On solidarity with Palestine

In light of the latest developments over the last decade and the urgent need for the revitalization and (re)mobilization of international solidarity with the Palestinian people, one needs to revisit some fundamental questions. The immediate and urgent task to be addressed is the nature of this international solidarity and the best ways of enhancing it beyond the grassroots level. The goal now should be aiming to implement the S section of the BDS call — sanctions against apartheid Israel until it complies with international law. 

Building on the latest reports and research conducted by international, and even mainstream Israeli human rights organizations, what needs to be emphasized, first and foremost, is the apartheid nature of settler-colonial Zionism. Admittedly, the severe damage the Oslo Accords have caused to the Palestinian question, namely, diverting international attention from the suffering of the Palestinian refugees and third-class Palestinian citizens of Israel, makes it more difficult. However, that is not to say that the international community does not hold responsibility for eliminating the roots of that suffering. The fact that some Black South Africans accepted the Bantustan system, did not convince the international community of the “legitimacy” and “humanity” of apartheid and its “right to exist.” What needs to be emphasized, within this context, is the similarities between apartheid and the exclusivist Zionist nature of Israel.

Any historical approach can never separate apartheid, and Zionism for that matter, from colonialism. As argued by some of the finest anti-apartheid and anti-colonial intellectuals, in the nineteenth century, in order to satisfy its needs of a large proletariat because there was a great mineral wealth to be exploited, central capitalism and colonialists dispossessed African rural communities by force and drove them back into extremely poor regions so that they became suppliers of cheap proletariat for the European mines and farms, and later for the rising white South African industry. That led to the transformation of an entire society into labour reserves, to the disappearance of independence, and, ultimately, to the creation of apartheid and Bantustans.

While the international community finally protested against apartheid’s blatant way of extraction of surplus labor, and against its inhuman and racist exploitation of Black Africans, in Palestine, the same old way of dispossessing natives is, alas, being celebrated, defended and even supported internationally despite the blatant racist justifications underlying it. To understand the futility of the situation, one needs to refer to the positions taken by some Arab governments with regard to the Palestinian question. The United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco, following Egypt and Jordan, have decided to normalize their ties with apartheid Israel regardless of the heavy price paid by the Palestinian people. All have used the same old cliché of “supporting peace in the Middle East!” In other words, whether consciously or unconsciously, these governments have put their efforts in cementing apartheid in Palestine! Add to this the unlimited support Israel is getting from the governments of the United States and Europe, and the new alliances it has created with right-wing governments in India, Laten America, Africa and eastern Europe. Hence the extreme urgency and need for an international campaign; a campaign that takes the apartheid-Zionism analogy as its focus point; a campaign that is not allowed to be adopted by official pragmatism; one that takes the dispossessed camp refugees, from Gaza to the West Bank and Lebanon and Syria and Jordan, as its black South Africans.

The questions which should be paramount therefore, are not separate from the aggressive nature of Israel as a Zionist entity. It has become clear that the condition for the continued existence of Israel as a Jewish state is the ethnic cleansing of the entire Palestinian people. It is no longer possible to see the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians as merely a struggle between two neighbors for the same piece of land, though Western politicians and media still try to present this false view.  Until recently, the Israeli pretense of being the peace-loving victim of Arab persecution has obscured this reality: but among the founders of the Jewish state the necessity for “transfer” or even annihilation of the Palestinians has always been understood. As Roberta Strauss Feuerlicht says in The Fate of the Jews, “Zionists executed the psychological coup of the century by taking Palestine from the Arabs and then pretending Jews were Arab victims.” 

Of course, international solidarity with the Palestinian people has played an extremely important, however dialectical, role in enhancing the struggle. That is, there is an undeniable proportional relationship between the different forms of struggle in the occupied territories and the international attention paid to the Palestinian suffering. Thus, what we need to address now is the way the Oslo accords have damaged this relationship. Put differently, the tremendous international support the Palestinians gained during the first Intifada (1987-1993) has lost its momentum because of the impression the “historical” handshake between Arafat and Rabin, and the consequent accords have created. That impression is that the Palestinian question has been resolved! Which takes us back to the question of representation and the role it plays in mobilizing people around a just cause. That is what the BDS movement has successfully managed to do so far, convincing ordinary people of the justice of the Palestinian cause and, hence, the morality of supporting it. Bottom to top policy is the lesson BDS activists have learned from the South African lesson: first you call for a Boycott, then Divestment from apartheid and from entities benefiting from it, until you reach the top echelons of the government and call for Sanctions. This is the work ahead.