Walid Salem

Walid Salem

Walid Salem is a Member in the Palestinian National Council of PLO, teaching democracy and human rights at AlQuds University. He is a writer of thirty books and training manuals, and tens of research papers on Democracy, civil society, citizenship, refugees, and Jerusalem.

Суббота, 30 Июнь 2018 17:09

Dying in temporariness

Temporariness is a well-known Israeli procedure used with the Palestinians. The examples are many: Your presence in East Jerusalem for instance is considered to be temporary, and you will be defined as “ A Jordanian Citizen residing permanently in Israel”, or as a “ holder” of “Undefined” , or “ unclassified” status as it is new added in this year. 

Another example is the one related to Palestinians living in Area C of West Bank. Some of these were evacuated from the Negev in 1950’s. The Jordanian Government allowed them by then to reside in the so called “ Miri Land” in West Bank. 

Opposite to the Western concept of “ State land”, the “ Miri Land”, is part of the inherited Ottoman land law, which gives usufruct  rights to those who cultivate and use the land, including the right to inherent its use from one generation to other.

After 1967 occupation, Israel put it hands over all the Miri Lands in West Bank, and started to deal with them as “ State lands” disregarding as such the rights of the usufructs of these lands a generation after a generation since the 1948 Nakba. The Israeli High Court of Justice accepted such a definition , and Upon that the Bedouins of Al Khan Al Ahmar and others in the Jordan Valley and around Hebron began to face this claim that their presence in those lands is temporary and that they should be ready to leave them.

Yet a third example is from inside Israel of 1948. There, the Bedouins residency areas are considered temporary by the State of Israel, and therefore the Israeli authorities is seeking to evacuate them, the last example is Umm Al Hiran village which received an Israeli High Court decision of evacuation from the land of the ancestors in the last April. Besides it Al Araqeeb village is still struggling to stay in the place, by keeping building the “ illegal” village according to the Israeli law once and again after each demolition by the Israeli Aurhorities. These demolitions reached the number of 130 times till today. 

As such, the title of this column “ Daying in Temporariness”, refers to the fact that the Palestinian  spends his/her hall life in temporainess. In Such a life he/ she will need so creative ways of action in order to be able to stay in place, and/ or to manage the damage happening by decreasing its effects in case of the inability to get rid of it. In other words the policy of “ Temporariness”, include in it an integral component that make it impossible for the Palestinian to change it as much as the Israeli occupation and his legal structures continues. He/ She ( The Palestinian) has no option other than to find ways to maneuver in order to be able to continue existing till he/ she dies.

The Temporariness procedure is addressing both land and the human being and the link between them as well.

Starting with the Human being, the procedure allows for the punishment of the Palestinian, not because he/ she did something wrong, but because he/ She exists where he/ she is not supposed by Zionism to exist as Dr Adi Ofer indicated. As such one can understand why an angel like Razan Najjar the paramedic will be killed on the borders between Israel and Gaza, while practicing her paramedic services to the casualities. One can also understand why cruel violence and the heavy power of the Israeli army will be used against the Palestinian peaceful marches since 1967 till today. Other practices to understand in the light of this include also ( among others) the so called” Citizenship and residency procedures” used by Israel with the East Jerusalem Palestinians as mentioned above. 

In regard to the land, considering it as “ Eretz Israel” by the current Israeli Government and its colonial settlers, leads to the disconnection in their minds between the land and those who lived over it for very long centuries before the “ return of the Jews” as it is called beginning from the 19th century.

The result is then twofold: In one hand the land presence in the hands of the Palestinians is considered by this continous Zionism as temporary till the “ People of Israel” take it back. This is in one hand. 

In the second hand, the attachment and the connection between the human being and the land is considered to be also temporary. What follow this consideration are policies not only to takeover the Palestinian Land, but also others that makes the presence of the Palestinians in the whole country as “ illegal”. Here this “ illegality” is not limited to the East Jerusalem Palestinians, but it also include the area C Palestinians who are subject to evacuations from their lands, house demolition, and all the other procedures that the Palestinian Jerusalemites face. Finally the people in areas A and B are under so many restrictions that “ invites” them to leave the country. To be added as well the policies of temporariness that are  still practiced against the Palestinians inside Israel, and those on the opposite that do not acknowledge any right of the Palestinian refugees to return to their homeland. The logic of the concept is going in the direction of creating new refugees instead of solving the previous ones continuous plight since 1948.

In conclusion, these policies of temporariness, are just other indications of a settler colonial project that is still expanding on the expense of other, rather than indications to the willingness of this project to solve the problem with the other by recognizing as the indigenous rights of that other. In the case of Israel we still have a state in the service of the settler colonial project not a vice verca. As such it’s borders did not stop on 1948, but it keeps expanding and expanding. This include a lot of resulting doomsday scenarios that one can see, and can also expect worsening in the future.

Article published in Akhbar El Balad: http://www.akhbarelbalad.net/ar/1/6/4055/

Photo credit: EPA

“Agricultural Terrorism”, is a kind of “ concept” that one finds when looking at Channel Seven of the settler colonialists( Now on: The settlers), and at some websites of those settlers.
The alleged concept describes the Palestinian attacks against the Settlers agricultural lands by burning tires, igniting fires, and the so called “ Weaponized Kites” like those flying from Gaza to the South of Israel creating arsons there.
The most important is the “retaliation” proposed and practiced by the settlers, and their Government in Israel. In the South West Bank the settlers decided to “ retaliate” themselves in addition to what the Israeli Army is doing , and that is by uprooting Palestinian trees and venyards, and leaving leaflets and writings on the stones saying that these attacks are conducted in response to the so called” Agricultural Terrorism” of the Palestinians. Inside the colonial settlements committees for  “self Defence” against arsons and the other Palestinian attacks are created like in Gush Etzion. This brings back the 1988 discusion about if the settlers will be allowed by the State of Israel to run special patrols outside their colonial settlements. Today this is not a matter of discussion any more. The settlers are already attacking in different places in Palestine. These attacks are well documented over years by the UN Office for the Coordination of the Humanitarian Assistance to the Palestinian People( OCHA), and B’TSELEM and many other human rights organizations. What we are interested here instead is about the assumptions  behind such concepts and practices.
The Israeli Government is also “retaliating” by giving the settlers the right to carry arms “ to defend themselves”, and by all the punishment procedures used, the last among them  is the suggestion of the Minister of Home Security Gilad Erdan to target and kill those who run “Weaponized kites” from Gaza, due to his claim that they are terrorists. Days ago the Israeli Army military jets attacked a group of those kites runners inside Gaza. Also Israeli missiles attacked others.?. Air-jets and Missles against kites: A highly proportionate and balanced confrontation!.
Why the Palestinians will face two kinds of the so called “retaliation”. One by the settler colonial state, and the second by the Non- State Actor called the “ Settlers”?. Let us here notice also the convergence between the two. The settlers are not separate from the official level. They have ten Ministers in the Government, and they now represent the biggest block in the Knesset. Accordingly the 1980’s discusion about the possibility of the settlers to split from the state and establish their own “Judea and Samaria” State is not valid any more today. Why they should split while they have all the state in their hands?. 
Further than that there are groups among the settlers and the Israeli right wing who call today for the transformation  of the state of Israel from a county that combines some democratic aspects with its Jewishness, to a pure Jewish State( These are Like: Lehava, and Price Tag, Elad and others). So why to split if your project became about the transformation of the State as a whole?.
The above question, have connections with different issues in the theory of “ conflict resolution” and the world political practice, and finally the Palestinian practice since 1993.
In regard to the theory, the field of conflict resolution, tends to understand the context in Palestine and Israel as a one about two parties who both have equal responsibility to compromise,  calm down the “ conflict” and prevent it from escalating. This is obviously wrong, but it is also in the surface only. When one digs behind, he/ she will find the original commitment to establish Israel by Britain and the Evangelicals and the Puritans led by Cromwell since the seventeenth century. 
This commitment by the politicians and by the “ Bible Academics” created the process of establishing the National Home to the Jews in Palestine”, then allowing this National home security wise to create the Haganah for “Jewish Defense” in 1921, then the  “ Special Night Squads” in 1936 led by the British Orde Charles Wingate who was an evangelical by himself, and other security bodies were also established under the so called “the right of the Jewish National Homeland to defend itself against  the Palestinian attacks”. The name of the game before 1948 was: Take their land, make them angry and ourageous to the extent that they will initiate” Terrorist attacks”, then use your right to “ retaliate” under the so called formula of “ self Defense”. Very easy: Their Land will be appropriated, and then they are the responsible for what will happen to them because of their attacks, and because of their rejection to stay calm, and impotent, like any “ obedient boy”.
Yet, this is not all the story in the conceptual level, what follows is the description of the “ Conflict” here as a “ Low Intensity Conflict” . The criteria used here is the number of casualties in the conflict.Upon this criteria our conflict is included in the tale of the academic lists about “ conflicts”. But this calculation is misleading,  Since  the “ Conflict” here is about land theft and transfer of population ( Spaciocide) , rather than being about full physical genocides that are used on the way, but the main aspect will continue to be the spaciocide. This Spaciocide is probably more painful than the physical genocide, because the people and their country places, space, territory, landscape, and society are all erased.
So we have a big problem first with the theory and practice of this emerging field called as” conflict resolution”. A lot of qualitative academic work is badly needed to bridge this big gap in the conflict resolution literature. 
Second, what follows are the political practices. Today we witness the same process that was practiced before 1948: We take your land( This is the real “ Agricultural Terrorism”, and not the Palestinian response to the grabbing of their land), then we have the right of self defense and retaliation to your attacks called by us as being “ terrorist”. In the pre 1948 the Zionist Groups were  “ retaliating” while the British Mandate was giving the support and the protection. Today the settlers groups are covered and supported by the Israeli Government that represents them.
In Oslo the Palestinians were ploughed with the same formula with its root in the academia clarified above: They were told: leave the essential issue of land theft aside, leave the rights of the refugees aside, leave Jerusalem aside, and let us talk and negotiate to reach a peace agreement that will end hostilities, while the theft of land in West Bank and East Jerusalem continues during the negotiations, and while no progress is made to end the plight of the Palestinian refugees.
This process, allowed for the gradual seizure of West Bank and East Jerusalem territories a piece after a piece, reaching the current point of planning to annex area C as a first stage to Israel, accompanied with the language about settlers being the indigenous population while the Palestinians are the “ strangers” and the “ terrorists” who should pay the price of their wrongdoings. The Palestinians face the Israeli Army oppression, but also the settlers one, both claiming as being “retaliating” to the Palestinian “ terrorism”, while the basic fact was an still that the Palestinians are those who retaliate all the time against the aggression practiced against them and their land.
A path of change, is not an easy thing to do, but it is possible with patience, persistence and strong follow up. Besides struggling In the academic and the conceptual levels. It is required that instead of focusing solely on the top down internationalization through diplomacy, other option will need to focus on bottom up processes of comprehensive non violent struggle( This one also include the top down political and diplomatic one, but as inseparable part of it).
The first process create symbolic resolutions of support to Palestine that are combined with empty words of calling the “two sides to go back to negotiations”. These are like checks without a deposit, and they will be confronted by the fact of the Israeli society shift to clearer settler colonial positions than ever. 
The second process will be more successful if well planned and includes political, diplomatic, legal, economic, developmental, and other creative actions of resistance, and if it will be coordinated by a united Palestinian leadership, and the participation of all the Palestinians from West Bank, Gaza, Jerusalem, the Palestinians inside Israel and the Palestinian Refugees. International participation will be also required.
Such a process will create the pressure needed to make change in the world positions that will lead to a change in favor of Palestine, and not vice versa.
It is not an easy undertaking, but it is about the reallocation of Palestine anew in the global camp struggling for justice, liberation, and ethics- based politics. It is also about the readiness to pay the sacrifices required for its success. 

 

Понедельник, 28 Май 2018 17:36

The theft of Palestine in action

The last two weeks developments were intensive in a way that included all the components of what was going on since the second half of the nineteenth century. The process of the displacement of the Palestinians, and the replacement of them by colonial settlers.

Colonial Settlement expansion wise, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics new report released in the 15th of May, showed that the number of settlers reached the number of 636,402 in the end of 2016, representing the percentage of 21,8 in comparison with each 100 Palestinian. In East Jerusalem 68.3 of its population is already settlers. Besides that there are a majority of settlers versus the Palestinian population in area which represent 64 percent of West Bank. This means that East Jerusalem and area C are already Judaized in regard to their population. While the 6,310,000 Palestinians calculated by the end of 2017 are condensed in the tiny Strip of Gaza, and the area A, and to lesser extent area B of West Bank both representing no more than 36 percent of West Bank. 

What will be the next step of the settler colonial project now on?

The trend is not for peace, but for more grabbing of land, and more settlement expansion. In the last two weeks the Israeli Minister Avigdor Lieberman declared the establishment of new 3900 settler units in West Bank. In Jerusalem 58 new units decided  for Gilo settlement , and 92 for Pisgat Zeev. More importantly the government decided a new plan of 2 billion shekels in the 13th of May aiming clearly this time to Israelize Jerusalem as opposite to the previous plans that were released on the name of sustaining security in the city as the Israeli Journalist Nir Hasson indicated( Haaret, 14/5). Moreover the Judaization of Bab Al Rahmeh Cemetey is still going on combined with a plan to create cable cars project going from the Mount of Olives to the Wailing Wall, accompanied by a full change of the landscape of the Old City of Jerusalem and its environs. 

 These examples of  settlement and Israelization processes are accompanied with laws and practices of displacement such as the law to confiscate the Jerusalem ID’s from any body who do not show loyalty to Israel( Hamas PLC members were the first to pay the price of this law), and the ongoing discussions for ousting Kufr Aqab and  Shufat Refugee Camp from Jerusalem aiming to decrease the Palestinian population from the city. Also there are the new decision of the Israeli Ministry of Justice to oblige the Palestinian Jerusalemites to register their houses and properties on their names. Failure to do so due to problems resulting from the Islamic inheritance system, or from the fact that many of the lands and properties are endowned will lead to confiscation of the House or the property. In the other side a legal coverage is on the way to annex the settlements of  Adumim and Givat Zeev and Gush Etzion to the city to increase the number of the Jews in it. Finally the incursions to Al Aqsa Mosque by the extremists of the “ Temple Mount” calling for the rebuilding of the Temple reached new number of 1410 in the 13th of May, which is called as “ The Jerusalem Day”. 

The displacement process is also ongoing in area C, for Instance the Israeli High Court approved in 22/5 the evacuation of Al Khan Al Ahmar Bedouins including 40 families, and destroying their houses and a school that serves more than 170 Bedouin pupils. This decision will allow for further expansion of the neighboring settlement of Maale Adumim. The Israeli Journalist Amira Hass wrote in the middle of the month in Haaretz about the two villages of Umm Al Jammal and Ein Helweh In the Jordan Valley, which the Government decided to ask the Israeli High Court to release an order for their evacuation with their 300 persons due to the justification that their houses are build without permits. New in this case was the claim of the Government that the law should be implemented equally for both the settlers and the Palestinians, and therefore demolition orders should not be limited to one party than the other. Further in area C other example is related to the village of Sosya close to Hebron that the government decided also to demolish and evacuate its 400 inhabitants. Also in Al Aqaba village close to Tobas a military’s decision was made to destroy 20 houses in the 27th of May, made few days after the release of a new military order that will make the process of demolition of constructions in area C faster and with less obstacles included. In Hebron 2, the neighborhoods of Salaymeh and Gheith Families were closed by gates in 14/5 which prevents them the right of direct access to Al - Ibrahimi Mosque in the city, in the meantime the nearby settlement of Tal Rmiedeh continues to expand over historical archeological sites.

These practices of displacement, are further accompanied by uprooting trees and vineyards. As examples: In Halhoul 500 vineyards were cut owned by Jibril Jahshan a week ago, and yesterday 700-800 vineyards were destroyed owned by Shukri Abu Rajab in East Hebron. In another example the settlers attacked in the 14th of May an initiative to plant trees in Turmos Ayya village close to Ramallah.  

In one hand the people in area C are uprooted, but in second hand their means of living are attacked and destroyed. Thirdly their symbols are under attack. For example carrying the Palestinian flag is not prohibited by the Israeli law, but the MK Ahmad Tibi was attacked harshly by the Police when he was carrying this flag during the demonstration of 14/5 close to the new location of the new American Embassy that was opened at that day. 

Further ahead, there is also the process of demonization as a fourth component . Look for instance to Avigdor Lieberman description of Hamas as a “ Bunch of Cannibals that treat their children as armaments”. Such a statement reminds of the well known attack made by the white settlers in the 16th Century against the Red Indians in “ Abya Yala” which was their original name of what became to be known later as America. This logic was followed by making Hamas responsible for the killings that the Israeli Army committed against the demonstrations of the “ Return Marches” in the borders of Gaza, in which the number of casualties reached around 123 killed and more than 13,000 injured since the Marches  started in the end of March this year, that all besides 50 who are in the status of coma in the hospitals . In the opposite no single Israeli was killed by these Marches demonstrators, and the Army used the massive force of 11 brigades, and jets shelling from the air against them. Besides that the demonization became comprehensive against all the Palestinians, for instance the demonstators in Haifa in the 18th of May were attacked as being loyal to Hamas and the director of Mosawah Center in Haifa Mr Jafar Farah got his leg broken after he was arrested by the Police. The High Court made again a legal coverage to the killings in Gaza when it decided in the 22nd of May that the killings conducted are “ part of the state of war that exists between Israel and Hamas”. Accordingly the court rejected two petitions for instructing a change in the firing orders by the Army.

Changing the landscape is a fifth component. After the displacement, the new comers who replace start the process of changing the landscape. In a former article here, we quoted Netanyahu speaking about “ dissolving the Countryside”. This is of course is conducted on the name of modernity and modernization.

Colonial settlers attacks is a sixth component. Like the attacks on Al Aqsa mentioned above, or the example of the “Price Tag” Group night attack in Shufat this month destroying partially 28 cars, and writing racist slogans. Many other settler attacks taking place around Hebron, Nablus, and Ramallah areas can be also mentioned.

A seventh component is about what the Israeli Journalist “ Zvi Bar’ el” called as the “ Abolishing of the Nakba”( Haaretz, 15th of May”. This abolishement took place legally by the law that criminalize the “ celebration” of the Nakba, and now by the new decisions in the making to prevent taking pictures of the soldiers while they are oppressing or killing Palestinians subject to 5 years imprisonment to those who take these pictures. Haaretz called this new decision in the making as “ Leor Azaria law”, referring to the soldier who killed the Palestinian Abdel Fattah Al Sharif while he was injured and can do nothing. Azaria was sentenced for 18 months, which was decreased to 14 months, then he was released after he spent nine months only in the prison. The abolishing of the Nakaba is also genocidal to the memory. The aim is to prohibit the people their right to remember.

Where we are heading to with these politics of theft of land, changing its landscape (Spacio-Cide as it was called by Sari Hanafi), demonizing the other and the denial of his/ her equal rights as human being, and use the laws to twist the arm of justice, and as such make the law as a “ law- making violence” as it was called by Walter Benjamin.

These processes expreses the continuation of the Nakba as Saeb Erekat wrote in the 14th of May. In the same day the Journalist Fatina Dajani described the Nakba as a “ Past- Present”.  If these processes continue,then  no place, and no space will be left to the Palestinians in their homeland. Striking enough to see Netanyahu calling the Mayor of Maale Adumim settlement to congratulate him for the new government decision few days ago to expand settlements, and to promise him that the Maale Adumim expansion plans are on their way to be approved by the Government. In other hand why the Israeli Government meetings till the end of July were moved to a cave build in the underground close to Jerusalem, where no leaks of the discussions whatsoever will happen. This reminds of Ben Gurion secret meetings with the Zionist leadership before 1948. What the “ evils” that they are discussing?and what the upcoming atrocities that they are planning for?. In the lack of information, one can only use historical evidence to speculate. 

The next columns will analyze the current Israeli proposals about what to do with the Palestinians.

Article published in Akhbar El Balad: http://www.akhbarelbalad.net/ar/1/6/3967/

Понедельник, 21 Май 2018 02:14

Good bye “conflict resolution”

Forty five years passed since the 1973 first Geneva Conference for Peace between the Arab Countries and Israel. A lot of talks took place by then to find a way for the inclusion of the PLO in that Conference directly or indirectly. The Palestinian National Council of 1973, and 1974 eleventh and twelfth sessions were both  an attempt in that direction when they decided to create a “ Palestinian National Authority in any part of Palestine to be liberated”. This program signaled the PLO move from the Liberation of all Palestine strategy, to another one that speaks about liberation in stages, opening the way to the recognition of Israel in the 1988 PNC conference. The 1973-1974 change gave PLO the Arab recognition as the sole representative of the Palestinian people which took place in the Arab Summit held in Rabat in 1974, and it also opened the UN doors to Yasser Arafat to give his famous speech” I came to you with an olive branch in one hand, and a gun in the other. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand”, and he repeated the last sentence. Besides that the PLO started engaging with some European countries like France.

Yet, these changes of the 1973-1974 were not enough for United States and Israel to accept the inclusion of the PLO in the so called” Peace Process”. This inclusion had to wait for the Americans till 1988 when PLO recognized the UN Security Council Resolution 242 during the  PNC 16th conference held in Algeria by then. After that conference an American dialogue with the PLO started, and the American Ambassador to Tunisia Robert Pelleatru was appointed to conduct it. Without delving in too much details, the rest of the story is known starting from Madrid Conference of 1991 when PLO participated as part of a joint Jordanian- Palestinian delegation, followed by eight sessions of “ corridor meetings” aiming to agree on the agenda before interning the negotiations room. These sessions were held in Washington between the Palestinian delegation that was led by the late Haidar Abdel Shafi the well known Palestinian National Personality from Gaza,  and the Israeli one led by Lawyer Elyakim  Rubenstein. The sessions were stopped without entering the negotiations room. This stoppage took place after Oslo Declaration of Principles was released as a result of secret direct talks that took place between Israel and the PLO. Since Madrid conference of 1991, 27 years already passed, and 25 are almost passed since Oslo. Palestinian wise the harvest was bitter.

The colonial settlements grow bigger more than six times, during the “ peace process”. Jerusalem got fully separated from the other parts of the Palestinian 1967 territories, and almost Judaised except the Old City and some other few communities. The Refugees issue is taken in practical terms out of the table by Israel and the United States. Last but not least Area C became De facto annexed to Israel if not De Jure yet, and Jerusalem annexed territory to Israel is still growing by grabbing parts of West Bank, and adding them to Jerusalem. The outcome of all of this is a creeping annexation as it was first called by Moshe Dayan in the end of 1960’s, and the creation of one bigger Israel that have no place for the Palestinians. What will be the next step towards those ignored Palestinians?. Some in Israel are raising their voices calling for their transfer, in other hand the official Israeli Policy is keeping silent about their fate, but at the same time supporting those who call for the transfer of the Palestinians by taking no single step against their statements and actions. 

This is a summary of the bitter harvest so far, which is also an indication that the worse is still to come. Why is that?

The main reason is the formula that was used for peacemaking and conflict resolution  between the Palestinians and the Israelis. I published a long research paper about this formula in the “ International Negotiation Journal” last January 2018, titled “Beyond Exacerbating Asymmetry, and Sustainig Occupation”. Here is a brief summary of the findings about the conflict resolution formula that was adopted by the United States and Israel towards our case: 

First: Despite the grief asymmetry between the two sides( The occupier and the occupied). They were considered to be symmetrical. “ You will get if you give”.  ( Netanyahu).

Second: The process dealt with West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem as the subjects of bargaining and division between the two sides. This approach led to the marginalization of the Palestinian refugees issue, and other issues like the Palestinian rights in West Jerusalem.

Third: The Process was gradual, and incremental, so the discussed details will open the way to other endless kind of details leading as such to the failure of all the negotiations rounds.

Fourth: Instead of agreeing in advance about the end game( The goal of the Negotiations), the final status was kept as an “ open ended”, and the core issues including of Jerusalem, refugees, settlements and borders were left to the permanent status negotiations that its rounds failed one after the other, while settlments were growing in the ground.

Fifth: The mediator was biased to the strong side all the way ahead. In the times of President Donald Trump the mediator moved to a worse position of becoming a partner to Israel in settlement expansion, and in Judaizing Jerusalem.

Sixth: The formula for the negotiations was based on “ Ignoring the past, and looking together for the future”. That was adopted instead of reconciling and solving the atrocities of that past.

Seventh: The formula included a People to people approach which ended up becoming the hub for “ technical” and “ business like” projects with a lot of bearucracy in reporting and the quality of reporting included from the donors side. This was accompanied by an assumption by the donors that the two sides moved to a stable “post- Conflict period” of partnering in making solutions, therefore institutional building became the fashion instead of the continuation of the support for the Palestinian non- violent struggle for self determination and independent statehood. Neo- Colonial tools of control was included as research explicated.

In brief, a commercial  formula of compromise prevailed either by looking politically for the division of the 1967 occupied territories between the two sides, or by doing business together through the so called” people to people projects”. 

The bitter harvest of this formula is ahead of our eyes. Accordingly it should be said clearly: Goodbye to conflict resolution with all its shortfalls, and look instead for reconciliation. The conditions of the latter do not exist in the ground today, but an international formula of non violent struggle for the emancipation of the Palestinian people can create the conditions for it instead of focusing solely on diplomacy. 

Article published in Akhbar el Balad: http://akhbarelbalad.net/ar/1/6/3944/

Photo credit: AP

In response to the savage massacre committed by the Israeli Army against the “ Marches of Return and Seige Lifting” of yesterday in Gaza, the White House in Washington DC released a statement blaming Hamas for using violence, and supporting the “ right of Israel to defend itself”. Also Mr Jason Greenblat the American Envoy to the Middle East “ Peace process” wrote an article in the Israeli newspaper “ Yisrael Hayoum” accusing Hamas of returning Gaza back to the “ Iron Age”

Till Nine PM yesterday evening, the death toll among Gaza Palestinians participating in the Marches reached the number of 55 (increased to 58 by 1:26 am this morning), in addition to 2410 injured. According to the Ministry of health in Gaza, there are 203 children and 78 women among the injured. 40 of these were in a critical conditions and 76 seriously injured. 1204 got injured by live bullet, and 130 by rubber covered metal bullets. Further than that the Ministry of health report includes calculations about the parts of the bodies that were injured, for instance 79 injured in the neck and the head, 76 in thier chests and stomaches, 164 in different places of their bodies, and 1055 in the lower parts of their bodies. As such many of the injured will be left with permanent disabilities life long.

How comes that these killings and injuries just in one day are merely practiced in the framework of “ Israel right to defend itself”?. How comes that later in the day the USA prevented a UN Security Council Statement approved by the other 14 members of the Council condemning the massacre and calling for the formation of an international committee of investigation about them?.

Beyond the shock from these positions, three issues should be emphasized (among others that there are no enough space for all to be discussed in a short column like this one):

The first among these is that United States is not any more just a supporter to Israel politically and militarily, but moreover United States is a partner in the Israeli ongoing settler colonial project in the ground. A latest research had shown that 15 percent of colonial settlers in West Bank (without East Jerusalem) today are Americans. Sara Yael Hirschhorn from Oxford University presented these results showing that there are sixty thousand settlers in West Bank only ( without the inclusion of East Jerusalem), who are originally Americans. Therfore President Abbas was fully right to describe the move of the American Embassy yesterday to Jerusalem as “ an establishment of an American Settler outpost in Palestine”. This is one.

Secondly, the significant point regarding the move of the American Embassy to Jerusalem yesterday, is that it is about dictation of the final status results  in the ground in contradiction with Oslo Agreement article five text which stated that Jerusalem as a whole ( East and West) is subject to the final status negotiations. In other words Oslo Agreement included what the late Palestinian leader Faisal Husseini was saying all the time till he passed away in 2001, that the Palestinians property rights in West Jerusalem should be negotiated and agreed upon before any political agreement about the city and on how to share two capitals for two states in it. The Americans violated this article and adopted the Israeli position which again makes the American Embassy in Jerusalem of a colonial type as mentioned above. 

Thirdly: The American Administration becoming a partner of the Israeli settler colonial project, will share as well the Israeli position of finding no place to the Palestinians within this project. Accordingly the Palestinians should hide and show no presence, expressed by keeping fully silent towards what is imposed and dicatated, or they will pay the price by getting to be” removed” forcefully when they oppose. In this sense all kind of Palestinian struggle armed and non- armed become illegal according to this perspective because they make the Palestinian visible while he / she is supposed to be invisible. Adi Ophir wrote once and again that the Palestinian is punished not because he made something wrong, but he/she is punished becsuse he/ She is found in a place where the settler colonial project expect him/ her not to be existing in. Gaza wise this means that the Gazan Palestinians should continued acting in impotent way despite the move of the Embassy, and despite the anniversary of 70 years of the Nakba given also that 66 percent of Gaza residents are refugees according to the Palestinian Bureau of Statistics new report released yesterday.

It was James Zughby who wrote yesterday that the the Americans consider the Palestinians as” invisible victims” that do not count anything by themselves, but they merely represent a “ problem to Israel” that the latter has to deal with and solve. Accordingly no attention will be made to the plight of the Palestinians since 1948.

Article published in Akhbar el Balad: http://www.akhbarelbalad.net/ar/1/6/3933/

Photo credit: AFP Photo/Mohammed Abed

Пятница, 11 Май 2018 17:45

Acknowledgment of the Nakba is required

This year witnesses the seventieth anniversary of 1948 Nakba. In the 1980’s the Israeli New Historians found out what Walid Al Khalidi and others discovered since 1960’s that the Palestinians did not leave due to calls from the Arab Radios calling them to leave their country. In the opposite they found that the majority of Palestinians who left were obliged to do so due to Zionist attacks. First Benny Morris showed through checking Israeli Archives that 282 villages were evacuated due to Zionist groups attacks. Nur Masalha further found that 292 locations were evacuated due to these attacks, other 87 were evacuated due to fear from Jewish attacks or as a result of the evacuation of neighboring villages, and finally 12 locations were evacuated because of terrifying rumours. Later Ilan Pappe wrote an outstanding book about ethnic cleansing recording and analyzing all its process based also on informations that he got through his access to to the Zionist Archives.

However, the  majority of people in Israel still think that what happened in 1948 is legitimate. They deny the fact that other people were evacuated by force from their country. This denial did not led only to the continuation of the plight of the Palestinian refugees till today, but it was also used as a coverage for the repetition of what happened in 1948 once again in 1967 and after. By checking the official Israeli Archives Nur Masalha found out that in addition to those who left during the 1967 war, other 200 thousand were forcefully evacuated after the war, this include most of the residents of the Morrocan Quarter and Al Sharaf neighborhood  in the Old City of Jerusalem, and the former villages of Yalo, Emwas and Beit Nuba in the Latrun area that were destroyed after the war( Canada Park today). After that war also 850 to 2000 houses were destroyed by Dynamite in Qalqilia city according to different estimations, the same goes for destroying the villages of Beit Awwa and Beit Mirsem close to Hebron, and the village of Jiftlik in the Jordan valley and others. Besides that the Refugee camps of Ein Al Sultan, Nweimeh, and Aqbat Jaber were evacuated.

The period from 1948 to 1967 witnessed also several campaigns of evacuating the Bedouins of the Negev to Egypt and Jordan. These campaigns continued till 1959. Also when Gaza was occupied in 1956 for few months several plans for the evacuation of its population mainly the refugees were prepared, also several massacres were conducted leading to the killing of more than 2000 Gazans as Isam Sakhnini wrote. Till 1948 and as the Israeli historian Aryeh Yitzhaki showed 10 big massacres were conducted by the Zionist groups each of more than fifty people killed, and other smaller 100 massacres were also committed.

This brief review showed that the settler colonial project that has no place to the other continued  also after 1967. Some call what is going in the post 1967 territories as a colonial case of occupation. But this description is misleading. What we have here is a settler colonial project that is stretching itself in the ground using the same methods that were used in the pre 1948 period. It is then a matter of time only when the moment of full confrontation between this project and the indegenious population will come if the expansion of this project will continue with the American support, and the European inability to confront it, and the Arab and the Palestinian divisions and internal fights. 

Today we have around 650 thousand colonial settlers in West Bank and East Jerusalem according to the minimal estimations, also the refugees are still in there place, and new numbers of refugees keep emerging, either in the shape of internal displacement (what is going on with the Bedouins in Area C for instance), or by external ones.

The path to confront this is well known, and were written and called for once and again. It is not by waisting the precious time in the diplomacy of seeking for negotiations,  but by creating an international non violent struggle for the freedom of Palestine and the emancipation of its people. Such a struggle should take place in Europe cities, United States, and every were in the world in addition to Ramallah, Gaza, Jerusalem, and the other Palestinian cities. Such a struggle needs to use political, economic, legal, and diplomatic means, and not to be limited to the organisation of marches and demonstrations. The like-minded Israelis are invited to join, but first they need to cross the bridge from dialoguing with the Palestinians to join them in the struggle for freedom. Crossing this bridge can’t be achieved without their one by one recognition first on the individual basis of the plights of 1948 and 1967, and the Israeli responsibility of creating them. By this recognition they create an example for other Israelis to join. Can they have the courage to do so, and come to a position of truth and honesty for oneself and in their relation with the other?.

Article published in Akhbar el Balad: http://www.akhbarelbalad.net/ar/1/6/3920/

Суббота, 05 Май 2018 22:04

Rationality and the Delegitimization of Mahmoud Abbas

The thesis of this short column, can be summarized in the message that the leaders of the underdog party in a protracted and intractable conflict cannot be expected to act all the time rationally( as versus to emotions as the term is unusually used in the political discourses), regardless of the context and its history. And also regardless of the General and the overall positions of those leaders.

On this basis, one can look to the last statement of the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the opening of the Palestinian National Council of the PLO ( The PNC) in the 30th of last April considering the “ Jewish usuary” as the reason for their hate and therefore the successive killings in Europe.

This statement was reviewed and received as separate from the context( The status of the conflict), the personality of Mahmoud Abbas as a man of peace who also presented his last peace plan to the UN General Assembly In the fall of last year, followed by presenting it in his speech to the EU in Brussels last January this year, then to the Arab Summit in Dhahran of Saudi Arabia in 15th of April, and last but not least in the PNC meeting few days ago.

His plan included a call for an international conference to be held under the international legitimacy and run by an international collective mechanism to reach a solution to the Israeli Palestinian conflict.

The plan was strongly welcomed by the EU, Russia, China, Brazil, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, most of the non- aligned countries, and finally it was adopted by the Arab last Summit, and last PNC Conference, and became part of their resolutions.

The only two countries who strongly reject Abbas peace plan are the United States, and Israel.
Obviously all know the answer of why is that?. Briefly both of them do not have a peace plan that is capable to achieve peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis. The details are known and were discused through an immense number of articles written by many observers.

The writer of this column has his reservation on Abbas peace plan, based on the fact that instead of just demanding the world for it’s implementation, we should first create our comprehensive and continuous Non- Violent Intifada in order to make the world adopting the plan. Nevertheless the striking question for this column is: Why Abbas “ irrational” statement was stripped from its links to the history of the conflict, its context today, and also from the personality and the history of Abbas himself as a man of peace?.

This question is two-fold: In one hand, why this “ Stripping” process came out as a consensus among the world major powers?. Why as a result there were a series of strong statements against Abbas without mentioning( at least by those that supported his peace plan), even that he is a man of peace, and putting his “ mistake” Within this overall “ evaluation” of him?.

The answer for these questions, goes to the Western conceptualization of “ who is the moderate” among the underdogs in the conflicts, presented all the time as the person who is completely rational, and as a one that is not expected to do even any single “mistake” of following his/her emotions. If he or she did that mistake, even once, it will be then enough to start the process of his/ her Politicide by legitimizing him among his/her people and internationally.

This takes us to the second part of this question, which is why the two former charismatic leaders of the Palestinians were deligitimized at the end?. These two are The Mufti Haj Amin Al Husseini, the head of the Pre- 1948 Arab High Commitee( and later the Arab High Commission), and the second is Yaser Arafat.

The first escaped detention by the British in the 1930’s due to his role in the 1936 revolution in Palestine by escaping to Iraq, and then to Iran when the British Forces were back to Iraq during the World War Two, and finally he found himself escaping from Iran to Berlin the capital of the Nazi Germany when the British occupied Iran. He found a shelter in the Nazi Germany but all the respectful and non demagogic studies will tell that he did not become an advocate to the Nazi ideology. So why he was deligitimized?. The same goes to Yaser Arafat the signatory of Oslo Declaration of Principles of 1993, and the man of peace together with Yitzhak Rabin. After his rejection of 2000 Camp David American offered deal, he found himself imprisond in his compound in Ramallah by the Israeli right wing Government , till he died.

One to think of these two cases, and then speculating: Are the Palestinian leadrs are expected to follow all the time to line of the great power, and to expect punishemt and ousting from the “ moderation” category when they do not do? Are we accordingly witnessing the process of delegitimizing now Mahmoud Abbas after he showed his objection to the American” Ultimate plan” that do not solve any of the issues of refugees, Jerusalem, settlements, borders, and others?. Is this a formula to move him out of the “ moderation” category? Is it the fate of the Palestinians to continue having an ethnocide combined with a politicide of their political leadership through all their modern history?. Will be there a real peace plan to be implemented so this fate to be transformed?.

In the same Line: Are the statements against Abbas stripped from all what mentioned helpful in path to prevent the delegitimization of Abbas? are they rational by themselves, or just reactions of anger by some , and instruments to deligitimize Abbas by others? what are the level of “ tolerance” given to the underdog in a conflict by those who are” stereotyping” him/ her?, and when the patronizing part of this stereotyping will be removed?. Finally how these condemnations to Abbas will not objectively leads to the strengthening of the Israeli settler colonial project on the expense of the Palestinians?

Special to Akhbar Elbalad

Суббота, 21 Апрель 2018 16:19

To be a Palestinian Jerusalemite these days

The Arab Summit held in Saudi Arabia in the 15th of April, passed this year without attracting the media attention. Strong decisions about Palestine and Iran, and a deep split regarding Syria.These are in general the summit resolutions.

Jerusalem wise the summit was called by King Salman as “ AlQuds Summit”, with 150 million dollars allocated by Saudi Arabia to the Islamic Endownment in the city, and other 50 million allocated to the UNRWA. As happened with the previous summits financial support decisions, one has to wait and see if these will find their way to implementation this time. The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent a letter to the summit after its end, calling for a mechanism to implement the summit decisions. We will wait and see.

In Israel, there were almost no response to the Arab Summit resolutions. The Israeli plans in regard to Jerusalem continued as if nothing happened. Besides that some Israeli voices who consider them seleves as “ Peace makers”, moved from their previous patronizing position of giving “advisory opinions” to the Palestinians about alternatives to what is called as “ the failure of the Palestinian strategies for Jerusalem in the last fifty years”, to a new worse position of creating a list for joining the Israeli upcoming municipal elections of this year. This participation is taking place in the framework of the Israeli annexation to the city, and practically recognizing it, by looking for the improvement of the daily life issues of the Palestinians in East Jerusalem through this system instead of working to support the creation of Palestinian facts in the ground towards Palestinian self determination. Interesting enough this new “ project” is presented under the slogan of “ the people democratic right to vote”, as if this democratic participation cannot be achieved by bringing back the Palestinian Municipality that was dissolved illegally by Israel in 1967, and by allowing for the Palestinian munici elections in
West Bank and Gaza Strip to be inclusive to East Jerusalem the capital of Palestine.

This development in the year of moving the American Embassy to Jerusalem, will only create within the existing asymmetry an inclusion process of the Palestinians in the Israeli system, that it besides creating fragmentation among the Palestinians instead of supporting by practical means their right to self determination and independence.

The problem to the Palestinian Jerusalemites with the Arabs are those of that they are making slogans about supporting, but practically speaking the Arab support is fragmented, compitative between different Arab Countires, and also the support that arrives is very small.

The problem of the Palestinian Jerusalemites with the State of Palestine Authorities is about the latter inability to start acting as a Palestinian State in the ground, with East Jerusalem as its capital, which will include the implementation of practical economic and community based programs in Jerusalem, and also include the creation of a long term nonviolent resistance. Now the Jerusalemites are looking to the Palestinian National Council of the 30th of April to make a crucial steps in that direction. Can it?

The big problem for the Palestinian East Jerusalemites will still to be the ISRAELI OCCUPATION, and its ongoing plans for the deepening of the Israeli settler colonial project in the city. Reading the mentioned list for municipal elections program one will find that occupation is not mentioned, and as well the right of the Palestinians to have back their dissolved 1967 Municipality is not mentioned. Moreover the list program ignores the fact that most of the decisions regarding the Israelization and the Judaization of Jerusalem are taken in the Israeli Ministerial level rather than the municipal level. Do they want to be “ witnesses” ( if they succeeded in the municipal elections) on the settlements expansion and the humiliation against the Palestinians in East Jerusalem, including for example the humiliation taking place in the offices of the Israeli Ministry of Interior in East Jerusalem?

Yet, this is not all the story, but there is an ethical side of it that still to be tackled: Opposite to relativism which considers every point of view as merely an “ Opinion”, and therefore considers all opinions as all legitimate and equal regardless of the divide, the Israeli so called “ Peace activists” are called to make the courageous move from this “ Neutrality”, to the position of the the ethical support of what their Palestinian partners struggle for. Without this move, talking about struggling together become impossible, and the joint ventures become like a waste of the Golden time in controversies and arguments on the expense of taking actions.

Finally, despite all these pressures and others not mentioned on the Palestinian East Jerusalemites, there are lights in the horizon, the last was the decisions of the economic conference in Istanbul last week, and others. More importantly there is the Palestinian strong sense of integrity, and the resilience and the ongoing community development in the East Jerusalem communities, which make the Palestinian East Jerusalemite steadfast, continue and prosper despite all the odds.

Article published in Akhbar Al Balad

Photo credit: AFP/Getty Images

As it happens every time when the Israeli municipal elections get closer, one will see voices calling the Palestinians in East Jerusalem to break their boycott to those elections. So far the Palestinian participation in those elections did not exceed one to three percent in all of its rounds. The explication of this very low turnout by claiming that the East Jerusalem Palestinians are afraid from the PLO and that the factions , is disrespectful to both the people and the factions. The people in Jerusalem are acting according to their believes rather than according to what the factions ask them to do, also the factions actions are usually not directed towards terrorizing their people. The public opinion poll that Haaretz published last month claiming that 59 percent of the East Jerusalem Palestinians are in favor of voting in those elections  looks to be representing the positions of one segment from East Jerusalem Palestinian population rather than representing all segments of this highly fragmented society due to the Israeli occupation policies since 1967.

The argument of those who call for Palestinian participation in those elections include that this participation will give the Palestinians their rights in the municipal level, might create a freeze of settlement, and also it might bring out a good response to President Trump decision about about “ Israelizing” Jerusalem as a whole( See for Instance Uri Avnery response to Abraham Burg proposal of a list to be led by Ahmad Tibi for those elections both published in Haaretz few days ago).

These claims are based on the assumption that the Palestinians might succeed in those  elections together with the Israeli colleagues in the list because of being around 40 percent of the population.

The assumption is awkward because the ability of such a list to win the elections by exploiting  the rift between the secular and the religious communities among the Jews, which was possible in the past is not any more possible after the right wing religious and secular segments became able to unite their forces both in the Israeli government and in the municipal levels as well in the last few years. Therefore the failure of the list is highly likely.

Besides that if it won, will that lead for reversing or at least freezing the settler colonial expansion?. An issue that all know for being key for Zionism. 

Looking to  the experience of the Palestinians inside Israel participation in both the Knesset and the local council elections will teach us that at the end the procedures of taking over the Palestinians lands and expanding  settlements on their expense continued since 1948 despite this participation.

It is then a wishful thinking to find easy solutions to more complicated issues by suggesting that electoral ways as if they are being capable to reverse or at least stop a  settler colonial project who aims to take over more and more territory, and to replace and displace. In the contrary other means are required to “ defeat” such project, these include initiating a comprehensive non violent campaign with global participation( including the Israeli like minded participation), building Palestinian Community unity and resilience versus fragmentation, and recreating a bottom up Palestinian Municipal structure that will assist also to prepare for the Palestinian independence. Failure of the Palestinian side to launch these kind of alternatives paved the way for the growing voices calling for rotten ideas such as joining the Israeli municipal elections, as being the only salvation for the Palestinian status in the city before being lost!.

Transforming this “ doom day” claim , will require first from those who are calling for it to change direction and to join fully the Palestinian non- violent struggle, and to lend hands to assist building the resilience of the Palestinian communities in East Jerusalem according to the needs of those communities rather than according to the imagined forms of these needs by the initiators as it usually take place by different projects that are” targeting”  East Jerusalem Palestinians instead of working according to their real needs.

Besides that all who call for the Palestinian participation in the municipal elections of West Jerusalem should be able to show a respect to the Palestinian municipality of each Jerusalem that still exist since 1967, and reappointed by President Yaser Arafat in 1998, and then by President Mahmoud Abbas in 2012. Those who call for the participation in the Israeli municipal elections should be able to change direction and think instead in how to assist this Palestinian Municipality that is still symbolically exist to become factually existing through creating the connections between it and the East Jerusalem communities, and therefore create one additional step towards disengaging with occupation towards Palestinian independence. Several scenarios were developed in the last few years for how to make this link between the Palestinian municipality and the East Jerusalem communities and most of them are doable. 

Such a change of direction became also more and more required specially after the last January resolution of the PLO Central Council to “revive the Palestinian East Jerusalem Municipality in the basis of the best democractic and Representetive methods that are possible”. Is it possible to express respect of this dicision and to try to find out how to support it towards implementation?.

Besides that major discussion there is the other one of asking East Jerusalem Palestinians to vote to Meretz in order to increase its seats number in the municipality. Such a call leads to a violation to the Palestinian boycott, and it cannot be tenable.  Meretz will be required as it is mostly doing to keep supporting  the Palestinian independence in East Jerusalem and the fullfilment of the Palestinian needs in the city in the basis of its principles towards the two states solution, without waiting to get a reward for that from the victims of its country occupation. 

Finally, in Jerusalem the adminstrative and the political are strongly linked. Here both are intertwined. In Israel the decisions regarding Jerusalem are made by the Government and its ministry for Jerusalem and not from the Municipality only. In Palestine there are a ministry of Jerusalem and PLO department of Jerusalem. Claiming then that the Palestinian participation in the municipal election will not lead to political results that are against the Palestinian rights of independence and building the steps towards it, is a rotten and awkward kind of claim and it’s ramifications were explained above. Further than that Palestinians will not seek for improvement of the services to them within the framework of the” Israeli United Jerusalem” by participation in the Israeli municipal elections, especially when this participation will be also in full contradiction with their political aspirations, and with their daily life needs that they will be better to befulfilled  by sustaining the Palestinian municipality in the city opposite to its 1967 illegal dissolution by Israel.

Article published in Akhbar Al Balad: http://akhbarelbalad.net/ar/1/6/3825/

Photo credit: Getty Images

The Israeli settler colonial project started in East Jerusalem in early 1967, directly after the beginning of occupation. During the same period, the Palestinian resistance began as both an armed struggle – as in Gaza mainly from 1967 to 1972 – and a public movement of nonviolent resistance – as in East Jerusalem and the rest of the occupied West Bank. In addition to settler colonialism, the Israeli project in East Jerusalem has included a combination of belligerent occupation and apartheid policies.

One of several early settler-colonial projects was the demolition of Al-Sharaf neighborhood inside the Old City, in order to begin the expansion of the Jewish Quarter over its ruins. At the same time, however, the Palestinian Jerusalem Municipality (Amanat al-Quds) rejected its dissolution by the Israeli occupying authorities. Sheikh Abdel Hamid Al Sa’eh, among other personalities, took the initiative to create the first National Guidance Committee, which has led the Palestinian struggle against the occupation since early 1967.*

Later on during the same year, the Israeli Occupation Authorities deported Sheikh Sa’eh to Jordan, but the resistance continued. In Jerusalem, this resistance preserved the Palestinian Islamic and Christian Waqf Institutions’ independence under the leadership of the High Islamic Commission that was established immediately after the 1967 war. The commission worked in tandem with the Christian religious representatives in order to protect the holy places and the religious courts’ independence, and to contribute to the leadership and guidance of the resistance against the occupation.

Using all kinds of creative measures, the Palestinian national institutions in East Jerusalem strove to protect themselves from being taken over by occupation. These included the chamber of commerce, the electricity company, the labor and professional trade unions, Makassed and Augusta Victoria hospitals (among others), and several charitable societies as well as the education sector. In this case the teachers undertook a long, successful strike in order to prevent the imposition of the Israeli curricula as the curricula for education in East Jerusalem schools.

These successes in the early years of occupation were sustained by others in subsequent years. In 1973 the National Front was established in Jerusalem and consisted of national and left-wing factions and parties in addition to national personalities. The National Front led the Palestinian resistance until 1976. Several demonstrations were organized during that period of time, especially by students. A national strike followed the martyrdom of Muntaha Al-Hourani, a schoolgirl from Nablus who was assassinated by Israeli Occupation Forces in 1974. The Palestinian artist Suleiman Mansour drew an impressive portrait of her bleeding from the back while lying on the ground in her school uniform.

For the Israeli Occupation Authorities, the combination of the struggle made by the Jerusalem-based National Front – in addition to the students and trade unions, cooperatives, and other organizations under the national front leadership – combined with the Arab Rabat Summit recognition of the PLO as the sole representative of the Palestinian people, meant that there was a need to make concessions. One of the major concessions was the cancellation of the 1975 plan to establish a civil administration, and the decision to allow the PLO-affiliated personalities to run for the municipal elections in 1976, which resulted in a big victory for a number of important personalities, including Karim Khalaf, Bassam al Shaka’a, and Ibrahim Al-Tawil, who became the mayors of Ramallah, Nablus, and Al Bireh, respectively.

The elected mayors played the role of political guide for the Palestinians and did not limit themselves to the provision of services. In 1978 when the Camp David agreement was signed between Israel and Egypt, the mayors gathered with other personalities and the university student councils, the trade union representatives, and others in the premises of the trade unions in Beit Hanina, Jerusalem, where they declared their rejection of the Camp David Accords and announced the establishment of the second National Guidance Committee.

In the early 1980s, the Israeli Likud-led government decided to dissolve the National Guidance Committee and initiated a war against the elected mayors. In the course of this campaign of persecution, Bassam Shaka’a’s car was bombed in June 1980, which left him in a wheelchair after he had lost parts of his legs and one hand.

At the same time, the Israeli occupation authorities created the so-called village leagues that were connected to the Likud-created Civil Administration. It was led by Hebrew University professor Menahem Milson (between November 1981 and September 1982). He ended up resigning after the utter failure of his experiment to “organize village leaders.” The whole plan failed in all its aspects: To weaken the urban-based PLO supportive leadership on one hand, and to create a leadership that was loyal to Israel on the other hand. In addition, the village leagues were boycotted, even in their own villages, which led to their full collapse a few years later.

As the Israeli government increased settlement expansion, with the number of settlers reaching 111,600 in 1993, it also hired Israeli professors such as Ezra Sadan to develop ideas for economic peace as an alternative to ending the occupation. These additional Likud policies strengthened Palestinian national aspirations and Palestinian support of the PLO, contrary to the aim of the Likud: that “the improvement of living conditions for Palestinians” as it was called then, would lead Palestinians to forget their national aspirations and the confiscation of their land.  

These developments ripened conditions for the eruption of the first Intifada that started in 1987. Jerusalem once again was the center of the Intifada leadership, continuing until the death of the leader Faisal al-Husseini in 2001, and the Israeli closure of the Orient House.

This short overview has shown the centrality of East Jerusalem not only in planning and guiding the Palestinian popular struggle against the occupation from 1967 to 1987, but also in the protection of national institutions, the rejection of any compromise in the struggle for self-determination, and the strengthening and support of the PLO as the sole representative of the Palestinian people.

* A chronology of the Palestinian resistance to occupation can be found in the annual volumes of the Palestinian Diaries and in the Palestinian documents (in Arabic) that were published by the PLO Research Center.

Blurb: After 1967 the Palestinians refused to surrender their national institutions to the Israeli occupiers, continuing the Palestinian struggle for freedom. East Jerusalem was central to such efforts that ended up thwarting Israeli attempts to normalize the occupation and to create an alternative to the PLO. This strengthened the PLO’s status as the sole representative of the Palestinian people.  

Walid Salem is a lecturer on democracy, human rights, and conflict resolution at Al-Quds University, and a PhD candidate in international relations at the Near East University of Northern Cyprus. He is also a member in the PLO Palestinian National Council, and the director of the Center for Democracy and Community Development in East Jerusalem.

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