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From Challenge # 81 (September-October 2003)
opinion
The European Social Forum and the Palestinian Question
Asma Agbarieh
On July 4-6 in Naples, I took part in a conference preparing for the European Social Forum (Mediterranean sector), which is part of the anti-globalization movement. In this paper I want to seek a deeper understanding of the place this movement can have both in relation to the Palestinian question and in relation to America's present global role.
Two new phenomena have risen. One is the war against Iraq, together with the opposition it has aroused. The other is the anti-globalization movement. Both can and should change our way of looking at the Palestinian problem.
These new phenomena have been ignored by the main political currents that have dominated the Palestinian arena since 1993. One is led by Yasser Arafat, head of the Palestinian Authority (PA). In the early 90's he conducted a defeatist policy, in which he accepted American hegemony. This acceptance took the form of his signature on the Oslo Accords. Toward the close of the decade, the Palestinian people expressed its rejection of Oslo (and of the PA) by breaking out in a new Intifada. Lacking a progressive strategy, however, the uprising failed to develop into a struggle for national liberation. Palestinian negotiators today are back in the Oslo groove, this time under the leadership of Abu Mazen.
The other main political current has been Hamas, which leads the military resistance, including suicide attacks, in the name of political Islam. It too recognizes the hegemony of America. Although officially Hamas rejects the US, it focuses on Israel, choosing to ignore the crucial role that Washington plays in supporting both Israel and the reactionary Arab regimes.
Vacillating between these two major currents are the left-wing Palestinian organizations. In 1996 they adopted a policy of "national unity" with both the PA and the Islamists. They have failed to present an alternative to the PA's pro-American line or the apocalyptic vision of Hamas.
Trapped in their conviction that America is the arbiter of destiny, all these Palestinian currents have isolated themselves from new positive developments: the movements against globalization and against America's war on Iraq.
As long as the US kept away from the region, the Palestinian currents could carry on as if their sole enemy were Israel. On this narrow basis, they managed to maintain a measure of national unity during the second Intifada. But the moment the war against Iraq began, followed by the Road Map, their unity began to dissolve.
The meeting in Naples occurred amid the lights and shadows of these developments.
What happened in Naples
The Palestinians at Naples represented Fatah, the left, and various organizations in civil society. At the beginning of the conference, they tried to write a joint position paper on the Palestinian question. At first, they avoided controversial issues, taking refuge in the common denominator of UN resolutions. Yet the leftist organizations (which support all forms of resistance, including suicide attacks) suddenly demanded that the paper should denounce Zionism and reject negotiations with Israel. They wound up, as it were, representing the absent Hamas. The moderates refused to go along.
At one point during the conference, Israelis approached the podium. They represented two non-Zionist organizations: Ta’ayush, which provides humanitarian aid in the West Bank, and New Profile, which supports conscientious objectors. All the Palestinian leftists walked out. They thus expressed their rejection of all Israelis, including those who fight the Occupation. They failed to distinguish between, on the one hand, Israelis from the Labor Party and the Likud, who negotiate with the PA in order to extort concessions, and, on the other hand, radical non-Zionist currents. Their threat to boycott the conference, and their attitude of "either us or them," made them appear as isolationists.
The PA has a program, although it amounts to acceptance of American and Israeli dominance. Hamas too has a program: to blow the enemy up. But what is the program of the Palestinian left? Merely to denounce Zionism is not a program. The left does not offer viable alternative guidelines for day-to-day actions against the Occupation.
End of the unipolar era
The chaotic relations within the Palestinian delegation reflected the chaotic situation of the Palestinian people, as expressed in the second Intifada. One cannot understand this chaos, however, without reference to the international situation. Toward the end of the 90's, US power was deeply eroded. We are currently in a transitional stage. After the massive anti-war demonstrations on February 15, the New York Times correctly stated that the world is divided into two blocs: on the one hand, the US, and on the other, the rest of the world, which resents it. The present international order (an order that has always sought Palestinian submission) is cracking. The question is, where do the Palestinians stand: with the US or the rest of the world? In this transitional period, how should one present the Palestinian question?
An attempt to do so has been made by Mustafa Barghouti, secretary-general of a movement called the Palestinian National Initiative. (See for example "A Place For Our Dream," Al-Ahram July 10-16.) Barghouti is a member of the People's Party (the former Communist Party). Although he did not appear at the Naples conference in person, he was well represented in the Palestinian delegation. What does his initiative offer?
Barghouti's "Third Way"
Barghouti's proposals seek a negotiated solution within the existing balance of forces, and that is their flaw. He proposes a five-step process. First, all major Palestinian factions are to unite under an interim national command, which will have executive power. This may sound like pie in the sky, he admits, but necessity leaves no choice. Second, there must be elections, for "a democratic electoral mandate is needed to provide solid credibility for any Palestinian negotiator." These would be "facilitated by an international presence that would replace the Israeli forces." (My emphasis – A.A.) Third, the elected negotiators must resist all partial or interim solutions, which are Israeli ploys to perpetuate the Occupation. Fourth, disenfranchised Palestinians, both in the Territories and abroad, must be brought into the process. Finally, "we need to rally the support of the growing international solidarity movement." He presents, as an example, the Grass-roots International Campaign to Protect the Palestinians, and he looks forward to a broader movement, comparable to that which fought apartheid in South Africa.
The problem with these proposals is the context they assume. As long as capitalist America rules the world, the international community will continue to ensure Israel's dominance in the region. For Israel is a western outpost in the otherwise undependable and oil-rich Middle East. American support for Israel carries at times a heavy price, but since 1970 (when the US asked Israel to save Jordan's King Hussein from an attack by Soviet-backed Syria), Washington has recognized that here is the region's only stable and friendly regime. This remains the case, in its view, even when it no longer has the Soviet Union to worry about. Any peace agreements, therefore, will be so tuned as to keep Israel not only "secure", but on top of the Arabs.
Barghouti's proposals, therefore, do not come to grips with the problem at its full depth. They do not confront the real enemy. To do so would mean going out against globalized capitalism, whereas Barghouti and his supporters in Palestinian civil society seek a solution within the latter. That is why their ideas have an air of unreality and wishful thinking. The same nations that applied sanctions against South Africa are not about to threaten their single greatest asset in the Middle East.
It is a sign of Barghouti's myopia that he attributes American support for Israel only to the strength of the AIPAC lobby. Certainly, AIPAC is a factor, but not the chief one. Again: Israel has strategic importance as a solid Western foothold in the volatile Middle East. This is and will be the mainspring of American policy. The failure to see this, and grant it due weight, breeds further failures down the line.
It is impossible to struggle against Israeli occupation without struggling simultaneously against the US. Barghouti seeks to channel the movement against globalization, especially its European wing, toward pressuring the US – but why pressure the US? The assumption remains that America will be the ultimate arbiter, the patron of negotiations.
This approach is not only unfeasible, but harmful. After the Iraq deception, the global public has finally understood what a self-interested, dangerous broker Washington is. But here comes Mustafa Barghouti, refusing to question American legitimacy. The effect is to pull us backward – not only us Palestinians but the whole international movement.
We need to turn the equation upside down. We Palestinians must stop using anti-globalization forums for the sake of the Palestinian issue, as if it were unique, with priority over every other problem. We should pose the question differently: How can the Palestinian question serve in the building of an international alliance against US imperialism? This is a question for the working class and the oppressed all over the world, including us.
America's occupation of Iraq is rapidly becoming the main axis of US policy in the Middle East; its doctrine of pre-emptive war has even wider ramifications. The success or failure of the US to impose its neo-liberal model of political economy will prove crucial for the region and the world. That is why the struggle against Israeli occupation is linked with the struggle against the US occupation of Iraq. Only a US defeat in Iraq will open new horizons for a just solution to the Palestinian problem.
The growing opposition to globalization, hence to US policy, is the key to a strong, well-founded renewal of the Palestinian struggle against the Occupation. The process will be even longer, more difficult and more dangerous than the one Barghouti envisions, because it requires a much bigger change. But this is the only process, unfortunately, that leads from A to Z, from the problem to its solution. If the Palestinian people resists short-sighted proposals and joins the struggle that must be waged, it will find, at least, that it is not alone, rather part of an international movement. The struggle will be for socialism, for it alone puts the well-being of humanity above the accumulation of profits. n