Strategies of statehood
The objective of peace is a democratic Palestinian state. But how, asks Mustafa El-Barghouti*, can that happen now?
The most dangerous thing that could happen to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict today would be for Israel to take the initiative and maintain it. It did just that when it drew Palestinians into the Oslo Accords, stopping the first Intifada short before it could produce decisive political achievements. With military, political and media campaigns waged against the Palestinian people, its institutions, and its leadership, Israel is seeking to exhaust Palestinians, pushing them once more into unilaterally declaring an end to hostilities while Israel continues expanding settlements and strengthening its system of apartheid.
Israel is currently alternating calls for peace with direct pressure to force Palestinians to submit. Given the international situation that emerged after 11 September, the weakness of the Arab position and Israel's military superiority, the only thing that can stop Israeli attempts to secure the upper hand is a clear Palestinian strategy that seeks to defend the rights of the Palestinian people and turn the great sacrifices made in this Intifada into tangible political gains. Palestinians are perhaps too busy thinking about what others want from us and about the plans being drawn up for us: the time has come, nonetheless, to clearly define what we ourselves want and how to get it. This means that we must refocus our thoughts and energies into the realm of the proactive rather than merely reacting to events.
The vision proposed here assumes that creating an independent Palestinian state is an ongoing process of struggle, not merely the outcome of a declaration or a political settlement. This process began long ago, when the Palestinian people decided to take the initiative, rising up in popular resistance against the occupation. Gradually, the outlines of the PLO took shape and an organised movement to free Palestinians was set in motion. With great ingenuity and spirit this movement began to build the bases of civil society and establish national institutions in the hope that these would constitute the core of an independent Palestinian state.
A successful strategy to create an independent state must focus on two fundamental principles. Firstly, it must seek to maintain the independence of Palestinian decision-making and cling sincerely to the national goal of ending the occupation and achieving independence of all the lands occupied in 1967 while preserving the rights of Palestinian refugees. Independent decision-making does not merely entail the independence of a central decision-making body that will work for the higher interests of the Palestinian people, it also entails an ability to have a conscious, organised and independent impact on the course of events, taking the initiative rather than reacting to what others do.
Secondly, there must be wide popular participation in the process of struggle and reconstruction. This will require making average citizens across all segments of society feel they are a part of the national enterprise of building an independent, democratic Palestine. It also involves devising forms of struggle that can draw in all parts of society and do away with the bureaucratic obstacles that marginalise popular participation. We should avoid defining the struggle in such a way that the public is unable to participate.
The successful establishing of an independent state depends on many elements, above all crystallising a common national strategy that will provide the basis of action. It should be formed consciously and collectively and the goals, means, and methods of collective decision-making should be agreed upon. Out of this grand strategy secondary strategies must be devised to resist Israeli settlement operations and the "Judification" of Palestine that is currently underway. Another strategy is required to direct the struggle and win over the international community to the side of the Palestinian people. A third strategy is needed to develop a strong domestic base that can oppose Israeli pressure and Israel's systematic destruction of the economy, infrastructure, education and health, as well as the constant closures and curfews. A fourth strategy is needed to create a Palestinian reality that can vie with the reality of occupation, like those successful experiments of the 1970s and 80s.
A national strategy cannot be achieved without establishing a unified and responsible national leadership that tells its people the truth. We must have a leadership that can supervise the steps needed to hold free, democratic elections, and that can renew the energies of Palestinians themselves wherever they are to the service of the nation.
Palestinians must confront the reality Israel is currently imposing. Israel has reoccupied the West Bank completely, along with more than half of the Gaza Strip. It has expanded settlements over 42 per cent of the West Bank and it is now building a new Berlin Wall on another 10 per cent. Israel continues to enforce closures and blockades, imposing the worst sort of apartheid regime by prohibiting an entire people from using public roads and streets for more than a year and a half and putting more than two-thirds of the population under curfew for more than six months now. To confront these injustices there must be a strategic framework for achieving freedom and a just peace. This can be done through strengthening national resolve, building the widest possible international solidarity movement with the Palestinian people, convincing Israeli society itself to accept a true, just peace, and convincing Arab societies to rise up in support of the Palestinian people.
As discrimination and racism against Palestinians becomes ever more systemised the struggle of the Palestinians resembles more and more that of South Africans. Internationally isolating this discriminatory regime is the most effective means of compelling the forces of extremism and racism to back down and grant the Palestinian people their political rights.
In this context we must be careful to fully and honestly represent the situation of the Palestinian people. The issue is not merely a conflict over land and borders, a dispute between two equal parties. It is also a question of national and social liberation, of the aspirations of the Palestinian people to gain the right that the vast majority of the people on this planet already have: to decide their own destiny. It is, above all, an issue of justice for a people deprived of dignity, security, safety, stability and peace for more than 50 years. Peace, security, and stability are the right of all peoples of the region, especially the weakest among them, the Palestinian people.
Experience has taught us three things. First of all, the ongoing violence and conflict are simply symptoms of a larger problem -- namely, the occupation, which with time has become a cancer affecting the lives of both sides of the conflict and destroying their future. Alleviating the symptoms requires going to the root of the problem which is, again, the occupation and the injustice suffered by the Palestinian people.
Secondly, as the European experience has shown, a true, lasting peace can only be contracted between democracies and based on democratic principles. Any settlement imposed by one party on another is destined to fail. Instead, we must rely on the principles of justice, equivalence, and democracy. The Palestinian people will not accept an unfair settlement.
Thirdly, there is no longer any disagreement that the direct objective of peace is the establishment of a democratic, independent Palestinian state. But guarantees must be provided that it will be a real state and not a paper nation or a system of Bantustans dictated to from above. The Palestinian state must have sovereignty over its own land, borders, and natural resources, and it must exist as a viable, geographically coherent, democratic nation. In short, it must be established on the entire West Bank and Gaza, with its capital in East Jerusalem, a state based on the sovereignty of the law, enjoying all the rights and duties that accrue to any independent nation.
The distinction between a state and a shadow state with only nominal self-rule is a difference of Israeli settlements, racist expansions that contravene international law. The Palestinian state must enjoy full sovereignty over its borders, lands and natural resources. There is a widespread sentiment among Palestinians that a transitional or temporary state with no well- defined borders can be stretched out indefinitely to become an alternative to an independent, sovereign state. Israel's refusal to implement the Oslo Accords has taught us as much: it uses such transitional agreements to create facts on the ground and obstruct the implementation of a true and lasting peace that will guarantee Palestinians their legal rights and allow them to exercise them in reality. In this regard there is no difference between Netanyahu and Sharon: Netanyahu openly states that his goal is limited self-rule while Sharon wants to convince the world that this sort of limited self-rule is, in fact, a state.
Forging a democratic, independent Palestine is an ongoing struggle, a process of building the institutions that are part and parcel of every contemporary democratic state. In this context holding free and fair elections for state offices is, in and of itself, part of the battle -- it must be fought to challenge the occupation and prevent its interference. Elections should be held to elect a founding parliament for the independent Palestinian state, free of the confines that marked the election of the Legislative Council. The elected parliament would enjoy complete sovereignty and be endowed with the legislative authority to build a system of constitutional government in Palestine.
Given the destruction Israeli forces have wreaked on civil society and the Palestinian Authority, building the institutions of the future state achieves two goals at once; it bolsters national resolve in the face of the occupation while simultaneously forging the basis for independence. This is the idea of constructive resistance, whereby establishing a Palestinian foundation or health centre or youth club or school shows our resolve, allows us to resist and builds the foundation of a future Palestinian state.
We must frustrate attempts to fragment Palestinian lands and institutions and even Palestinian society itself, through settlements and forced closures, by devising structures that can unify Palestinian energies. The Association for the Coordination of Civil Society is a tangible effort in this regard. The importance of maintaining national institutions, both official and non- governmental, cannot be overstated; without them we cannot establish a viable Palestine state. They are essential for defining an authentically Palestinian vision that can express the needs and interests of the Palestinian people.
Establishing democratic state institutions is a prerequisite for independence. This entails forming an independent judiciary and sanctifying the rule of law; separating the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government; guaranteeing freedom of expression and a free press and the freedom to organise politically and socially; ensuring transparency and fighting corruption and poor management; strengthening accountability in government and establishing a process of decision-making.
Some existing structures needed to be reformed internally by Palestinians for the common good; most, however, have yet to be established. The important thing is to accept the role of institutions in principle and then develop them on both the central and local levels by democratic means.
It is of the utmost importance to strengthen national and civil institutions that can cope with emergency needs, contribute to development and bolster our resolve. Encouraging the growth of these institutions constitutes an important step towards national independence. Cooperating with foreign or international development organisations is fine but allowing them to take the place of local institutions is a grave mistake. As we have seen in other countries this will ultimately weaken Palestinian civil society, reducing its self- reliance.
In the same context it is extremely important that Palestinian society set its own development priorities in accordance to national interests and needs. Expanding food subsidies will not alleviate poverty and unemployment; establishing viable enterprises that provide employment will, on the other hand, contribute to the process of development and stimulate the economy. These initiatives must come from accountable, transparent Palestinian institutions that serve the interests of the public, particularly the needy. Independent Palestinian decision-making is not only a political matter; it has ramifications for social policies and development as well.
An educational system, a national fund for university students, health care, comprehensive health insurance, and an effective welfare system are indispensable elements of national independence. Natural resources like water and energy must also be freed from the control of the Israeli occupation. Supporting the weak, the unemployed and the poor can only make them more able to participate in building an independent nation.
The long-cherished dream of the Palestinian people to end the occupation and establish an independent nation can be achieved by focussing on all these issues: maintaining our national resolve, struggling against the occupation and injustice, establishing de facto state institutions, creating an international solidarity movement with the Palestinian people, strengthening internal state structures by applying the rule of law and the principles of democracy, achieving the widest possible popular participation in building the nascent state and guaranteeing the greatest possible participation in that state through free elections. Thus will Palestinians become true citizens with rights and duties. Thus will the average Palestinian feel he is the master of his own destiny, enjoying complete freedom on his own land and capable of designing his own future in an environment of safety, security, freedom, the rule of law, justice, and dignity.
* The writer is secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative, president of the Palestinian Medical Relief Committees and director of the Health, Information and Policy Institute (HDIP) in Ramallah.
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : 6 - 12 February 2003 (Issue No. 624)
Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/624/op2.htm