*Time for change?"

by Mazin Qumsiyeh

 http://popular-resistance.blogspot.com/2012/05/time-for-change.html


Palestinian political prisoners illegally held in Israeli jails are on
hunger strike and some are near death.  The population of strikers includes
200 child prisoners, 27 Palestinian legislative council members, and 456
prisoners from Gaza who have not been allowed family visits since 2007
[1].  Meanwhile, colonization continued at a relentless pace. Ramzy Baroud
and Jeff Halper argue that Israel is “fixing” the outcome and is an
“end-game” scenario to take over most of the West Bank and leave us in
small cantons [2]. Yet, judging from my research into the carefully planned
Zionist project, such plans are not end games but mileposts to give the
Zionists time to consolidate gains in preparation for the next round of
expansion in precisely the way Ben Gurion described it to his son in 1937.
 Ben Gurion explained lucidly how the new state of Israel when established
on part of the coveted land would be a base of steady expansion and growth
in the future with or without agreement from “Arabs” [3].  I pondered how
little has changed in the intervening 75 years.  Colonial Israel continues
to push the envelope and expand with or without agreement from compliant
“Arabs”. Compliant Arabs existed in 1937 (headed by Ragheb Al-Nashashibi)
and existed in 1967 and in 2012.  There also existed intellectual and
honest Arabs throughout our history.



Zionist colonization is not driven by emotion or haphazard action.  It is
done as instructed by the founding father of Political Zionism Theodore
Herzl in 1897: "we must investigate and take possession of the new Jewish
country by means of every modern expedient." Modern expedients advocated by
Herzl include planned methodical structure to remove the native people
(with or without agreement of some Arabs) and create a large Jewish state.
Herzl was not specific on size of the "required estate" but Ben Gurion and
people of his era thought it possible to go as far as between the Nile and
the Euphrates.



The plans of colonizers are remarkably similar and known from the diaries
of Herzl in 1897, from the letter from Ben Gurion to his son in 1937, the
Allon plan of 1967, and from the Hebron accords of 1997.  It is a plan of
expansion without some Arabs consenting or occasionally with agreement from
some Arabs. These agreements, like the treaties that some Native Americans
signed with the government of the United States in its expansionary
phase, were and are violated because they are merely consolidation tools
[4]. I think like these Native American chiefs some Palestinians thought
that they are doing the best they could under difficult circumstances.
Most of the Native American “leaders” had no concept or understanding of
the true nature of the notions and emotions driving the Westward expansion
of the white colonialists in the USA.  They did not delve deeply into
notions of manifest destiny, choseness, and racism that characterize their
oppressors.  One could say the ideology of Native Americans exhibited the
exact opposite of their colonizers and thus they presumed that white rulers
are ultimately human and could be dealt with as equals.



Peace for natives is to get their freedom, to live in dignity, and most of
all to get the boot of colonization off our necks.  Peace for the
colonizers is to have the victim stop wiggling under their boots.  Towards
this they devised ingenious plans including a Palestinian Preventive
Security force.   Any rational human being can see this dictation and
imbalance of power in daily news.  Thus the people are left out of
decisions whether on “negotiations”,  on "national reconciliation", ongoing
and not going to the UN, or on how they may eventually be liberated.
Despairing and riding a ship without compass or rudder, the people grumble
and boil underneath and later erupt in revolt.



Needs and desires of the colonizers and the colonized are not the same.
Occupiers and colonizers want more opportunities to progress via
consolidation and strengthening of the status quo and allowing them to
expand further.   We, the occupied and colonized people, want to halt and
eventually reverse the process of injustice.  Palestinians want to return
to our homes and lands and live peacefully as we did for millennia.   We
insist on return and self-determination.  We insist that the country must
remain multi-ethnic, multi-religious, and multi-cultural.  This is not a
border dispute nor is it a quibble over the Israeli illegal control of the
religious sites.  Like in the struggle in South Africa under apartheid, it
is a struggle that pits two very different visions of the area: one of
racism and apartheid and the other of justice and equality.



Sporadic acts of heroic popular resistance are not enough to reach peace
with justice.  Coordination and joint action must take place.  What hinders
it is a system developed by the occupiers and agreed to by some of the
occupied people.  Personal economic benefit maintains the status quo. What
is done with support from a Palestinian authority is nothing short of
making this occupation the most profitable in history (several billion
dollars flow annually to Israeli coffers as a result of this
occupation).  Already Israeli and Palestinian business deals are being
executed for example in area C.  This is the “economic peace plan” of
Netanyahu and others.  Those who may think of disrupting the status quo are
investigated and punished.  Most Palestinians are excellent diagnosticians
and have figured this out.  But I think many have not started to articulate
solutions or ideas to get out of this mud hole that the Oslo Process
(actually started with the 10 point program in 1974) put us into.  It is
not going to be easy and it does require sacrifice.  But those delusional
individuals who think that they have a salary or a position and they do not
want to risk rocking the boat should think again. They should think of how
their children or grandchildren would live under a system of racism and
oppression.  This is as true of Israelis as it is true of Palestinians.



Boycotts, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) give us hope.  Shimon Peres, the
architect of Israel’s arsenal of Weapons of Mass Destruction and a war
criminal once explained: "In order to export you need good products, but
you also need good relations....[If] Israel's image gets worse, it will
begin to suffer boycotts. There is already an artistic boycott against us
and signs of an undeclared financial boycott are beginning to emerge."
International figures who worked against apartheid in South Africa argued
convincingly of why this can help here in Apartheid Israel [5]. But BDS is
only a tool and certainly not sufficient to effect the needed
change.  There has to be a structured program from the people which
includes an articulation of a vision with concrete goals for the
future.  In my book “Sharing the Land of Canaan” in 2004 I argued for
precisely such a program to move from apartheid to a state of all its
citizens.  These notions have gained widespread acceptance among
intellectuals and activists of various religious and political
backgrounds.  To arrive to this vision, we need organization.



Organization requires visionary leadership arising organically from a
maturing rising population.   We should not be reluctant to push our
existing leaders and if they are not willing to move then to create
alternative leadership.   ALL Factions have aging and non-innovative
leadership and ALL factions have younger energetic and dedicated (but
marginalized) individuals.  Clearly the status quo is devastating for us
and cannot last.  We know from history that people will rise-up and DEMAND
change.



Is it time for varied voices to coalesce into a thunderous uproar that
cannot be ignored?  May we organize meetings and discuss publicly the path
forward?  While many for example discussed the failure of the "two state
solution" and some articulated future visions, we need more than that. Can
we as a people in 1948 areas, in the WB and Gaza and in exile create
mechanisms and structures that take us to where we decide to go?  Can we
convince the world and even Israelis that we are serious about working for
a future of peace with justice and prosperity for everyone?  Voices of
negativism must not dominate this critical stage.  This conversation must
be open to people of goodwill from all factions and from independents.
While it must start among Palestinians, we must later involve our trusted
supporters from around the world.  We do have the resources: financial,
intellectual, emotional, and physical. Let those who have skills in
organizing organize and those who have skills in media work do media work.
Let those who have skills in social networking do that.  Those who have
skills in music write songs for the revolution.  Imagine if we can get even
5% or even 1% of the Palestinians around the world as participants in an
organized effort.  The change that could happen can be monumental.



The world today only respects those who respect themselves and struggle for
their own rights.  We have nothing to be ashamed of as Palestinians even
though 7 million of us are refugees or displaced people.  We have a lot to
be proud of from our history [6]. We cannot give up now that the crisis of
Palestine weighed on the world conscience and when the Arab spring could
change the whole geopolitical reality of the Middle East.  Even if we fail
at our goal this time, the positive spirit that results would enrich all
our lives. It would unleash the creativity and the energy that we know is
in us.   Change can and must happen because ours is an existential struggle
for 11.5 million Palestinians in the world and for our children and
grandchildren born and unborn.  Each of us has a role to play and has
skills and other resources to contribute.  Even if we start slow and among
a few individuals, it will grow because we have no other choice. Let us get
on with it.