Kofi Annan and Bashar al-Assad in Damascus, March 2012. (Photo: Dapd/Bild)
Upon resigning from his position UN Special Envoy, Kofi Annan stated, “The bloodshed continues, most of all because of the Syrian government’s intransigence…and also because of the escalating military campaign of the opposition – all of which is compounded by the disunity of the international community.” Few things are more certain in the Syrian conflict than the fact that the suffering of the Syrian people is less a priority to the international (United States, Russia, China, France, the United Kingdom and the UN Security Council) and regional (Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey) powers than their strategic, geopolitical machinations. The only exit out of this impasse of the hypocritical, immoral and self-serving macro-political opportunism for the international community is to push for “linkage.”
Linkage between the plights of the Palestinian people and the Syrian people must be made visible if the Syrian people are to escape the death-embrace of hypocritical imperialist Western powers and client Arab and Zionist allies. The end of the bankrupt Assad regime is linked to the responsibilities of the international community to live up to their previous commitments to the Palestinian people for a viable and independent homeland.
The Syrian intifada makes strange bedfellows: United States, their Gulf proxies, salafi militants and even Israel. Threats of sanctions and even military aid against the Syrian regime seem capricious considering the United States’ history of sanctions against, say, Cuba and Iran but not Bahrain or Israel. On the other hand, the Baathist regime maintains a brutal dictatorial mukhabarat-state. Their bellicose posturing and manipulative policies within inter-Arab and intra-Palestinian politics have undermined the collective will of the Palestinian people for decades.
After the egregious use of state violence against civilians and non-regular militants by the State, the Assad-Baathist regime has lost legitimacy. No doubt, a representative (non-sectarian) transitional government should assume the mantle of the state until free and fair elections can be held at the earliest possible date. This transition should be guaranteed by the United Nations in concert with a consortium including but not necessary limited to Iran, Russian, China, Turkey, Brazil, the Arab League, and the European Union.
No room exists for the United States within this consortium especially because they already have a permanent place on the Security Council. Secretary of State Clinton and Ambassador Susan Rice continue a long tradition of bad faith in the Middle East. But particularly, this is highlighted by criticizing Russia for defending its most stalwart Middle East ally in the exact manner that the United States pioneered new levels of obfuscation in the Security Council to protect Israel from international accountability.
Let it be said, that this consortium of states is not untainted and, in fact, is generally made up of anti-democratic, self-serving regimes themselves. This is a problem because the essential problem in solving the Syrian crisis is credibility. The only way to infuse any credibility and legitimacy into the solution of the crisis—a solution that it is now obvious must involve the departure of the Assad regime—must be to re-link the Syrian cause to Palestine cause.
The empowerment of the United Nations and this imagined consortium rests on a moral force that links the legitimacy to demand the Assad regime to step down to compelling Israel to accept its international and legal obligations including, but not limited to, United Nations Security Council resolutions 242 and 452. These interlinked demands of the international community should be met with equal international force (sanctions for example) and guided by a paralleled timetable.
If the international community is to maintain the “moral” and political authority to intervene in the internal workings of countries such as Syria, or Libya for that matter, in the name of self-determination, human rights and liberty, then they are certainly entitled and, in fact, obligated to implement international resolutions and law concerning Palestine, which, in fact, is not an internal but an international matter.
This is not an idealist solution. Indeed, for those like me who are ardent supporters of a bi-national, democratic Palestinian-Israeli state, it is quite a compromise.
The pragmatic argument of this solution can be strongly made. Even if we completely ignore history and accept the position that the United States truly cares about the humanity and self-determination of the Syrian people, no one in the State Department would deny that credibility is the United States’ biggest deficit and handicap in the Middle East. On the pragmatic level, linkage is the only way for the United States to gain a semblance of credibility in the region.
Furthermore, linkage would rob Damascus and Tehran of their spurious claim of championing the cause of the Palestinians and standing as the last bastion of opposition to Zionist imperialism and American neo-liberal neo-colonialism.
Linkage is congruent with the traditional Arab League position since 1973. While this organization is dominated by, if not a tool of, the Gulf powers, the solution seems to be in its interests as much as the people of Syria and Palestine. Not only does it endorse the land-for-peace formula set up in 1967, but also the Gulf countries certainly would find in the initiative the opportunity to consolidate their own position within the post-Israel-Palestine, post-Assad new geo-political reality. Jordan and Lebanon will have secure borders on both sides. Internal tensions that too often coagulate around issues of Palestine, the presence of Palestinians, and the machinations of Syria would be forced to realign themselves around the true causes of those tensions (the domination of political elites, corruption, lack of full and functional democratic institutions, the usurpation of capital and resources by business classes, etc.).
Finally, Israel would receive what it allegedly states is its desire, a peaceful resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. With the establishment of a Palestinian state, Tel Aviv could quickly normalize relations with its neighbors. Not only would it be rid of its biggest boogieman Syria but also it would undermine Hizbullah, much of whose genuine legitimacy lays in the fact that it is the only truly anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist, grassroots organization in the Middle East.
It is not my intention to strategize for the foreign interests of the Gulf states, Zionists, the American government or any other of their proxies. Nor is it my interest to endorse a two-state solution that I myself think would establish, most likely, one more puppet regime in the Arab world. My point is to suggest that the idea of linkage is not an idealist’s solution but, in fact, a quite practical solution to alleviate the immediate impasse in Syria and Palestine. These two countries and their two predicaments are, in fact, inextricably linked as any historical observer should easily acknowledge.
Linkage itself emerges from the historical unconscious of the Arab people. Its sheer mention brought about the Madrid Conference, eventually leading to Oslo. But unlike Madrid and Oslo, linkage enlists the support of those on the ground, in Syria and Palestine, to ensure that promises of the international community are fulfilled. Strict timelines need to be set for deposing of Bashar al-Assad, for establishing a representative (non-sectarian) transitional government, for the drafting and ratification of a new constitution and the organization of free and fair parliamentary elections (and provisions for the protection and empowerment of ethnic minorities, namely the Kurds). This timetable needs to be paired with a rigorous timeline for the immediate establishment of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, the dismantling of all settlements and include the repatriation of Palestinian refugees accompanied by an internationally recognized enforcement regime behind it.
While I have little faith that this call to linkage will be taken up by anyone other than activists, intellectuals and people of conscience, we may find in it a voice for the Syrian and Palestinian people that delegitimizes the anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist credentials of those who support the Assad regime; false credentials that are used to enlist support to continue crimes against their people. This same voice will expose the “Friends of Syria” as hypocrites and conspirators who are as specious as the Assad regime itself. It will state and restate that the humanity of the Palestinians (as well as Bahrainis, Saudis, and Yemanis) rises to the level of humanity of the Syrians (or Libyans and Iranians). Foremost, this voice will say “no” to bartering the rights and self-determination of the Syrian and Palestinian people for loyalty to the United States and their proxies in the Middle East.
A rather ambitious call. You may want to elaborate on who and where those who have political will for such an act are, and where they may work to institute these policy changes. The US policy-makers intransigence over Israeli policy within the UN certainly won’t change after witnessing the brutality and death at the hands of the As’sad regime. So who can work to implement such a policy?
I think that the As’sad regime maintains power through fear of Israeli and US power in the region, and through the Hezbollah-Iran-As’sad alliance’s resistance to US and Israeli hegemony.
Would the Israeli declaration of nuclear weapons and signature to the NPT suffice? I think that would do more or at least as much to reduce Syrian and regional support for As’sad. Those six submarines armed with nuclear weapons patrolling the region would be reason for many to support a violent dictator.
Last week, a Saudi-backed resolution went before the UN General Assembly. The ins and outs of the shifts in language and technical glitches related to that resolution haven’t been thoroughly covered by our MSM. However, at the end of the day, the GA overwhelmingly passed a resolution comdemning the Security Council for its inaction on Syria and for countries exercising their vetoes to protect Syria.
Over the past 60+ years, the GA has passed innumerable resolutions condemning Israel for violating International Law and its obligations to the UN. When the GA starts condemning the country in the Security Council that protects Israel with its veto as it just has with Syria, we might see the kind of linkage you propose with the Syrian and Palestinian cases. I’m not going to hold my breath.
A Syrian-American academic, Najib Saliba, said at a presentation in Boston last Thursday that the Assad regime has had support from over 50% of the Syrian people, not because they have any illusions about Assad, but because they fear the fate of Iraq for Syria.
No, it doesn’t run through Palestine any more than Arafat’s road to Jerusalem passed through Jounieh; Stephen also fell and got blinded on the road to Damascus by idealism and the belief that Israel wants peace but is being hindered from achieving it by Iran and Hizbullah.