Mustafa Barghouti has a powerful op-ed in tomorrow’s International Herald Tribune. He takes the Obama administration, the EU and Israel to task for perpetually postponing Palestinian freedom to some far off date, while his people suffer under occupation. He writes that this reality leaves Palestinians no choice:
If Israel insists on hewing to antiquated notions of determining the date of another people’s freedom then it is incumbent on Palestinians to organize ourselves and highlight the moral repugnance of such an outlook.
Through decades of occupation and dispossession, 90 percent of the Palestinian struggle has been nonviolent, with the vast majority of Palestinians supporting this method of struggle. Today, growing numbers of Palestinians are participating in organized nonviolent resistance.
In the face of European and American inaction, it is crucial that we continue to revive our culture of collective activism by vigorously and nonviolently resisting Israel’s domination over us.
These are actions that every man, woman and child can take. The nonviolent movement is being built in the villages of Jayyous, Bilin and Naalin where Israel’s segregation wall threatens to erase productive village life.
President Obama, perhaps unwittingly, encouraged this effort when he called for Palestinian nonviolence in his Cairo speech. “Palestinians,” he said, “must abandon violence. … For centuries, black people in America suffered…the humiliation of segregation. But it was not violence that won full and equal rights. It was a peaceful and determined insistence upon the ideals at the center of America’s founding.”
Yet without public American complaint, the Israeli military has killed and injured many nonviolent Palestinians during Obama’s 10 months in office, most notably Bassem Abu Rahme who was killed in April by an Israeli high-velocity teargas canister. American citizen Tristan Anderson was critically injured by the Israeli Army in March by a similar projectile and remains in a deep coma. Both men were protesting illegal Israeli land seizures and Israel’s wall. Hundreds more are unknown to the outside world.
A new generation of Palestinian leaders is attempting to speak to the world in the language of a nonviolent campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions, precisely as Martin Luther King Jr. and thousands of African-Americans did with the Montgomery bus boycott in the mid-1950s.
We are equally right to use the tactic to advance our rights. The same world that rejects all use of Palestinian violence, even clear self-defense, surely ought not begrudge us the nonviolence employed by men such as King and Gandhi.
He ends:
The demise of the two-state solution will only lead to a new struggle for equal rights, within one state. Israel, which tragically favors supremacy rather than integration with its Palestinian neighbors, will have brought the new struggle on itself by relentlessly pushing the settlement enterprise. No one can say it was not warned.
Eventually, we will be free in our own country, either within the two-state solution or in a new integrated state.
There comes a time when people cannot take injustice any more, and this time has come to Palestine.
Too bad this will be ignored by the MSM inside the US.
Yeah, here’s a blast from the past regarding the nature of what is now an old but
very lively USA media suppression:
link to wrmea.com
The International Herald Tribune is owned by the New York Times –so that’s pretty mainstream. But will Barghouti’s piece run here too?
No, that’s why they call it the “international” HT – just like the “international” edition of CNN runs real news while the US edition is interviewing bimbos who boinked Tiger woods.
V. funny, v. true –the contrast between the 2 CNN’s is almost surreal.
Good for him. I think maybe he can find some traction in the EU but the Palestinians have every right to call the Europeans out for being weak-kneed and standing aside while the US-Israeli war machine gathers steam. But I think enough Europeans have become conscious of what is really going on and how the morass that is American hegemony is now a threat to their security and prosperity, not a boon.
I certainly hope for some change in Europe, although the European Commission (the EU executive) simply represents the governments of the member states, and the current leaders of the dominant countries in the Union are all staunchly pro-Israel, as is the commission president, Barroso (Portugal). The European Parliament is less important in determining foreign policy, but there may be some hope there. Even in Parliament however, the conservative (and pro-Israel) European People’s Party dominates.
The European pro-Palestinian left has basically given up on Obama, and is indeed focusing on creating a stronger, more independent European position. To that end, the European participants in the Gaza Freedom March will be going as a group, and are planning joint action upon their return. In terms of influencing public opinion, they stand a much better chance than their US counterparts, as there is already a lot more awareness in Europe of the situation in Gaza and Palestine. BDS also seems to be gaining some momentum in Europe, and judging by the anti-BDS conference the Israeli Foreign Ministry is organising (see parallel thread by Ben White), it’s starting to make some Israeli officials a little nervous.
It doesn’t bode well that Brown just gave Livni a big hug and assured Israel they are always welcome, no matter how much blood they track on the carpet.
Well, Brown isn’t likely to be Prime Minister for much longer, considering where the inquiry into Iraq is going.
Not that Cameron and the Tories would be any better on I/P (or Iraq).
The poodle and master shrub’s crew should all be tried for war crimes–here’s an angle on the poodle:
link to dailymail.co.uk
I guess Obama has let shrub et all off the hook; the same Obama that never let out a single tear for Gaza’s innocents nearing a year ago, just equated the Israelis with his two young daughters asleep in their beds… can’t help but wonder what Obama’s mother would have said about that, or even his absent daddy for that matter… oh, well, good thing RE is running things, just as Chaney did before him–should be another great 8 years.
It will be interesting to watch the USA at war on three fronts–the recent passing of the Iran sanctions bill is a step in the right direction, huh? Jeez even Napoleon and Hitler kept it down to a war on two fronts… But since the USA’s economy is being
handled by the same selfless servants as under shrub, we should do fine fighting a war on 3 fronts.
Which makes me wonder, when was the last time we had a real American president–anyone other than JFK & Carter in recent USA history?
We’ve had real American presidents. That’s why they suck.
Carter is the last real American President in my estimation. Reagan, his successor, was an actor. And it doesn’t seem that pattern has been broken since.
Abbas yesterday stated that if Israel firmly stopped settlement construction, that a just and sincere peace was six months off.
Is that what Barghouti is talking about, or is he opposed to Fayyad’s and Abbas’ efforts, as he has stated in the past?
Kind of irrelevant, since Israel isn’t stopping its settlement construction. Did you really think you were going to be able to divert attention away from that fact?