The fight for Palestinian rights in the era of normalization

As an Israeli, I should feel happy and more secure after Trump’s brokered “normalization” between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain and now Sudan. But his brand of transactional diplomacy leaves one feeling uncomfortable that such an achievement happened without resolving any of the underlying issues.

As in business, where under Trump it originates, transactional diplomacy sets out a clear and specific set of terms: if you do this we will respond thus. Period. So, in its deals with autocratic states, if improving human rights or strengthening democracy or resolving regional conflicts are not part of terms laid out, then they play no role whatsoever. In transactional diplomacy there is no expectation that a party will go beyond the minimal terms delineated. And, as in business, if one party does not accept the terms, no matter how unjust or disadvantageous they may be, the deal is off. If the Palestinians do not accept life in enclaves on 15% of their homeland, despite Jared Kushner’s attempt to buy them off, if they don’t accept Trump’s “Deal of the Century” in its entirety, then they are no longer part of the transaction. We have no more responsibility to even consider them.

Such was the choice facing Sudan. Seemingly, normalizing relations with Israel was a condition of the Trump administration lifting sanctions five-days before the agreement with Israel was announced. Despite regime change last year following the ouster of Omar al-Bashir, Sudan had remained on the U.S.’s list of terrorist countries. Facing perpetual marginality and poverty, blackmail as foreign policy prevailed. In signing the deal with Sudan, Israel will likely be able to deport 20,000 Sudanese asylum seekers to an unknown fate upon their return. Traveling to Israel is a crime in Sudan. 

“America First” is a narrow form of transactional relations much simpler in its conduct and easier to grasp, like a business deal. No bigger picture, no ethical or human rights concerns, no ideology or set of values, no long-term goals or strategies, no friends or enemies, no commitments to allies. Just the self-serving “deal” based on our – or rather my, because US foreign policy has become frighteningly personalized – immediate interests and raw power, financial, political or military. 

Business may offer certain skills, strategies or practices useful in the conduct of foreign affairs, but unlike business foreign relations are more about processes of living together in the long-term than making deals. They require alliances and the ability to trust friends and institutions, not the immediate self-serving transaction of the deal to the exclusion of relationships and, often, morality. Taken to its logical conclusion, such an approach would destroy whatever global community exists. International agreements that serve the wider good even if each individual country must make certain concessions become impossible to broker; a narrow national (and nationalistic) policy renders international institutions moot, thus crippling their ability to regulate a complex global reality.

The problems do not end here, however. Legitimate or not, self-serving or not, transactional deals can have an impact far more jarring, far-reaching and unpredictable than slower, process-oriented, more inclusive and thought-out “traditional” diplomatic initiatives. Sprung upon us suddenly, confronting us with a radically new set of relations we had no hand in producing, how should we –the objects acted upon, the actors excluded from the deal – react? This is an especially urgent question facing the Palestinians and their allies, critical Israeli Jews and international supporters alike. 

Needless to say, we must roll with the punches. Not to give in to the heightened pressure generated by the shift of power and relations, of course, but also not to satisfy ourselves with merely condemning whatever betrayal just took place, as Palestinian leaders have (justifiably) done. We must also scramble to avoid being paralyzed, but as in the game of Go, our scrambling should be strategic. We must step back and use the larger game board to our advantage through effective countermoves. 

What would those countermoves be?

First, we must clearly lay out our own program for a resolution of the Palestine issue, mobilize our allies at home and abroad around it, organize and formulate an effective strategy. While “rolling with the punches” means adjusting our political program and actions to a constantly changing reality – a reality that changes abruptly and in unpredictable ways in an era of transactional diplomacy – it requires us to articulate a vision of where we want to go. “Vision” does not consist merely of some vague idealistic dream, although envisioning or thinking through where you want to go is important; it means adopting in as much detail as possible a long-term set of goals that help keep the struggle’s focus through all political vicissitudes. It also means jettisoning programs that the political reality has overtaken. Continuing to debate the two-state solution, for example, when the political reality within Israel, the region and internationally has moved on, not to mention Israel’s “facts on the ground,” simply deflects attention from more just and doable programs and drains our energies. And, of course, a principled vision protects us from falling into traps like Trump and Netanyahu’s Deal of the Century, a form of transactional apartheid. 

In my view, only one vision and program meets these requirements, the 10-point program set out by the One Democratic State Campaign, or the ODS Campaign. Though still in a bare outline form and needing a great deal of collective fleshing-out, it represents the first attempt to “think through” the entire process of decolonization. Indeed, its very grounding in decolonizing a settler colonial state rather than on technically addressing a “conflict” gives such a program a cogency lacking in any previous one. Building on earlier ODS programs, it consists of the following elements:

• The historic land of Palestine belongs to all who live in it and to those who were expelled or exiled from it since 1948, regardless of religion, ethnicity, national origin or current citizenship status.

• The implementation of the Right of Return for Palestinian refugees and their descendants in accordance with UN Resolution 194 is a fundamental requirement for justice, and a benchmark of equality. It also signifies Palestinian national sovereignty, the ability to address one’s peoples’ needs with a significant measure of self-determination.

• Any system of government must be founded on the principle of equality in civil, political, social and cultural rights for all citizens. The regime of ethno-religious nationalism should be replaced by a constitutional democracy based on common citizenship, thus enabling and fostering the emergence of a shared civil society.

• The recognition of the diverse character of the society, encompassing distinct religious, linguistic and cultural traditions, and national experiences. Constitutional guarantees will protect the country’s national, ethnic, religious and other communities.

• There must be just redress for the devastating effects of decades of Zionist colonization in the pre- and post-state period, including the abrogation of all laws, and ending all policies, practices and systems of military and civil control that oppress and discriminate on the basis of ethnicity, religion or national origin.

• The creation of a non-sectarian state that does not privilege the rights of one ethnic or religious group over another and that respects the separation of state from all organized religion.

• In articulating the specific contours of such a solution, those who have been historically excluded from decision-making – especially the Palestinian Diaspora and its refugees, and Palestinians inside Israel – must play a central role.

• Putting into place an inclusive economy offering economic security, sustainability, meaningful employment and just compensation.

• Acknowledging a connectedness to the wider Middle Eastern and global community that requires engagement in creating new regional and global structures of equality and sustainability upon which the success of local decolonization ultimately depends. 

(For a fuller discussion of the ODS Campaign program, visit the site.)

A second countermove consists of effectively mobilizing international civil society, the Palestinians’ only true and reliable ally. Such a move, marshalling a key player that Israel and its governmental allies ignore or downplay, would blindside them. The seeds of such a mobilization have been sown. A robust international movement of support for the Palestinian cause already exists throughout the world. Trade unions, religious denominations, intellectuals, academics and students, political and human rights organizations, activist groups, alternative media outlets and social media, general public opinion, even government officials and parliamentarians – all have been mobilized into a movement that rivals in scale the anti-apartheid movement. 

What is lacking is precisely the vision and political program around which all these groups can unite, around which focused and effective mobilization is possible. The Palestinians are a people with diverse views, of course, and any attempt to incorporate Israeli Jews into a program of decolonization complicates matters even more. Efforts to forge an agreed-upon vision based on decolonization and progressively solidified by hammering out a fairly detailed political program will provide the required focus, direction, leadership and organization that the Palestinian movement currently lacks. 

This is urgent. There are many worthwhile issues competing for attention. If nothing happens on the Palestinian issue for years, if activists and supports continue to feel at drift, not knowing what to do, they will start to drift away – and, indeed, that seems to be happening. Campaigns based on applying international law and human rights to the Palestinian cause, or on boycotts, divestment and sanctions, are an important component of the struggle, but by themselves do not offer a political program around which the grassroots can be effectively mobilized. On the contrary, the disconnect between a focused political program and activism has led to a kind of drift, a political foundering. Organizations abroad that were created to support the Palestinian struggle no longer have meaningful working relations with the wider community of Palestinian and Israeli activists, have been drawn into intersectional issues that, while potentially strategic, are pursued separately from – even at the exclusion of – justice for Palestinians, and therefore no longer advocate for issues of prime relevancy for Palestinians. Even their campaigns, conceived in their own circles with little if any consultation with Palestinian and Israeli activists, are less and less focused on the Palestinian cause.  

This is understandable. We can only effectively mobilize our forces if we, Palestinians and anti-colonial Israeli Jews, provide a concrete political program, a strategy and the feeling of actually moving forward. Mobilized, civil society can be powerful political actor, as the anti-colonial and anti-apartheid forces proved. But we have to become political actors, not merely protestors or commentators.  

Third, we must begin to forge ties with progressive civil society allies in Arab and Muslim countries, penetrate into those very places where transactional diplomacy has coopted the governments and ruling classes. In a sense this is an extension of the last countermove, but in a direction we have not exploited. The reasons we haven’t are clear. For the most part, our Arab and Muslim allies live under cruel, autocratic governments whose own transactional interests – political and military, internal as well as external – have placed them on the side of (de facto if not openly) normalizing relations with Israel at the expense of the Palestinians. To make matters more difficult, any association with Israelis is unacceptable to, and often dangerous for, many civil society groups in Muslim countries, although any movement of decolonization in Palestine will have to involve Israeli Jews. 

Article 9 of the ODS Campaign program reflects the understanding that decolonization and the construction of a post-colonial democracy cannot happen in one country isolated from its region. Affirming that “The ODS Campaign will join with all progressive forces in the Arab world struggling for democracy, social justice and egalitarian societies free from tyranny and foreign domination,” it conceives of the Palestinian struggle as but a component of the regional one. The Palestinians are in a unique position to advance this grassroots mobilization. They possess an emblematic stature in the struggle for self-determination, democracy and human rights, and are able to communicate through Palestinian communities spread throughout the Middle East. To be sure, they are suspect in many Arab regimes, but working through them and their own struggle for sovereignty connects by definition with the aspirations of the Arab and Muslim peoples.    

Concretely, the Muslim states that have established – voluntarily or not – relations with Israel may be the place to start. Progressive civil society cannot allow governments to determine the political agenda. Exploiting Trump and Netanyahu’s ability to force a poor and embattled Sudanese government and society in transition to “normalize” with Israel, we should reach out to those sectors of Sudanese civil society that united to overthrow the Bashir dictatorship in order to we may together identify issues of joint concern – strengthening democracy, for example, or advancing progressive policies, something of equal urgency to Palestinians struggling for self-determination and development as they fight to end Israeli colonial domination, a situation not dissimilar in many ways from that of their Sudanese compatriots. To the degree that the peoples of the Middle East as a whole are struggling against external forces of Western neocolonialism, together with political repression, de-development and reactionary religious forces fostered by those external parties – Israel and the U.S. at the forefront – exploring initial connections among progressive Palestinians, Israelis, Sudanese, Emiratis, Bahrainis, Egyptians, Jordanians, Kurds and Turks would constitute a countermove of unexpected significance. Such a Go move is a strategic response to elite transactional “deals.”    

Trump’s transactional diplomacy has, for better or worse, fundamentally altered the political landscape. It’s time for us to be political, see ourselves as political actors, formulate a guiding vision and program, and begin to strategize. Trump has never heard of Go. Let’s keep our eyes on the prize – engaging in interconnected global struggles with impactful local consequences – and begin to use our grassroots power more strategically. We live in a Global Palestine.