by Dan Lieberman
Academic
symposiums usually clarify history and knowledge to a select group who
absorb the history and knowledge in order to impart the history and
knowledge to others. The 2009 Annual Symposium of Georgetown’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies accomplished more than being a routine academic program. Its April 2-3 symposium on Palestine &
the Palestinians Today, at the Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, alerted an attentive audience to situations that
many didn’t realize and to realities that all should know. A series of
conferences revealed a nature and debate of the Middle East conflict
that is not apparent in daily media reports.
As
one example, a panel on Changing Conceptions of Palestinian Nationalism
provided new meanings to the Palestinian struggle and revealed Israel’s
strategy for containing those meanings – a strategy whose result could
vanquish the Palestinian people.
Note: The article details the writer’s summary of the panel proceedings.
The Palestinians face a dilemma.
A
consensus, which notes Israel’s continuous settlement expansion and
failures to negotiate sincerely, considers a viable two-state solution
is not attainable. A one-state solution, in which power is
democratically shared, has gained adherents, but lacks practical
implementation. However, a state is not only a matter of borders; it is
a matter of survival. The Palestinians want to gain what all peoples
need for survival – a self- identity that derives from being part of a
state that protects its citizens. Loss of safety results in loss of
trust and loss of self-identity.
Nationality
and religion enhance identity and are an answer to ontological
security. The latter two words are more than an esoteric expression.
They define what the Palestinians lack and most need. The absence of
ontological security has accelerated deterioration of the Palestinian
community, a process caused by the severe Israeli repression.
Ontological security
“is a stable mental state derived from a sense of continuity in regard
to the events in one's life…. Meaning is found in experiencing positive
and stable emotions, and by avoiding chaos and anxiety. If an event
occurs that is not consistent with the meaning of an individual's life,
this will threaten that individual's ontological security. Ontological
security also involves having a positive view of self, the world and
the future.”
The
need for ontological security forces communities to grasp at what is
available to enhance their security. The Palestinians still contained
in refugee camps have accepted a patriarch organization. Those in the
cities seek connections and networks to provide employment and social
arrangements essential for everyday living. Hamas has provided a
greater feeling of trust and security than Fatah, and for good reason –
when Fatah ruled Gaza, the leaders lived in sheltered villas, complete
with Sri Lanka maids.
The
dispossessed Palestinians survive as a common people by continuing to
map the geographic past and communicating the past to future
generations.
Many
of the 418 villages destroyed by Israel after then 1948 war and most
other Palestinian villages remain known from extensive village
genealogy. Ancestral conversations recall village history and
geography. History books, plays, songs, television and radio echo the
repetition and awareness of the past. In Jordan refugee camps, shops
and streets have been named after destroyed villages. After 1948, the
names of fighters killed in the conflict have been suffixed with their
ancestral locations. To emphasize a common identity, peasant attire
have become national symbols. Many Palestinians, during a period when
they were able to enter Israel, returned to their villages to retrieve
artifacts and record the visits on video tape. And not to be undone,
the youth find ways of keeping village memories alive. These memories
connect the dispossessed Palestinians across their separated borders.
Another
dilemma allows no chance for a Palestinian national movement to address
both its own and Israeli national aspirations.
The purpose of returning the refugee to their homes motivated the
Palestinian national movement. Unfortunately, when the PLO under Fatah
leadership first proposed the two-state solution, it failed to
understand the implications concerning the refugee crisis. What remains
today in the area is one repressive state in which the military
controls everything.
Sensing
that a two-state solution is deteriorating into extreme visions of
states with no secular paradigm, idealistic recommendations consider
other proposals for a state. The two parties of the conflict should
define forms of living together – a ‘we,’ from which will emerge a
collective right; a multi-form of ethnic democracy.
A
one-state option is doomed if Israeli Jews are not recognized with a
national identity. This comes about by recognizing a distinction
between Zionism and the establishment of a state for Jews. A revised
Palestinian outlook should oppose present Zionist values. It should be
inclusive, present a sense of equality and security for all, be
multi-ethnic and welcoming and include power sharing. The Palestinians
should find other means of resistance.
Israel’s grinding operations against and squeezing out of Palestinian will be worse.
More than 100,000 Palestinians will be forced to leave their homes.
However, the combination of Israel and United States power is no longer
paying dividends and has reached its limits of force.
These
remarks succeed a historical brief that urges recognition of a cold
fact: There is an Israeli nation. This phenomenon occurred because
Europeans demanded the Ottoman Empire have a separate administration
for the “Holy Land.” British craft denied the Palestinian community an
identity and territory. Now, a temporal lag always leaves the
Palestinians steps behind in activities and prevents them from framing
the conflict rules. Entering the discourse is futile because it is a
discourse they cannot win. Remaining aside earns them the reputation of
being considered obstructionist. Nevertheless, Hamas’ Pyrrhic victory
in Gaza and Israel’s failure to win in Lebanon have reinvigorated the
Palestinian movement. This is happening despite the fact that
successive Palestinian leaderships have committed grave errors and the
Palestinians now have three separate communities, each of which has
different concerns.
So what do these narratives tell us?
Israel
will not concede to any viable two-state solution. Instead the Israeli
government’s strategy denies the Palestinians any national identity
which they helped create. This calculated denial will bring about the
complete destruction of the Palestinian people.
The
obvious objectives of the Israeli government’s policies towards the
Palestinians are: separation and isolation into small enclaves,
divisionsof communities and families, prevention of viable economics,
hindrance of interchanges with the outside world and denial of identity
and ontological security necessary to sustain community life. Policies
of constant terror, unauthorized entry into homes and villages, road
barricades, checkpoints, harassments, breaking of bones and
imprisonment of wage earners, and humiliations, all of which make life
unbearable for the Palestinians, support the objectives. Generations of
Palestinians grow up with a loss of safety and loss of trust. The loss
of trust provokes infighting, quarreling among families and between
communities. Imposed oppressive policies from without generate
destruction from within. Psychological and physical damages take their
toll and reduce the mental and physical health of the Palestinian
population to precarious levels – to levels of doom.
The
Israeli animated film “Waltzing with Bashir,” showed the1982 Israeli
incursion into Lebanon targeting and destroying the Palestinian
Research Center in West Beirut, which contained records of Palestinian
historical life. The International Responsibilities Task Force
notes: “Clearly these assaults on the educational and research
institutions of the Palestinian people long preceded the end of the
truce in Gaza or even the election of Hamas. They have been going on
for decades and constitute an attack directed at both the history and
the future of the Palestinians.”
Erasing
the villages and destroying the archived and documented history of the
Palestinian people prefaced the continuous and forced reduction of
Palestinian presence in the “Holy Land.” The Palestinians need a state
not just to live within borders. They need a state that all peoples
claim, especially those who are dispossessed, to assure ontological
security and survive. Does the international community need more
evidence to act swiftly and prevent a major tragedy? It’s never
considered a genocide until it’s all over.
Dan Lieberman is editor of Alternative Insight, a monthly web based newsletter.
Dan’s many articles on the Middle East conflicts have circulated on
websites and media throughout the world. He can be reached at: alternativeinsight@earthlink.net
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