily peaceful protests against the occupation and the indiscriminate attack against the Palestinian population, the Palestinian leadership behaves as a proxy of the Israeli army (controlling its own population), shows that Israeli demands can be discussed through negotiations and timidly states that it’s time to go before the ICC (a refrain we got used to in the last years but that has never been put in place). In the meanwhile, we let internationals doing what we should do: protesting, protesting, protesting. Organizing more massive boycotts and a more coordinated system of resistance, similar to that of Nelson Mandela. The Palestinian society should reorganize itself and be united in pursuing the main goal: the end of the occupation. Only when Israel will withdraw to its borders, when the settlements will be dismantled, when there will be no more Israeli soldiers on Palestinian territory, when the Palestinian Authority will exercise a full and complete authority over the whole Palestinian territory, when Palestinian rights will be recognized, then we could enter into negotiations with our neighbour. But not before. I completely agree with Edward Said on that point: the end of the occupation is the condicio sine qua non to enter into negotiations. The end of the occupation can’t to be negotiated. Until the occupant will threaten us with a gun, we won’t be able to stand on a negotiating table on an equal footing. The imbalance of power is evident.
Often, the situation in Palestine is described in terms of “status quo”, as if anything changes. There’s not a biggest lie on earth. Palestinian landscape changes every single day and what there’s today there might not be tomorrow. For example two big projects have been announced lately: one is the government’s decision to resettle the Bedouins of the Naqab (Negev) desert in the Jordan Valley (which is Palestinian territory, Area C, where Israel retains complete control and that it treats as if it was already Israeli land); the second one is one of the biggest land grab of the past three decades (4.000 dunums- 1.000 acres- of Palestinian territory, in the western area of Betlehem, where the Israeli government wants to build a new settlement called Gvaot where there are already five Palestinian villages, with the intentional purpose of creating “facts on the ground”- another burden in unlikely future negotiations- hindering any possibility of a viable and contiguous Palestinian State).
In the meantime, the Palestinian leadership is still threatening Israel to go before the ICC, though the Palestinian Ministry of Justice says that other 2/3 months will be needed in order to apply to the ICC, because technical and legal aspects are still being considered and because a national dialogue had to be put in place (in case of an acceptance of the ICC jurisdiction, Hamas can be convicted as well). Though, the real reason why the Palestinian Authority hasn’t applied yet is that it fears the cut of American and European financial aid, without which it can’t survive. First, I would like to highlight that if it wasn’t for the occupation, Palestine could be able to exploit its own natural resources, open its market to foreign investments, start importing goods and exporting goods from and to other countries. The Palestinian economy is completely dependent on Israel and foreign aid. This doesn’t mean, though, that Palestine can’t stand by itself if it was free. Secondly, I would like to stress the fact that the more we wait the more we lose: Israel announced that it already started investigations on the conduct of the IDF during the military operation in Gaza. Of course, this action aims at hindering the ICC investigation and proceeding: indeed, as many of you might know, the jurisdiction of the ICC is complementary to the national jurisdiction, which means that if Israel proves to have initiated those investigations (that are partial, partisan and unjust), the Court has to concentrate on whether an investigation by Israel is genuine, and covers the same persons and conduct of any potential ICC investigation. Given that the ICC is, unfortunately, a politicized organ susceptible to States’ pressure, the outcome is already predictable.
ICC or not, what is sure is that we have infrastructures to rebuild, houses and schools to repair, hearts to fix (if that’s possible) and a population to encourage to be strong and confident in the future.
Another few words on a past event that deserves our attention. Today is the sad anniversary of an older massacre, which shows the deliberate policy of the Israeli State of targeting the Palestinian civilian population in an attempt to get rid of it no matter where and how: the massacre of the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps, which took place between 16-18 September 1982. Even if 5 non- judicial commissions had been established and even if those commissions, along with the Red Cross, the UN reports and Israeli investigations, identified the responsibles and the atrocities committed, none has been brought to justice yet. Yesterday’s impunity is today’s impunity: this shows the international community’s failure to hold Israel accountable for its heinous actions perpetrated against the Palestinians. When and how international law and the rule of law will have a role in this conflict, if any, no one can know. Maybe it’s a matter of time. Or maybe it’s a matter of changing the international equilibrium. Or maybe it’s a matter of changing our societies and values. I don’t know. Future is unpredictable.
Sources:
Edward Said, From Oslo to Iraq and the Road Map, 2003
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/09/investigating-gaza-conflict-201491112454159948.html
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/09/palestinians-gaza-icc-probe-israel-201491273525819720.html
http://972mag.com/theres-nothing-static-about-the-west-bank-status-quo/96770/
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